April 19, 2018

Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2018: Artist’s Choice

 

Chickens! by Marion Clarke

Image: “Chickens!” by Marion Clarke. “Wildflowers” was written by Paul T. Corrigan for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2018, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Paul T. Corrigan

WILDFLOWERS

The farmyard is not a schoolyard.
The hens are not teachers.

The cottages are not classrooms.
Their doors, although as red as alarms, are not emergency exits.

Although hard from being walked on, the path is not anger.
Although taloned and full of testosterone, the rooster is not a shooter.

The boulders are not bullets.
The wildflowers are not students, splashes of clover, dollops of poppy, ribbons of milkweed, blooming, bursting from swaths of rye, alive.

from Ekphrastic Challenge
March 2018, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Marion Clarke: “From the innocuous title, ‘Wildflowers,’ to the final word, ‘alive,’ via a series of negative statements, this poem really struck me. The pastoral scene depicted in the painting is effectively juxtaposed with terms that might be used to describe a school shooting. Vocabulary such as ‘alarm,’ ’emergency exits,’ ‘shooter’ and ‘bullets’ are all the more arresting in such a bucolic scene. Terms employed in painting such as ‘splashes’ and ‘dollops’ made me think of spilled blood, particularly since poppies feature in both the painting and poem. I found it clever how the poet lulled us into a false sense of security through the image and the title and then in a quiet, assertive voice (much like that of a teacher) the reader is presented with a totally unexpected scenario. And of course that word ‘alive’ resonates long after reading.”

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March 29, 2018

Nine Lives by Jeff Doleman

Image: “Nine Lives” by Jeff Doleman. “Bright Blue Muscle Car” was written by Mike Good for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2018, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Mike Good

BRIGHT BLUE MUSCLE CAR

My father once owned a bright blue muscle car.
He sold it to buy my mother a ring.
I wanted to bring him back a bright blue muscle car.

Instead I stole a bright blue poem. In his driveway I parked
it until exhaust flooded the lawn. I left the idle on. Clouding
the spot where my father once kept his bright blue muscle car,

the smoke was gray and black and charred,
as if clouds cobbled the yard. I found it startling—
this urge to buy my father a bright blue muscle car.

He is asking, if a black cat crosses your path how far
from your way do you walk to avoid bad luck? The cat hissing,
“My father was crushed by your father’s bright blue muscle car.”

Like stepping in mud we felt the brakes in mother’s car.
Her car red and out of frame. Would you believe, I am thinking
it is time to buy my dad a bright blue muscle car.

What paint paves over mangy fur, the driveway scars?
Some men will not reciprocate your love though given everything.
My father once owned a bright blue muscle car.
I wanted to bring him back a bright blue muscle car.

from Ekphrastic Challenge
February 2018, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “Maybe it’s because it made me think of my own father, but this poem moves me personally as it explores that hopeless desire to please that is so stereotypical of the father-son dynamic. The figure of the father haunts this poem in the same way that it haunts the photograph, always out of frame, but still owning it, the ringing refrain a lasting shadow that never leaves.”

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March 22, 2018

Nine Lives by Jeff Doleman

Image: “Nine Lives” by Jeff Doleman. “Cobalt Blue” was written by Christine Michel for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2018, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Christine Michel

COBALT BLUE

He comes galloping to a stop.
Just three feet in front of me,
wanting me to prove that I am,
in fact, loyal as ever. So of course
I pick him up, soft fur clinging
to my jacket from the static of
leather seats.

They were a packaged set. Car
and cat. The day I first parked
the cobalt and baby blue beauty,
he was huddled on my stoop, rain
soaking matted fur to the bone.
Sometimes you just can’t turn down
what Fate has in store for you.

And now, years later, he’s proud.
Long tail fanning in the spring
morning, eyes narrowed tracking
something too small for me to see.
So, I wipe my forehead with my
sleeve and continue rubbing the
wax in. I wonder if he listens for the

purr of the engine, or watches for
the blue that stands out within
his world of grey.

from Ekphrastic Challenge
February 2018, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Jeff Doleman: “We were a dog family until my father found a kitten curled up in a flower bed outside his office. My parents have since fostered countless stray cats. I took this photograph during a walk with my father around his hometown in rural Oregon. Coincidentally, many poems responding to the image featured a paternal theme. Although the narrator of ‘Cobalt Blue’ could be anyone, I visualize my father, fixing his 1956 Ford Thunderbird while one of his cats lounges nearby. The poem uses simple, honest language to depict the mysterious, compassionate bonds that often form between people and other species. It stood out to me for its balanced perspective and its quiet sensitivity.”

