Kenneth Borg

April 30, 2020

“Rain” (Haiku) by Elizabeth McMunn-TetangcoPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2020: Editor’s Choice

 

photograph in black and white of concrete stairs with children drawing in chalk

Image: “Cour des Voraces” by Kenneth Borg. The haiku was written by Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2020, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

 

rain
eats our chalk drawings
one day older

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
March 2020, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “The very first winner of the Ekphrastic Challenge was a haiku, and it’s nice to have another haiku here six years later. As with most great haiku, the power comes from the tension between the two universes on either side of the cut—the children with their drawings and the viewer, watching through a lens of nostalgia, and with the awareness of mortality. The result is a profound micro-meditation on the nature of time and its illusions.”

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April 23, 2020

“Vast Silence” by Sally CobauPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2020: Artist’s Choice

 

photograph in black and white of concrete stairs with children drawing in chalk

Image: “Cour des Voraces” by Kenneth Borg. “Vast Silence” was written by Sally Cobau for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2020, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Sally Cobau

VAST SILENCE

The girls scribble:
Large O,
Demented D,
Curly, swirly S, an elegant
Muse in iron.
The wide ass of the X,
Smack in your face,
The mice skittering up the Z’s.
The triangle of purity, a gate, the shape of your
Yawn, the unstoppable

Force of the letters—
The rolling pins
Of movement,
Spiraling, the cortex/the bulb
The hum of the machine: needle, bobbin.

The girls working in the shadows.
We don’t hear running,
But we almost hear it.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
March 2020, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Kenneth Borg: “I liked the playfulness with the letters; it was as if they were embossed letters and I’m touching the protruding curves, straight lines and the sharp and pointy edges—all emulating the various concrete shapes and forms in the photograph. Not only that, but it weaves in the presence of the girls, flaring up the letters with unassuming, unexpected and dislocated items, creating a vortex of sounds and imagery, typical of such buildings and enclosed spaces. Yet, it’s uncanny, with a somehow unnerving placidity, ending the poem on a dark note which seems to imply something sinister may be lurking underneath this muted hubbub (reflecting the mysterious figure emerging from down beneath perhaps?). It felt like a palette of colours, starting from light, bright colours and ending with dark, enigmatic and murky tones.”

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