Ekphrastic Challenge, December 2015: Artist’s Choice
Photograph by Colleen McLaughlin. “Untitled” was written by Angela Johnson for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, December 2015, and selected by McLaughlin as the Artist’s Choice winner.
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UNTITLED
—Ekphrastic Challenge, December 2015
Artist’s Choice Winner
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Comment from the artist, Colleen McLaughlin: “I love everything about this poem—the haiku-like stanzas; words sparse, yet bursting with whimsical imagery; the line breaks which set the tone and evokes a certain mood. The photographic image is stark, and perhaps even ominous if one considers chemtrails and conspiracy-theories, yet this poem took me to another, most pleasantly unexpected place, a kind of space oddity. It’s the stuff kids’ dreams are made of—and still, the unbelievable wonder that ‘anything as vulnerable as human flesh is hurtling through that calm sky.’ I even find it apropos that this poem, in reflection of this image, is ‘Untitled,’ because it lends a feeling of timelessness, an ‘evaporating in the elements’ … like a ground control to Major Tom.” (website)
