2025 National Poetry Month Ekphrastic Poetry Contest

For the 2025 National Poetry Month Ekphrastic Poetry Contest, SAMA partnered with local poets and art institutions to invite the community to draw inspiration from artworks for ekphrastic poems—poems that describe and expand on the theme of an existing piece of visual art. The artwork that SAMA selected for the contest this year is Man Playing Trumpet by Marcus Leslie Singleton.

Marcus Leslie Singleton, Man Playing Trumpet. 2020. Oil on canvas. 48 × 36 in. (121.9 × 91.4 cm). San Antonio Museum of Art, gift of the Alex Katz Foundation. 2021.23.5 © Marcus Leslie Singleton

The poems below are this year’s winners in the youth and adult categories:

2025 Adult Winning Poems

One Blue Note

out of the darkness, one blue note curls
          Jim Crow shuffles his feet
one half-tone sings sorrow, sings hope
          twenty-five thousand march, no retreat
fifty-five years of scat and struggle
          front of the bus, a man gives up his seat
insistent blue note chanting our lives matter
          single white knee, Minneapolis street
two red waves, one long black shadow
          longer blue note still counting the beats
bans on science, on love — now DEI censors
          unyielding blue note now urgently whispers

blue note like smoke, still rising — still free.

Marla Dial Moore

Call & Response

His lips           test the edge      of a razored history,
cheekbones           carved by a horn’s curve.
Prying the dark open           like a wound.

Flesh braids brass,           an umber lacquer,
a silk thread      sprinting           through the valves.
His breath        bruises quiet,    raw-knuckled.

Weaving blows           like a dizzy phantom,
as the room      remembers itself.
The trumpet      stains the air      midnight,

pools      on the floor,      a busted inkwell.
Vines up the walls      in navy strokes.
The club          dissolving,           a throat lozenge.

Choking sound           like feather-down,
spitting out      what won’t be swallowed.

Naomi Wilson

Gonna Hear It Shine

What fights my darkness
cuts clean thru it
is the gleam of brass
the lamp of learning
and how I’m gonna blast
my way with a high c note
into the dazzle that lifts
this too small basket
off my over size light.
I will shine like the sun says,
beam my aurora of songs
and if my heart be true
I will sing my twinkle
as far as the stars.

Mark Kessinger

2025 Youth Winning Poems

The Rhythm of the Streets

The busy streets of Brooklyn stop for no one
The horns honking, people begging, and puddles splashing
The tumultuous streets of Brooklyn stop for no one
The fire trucks speeding, people walking, and umbrellas opening
The cramped streets of Brooklyn stop for no one
The vibrations of the jack hammer, people's agitation, and droplets on your forehead
The quiet streets of Brooklyn make you stop
A melody dipped in gold comes from an underground jazz club
The homely streets of Brooklyn make you stop
A feeling of security washes over you as the soft tempo approaches
The abstract streets of Brooklyn make you stop
A harmonic slur hugs you as you dance on your own
The tiny, but mighty trumpet stops all of Brooklyn

Brijé Williams

The Tomb

Endless noise plagues the room devoid of any meaning.
The only comfort, a lonely wisp
a noise heard by only the wind.
There’s nothing but harsh sounds that hit the inner walls,
walls covered in the fear of what might occur if heard.
The dread consumes what might bring joy,
reflecting who I inspire to be.
This fear holds me back in the darkness of my own tomb.
As my fingers glide meticulously,
the sounds are carried into the calm.
A need for liberation, for freedom, for release
a need to satisfy the dread overcoming me.
The wind is my aid, I feel the safety,
my grief is washed away
my music brilliant, the noise carried into the ears of my savior.

Greyson Rodriguez

Additionally, community poets have been selected to represent the participating art institutions in the creation of a unique ekphrastic poem based on a piece that is currently on view. The poem below, Divine Foxes by Mobi Warren, is inspired by Pair of Inari Fox Kami.

Divine Foxes

During famine
                    on the back of a white fox 
fleet-pawed and nine-tailed
                    Inari appeared 
offering sheaves of rice

Mutable Inari, gender fluid god, 
                     sometimes young woman 
in pearl white kimono sashed with red
                     sometimes bearded old man 
who holds the granary key 
                      sometimes gender-free buddha
cradling the gem of thousand year wisdom
 
Two foxes grin,
                       messengers, Inari’s kin 
wood and lacquered bodies 
                       weather-stripped and pale
life kindles in the crystal eyes 
                       spindles from the ears 
Vixen mouths a wish-fulfilling orb
                       Tod grips a magic key 
flames of foxen soul 
                        star globes glow
float on tufts of tail         
                        swish, enchant the room

Exiled from shrine 
                        that once was home, 
now voiceless sit
                        but who can doubt
they leap from glass case at night 
                        to yap shape-shifting song:

                       fluid grace, glide of fog 
                       angelic smoke and vapor 
                       beguile and vanish
                       reappear     a girl
                       a boy     or neither
                       lantern the trees
                       with phosphorescent light 
                       come lamp the spirit 
                       with delight
                       bring us tofu pockets
                       stuffed with rice
                       come claim your wealth
                       come dance with us

Mobi Warren