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February 27, 2018

Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2018: Editor’s Choice

 

Muse Laura Christensen

Image: “Muse” by Laura Christensen. “Getting Sober” was written by James Croal Jackson for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2018, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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James Croal Jackson

GETTING SOBER

If I don’t watch it, this lake
is vodka and I won’t care I don’t
know how to swim. Getting sober
is like that. I go out into the world
and look you in the eyes and say
I’m fine. I’m having a good time
and you go on, never knowing
I was half-underwater, that
there was a monster trying
to make its way to the surface
and I had to push him down.

from Ekphrastic Challenge
January 2018, Editor’s Choice

[download audio]

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Comment from the editor: “Rather than illustrating the scene with words, James Croal Jackson uses the image as a metaphor to illustrate his poem. It’s a short, simple poem with a powerful and profound message that I kept thinking about long after reading, and will stay for a long time. So much lurks beneath the surface of each of us—and so much lurks beneath the surface of this poem.”

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February 22, 2018

Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2018: Artist’s Choice

 

Muse Laura Christensen

Image: “Muse” by Laura Christensen. “Half of Everything” was written by James Valvis for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2018, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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James Valvis

HALF OF EVERYTHING

Half flooded by her advancing cancer,
my mother stands like a false Christ
who believes she can yet walk on water,
believes the pills she takes will be enough

to staunch the sea rising around her.
If she wears her finest dress and jabot,
if she keeps her hair combed and dry.
if she just stands still long enough,

hands folded, forever proper, civilized,
submerged table set for morning tea,
she can go on believing, as she has,
the world is only a fraction of what it is.

Already she’s turning back into the girl
who could not face my father’s alcoholism,
or her son’s sadness, or any deluge,
only clear skies and cumulus clouds.

If she ignores half of everything,
she thinks without ever thinking it,
her last half doesn’t need to go under
and she can find a way to fly home.

from Ekphrastic Challenge
January 2018, Artist’s Choice

[download audio]

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Comment from the artist, Laura Christensen: “Before reading this poem, I had considered how water could represent a subconscious (amongst other things), but I had not quite imagined a place where one might place parts of reality they want, or need to ignore. Reading this poem, I am touched by the mother’s futile struggle for control. In my art, I contemplate a similar, but more general concept of quality and grace in the face of entropy.”

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January 25, 2018

Ekphrastic Challenge, December 2017: Artist’s Choice

 

Cinderella Doesn’t Live Here Anymore by Barbara Graff

Image: “Cinderella Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” by Barbara Graff. “Cinderella Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” was written by Devon Balwit for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, December 2017, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Devon Balwit

CINDERELLA DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE

Her princely marriage blighted mom. It wasn’t
what she thought, just different walls. She found
herself drawn to windows, parapets, the round
moon-face pulling her, asking why she hadn’t
left yet. So when we awoke to find her gone,
we weren’t surprised—although to father’s questions
we played dumb. We let him search, pursue notions
of re-wooing. We kids found traces on the lawn,
bare footprints in the dew, swatches of mistletoe
twining, bags of simples, bird skeletons hung
from lintels. Mother was about, still among
us—just changed. No scullion, no Highness, no
one but her deepest self, luminescent and wise.
We learned new ways to see her, not just our eyes.

from Ekphrastic Challenge
December 2017, Artist’s Choice

[download audio]

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Comment from the artist, Barbara Graff: “Of all of the wonderful poems I read, I was drawn to Devon Balwit’s ‘Cinderella Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.’ This poem with its lovely imagery, gently touches the soul of what I tried to bring forth in the painting.”

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December 28, 2017

Ekphrastic Challenge, November 2017: Editor’s Choice

 

Wind-Blown Meadow by Phyllis Meredith

Image: “Wind-Blown Meadow” by Phyllis Meredith. “Surf Days” was written by Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, November 2017, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

SURF DAYS

Surf days
when you said
nobody goes
on new adventures
anymore and
so we drove
out to the coast
and watched the tiny
waves do
nothing
to the shoreline, sat
on rocks
and drank the beer
that I had stolen
from my roommate, left
green bottles
blinking sun back
from the sand.

In the photo
that I pinned up to old walls for years
and then stuck
in the center of a book, I see

your hair a question mark, your
eyes

the darkness curled up inside of a shell
the world around you
lit

with lines and gray, but most of all just
you

so very young—my best
best friend

the smartest
kid I ever knew, some
kind of god

who lifted sand
and sent stars flying
everywhere.

How did we love and hurt and care
and turn to nothing

after that?

from Ekphrastic Challenge
November 2017, Editor’s Choice

[download audio]

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Comment from the editor on this selection: “Quite simply, this poem felt the most emotionally honest of all those we received this month. I can see the scene at the beach and this photograph tucked into the speaker’s notebook, even though I know it really isn’t there. An entire world is constructed from the image, and because it feels so real, the longing feels real, too.”

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