Ekphrastic Challenge

Art Inspiring Poetry

There’s a long tradition of poetry responding to visual art (and vice versa), and we thought it would be fun to post a challenge. For the first, Judy Keown, cover artist from issue #45, donated a photograph of an argiope spider. We gave poets a month to respond to this photograph in verse, and received 266 entries. Judy Keown and Rattle’s Timothy Green each selected their favorite poem from the submissions and published them online at Rattle.com.

Given how many people seemed to enjoy the Ekphrastic Challenge, we’ve decided to make it a monthly series, using open submissions of artwork when necessary. Visual artists who would like to participate can submit work now through the end of December, by going here.

If you’re a poet, come back to this page every month to find a new piece of art to inspire your poetry. You’ll have one month to write and submit your poems. Each month, two winners—one chosen by the artist and the other by Rattle’s editor—will receive online publication and $100 each.

For the month of March, our image is the piece below by John Paul Caponigro. Find more of the artist’s work at his website, but only write your poems about the image below.

Submission Deadline:
March 31st


submit

__________

Previous Winners

 

January 2024 – G.J. Gillespie’s “Desperado”

Artist’s Choice:
Emergence
Chris Kaiser

Editor’s Choice:
Portrait of My Father as the Count of Monte Cristo
Joanna Preston

 

December 2023 – Jeanne Wilkinson’s “Cold Sun”

Artist’s Choice:
Curriculum Vitae
Dante Di Stefano

Editor’s Choice:
Watch This!
Tristan Roth

 

November 2023 – Scott Wiggerman’s “Aerial II”

Artist’s Choice:
Flying Back to England That First Time
Rose Lennard

Editor’s Choice:
(Sub)Division
Christine Crockett

 

October 2023 – Arthur Lawrence’s “Shadowland”

Artist’s Choice:
The Addiction Bird
Agnes Hanying Ong

Editor’s Choice:
Pilgrims of the Mound
Conal Abatangelo

 

September 2023 – Carla Paton’s “Yellow Flowers”

Artist’s Choice:
For a Robot
Alison Bailey

Editor’s Choice:
The Rote Stuff
Gary Glauber

 

August 2023 – Lily Prigioniero’s “Seamstress”

Artist’s Choice:
My Wife, Sewing at a Window
Eithne Longstaff

Editor’s Choice:
To the Child Watching His Grandmother Sew
Bradford Kimball

 

July 2023 – Elizabeth Hlookoff’s “Here I Go”

Artist’s Choice:
Fighting the Wind
Teresa Breeden

Editor’s Choice:
Aphorisms Thrown into the Eye of the Blizzard
Tamara Raidt

 

June 2023 – Judith Fox’s “Untold Stories”

Artist’s Choice:
Girl Is Glued to Door
William Ross

Editor’s Choice:
Image of a Woman Along a Sidewalk
Jason Brunner

 

May 2023 – Carmella Dolmer’s “A Lonesome Border”

Editor’s Choice:
What the Astrologer Failed to See in Our Stars
Dick Westheimer

Associate Editor’s Choice:
You Don’t Have to Choose
Beth Copeland

 

April 2023 – Lou Storey’s “All of Us”

Artist’s Choice:
Sestina
Amanda Quaid

Editor’s Choice:
The World Beneath
Devon Balwit

 

March 2023 – G.G. Silverman’s “Lighthouse at the Edge of the World”

Artist’s Choice:
I Asked the Chatbot to Write about a Lighthouse, but It Generated Lies
Pamela Lucinda Moss

Editor’s Choice:
Selah
Kristene Kaye Brown

 

February 2023 – JoAnne Tucker’s “The Kitchen Goddess”

Artist’s Choice:
The Rebirth of Venus
Luisa Giulianetti

Editor’s Choice:
Joy
Melissa Madenski

 

January 2023 – Susan MacMurdy’s “Dream House, Later”

Artist’s Choice:
Devotion
Brianna Locke

Editor’s Choice:
Cut Out
Sandra Nelson

 

