EKPHRASIS: Art & Poetry

EKPHRASIS: Art & Poetry

Edited by Liz Blood

Ekphrasis is an ongoing series joining verse and visual art. Here, Bailey Hoffner responds to a painting by Gabriel Rojas using the pantoum form. Hoffner says her poem “owes deep gratitude to the imaginative, radically restful, and life-altering work of Tricia Hersey and The Nap Ministry.”

Enough

in our earliest sleeps hunger was always near only a question of distance to warm flesh

hunger remains near though the knowledge of distance to warm flesh has been buried

drug and disease accumulation answers questions of how much with more

accumulation answers what we carry grows like flame always more and our open eyes see nothing

though the knowledge of each warm-bodied root has been buried growing its heavy belly

what we carry holds no flame against all we’ve lain to rest and our open eyes see nothing but potential loss

Bailey Hoffner is a poet, mother, and cis white woman interested in interrogating entrenched ideas relating to gender, illness, spirituality, and place. She volunteers with Poetic Justice, an organization offering restorative writing workshops to incarcerated women, is a regular contributor to World Literature Today, and is the Metadata and Collections Management Archivist at the University of Oklahoma Libraries in Norman.

each warm-bodied root will make good its promise hungered into a belly its urge toward rebirth

will make good its promise as the buck’s tongue speaking its urge toward rebirth shouts red across the snow

as the buck goes silent the irreverent crocus shouts red across the snow and we walk our whole bodies

against all already lain to rest sleep can never be caught up on only lost and maybe if there is ever enough

sleep may never be caught up on but the outline of her face if there is ever enough at rest will be the moral

just the outline of her face where hunger is always near her rest will be the moral spanning distance to warm flesh

Gabriel Rojas is an Argentinian- American artist living in Tulsa. His work investigates various systems of abstraction and formal relationships between space and color. Rojas often includes collage, mixed media, assemblage, and sculptural design in his paintings, creating visual structures that interweave his multiple influences and explore the materials’ potential to connect process with memory.

irreverent as the crocus drugged and diseased we walk our whole bodies under questions of how much

hunger is always near in our earliest sleeps distance to warm flesh the only question

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Gabriel Rojas, Grocery Shopping, 2020, acrylic and oil on canvas, 48” x 60”

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