Author Archives:

RUBY & ROLAND: A NOVEL by Faith Sullivan, reviewed by Beth Kephart

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

RUBY & ROLAND: A NOVEL
by Faith Sullivan
Milkweed Editions, 256 pages
reviewed by Beth Kephart

Ruby and Roland Book Jacket

Books recalibrate our imaginations. They expect us to make room, to put on our nearest pair of shoes and walk the hall, the street, the cornfields, whispering to ourselves and to the wind.

When Faith Sullivan began writing what has become known as her Harvester books—novels like The Cape Ann and The Empress of One and Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse—she invited readers to join her in a fictional Minnesota landscape, then gave them many reasons to return. Sullivan’s Harvester is a palpable place. Its people are relatable and real. They carry burdens and they engage in kindness. Their bones bend with the hills.

Now midway into her eighties, Sullivan is still finding, within Harvester, commonplace stories of everyday appeal. Her new book, Ruby & Roland, begins not in Harvester, but in Illinois, where Ruby Drake is living an idyllic childhood with a childlike mother until her parents are killed in an accident. The orphan moves in with one family and then with another, packing tokens of her youth and holding memories near. It is at the Schoonover farm, in Harvester, that Ruby becomes who she seems meant to be—a reliable and literate farm girl. She plants seeds and she harvests. She cans and she bakes. She makes the mess of mincemeat and then scrubs away the mess. It’s a happy existence, but happy, Sullivan knows, is not enough. Complications make a novel novel, and so Sullivan has her Ruby fall in love with the beautiful, blue-eyed Roland, whose equally beautiful wife, Dora, lies inconsolable in an upstairs room, following the death of her infant daughter.

Faith Sullivan, author headshot

Faith Sullivan

Things move at a rapid clip. Glances become touch. Touch becomes sex. Joy becomes guilt. Dora suspects that her husband is cheating, but, following another tragedy, she must accept Ruby’s help in her house. To whom must one be true? That’s the story here. Are we better people when we walk away from those we love? Best when we decide that the thing that we want most is not ours to have?

With her orphan start and her borrowed homes, her love of the seemingly unattainable Roland, and her domestic duties in an unhappy house, Ruby may be Jane Eyre inspired but she is also very much her own character, capable (most happily) of seeing the beauty of her world. She notices “the heavenly perfume of good clean smoke wafting up to one’s bedroom at night when the sky was ebon and the stars icy.” (34) She appreciates the piano music that drifts out of open doors and the one “moved along the wooden walk as if in the pages of a novel.” (32) She’s living her life, in other words, and in living hers, we, the readers, are escaping ours, walking the hills and riding the trains, wondering whose happiness should matter most, burnishing the secret that propels the novel forward.

Reading Sullivan is like spending time in a hammock beneath a tree on a day when there is just the right degree of breeze. Somebody’s baking peach pie and the air is sweet. Somebody’s dog is singing.

Beth Kephart is the author of more than two-dozen books, an adjunct teacher at the University of Pennsylvania, and the co-founder of Juncture Workshops. Wife|Daughter|Self: A Memoir in Essays will be published by Forest Avenue Press in spring 2021. More at bethkephartbooks.com.

Advertisements

BURIED ALIVE: A TO-DO LIST, poems by Carole Bernstein, reviewed by Claire Oleson

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

BURIED ALIVE: A TO-DO LIST
by Carole Bernstein
Hanging Loose Press, 80 pages.
reviewed by Claire Oleson

jacket art for Buried AliveFrom satirizing the mechanics of the American workplace to discovering motherly devotion in the myth of Persephone, Carole Bernstein’s third poetry collection Buried Alive: A To-Do List takes readers through caves and coffins alike, showing what living things still kick inside the previously presumed-dead.

The book follows a loose chronology, drawing from glimpses of her living to form the picture of a complete and complicated life. Bernstein is unafraid in her direct examinations of familial sexual abuse, injury and aging, and the unfolding joys and strains of motherhood in clear, occasionally very casual language. This book trusts its reader with image and metaphor but also consciously stays married to narrative; a majority of the poems in Buried Alive: A To-Do List navigate by chronology, desiring to approach the terrifying and mundane with equal clarity.

Before the life of the speaker unfolds, the second poem and the titular piece of the book takes us to her coffin. In “Buried Alive: A To-Do List,” we see the speaker contend with waking up buried alive, a circumstance which prompts them to list tips for enduring their own situation. The tone in this poem resembles that of many others in the book, tackling both a morbid humor and a clear horror. In this voice, the buried-alive speaker advises themselves to:

Calculate the gravid mass of Amalthea, a moon of Jupiter.
Order a pizza using reverse osmosis.
Pretend a demon is fucking you.
Beg for your mommy, and everyone’s mommy,
even though you’re over fifty.