December 2022 – J. Stormer’s “Unsatisfied Externals”

Artist’s Choice:
The Room as We See It
Andrew Payton

Editor’s Choice:
Resolution of Memory
Sara Dallmayr

 

November 2022 – Joshua Eric Williams’ “Humid”

Artist’s Choice:
Old Testament Family Tree
Kid Kassidy

Editor’s Choice:
In a Moment
J. A. Lagana

 

October 2022 – René Bohnen’s “Ballet Above the Bay”

Artist’s Choice:
Fault Lines
Margaret Malochleb

Editor’s Choice:
Wingspan
Christopher Shipman

 

September 2022 – Bonnie Riedinger’s “Take Heart”

Artist’s Choice:
Morning Glory
Dion O’Reilly

Editor’s Choice:
Fibers
Ashley Caspermeyer

 

August 2022 – Enne Tess’s “Worm”

Artist’s Choice:
Identity Politics
Drea

Editor’s Choice:
Haute Buttons
Kenton K. Yee

 

July 2022 – Jaundré van Breda’s “Blueprint of a Dream”

Artist’s Choice:
Balancing Act
Ajay Kumar

Editor’s Choice:
Driving in the Rain
Christopher Shipman

 

June 2022 – M-A Murphy’s “Kennedy Lake”

Artist’s Choice:
June 24, 2022
Sarah Russell

Editor’s Choice:
Poem with a Cloud and Frank Ocean Lyrics
José Felipe Ozuna

 

May 2022 – Danelle Rivas’s “El Camino de Esmeralda”

Artist’s Choice:
Camouflage
Katie Kemple

Editor’s Choice:
Laparoscopy, or a Half-Birth
Gabriella Graceffo

 

April 2022 – Greg Clary’s “Truck Stop Shell”

Artist’s Choice:
The Next Time
Byron Hoot

Editor’s Choice:
Broken Places by Daylight
Sandra Kasturi

 

March 2022 – Natascha Graham’s “Anonymous Was a Woman”

Assistant Editor’s Choice:
Her Vanity
Marc Alan Di Martino

Editor’s Choice:
Angular Bones
Jeanie Tomasko

 

February 2022 – Sarah-Jane Crowson’s “Diaphona”

Artist’s Choice:
Homemaker
Mary Meriam

Editor’s Choice:
My Animal Understudy Replaced Me in the School Production of The Tempest
Luigi Coppola

 

January 2022 – Matthew King’s “Dark Figures”

Artist’s Choice:
Emotional Self-Regulation with Birds and Gifted Child
Sean Kelbley

Editor’s Choice:
Why I Love That We’re Not Gods
Sean Keck

 

December 2021 – Bruce McClain’s “Nature People #8”

Artist’s Choice:
Last Reach
Wendell Smith

Editor’s Choice:
The Widower
Nick Bertelson

 

November 2021 – Shannon Jackson’s “Easy Like Sunday Morning”

Artist’s Choice:
This Room
Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:
Study Abroad
Cassie Burkhardt

 

October 2021 – Gouri Prakash’s “Family”

Artist’s Choice:
Grief
Susan Carroll Jewell

Editor’s Choice:
On Getting Your Ducks in a Row
Matthew King

 

September 2021 – Rachel Slotnick’s “The Blood in the Veins”

Artist’s Choice:
Revelations
Sean Wang

Editor’s Choice:
Like Dust
Ian Opolski

 

August 2021 – Emily Rankin’s “Rosetta Stone”

Artist’s Choice:
Oracle
Robert E. Ray

Editor’s Choice:
Griefsong Heard at Sea
Shannon Mann

 

July 2021 – Lynn Tait’s “Waste”

Artist’s Choice:
Self-Doubt
Tamara Raidt

Editor’s Choice:
Aloft
Heidi Williamson

 

June 2021 – Annie Kuhn’s “Sunline”

Artist’s Choice:
Color / Off-Color
Emily Pease

Editor’s Choice:
Learning to Swim
C.J. Farnsworth

 

