Image: “Take Heart” by Bonnie Riedinger. “Heavenly-Blue Morning Glory” was written by Dion O’Reilly for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2022, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
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HEAVENLY-BLUE MORNING GLORY
—from Ekphrastic Challenge
September 2022, Artist’s Choice
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Comment from the artist, Bonnie Riedinger: “I was looking for a poem that moved me, showed the poet’s appreciation for the sound and rhythm of language, created fresh, vivid images, and captured the essence of my painting. ‘Heavenly-Blue Morning Glory’ ticked all the boxes. The unexpected comparison of flowers squeezing the fence and baby pythons provided an effective link to the pressures at the end of poem (the restraint of months, and the mother’s pressed fingers and furious fist). Cerulean as it follows pythons takes on a slithery sound; repeated assonance provides cohesion; the homonym of freeze/frieze unites art and words. Used judiciously, word repetition, alliteration, and hard rhyme provide emotional and rhythmic punches (‘hungerblue,’ ‘blind-blue,’ ‘sadness about sadness’). The last three lines nailed it—uniting the open throat of the flowers, the consuming desire of the baby pythons, the mother’s furious desire and the speaker’s desire for the world. The poem expresses beautifully what I hoped viewers would see in the painting as well as standing on its own as an evocative and well crafted poem.”
