Ekphrastic Challenge

September 28, 2023

“To the Child Watching His Grandmother Sew” by Bradford KimballPosted by

Seamstress by Lily Prigioniero, oil painting of an elderly woman sewing by a window

Image: “Seamstress” by Lily Prigioniero. “To the Child Watching His Grandmother Sew” was written by Bradford Kimball for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Bradford Kimball

TO THE CHILD WATCHING HIS GRANDMOTHER SEW

The whir of the sewing machine fades
Like a faltering metronome.
 
If you can imagine each stitch
As a note,
You can hear a lone melody.
 
But you don’t know that yet.
You are too young, and it is too dark.
 
She’ll wait until the lights burn out,
And when she thinks you are asleep,
She’ll play that tune again.
 
One day, you’ll hear
Some love song on the radio
And understand.
The music crescendos—
 
The lights burn out, one by one,
And you remember
The needle’s steady hum:
The first love song you ever heard.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
August 2023, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “There is a profound sense of warmth, both emotionally and visually, in this beautiful image, which is reflected in ‘To the Child Watching his Grandmother Sew.’ The simple yet extraordinary idea of a grandmother’s sewing as a child’s first music is elegantly executed, never overdone or heavy-handed. I also love the way the poet uses light: The grandmother waits until ‘the lights burn out’ to run the sewing machine so she doesn’t wake the child, which for me conjures a picture of the child listening to this ‘music’ while in a dreamlike state in another room—a deeply resonant image. There is a great deal of love in this poem—it makes me miss the ‘steady hum’ of my own grandmother.”

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September 21, 2023

“My Wife, Sewing at a Window” by Eithne LongstaffPosted by

Seamstress by Lily Prigioniero, oil painting of an elderly woman sewing by a window

Image: “Seamstress” by Lily Prigioniero. “My Wife, Sewing at a Window” was written by Eithne Longstaff for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Eithne Longstaff

MY WIFE, SEWING AT A WINDOW

Spring wanes
and as is her custom
 
she pulls the dusty
cover from her Singer
 
and sits at the window
to fashion cotton,
 
sprigged with tiny
roses, into tiered
 
summer skirts
for whichever
 
grandchild wants one.
Time stretches like
 
the elastic she holds
and I recall a trip
 
to Rome where,
laughing, we fell
 
into a church
as raindrops slid
 
from bare arms.
In a dark side chapel
 
we clattered coins
into a metal box
 
and the space lit up
with a yellow glow,
 
revealing a Caravaggio,
just for us. She said
 
he has painted the light
 
and we stood
and marveled.
 
Then our ninety seconds
of illumination was over
 
and we stepped back
into lives that were all about
 
where to next, and
our house will be blue.
 
Now she is the old
master and as she works
 
light ripples her clothes
and crowns her head
 
with cirrus. The rose
fabric is stippled
 
with thorns and I see
only where the light
 
falls to make her perfect
and dare not look
 
to the room’s dark corners.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
August 2023, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Lily Prigioniero: “Although the seamstress in my painting is my mom, I related to this poem in many ways, especially regarding the passage of time, a major factor in choosing this one among many. The images at the beginning are vivid and easily approachable in their present-tense setting; then there’s the transition into a past memory with the simile, ‘Time stretches like / the elastic she holds / and I recall a trip / to Rome …’ We are then brought back to the present by tying the Caravaggio experience of light to ‘Now she is the old / master ….’ This time around, however, the passage of time feels heavier and more mysterious, not only because the rose fabric is ‘stippled with thorns,’ but because we are given a glimpse into the future with the poem’s powerful last line ‘and dare not look / to the room’s dark corners.'”

