Ekphrasis (noun):
A literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art; ekphrastic writing focuses on a writer’s response to a work of visual art. It is an exchange between the artist and the writer who uses words to interpret, inhabit and imaginatively engage with the artist and the work.

How Can You Participate?

• From May 6th to May 30, 2022 regional writers are invited to view the artwork of the 2022 Open Sky Art Exhibit held at the Visitor Center in Tumbler Ridge or on line at opensky.peaceliardarts.org

• Create an Ekphrastic piece or pieces inspired by the Open Sky artwork
(writing can be poetry or prose, 200 words maximum per entry up to a maximum of three entries).

• Send up to three submissions to Haley Bassett ,Executive Director, PLRAC,
ed@peaceliardarts.org by June 30, 2022. $10 fee per submission (e-transfer or cheque).

How It Works:

• One piece of writing will be chosen for the Distinguished Award with up to nine additional pieces of writing selected for recognition by award-winning writer Shelley A. Leedahl (results will be announced in August 2022).

• Distinguished Award receives $200 and 5 greeting card prints of their work with pieces selected for recognition receiving 5 greeting card prints of their work (produced by the PLRAC).

About the 2022 Juror

Author, Shelley A. Leedahl

Shelley A. Leedahl is a multi-genre literary writer in Ladysmith, BC. Her most recent book, Go, (Poetry, Radiant Press), was released in 2022, and follows a dozen previous titles, including the children’s illustrated books The Moon Watched It All and The Bone Talker; the essay collection I Wasn’t Always Like This; and short story collections including Listen, Honey and Orchestra of the Lost Steps. When not working on her own projects or writing book reviews, Shelley can frequently be found hiking, cy-cling, or kayaking. See writersunion.ca/member/shelleya-leedahl for more information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the Distinguished Award winner from 2021’s Ekphrastic Competition:

Fireweed by Seanah Roper inspired by mary mottishaw’s fireweed

‘fireweed’ by mary mottishaw

Fireweed

If we are sent

It is by the moon,

We are not rocks, but raindrops,

Whole, plump and luminous.

 

Or perhaps we come by rivers

Glittering cascades

Of galaxies,

Arriving like small miracles,

Little light beams.

 

Ancient cycles spin within us,

Sunshine burst

Tucked within solar plexus,

Exhale of lunar breath

Inhabiting hips.

 

We are beautiful,

Enduring, capable

Of life, of nurturing, of pain,

We are strong,

We are vulnerable.

 

As raindrops, we soar,

All the eyes of our grandmothers

Peering out in kaleidoscopic swirls,

We carry them

As they carried us.

 

We forge toward earth

Falling,

Falling,

Falling,

We burst.

Too many of us hit like this,

Arrive like this,

Not within the gentle arms of ocean,

But upon the painful slap of rock.

 

We are illuminated in the wholeness of hope

Only to break

Into a million pieces.

 

And the water we once were

Dries, seeps away

Into dust,

A breath, a hiss,

A flame ignites

Alighting its way along all our vessels,

Burning us along all our nerves.

 

I have heard too many stories

From sisters,

About uncles, grandfathers, neighbours,

We have suffered too much collective robbery,

Of ourselves and of our bodies.

 

Too often

The pain of this overtaking

Becomes flame

Red, scorching,

Surging,

Spreading out across our beings,

Taking everything in its wake.

Until we grow up,

Or escape

Somehow, some way,

Harbouring the glowing ember

Of its awful memory.

 

Still walking, we keep going,

Powered by bones

That move like machines,

Not from will

But habit,

Memory,

Maybe at the insistence of the grandmothers,

Keep going, keep going they say.

We walk in these disjointed, stolen bodies,

Carry these bodies

Like stones.

Great burdens bearing down

On bended backs.

 

It shows in

The slump of shoulders,

The tendency to look away

Instead of ahead,

In the way

Our voices waver as our throats

Go thin and close over.

And we can’t stand up for ourselves,

And we can’t find the worth,

To make ourselves strong again.

 

This is not finite.

Do not misunderstand:

These burdens do not define us.

These obsidian shells,

Despite their thick covering,

Are not impermeable.

 

Fireweed is born from this,

Sometimes called bombweed,

It comes to occupy and re-colonize

Traumatized land.

First in little buds

Breaking through the vessels of our blackened hearts.

When we realize

And peel back the tarnished layers,

To find the truth of ourselves

That we are better than the things

That happen to us.

 

As so we begin to bloom again,

Magenta flowers burst forth

Veins growing, expanding out

Making new skin.

It will never be the same,

Mottled, this scar tissue

Gives us armour,

A way forward.

 

When we leave

There will be little trace

Of the burnt up beings

We once were,

There will only be

The gentle, indigo songs

Of the fireweed along our lovely limbs,

A gift to our granddaughters.

 

We will not be bags of soot,

Carried on the backs of those to come.

We will re-claim, re-grow.

Let this stand for who we were,

And who our granddaughters carry with them.