The window is open, poets ... come on in. #opensubmissions #poetry #afterpoetry #ekphrastic #ekphrasis

Over 40 publications re-opened today, including @afterpoetry.com @trashcatlit.bsky.social @innerworlds.bsky.social @themerseyreview.bsky.social @artscalling.com @mslexia.bsky.social @ravensquothpress.bsky.social https://duotrope.com...

It's nearly time again ... If you've been looking for a home for that 'after' or ekphrastic poem, @afterpoetry.com is the place for you. Submissions reopen tomorrow – October 1st 2025. You then have the entire month to send in your poem for a chance to feature in After... in 2026. Good luck! 🤞🏼

Sculpture as movement frozen. Dance as light captured. This new #ekphrastic poem by @duntruner.bsky.social has it all. 'I saw her dance again there, enfolded in negative space, I saw again that hip-spun pause of lofted breath.' afterpoetry.com/poem/sep-21-...

The title of John White's #ekphrastic poem deceives. Is it about office life? Or just life? 'We floated, avatars of the open plan, by night rehearsing in the snooker dens each with a cue trained over a pack of Bensons like an extension of him, holding a heron ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/sep-07-...

Art on art about art retelling a myth – @nberlat.bsky.social‬'s #ekphrastic Icarus poem goes deeper. 'Breughel was right about suffering but not like Auden says. Icarus isn’t the man whose suffering is forgotten. There he is in the painting. There he is in the poem.' afterpoetry.com/poem/aug-23-...

In @clattermonger.bsky.social's new #ekphrastic poem, Rodin's father making his son making his father gives cause to write of his own father. ' ... I tried to paint you, to present you as a single plane, but find it best to sculpt your head so I can live among you.' afterpoetry.com/poem/aug-09-...

Art is more than what we hang, hear or read. As Ennis Rook Bashe shows us in this new #ekphrastic poem, it can also be what we play. 'Tachycardia: moth-wing heartbeat, lantern-golden eyes. I think I could break him the way fishhooks wouldn’t ... ' www.afterpoetry.com/poem/jul-24t...

There's a warning to us all in Matt Cariello's #ekphrastic reimagining of 'Beauty and the Beast': beware of what you want ... ' ... But see – she trembles that the beast is gone when all we ever wanted was a corridor lit with torches forever.' afterpoetry.com/poem/jul-10-...

Roger Hare's new #ekphrastic poem 'Jerusalem Syndrome' cleverly fuses art with religious psychosis. '... you will mock your own tears, the removal of sky from above your head, the emptying of all you thought required to be filled ...' afterpoetry.com/poem/jun-25-2025-roger-hare

A literal and figurative flight of fancy up next on @afterpoetry.com, with @helenlaycock.bsky.social's #ekphrastic poem 'Grand-Mère en Ciel'. 'I pull her in my wake, barefoot, threshing flames of barley, and she wings my hair with a fan of lavender, calming me ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/jun-11-...

New #ekphrastic poem from Patrick Wright on @afterpoetry.com takes us into the art of darkness. ' ... a town like this is void though one pulse of a deer’s heart makes it a plenum. A full spectrum will reveal itself only when you’ve pledged to cease hurting.' afterpoetry.com/poem/may-27-...

With a new #ekphrastic poem a little over 24 hours away on @afterpoetry.com – and a new font to improve readability – here are two tutorials to help you get the best from the journal when enjoying it on a mobile device. First, did you know you can tap on the moons to go through poems in date order?

With my apologies in advance to readers and contributors alike, poems on @afterpoetry.com are going to look less than their best for a few days (possibly weeks) while I go through the process of redesigning the site to accommodate a new font. Expect messiness – but know it won't be around for long.

There's a face in @amantineb.bsky.social's #ekphrastic poem 'La Gioconda' which, like the Mona Lisa's, you can't take your eyes off. ' ... In our incomplete house of tongues, from such sacred clay and embalmed scars, your beauty's skinned into an ancient prayer ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/may-12-...

Do not pass up the opportunity to read tonight's thought-provoking new #ekphrastic poem by @philvernon.bsky.social. 'No pasarán: they shall not pass – shall not by passing take away the hope – the slender chance.' afterpoetry.com/poem/apr-27-...

Extraordinary #ekphrastic poem up now on @afterpoetry.com, as Suzi Feay writes of bone made ceramic. ' ... Glass is a fluid that will flow Slower than marrow, DNA or any Beam in your house of meat.' afterpoetry.com/poem/apr-13-...