Here, and throughout the collection, there is a haunting synthesization of humor and fear. Nothing can really be done in this coffin besides wait, but this doesn’t stop worlds of thought from blooming in the speaker’s mind. The audience is invited to “Try to see the puckered satin lip-like folds/ inches above your face,/ you just know it’s pink and livid, like a fleshy diseased vagina.” The folded insides of the coffin itself may be static, but the lines that detail them are anything but. The poem moves from genitalia to contemplations of the post-mortem to being “relieved that you can stop worrying/ about being buried alive someday.” Inside horror, we are at least given one less thing to worry about.

Mirroring the oxymoronic title, the poem ends with an exhibition of both life and death. The entombed woman remembers a day in winter when she bought a newspaper for an elderly man who was incredibly grateful. She closes her eyes and remembers the cold day, remarking “Already you can see your breath.” The reader is left on this exhale of warm breath in chilled air, a sign of living and a possible stand-in for a last breath, clever in its ability to be read as both. The sardonic and sincere share these stanzas, flooding a single coffin.

Author headshot for Carole Bernstein

Carole Bernstein

The book returns to the subterranean in “The Visit” where “a flashlight rolls over the walls of a cave” that proves to be a pregnant uterus. The fetus’s presence is likened to newly-discovered cave-drawings as the sonogram presents its “grainy screen” “this tiny, blurry, leaping bison or bear.” The ambiguity of the screen, the touring of the uterus as a container for life, and the lack of clarity of what the life itself actually looks like all gesture back to titular poem. Though there is a clear and bright hopefulness in this discovery, this “first art we know” in a body that was thought infertile in the poem immediately prior to “The Visit.” Still, this life emerges in conversation with the deaths around it. The cave and the coffin each show signs of the living and the departed, neither simply houses one or the other, and in this way Bernstein complicates the funeral and the delivery room in the same breath.

Despite its regular use of sarcasm and its deployment of humor to both survive and illuminate the world it inhabits, Buried Alive: A To-Do List demonstrates a heartfelt love for the living. This love is made clearer and better for its confrontations with death, as is seen in “Pumpkin,” a poem where a pet cat being euthanized because

A thing in her head was pressing on her brain,
the little cat-brain that had known me,
kept her body warm, observed the rain,

There is immense tenderness held in this small space where a sudden rhyme brightens the otherwise dismal lines. This rhyme emerges without an established rhyme-scheme, softly hinging a defunct neurology to the weather. Embracing this unexpected whimsy, Bernstein’s following tercets occasionally, but do not always, rhyme while showing the death of this cat that cradled knowing of its owner in its brain. The emergency eventually calms and “Something at some point loosened, breathed.” The reader knows in the given context that this is a death, but Bernstein has already shown us breathing both ending and starting lives, and like the unexpected rhymes scattered without clear pattern, there is a soft glow of unpredictability offered in this detail.

Again demonstrating a link rather than a division between living and dying, Bernstein offers another sort of softness in “Domestic Interiors.” The speaker folds worn undershirts which are “soft as silk, soft as nothing” as

Our daughter, a small bundled person deposited carefully on the
bed while I folded laundry—too young to even roll, she lay,
shifted, breathed, sighed, looked at the ceiling fixture, heard the
light report of the clothes shaken out, the gentle thud of
towels—

Alongside the laundry, the infant is rendered almost another object, a bundle of something that invites touch. Possessing a texture close to shirts owned for years, the newborn lies still until the mother conjures her as a young adult, iterating “I must not keep her.” At once a baby soft among soft objects and “now a woman in boots, long brown hair and a big bag of books,” the child is simultaneously possessable and untouchable. The mother implores the shirts, asking if they remember the baby. This longing question also works to ask the audience: what can be held? Bernstein has shown us life in containers, life in an organ and life a casket that resembles the genitalia that typically leads to that same organ, but neither place can hold that life indefinitely. The softness that this book tours, from the satin interior of the coffin to the bundled worn clothing on the bed, are textures Bernstein makes both deeply inviting to caress and legibly temporary.

Carole Bernstein’s Buried Alive: A To-Do List encourages dying and living, newness and wornness, to share a sensation under the same hands, in the same lines. These pieces are not delineations between the sensations of loss and life, but rather, they are sites for their coexistence. From trauma to satire to placing a toy unicorn on your desk at work to stave off isolation and nihilism, Bernstein’s poems showcase something worth laughing at and something worth crying over, and do so, critically, at the same time.

