I absolutely love writing ekphrastic poetry. It is challenging, but so much fun to try to capture the emotions or perspective of an image through poetry. Rattle is one of my favorite poetry places to visit each month as they offer a monthly challenge. The amount of submissions they receive each month is off the charts. Tim, the editor, shares these details with each nice rejection letter. If you’ve never checked out Rattle, I highly encourage you to do so as they post fantastic poetry, podcasts, and accept poetry submissions beyond ekphrastic poetry.

My very first attempt for Rattle was for their June 2022 challenge: https://www.rattle.com/june-24-2022-by-sarah-russell/

Here’s my response:

Summer Surrender

beneath the lavender mountains 

I flung myself

head over heels

into the cool blue’s embrace

surfacing breathless to buoyant laughter

rippling across the lake

savoring forever

the first sweet surrender

summer love

free and sun-kissed

(Bloggers of wordpress, please advise about how to make the poetry look correct on a post. Do you have to create an image? I did not know how to get rid of the extra spaces.)

Please share any great sources or advice you’d like to share about writing ekphrastic poetry. I’m all ears!