Announcing the 2025 Winners!

Ekphrastic writing is a creative response to a work of art. It invites writers to interpret, imagine, or expand on a visual piece through words. By exploring the emotions and stories each visual work evokes, ekphrastic writing creates a dialogue between art forms, bringing new perspectives and deeper meaning to both.

Lucy Burton 

Shared Sky, Shared Earth  
 
Transfixed, they look  
Honouring the Moon  
Watching, in Peace 
Surrounding the Sphere  
Embraced by the Sky  
Wonder 

Kathryn MacDonald 

HELLO FROM THE OTHER SIDE 

Imagine the surprise of arriving 
on the other side, the surprise 
of opening your tear-soaked eyes  
in the crisp and cutting air above  
the cirrostratus, the caution ringing 
in your ears – Drop the cord. 
Let the kite fly free. But no, you held 
tight to the string and here you are 
face-to-face with a glistening raven  
who is not blinking – feathered ruff  
aswhirl, dark as melanite plucked  
from some Scandinavian isle –  
Are you Thought or are you Memory? 
Are you Huginn or are you Muninn? 

Amita Dayal 

Poor Elephant 

The small room off the kitchen had transformed over the years. As a child, it had been a formal dining room. Later, Mum converted it to a sitting room, housing the rarely used piano, a recliner and the long, mid-height teak bookcase. Like most of the bookcases in the house, it was packed tightly – spines facing out with the overflow stacked horizontally on top. The top of the bookcase, meant to be reserved for decorative pieces, held small piles of hard and soft cover books. Among brass elephants brought back from India and Inuit soapstone carvings, these piles implied an intention to file and organize, despite the lack of space. 

 Years ago, she had suggested a purge, starting with of some of the old, musty, orange Penguin paperbacks. Pulling out, with effort, a copy of The Iliad, she questioned Dad, ‘What is today’s equivalent of 15 pence? These are so old! Can’t we maybe get rid of them?’ 

 “They were your mothers’. The disapproval in his glare caused her to shrink into herself and the weight of his words in the air lingered for decades. 

 And so, year after year, the new books got piled on top of the old. 

 In her thirties, she would come by on weekends, releasing the kids into the backyard while she helped around the house. Tidied and cleaned, despite his passive aggressive comments and apparent lack of appreciation. An unspoken understanding existed – that he wouldn’t have a stranger in the house. Yet, as a scholarly gentleman, he wouldn’t be putting brush to basin himself. During those years, she faithfully dusted those same Penguin volumes, pushing her hair off her brow, never bringing it up again. 

 *********** 

She hears the familiar cadence of his step approaching. Familiar but less forceful, due to his recent weight loss, and with a hint of a shuffle. He had never been one to shuffle. ‘Pick your feet up’, he used to bark at her. Perhaps it was his age or physical state, but she wondered if it wasn’t resignation, doubt, or a feeling of loss, rooting his feet to the floorboards of the house. 

 She turns to him as he glances around the room, shaking his head slightly.  

‘I can’t believe you didn’t’ bring Neal – this is a lot of work’. He sighs and she internalizes his disapproval, wondering if her husband would have provided at least a buffer between the two of them. 

 ‘It felt like something I needed to do myself. With you,’ she adds quickly, taking in the U-Haul boxes; some taped and stacked and others in various stages of packing.  

‘Well, Miriam has done a lot’, he says. ‘I didn’t realize how much work it was to move. After so much time.’ 

 Miriam had come recommended by a friend at work. It had taken her 3 months to convince Dad to agree to the help. Now Miriam was the one who changed the sheets, vacuumed and dusted the bookcase and its’ contents. She wondered if Dad was easier on Miriam, able to hold back his criticisms.  

‘Yes, Miriam has been a treasure,’ she agrees. 

 The teak bookcase, emptied of its lifelong contents, looks out of place now. She runs her hand along the top then crouches down to touch the bottom middle shelf, for a moment feeling pulled back in time again. 

 ‘What did you do with all the books and magazines from here?’ she asks 

 ‘They’re in totes in the garage – for the church rummage sale.’  

Her heart sinks as she works to keep her face neutral. ‘All of them?’. 

 ‘Yes’, he grunts, ‘What use are they where I’m going?’ 

 Later, sweaty from packing and mentally exhausted, she makes an excuse to go into the garage. Dad’s car takes up most of the available space – at least for now. She makes a mental note to ask Neal to talk to the Nexus dealer this week. The weight of it all almost makes her turn around and go back inside. Just then, the totes catch her eye – neatly labelled in Miriam’s handwriting: Church.  

She opens the first one and lifts out Brian Mulroney’s memoir. The tote is full of hardcover memoirs – unfortunately not what she is looking for. She is searching for the easily recognizable volumes of National Geographic with their colourful covers. How many times had she crouched down, titling her head to skim the bright yellow spines on the shelf? 