◊◊◊

Cleaver Poetry Reviews Editor Claire Oleson is a writer hailing from Grand Rapids Michigan. She’s a 2019 grad of Kenyon College, where she studied English and Creative Writing. Her work has been published by the University of Kentucky’s graduate literary journal Limestone, Siblíní Art and Literature journal, Newfound Journal, NEAT Magazine, Werkloos Magazine, and Bridge Eight Magazine, among others. She is also the 2019 winner of the Newfound Prose Prize.  Contact her by email. 

AMOR FATI by Tina Barr

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

black and white image of a girl on the beach

AMOR FATI
by Tina Barr                                                  

Chits came in stapled packets, five yellow slips
to a page, that ripped like postage stamps, perforated.
Three’d buy a creamsicle, or a barbershop twirl
of white vanilla shot with chocolate.

……………………………………………………..Inside the girl’s
locker room, open to sky: tuna, peanut butter.
Slatted boards laid their shadows beneath us.
Cross-legged, towel our card table, so nothing fell
through.

…………….Sun pooled; we painted our noses
with white, thick Noxema.

………………………………………..Go Fish, bubbles drifted
up from the nose of a cartoon orange fish;
or Old Maid, we’d scream, getting her, bun, spectacles
like death, in childhood’s parlor.

…………………………………………………..Legs lengthening,
tops beginning to bulge enough for training bras.

My Daddy said, You’re a man trap.

Mary’s older brother, a redhead, swam close
towards the dock; the end of the boardwalk floated.

Horseshoe crabs compassed under it, tails moving
needles.  Their blood blue from copper, scientists
drained it; it clots in response to toxins.

……………………………………………………………..Across
the harbor Watson was writing The Double Helix.

We were spun in the vortex of two-piece cotton suits
like Gidget.  Angus was older by a decade.  Only once
did he lift me onto the low rung of ladder, sea brown,
warm; clear jellyfish the size of figs swirled.

………………………………………..……………………………Once
a month lifeguards whistled us out;  sharks’ fins
streamed past a red nun.

………………………………………..Mary once invited me over;
I didn’t understand Catholic meant too many children.

Her mother had something called a “nervous breakdown.”

The phrase clotted in my head; forty years later, crouched
on our dining room floor, crying I couldn’t stop.

………………………………………..………………………………….Dreams
my father turned his head towards me in bed.

In photographs, lab technicians in masks, shower caps,
fold back each carapace, stick in steel needles, crabs
strapped above glass jars into which drips sky color.

◊◊

Tina Barr author photoTina Barr’s books include Green Target, winner of the Barrow Street Press Book Prize, as well as the Brockman-Campbell Award for the best book of poems published in NC in 2018, Kaleidoscope (Iris Press) and The Gathering Eye (Tupelo Press Editor’s Prize) and three chapbooks, all winners of chapbook contests. Her Fellowships include the National Endowment for the Arts, Tennessee Arts Commission, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and MacDowell Colony. She teaches in the Great Smokies CW Program at UNCA.

 

 

Image credit: Mat Reding on Unsplash

 

DUNCAN by Nicole Rivas

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

black and white photo of yo yo

DUNCAN
by Nicole Rivas

The yo-yo slams me in the teeth and I buckle to the ground. It makes the guys gleam to see me on my knees like this, like the women in the videos we watch who are always begging. Tyler grabs his blue jean crotch and says “Nice teats.” I am fatter than them, sure. Me and Tyler are thirteen. Ace, fifteen. About my weight, my mom doesn’t say that I’m a teenager, that I’m still growing. She says I’ll be as fat as my uncle Louis who died from stomach cancer when he was thirty-two. I was too young to remember him. Anytime I open the refrigerator—even for some ice cubes to drop down my shirt in the summer—Mom says, “It could have been all that sugar that did him in. He didn’t eat half as much as you, though.”

Where did my tooth go? I try to focus on one thing at a time, ignoring Ace’s toady laugh and Tyler saying things we’ve heard a million times before. “Big ol’ titties on Erick,” he says, lightly kicking me in the calf. “Did you see how well she took it, that yo-yo in her mouth?” His hands move from his crotch back to the yo-yo. He swings it, winds it up again. Loops and loops around his grubby middle finger. Walk the dog, around-the-world.

“Is the baby crying?” Ace asks, standing over me.

“It sthucking hurths,” I say. I manage to get up on one knee.

“It was an accident,” Tyler says, not looking at me.

“But it sure made me hard,” Ace says. He looks at Tyler for approval.

Tyler doesn’t respond, keeps working the yo-yo like a marionette doll. We’re behind the old Pizza Hut where we go to poke at condom wrappers, half-empty cans of beer, lone tufts of black hair. I half-heartedly look for the tooth, my hand mumbling over gunky bottle caps and dried balls of chewing gum.

