Art Inspiring Poetry

There’s a long tradition of poetry responding to visual art (and vice versa), and we thought it would be fun to post a challenge. For the first, Judy Keown, cover artist from issue #45, donated a photograph of an argiope spider. We gave poets a month to respond to this photograph in verse, and received 266 entries. Judy Keown and Rattle’s Timothy Green each selected their favorite poem from the submissions and published them online at Rattle.com.

Given how many people seemed to enjoy the Ekphrastic Challenge, we’ve decided to make it a monthly series, using open submissions of artwork when necessary. Visual art submissions will open again in December 2020.

If you’re a poet, come back to this page every month to find a new piece of art to inspire your poetry. You’ll have one month to write and submit your poems. Two winners—one chosen by the artist and the other by Rattle’s editor—will receive online publication and $100 each month.

For the month of September, our image is the piece below by Pat Singer (click for a larger version). Find more of Pat’s work atpatsingerart.com, but be sure to only submit poems about the image below!







Submission Deadline:

September 30th





__________

Previous Winners

July 2020 – Aurore Uwase Munyabera’s “Conflict Resolution”

Artist’s Choice:

“Stepfather”

Anna Cianciolo

Editor’s Choice:

“Circles”

Nikita Parik

June 2020 – Denise Sedor’s “The Old Paper Mill”

Artist’s Choice:

“Eulogy”

Brenda Lee Ranta

Editor’s Choice:

“Upstate”

Marc Alan Di Martino

May 2020 – Megan Merchant’s “Shadowplay”

Artist’s Choice:

“Copulations”

Marjorie Thomsen

Editor’s Choice:

“There Are Two of Us”

Vasvi Kejriwal

April 2020 – Laura R. McCullough’s “Mund”

Artist’s Choice:

“The Larger Half”

Eric Kilpatrick

Editor’s Choice:

“Presidential Fitness Test”

Bill Hollands

March 2020 – Kenneth Borg’s “Cour des Voraces”

Artist’s Choice:

“Vast Silence”

Sally Cobau

Editor’s Choice:

“Rain” (haiku)

Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

February 2020 – Marc Alan Di Martino’s “Indietro”

Artist’s Choice:

“They Tried to Cover Her Up”

Stephanie Shlachtman

Editor’s Choice:

“When Peeled Back”

Mary Ann Honaker

January 2020 – Kate Peper’s “Open All Night”

Artist’s Choice:

“An Index of Visitors”

Ajay Kumar

Editor’s Choice:

“Cheer”

Sean Kelbley

December 2019 – Natalie Seabold’s “Bound”

Artist’s Choice:

“Greetings Unanswered”

Joshua Martin

Editor’s Choice:

“Seeking Purpose”

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

November 2019 – Alice Pettway’s “Dog Walking”

Artist’s Choice:

“The Anatomy of Endings”

Anoushka Subbaiah

Editor’s Choice:

“A Caricature”

Bola Opaleke

October 2019 – Dana St. Mary’s “Brainyo”

Artist’s Choice:

“The Metamorphosis of Gregor Samsa”

Jaime Mera

Editor’s Choice:

“After the Extinction”

Susan Carroll Jewell

September 2019 – Asher ReTech’s “Loss for Words”

Artist’s Choice:

“Artifacts from the Buffalo Trunk Mfg. Co. (Defunct)”

Rachel Welton

Editor’s Choice:

“Budget Cuts”

Danny Eisenberg

August 2019 – Kim Tedrow’s “Thai Bees”

Artist’s Choice:

“Misinterpreting a Collage During Trump’s Presidency”

Jaime Mera

Editor’s Choice:

“Bee Sting in the Eye”

James Valvis

July 2019 – B.A. Van Sise’s “Restricted | U.S. Air Force”

Artist’s Choice:

“Time Travel”

Alida Rol

Editor’s Choice:

“Naming the Beasts”

Elizabeth Morton

June 2019 – Nikki Zarate’s “Blue Whale”

