Our January 2025 Flash Contest was based on Prompt #312 (provided by Stone Soup students Emma Hoff), which asked that participants create a story, poem, artwork, or a musical composition based off of the painting "Champs de Mars: The Red Tower" by Robert Delaunay using the ekphrastic method.
As always, thank you to all who participated, and please keep submitting next month!
In particular, we congratulate our Honorable Mentions, listed below, and our Winners, whose work you can appreciate below.
Winners
"Modernism’s Blinding Earthquake" by Gavin Liu, 15
"The Red Tower: When the Old Order Makes Way for the New" by Nathan Qu, 13
"Mr. Eiffel" by Derek Zhang, 11
Honorable Mentions
"Through The Eyes Of Time" by Wing Hey Chan, 13
"I Remember" by Isabel Sands, 15
"The City of Gray" by Sydney Kesselheim, 12
Modernism’s Blinding Earthquake
Gavin Liu, 15
Leaning city buildings crumple
in the tower’s flame. Angels fall —
or are they attempting to rise on
Jacob’s ladder to evacuate
modernism’s earthquake
Sky’s gloominess tests angels’ golden
wings to avoid fiery-red beams
as Delaunay’s frantic mind holds no doubt
of what demise modernity will bring—
his desperate plea to Parisians
to see civility’s tumbling collapse
and the Eiffel Tower’s meaning—
earth forgotten—unable to withstand
the heavy iron, steel, and electric light
as nature’s goodwill lags behind
modernism’s deception.
Nature’s resistance—crackling lightning
striking Paris’s elegant tower made red—
to unsnare people’s ignorance to instead wake
in sun’s golden tower of love.
The Red Tower: When the Old Order Makes Way for the New
Nathan Qu, 13
Burst of burnished bronze
Blasts archaic world order
Into smithereens
City’s lustrous lights welcome
The twentieth century
Mr. Eiffel
Derek Zhang, 11
A shiny tower is beheld
Emitting light as it’s shown
Glowing bright in the sky
Clouds of color surround the tower
Red veins channel through
As the sun shines in envy
Drawing people like mosquitoes
Symphony of awes heard from miles
The soul of the Eiffel looks in pride
The only star in the gray
As time slowly grinds by
The Eiffel tower stands still
Breathing fresh air all it does
The whisper of winds passes by
People come to see the top
The same their forebears had
Years of respect has gone by
Other places have gathered fame
But the Eiffel still dominates
Crowned the king of the sky
Always to be remembered in the mind
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