The roar of Niagara Falls, while eluding sound, doesn’t fail to irradiate
sight with its jazzy waves and frothy strokes of jade — these sweeping
illusions, swallowed whole by the Deep, howl against deafening winds, westward
and warbling — veiling the fading sunlight holding Hope hostage—
as renegade avalanches are welcomed by a deluge of stratus tears wailing louder
than the Sky itself — the gaze lustily cascades over escarpments of
towering cliffs while the river’s limbs engulf the clamoring boulders — dark talons
of the night threaten to eviscerate the roaring cacophony of
discord with the manifestation of gloom alone— if the eyes can imagine the jaded
purging into the Deep, can that which does not roar still be Heard?
Ann Marie Steele
Ann Marie Steele wrote this ekphrastic poem, inspired by Frederic Edwin Church’s 1857 painting Niagara, which was first published in The Ekphrastic Review, October 20, 2023 in their Ekphrastic Challenges series. Read about ekphrastic poetry in Niagara.
Ann Marie Steele, who resides in Charlotte, NC, America, is a writer who dabs mainly in free
verse and prose poetry. She holds a BS in Journalism (News-Editorial), and an MA in Secondary
English Education. Ann Marie pens pieces about love and loss, and what she observes and
experiences. The loss of her youngest son, Brandon, has influenced much of her writing. Her
works have been described as “resiliently defiant.”
Ann Marie has been published in The Ekphrastic Review with her pieces Every Lilly Donned with
Grief, I Dare You, Pretty Please, and Hear Me Roar, as well as in Exist Otherwise with her poem
Scintillating Symbiotic Sea. When not teaching high school English, Ann Marie
enjoys partner acrobatics, where she can often be seen flying upside down.
Dichotomy of light and shade
rainbow blurred in cloud and rain
white suicidal water
tangible tears of spray
rocks of despair, eddies of grief
days of uncertainty and loss
Still the blue face of control
cascades of courage and resolution
accepting the crags of destruction
the far horizon of the past
tethered on the edge of memory
Sarah Das Gupta wrote this ekphrastic poem, inspired by Frederic Edwin Church’s 1857 painting Niagara, which was first published in The Ekphrastic Review, October 20, 2023 in their Ekphrastic Challenges series. Read about ekphrastic poetry in Niagara.
Sarah Das Gupta is a retired teacher living near Cambridge, UK who has taught in India and Tanzania. Her work has been published in over 12 countries including US, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Croatia and Romania
Now the gulls
have chased away
the long- and lacewings,
Now the silt has risen
from the river floor
to overturn her days and ways,
and now their boat trip
has not shown the mist
she had hoped to see,
she sees that rainbows still fall on,
that tides rest at her feet
and barrels drift away anyway.
He might brighten up
once they drive down to the lakes,
once he stops mocking her love
for the waterfalls that make her
think straight, he wants to
control her rise and fall
but her moods to sing like birds
and butterflies, is a step further
towards the edge of
falling days, where her best choice
is, to choose her road carefully, is
to be aware of plunging
without sinking. To see he might just
be in her way. Dive in, dear girl,
but rise, down the shiny waves.
Kate Copeland started absorbing words ever since a little lass. Her love for language led her to teaching; her love for art & water to poetry…please find her pieces at The Ekphrastic Review, First Lit.Review-East, Wildfire Words, The Weekly/Five South, AltPoetry and others. Over the years, she worked at festivals and Breathe-Read-Write-sessions; she is now curator-editor for The Ekphrastic Review and runs linguistic-poetry workshops for the IWWG this year. Kate was born @ harbour city and adores housesitting at the world. https://www.instagram.com/kate.copeland.poems/
with this falling desire to find
the most magic breezes,
the best of both worlds, to drive
some mighty drives.
Let us go back to 1986,
when my parents opened shop
then proudly spent the money
in big cities, on bigger cars,
at biggest waterfalls.
A road trip, and all is grand, all goes
fast, and y’all say how-ya-folks-doing.
Yellow taxis, subway steams,
rush-hush diners, sneakers’ streams.
We got culturally confused over
morning coffee with no menu,
the fries on every sandwich, the toppings
on every sundae, in every National Park.
No end to the eye, no end to the sights.
Wonderstruck, we got
and our giant car past traffic lights
swinging from wires, we got pulled over
on I-90, by shiny-sunglass-sheriff.
Onwards to Graceland, for the King,
forwards to the Falls, for dear Marilyn.
Liquid silver river, blue-green falling
with no fear for borders,
or for yellow ponchos.
Nature is a thunderous wonder,
nature at its thunderous best.
Feeling like film-living in the mist
of rainbows, the foredeck pointing at
caves and hidden myths.
Dad, you have left us
with this healing desire
to hold on to memories, of cities,
of road trips, the water. You have
shown us your tall way, to fall without fail.
Kate Copeland started absorbing words ever since a little lass. Her love for language led her to teaching; her love for art & water to poetry…please find her pieces at The Ekphrastic Review, First Lit.Review-East, Wildfire Words, The Weekly/Five South, AltPoetry and others. Over the years, she worked at festivals and Breathe-Read-Write-sessions; she is now curator-editor for The Ekphrastic Review and runs linguistic-poetry workshops for the IWWG this year. Kate was born @ harbour city and adores housesitting at the world. https://www.instagram.com/kate.copeland.poems/
