Ekphrastic Challenge 12
The winning poem and a selection chosen by editor and judge, Emily Tee
Artwork by Ellen Craft
This artwork seemed to beg for a narrative for the ringing bell, and poets, you did not disappoint! Many different interpretations of the backstory of the building and inhabitants were forthcoming! Thanks to everyone who entered - the poems I selected for the newsletter stood out to me because of the connection with the artwork combined with the fine crafting of the poems. The winning poem this time is "I Play the Daf", which combines the link to Ellen Craft's art with a hauntingly beautiful poem with a strong emotional impact and lasting resonance with the reader. Special mention goes to the following poems: "Last of the Protestants"; "Reversion"; "[the church leans into gray]"
-Emily Tee, editor and judge of our Ekphrastic Challenges.
Congratulations to Eliza Clark from the UK for her winning poem “I Play the Daf”!
I Play the Daf I climbed the stairs to heaven—I didn’t knock. Its doors were expecting me in the house above the rafters, I played the daf— its goatskin drumhead humming under my palms. Yes, the world is falling apart: but I am the one standing. Come inside. The sky is painted blue, purple, and white— white falling like the stars are no longer anchored. Shall I catch them? No, I’ll keep playing the daf until those nearby hear me: life is too precious like a tiny ant minding its own business. I play the daf. Come. Join us. In this place, still standing, we will laugh, love, and live while the white rain falls and the grey smoke makes love to it. It shouts my mother’s name— my father’s cry, my children playing inside. - The Bell Still Tolls (After John Donne) It is easy to believe that we who inhabit this island are somehow separate, entire of ourselves. But when blood flows, when it mingles with the sea, it will touch these shores eventually. No blockade is sufficient. Though diluted, we will feel its sting - vinegar in a paper cut. If a single grain of sand is washed away, it is as a clod, a manor, a promontory. With each child’s death, we are all diminished. Because we are all involved. And though the peal of distant bells may scarce disrupt your reverie, ask not for whom they toll. They toll still for thee. Jonathan Aylett UK - Triptych: Borderlines starless the omissions in my story dilate into a gaze— stillness of a Buddha sinking into the deep. the firmament hisses from the eye of a compass: a seismic seizure tugging at the trembling needle of my existence. brouillon clouds form, unform— a blurred horizon swallows so much noise it becomes sound itself, riding the wings of my airplane— its tail a stanza stitching contested sky. wilderness a young girl wanders through arched doorways, fingers scattering breadcrumbs in the undergrowth of memory, searching for a silence that will speak her name across the line. Kashiana Singh USA - It Resonates Ankles crossed beneath the pew, she wears a pendant made from a thumbprint, wonders if she brings more here to sit with than she takes in. Her own thumb separates thin pages edged in gold. Eyes closed, she floats among dusky blues and grays. The bell outside lulls her into a zone like the singing bowls do at the studio in town, the one with weighted blankets. She makes small offerings there too, extends a lifeline to another Sunday. April Woody USA - The church leans into gray- not storm-gray, but grief-gray, the kind that settles in bones. The bell is rust-colored silence. It forgets how to call the living. Pale yellow traces across the wall- Soft as doubt, fading like old prayer. Blue pools in corners- not holy blue, not sky, but the blue of waiting too long. No red here. No warmth. White peels into hollow. Black remains where the windows once wept. The green has long gone. The gold has turned it back. Still, the blue stays. Still, The Blue Stays. Ms. Jenn USA - Reversion Memory holds me here deep in dream’s dominion and takes me back to a time when the world seemed to pause with wonder before welcoming us and each day would be so much the less without the sound of the stream’s ruffled purl, choruses of birdsong and the chapel bell that, together, helped to lift our hearts towards heaven, but now the world feels abandoned and found wanting, and though I can still recall the dusty light and howls of wind that pierced the spaces between the chapel’s weathered wood, I’m unsure how to render what’s become of the nearby groves and hills that once peaceably fell