May 2021 – Neena Sethia’s “Contradictions of Being”

Artist’s Choice:
Gods, Monsters, and Complex PTSD
Elizabeth Train-Brown

Editor’s Choice:
What It Is Is What It Is Not and What It Is Not Is What It Is
Karan Kapoor

 

April 2021 – Jojo’s “While Thinking About Snow and Ice”

Artist’s Choice:
A Short Poem About Many Things
Lynn Robertson

Editor’s Choice:
White Spots
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

 

March 2021 – Susy Kamber’s “Into Thee”

Artist’s Choice:
Supernatural
Laura Theis

Editor’s Choice:
Darling
Jonathan Langley

 

February 2021 – Claire Ibarra’s “Cloud Dance”

Artist’s Choice:
Faces in the Clouds
Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:
Telling It Through a Broken Lens
Bola Opaleke

 

January 2021 – Danny Masks’s “Bucket”

Artist’s Choice:
Call Me Boy on Saturdays
Jackson Jesse Nash

Editor’s Choice:
Bound for Glory
Melissa McKinstry

 

December 2020 – Dominique Dève’s “A Horizon Is Vague at a Distance”

Artist’s Choice:
Wilhelmina
Kyle Potvin

Editor’s Choice:
A Horizon Is Vague at a Distance
Martin Willitts Jr.

 

November 2020 – Kim Sosin’s “Leaping Crane”

Artist’s Choice:
Crane Possibly Walking on Water
Erin Newton Wells

Editor’s Choice:
Birdwoman
Lexi Pelle

 

October 2020 – Christopher Whitney’s “Dream Spirit”

Artist’s Choice:
One for Sorrow
Carmel Buckingham

Editor’s Choice:
Four Loaves of Stone, Ascending
Joel Vega

 

September 2020 – Pat Singer’s “Pool Head”

Artist’s Choice:
Visiting the Gardens at DePugh Nursing Center, Winter Park Florida
Vivian Shipley

Editor’s Choice:
In the Dream-Pool
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

August 2020 – Liz Magee’s “Blue Bowl”

Artist’s Choice:
Mantra
Michael Harty

Editor’s Choice:
A Duty to Look Beautiful
Patty Holloway

July 2020 – Aurore Uwase Munyabera’s “Conflict Resolution”

Artist’s Choice:
Stepfather
Anna Cianciolo

Editor’s Choice:
Circles
Nikita Parik

June 2020 – Denise Sedor’s “The Old Paper Mill”

Artist’s Choice:
Eulogy
Brenda Lee Ranta

Editor’s Choice:
Upstate
Marc Alan Di Martino

May 2020 – Megan Merchant’s “Shadowplay”

Artist’s Choice:
Copulations
Marjorie Thomsen

Editor’s Choice:
There Are Two of Us
Vasvi Kejriwal

April 2020 – Laura R. McCullough’s “Mund”

Artist’s Choice:
The Larger Half
Eric Kilpatrick

Editor’s Choice:
Presidential Fitness Test
Bill Hollands

March 2020 – Kenneth Borg’s “Cour des Voraces”

Artist’s Choice:
Vast Silence
Sally Cobau

Editor’s Choice:
Rain” (haiku)
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

February 2020 – Marc Alan Di Martino’s “Indietro”

Artist’s Choice:
They Tried to Cover Her Up
Stephanie Shlachtman

Editor’s Choice:
When Peeled Back
Mary Ann Honaker

January 2020 – Kate Peper’s “Open All Night”

Artist’s Choice:
An Index of Visitors
Ajay Kumar

Editor’s Choice:
Cheer
Sean Kelbley

December 2019 – Natalie Seabold’s “Bound”

Artist’s Choice:
Greetings Unanswered
Joshua Martin

Editor’s Choice:
Seeking Purpose
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

November 2019 – Alice Pettway’s “Dog Walking”

Artist’s Choice:
The Anatomy of Endings
Anoushka Subbaiah

Editor’s Choice:
A Caricature
Bola Opaleke

October 2019 – Dana St. Mary’s “Brainyo”