Artist’s Choice:

“Ink Blots”

Matt Quinn

Editor’s Choice:

“Kenai”

Katherine Fallon

May 2019 – Ellen McCarthy’s “Desert Road”

Artist’s Choice:

“The Years We Lived in the Desert”

Megan Merchant

Editor’s Choice:

“The Optimist”

Emily Sperber

April 2019 – Denise Zygadlo’s “Kandinsky’s Slippers”

Artist’s Choice:

“In the Nostalgia Chair”

Matthew Murrey

Editor’s Choice:

“Art Therapy”

Aaric Tan Xiang Yeow

March 2019 – Betsy Mars’s “Floating”

Artist’s Choice:

“Trompe L’oeil”

Juliet Latham

Editor’s Choice:

“Living in Space After a Break-Up”

Jaime Mera

February 2019 – Justin Hamm’s “Work Gloves”

Artist’s Choice:

“Tan Hides and Hard Stuff”

Lisha Nasipak

Editor’s Choice:

“Sometimes a Man Has to Get His Hands Dirty”

Alexandre Mikano

January 2019 – Vasu Tolia’s “Belle of the Ball”

Artist’s Choice:

“Self-Portrait”

Rodrigo Dela Pena

Editor’s Choice:

“My Mother Was a Dancer and She Never Looked Back”

Luigi Coppola

December 2018 – Kari Gunter-Seymour’s “Untitled”

Artist’s Choice:

“Substance”

Peg Duthie

Editor’s Choice:

“Shell Thick and Her Own Planet”

Angie Mason

November 2018 – Nicolette Daskalakis’s “Eat Me”

Artist’s Choice:

“Placebo”

Jill M. Talbot

Editor’s Choice:

“The Happy Game”

Sean Kelbley

October 2018 – Courtney Carroll’s “Hanging Collage”

Artist’s Choice:

“What Is Not Lost”

Sharon Cote

Editor’s Choice:

“Locked Brakes on Blacktop”

Guinotte Wise

September 2018 – Karen Kraco’s “Back of the Beach”

Artist’s Choice:

“Beer, Buoy, Boat, Board”

Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:

“The Happy Meditator”

Katherine Huang

August 2018 – Alexis Rhone Fancher’s “Waiting”

Artist’s Choice:

“That Bit Me”

Matthew Murrey

Editor’s Choice:

“Sonnet for the Night Shift”

Kim Harvey

July 2018 – Bryan DeLae’s “What Once Was”

Artist’s Choice:

“Relic”

Ginny Lowe Connors

Editor’s Choice:

“Grave of a Tourist’s Trap”

Hannah V. Norman

June 2018 – Gretchen Rockwell’s “The Sound of Wings”

Artist’s Choice:

“The Shape of Your Elbow”

Jack McGavick

Editor’s Choice:

“Love Poem to My Wife, with Pigeons”

James Valvis

May 2018 – Jen Ninnis’s “Message in a Bottle”

Artist’s Choice:

“Starfish”

Michael Strand

Editor’s Choice:

“Dispatch from an Inland University”

Jen Jabaily-Blackburn

April 2018 – Melody Carr’s “Through the Looking Glass”

Artist’s Choice:

“Facial Recognition”

Janice Zerfas

Editor’s Choice:

“Your Favorite Writer Is Not Your Mother”

Jill M. Talbot

March 2018 – Marion Clarke’s “Chickens!”

