Ekphrastic Folk Art Season 2 #2

 

 What Happens When Folk Art Gets Ekphrastic?

To find out, I invited several writers to mix it up; to play with this folkloric image. Using their literary talents, they did just that. Jumping right into the challenge, they created inspiring storylines and conversations. 

                            

But before I show you the results for this issue of Season 2, here are brief explanations of what folk art and ekphrastic are. 

What is Folk Art? 

Folk art, in general - art made by folk - is 'decorative' art applied to functional (everyday) items. Popular examples include weather vanes, furniture, quilts, and hand painted plates.

What is Ekphrastic?

Ekphrastic is a term that describes the practice of using words in poetry and prose to comment on or about a piece of visual art (i.e., painting, photograph, sculpture) and has been around since ancient times. For example, in The Iliad Homer provides lengthy discursive accounts of elaborate scenes on Achilles' shield (an every day, functional item).

The word ekphrasis is a combination of two Greek words: ex (out) and phrazein (to point out, explain). 

Be sure to check out Season 1 in our flipbook library. 

Now, onto the excellent and innovative poetry and prose of Donna Faulkner, Karin Hedetniemi, Sylvia Santiago, and Jenny Wong.

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Crafting

Another stitch,   then   another. 
Clotho guides
the threads her fingers weave
the tale
unfolds
A long exhale
The fabric breathes …
Another thread,   then    another.
Sisters   gather   spin familiars.
Craft a village   green,
sing their Mother’s  home.
Another stitch,
another thread.
A hundred   times, a thousand years.
Although her eyesight   fades,
and knuckles crack
she could   make   this   magic
in her sleep.

 
Donna Faulkner’s books include ‘In Silver Majesty’ (erbacce press) and ‘The Oracle of birds - short stories for the fireside’  (Written Tales).  Her work also appears in  300 Days of Sun, Havik, Fieldstone Review, and others.
 https://linktr.ee/donnafaulkner Instagram @lady_lilith_poet/
 
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Chanh is the Moon
 
It was one of the happiest days of my childhood: harvesting mangoes with bamboo sticks, dancing in breezes, birdsong, and the singing voices of my village. Grandmother stitched a story cloth with the saved threads of her long life. For five days, I watched her trembling hands pull the needle with wool strands through a bright green cloth. She finished her work, adding honey strokes of sunlight to steep mountain ridges. When I am older, I said, I will climb these mountains with Father and see you waving from here. I pointed to the small, thatched house embroidered beside the spirit house. Grandmother placed the cloth on my lap and touched my cheek. When you are older, she said softly with her kind, half-moon eyes, I will see you everywhere.

 
 Karin Hedetniemi photographs and writes from Victoria, Canada. Her place-inspired creative work appears in many international literary journals, including Grain, EVENT, Lunch Ticket, and Welter. In spring 2025, her award-winning haiku will be celebrated at the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival.
https://agoldenhour.com Bluesky/Instagram: @karinhedet
 
 
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La Paz, 1950
 
Bubalus bubalis / what a magical way to name a carabao / like its horns / the words curve gently / it sounds like a spell to my seven-year-old ears / in the photograph / my Lola is about the same age as me / sitting astride a carabao / she wears a sundress and a grin / the photograph / is black and white / but my grandmother remembers / the rice seedlings in the field / glinting greenly in the sunlight / the carabao’s coarse hide / dark as soot / the blue of the skies / cerulean / the blue of the ocean / she’d cross fifteen years later / to a new country / to a place where the sun never truly warms her / a place where she never wears the same smile
 

Sylvia Santiago is a writer from western Canada whose work has appeared in Flash Frontier, Heavy Feather Review, The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere.
x: @sylviasays2 
 
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Stitchings
 
A needle’s flicker,
the sharp sputter of steel
as mopeds and roads
zigzag across roughed edges of green. Noon
air is heat-thick, a batting of chatter-
ing birds and metal sounds.
Her favorite time is morning
when mountains
cross-stitch their shadows
along the horizon, and a silent hem
of light peeks beneath a blackness
pinned with stars. New shoots
poke through the dark eye of soil
and watch tamarind trees tuck
the golden stains of sunrise
into their seeds. But in the end,
there is always the heaviness
of scissors or the white snip
of teeth, and all she can think about is how
to hide the knots, the abrupt ends of thread
fraying wordless beneath the long length
of another day.
 

