Ekphrastic Challenge 10
The winning poem and a selection chosen by editor and judge, Emily Tee
Artwork by Susie Wright
This was the toughest contest yet to judge - once again we had a deluge of entries. It was difficult to narrow it down to a list for the newsletter. Take heart if you missed out this time as there were so many good poems. Thank you to everyone who wrote for providing a wide selection of takes on the art.
The winning poem, which blew me away with its relaxed yet engaging conversational style and clever wordplay and imagery, is "Copper-bottomed".
Special mention too for the following poems “Forth Bridge & The Cantilever”, “Spirits of Forth”, and “The Bridge of Wings”.
Congratulations to everyone with poems included below.-Emily Tee, editor and judge of our Ekphrastic Challenges.
Congragtulations to Georgette Mouawad from Australia for her winning poem “Copper-bottomed”! A Wee Sparrow Poetry Press notebook is winging its way to her.
Copper-bottomed I’d like to assemble myself into the shape of a bridge, one foot on either side of shore. I would like to divide myself into more options and leave behind the crux, the outcome, or the choice you made that feels so out of reach. I think I would be copper, strikingly strong, rusted by Atlantic winds, bearing all the weight of packaged goods that do not belong here, but that I get to enjoy anyway. I’d be fluent in ‘bon voyage’ and ‘buen viaje,’ with as many ‘hellos’ as ‘goodbyes.’ And I’d be smeared with revolutionary taglines and your name, again and again, laughing as I’m scrubbed clean of it, only to be painted over. All the while, I’d still be supported by pier cap piles, arches, and girders. Never the destination, yet bearing the joy of it. The story; the beginning, the arc, the process. If only my steps could point in every direction, just as my thoughts do. And yet, here I sit - Still, but not copper-bottomed. - Spirits of Forth In thrall, cloud cover blushes a little, Loitering swells laze, pinkening in thrill, Over, and beneath. This triumvirate of matchstick lattice heaps - hexagonal, bundled weblike in a row - spans the firth. A mile and more of it, pillar box red, hails loudly off-canvas guests - curious like the glistening grey twitch-whiskered seal Or lost as the barnacled humpback whale. Circling, misty eyed, three thousand feet up, Awed, craning bird's-eye viewers in descent wonder at its scope and longevity, and at briggers' families' give-and-take. In memoriam the seventy-eight Noel Cowley England - The Search Party even the riverboats on the Seine could feel it something was lost that evening I went there by myself saw it unfold with my own eyes there were no cruises the morning after no starry night parties murmuring love songs on the water the Eiffel Tower in the background no tomorrow in mind people waited on the riverfront nowhere to be found the riverboats real friends they formed a search party a fleet into the horizon above and beyond now, with purpose find the meaning of love and why one must fight for it Amir Shojaei - The Bridge of Wings The sky has dawned Venetian grey in patterned mackerel tones of haze, the bridge of wings lights up the dawn, the water at this moment, flowing tranquil, still, without a sound, no cars, no walkers, dogs or joggers, all is calm, peaceful, serene, a silent glint of crimson steel. Or is this more than fleeting beauty? This hint of an exotic East, this butterfly bridge of vibrant pink and quiet sense of time unchecked, of time gone by or that still yet to come; a future which we all long for when we might be forever young on opal mornings just like this, in some pearlescent, springtime sun. Or is this, just that - a passing whim in these unbroken, early hours whilst breathing out and breathing in? Eoin Lane Northern Ireland - Under Red Arches It was in that Inn next to that bridge, a rare family gathering, occasion long forgotten, Words not so. Wine red words disguised in smiles, Sister, long gone, accusing, You always do what you want to do. Fleeing to that bridge, under those arches, I peer up through struts, Through engineered miracle, Sending up a non-believer’s prayer. A thrumming from southwards, A bone-vibrating chanting, Northwards came the answer, The Highlands. Home. Under those arches, Under that bridge, There I found shelter, There I was me. Deborah Nolan Invernessian living in Vietnam - The Red Bridge Latticed for air flow, load bearing, the old red bridge bypasses the tedium of ferry, or long routes over by boat. Meanwhile, the water flows, rising, and the sky changes colour, as the struts of the bridge accrue refuse, waste and erosion. Three-barrelled, the bridge shouts our expectation - before we understood - of perpetual progress, conquering all challenges. And its span remains useful still for