From Katy Luxem's #ekphrastic poem 'Instructions on Post-Impressionism': 'Lay down the sharp scythes let them spoon one another in the shady stack of afternoon. Sleep becomes another language for painting people ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/sep-26...

'Instructions on Post-Impressionism' by Katy Luxem | After...

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From David Rutherford's #ekphrastic poem 'Out of Nowhere': 'Because the woods are coming for me with their disco lights. Because I am feeling myself beginning to fizz theatrical, to gesture a demand for a kind of quenching' afterpoetry.com/poem/sep-11...

'Out of Nowhere' by David Rutherford | After...

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From John Adlam's #ekphrastic poem 'Still Life': ' ... liquid on cold grey bone, a porcelain dish of pears like opaleye and bluefish rippling, an aquarium of myrtle and viridian ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/aug-28...

'Still Life' by John Adlam | After...

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From Mary Mulholland's #ekphrastic poem 'The girl I saw in Avilés': ' ... Her tight red brocade reveals every bulge of a prematurely buxom body that could pass for twenty-six, not six.' afterpoetry.com/poem/aug-12...

'The girl I saw in Avilés' by Mary Mulholland | After...

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From Devjani Bodepudi's #ekphrastic poem 'Reaching': 'If I could concertina you into a crescent moon pressing red and blue flowers into your palms weave you loosely into my hair, I would.' afterpoetry.com/poem/jul-29...

'Reaching' by Devjani Bodepudi | After...

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From Elizabeth Fevyer's #ekphrastic poem 'Seule': 'And all the while an ecstasy of white. Re-virginised, but for the smoked-out chimneys of her legs, spread wide beneath the cyanide contour of her hand.' afterpoetry.com/poem/jul-14...

'Seule' by Elizabeth Fevyer | After...

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Delighted to announce @afterpoetry.com's six nominees for @sundresspub.bsky.social's Best of the Net 2027. Congratulations to Ennis Rook Bashe, Rebekah Wolman, Victoria Spires, Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad, Kate Vanhinsbergh and Barnaby Harsent! 🥳

From Barnaby Harsent's #ekphrastic poem 'From, to': 'A body braced against itself – hinge and tension shaped by grain. While further down, skin recedes into a curtain’s darkest folds ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/jun-29...

'From, to' by Barnaby Harsent | After...

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From Zelda Cahill-Patten's #ekphrastic poem 'Flowers of Edo': 'In the Edo of Hiroshige’s boyhood, they named the fires edo no hana. All over the city, ash flowered.' afterpoetry.com/poem/jun-14...

'Flowers of Edo' by Zelda Cahill-Patten | After...

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From Sarah Raybould's #ekphrastic poem 'Her Poppy Earrings': 'Her earrings are a poppy field are a battlefield, are drops of blood in trenches roll out to sea, are a pricked finger in a fairy tale ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/may-31...

'Her Poppy Earrings' by Sarah Raybould | After...

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When I launched my first online poetry journal @iamb.uk in February 2020, I included myself among its initial 20 poets. I've so far resisted the temptation to feature my own work in my second journal @afterpoetry.com. That changes tomorrow, with the publication of this tribute to poet Kathryn Bevis.

From #ekphrastic poem 'Fly' by @markantonyowen.com, in tribute to the late Kathryn Bevis: 'We find you not in IT IS but WE ARE – see you, always, in the hearthome. Wherever there is loverise, YOU ARE.' afterpoetry.com/poem/may-16...

'Fly' by Mark Antony Owen | After...

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From Sarah Doyle's #ekphrastic poem, 'The Bacchanal of the Andrians': 'Ribald, lathered, blotto-hearted, bladdered, adrenalin-thrilled. Old habits of abstinence, cast aside, for insatiable infractions.' afterpoetry.com/poem/may-01...

'The Bacchanal of the Andrians' by Sarah Doyle | After...

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From Kate Vanhinsbergh's #ekphrastic poem, 'Brief Visit to a Barcelona Sex Castle': ' ... this whole castle clings to the glottal step of the gy, the glassy-eyed fantasy of fucking some sugar junkie ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/apr-17...

'Brief Visit to a Barcelona Sex Castle' by Kate Vanhinsbergh | After...

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From Leia Butler's #ekphrastic poem, '1000-1' ... 'We are swapping secrets, In the leaves, In the trunks, In the petals, // (There are 754 pieces left)' afterpoetry.com/poem/apr-02...