Artist’s Choice:
The Metamorphosis of Gregor Samsa
Jaime Mera

Editor’s Choice:
After the Extinction
Susan Carroll Jewell

September 2019 – Asher ReTech’s “Loss for Words”

Artist’s Choice:
Artifacts from the Buffalo Trunk Mfg. Co. (Defunct)
Rachel Welton

Editor’s Choice:
Budget Cuts
Danny Eisenberg

August 2019 – Kim Tedrow’s “Thai Bees”

Artist’s Choice:
Misinterpreting a Collage During Trump’s Presidency
Jaime Mera

Editor’s Choice:
Bee Sting in the Eye
James Valvis

July 2019 – B.A. Van Sise’s “Restricted | U.S. Air Force”

Artist’s Choice:
Time Travel
Alida Rol

Editor’s Choice:
Naming the Beasts
Elizabeth Morton

June 2019 – Nikki Zarate’s “Blue Whale”

Artist’s Choice:
Ink Blots
Matt Quinn

Editor’s Choice:
Kenai
Katherine Fallon

May 2019 – Ellen McCarthy’s “Desert Road”

Artist’s Choice:
The Years We Lived in the Desert
Megan Merchant

Editor’s Choice:
The Optimist
Emily Sperber

April 2019 – Denise Zygadlo’s “Kandinsky’s Slippers”

Artist’s Choice:
In the Nostalgia Chair
Matthew Murrey

Editor’s Choice:
Art Therapy
Aaric Tan Xiang Yeow

March 2019 – Betsy Mars’s “Floating”

Artist’s Choice:
Trompe L’oeil
Juliet Latham

Editor’s Choice:
Living in Space After a Break-Up
Jaime Mera

February 2019 – Justin Hamm’s “Work Gloves”

Artist’s Choice:
Tan Hides and Hard Stuff
Lisha Nasipak

Editor’s Choice:
Sometimes a Man Has to Get His Hands Dirty
Alexandre Mikano

January 2019 – Vasu Tolia’s “Belle of the Ball”

Artist’s Choice:
Self-Portrait
Rodrigo Dela Pena

Editor’s Choice:
My Mother Was a Dancer and She Never Looked Back
Luigi Coppola

December 2018 – Kari Gunter-Seymour’s “Untitled”

Artist’s Choice:
Substance
Peg Duthie

Editor’s Choice:
Shell Thick and Her Own Planet
Angie Mason

November 2018 – Nicolette Daskalakis’s “Eat Me”

Artist’s Choice:
Placebo
Jill M. Talbot

Editor’s Choice:
The Happy Game
Sean Kelbley

October 2018 – Courtney Carroll’s “Hanging Collage”

Artist’s Choice:
What Is Not Lost
Sharon Cote

Editor’s Choice:
Locked Brakes on Blacktop
Guinotte Wise

September 2018 – Karen Kraco’s “Back of the Beach”

Artist’s Choice:
Beer, Buoy, Boat, Board
Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:
The Happy Meditator
Katherine Huang

August 2018 – Alexis Rhone Fancher’s “Waiting”

Artist’s Choice:
That Bit Me
Matthew Murrey

Editor’s Choice:
Sonnet for the Night Shift
Kim Harvey

July 2018 – Bryan DeLae’s “What Once Was”

Artist’s Choice:
Relic
Ginny Lowe Connors

Editor’s Choice:
Grave of a Tourist’s Trap
Hannah V. Norman

June 2018 – Gretchen Rockwell’s “The Sound of Wings”

Artist’s Choice:
The Shape of Your Elbow
Jack McGavick

Editor’s Choice:
Love Poem to My Wife, with Pigeons
James Valvis

May 2018 – Jen Ninnis’s “Message in a Bottle”

Artist’s Choice:
Starfish
Michael Strand

Editor’s Choice:
Dispatch from an Inland University
Jen Jabaily-Blackburn

April 2018 – Melody Carr’s “Through the Looking Glass”

Artist’s Choice:
Facial Recognition
Janice Zerfas

Editor’s Choice:
Your Favorite Writer Is Not Your Mother
Jill M. Talbot

March 2018 – Marion Clarke’s “Chickens!”

