“In the Dream-Pool” by Elizabeth McMunn-TetangcoPosted by Rattle
Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2020: Editor’s Choice
Image: “Pool Head” by Pat Singer. “In the Dream-Pool” was written by Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2020, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
Comment from the Editor, Timothy Green: “Interestingly, both this poem and the artist’s choice throb with the losses of the pandemic while looking through a fence that isn’t in the painting. In this case, the closing of the summer pool becomes a kind of obsession, haunting in its absence, as so many things are. There are so many memorable lines here: ‘The thing with dream-pools is / you never get to swim.’ That will stick with me.”
“Visiting the Gardens at DePugh Nursing Center, Winter Park, Florida” by Vivian ShipleyPosted by Rattle
Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2020: Artist’s Choice
Image: “Pool Head” by Pat Singer. “Visiting the Gardens at DePugh Nursing Center, Winter Park, Florida” was written by Vivian Shipley for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2020, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
Comment from the artist, Pat Singer: “The way this poem unfolds feels very real and unexpected. I enjoy the surprising and unpredictable way that the sister’s tumor introduces the visual of the pool inside the mind. The writer captured the grim, desolate reality of visiting someone who is unable to care for themselves anymore. Visiting someone who’s a husk of what they once were is difficult, sobering, and emotional. The words the writer uses conveys these feelings with raw power and an authentic voice. The visual cues tie in well with the art literally, but also manages to expand the meaningfulness into something much more robust and with more depth than what is on the surf.”