Samantha Gee

August 31, 2017

“After Cleaning the Kitchen Again, He Realizes” by Rosemerry Wahtola TrommerPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2017: Editor’s Choice

 

Portrait of a Kitchen by Samantha Gee

Image: “Portrait of a Kitchen” by Samantha Gee. “After Cleaning the Kitchen Again, He Realizes” was written by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2017, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

AFTER CLEANING THE KITCHEN AGAIN, HE REALIZES

Don’t look in the sink for happiness.
It sounds so obvious. But even the shiniest,
cleanest sink is still only a sink.
Don’t look in the cupboards.
Don’t look in the fridge. Don’t look
to the tile floor—though this
is a place we’ve danced before.
Even the stovetop, the home of flame
and chemical change—the burners
are not what we seek. Of course
we look to the kitchen. The center
of everything. Don’t look out
the open window. Don’t expect
from the empty green vase.
The only thing that’s ever mattered
were the lovers in this space.
No matter how clean the counters.
No matter how soft the breeze.
It’s us, my love, it’s us that’s missing.
It’s us that we most need.

—Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2017
Editor’s Choice

[download audio]

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Comment from the editor, Timothy Green, on this selection: “Samantha Gee’s painting generated a wide range of responses—some saw nostalgic breakfasts, others saw the loneliness of retirement, and many saw ghosts, which was surprising, because I don’t see ghosts at all. Very few of the 300 entries were love poems, though. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer hooked me with that first line, which does indeed ‘sound so obvious’—so simple and wise that I think I must have read it before, but it turns out no one has. Lines like that are rare, as are fresh and authentic love poems like these. It fit the painting, and lifted my spirits, frankly. I hope it lifts yours, too.”

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August 24, 2017

“My First Body Is Beautiful Until” by Reese ConnerPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2017: Artist’s Choice

 

Portrait of a Kitchen by Samantha Gee

Image: “Portrait of a Kitchen” by Samantha Gee. “My First Body Is Beautiful Until” was written by Reese Conner for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2017, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Reese Conner

MY FIRST BODY IS BEAUTIFUL UNTIL

On the kitchen floor, years ago,
peeled potatoes roll, slippery
as skulls—all the ugliness
sticks to their wet flesh and
it’s hard not to see analogy in that.

I tickle static into my first body—
it rises brightly, rises from the kitchen
and begins to tend to half-crescent stains
on counters, to supper dishes in the sink,
to routines necessary even in nostalgia.

I begin making mashed potatoes. I start
by peeling, scalping with a knife.
It’s fun to see how perfectly round
I can make them. They feel so slick
to shift in my hand. My first body
is a celebration of touch because
my first body has no reflection—
it has not been urged to see one yet.

It is my birthday and I am about
to try on a new pair of checkered
pink pants. But they don’t fit.
My hips are too wide now
and I trip trying to squirm in.
The thud calls my grandmother,
who comes expecting something
broken, but finds, instead,
my first body for the last time
and offers it its first reflection:
And aren’t you chunky.

All this while, the ancient skulls hide
beneath the refrigerator. I left them there
because they were broken
the moment they kissed earth. Like
all disappointments, they deserved
a hiding place, so I nudged them.

—Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2017
Artist’s Choice

[download audio]

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Comment from the artist, Samantha Gee, on this selection: “I was struck by the delightfully macabre imagery as well as the disconnect of the narrator’s existence in the temporary body. A lot of the poems I read made reference to the faded figure in the center of the painting as a ghost and faded memories; I thoroughly enjoyed how this poem puts the reader in the figure’s shoes as they take their first curious steps.”

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