Image: “Desperado” by G.J. Gillespie. “Emergence” was written by Chris Kaiser for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
Comment from the artist, G.J. Gillespie: “While some poems evoked violence or disease, which wasn’t my initial intention, ‘Emergence’ resonated with the deeper layers of existential perplexity in my artwork. The poem’s rich and sensual imagery, like ‘pentimento skin’ and ‘the rich delta of tears,’ captures the emotional complexity I aimed to portray. The allusion to ‘Nude Descending a Staircase’ adds a layer of historical context and artistic dialogue. While other poems responded to the collaged nature of the artwork, none incorporated unique elements like the ‘geometry’ of sorrow and love, which beautifully reflects the fragmented yet interconnectedness of the figure. More importantly, the poem’s undercurrent of longing and the speaker’s desire to delve deeper into the subject’s pain mirror the sense of mystery and invitation I hoped to create in my viewers. It’s a poem that lingers in the mind and invites repeated exploration, much like my artwork.”
Image: “Cold Sun” by Jeanne Wilkinson. “Watch This!” was written by Tristan Roth for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, December 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
__________
Tristan Roth
WATCH THIS!
You captured the whole thing on the flippy-est dumb phone,
before you got smart. Fourteen felt like the un-freest zone
of youth: can’t drive, can’t drink, can’t rub two nickels,
can’t march to the beat of your harmonious own.
That winter of fourteen, you three trudged through snow,
pushing a Safeway shopping cart up the bunniest slope,
where the interstate goes under the canyon road. With temps
in the teens, you played Rochambeau, with the runniest nose.
Chomping at the bit, Jake always threw rock.
You always threw scissors. You were the cunningest one.
But Tristan was a lame-o poet, who lived life on paper.
“Me?” he said, voice squeaking in the jumpiest tone.
You were complete dicks back then, scared shitless of being
called chicken, charlatans strutting around the unknown,
your cockscombs uncolored by the foghorned winter sun.
Jake did a DX crotch chop. You were the scummiest clone,
You said Suck it! like Triple H and called him a pussy.
You mocked him like girls with your honey-est moans.
He climbed in, then dropped, the doppler sound of his voice.
“Watch this!” Tristan said, before breaking his funniest bone.
Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “There are so many elements of ‘Watch This!’ that I enjoyed, admired, and was moved by. The voice feels true to the way teenagers actually think and speak, and this is reinforced by the repetition of creative ‘-est’ words throughout the poem: ‘the flippy-est dumb phone,’ ‘the un-freest zone.’ I had to read some of the phrases a few times because they were so unexpected and satisfying: ‘cockscombs uncolored by the foghorned winter sun.’ The scene works well placed into Jeanne Wilkinson’s bleak, evocative image–one can imagine a trio of directionless teenage boys, riddled with hidden insecurities and secret fears, scattered across Wilkinson’s desolate winter landscape, ‘pushing a Safeway shopping cart up the bunniest slope.’ And finally, there’s the encompassing fact that this is simply a gorgeous poem. It’s no small feat to write a ghazal that flows naturally and feels entirely authentic (believe me, I’ve tried), and Tristan Roth makes it look easy.”
“Curriculum Vitae” by Dante Di StefanoPosted by Rattle
Image: “Cold Sun” by Jeanne Wilkinson. “Curriculum Vitae” was written by Dante Di Stefano for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, December 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
Comment from the artist, Jeanne Wilkinson: “I have many favorites in this group of poems. Some of my friends read also, all coming up with different choices, making me go back and read again, again, again; this was a very pleasurable problem. Several of the poems gave me goosebumps, but I kept coming back to one that made me shiver every time I read it, and still does. It’s ‘Curriculum Vitae’ and I love the mood, which seems to me infused with luminous sepia tones, matching the atmosphere of my photograph: bleak, lonely, but not without hope. Bottom line, this poet had me at Blake’s angel.”
“(Sub)Division” by Christine CrockettPosted by Rattle
Image: “Aerial II” by Scott Wiggerman. “(Sub)Division” was written by Christine Crockett for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, November 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “Scott Wiggerman’s image is so thoughtfully abstract, it sparks a lot of imagination, and I appreciated how poet Christine Crockett took that imaginativeness in multiple directions. The image invokes ‘a lunar footprint,’ ‘cells / That split, subdivide,’ and, most profound, ‘the way children leave/on well-lit roads.’ Even when not directly describing it, Crockett’s sharp writing reflects the subversively geometric tone of Wiggerman’s piece: ‘I moved in exponentials,’ she writes, ‘Things / Blurred or bent in me.’ Exquisitely epitomized in the last couplet is what I interpret as a main theme of both poem and image: the dance between chaos and order.”
