2023 Ekphrastic Poetry Winners

2023 NPMSA EKPHRASTIC POETRY CONTEST
The Briscoe Western Art Museum

We partnered with local poets and other art institutions to invite poets to draw inspiration from artworks. Writers will create a poem written in response to Jerry Jordan’s “Listen for the Drums” from our collection.

An ekphrastic poem is based on a piece of art, taking an existing piece of visual art and using written words to describe and expand on the theme of that work of art. Many of these poems explore hidden meanings or an underlying story. Each local art institution selected one work from their collection to feature in the 2023 Ekphrastic Poetry Contest for adult and youth poets.

2023 Poetry Adult Winners

Listen, Sisters, for the Drum!
Vast the prairie, vast the mountains,
Vast the spirit of her tribe.
Dancing for the generations,
Surging, swaying, all as one –
“Listen, Sisters, for the drum!”
Small, not fragile; young, yet strong.
Like the feathers of the eagle,
Taking flight at spirit’s call,
Motion born in rhythmic hum –
Drawn together by the drum!

Donna S. Richey

Sun Beats
That day by all measures, like any other,
Its length, its rhythms, its minutes and hours,
Awakened by whispers and a sweet forehead kiss,
This day would be special for what it’s filled with.
The Earth told us now we will dance for the sun,
My mother told me, just listen for drums.
Wary of blunders to show what I’ve learned,
Played out in my head, turn after turn.
How will I know and when will they come?
These sounds in the air, these fatherly drums,
She touches my chest on top of my covers,
You listen right here and not to another,
The day was a dream, the harvest of summer,
By the end of that day I was my own drummer.

Gilbert De La Rosa

Trail, Unending
Not so wild,
This abandon,
But a rehearsed joy,
Because underneath
Brightly woven fabrics
And intricate, studied steps,
The drum beats
In time
With the heart.
An echo.
Unending longing
For stolen lands…
True home.

C.M. Bratton

2023 Poetry Youth Winners

Manifesting of Destiny
Peace
With nature
With ourselves
With strangers
Until they arrived
Fierce and silent
as winter’s first snow
Light colored people with hair the color of straw
Came without warning, without reason
And stole
Our homes
Fear, fear ruled the day
The chief declared
Listen for the drums
For they mean you are home.

Avyakta Kanthes

Listening
Drums a heartbeat of the soul
I hear them, pulsing through my ears
Following the tempo of our ancestors before us
Ba-dum dum dum ba-dum
More people joining, more colors everywhere
We dance, and sing, and laugh
The beat of the music vibrating through the ground
Ba-dum dum dum Ba-dum
Tempo rising, feet faster
We end with a kick and say our goodbyes
Listening for the drums again

Pia Nathani