Jenny Wong’s debut chapbook is ‘Shiftings & other coordinates of disorder’ (Pinhole Poetry). She is a writer, traveler, and occasional business analyst.  Her favorite places to wander are Tokyo alleys, Singapore hawker centers, and Parisian cemeteries. She resides in Canada.  
https://opencorners.ca/about  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jenwithwords

November Food Lore

  

The Lore 

of Cranberries

Cranberries date back to medieval Europe, where they were known as marsh-worts, fen-worts, and moss-berries. Across the Atlantic Ocean, Native Americans living in the America’s were also eating and using cranberries for centuries before settlers even came to the America’s and eventually incorporated them into their Thanksgiving dinner. 

Traditionally found in bog or swamp environments, cranberries grow on a vine that can be found mostly submerged in water, which perpetuates the common misconception that they grow under water. The settler’s term “cranberry” was derived from the fact that the appearance of the berry was similar to that of the beak and head of a crane. Native Americans, who used the fruit in its raw form as well as dried out to preserve meats, preferred their original term, sassamensesh.

Due to the bitter, sour taste of the cranberry it was and still is most commonly sweetened and used as a condiment or side dish. There is no proof that cranberries were incorporated into the first Thanksgiving dinner between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, which took place in October 1621, but it is believed that the Native Americans may have brought it as a generous contribution. The prime harvesting time for cranberries takes place between September to December, which would allow for the perfect ripe cranberries for the Native Americans to share with their newfound kin.

Overtime, cranberries continued to have a significant impact on the New England food scene, quickly becoming a staple for the holiday season. The Cape Cod Cranberry Company, who marketed the product as, “Ocean Spray Cape Cod Cranberry Sauce”, first canned cranberries in 1912. 

Cranberries are most often prepared during Thanksgiving dinner in the United States and Canada and during Christmas in the United Kingdom. 

The preparation and taste of cranberry sauce varies depending on the area it was harvested and the ingredients added. Almonds, orange juice, zest, maple syrup, port, and cinnamon are all common flavors added for sweetness. The versatile fruit can be transformed into a variety of delectable treats such as cranberry bread, cranberry pistachio biscotti, and cranberry chocolate devil’s food cake.

Related Information

Do you have cranberry food lore of your own? Click here.

Cranberry Cole Slaw Recipe

A Halloween Legend

                                                 

Sleepy Hallow's Headless Horseman

There are some legends that live on forever and none are more embedded into  American culture at this time of year than the Legend of Sleepy Hallow. This folktale grew in popularity during the Middle Ages in Europe. The mysterious horseman who either has no head or holds his head in his arm inspired a contemporary telling that involves a school teacher's quest to win the heart of local beauty has found a home here, becoming one of the most popular stories of all time.

This version of the story takes place in the town of Sleepy Hallow, New York.  After Ichabod Crane relocated to this region, he quickly learned about the ghost of a headless horsemen, a Hessian soldier who searches for the head he lost during battle in the Revolutionary war.

Ichabod, infatuated with Sleepy Hollow’s Katrina Van Tassel, made it his mission to win her hand in marriage. However, wooing her was not as easy as it seems, because she had captured the attention of many men, including Brom, the village muscle man who scared off many of her suitors with his strength and boisterous pranks.

According to the legend that became a short story written by Washington Carver in 1820, one night Ichabod, despondent, rode away from Katrina’s home. When he passed a haunted tree he spotted a figure behind him on horseback. He did not see the rider’s head, so he grew afraid. It was rumored that the rider hurled his detached head at the school teacher. The next day Ichabod’s horse returned to the farm owner where Ichabod had been staying, but Ichabod was nowhere in sight. In fact, Ichabod was never seen or heard from again after that fateful night.

Some say the Headless Horseman chased Ichabod away. Others say it was the strong man who wanted Katrina all to himself. What do you think?  

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About Folklore

Headless Horseman