Contents
Editors Note
“how birds see the world as compared to humans” by Tamara Best
(Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge—Poetry)
“Before Frankenstein Winds” by Janice Bethany
(Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge—Prose Poetry)
“”Splash”—A Retrospective” by Adele Evershed
(Notebooking Daily—Poetry)
“Bukowski” by Andrew Beckett Gibson
(Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge—Poetry)
“Corneal Ulcer” by Andrew Beckett Gibson
(Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge—Poetry)
“how birds see the world as compared to humans” by Tamara Best
how birds see the world as compared to humans
how birds see the world as compared to humans
you say blue
and I say cyan
azure pre-dusk
winds favourable for hunting
I am bird, and I see more than you
last night I had a dream that I turned into a bird
and I taught all the birds how to speak
and when I woke up, I found the we could all talk together
I see, by the scattering of light
catching sunshine like fish
I feel not much more than
pressure from the air
and my mating instinct
though some days are stormier than others
sometimes it doesn’t matter
where up or down is
there is only being airborne
I wonder some days
how you creatures ever find your way
stumbling around on the ground
instead of finding a better perspective
I think
you should attempt to
name all the colours in the world
but I would still miss all the ones
I didn’t know existed
by Tamara Best
Tamara spent many years as an activist, performer, and Community Worker before moving to rural Ontario (Canada) to garden, homeschool, and write. You can read more of Tamara’s work in the Waterwheel Review and NonBinary Review.
On this Piece
Prompts can be difficult, as inspiration is often found after following a thread of thought rather than a specific experience. This piece was sparked by Rattle’s February Ekphrastic Challenge and informed by a number of on-line articles about the colour blue, including an eponymous one. Special credit also goes to a certain 8-year-old who recounted his dream about talking birds out of the… blue.
This piece was sparked by the prompt for Rattle’s February 2021 Monthly Ekphrastic Challenge (read the winner here). The assigned image: “Cloud Dance” by Claire Ibarra.
NEXT PIECE: “Before Frankenstein Winds” by Janice Bethany
Did you enjoy “how birds see the world as compared to humans” by Tamara Best?
If you would like to show the writer your gratitude for putting this piece into the world you can ‘buy the writer a coffee’ and send them a suggested $3 donation here. Be sure to mention that it’s for writing the awesome piece in your note. Writers very rarely hear that people like their writing, so tell them!
If you would like to nominate this piece for our year-end Reader’s Choice Award click here and donate. $1 = nomination. Please do not forget to mention the piece you’re nominating. To learn more about the award click here, but in short, the piece with the most $1 nominations at the end of the year will get half of the donated money, receive 20 copies of a limited edition broadside designed for their piece and have their post pinned to the front of the website for all of December. This is one of the only ways we raise money for the magazine in order to pay all of our wonderful writers and keep this lights on here at Sparked.
“Before Frankenstein Winds” by Janice Bethany
Before Frankenstein Winds
It is time to listen to the sweep of snow through trees & recover the civil art of letter writing. It is time to forget you are complicated and remember you are temporary, not pinned to Earth but angled loosely like letters in the woods strung hurriedly for dispatch asking for tolerance & love, bread & virus cures, green hills, revolutions of kindness & eco-sense for apples with pulp fresh as paper. It is time to believe a half-holy audience will acknowledge your requests and offer even part of an answer. It is time to post before a thing of torture smatters your wishes & voice, before the ink on your envelopes blurs, before veins on your hands empty into the sea before all webs of human congress give way before Frankenstein winds crash through.
by Janice Bethany
Janice Bethany lives in Texas and teaches for the University of Houston System. Her work has beenb recognized by National Poetry Month, San Antonio, Texas; Craven Arts Ekphrastic Competition, North Carolina; O’Bheal International Competition, Cork, Ireland; Toledo Museum of Art; Anesthesiology; Raleigh Review, Ekphrastic Review, etc. Bethany enjoys walks where she composes in her head along a wetlands habitat. She is inspired by the arts and the good world around her.
On this piece:
Janice enjoys writing to prompts, feeling they invite writing that is less self-oriented and more exploratory. With this piece, she saw letters with hope for answers, even in part, to today’s crises. Though the scene is peaceful, by turning to what is not there, she saw disaster looming as in Frankenstein’s monster descending the mountain. The letters displayed need to be answered before monstrous forces take all.
This piece was sparked by the prompt for Rattle’s December 2019 Monthly Ekphrastic Challenge (read the winner here). From the image “Bound” by Natalie Seabolt.