 The third tote proves fruitful. Luckily, they are packed upright, and she so starts to look, left to right, starting with 1977. Remembering Mums’ stories, she concentrates her efforts around 1980, the year she was in preschool. She pulls out each volume, one by one, scanning the bottom left cover, at the list of contents. Occasionally she flips through the glossy pages, to be sure. She tries to move quickly, but it is hard not to get pulled in by the vibrant photos of far-off places with exotic looking people. 

 Frustrated, she pulls out her phone, typing National Geographic elephant 1980’s into the google search bar. I was right, she mutters under her breath. The November 1980 issue had an article entitled, Africa’s Elephants – Can They Survive? Her throat tightens and tears fill her eyes as she realizes that there are only 11 volumes from 1980 – November is missing. She leans over the re-stacked totes, fighting down her grief. 

*********** 

She and Mum had named it the Poor Elephant Book. Apparently, as Mum would tell it, as soon as she saw the cover she sat down on the floor, security blanket in hand and poured over the photos. They told the story of the ivory trade in Africa with photographic proof of the carnage it caused. A full-page photo; a downed elephant; bleeding holes where the tusks should have been. She can recall the image still, the elephant’s eyes – dark black pools, full of emotion. They say elephants have a rich emotional life – much like humans, something she wouldn’t have known at three, but likely sensed.  

Her innocent questions followed. ‘Why would anyone hurt the elephants?’ ’What will happen to the baby elephant now?’ She wanted to know why they needed to take the tusks in the first place. Mum pulled her into a hug, wiping away the tears. Mum didn’t have the answers either, but her eyes crinkled with love, ‘You’re so sensitive my sweetheart’.  

Over the years, when she was sad, angry or just lonely, she would ask Mum for the Poor Elephant Book. Later, in therapy, she came to understand that her father’s presence created an atmosphere in which you didn’t express emotions. The women in the house learned to push them down and out of sight. Taking in the graphic photos allowed something to pull inside her, even as a small child, loosening a safety valve, and allowing tears to release. As she grew into elementary, then preteen age, she needed the book less. In fact, she had almost forgotten about it until her world violently shifted.  

*********** 

After Mum’s funeral reception, she and Dad came back to the otherwise empty house alone. She wandered from room to room, desperately numb. The Aunties felt it was best that it be just she and Dad now, after the last week of family and casserole chaos. After all, they said, this was their family now – father and daughter. 

 To her, it never felt like family again. She realized, in the three years until she left for university, that her mother had been the warmth in their house. Dad had always been stern and uninterested, selfish even, she knew this. It wasn’t until it was just the two of them, and she a young adult, that she wondered if he was perhaps just not capable of parental love. 

 During that time, she leaned on her friends, on their moms and her Aunties. She did her best to live up to his expectations and tried to take care of her Dad as well as she could. When she was alone in the house or at night when she couldn’t sleep, she would sometimes find herself on the floor by the teak bookcase, with the open book in her lap, silently crying – wondering how she got there.  

******** 

Pulling out her compact she wipes her nose. Her eyes are red, but she is not concerned – she doesn’t think he’ll notice anyway, he never has. She comes out of the garage to find him sitting at the kitchen table with two cups of tea. He waves for her to sit, eyeing her curiously. She adds sugar, something she only does here, in this house. A habit from her Mum, who would make it milky with sugar, in a china cup. She smiles at the memory.  

She catches herself and looks up to see his stern eyes on her. ‘What were you doing out there? In the garage?’ 

 ‘Nothing’. 

 He gets up slowly, clears his throat. ‘I have something for you – in my office’.  

She watches his back as he leaves the room, she had never noticed the way it curves forward now. Ram had said that he had lost height, but she had never appreciated that. His presence felt like it always had, until now.  

She is unsettled as he hands her a reusable shopping bag. She looks at his hands, the way his veins stand out amongst the pigmented age spots. 

 Curiously, she opens the bag. He is watching her intently as she looks in then pulls out the magazine. Glossy with its yellow spine. She looks at him, unsure what to say. 

 ‘November 1980?’ she asks.  

He nods.  

She opens it to the page and locks eyes with her elephant. She wipes away a tear just before it lands onto the page.  

‘How did you know?’ she asks. 

 ‘Your mom said I needed to keep it’. 

 She allows herself to fold into a ball on the kitchen chair, rocking as a torment of tears rain down and her father looks on. 

Michelle Larocque 

A Good Day 

George held the squirming flapping chicken by the neck and gave it a quick snap with a pit in his stomach like every time he killed a chicken. The bird went limp almost instantly and George knew he could begin preparing it. He remembered his mother chopping the chickens’ heads off with an axe when he was a boy. The body would keep flapping and running around without the head making it looked crazed and possessed. George preferred doing it this way though he didn’t blame his mother for using an axe. 
 
Plucking at the feathers George thought about the chickens at the grocery store. He never could understand why people ate that stuff. They could have been fed anything and trapped in a cage in order to get big and fat. George used to rant to neighbouring farmers. He shook his head, and people thought he was the one who was cruel for processing his own chicken.  
 