When I find it, a shiny yellow-white fleck nestled atop a piece of potato chip bag, Tyler is rocking the baby. His face is calm, a sheet of pale dough. Paternal, almost. Maybe this is what Louis looked like. I don’t know anything about him aside from the fact that he was my uncle and he was fat like I am and he had cancer. Maybe he was like Tyler somehow. Maybe it’s good that he’s dead. I dust the tooth off and stuff it deep in the front pocket of my t-shirt.

“You do a trick,” Tyler says, throwing the yo-yo at me.

The yo-yo feels heavy in my hand, my jaw throbbing with pain. The only thing I’m able to do is make the yo-yo sleep. It purrs on the ground near the rest of my blood.

Tyler stomps it, grabs his crotch. “That one is called ‘gang bang,’” he says.

“Gang bang,” Ace says. He laughs and also grabs his crotch. They both look at me.

“Gang bang,” I say. I grab my crotch. When I pull my hand away, the splayed, bloody fingerprints look like a pitiful stain. Like a person turned upside-down and falling.

◊◊

Nicole RivasNicole Rivas teaches writing courses in Savannah, GA, holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Alabama, and is the Flash Editor at Newfound. Her chapbook of flash fiction, A Bright and Pleading Dagger, was the winner of the Rose Metal Press 12th Annual Short Short Chapbook Contest. For a list of publications, visit www.nicolemrivas.com.

 

WESTERN SPADEFOOT by Michael Rerick

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Close up of a toad's face

WESTERN SPADEFOOT
by Michael Rerick

she scans a glossy creak
lowland like wood floors
creased with alluvial fans
playas and alkali flats
before sandy gravely
shortgrass in a quiet pool
where roasted peanuts,
a sneezing fit, or snores
stroke a pocket comb
in a chorus of saws
floating in a San
Francisco rain and river
where power sounds

◊◊

Michael Rerick author bioMichael Rerick lives, teaches, and washes dishes in Portland, OR. Work recently appears or is forthcoming at Clade Song, COAST|noCOAST, Counter Narratives, Graviton, Mannequin Haus, Porridge, and The Wire’s Dream. He is also the author of In Ways Impossible to Fold, morefrom, The Kingdom of Blizzards, The Switch Yards, and X-Ray.

 

 

 

Image credit: Laurence on Unsplash

RICOCHET by Debra Fox

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Overhead projection of victims' names with the phrase "May these names be a blessing."

RICOCHET
by Debra Fox

October 27, 2018 9:07 a.m., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Twenty-one-year-old Matthew clicks his tongue in time to each step he takes. Tramping on carpet, he still makes the cupboards rattle as he descends the staircase into the living room. Knowing the clicking signifies contentment, his mother turns over in her bed and allows herself fifteen more minutes of sleep.

It’s the weekend, so Matthew has gotten himself dressed. He’s put his shirt on backwards and his shoes on the wrong feet. He plonks down next to the bookcase where his picture books are lined up. He removes one book at a time, rubbing each glossy page between his thumb and forefinger, and places it next to him, building a neat tower. Matthew is humming Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, probably inspired by Goodnight Moon, one of his favorite books. Or at least that’s what his mother hypothesizes as she lies in bed half-asleep, listening to him. She can’t know for sure since Matthew is severely autistic and non-verbal.

What she does know is that this sort of repetitive activity centers him, and enables him to block out competing sounds, colors and stimuli all vying equally for his attention.

◊

October 27, 2018 9:40 a.m., Squirrel Hill, Pennsylvania

Three hundred and four miles away, David Rosenthal, fifty-four, walks through the doors of the Tree of Life Synagogue just as he’s done every other Saturday for decades. Positioning himself inside the sanctuary, he busies himself arranging prayer books and shawls for services. His older brother, Cecil, stands at the back of the sanctuary, greeting congregants. Like many who are intellectually disabled, these brothers appreciate the predictability of a Shabbat service with its routines and rituals.

◊

October 27, 2018 9:42 a.m., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Matthew spins in circles, stomps his feet, and shrieks with delight, doing what his mother calls his “happy dance” as she makes his smoothie—frozen pineapple, banana, and mango. He has already asked his mother to tell him the “story of my day” many times this morning, fisting his right hand in a ball while leaving his left hand open and moving them in sync as if he is opening a story book. “You’re going to have a smoothie,” his mother says. “We are going to go for a walk; we will come home and eat lunch, and then you will play with your puzzles and books.”