travellers exploring this beautiful, wild country. Janet Laugharne Wales, UK. - Golden Ignorance Grew up thinking I was mostly Irish ‘til I learned my grandfather was mostly Scottish. Felt like a punch to the solar plexus, if only for reasons of misplaced pride. Maybe that’s why my great aunt gave me an Irish rosary blessed in Scotland, real-life faith-based foreshadowing. Or maybe it foreshadowed a day I’d start writing a poem about the Golden Gate Bridge, inspired by an artistic rendition of the Forth Rail Bridge in Scotland. My self-centric ego taking another hit from self-imposed ignorance upon realization. But my ignorance doesn’t make “Saint Andrew’s Cross” any less majestic, maybe even more-so, for me, as I look into ancestral histories long neglected, wondering if they lived by the Firth of Forth or ever set foot in Queensferry North. Tony Daly - Transplant My great grandmother stands by the low rock wall that looks out over the moor, heather wind blows her hair, wild as sparrow wings As she carried me, so I carry her in tears that well at all periled and liminal things beguiled young soldiers, coiled and clinging tendrils She bends, gathering handfuls of prickly Hawthorn to make a healing tea for her feverish daughter feral child of the fragrant heath and moaning wind Her eyes flash like summer lightning at seeing her people torn out by the roots carrying their bundles, their rosary beads and ballads to an America that promises so much She knows in her bones, the fragile ones that I share in my face, hands that such roots rarely transplant She will be one of those who gets on the ship but never leaves I know this, not from any records, for she disembarked at Ellis Island under the shadow of the Lady of Liberty I know this because of my yearning for fierce grey seas, screaming gulls, swaths of fog, and impossible cliffs and because, when the moon is new in a tenebrous sky I hear her requiem for all that was lost, its keening vibrato in the distant stars Donna Burke Esgro USA - The Bridge They watched it grow piece by piece across a great divide between two worlds of opposites one truth the other lies and when one day the pieces met and worlds passed side by side there was a time of reckoning as truth caught up with lies – they grappled myopically so neither really won leaving gaps in their rhetoric for mistrust to soldier on and so it was each time they crossed fragmenting cracks appeared causing the builders of the bridge to observe with growing dread the folly of humankind to be the bridges greatest threat. Anna Dean Australia - silence at sunset crossing the sound Nick T England - a crocheted trio between heaven and water mapping the distance Katherine E Winnick UK - The Bay of Aberdeen Bridget, an intrepid soul with a heart of gold Sails across the marshy bay in a jerry-rigged skiff When suddenly she happens upon a fiery red bridge Connecting nothing to nothing—absolutely nothing at all Neither man nor woman, neither beast nor machine Sets foot, paw, or wheel on its thirty sturdy girders Spaced between the mossy rocks and lazy turtles With their slippery slopes and slowly blinking eyes Bridget lays her paddle down to ponder what she sees A gray-green wetland against blue and purple mountains Such strange and wondrous enchantment-like surroundings Yet cannot take her puzzled gaze off the fiery red bridge In the silence and the solitude, Bridget breathes a sigh Gathers up her watercolors and an easel if you please To paint the scene her eyes behold so others might believe A bridge that goes to nowhere in the Bay of Aberdeen Michael H. Lester USA - The Bridge The bridge required eighty thousand tonnes of best quality weathering steel plus three coats of one hundred and ninety gallons of paint. They chose blood red which glows pink in the lyric dawn as sun slants across the drowning mud of tidal flats. My people no more have to wait for miracles to part the waves and carve a way; they crowd on trains and gladly head towards the promised home where work sets you free. Clive Donovan England - Forth Bridge as Cipher The bridge stopped Alan Turing to ask for a sonnet as a test of AI and it seems a good one, so far as tests go, but forgets about red under tension and coiled power of steel and stone while the water laughs, sometimes. Certainly the water shouts icy words, too, now and then, so it might have been better to ask him for a haiku or sestina. Maybe a crown of sonnets to catch shadow and reflections on water at the pub below. Throw in wide welcome of steady span from side to side as folk go forth at dawn or dusk. Then put music of that poetry into motion to console the widow walking her hound on the footpath near sand where children play, heedless of the bridge. Perhaps it’s prose, but I watch three sisters arrive robed in