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August 31, 2023

“Aphorisms Thrown into the Eye of the Blizzard” by Tamara RaidtPosted by

Here I Go by Elizabeth Hlookoff, painting of a woman walking into a swirling yellow light

Image: “Here I Go” by Elizabeth Hlookoff. “Aphorisms Thrown into the Eye of the Blizzard” was written by Tamara Raidt for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Tamara Raidt

APHORISMS THROWN INTO THE EYE OF THE BLIZZARD

1. A girl walks into a blizzard of waltzing lights.
The other end of the tunnel is not as near as you think.
 
2. If you stare at the sun you’ll see a Cyclops face.
Ulysses and Nobody are the same person.
 
3. A girl doesn’t need to introduce herself to strangers.
Men often forget to ask for permission.
 
4. A girl disappeared next door and was never found again.
That is not true. She was found in a park.
 
5. She was found dead in a park behind buzzing bushes.
Words and their order matter.
 
6. At mass the priest made everyone stand up and pray.
Her coffin smelled like cheap wood.
 
7. Someone told me she now lives in the sky.
I do not believe they got it right.
 
8. So Ulysses said Nobody with the confidence of a lying man.
And the witnesses saw nobody, they saw nobody in a park.
 
9. I’m almost sure where she lives now.
Please let it not be behind baseboards of sprung floors.
 
10. The sun is as round as bellies can get.
There are as many stars as versions of what happened.
 
11. One version is my favorite and it goes like this:
A girl walks into a blizzard of waltzing lights.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
July 2023, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “When I chose ‘Aphorisms Thrown into the Eye of the Blizzard’ as my winner for the Ekphrastic Challenge this month, I knew I’d have to give a disclaimer: I love this poem but I’m not sure I’m equipped for it, and that’s partly because–brace yourselves–I’ve never read the Odyssey, which the poet clearly references with great significance. While I can’t do justice to the layers of meaning here, I am very compelled by the profundity I can sense, if not fully grasp. I enjoy the way this poem unfolds, the language and content becoming more open and revealing, and the way most lines are strong enough to stand alone–‘The sun is as round as bellies can get’ is a poem in and of itself. The facelessness of the female figure in the painting and the abstract nature of the swirling circle she exists within are elements that strike me as dark and haunting, and I find ‘Aphorisms …’ to have that same sense of evocative unease.”

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August 24, 2023

“Fighting the Wind” by Teresa BreedenPosted by

Here I Go by Elizabeth Hlookoff, painting of a woman walking into a swirling yellow light

Image: “Here I Go” by Elizabeth Hlookoff. “Fighting the Wind” was written by Teresa Breeden for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Teresa Breeden

FIGHTING THE WIND

The trick is not to.
Not to struggle, thrusting
the anvil of your
 
body against the
gale, not to compete, but to
sway and bend, threading
 
the edge of the air,
welcoming dishevelment.
Who is in charge of
 
corralling the squall
into meager breezes, these
air conditioned spaces?
 
Who is bold enough
to slam open the windows
let the shouting in?
 
You want to be brave.
But you yearn also to curl
beneath the blanket
 
of wind, a small fold,
your breath a small sigh beneath
the world’s loud exhale
 
and also
to be the window
it shoves into and through, a
portal for the sky.
 
The wind reminds you
of what you can be, tousled
dismantled,
a being
 
that can continually
be remade.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
July 2023, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Elizabeth Hlookoff: “The poem grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. I’m a big proponent of the old ‘less is more’ adage. I love the spare, simple language the poet uses to convey a Zen like wisdom while invoking a way of being. I particularly love the line, welcoming dishevelment.'”

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July 27, 2023

“Image of a Woman Along a Sidewalk” by Jason BrunnerPosted by

Untold Stories by Judith Fox, collage photograph of woman with a door lock over her face

Image: “Untold Stories” by Judith Fox. “Image of a Woman Along a Sidewalk” was written by Jason Brunner for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Jason Brunner

IMAGE OF A WOMAN ALONG A SIDEWALK

“She’s too pretty to be missing,”
my father said as we walked past the poster,
 
in that offhanded way that made my cheek twitch.
I wondered what malady made him say it—
 
maybe an old fleck of lead paint had lodged itself
in just the right part of his brain,
 
or he was choking on his own Adam’s apple
and didn’t think to cover his mouth.
 
Not ten steps into my speculation,
he stopped to talk to a shop owner
 
who was installing new locks on her door,
and she gestured across the street
 
to a vape shop with a plastic tarp
taped over its missing center pane.
 
