Category: Niagara Falls Poetry

Hearing the World Differently by Kate Young

Niagara, 1857 by Frederic Edwin Church
Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art

 

The gallery lies in silence.
Clusters of faces pause
canvas to canvas
lips miming words,
the unheard musings of the many.
 
I inhale their movement,
jackets and backpacks jostle
the canvas to my right
the vertical drop of Niagara Falls
drawing us into its power.
 
The tide turns.
My eyes conjure sounds
only I can hear,
decibels of cyan and teal
the roar of acrylic licking the frame.
 
I taste the grit of salt on teeth,
sea-spray fresh on my face.
Violet tones colour my mood,
the distinctive tang of oil on wood.
I open my senses, hear it all.

This poem, inspired by Frederic Edwin Church’s 1857 painting Niagara, was first published in The Ekphrastic Review, October 20, 2023 in their Ekphrastic Challenges series. Read about ekphrastic poetry in Niagara.

kate-young
Kate Young

Kate Young lives in England and enjoys writing poetry, painting and playing the guitar and ukulele. Her poems have appeared in various webzines, magazines, and Chapbooks. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlet A Spark in the Darkness has been published by Hedgehog Press and her next pamphlet Beyond the School Gate is due to be published in May 2024. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet.

Nik Wallenda Walks a Wire Across Niagara Falls by Diana Cole

Niagara, 1857 by Frederic Edwin Church
Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art

 

 

Into a theatre of wind and mist 
            a cable dips, disappears. 
 
He moves steadily, 
            each step shortening
                        the improbable.
                                    He dissolves into thunder.
 
The camera loses      then finds his face 
            soaked, focused 
                        on distance relenting.
 
In shoes his mother made 
            elk-skin suede
                        his feet curl along the wire. 
 
He tells the cameraman 
            his arms are numb.
                        Weighs the long pole
                                    in sighs, side to side.
                                     
And we can see 
            the waters waiting
                        the letting go
                                 the urge to.
 
He inches ahead
            each second of inertia 
                        a pinpoint 
                                    from which we too
                                                step forward.  

This poem was previously published in Muddy River Poetry Review. 

This poem, inspired by Frederic Edwin Church’s 1857 painting Niagara, was also published in The Ekphrastic Review, October 20, 2023 in their Ekphrastic Challenges series. Read about ekphrastic poetry in Niagara. 

diana cole
Diana Cole

Diana Cole, a Pushcart Prize nominee, has published in numerous journals including Poetry East, Spillway, Main Street Rag, Cider Press Review, Friends Journal, The New Verse News and Orison Books. Her chapbook, Songs By Heart was published in 2018 by Iris Press and her latest book, Between Selves, in 2023 by Indian Press, Cyberwit.net. Recently, she was awarded 2nd place in the Notable Works 2024 Poetry Initiative.  She is a senior editor for The Crosswinds Poetry Journal. 

 

 

Spellbound by Elaine Sorrentino

 

Niagara, 1857 by Frederic Edwin Church
Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art

 

Listen to Elaine Sorrentino reciting Spellbound


 

The last time I knew innocence
I was surrounded by breathtaking 
 
steadily booming over the falls
misting our awe-struck faces 
 
confirmation we are mere specks
in the realm of natural wonders.

I could have lingered there forever 
drinking in its mesmerizing thunder 
 
unknowingly balanced on the fraying
thread between well-being and illness  
 
before scalpels, needles, chemical
treatment made their grand entrance; 
 
momentarily living in the presence
of ferocious power, I could not get enough. 

 

This poem, inspired by Frederic Edwin Church’s 1857 painting Niagara, was first published in The Ekphrastic Review, October 20, 2023 in their Ekphrastic Challenges series. Read about ekphrastic poetry in Niagara.
 

sorrentino
Elaine Sorrentino

 
Elaine Sorrentino has been published in Ekphrastic Review, Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Writing in a Women’s Voice, The Poetry Porch, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Agape Review, Haiku Universe, Sparks of Calliope, Muddy River Poetry Review, Panoply, Etched Onyx Magazine, and at wildamorris.blogspot.com.  

To Frederic Edwin Church Regarding Niagara Falls by Portly Bard

 

Niagara, 1857 by Frederic Edwin Church
Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art

So much like ours, your river’s course
becomes the path of nature’s force
embracing ever lower plane
and carving ever deeper main
 
except where soil is bared to rock
or rise becomes a stubborn block
that, barring flood, will be its bound
or island it will flow around
 
as ending tributaries merge
and hasten more the mounting surge
to roar of sudden, fated falls,
the splendor eye so well recalls
 
by glimmer of prismatic twist
in fountain of its risen mist.

©2023 by Portly Bard. Reproduced on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project website with the permission of Portly Bard.

This poem, inspired by Frederic Edwin Church’s 1857 painting Niagara, was first published in The Ekphrastic Review, October 20, 2023 in their Ekphrastic Challenges series. Read about ekphrastic poetry in Niagara.

 

Portly Bard.
Old man.  Ekphrastic fan.
Prefers to craft with sole intent…
of verse becoming complement…
…and by such homage being lent…
ideally also compliment.
 
Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise
for words but from returning gaze
far more aware of fortune art
becomes to eyes that fathom heart.

The Ice Crack’d, 1912 by Debbie Walker-Lass

Niagara, 1857 by Frederic Edwin Church
Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art

Let’s go back to a time forgotten—
Time when all stood still at this reckoning
When the stars spewed light like a string of shiny pearls
Gleaming, coyly placed, half-hidden in a breast
To enkindle the earth with heavenly illumination
And begin Niagara’s immaculate creation
Falling, tumbling river dodging over rock formations
Over and over: an international maritime border
Canada’s pride
America’s daughter

Danger lies in beauty wild and unforgiving
Many years Niagara made a sparkling temptation 
When Honeymooners and brazen lads took the chance
To walk upon the icy bridge made of water
It seemed a game, not risking life in great parlance
The tall, strapping boys built a warm beverage station
Canadian citizens welcomed
Americans as close relations

The menacing sun appeared as a propitious omen,
Settling over that imagined, glassy isthmus
Until a fatal crack shuddered out a warning:
Jagged flaws in the ice were quickly forming
Honeymooners from New York were taking in the sights
The young Quebecians downing cups of hot chocolate 
All looked to one another, faces full of fright
 
Far too late to make preparations
 
Crossing an international border without immigration 
Was a delightful idea with just the right amount of mystery
Until the couple, sharing one last kiss
Before rushing waters pulled them apart, taking their breath
Were noted in the annals of Niagara’s history
By boys turned into men by cheating death.

walker-lass
Debbie Walker-Lass

This poem, inspired by Frederic Edwin Church’s 1857 painting Niagara, was first published in The Ekphrastic Review, October 20, 2023 in their Ekphrastic Challenges series. Read about ekphrastic poetry in Niagara.

Debbie Walker-Lass is a collage artist, poet, and writer living in Decatur, Georgia. Her work has appeared in journals and magazines including Punk Monk, Haiku Poetry, The Light Ekphrastic, The Ekphrastic Journal, Three-Line Poetry, and Natural Awakenings, Atlanta, among others. She was recently nominated to appear in “The Best Short Fiction, 2024” anthology by the editor of  The Ekphrastic Journal, Lorette Luzajic. 

Read about the ice bridge tragedy of 1912