Had his mother been shown a picture of David and Cecil Rosenthal, she would have taken note of David’s shirt, untucked from the front of his pants, and the way his eyes squint more than the average person when he smiles, as if he is using every available facial muscle to feel happiness.

Their graying hair would make her uneasy. She can’t bear to think of a time when her son will be middle-aged himself, and she too old to care for him.

As she pours Matthew’s smoothie into a glass, she remembers her dream from last night, a recurring dream in which she and Matthew are having a “normal” conversation, although all he is capable of in “real life” are approximations of words that only she and those who know him well can understand. Their conversations in these dreams are lovely, but she never remembers what they were about. Some nights she tries to force the dream, promising herself that this time she will remember the words. But it never works. She doesn’t have that kind of control.

◊

9:54 a.m., Squirrel Hill, Pennsylvania

In the neighborhood surrounding the Synagogue, people begin their Saturday morning routines. Some wearing raincoats will walk their dogs as a light mist descends. Others will anticipate the afternoon Pitt football game or prepare lists for their Saturday food shopping.

From the parking lot of the Giant Eagle grocery store, shoppers hear a booming racket piercing the stillness of the morning. What construction is so important that such loud equipment must be used this time of day? they might ask. The popping explosions become sickeningly regular and staccato. Some who know what gunfire sounds like keep track of bursts.

The first 911 call comes into dispatch. “We are being attacked,” the caller whispers.

“Get out of there and don’t let anyone else in,” the operator responds.

◊

9:57 a.m., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Matthew’s mother flips on the radio as she puts lemon poppy seed muffins into the toaster oven. The announcer reports about a shooting spree in a synagogue in a quiet neighborhood in Pittsburgh, a neighborhood she might be surprised to know is strikingly similar to her own, with brick and stone homes constructed at the turn of the century, gracing the community like sleepy unassuming giants.

Rinsing blueberries at the sink, she raises her head and stares through the window into the half-eaten eyes of a Jack-o-Lantern. Halloween is four days away. For the first time she notices the jagged bite marks scarring its face. The squirrels seem more aggressive and hungrier than usual this season, as if they and their food source are not in alignment. She remembers a film she saw some thirty years ago called Koyaanisqatsi, a Hopi word meaning “life out of balance.” Instead of humanity growing apart from nature, as it did in the film, here in her backyard nature was growing apart from itself. She can feel herself shaping the natural world to the growing unease inside of her.

She turns on the blender, drowning out the radio. The noise is jarring, but she welcomes a reprieve from the relentless news coverage. She can’t bear to think how she might protect her son from gunfire if they were out in the world together. He wouldn’t understand. If anything, he’d be attracted to the overwhelming sensory sensation of repetitive bursts crackling through his body.

She wishes she could talk to him about the shootings, try to make sense of the insanity. Twenty-one years of living with him doesn’t erase this desire in her. If anything, it grows stronger.

Matthew spins in circles again, this time his arms outstretched like wings, bumping into her every so often. He’s laughing too, because for him there’s nothing better than the anticipation of a smoothie and muffin for breakfast on Saturday with his “Mama.” She notices that the front of his shirt has come untucked.

◊

9:59 a.m., Squirrel Hill, Pennsylvania

Bernice and Sylvan Simon, eighty-four and eighty-six respectively, sit side by side in the pews as they anticipate singing the Sh’ma, an ancient prayer that opens Saturday morning services. Sylvan’s face is all curves: the rounded chin, the bulbous nose, the arches on either side of his mouth. He has the face of a kindly neighbor who picks up windblown trash from neighbors’ lawns. Bernice delighted in singing “You Are My Sunshine“ to her kids when they were young. Hard of hearing, Bernice and Sylvan don’t take in the commotion in the hallway. They don’t see the gunman who bursts through the door of the sanctuary until he is directly in front of them and shooting. They die in the same synagogue where they wed sixty-two years ago.

Zone 5 Police Commander Jason Lando shouts into his radio, “Every available unit in the city needs to get here now.” Sirens flood the neighborhood. They whip down alleyways and ricochet off glass. Melvin Wax, eighty-seven years old, hears them as he hides in a storage room at the back of the chapel. People shopping in the nearby supermarket hear them.

◊

10:00 a.m., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Matthew’s mother would ordinarily delight in the sound of her son singing his favorite song “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” He sings like this: “Naah na nana na naaaaahna, na nana nana naaaaaaah…”

Part of her wants to join in but she can’t. She can’t muster the cheerfulness the song requires. Not when there’s been another mass shooting. Matthew lifts his eyes from the muffin crumbs he is rearranging on his plate and looks expectantly at her. He doesn’t realize she is just now remembering the words, but not the melody, to a chant she hasn’t sung in forty-five years. Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. When she went to synagogue as a child, the congregation recited the Sh’ma at the beginning and ending of every service. She wonders as she says the words out loud if Matthew realizes they are in a different language.

