Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2018: Editor’s Choice

Image: “Muse” by Laura Christensen. “Getting Sober” was written by James Croal Jackson for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2018, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

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James Croal Jackson

GETTING SOBER

If I don’t watch it, this lake

is vodka and I won’t care I don’t

know how to swim. Getting sober

is like that. I go out into the world

and look you in the eyes and say

I’m fine. I’m having a good time

and you go on, never knowing

I was half-underwater, that

there was a monster trying

to make its way to the surface

and I had to push him down.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
January 2018, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the editor: “Rather than illustrating the scene with words, James Croal Jackson uses the image as a metaphor to illustrate his poem. It’s a short, simple poem with a powerful and profound message that I kept thinking about long after reading, and will stay for a long time. So much lurks beneath the surface of each of us—and so much lurks beneath the surface of this poem.”

Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2016: Artist’s Choice

Photograph: “Go Your Own Way” by James Croal Jackson. “I Don’t Understand Poetry” was written by Jill M. Talbot for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2016, and selected by Jackson as the Artist’s Choice winner.

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Jill M. Talbot

I DON’T UNDERSTAND POETRY

Where are these people walking?

They are walking in a poem.

But it is not my poem,

so I do not understand it.

And they are walking in twos,

so perhaps it’s not a poem.

A poem is ventured through alone.

I seen a sign, Smile if you masturbate,

so is that a poem?

Only if you smile?

Are you smiling?

Don’t worry, it’s just a poem.

I won’t tell.

If I lived in a poem it would be Ginsberg.

Because I hate Ginsberg.

And these people don’t know the half of it.

Walking, walking, walking.

If they get somewhere,

I guess it’s not a poem.

Unless they get to hell.

I may be overthinking this.

I never understood poetry.

I’m also stuck in a poem

paved by panhandlers.

I seen a sign. I seen too many.

I seen a white sky calling out

our less than good intentions.

But is that a poem?

—Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2016
Artist’s Choice Winner

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Comment from the artist, James Croal Jackson , on his selection: “It was an honor reading through so many excellent poems inspired by my photograph, but this is the one that rattled in my head longest after reading—made me realize, you know, I really don’t understand poetry, and I don’t really understand this poem, but I ventured through it alone and now all I’m doing is walking, walking, walking through poems every day in the real world (maybe). I don’t know. This poem is meta and funny and philosophical and unexpected. It won’t leave my head. I had to choose it.” (website)

Rattle: Poetry

… without pretension since 1995.

James Croal Jackson

February 27, 2018

Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2018: Editor’s Choice

July 21, 2016

Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2016: Artist’s Choice