Welcome to Ekstasis

We publish poetry, essays & artist profiles that slant toward the triumphant and glorious aspects of life in Christ, framed through the arts and literature. You’re invited to explore the poetic texture of faith.

Longform Essays

We feature thoughtful essays where
art meets academia, and kingdom meets culture.

Home

The Novel and the Dictator

The Novel and the Dictator

Nadya Williams on the Man Who Criticized Stalin Yet Lived

A Bird in the Wound

A Bird in the Wound

Julia Bartel on Reading John Keats After Grad School

Writing to Stay Awake

Writing to Stay Awake

Ryan Snider on the Pastoral Art of Attention

Castle of the Soul

Castle of the Soul

Dana Delibovi on Teresa of Ávila in New York

Wings Smacking Windows

Wings Smacking Windows

Courtney Ellis on Caring in the Face of Helplessness

Playing in the Shadow of Death

Playing in the Shadow of Death

Katy Bowser Hutson on the Integral Spirit of Play

The Book Launch After the Funeral

The Book Launch After the Funeral

Karen Stiller on Love, Resilience, and Writing in the Dark

Praying in Greek Tragedy

Praying in Greek Tragedy

Carolyn Etzel Branch on the Allure & Art of Mysticism

A Scene Report from a Literary Gathering

A Scene Report from a Literary Gathering

Kevin LaTorre on Manifest Community

The Scars of the Crocodile Spirit

The Scars of the Crocodile Spirit

Amelia Buzzard on Life that Doesn’t Take an Eye for an Eye

Standing Bare Before Infinity

Standing Bare Before Infinity

Josh Nadeau on Ancient Cosmology & Sublimity

Bohemia in the Suburbs

Bohemia in the Suburbs

Katy Carl on the Task of Today’s Christian Artist

A Future After the War

A Future After the War

Lancia E. Smith on Cultivating the Culture of Tomorrow

Slippery Reality

Slippery Reality

Leah Regester on Psychosis and the Everlasting River

Ecstatic Hunger

Ecstatic Hunger

Sharon Rose Christner on Brothers & Heaven’s Many Breads

Ecstatic Articles

We feature articles that layer the stories of culture, theology, and technology in a way that presents true myth for a hypermodern age.

How Poetry Speaks to the Skin

How Poetry Speaks to the Skin

The Multiverse of Grief

The Multiverse of Grief

Dissecting the Universe

Dissecting the Universe

Confessions of a Loner

Confessions of a Loner

Poems as Buildings

Poems as Buildings

When Arts Communities Die

When Arts Communities Die

Writing as Pure Play

Writing as Pure Play

Artist Holding Down a Job

Artist Holding Down a Job

Featured Poetry

We feature poetry that speaks to the wide breadth of
the Christ-infused core of everyday experience.

Poetry

Thin Places

Bonita Jewel

Incineration

Linnéa Strömberg

Christus, Objectum Amoris Mei

Christus, Objectum Amoris Mei

Spencer Barnhill

Psalm

Krystle Eilen

Winter Sun

Margo Swiss

Defy the Devil

Sarah Burke Cahalan

The Well

Matthew VanderKwaak

Anima Christi

Christopher Snook

Blackhawk

Casey Dwyer

Ride to Glory

Sarah Tate

Architects

A.A. Gunther

The Magnolia Years

The Magnolia Years

Emma Galloway Stephens

Peaches on the Ceiling

Peaches on the Ceiling

Justin Whitmel Earley

Please wear me down to smooth, don’t stop midway

Please wear me down to smooth, don’t stop midway

Nathaniel Brown

Will

Katie Hartsock

God is not a doctor

God is not a doctor

Vivien Drabkin

Encounter

Mia Schilling Grogan

September 15th

Rosa Gilbert

Pantoum Beginning with Sermon Notes

Pantoum Beginning with Sermon Notes

Tanya Runyan

Fox Song

Lily Antonella Price

Liminal

Jacob Lee

Sonnet on a Look from the Lord

Sonnet on a Look from the Lord

Kelsey Peterson

Cup of Salvation

Cup of Salvation

Asher Silvey

The Death of the Student

The Death of the Student

Daniel Fitzpatrick

What Is There to Doubt?

What Is There to Doubt?

Colm O’Shea

Interviews & Profiles

Lisa Fields

Luci Shaw

Christian Wiman

Christian Wiman

Makoto Fujimura

Makoto Fujimura

Jessica Hooten Wilson

Jessica Hooten Wilson

Justin Giboney

Media & Features

“A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn.” — Ovid 🦌

Death of a poet 🌅

To the last it came, and there she slumps
All shuttered doors and twitching nerves
All half-torn sheets and blotted words
Dark curtains drawn in quiet haste

Bedside reaching; foggy hot delirium,
To her desk of dreams and holy wo

Memoir of an unremarkable life 📚 If the only people deemed worthy of writing about their lives are the rich, powerful, or unique, we are continually reinforcing a status hierarchy that excludes most of us.

In contrast, our ordinary, out-of-the-way

I want to be the storm: a poem 🌩️

When I watch the tenon fit like a child’s palm
into their father’s hand, or when the storm,
cryptic and swift, drifts, its lightning
like caramel and sapphire filtered
through desert sand, or when th

What's beyond the creative career? 🎭 The thing about New York City is that no one ends up here by accident. Most people have a dream in their heart and a passion to pursue. The competition is intense, and the lifestyle fast amidst the jostle of 8.4

Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings. — W.H. Auden 🌀

Dissecting the universe 🔪 Lots of our thinking, and even our living, seems to be that way—more machine and less alive. I was trying to understand by annihilation, trying to apprehend by destruction; by dissection.

It was wonder that began to

Beauty in the darkness 🕯️ A generation is leaving the church and rejecting Christianity altogether at an alarming rate. The yearning for purpose and community, truth and grace, are still there; they are essential to our theological anthropology, the

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