“Flying Back to England That First Time” by Rose LennardPosted by Rattle
Image: “Aerial II” by Scott Wiggerman. “Flying Back to England That First Time” was written by Rose Lennard for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, November 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
__________
Rose Lennard
FLYING BACK TO ENGLAND THAT FIRST TIME
from above there was something so tender
about the detailed tapestry of roads
and homes and gardens, each one different
and loved and tended, and it was like
seeing inside a body, all the organs
large and small, each with their own
precious unique purpose
and each unknowable, complex
and essential; all existing in conjunction
with the other parts but separate
and distinct. England so stewarded
and ancient, patterned by all the lives
that shaped it once, now buried under stones;
and all the lives that make it their own
and so patiently mow lawns, wash cars,
bring groceries home, take kids to football
and lessons on piano. People going
to lovers’ trysts, hospital appointments,
working shifts, nodding to neighbours over gates.
As the light faded the roads were traced
with streetlights and headlight beams, and each
little ordered patch of earth outlined below
with trim hedge or fence, each house set
quietly back on its plot; and over the engines’ roar
I could almost hear the night-feathered blackbirds
Comment from the artist, Scott Wiggerman: “I created a series of six colored pencil drawings with the title ‘Aerial,’ imagining different landscapes as seen from the air. ‘Aerial II’ is the only one focused on what I picture as suburbia. ‘Flying Back’ also starts from the air, and through exquisite images develops the closer and closer telegraphing of what is below—from the ‘detailed tapestry of roads’ to the extended metaphor of the human body—‘all the organs / large and small’—to the mundane activities of the inhabitants of ‘each / little ordered patch of earth outlined below.’ And then the lovely closing: aural blackbirds as night arrives, ‘spilling out their evening song.’ I found this poem very close to my own sensibilities. I only wish I had written it!”
“Pilgrims of the Mound” by Conal AbatangeloPosted by Rattle
Image: “Shadowland” by Arthur Lawrence. “Pilgrims of the Mound” was written by Conal Abatangelo for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “I found the poet’s use of language so unexpected as to be mesmerizing–I kept rereading phrases to savor them, and to marvel at how artfully and accurately they capture aspects of Arthur Lawrence’s ‘Shadowland.’ The rich but muted hues of the image are reflected in the phrase ‘a rain like night / which swallowed all the colors,’ and I was moved by the description ‘a line of ghosts unburying itself’ in relation to the crowd of figures in ‘Shadowland.’ I think the phrase ‘a bomb speaks’ is the one which will haunt me most–the idea of a bomb having a voice and something to say is an unsettling truth. Truth is something neither poem nor image shy away from, and I think that’s why they create such a resonant harmony.”
“The Addiction Bird” by Agnes Hanying OngPosted by Rattle
Image: “Shadowland” by Arthur Lawrence. “The Addiction Bird” was written by Agnes Hanying Ong for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
__________
Agnes Hanying Ong
THE ADDICTION BIRD
In a dream
someone calling your name
from a far sea. A sign
from Allah. Says the book
of which, oriole, people.
To Allah, I pray everyday
that you will find the way and live
a life without the drink. It is
the only speaker of an
anguish, anguish of
idyllic geese. How do birds say good
bye to their chicks? When
the black birds came, they wore
colors of a rainbow and
the colors fell off on
everything. Live like a bird I keep
having this dream of
school shooting, no, it takes
place in a drugstore, where
the usual girl, who is there, says
Look, look, that guy is
coming. Do you hear gunshots. What’s
that? Flickering in the distance?
Wait, that’s gunfire. Okay, so
what now? Are we supposed to
run out? He is outside. So
should we run in? In this literal
drugstore rimmed with aisles
of bottles to be
walking, where you
might think this is holy
temple of genies, we are
running past: genies or, jinn
or jaan, sentenced
to life as numerous
drinks in bottles all full, same
place where I once witnessed a
bird die, having flown
into glass, less than a minute
ago. Here, we arrive at: an empty
room, which has a lock, on the
metal door. So we ought to
be safe here. Just lock the door, lock
the door. I lock the door, realizing
there is another room inside this room
which has no windows. The room is
walled with just cold, concrete
surprising in this town, like it is a miniature
medieval castle. It is like, nightly, we can
warm our hands here, stay low and close
to the ground, while setting a pile of
silverfish on fire and say: This is living. This is
Comment from the artist, Arthur Lawrence: “This poem is chock-full of poetic imagery and delightful word play like ‘the usual girl, genies or, jinn or jann.’ The line spacing is purposeful and not stressed. The painting that I provided is somewhat nightmarish and surrealistic, qualities this poem elicits. The poem begs the question, what are we addicted to … guns, war, drugs, mindless violence, mindless adherence to doctrine? From the war in Gaza to the war in our schools, and on our streets, this is the nightmare our children and grandchildren live with every day. Just ask the young and they will tell you that you are too old to understand.”