It shuddered in the wind
with the same enthusiasm
 
as a sheet of glass in the moment
that a rock strikes it, and it shatters.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
June 2023, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “What first caught my eye in this poem was the author’s depiction of the subject of this artwork as a missing person. The figure in Fox’s piece has a look in her eyes that strikes me as both haunted and searching, as if the victim of some unknown horror, which made it easy to envision this enigmatic face on a missing person poster. I was also impressed by the line ‘he was choking on his own Adam’s apple / and didn’t think to cover his mouth’ and how it parallels the image of the door keyhole as a mouth. What will stay with me most, though, is the quietly philosophical nature of the last two stanzas–the idea of the aftermath of a violent act having ‘the same enthusiasm’ as the act itself.”

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July 25, 2023

“Girl Is Glued to Door” by William RossPosted by

Untold Stories by Judith Fox, collage photograph of woman with a door lock over her face

Image: “Untold Stories” by Judith Fox. “Girl is Glued to Door” was written by William Ross for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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William Ross

GIRL IS GLUED TO DOOR

There are things I still don’t understand
about you. Your mouth would tell me,
but there has been a violence, your
voice punched away for being
in the wrong place, a darkness thrown
 
in spatters and now your face. Like a
wanted poster, you stare out, hair swept
back so you see clearly,
confronting the world head-on. Are you
followed? Are you hunted?
 
I’ve been combing dispatches,
the cryptic signals you send:
 
the flannel shirt, choice of lumberjacks
and grunge musicians, plaid considered
dangerous in some circles;
the skull pendant on a string.
 
And messages from a hunter of images,
ones you did not intend:
 
the fierce defiance of an armoured door,
blunt violence of a ragged hole
blasted through your likeness,
a documentary record torn open, raw
 
threshold revealed. The voice shouting:
Entry is Trespass.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
June 2023, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Judith Fox: “The poem I selected for the June Ekphrastic Challenge is the well-crafted and insightful ‘Girl is Glued to Door.’ It wasn’t an easy choice, there were numerous beautiful and intelligent entries, but the poem skillfully echoes and expands on the mysteries and tensions in the poster I photographed; in its placement over a shocking red lock and useless door. The poem opens with a simple and engaging observation: ‘There are things I still don’t understand about you’ and continues with thoughtful questions of the subject: ‘Are you Followed? Are you hunted?’ and observations: ‘the cryptic signals you send.’ The powerful final line particularly resonated with me: ‘The voice shouting: Entry is Trespass.'”

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June 29, 2023

“What the Astrologer Failed to See in Our Stars” by Dick WestheimerPosted by

A Lonesome Border by Carmella Dolmer, marker drawing of two shadowy figures looking down into a dark hole

Image: “A Lonesome Border” by Carmella Dolmer. “What the Astrologer Failed to See in Our Stars” was written by Dick Westheimer for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, May 2023, and selected as an Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Dick Westheimer

WHAT THE ASTROLOGER FAILED TO SEE IN OUR STARS

The astrologer told us not to marry.
She said we would burn
one another in an astrological
furnace. She traced her finger
 
over the spider’s web chart
she’d drawn, showing one of our
rising signs made of dry tinder,
and mine, that of a match. Our choice
 
would be to burn or alternately fall
into a hole so deep that the only way
out would be fire. Of course, not even
this promise of planets in catastrophe
 
could dissuade us heated lovers
from each other’s flesh. We had this
fantasy of one day becoming gray-haired,
shade-tree sitting folk.
 
But what is a zodiac sign
other than a random pattern of stars?
And what is a horoscope other than
a dowser with no water to find?
 
And a star? It is the pressing
of the smallest parts of us
until there is fusion, heat where
once was none—and the stuff
 
of more stars, or maybe, like us,
now a quiet binary, living
out our graying days illuminated,
mostly, in each other’s orbit.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
May 2023, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “The best ekphrastic poems leap into something new without losing touch with the original image, so that it’s often not immediately clear whether the poem or visual art was created first. Like a binary star, they appear as one. Dick Westheimer manages that with a poignant extended metaphor that doubles over itself several times. On its own, the poem is full of memorable lines, but the addition of the drawing makes for a brilliant singular object.”

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