away into the valley but have now given ground to the clamor of crows and an unobstructed view of oversized houses, sprawling lawns and the brittle tick and spray of sprinklers, and all one can do is recall those sweeter offertories of song and tend to them with a ruptured heart and ask that a heaven’s worth of trespass might somehow still be forgiven. John Muro USA - Little Church in the West “Come one, come all,” the church tolling bell calls its peel rings in its single proud tower open-book roof covers over church stalls soon to fill through papal-shrouded porch door weather-worn walls flaking paint to primer rough-hewn wood fitting state to celebrate as rustic rules are measured old-timers an ill-wind blows grey cloud to congregate wondering if the bride is on her way under sufferance the groom will arrive squint-eyed windows never avert their gaze hoping they can leave married and alive old wood bleached by a scorching wild west sun new vows taken witnessed by a shotgun Peter R Longden England - Last of the Protestants Apples engulf it. By the first dusk of summer fierce gales clang the bell. Gothic amethyst spider-webbed glass panes rattle gulls in the belfry. Fog veils the raised roots erosion; taupe woodsmoke cloaks the gable decay. Spooked gulls shook that bell. Necking, communion-wine drunk two in the belfry swore to god they were there to pray, swore of cyclones nobody believed— three murmurations. Earth chattering of starlings swarms gorging on reds pinks—greens, the last hangers-on we fled through the vestry. Robert E. Ray USA - When the Bell Stops Level We all get our own chime of bell metal A signal at the end of a life's journey But what will remain when the bell stops level? From the tip of a cupola top, a breeze blows gentle And the clapper above swings while the people below hurry We all get our own chime of bell metal Like faded church glass during a Sunday morning special All our visions of success are scattered with worry But what will remain when the bell stops level? We can try to escape but our destiny has already been settled Our fate can't be changed and what we want is unworthy We all get our own chime of bell metal We've built our dreams on deals with the devil Although we are sure the foundation is not sturdy But what will remain when the bell stops level? Our bodies and minds are merely mortal vessels Yet we allow this to feed our anxiety We all get our own chime of bell metal But what will remain when the bell stops level? Brendan Dawson Italy - Behold the launching bell, fighter planes, the shady character safely distant from the action. Orders by state. Calls from religion. Its ringing sounds warning, mourning in every purple window and archway. An ancient practice tolling, telling, tolling a cautionary tale. Janet Laugharne Wales, UK - Faith’s Leap from Walls Behind amaranthine walls, Inside rainbowed stained-glass doors & windows on dankish carpets well-trod in obeisance of psalms, Belief, to many, may not squeeze in. But when faith takes a leap, Bells on steeples toll in resonance to echoes of calls from the earth and the sky — A paradisiacal pentimento unveils to reveal on the wall — Divine brush strokes from the palette of clouds; and Reason bows, does not cavil; Bathed in numinous apricity, Singing plainsong of earth to the sky. C. Oulens India - Here´s Emily Tee´s wonderful poem - Home at last There's no-one left to talk about that day when walls still stood, before the town fell. The last families left not long after that, the final day when one brave man alone, a man who'd seen it all, seen far too much, climbed the tower to ring the chapel bell. His warning saved so many but cost him too. He'd already lost his home and family by then. Now, when the conditions are just right, when dark storm clouds rumble nearby, they say the chapel glows as if its full again, as if its bombed out walls still stand. And some claim to see him up there. At last, they say, he's made it back home. A figure ringing warning on the chapel bell, when walls still stood, before the town fell.
A wee reminder that we are hosting an online poetry reading fundraiser on the theme of "hope" on Sunday 10th August to support Palestinian poet Haia Mohammed. If you would like to come along, you can find the full details here.
Wee olive branch sparrow by Colin Thom
Incredible poems. Thank you so much Emily and everyone 🙏🏻☺️
Congratulations to Eliza and well done to everyone on these beautiful poems in the short list ❤️