◊

10:00 a.m., Squirrel Hill, Pennsylvania

Rose Mallinger, ninety-seven, slowly bleeds to death on the sanctuary floor. She is one of those women who grow more beautiful in old age. In photographs the lines on her face, especially those framing her eyes and mouth, suggest a life gently lived, despite the fact that she survived the Holocaust. Her daughter Andrea Wedner, sixty-one, accompanies her to services, as she usually does each week. Though she is shot too, she will survive.

Police stationed around the perimeter of the synagogue hear Commander Lando’s voice crackle through their walkie-talkies: “We are pinned down by gunfire. The shooter is firing out the front door of the building with an automatic weapon.”

A cold drizzle falls. Shards of glass litter the sidewalk.

◊

10:17 a.m., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Matthew’s mother thinks every Synagogue she has ever been in smells the same—a mixture of old carpet, musty prayer books, Aqua Net hairspray, coats reeking of moth balls, and the breath of old men.

◊

10:36 a.m., Squirrel Hill, Pennsylvania

Outside the sanctuary, a toppled bottle of whiskey sits on a white tablecloth, awaiting a baby naming ceremony, the whiskey steadily seeping into the carpet. A SWAT operator reports finding four bodies in the atrium.

Black polyester yarmulkes in a carved wooden receptacle nestle into one another. Men’s hats, some with feathers, still damp from the outside, rest on top of the coat rack. The eternal light suspended in front of the ark and a symbol of God’s presence, glows.

From certain angles the Tree of Life Synagogue could be mistaken for a nondescript government building. With its simple rectangular shape and cement walls, it fails to distinguish itself. But inside the sanctuary, soaring stained glass windows spread prisms of light across the pews.

Melvin Wax weeps in the darkened space where he hides. As the door swings open, he lets out a whimper and the gunman fires at him, knocking his body back onto the storage room floor. Fellow congregant Barry Werber, also hidden in the storage room, checks Melvin’s pulse. There isn’t one. The stained-glass windows remain intact.

◊

10:42 a.m., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A glass hummingbird ornament above the kitchen sink reflects blue and green light onto the counter. A siren wails in the distance and for a minute Matthew’s mother assumes it is responding to the killings. She feels protected in her kitchen, her son within sight of her in the next room. She tells herself not to go outside where they might be vulnerable. Then she remembers that they live in a different city six hours away. The tooth she had a root canal on ten years ago throbs.

Matthew gets up from the living floor where he is assembling puzzles and makes signs for “siren.” He rotates his fist in the air over and over again until his mother says, “Yes, I hear the siren.”

◊ 

10:54 a.m., Squirrel Hill, Pennsylvania

Joyce Fineberg, seventy-five, who prayed at the Tree of Life synagogue every day since her husband’s death, lies dying. A retired researcher from nearby University of Pittsburgh, she had recently joined the Board of the Synagogue to help revitalize the congregation. Her bangs and chin length hair give her a no-nonsense appearance.

Daniel Stein, seventy-one who has recently become a grandfather lies dying as well. His children often joked that he hadn’t bought a new tie in years—that he didn’t care about style. Richard Gottfried, sixty-five, a dentist who treated uninsured refugees and immigrants, lies dying too.

What are the last sounds they hear? Bullets bouncing off walls or hitting flesh? People moaning? Or maybe something more consoling like soft water droplets hitting the stained-glass windows, or starlings chirping in a nearby tree, or even retreating footsteps muffled by carpeting, a door opening, then closing, indicating an end to the mayhem.

◊ 

11:02 a.m., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Matthew listens for the sound of crunching leaves as he tramples through the neighborhood on his Saturday morning walk with his mother. Unlike Pittsburgh, the day in Philadelphia is dry. Yellow leaves on oak trees blaze like flames against a gray sky. Acorns ping as they drop onto parked cars.

In preparation for Halloween, the Malinowskis decorated their windows with bloody handprints. The Sussons have strewn yellow police tape across their front door. The Agnettas staked a skeleton hand in the ground, and it reaches up, as if it were attached to somebody buried alive.

Matthew crouches down on his hands and knees to get a closer look at a giant black spider decoration on the James’ fence. Afraid to touch it, he places his mother’s hand on it to see if it moves.

◊

11:08 a.m., Squirrel Hill, Pennsylvania 

Injured and bleeding, the shooter finally follows police orders. He crawls on the floor and surrenders his guns. He’s taken into custody.