Artist’s Choice:
Wildflowers
Paul T. Corrigan

Editor’s Choice:
The Visitant
Marietta McGregor

February 2018 – Jeff Doleman’s “Nine Lives”

Artist’s Choice:
Cobalt Blue
Christine Michel

Editor’s Choice:
Bright Blue Muscle Car
Mike Good

January 2018 – Laura Christensen’s “Muse”

Artist’s Choice:
Half of Everything
James Valvis

Editor’s Choice:
Getting Sober
James Croal Jackson

December 2017 – Barbara Graff’s “Cinderella Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”

Artist’s Choice:
Cinderella Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:
Here, She Said
Chris Ransick

November 2017 – Phyllis Meredith’s “Wind-Blown Meadow”

Artist’s Choice:
Young Medusa in the Fall
J.P. Dancing Bear

Editor’s Choice:
Surf Days
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

October 2017 – Robb Shaffer’s “Biltmore Backyard”

Artist’s Choice:
You Moved Your Whole Town
Paul T. Corrigan

Editor’s Choice:
A Season of Bricks
Simon Costello

September 2017 – Jody Kennedy’s “Agnes Was Here”

Artist’s Choice:
Saved or Spared
Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:
Sonnet for the Hole in the Glass
Zoë Brigley Thompson

August 2017 – Jennifer O’Neill Pickering’s “Street Folks”

Artist’s Choice:
Trajectory
Ann Giard-Chase

Editor’s Choice:
Mint in Pots
Ann Wuehler

July 2017 – Samantha Gee’s “Portrait of a Kitchen”

Artist’s Choice:
My First Body Is Beautiful Until
Reese Conner

Editor’s Choice:
After Cleaning the Kitchen Again, He Realizes
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

June 2017 – Ryan Schaufler’s “No Name #2”

Artist’s Choice:
Blue Rain Clouds, Reddish Ground, and Tall Crosses
Jose Rizal Reyes

Editor’s Choice:
A Thousand Possible Clouds
Valentina Gnup

May 2017 – Soren James’ “Pink Bird Corridor”

Artist’s Choice:
Birds of a Feather
Lianne Kamp

Editor’s Choice:
She Tells Him of Her Fears
Priyam Goswami Choudhury

April 2017 – Laura Jensen’s “And the Wolf”

Artist’s Choice:
The Woman and the Wolf
Melissa Fite Johnson

Editor’s Choice:
Coyote
Suzanne Langlois

March 2017 – Lisa Ortega’s “La Familia”

Artist’s Choice:
Chanclas, Find Our Ground
Gloria Amescua

Editor’s Choice:
Modern American Gothic
Stephen Harvey

February 2017 – Debbie McAfee’s “Hwy 41”

Artist’s Choice:
Tanka (Lonely Highway)
Tracy Davidson

Editor’s Choice:
Threading North and South
Matthew Murrey

January 2017 – Harry Wilson’s “Days in San Francisco #1, 1984”

Artist’s Choice:
A Town of Mirrors and Quaking Forty-Fours
Richard Manly Heiman

Editor’s Choice:
An Accounting
Joanna Preston

December 2016 – Chelsea Welsh’s “Caught in the Days Unraveling”

Artist’s Choice:
Menarche
Melina Papadopoulos

Editor’s Choice:
Haiku
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetango

November 2016 – Arushi Raj’s “Light”

Artist’s Choice:
The Surface of Light
Martin Willitts Jr.

