During the Spring 2024 semester, the Escalette Collection of Art and the Department of English’s Creative Writing Program collaborated to host an Ekphrasis Poetry Competition. Undergraduate and graduate students were invited to submit ekphrasis poetry in any style inspired by artwork from the Escalette Collection on display in Smith Hall and Roosevelt Hall, the home of Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. 

The term ekphrasis has been used since at least the first century CE; the ancient Greeks originally used it as a rhetorical exercise for students, designed to practice descriptive writing. As a meeting of two mediums (verbal and visual), ekphrasis is vividly detailed, [re]creating an image with words. Ekphrasis poetry may narrate or reflect on the “story” presented in a work of art or expand its meaning through imagined connections or personal reflections. 

We extend our heartfelt thanks to all the participants for their contributions to the Ekphrasis Poetry Competition, and we congratulate the two winners for their superb writing and engagement with the collection. 

Tyler Edwards

Inspired by Color Farm Study by Lisa Sanditz

Lisa Sanditz, Color Farm Study, acrylic on paper, 2010. Purchased with funds from the Escalette Endowment.

As Growth

a woman scatters seeds of

 

Curious Blue in neat rows

letting the soil embrace and calm them

so that one day, they will sprout like

 

Tulip Tree Orange with its citrus branches

and hearty trunks

towering over the other crops while

 

Tickle Me Pink laughs in the Florida sunlight

and digs its roots into the ground

refusing to wilt or fade, shying only to

 

Laser Yellow that boasts the brightest petals

and the sharpest thorns

swarmed by the bees who hate

 

Torch Red thanks to its layers of sap

that catch pests and prey

the only carnivorous color beside

 

Emerald Green which lures in moonlight

with a grandiose glint that is hard to ignore

for the woman who snags a handful of

 

Blossom Purple to make into tea

for her lover who watches from a distance

and admires her as

 

the colors grow

 

Keira Deer

Inspired by Olé by June Edmonds

June Edmonds, Olé, Oil on canvas, 2016. Purchased with funds from the Escalette Endowment.

in the unstomped measures 

         For Richard Garcia 

                   after June Edmond’s painting, “Ole” 

bravo     the unhinged doors
&            painted ladders
slumped wayward
against the wood-slat fence.

they lead me here,           where
two guitars
cry pain
—finger-light whisper-touches—
echoes from strings
from mournful cavern
carved into smooth-grain body.

bravo      the welcome.
bravo      the world.

you lead me here,              turn
in your seat,                        ask
do you know anything about
  flamenco?

I say,           nothing
nothing but
bravo.

bravo        the crack of a heel
against the wooden tap-board,
the ruffle of a skirt hem
sweeping an arc                like

the feathers of outstretched wings,
exotic birds raging
their pleats into the stitchwork
of our breath-held air.

bravo          castanet shells
singing between
fingers & palms,
pink- & red-

painted lips that shout            olé!
in the unstomped measures
of a         New Mexican evening.

 

bravo            Bernalillo.
bravo            you.