Artist’s Choice:

“Wildflowers”

Paul T. Corrigan

Editor’s Choice:

“The Visitant”

Marietta McGregor

February 2018 – Jeff Doleman’s “Nine Lives”

Artist’s Choice:

“Cobalt Blue”

Christine Michel

Editor’s Choice:

“Bright Blue Muscle Car”

Mike Good

January 2018 – Laura Christensen’s “Muse”

Artist’s Choice:

“Half of Everything”

James Valvis

Editor’s Choice:

“Getting Sober”

James Croal Jackson

December 2017 – Barbara Graff’s “Cinderella Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”

Artist’s Choice:

“Cinderella Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”

Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:

“Here, She Said”

Chris Ransick

November 2017 – Phyllis Meredith’s “Wind-Blown Meadow”

Artist’s Choice:

“Young Medusa in the Fall”

J.P. Dancing Bear

Editor’s Choice:

“Surf Days”

Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

October 2017 – Robb Shaffer’s “Biltmore Backyard”

Artist’s Choice:

“You Moved Your Whole Town”

Paul T. Corrigan

Editor’s Choice:

“A Season of Bricks”

Simon Costello

September 2017 – Jody Kennedy’s “Agnes Was Here”

Artist’s Choice:

“Saved or Spared”

Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:

“Sonnet for the Hole in the Glass”

Zoë Brigley Thompson

August 2017 – Jennifer O’Neill Pickering’s “Street Folks”

Artist’s Choice:

“Trajectory”

Ann Giard-Chase

Editor’s Choice:

“Mint in Pots”

Ann Wuehler

July 2017 – Samantha Gee’s “Portrait of a Kitchen”

Artist’s Choice:

“My First Body Is Beautiful Until”

Reese Conner

Editor’s Choice:

“After Cleaning the Kitchen Again, He Realizes”

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

June 2017 – Ryan Schaufler’s “No Name #2”

Artist’s Choice:

“Blue Rain Clouds, Reddish Ground, and Tall Crosses”

Jose Rizal Reyes

Editor’s Choice:

“A Thousand Possible Clouds”

Valentina Gnup

May 2017 – Soren James’ “Pink Bird Corridor”

Artist’s Choice:

“Birds of a Feather”

Lianne Kamp

Editor’s Choice:

“She Tells Him of Her Fears”

Priyam Goswami Choudhury

April 2017 – Laura Jensen’s “And the Wolf”

Artist’s Choice:

“The Woman and the Wolf”

Melissa Fite Johnson

Editor’s Choice:

“Coyote”

Suzanne Langlois

March 2017 – Lisa Ortega’s “La Familia”

Artist’s Choice:

“Chanclas, Find Our Ground”

Gloria Amescua

Editor’s Choice:

“Modern American Gothic”

Stephen Harvey

February 2017 – Debbie McAfee’s “Hwy 41”

Artist’s Choice:

“Tanka (Lonely Highway)”

Tracy Davidson

Editor’s Choice:

“Threading North and South”

Matthew Murrey

January 2017 – Harry Wilson’s “Days in San Francisco #1, 1984”

Artist’s Choice:

“A Town of Mirrors and Quaking Forty-Fours”

Richard Manly Heiman

Editor’s Choice:

“An Accounting”

Joanna Preston

December 2016 – Chelsea Welsh’s “Caught in the Days Unraveling”

Artist’s Choice:

“Menarche”

Melina Papadopoulos

Editor’s Choice:

“Haiku”

Elizabeth McMunn-Tetango

November 2016 – Arushi Raj’s “Light”

Artist’s Choice:

“The Surface of Light”

Martin Willitts Jr.

Editor’s Choice:

“Illuminated”

Sherry Barker Abaldo

October 2016 – Alexandra de Kempf’s “Family Matters”

Artist’s Choice:

“PTSD”

Bill Glose

Editor’s Choice:

“Nuclear Family Warfare”

Jane Noel Dabate

September 2016 – Ilenia Pezzaniti’s “They All Slept Here”

Artist’s Choice:

“Calendario”

Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:

“HotelReview.com – Stay Where You Are, Which Is Here!”