◊

11:21 a.m., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Matthew and his mother return home from their walk. He takes up his picture books again, this time lining them in a straight row on the floor.

The melody of the Sh’ma, deeply submerged all morning, unaccountably surfaces and his mother, sitting on the sofa, begins to sing. Matthew stops and listens, perhaps because this melody is unlike all the others in her repertoire with its minor key and melancholy. Then he hums with her, and for a passing moment the tiny muscles around his eyes and his forehead strain. She wonders if he experiences the sense of yearning in the music that she does.

On another day she might have sung “You Are my Sunshine.” But today she wants to be true to her emotions, wants Matthew to somehow understand her grief and know that something is different. Feeling restless, she goes to the windows and opens the Venetian blinds. Shards of light refract on the wooden floor like pieces of broken glass. Matthew touches them as if they possess some kind of life force. In a minute the sun will shift in the sky and they will be gone. But for now, she and Matthew focus on the same experience, which is what she realizes she’s been hoping for all morning.

◊◊

Debra FoxDebra Fox’s stories and poems have appeared in bioStories, Embodied Effigies, Hyperlexia Journal, Blue Lyra Review, Heron’s Nest, Haiku Canada Review, Modern Haiku, and Frogpond.  She is an attorney and founder of Story Tributes, an enterprise that preserves the stories of people’s lives.  She lives on the outskirts of Philadelphia with her family.

 

 

 

Image credit: Governor Tom Wolf on Flickr

4:44 by Leland Cheuk

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

4:44
by Leland Cheuk

I died Sunday, for sixty seconds, at precisely 4:44 p.m. Novel and beer in tow, I strolled over to my armchair and tottered. Nausea somehow morphed into this buttery light that bled over the edges of my vision. There were my parents. There was my childhood, my friends, and my lovers, all these thoughts tinged with forgiveness (though there was nothing to forgive). And then I was down, and then I was up, wheezing, gasping for air.

My memories of how I’d gotten to where I was (floor, apartment, city) were slow to return, as if I’d been concussed. I’d been gone for a long time—years—only to be reborn. Picking up my spilled beer and splayed-open book, I checked the time: 4:45 p.m.

“I actually died,” I told my oncologist the next day.

She prescribed a full day’s worth of scans. CT, PET, MRI, tests without acronyms. Nothing new was wrong with me. While the EKG tech gelled up electrode patches and applied them one by one to my bared chest with the feathery touch of a Jenga player, the wall clock’s minute hand shifted to forty-four after and I flatlined, spasming up a minute later, choking on the dense waft of the tech’s shea butter-scented hair product as she hovered over me, debating whether to administer CPR or fire up the defibrillator.

So-called experts had never seen anything like it. The cardiologist, who himself was centrally obese and labored audibly to breathe, said it “must be” a new type of arrhythmia even though I’d passed all the heart stress tests. The oncologist fondled her silver bracelet as she shrugged and said, “I’m deferring to the heart guy.” They recommended I wear an event monitor and hire a daytime caretaker. “Event monitor”! What a phrase! I couldn’t afford one. I was officially in remission, so I had to return to work. The company’s healthcare coverage was the only reason I wasn’t impoverished already. The doctors reluctantly cleared me.

Death was perfectly manageable. I was a marketing director at a credit card company, so at work, I blocked off my daily schedule between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. and jury-rigged my own event monitor: an alarm on my phone that gave me a two-minute death warning. Every day at 4:30 p.m, I’d go to the bathroom, sit in a stall, lean back, and try to get comfortable. Pants down (so no one would think I was just shirking work), I’d wait to die. Weekends at home, I’d sit in my armchair and make sure I wasn’t eating or drinking anything that might cause a mess, then I’d face the window, stare up at the sky, and safely pass away. At night, after rising from the dead, I’d pop half an Ambien to fall back asleep quicker.

I’d never felt like I was owed an average lifespan. I’d never had any huge goals. I wasn’t disappointed about the many things I hadn’t experienced. I’d loved and lost. I’d traveled. I’d met people I treasured and hated. We’re all just animals, imminent dirt. That we can experience love and heartbreak and hate is an existential bonus.

When I saw the yellowing light again and felt myself sinking, I tried to hold the memories of loved ones appearing in my dying flashes so I could recall them when I was reborn. First, it was my immediate family, but as the months went by, there were others:

Ed, my college roommate and childhood best friend. He lived out west and was a veep at a toy company. We only spoke to each other every year or two now. Kristen, my best friend when I studied abroad in Madrid. I’d been madly in love with her, an impossible love. She now had three kids in a small town in R—. Jennifer, a peer with whom I’d worked at a startup for five years. She was a Republican and I, a Democrat. We sat across from each other in an open floor plan and would spar about politics. I found myself thinking about her more often than I liked to admit. She lived in S— now.

