So what is ekphrasis? Writing inspired by other art– usually but not always visual art. Ekphrastic poems, ephrastic stories, they all make their way from the minds of writers observing art.
The most well-known literary journal focused on ekphrasis is The Ekphrastic Review, founded and edited by Lorette C. Luzajic. Now the journal has published two anthologies of gorgeous ekphrastic writings. Must reads!!!
One of them is The Metaphor Tree.
Here is a stunning sample of a poem from the collection:
Ukraine Pastoral
after A Horse in Sadness, by Maria Prymachenko (Ukraine) 1962
Now the red tulips erupt from the underworld like a
charge, tight green wings holding bullets under wrap.
The dark horse stops & gazes—he is riderless & his red
reins dangle under a sunflower sky. Here a fallen pine,
there the church that sank into the earth leaving a wooden
cross, tipped. A freshet runs beneath his hooves. We are
not shown where his rider has gone, perhaps drifting
inside another kind of dream—a kingdom that allows for
the growing & grinding & baking of wheat, where the
sky only thunders with storm & darkens with night. The
horse cannot proceed from the frame. His only course
disappeared in the eye of the beloved, the weight of the
brush on his tender back. A painting lost to fire.
Kim Hamilton
Note: This painting was housed in the Museum of Local History in Ivankiv, Ukraine,
burned by Russian forces in 2022
Terriby sad that the painting is no more.
***
The other anthology is Blood Dance. These flash stories are all dark.
I am lucky to have two stories in this one (one that takes place in a bell tower and the other about a female grim reaper), but I want to share a story by Jane Salmon. At first the ending seems like maybe it’s telling me too much. Until I think about it a little more. 🙂
Night Flight
after Flying Dream (Ellen K), by Tabitha Vevers (USA) 2000
Late at night, I fly all over the house.
From the living room ceiling, I watch Father and Mother reading. Father in his green armchair, smoking his pipe behind his Sports Argus; the top of his head smooth and white as a raven’s egg. Mother bathed in a pool of yellow lamplight, with Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.
The house is deathly quiet and I fly to places I’m not allowed in the daytime. On the top of my parents’ rosewood wardrobe, I discover a brass telescope, mask and snorkel, a crow’s wing.
Entranced, I drift down the stone stairs to the cellar. As my eyes adjust to the gloom, I notice an owl skeleton hanging from a hook on the wall. Next to a heap of coal is a massive tin trunk. I can just make out my name, etched onto the clasp. Heart pounding, I open the lid an inch or two, and peek inside. The trunk is so empty and black I can’t see the bottom.
“Hello!” I call, expecting an echo.
Instead, there’s a flapping of feathers, a scratching of claws and a horrible stink. Instinctively, I know there’s a creature kept captive against its will.
Jane Salmons