red arches while clickety-clack rumble accompanies their song. Scott LaMascus USA - Forth Bridge & The Cantilever The genius of the cantilever means you don't need falsework and can build over space. The engineers stood at the tidal firth to calculate the tracery into existence, metal spillikins that will triangulate for years, through storms, carrying freight rumbling, heavy weighted, iron-shod wheels, carrying Forth trains across the wide span. They had to know it would work. Not guess. A solid structure that started as an idea, something purely mental, growing inside the minds of these two Victorian engineers, that had never been achieved at scale before—the sheer heft of imagination where steel means hope, future, pride; where utility and beauty engage force to create an enduring flight over water. Ben Bruges - Bridge What is inspiring about any bridge Apart from it being a connection South to North, even East to West Joined in strength with all the rest It might even be every iron section To span a river from ridge to ridge A meaningful linking of two shores Like a firm handshake across a river It may be intended for road or rail For goods or passengers, even mail All cold steel, yet will never shiver Its strong beauty makes one pause Standing proud, it is an inspiration Just as it was always intended to be With solid foundations laid so deep Ever functional, it won’t ever sleep Still considered as a mainline artery Howard Osborne UK - She is all the water in the estuary, the wide sky. Rosy blush in her sunrise, as above, reflected so below. Pinkened, roused, she is bound. Red cords rivetted in tension precise around Her beauty, her waters, every breath of cloud. A single strait divides her down her Centreline. Her tides, her skies tight, she may not Extend an arm, straighten knees. Each truss tense under Forces shared and balanced, passing deep to an occult foundation. Her reflection here is everything. She is borne over the new light. Hushed in anticipation. Alastair McIvor A Canadian currently living in Austria. - Pruntin Paradox You’ll can prunt the brig oan sheaf o pure rid ochre ae screed o cerulean, anither whitenin snaw. Pit nae merks upoan her jaggy bricht form- fur she’ll sall niver be paintit mair- bi strappin men equipped wi yokes an besoms- nor lass, wi sprud an brayer in her paw. Ruth Reid Scotland - The Connection The bridge with its red girders looms across the waters steady, impervious to time. It is early, before the clouds vanish and the day proceeds into its deafening noise. Eventually, cars, boats, and people will arrive. The bridge untouched by it all stands, crimsoning the river, a lighthouse just waiting to connect . . Rupa Anand India - Bridges Louis sailed away in 19-29 Three sisters and a brothers left to wonder where He went to the USA and married Kathryn Sent a letter, long, long ago, telling of a baby son, Gary Years and years later, searching for family Immersed in the wonders, of the World Wide Web DNA’s double helixes reveals family ties Swirls rivetted to solid lines Spanning great gulfs of emptiness Rivers and rapids of information Adding dotted lines for adoption Dotted lines, but there, in bold, part of the family. Solid bridges to healing hurts of being abandoned Adopted, no DNA, no genome sequence Only bright, red, triple span bridges linking Bridging across decades, bridging across generations Bringing cousins together, to hug and share And forgive and accept with kindness Theres’s never a bridge too far Julia Vaughan Australia
Here´s Emily Tee´s wonderful poem - An Ode to The Forth Bridge Three red giants spanning the Forth with feet that are piers sunk deep your diamonds criss-crossing both sky and the sea lapping within the firth. Your enormity a talking point, you offer joined up thinking, open arms of welcome, of recognition. What rail traffic you have carried, two-way thoroughfares moving lives across, conveying the passage of time - even your paintwork's worth remarking, its remaking's the symbol of longevity. Keep on, carry us into a brighter future that no gale, smirr or haar can besmirch. And a wee scribble by someone called T.W. Warrpos... Fae Shore tae Shore like Nessie o´the loch red girders curve lattice shadows ripple in this firth hoolies, hail n heat yet still ye stand lang arms reach up claspin´ metal hands daily thrum n rumble back n forth precious life transported south n north great silent witness o´ a hundred years n more lang may ye remain fae shore tae shore
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Happy writing!
A wee minding too that there are lots of super episodes over at The Wee Sparrow Poetry Podcast and many more to come…
Stay well and stay creative, you lovely lot.
Congratulations to all 🌷
Beautiful. I particularly love Donna's poem Transplant ❤️