Today's #ekphrastic poem – 'Prophets', by Max Wallis – draws on Ginsberg's 'Howl'. 'All these dead and not-so-dead befores! All this that stood and fell and despite it all: saw their cities extend into the fever pit of men. And in doing so Hell became.' afterpoetry.com/poem/mar-29-...

Remembering the warm-hearted, talented and quietly spoken poet @ivordaniel.bsky.social, who passed away recently, and much too soon. With love and deepest sympathy to Ivor's family and friends. He will be missed, dearly. afterpoetry.com/poem/may-30-2022-ivor-daniel

This evening's #ekphrastic poem on @afterpoetry.com is ideal for an eclipsed 'blood' moon. Read Phillipa Trelford's serendipitously titled 'Selene'. 'Sea and sky merge to azurite, her face pearlescent in a night-lined box. She welcomes glimmering, the evening star.' afterpoetry.com/poem/mar-14-...

Treat yourself to new #ekphrastic poem 'Red Hills with Flowers' by @corinnaboard.bsky.social – her first publication of 2025, and her @afterpoetry.com debut. 'There are no flowers on Mars. Flowers like sunsets or sunrises, freshly cut, red as wounds.' afterpoetry.com/poem/feb-28-...

Look out for a new #ekphrastic poem on @afterpoetry.com from 9pm BST, as @corinnaboard.bsky.social makes her debut in the journal with a piece inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe's 'Red Hills with Flowers'.

New #ekphrastic poem is ready to read at @afterpoetry.com – @swhoffmann.bsky.social's 'Sundays at Second Baptist'. ' ... at Second Baptist, well-mannered and well-dressed, we joined the choir in singing 'Softly and Tenderly' – we, who had no knowledge of tenderness.' afterpoetry.com/poem/feb-12-...

Next #ekphrastic poem up on @afterpoetry.com is K Roberts' deft blend of mood and style, 'The Gilded Age'. ' ... await her lifted hand, soft-spoken word and pouring of rich order, recompense for hours whiled away unseen, unheard in the reliquary of her innocence.' afterpoetry.com/poem/jan-29-...

First up on @afterpoetry.com for 2025 is a powerful #ekphrastic poem by @jackbedell.bsky.social – 'Sungazing'. 'Each hammer blow echoes around his studio like spots of time, memories of his grandfather walking the streets near Hiroshima ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/jan-13-2025-jack-b-bedell

To say I’m stunned would be an understatement! Thank you so much @markantonyowen.com for nominating my poem ‘We are not gold’ for Best Single Poem Written in the @forwardprizes.bsky.social and for publishing it in @afterpoetry.com last year. I am beyond grateful for your support of my work 🙏

What blows me away isn't the little bit I've written or published in my sixties, it's generous editors like @markantonyowen.com and the incredible, apparently infinite world of poetic energy and beauty out there. To be part of this world at all is such an honour. And a comfort.

*FORWARD PRIZES 2025* Congratulations to these @forwardprizes.bsky.social nominees for Best Single Poem Written: @georgiahilton.bsky.social – We are not gold @esloudon.bsky.social – Y Tu Mamá También Suchi Govindarajan – Hope is a thing with chemicals Your poems will be formally submitted soon.

Happy New Year to one and all! Thank you for making @afterpoetry.com so successful over its first three years online. Be here from 9pm (GMT) on January 13th for @jackbedell's #ekphrastic poem 'Sungazing'.

A smart poem that deals deftly but honestly with a traumatic personal experience.

For @afterpoetry.com's final #ekphrastic poem of 2024, here's @annashelton.bsky.social's 'Motherhood'. ' ... he never knew the pains she rode through as she birthed him, how she oohed and aahed and ouched inside the room where hell became a hospital ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/dec-30-...

You can read my poem at 9pm tonight! A wonderful way to end a brilliant year of poetry! @afterpoetry.com #BlueSkyPoets

An interesting poetic coincidence is on its way for the last #ekphrastic poem of 2024 on @afterpoetry.com. Having published @shotscarecrow.bsky.social's 'Not Receiving Visitors' in October, the journal ends this year with @annashelton.bsky.social's 'Motherhood': a poem after Jon Stone's 'Mustard'.

Merry Christmas to you all from @afterpoetry.com. Thank you for reading in 2024.🎄

New #ekphrastic poem at @afterpoetry.com. Read Suchi Govindarajan's 'Hope is a thing with chemicals' – now up for the @pushcartprize.bsky.social. #fullmoon 'Each day is like a wiper sweeping tears Beyond its arc, where things stay untouched is who I used to be ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/dec-15-...