'1000-1' by Leia Butler | After...

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From Winifred Mok’s #ekphrastic poem, ‘Lisa’: ‘I try to sit still. I imagine my own hand at oil painting, curves of his face, the sfumato of sunlight through glass.’ afterpoetry.com/poem/mar-19...

From Fokkina McDonnell's #ekphrastic poem, 'The Avid Reader': 'We see the middle-aged man carrying a hat, smoking a pipe, because Graham inhabits him. All artists are obsessives: these giant light boxes, demanding our devotion.' afterpoetry.com/poem/mar-03...

'Canada is as far away as bibles are' by Fokkina McDonnell | After...

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From Susan Trofimow's #ekphrastic poem 'The Lion in the Room': 'Almost too late, the light arrived – coming from a window I couldn’t see.   The lion had drawn himself closer, and with him the scent of cream.' afterpoetry.com/poem/feb-17...

'The Lion in the Room' by Susan Trofimow | After...

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From Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad's #ekphrastic poem 'Paper tiger': 'The café scene I am starring in is comical in hindsight. Coffee with a paper tiger. Quills, flaming arrows, stones, catapult into the air. A bouquet of hummingbirds discolours the sun.' afterpoetry.com/poem/feb-01...

On the day nominations open for The Forward Prizes 2026, @afterpoetry.com is delighted to announce its three nominees in the Best Single Poem (Written) category. Best of luck to @philvernon.bsky.social, @hareontherun.bsky.social and @victoriaspires.bsky.social. 🥳

From Hannah Linden's #ekphrastic poem 'Office': 'Again, a woman creeps towards a man with his pants around his ankles and even then he wants to be magnified to a hundred times his own size.' afterpoetry.com/poem/jan-18...

'Office' by Hannah Linden | After...

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A new feature comes to @afterpoetry.com: an A-Z poet finder! If you know a particular poet has appeared in the journal but can't recall in which year, this page will help you. All 100 poets (so far) are now searchable alphabetically by first name. afterpoetry.com/a-z

Poets A-Z | After... Poems inspired by other art

Find a poet in online ekphrastic poetry journal After...

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Celebrating the 100th #ekphrastic poem on After... 'I am a knife. I cut meat. I am in a painting. I cut space. The form was dreamt before the fact. Mirror image, mirror act. Grooved in your life-line I lie in your hand; I am a sign in your mind ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/jan-03...

'The Cut' by Suzi Feay | After...

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Final #ekphrastic poem of 2025, and a second consecutive outing for poetry inspired by the work of Frank Auerbach. 'For two years he has worked her rich in black and white, scraped her back to canvas, ghost and bone.' afterpoetry.com/poem/dec-20...

So happy to have this poem up on After... Poetry, for a few reasons: More than any other art I've seen in recent years, Auerbach's charcoal heads have stayed with me. I'm pretty sure it was either the first or second ekphrastic poem I wrote (really should do more). I've waited a year for this!

𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫... 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐫𝐭@afterpoetry.com · 10mo ago

What to do with scraps of light found in our battle with life's darkness. Victoria Spires makes this #ekphrastic poem from a Frank Auerbach drawing. 'Suggestible of something rending, something Far from abstract – the exquisite flash Of pain, as private teleology.' afterpoetry.com/poem/dec-04-...

What to do with scraps of light found in our battle with life's darkness. Victoria Spires makes this #ekphrastic poem from a Frank Auerbach drawing. 'Suggestible of something rending, something Far from abstract – the exquisite flash Of pain, as private teleology.' afterpoetry.com/poem/dec-04-...

Read New Ekphrastic Poem 'Lightfastness' by Victoria Spires exclusively in After... | Poems Inspired By Other Art

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Rebekah's Wolman's #ekphrastic poem celebrates Pacita Abad's reinvention of her 'birthbody'. 'to imagine your self design your self assemble your self this collagebody construction of paper pulp scraps foil playing till dawn in the workshop' afterpoetry.com/poem/nov-20-...

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**CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL!!** Today, @afterpoetry.com reveals which poems it will publish throughout 2026. Picking 17 poets from more than 130 submissions was no easy task – so well done to all who made it through selection. Are you in? Here's where to find out ... afterpoetry.com/index/poems/...

All Poems | 2026 | After... Poems inspired by other art

See the full index of ekphrastic poems published by After... in 2026

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