NEXT PIECE: “”Splash”—A Retrospective” by Adele Evershed
Did you enjoy “Before Frankenstein Winds” by Janice Bethany?
If you would like to show the writer your gratitude for putting this piece into the world you can ‘buy the writer a coffee’ and send them a suggested $3 donation here. Be sure to mention that it’s for writing the awesome piece in your note. Writers very rarely hear that people like their writing, so tell them!
If you would like to nominate this piece for our year-end Reader’s Choice Award click here and donate. $1 = nomination. Please do not forget to mention the piece you’re nominating. To learn more about the award click here, but in short, the piece with the most $1 nominations at the end of the year will get half of the donated money, receive 20 copies of a limited edition broadside designed for their piece and have their post pinned to the front of the website for all of December. This is one of the only ways we raise money for the magazine in order to pay all of our wonderful writers and keep this lights on here at Sparked.
“”Splash”—A Retrospective” by Adele Evershed
“”Splash”—A Retrospective”
It was always there—lurking at the edges
And I wonder if knowing the situation would have been enough
In the movies mermaids are touchingly naïve
A sweet affectation to reel us in
But real women have always worked with fish
Traveling on land to gut herrings
Mending nets in living rooms
And no matter where the work there’s always a smell
And sometimes the sneaking of the relentless minds
That couldn’t leap from sitcom to a great idea
Brings us a popular movie that stinks
And—splash—you fell in love with mermaids
The story of being saved from drowning—
A metamorphosis from human to something fishy
Like walking naked onto Ellis Island
Then you always wanted to grow a tail
But later you loved to show your legs
Shimmering in the waves of wind
Iridescent blues and purples and reds
Hard pretty scales—a mermaid at last
You told me – you’d a shell and all
So you wouldn’t end up like me
Instead you went over the wall
Knowing the importance
Of looking directly into the camera
As you got into the water—without a splash
That sweet touch a meaningless rotation
That left the page as empty as possible
by Adele Evershed
Adele Evershed is a teacher. Born in Wales she has lived in Hong Kong and Singapore before settling in Connecticut. Her poetry and prose have been published in several online journals such as Every Day Fiction, Ab Terra Flash Fiction Magazine, Grey Sparrow Journal, bee house journal, and Shot Glass Journal.
On this piece:
This poem was in response to the Notebook Daily challenge-Erasing Roger Egbert 27 “Splash”. I started by erasing words from the piece (per the instructions) and soon had several phrases that I really liked. Playing around with these sparked the idea and I added my own words to get a complete poem that really bears very little resemblance to the Roger Egbert’s article. I had no intention of writing a poem about a mermaid at the start of the day and this is what I love about prompts, they can take you into a different place creatively. You might end up writing to your own experience but you have got there through a circuitous route and that throws up images or ideas that you would not have happened upon if you had been left to your own devices.
This piece was sparked by the Notebooking Daily prompt 2021 Writing Exercise Series #112: Erasing Roger Ebert 27 “Splash” from 4/22/21, which is to create an erasure poem from the Roger Ebert review of the Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah movie “Splash”.
NEXT PIECE: “Bukowski” by Andrew Beckett Gibson
Did you enjoy “”Splash”—A Retrospective” by Adele Evershed?
If you would like to show the writer your gratitude for putting this piece into the world you can ‘buy the writer a coffee’ and send them a suggested $3 donation here. Be sure to mention that it’s for writing the awesome piece in your note. Writers very rarely hear that people like their writing, so tell them!
If you would like to nominate this piece for our year-end Reader’s Choice Award click here and donate. $1 = nomination. Please do not forget to mention the piece you’re nominating. To learn more about the award click here, but in short, the piece with the most $1 nominations at the end of the year will get half of the donated money, receive 20 copies of a limited edition broadside designed for their piece and have their post pinned to the front of the website for all of December. This is one of the only ways we raise money for the magazine in order to pay all of our wonderful writers and keep this lights on here at Sparked.
“Bukowski” by Andrew Beckett Gibson
Bukowski
appraising eyes reflected inside
the archipelago of glass
scattered
around his feet
his lips like drying Cod
caught days ago, dead
waiting for liquid to thin their scales
fill their mouths
so they can rise again with poetry
before he falls and mashes them again
I spent twenty years calculating
how his shortcomings paid in dividends
while silver paint only burns my face
and dissolves my mind
by Andrew Beckett Gibson
Andrew studied creative writing at North Carolina Central University. When not writing, he is feeding bread to ducks and rewatching The Office. His work has appeared or is forthcoming at The Collidescope, The Bookends Review, Random Sample, Sinking City, Heartwood and Always Crashing.