Editor’s Choice:
Illuminated
Sherry Barker Abaldo

October 2016 – Alexandra de Kempf’s “Family Matters”

Artist’s Choice:
PTSD
Bill Glose

Editor’s Choice:
Nuclear Family Warfare
Jane Noel Dabate

September 2016 – Ilenia Pezzaniti’s “They All Slept Here”

Artist’s Choice:
Calendario
Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:
HotelReview.com – Stay Where You Are, Which Is Here!
T.J. Peters

August 2016 – Heshani Sothiraj Eddleston’s “Clay Hands”

Artist’s Choice:
What We Keep in Clay
Hannah Siobhan

Editor’s Choice:
Throwback at the Art Show
Carol Kanter

July 2016 – Suzanne Simmons’ “Trespass”

Artist’s Choice:
Eco Echo: An Oldster’s Tale
Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:
Memoria
Merlin Ural Rivera

June 2016 – James Croal Jackson’s “Go Your Own Way”

Artist’s Choice:
I Don’t Understand Poetry
Jill M. Talbot

Editor’s Choice:
The Climb
Jeffrey Bean

May 2016 – Catherine Edmund’s “Castlerigg”

Artist’s Choice:
Underneath a Car on the Highroad …
Alexander James

Editor’s Choice:
Alone in Love
Mary Meriam

April 2016 – Robert Dash’s “Into the Mystic”

Artist’s Choice:
Invisible
Ann Giard-Chase

Editor’s Choice:
[Here, said the ocean]
Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr.

March 2016 – Thomas Terceira’s “Metamorphosis 2”

Artist’s Choice:
To Lose and Catch the Trail
Claire Kruesel

Editor’s Choice:
The Balcony Collapses and I Become a Bird
Rebecca Valley

February 2016 – Dave Thewlis’s “Met”

Artist’s Choice:
There, in Folded Space, We Must Have Met
Rommel Chrisden Samarita

Editor’s Choice:
In the Museum of Cold Ideas
Ginny Lowe Connors

January 2016 – Ruth Bavetta’s “Chonicle”

Artist’s Choice:
It Won’t Make the News
Rosemerry Trommer

Editor’s Choice:
Anatomy of a Fustercluck
Stephanie L. Harper

December 2015 – Colleen McLaughlin’s “Contrail”

Artist’s Choice:
Untitled
Angela Johnson

Editor’s Choice:
Contrails
D.R. James

November 2015 – Megan Tutolo’s “City Night”

Artist’s Choice:
Map to the Moon
Matthew Murrey

Editor’s Choice:
Divining
Rosemerry Trommer

October 2015 – Ana Prundaru’s “Beach”

Artist’s Choice:
Kamakura Beach, 1333
Mary Kendall

Editor’s Choice:
The View from the Café
Matt Quinn

September 2015 – Sarah Oyetunde’s “Moon”

Artist’s Choice:
Sister Moon
Jane Williams

Editor’s Choice:
Things You Cannot Answer
Margaret Donsbach Tomlinson

August 2015 – Howard R. Debs’ “Ice House”

Artist’s Choice:
Ice House
Ann Giard-Chase

Editor’s Choice:
Offering
Arnold Perrin

July 2015 – Aparna Pathak’s “Goats”

Artist’s Choice:
Ram Tested at Mount Vert
Grant Quackenbush

Editor’s Choice:
Cruelest of All Are the Gods Who Never Frown
Michael Meyerhofer

June 2015 – Alisa Golden’s “Bench”

Artist’s Choice:
People of the Megabus
Justin Barisich

Editor’s Choice:
Route 9
Martin Willitts, Jr.

May 2015 – Åsa Antalffy Eriksson’s “Forest”

Artist’s Choice:
Teeny Tiny
Matthew Murrey

Editor’s Choice:
Abduction
Kate Gaskin

Spring 2015 – Gail Goepfert’s “Friendship Flowers”

Artist’s Choice:
Potpourri
Liz N. Clift

Editor’s Choice:
Location’s Everything
Steven Dondlinger

. . .

Winter 2014 – James Bernal’s “Mysterious Figure”

Artist’s Choice:
Clean White Sheets
M

Editor’s Choice:
Carelessness
Michael Hallock

. . .

Fall 2014 – Judy Keown’s “Argiope Spider”

Artist’s Choice:
The Writing Spider
Paula Schulz

Editor’s Choice:
The Writing Spider (Haiku)
Caroline Giles Banks