New #ekphrastic prose poem at @afterpoetry.com. Read @Jona_writes' 'What Remains Sacred'. #newmoon ' ... on the portal, you painted a clock, with the hands showing 09—for the nine muses—and 05 for the fleeting minutes that they stay.' afterpoetry.com/poem/dec-01-...

**CONGRATULATIONS!** It wasn't easy selecting nominees for The @PushcartPrize. But in the end these six poems stood out. Well done to @esloudon.bsky.social, @bethosmond.bsky.social, Laurie Eaves, Mary Ford Neal, Penny Ayers and Suchi Govindarajan. Your nominations will be formally submitted soon.

New #ekphrastic poem at @afterpoetry.com. Read Clare Bonetree's 'We were talking about roundness'. #fullmoon ' ... of oranges, women, planets, artichokes, beachballs, marbles, glass eyes, the letter O; the shape a mouth makes: O, O, O, O, O ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/nov-15-...

New #ekphrastic poem at @afterpoetry.com. Read Katherine Meehan's 'The Phenomenal World'. #newmoon ' ... Death’s feathered headband lay in the dress-up box, so adorable my heart hurt— the feral pack survives, the flowers rinse cesium from the water ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/nov-01-...

New #ekphrastic poem at @after_poetry. Read @shotscarecrow's 'Not Receiving Visitors'. #fullmoon ' ... in the room and in my mind’s eye, is the depths of that body of blackness. My ceiling is its lakebed, my curtain cords its weeds.' afterpoetry.com/poem/oct-17-...

New #ekphrastic poem at @after_poetry. Read @Rachel__Curzon's 'Ghost over the Trees'. #newmoon 'There are words ghost wants to speak but they are muscled out by ranged, attentive spruce & by the screaming.' afterpoetry.com/poem/oct-02-...

New #ekphrastic poem at @afterpoetry.com. Read Jim Lloyd's 'Rock Forms'. #fullmoon 'A boundary is that which is an extremity of anything. Tacks holding your canvases taut, silent, in the white gallery.' afterpoetry.com/poem/sep-18-...

New #ekphrastic poem at @afterpoetry.com. Read Elizabeth Loudon's 'Y Tu Mamá También'. #newmoon ' ... believing that a woman in peril will snatch at a handful of boy on a cheap sheet in a seaside motel, the mouth of her body stretched wide ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/sep-03-...

New #ekphrastic poem at @afterpoetry.com. Read Carolyn Martin's 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at Haystacks'. #fullmoon ' ... VIII I prefer the inkling of light to its blinding reality. IX To rise at 3:30am to catch ephemera: the holy hush of sacrifice ... ' www.afterpoetry.com/poem/aug-19-...

The psychic distress evoked in Edvard Munch’s symbolist/proto-expressionist work is a source of endless inspiration for me as an ekphrastic poet 😱 'The Storm' afterpoetry.com/poem/aug-04-... Deepest thanks to EIC @markantonyowen.com at @afterpoetry.com 🙏🏻 #Munch #EdvardMunch

Congratulations to Elizabeth Osmond, JP Seabright, Kurt Cole Eidsvig, Laurie Eaves, L Kiew and Spencer Wood on your nominations for @sundresspub.bsky.social's Best of the Net 2025. Your poems will be formally submitted within the next two weeks.

New #ekphrastic poem at @afterpoetry.com. Read northseanavigator.bsky.social's 'The Storm'. #newmoon ' ... these fjord waters welling up their black oil into me, my pretty insides dusk, a scream of trees, my smudged sex hexed, I am the wind rattling the pane ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/aug-04-...

New #ekphrastic poem at @afterpoetry.com. Read @marcadimartino.bsky.social‬'s 'Note'. #fullmoon 'I wonder what that note says. Rent's due. Need milk. Luv u. Nothing earth-shattering, I suppose. Except it was.' afterpoetry.com/poem/jul-21-2024-marc-alan-di-martino

New #ekphrastic poem at @afterpoetry.com. Read @djvorreyer.bsky.social's 'At the Rodin Museum'. #newmoon 'Seventy-two hours away from you, and I am bone tired, empty as a windsock, looking for something to shape the void.' afterpoetry.com/poem/jul-05-2024-donna-vorreyer

New #ekphrastic poem at @afterpoetry.com. Read Elizabeth Osmond's 'Largo ma non tanto'. #fullmoon 'Into the B natural and the G sharp, I pour grief. Into the final bars I put poetry.' afterpoetry.com/poem/jun-22-2024-elizabeth-osmond