On This Piece
Coming soon.
This piece was sparked by the prompt for Rattle’s December 2020 Monthly Ekphrastic Challenge (read the winner here). Inspired by the image: Dominique Dève’s “A Horizon Is Vague at a Distance”
NEXT PIECE: “Corneal Cancer” by Andrew Beckett Gibson.
If you would like to show the writer your gratitude for putting this piece into the world you can ‘buy the writer a coffee’ and send them a suggested $3 donation here. Be sure to mention that it’s for writing the awesome piece in your note. Writers very rarely hear that people like their writing, so tell them!
If you would like to nominate this piece for our year-end Reader’s Choice Award click here and donate. $1 = nomination. Please do not forget to mention the piece you’re nominating. To learn more about the award click here, but in short, the piece with the most $1 nominations at the end of the year will get half of the donated money, receive 20 copies of a limited edition broadside designed for their piece and have their post pinned to the front of the website for all of December. This is one of the only ways we raise money for the magazine in order to pay all of our wonderful writers and keep this lights on here at Sparked.
“Corneal Ulcer” by Andrew Beckett Gibson
Corneal Ulcer
So many leaves that none are relevant.
the same way no one gives a shit about Starlings,
but will pull over for a murmuration.
she may as well just be another white sizzle
dancing in the corner of my eye,
that feels like one grain of salt
burning at the tips of my fingers.
the other wiggles stumble over themselves
pointing, staring, and eating in silence.
they supposedly love the way hot blood smells
chasing the naked through the forest,
pouring the floor into their flasks like a bottle of ketchup.
Gunshot Wound Woman of the RNC.
floating among the other protozoa
until they all squirm away like gametes,
startled by the woman dressed like a wounded deer
by Andrew Beckett Gibson
Andrew studied creative writing at North Carolina Central University. When not writing, he is feeding bread to ducks and rewatching The Office. His work has appeared or is forthcoming at The Collidescope, The Bookends Review, Random Sample, Sinking City, Heartwood and Always Crashing.
On This Piece
Coming Soon.
This piece was sparked by the prompt for Rattle’s March 2021 Monthly Ekphrastic Challenge (read the winner here). From the image: Susy Kamber’s “Into Thee”.
NEXT PIECE: Nope. Not until next month. Write new pieces and send them in!
If you would like to show the writer your gratitude for putting this piece into the world you can ‘buy the writer a coffee’ and send them a suggested $3 donation here. Be sure to mention that it’s for writing the awesome piece in your note. Writers very rarely hear that people like their writing, so tell them!
If you would like to nominate this piece for our year-end Reader’s Choice Award click here and donate. $1 = nomination. Please do not forget to mention the piece you’re nominating. To learn more about the award click here, but in short, the piece with the most $1 nominations at the end of the year will get half of the donated money, receive 20 copies of a limited edition broadside designed for their piece and have their post pinned to the front of the website for all of December. This is one of the only ways we raise money for the magazine in order to pay all of our wonderful writers and keep this lights on here at Sparked.
Editor’s Note:
It cannot possibly be a third of the way through 2021. I’m still happy to complain about 2020, but time isn’t a thing, it’s a measurement of the inevitable progress of the universe. I’m really happy with the pieces featured in this issue, there’s even a piece that was written in the last 1/3 of April, but that just goes to show sometimes the inspiration of the prompt can carry you to a piece like a muse itself. I’m definitely hoping to see more flash fiction in the future, but it seems the journal’s name has gotten around the best in Rattle’s circles this past month, as we got a lot of good work, the majority of it from those Ekphrastic Challenges. Keep them coming! And keep sending us Notebooking Daily and 3Elements and Furious Fiction and Chain pieces too. I have started a newsletter to send out notifications of new issues and special submission calls (but very very rarely anything beyond that).
Also I’m in the works of producing a 30-day prompting ‘regimen’, consisting of 30 1-hour guided prompts with weekly discord meetings for the participants. If you are interested in participating you can sign up in advance now for one of our no fee reservations (the course will be $100 to sign up once it’s officially announced and running) by emailing sparkedlitmag@gmail.com with the email title “30-Day Writing Class Reservation”.