Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2021: Editor’s Choice
Image: “Rosetta Stone” by Emily Rankin. “Griefsong Heard at Sea” was written by Shannan Mann for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2021, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
__________
GRIEFSONG HEARD AT SEA
—from Ekphrastic Challenge
August 2021, Editor’s Choice
__________
Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “I accidentally read Shannan’s note on the poem before sitting down to compose my own, and now I’m stuck trying to find a way to explain it without repeating what she already said so eloquently. I’ll include that here. All I can add is that the palindrome form is extremely well done, with new meanings and great lines emerging from the reversal. And that I’d characterize the juxtaposition, both in the poem and in the painting, as that of a child splashing around joyfully versus adulthood’s endless struggle to stay afloat within the maelstrom of responsibility. O that we could all swim backward in time.”
Shannan Mann: “Emily’s painting filled me with what initially felt like two mutually exclusive things: a sense of playful innocence and a forlorn ache for everything lost to time. Then, as I continued to explore the artwork, I saw how these two feelings connected. Grief can make us look back and forward simultaneously, madly searching in the ocean of our memories for glimpses and pieces of an innocent time. This is also why I framed this poem as a palindrome. The past sometimes overtakes the present, filling it with grief yet in that very present we can harness the joy of the past and rise above our pain.”