T.J. Peters

August 2016 – Heshani Sothiraj Eddleston’s “Clay Hands”

Artist’s Choice:

“What We Keep in Clay”

Hannah Siobhan

Editor’s Choice:

“Throwback at the Art Show”

Carol Kanter

July 2016 – Suzanne Simmons’ “Trespass”

Artist’s Choice:

“Eco Echo: An Oldster’s Tale”

Devon Balwit

Editor’s Choice:

“Memoria”

Merlin Ural Rivera

June 2016 – James Croal Jackson’s “Go Your Own Way”

Artist’s Choice:

“I Don’t Understand Poetry”

Jill M. Talbot

Editor’s Choice:

“The Climb”

Jeffrey Bean

May 2016 – Catherine Edmund’s “Castlerigg”

Artist’s Choice:

“Underneath a Car on the Highroad …”

Alexander James

Editor’s Choice:

“Alone in Love”

Mary Meriam

April 2016 – Robert Dash’s “Into the Mystic”

Artist’s Choice:

“Invisible”

Ann Giard-Chase

Editor’s Choice:

“[Here, said the ocean]”

Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr.

March 2016 – Thomas Terceira’s “Metamorphosis 2”

Artist’s Choice:

“To Lose and Catch the Trail”

Claire Kruesel

Editor’s Choice:

“The Balcony Collapses and I Become a Bird”

Rebecca Valley

February 2016 – Dave Thewlis’s “Met”

Artist’s Choice:

“There, in Folded Space, We Must Have Met”

Rommel Chrisden Samarita

Editor’s Choice:

“In the Museum of Cold Ideas”

Ginny Lowe Connors

January 2016 – Ruth Bavetta’s “Chonicle”

Artist’s Choice:

“It Won’t Make the News”

Rosemerry Trommer

Editor’s Choice:

“Anatomy of a Fustercluck”

Stephanie L. Harper

December 2015 – Colleen McLaughlin’s “Contrail”

Artist’s Choice:

“Untitled”

Angela Johnson

Editor’s Choice:

“Contrails”

D.R. James

November 2015 – Megan Tutolo’s “City Night”

Artist’s Choice:

“Map to the Moon”

Matthew Murrey

Editor’s Choice:

“Divining”

Rosemerry Trommer

October 2015 – Ana Prundaru’s “Beach”

Artist’s Choice:

“Kamakura Beach, 1333”

Mary Kendall

Editor’s Choice:

“The View from the Café”

Matt Quinn

September 2015 – Sarah Oyetunde’s “Moon”

Artist’s Choice:

“Sister Moon”

Jane Williams

Editor’s Choice:

“Things You Cannot Answer”

Margaret Donsbach Tomlinson

August 2015 – Howard R. Debs’ “Ice House”

Artist’s Choice:

“Ice House”

Ann Giard-Chase

Editor’s Choice:

“Offering”

Arnold Perrin

July 2015 – Aparna Pathak’s “Goats”

Artist’s Choice:

“Ram Tested at Mount Vert”

Grant Quackenbush

Editor’s Choice:

“Cruelest of All Are the Gods Who Never Frown”

Michael Meyerhofer

June 2015 – Alisa Golden’s “Bench”

Artist’s Choice:

“People of the Megabus”

Justin Barisich

Editor’s Choice:

“Route 9”

Martin Willitts, Jr.

May 2015 – Åsa Antalffy Eriksson’s “Forest”

Artist’s Choice:

“Teeny Tiny”

Matthew Murrey

Editor’s Choice:

“Abduction”

Kate Gaskin

Spring 2015 – Gail Goepfert’s “Friendship Flowers”

Artist’s Choice:

“Potpourri”

Liz N. Clift

Editor’s Choice:

“Location’s Everything”

Steven Dondlinger

. . .

Winter 2014 – James Bernal’s “Mysterious Figure”

Artist’s Choice:

“Clean White Sheets”

M

Editor’s Choice:

“Carelessness”

Michael Hallock

. . .

Fall 2014 – Judy Keown’s “Argiope Spider”

Artist’s Choice:

“The Writing Spider”

Paula Schulz

Editor’s Choice:

“The Writing Spider (Haiku)”

Caroline Giles Banks