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Wishing every reader, writer, and friend of The Ekphrastic Review a very merry Christmas, filled with blessings and joy.
Thank you to every one of you for being part of this incredible community. love, Lorette The Lacemaker Her eyes are in her fingers. They act as one, bring peace to her face. She’s the lacemaker, unaware that her curls fall carelessly into space, oblivious to what cushions her work, deep purples, russets, and reds that frame her life. Only the task before her counts, caught here by Vermeer in an eternal now. We don’t consider that this is really a vanitas painting. Nor do we contemplate how that placid face became a pale skeleton, her golden chemise disintegrated, her carefully parted hair indistinguishable from the earth that surrounds her grave. Charlie Brice Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His chapbook, All the Songs Sung (Angel Flight Press), and his fourth poetry collection, The Broad Grin of Eternity (WordTech Editions) arrived in 2021. His poetry has been nominated twice for the Best of Net Anthology and three times for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Atlanta Review, Chiron Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Ibbetson Street, The Paterson Literary Review, Impspired Magazine, and elsewhere. Packing Up Old Photo Albums A dusty family album on a shelf, a photograph of relatives long dead: a boozy garden party, leis, straw hats -- they toast the camera behind jovial masks. In the transubstantiation of the flash their faces are miraculously young, almost unrecognizable, until memory adjusts its lens and a lost world swims into focus. It must have been shortly after the War. There are no children in the scene or swelling abdomens: most look barely past their teens, returning conquerors before the fog of peace enveloped them. Who knows what bawdy tales they shared in this exuberance of youth, as sweat beaded their drinks and beers and dampened the plaid tablecloth? Who knows who flirted, who was shy? Life shimmers in the Kodachrome: the slant of sunlight on a glass, a flag stirred by an unfelt wind. This uncle’s life was filled with pain, his mind gutted by electroshock. The peace he found came on a moonlit beach, casting for silvery striped bass that gleamed as they were reeled onto the sand. The woman in the grass skirt was my mother. She stands apart, eyes hidden from my gaze, a drink held in one slender hand, sunglasses in the other. The sky was either clear or threatening rain. Phil Keller Phil Keller is a 70-year-old recovering lawyer living in Montpelier, Vermont. He began writing poetry about 10 years ago after the last of his children left the house and he suddenly found himself with empty time on his hands. He has previously been published in Prairie Schooner and The Wine Cellar Press. The Sea’s Treatise I entered the world already wed―bound to sky, my fathomless other. We were one continuous shimmer over the land; a blue bliss of wind and current, gannet and manta. On the third day, divided; or so it was written. The seam at the farthest edge of your vision― horizon―an illusion, for day and night we brush against one another at that imaginary parallel. Even clothed in gloom, she falls upon me, rides me into swells, into motion. Her moods colour mine. God is not that pitiless. Barbara Sabol Barbara Sabol's fourth poetry collection, Imagine a Town, was awarded the 2019 Sheila-Na-Gig Editions Poetry Prize. Her poetry has appeared most recently in Mezzo Cammin, Evening Street Review, and The Copperfield Review. Barbara’s awards include an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. She conducts poetry workshops for community literary organizations. Barbara lives in Akron, OH with her husband and wonder dogs. Portrait of a Quaker Lady Reading One’s finger in the book, one’s hand holding the brush-- together in an afternoon whose sun barely enters. When a woman looks at a woman and she looks back, what do they see? The drab each wears. The silence in their bones. High words resounding, that they share. Some red weight twisting, hovering overhead. Their foremothers have traveled to preaching, to prison, to the noose. That’s past now; the lady’s face is pale, plain. She has been poured into a mold, has set into a thick and luminous glass. Mrs. Waters moves from town to town after her husband, earning cash, bonneting art and fear inside. She paints precision: each tuck, each frill, each impulse held by testimony. Yet behind the lines, behind dull tones, they each can feel the old joy surging—itinerant, death-bound, wild. Anne Myles Anne Myles is Professor Emerita at the University of Northern Iowa, where she specialized in early American literature. She recently received her MFA in poetry at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has appeared in the North American Review, Split Rock Review, Whale Road Review, Lavender Review, and other journals. She lives in Waterloo, Iowa. Mountain Water Rushing, crashing, trickling-- Flowing down a mountain. Lulling, whirling, singing-- Racing through a valley. Sage and pupil travelled By a glistening stream. The forests were lightless; The mountainside soundless. “Listen closely” whispered The sage to his pupil. “These clear streams and rivers Make their way everywhere.” They listened as they climbed-- Thinking, pausing, wondering. Silence filled each cavern-- Whirling, calling, whistling. “These streams flow everywhere” Said the sage—“Can you hear?” David Gosselin David Gosselin is a poet, translator, and linguist based in Montreal. He is the founder of The Chained Muse poetry website and New Lyre Podcast. His first collection of poems is entitled Modern Dreams. Colours of a Life Shaking fingers trace the outline of each individual petal. A warmth of yellow floats from the ceiling and brushes across your face. Butterflies flit from flower to flower—did you paint those or has the house become alive? The sun in your ceiling sky sends dancing rays over your face and you flush red, as red as the poppies you painted on the walls, as red as the feathers on the Pine Groesbecks you drew peeking from the dense vegetation near the center of your evergreen trees. How is your back so cold when the sky is so warm? Dark shadows scurry from the corners, an inky oil slick of black paint reverse climbing the walls eating the flowers, the butterflies, the cheery orange birdhouse you lovingly, painstakingly worked on for weeks. Its progress is slow but steady and by the time it reaches the sun, your sun, you’re no longer warm. The chill starts at your feet and begins to climb. You keep your eyes open as long as you can hoping you’ll see one more swath of colour before you die. Finnian Burnett Finnian Burnett is a flash fiction addict, a doctoral student, and a creative writing teacher. They're currently working on a novella-in-flash and a queer Hamlet retelling. In their spare time, Finn watches a lot of Star Trek and takes their cat for walks in a stroller. Finn lives in British Columbia with their wife and Lord Gordo, the cat and can be found at www.finnburnett.com If you would like to support The Ekphrastic Review and all that we do, please consider a small or large gift as part of your holiday giving. The journal is free and we charge voluntary submission/reading fees only. We do have contests with entry fees, but recipients get a lovingly curated collection of prompts, and we have cash prizes for those contests. The editor spends 10 to 20 hours each and every week, often more, on The Ekphrastic Review: reading and responding to submissions, responding to inquiries, promoting the journal, newsletters, reviewing for literary nominations and preparing nominations, posting poetry and fiction daily or more, social media, preparing for contests, coordinating collaborations, researching or searching for permissions for artwork, copyediting, preparing challenges, reading challenge entries, selecting responses and preparing posts for bimonthly challenges, and a whole lot more! It is a wonderful and meaningful labour of love, with web, promotional, and other expenses out of pocket. We are most grateful for the gift of time and creativity from guest judges, from our podcast host Brian A. Salmons, from past social media contributors, and from nomination consultant Alarie Tennille. If you would like to support all that we do, please consider a monetary gift. Thank you. You can also support us by purchasing an ebook of prompts, photography, or exercises- this way you receive something just as awesome as your gift! You can also join one of our workshops for an amazing ekphrastic experience. You can also share your time with us: if you would like to be involved in promoting us on social media, please send an email with subject line: SOCIAL MEDIA. We are most grateful to anyone who feels moved to support us at this time. With a giant thanks to everyone who has helped out in the past- thanks to you, here we are. No gift is "too small." We are grateful for all gifts. THANK YOU AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS. Gift of Five
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