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

Traveling through Life

There was a time when personal stories weren’t considered folktales. Many thought them not legendary enough or not universal enough to be told to anyone, anywhere. But, that archaic view has changed. Today these narratives are folktales because they have something to 'tell us' about the choices we all must make in one fashion or other about how to live our lives.

In classic folklore tradition, whether verbal, written, or audio/video recording, these stories reflect the personal style of the teller which can be humorous, melancholic, fearful or joyful. And they connect the dots between people in the teller's circle, including friends, colleagues, and family as well as members of the larger global community.

 

This is done with the use of  folklore motifs that include trickster lessons and the hero's journey often presented through archetypal figures, such as risk-takers, thieves, and lovers whose stories reflect time-honored values, such as honesty and courage.

The beauty of these attributes is that they can be updated to be relevant to modern audiences.

For example, in Oracle of Birds; Short Stories for the Fireside, a hybrid collection of poetry, family folktales (personal narratives), animal lore and more, by award winning writer Donna Faulkner (nee Miller), the motorcycle replaces former modes of transportation and becomes a common thread of 'travel' between the writer's past and her present; between herself and her parents, she and her partner.

The first mention of this motorized two-wheeler is in Rag Doll Rider. This creative non-fiction piece earned her 2nd place in Havik (2023). It opens with a remembering of a motorcycle accident she witnessed in youth. The incident appears again when she recalls her father's love of motorcycles and her mother's feelings about the topic. As an adult, Faulkner again uses this contemporary vehicle as a symbol of something she personally shares with another.  

Of the motorcycle, she says, "In the Oracle of Birds I’ve predominantly drawn inspiration from the natural world but have used motorcycles as a literary mechanism, a literal and metaphorical vehicle for navigating through adulthood."

The New Zealand writer whose work has also appeared in numerous publications, including Erbacce, Takahē: Hua/ Manu, The Typescript, Tarot Poetry New Zealand, and New Myths, goes on to note that such a symbol represents the idea of moving through life. "Journeying is universal. Nothing is stagnant. We are all going somewhere. Straddling freedom through surrender, motorcycles also lean comfortably into the archetypal of the horse and all it represents in the psyche. Reconciling the fragility of life whilst accepting the inevitability of death."

The motorcycle theme is also at the heart of Faulkner's poem, Riding Mountains. It is "a conceptual representation of freedom whilst the title alludes to the idea that we think we can conquer anything."

Admittedly, this poem about being present is one of her personal favorites. 

Rich with imagery and meaning, this work opens with Saturation, a stunning three liner that serves as both emotional release and a call to action:

sky knocks on parched ground
let me in. You need my tears
and I need to weep.

and includes other folkloric genres, such as animal lore, fables, and legends. In these she revisions  'The Fable of the Spider and the Housemate' as well as a poetic rendition of 'Baba Yaga', a Slavic forest dweller who can be both helpful or harmful.

About these choices, she explains, "The biggest breakthroughs occur when we explore dark places, look into the heart of what scares us. In writing ‘The Fable of the Housemate and the Spider’ I gathered together the threads of old myths to respin the old narrative and offer up an alternative take. I included the fable in this collection because it complemented the concept of interconnectivity - the overall theme that scaffolds this collection. I'd received a lot of feedback from readers that this fable had made them reconsider their feelings and attitudes towards spiders."

Her decision to conclude this body of work with Baba Yaga whom she describes as the personification of the Crone is because ""Sometimes maligned, often misunderstood, she is wise because she has learned to assimilate the lessons of the journey." 

Oracle of Birds; Short Stories for the Fireside offers the reader a personal  invitation to ride into the mountains with her where:

Valleys applaud 

the engines thrum.

Skirting roadsides 

waving lupins 

painted purple.

Riders taste

sweet 

blossom’s breath.

This well-put-together book, published by Written Tales (USA) is available in paperback & ebook at https://books2read.com/u/mdPYX5

 To learn more about Donna Faulkner: https://linktr.ee/donnafaulkner