He remembered the one year when they had a high school student volunteer on the farm. George had taken one of the chickens to process while Kyle collected eggs. He’d blanched at the sight of George snapping it’s neck. “Did you just snap its neck?” Kyle had said his eyes wide his mouth gaping. “Dinner.” George had answered after which Kyle vomited; the other chickens rushing to peck at the mess. 
 
Out on the front porch as George brought his chicken in to simmer Missy was guarding her catch between her paws. A small mouse which she would slowly eat as the day went on. “Good girl missy.” George said opening the screen door and heading inside. Better to have the mice out there with Missy than inside the house. 
 
Another feline friend greeted George in the kitchen. “Hi Daisy.” George scratched the black cat’s head. “Remember when Champ tried to eat that porcupine?”  
 
The cat meowed nuzzling the side of George’s arm and purring.  
 
George smiled faintly thinking of his old dog. “We were taking quills out for weeks. Remember?” The cat rolled onto its side waiting for George to rub its belly. “I’m not sure who had it worse Champ or the porcupine. What do you think?” 
 
The cat meowed again and sat up waiting pawing at George’s arm.  
 
Taking a tin from above the fridge George handed the cat a treat. 
 
As he replaced the tin George looked at an old faded sonogram posted on the front of the fridge rereading the information at the bottom. Male 20 weeks. Opening the door George pulled out a loaf of bread, cheese, and last night’s ham. He’d be 32 now that little boy, George thought never forgetting as the years went by. He buttered a slice of bread trying not to think about how things might have been if Louise hadn’t had a still birth. She’d cried and cried for months. Inconsolable. They were together now. She and the baby. Maybe that made his heart a little bit at ease, though he’d rather have them both. The boy could have helped around the farm. Louise could make her apple pie.  
 
George knew he was just dreaming. Earl’s son wanted nothing to do with farming. Went to work in the city for some big multinational corporation. “Manager of something or other…” Earl had said scratching his head. “Don’t know what’s so great about being trapped in an office all day.” He continued opening up his arms and taking a deep breath of fresh air. 
Maybe he and the baby would have fixed cars together, George thought slicing some cheese. They could have bought some old beat up classic cars and fix them up. Maybe he would have been a mechanic and George could have gotten him to help with the tractor and the old pick up that was on its last legs.  
 
Taking his sandwich to the front porch George sat down on the swinging chair. Missy was snoozing under the shade of the Maple tree in the yard beside Champ’s old dog house, the mouse was gone. The paint on the dog house was peeling and fading; the entryway scratched and gnawed by several successive best friends. He and his dad had built the shelter together for their springer spaniel Lucky; the first dog George ever remembered having. The first time Lucky went in to use it the whole thing collapsed sending Lucky running and yelping. George and his dad rebuilt it stronger and better but it took some coaxing before Lucky would use it. Lucky had been attacked by a coyote one night and they’d had to put it down. “Must have been hungry trying to get Lucky’s food.” His dad had said, George in tears. They’d started keeping the food in the house after that when they got the next dog. 
 
Looking at the frayed string dangling from the tree where a swing had once been George remembered many summer days swinging on it as a boy looking up at the leaves feeling the wind on his face thinking he could fly. It was Stewart who had broken it. Had been standing on the swing trying to make it go by pushing down on it with his legs. He’d fallen right on his butt and he and George had laughed so hard. His mother had come out of the house “What have you boys gone and done now?” she smiled though she’d sounded angry. “Sorry mom.” George said. “I’ll build you new one, I promise!” Stewart had said crossing his heart. A few weeks later Stewart had got hit riding his bike. George’s dad had offered to fix the swing but George wanted to leave it. No one had argued with him. 
 
A cool breeze swept in and George realised that fall wasn’t too far away. He’d have to take a bunch of chickens in to be slaughtered. Couldn’t keep a full flock over the winter. Just didn’t have the space. The markets were less frequent as well and there’d be too many eggs and nobody to sell them to. Louise had been in the habit of making pickled eggs with the extras when they had them. A pickled egg would have been good with the ham sandwich, George thought taking his last bite.  
 
A red pickup truck hooked up to a small trailer rolled in the driveway and parked in front of the house. A young woman with long blond hair came out carrying a grocery bag.  
“Hi Dad.” She walked up to the porch kissed her father on the head and sat beside him on the swing. “The market went so well. I nearly sold out of a bunch of vegetables. All your eggs are gone. People were buying them three dozens at a time. And…” she paused for effect opening her bag and pulling out a red apple “…one of the vendors had apples. First ones of the season he said. I was thinking I could make mom’s apple pie for dessert tonight.” She smiled her eyes bright. 
 
George smiled and kissed his daughter on the head holding her tight. 
 
“I’m going to put this in the house and unload the trailer. How about we go Horseback riding? We haven’t gone down the underpass trail in a while. Candy and Apple like to drink from the creek there.” 
 
“Sounds like a plan.” George smiled. “I’ll go get them ready.” 
 
Having groomed and saddled Candy George took her out to where Apple was waiting with Mellissa. Looking at his daughter George’s heart swelled. 
 
It’s a good day, George thought. 

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