Archive
Ekphrasis 6: Emma Kidd + Nathan Horowitz
by Emma Kidd
*
the conference
promotional material
the logo of the company
is a cloud
whose constituent particles
are oceans.
day one
in the afternoon
i look out the window
at the ocean
and see dozens of killer whales.
they begin transforming
leaving the water:
giraffes, bison, elephants, wolves,
fur still black/white.
a woman appears in the room with us,
dressed in black and white;
her skin matches theirs.
day two
i have no memory
of day two.
day three
three of us participants
are standing in the surf
turning into orcas.
our bodies grow, the shape changes,
our heads, even our teeth change,
our hands fan out
and the flesh grows together,
our tails grow out
and split into flukes.
the orcas are out there in the water
inviting us in,
egging us on.
now they’re laughing like mad,
because no matter what our skill
in growing fins and tails,
we’re still standing there on our legs.
closing ceremony
were plankton really
singing gregorian chants?
i’ll be back
next year.
Ekphrasis 5: Ian Jones + Amy Watkins
“The Big Blue Church,” by Ian Jones
*
First Dream
There is no figure to relate
to myself, but I am drawn
up the church’s yellow path,
past the mud-colored and disproportioned
tree, over the flat expanse
of coral earth, to stand before
the church’s lowest window.
Square and straight, it is unlike
the others, too close to the foundation
for any but a child
to look through it. I look
through it without bending.
I have become very small,
small as in the first dream
I remember: standing in a tall crowd,
faces lost in darkness over me,
the hood of my winter coat—
the same pale blue as the mountains
in the painting—pulled up around my face.
The dream girl and the girl
I have become stare at each other
through the blurry lowest window
of the blue church. The door
of the church has no handles.
It opens only from the inside.
by Amy Watkins of Rossism
Ekphrasis 4: Lori Witzel + Mikey Delgado
by Lori Witzel
*
In a barn in P———– in spring
What happened here is this—the long
smell of the sacking and the engine oil
across the many years and the scrape
of the concrete on my writhing back
and the throat-blocked voice breathing stop
and the plea HELP scratched into a timber
by my adored mouth and the roar of a tractor
after lunch across the fields and some brave bird
coming to the tree to herald spring as we
by its music are dragged across the gritted floor
our hips rising and twisting and sunlight
of March quality striping the gaps at the edges
of the vertical banded doors and this—what
is it—apprehension of a shotgun death flitting
across the mind as the farmer hoists to his shoulders
my white wintered legs and denies me life
and channels into me his own shoaling river
and calls me beautiful beautiful beautiful
and kneels like the crucifix of a weathered man
with ankles in his hands which move as if salting meat.
Ekphrasis 3: Peter
The Window
Panning her eyes over my
small white lawn and life,
my Realtor smudges,
absently feeling for
the encased vinyl lattice,
and fades to Xanadu.
She knows I left no gold
mosaic, no mahogany
breakfast table stretched to
a gaudy passive aggression.
I was never great enough
to be that small, to wish
inside a snow globe. She
knows. She turns from
the window, frames the light
perspiration on my deathbed
upstairs, then cuts to our
finished basement’s furnace
whose tossing flames never
dream of my plastic sled.
by Peter of Slow Reads
Ekphrasis 2: Emma Kidd + Kate Sheckler
by Emma Kidd
*
The Island
The Island
at the end of all those other islands,
beads strung by bridges
all end at the dangling rosary of . . .
The Island.
Promises of peace,
like prayers un/answered.
Circumscribed, boundaried, trapped
by lapping limitation.
Here Sirens perch, the white powder of lotus
in outstretched palms.
by Kate Sheckler
Ekphrasis 1: Jean + Teju Cole
by Jean Morris of this too
*
Traveling Mercies
Let the sieving-out
of what is possible
from what has been
given, the work of
naming the touchable,
the not-knowing,
the staying imperfectly
still, the question
that comes at 2am
and won’t stop ringing
the doorbell to the brain,
the being journeyed
through, the trembling
in the spinal-cord,
the walking with a limp,
the understanding that
passes all peace,
the half-light after too
long a light, the end
of unceasing renovation,
the shadow life, continue.
by Teju Cole
A Note from the Editors
CLARIFICATION (March 6): Contributors need not respond solely to images in the gallery, but we must be able to either reproduce or link to an image. If the image you’re responding to is copyrighted and it’s not already on the web, you’d have to get permission from the artist for us to reproduce it.
- We’re pleased to open the March-April edition of qarrtsiluni by welcoming the new guest editors, Pica – writer, bird-lover, and calligrapher extraordinaire of Feathers of Hope, and Lori Witzel, the gifted photographer, artist and poet behind Chatoyance. It’s very appropriate that they’ve teamed up for the new theme, Ekphrasis, which means “poetry in dialogue with visual art.” Here’s what they have to say about it:
“This qarrtsiluni theme pairs submissions in poetry, or poetic prose, with a form of visual art. Ideally they need not be by the same person: this is a collaborative experiment. Non-bloggers are particularly encouraged to participate. Find a partner whose work you admire and have at it!
The visual art contributions will be posted in our gallery [link removed at completion of issue] awaiting writers – check back often over the next two weeks, as we will have more to share.
All work, visual and otherwise, will be reviewed and juried by the editors before publishing. Poems should be no longer than 30 lines; prose pieces should be no longer than 500 words. Image files should be a maximum of 500 pixels in width.”
Submissions for Ekphrasis are now officially open; please see our newly revised How to Contribute page for the nitty-gritty details of how to submit your work. The deadline is April 15.
–Beth Adams and Dave Bonta, managing editors
qarrtsiluni 