I wished I were closer to them. I was alive but not the same type of alive I was when healthy. When you become seriously ill, you never rejoin the ranks of people who take health for granted. You feel one hundred percent but you know you can feel perfectly fine and have tumors eating you alive. A life-threatening illness forces both a constant awareness of mortality and estrangement of mind from body.

I wrote to the people I saw before my “death minutes.” I told them they’d made an indelible mark on me, as if I were previously a blank canvas.

“The thing I like about you, Ed, is that you were always so loyal to me,” I emailed. “I’ll forever remember what you said about me at your wedding. That you wanted to be like me. Articulate, creative, funny. I’ve never felt like I had any of those attributes.”

“Hang in there, bud,” he replied. “I know this cancer thing’s thrown you for a loop. You’re not losing hope, are you?”

To Kristen: “I loved that you hated everything. Just like me! You were so cool, so skeptical, so cynical about life. When you’re nineteen, all you have to be is cool. God, how I’d wished you had feelings for me. After a while, it fucking hurt to be so close to you and know you didn’t feel the same way I felt about you.”

“I did have feelings for you,” she replied. “Maybe not those feelings. But you were the only reason I didn’t go out of my mind with loneliness while we were abroad. I just didn’t express my feelings well back then. We were all so preoccupied with being cool.”

When I told Jennifer how much I still thought about her, ten years after we’d worked together, she refused to take the emotional bait. She didn’t write about what she’d been doing for the past decade. She only said she’d visit soon so we could “hang out.”

But she started writing me every couple of weeks with funny stories about her current boss at the bank where she worked.

I’d write back and joke about the many different ways I played the cancer card in the office. I frequently took Fridays off, pretending I had doctor’s appointments. I’d call in sick complaining of ridiculous ailments, blaming my weakened immune system—the more absurd and obscure the illness the better (UTI, hemorrhoids, shingles, hard-to-pronounce diarrheal diseases). If I sensed that some higher-up doubted my proposals, I’d cite that compared to beating cancer, any of our top initiatives were easy, and they’d be reassured by my intestinal fortitude and suddenly believe in my ability to make my proposals reality. I told Jennifer that business would take me through S—, even though that was untrue. Would she like to meet up? Yes, she would.

My oncologist informed me that after conferring with several doctors, she thought my “death minutes” could be fixed by implanting a simple pacemaker.

“What does the heart guy think?” I asked.

Her gaze dropped. “He passed away last week.”

I blurted a wow. As a seriously ill patient, you assume your doctors are masters of their own health and somehow impervious to mortality.

“What if I don’t want to do it?” I asked.

“You’re risking death daily.”

But I wasn’t ready to stop dying.

“You’re young,” she said. “You should lead a normal life.”

A normal life meant you let things pass you by. You lost touch with people. You allowed the routine to distance you from your loved ones. You forgot the feeling of genuine connection.

The oncologist’s lips parted, her breath held—for an instant, she looked dead. “I suppose we can try beta blockers or something,” she muttered. “Let me check with the heart people.”

I rented a car and drove five hours to S— because when I flew now, I almost always got sick. When I got to the hotel, my phone battery was dead and I discovered that I’d left the charger at home. Jennifer had agreed to meet for a late lunch and was already on the way from the suburbs. The surly concierge requisitioned my phone and agreed to charge it in the back. (Later, I’d find a fee of $14.99 for “Electrical Services” on my bill.)

I’d have to wrap up my reunion with Jennifer before 4:44 p.m.

We met in the hotel lobby. A decade ago, she’d worn knee-high boots and expensive blouses, and designer sunglasses, even in winter. Now she wore Birkenstocks, khakis, and a white, long-sleeved wicking shirt. Still, I could see the twenty-three-year-old I’d known.

“You look terrific,” she said, inspecting me up and down.

“Cancer works wonders!” I’d lost fifteen pounds in the past year.

“I…didn’t know what to expect.”

“You expected worse.”

“Am I terrible for thinking that?”

“Of course not,” I said. “You’re healthy.”

We went to a brunch place a short walk from the hotel. Jennifer was an animal lover. She owned a dog and a cat. She volunteered and helped raise money for animal shelters. She enjoyed her job managing technology projects at a large bank. She had a gaze that could stare even death into the ground.

And she’d been partnered with a woman for eight years.

“What about you?” she asked.

“I was with someone before the diagnosis,” I said. “Together four years. I was going to propose, but then she was offered a job in Hong Kong. I wasn’t going to go there and do nothing. So she left.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Now? No,” I said. There we were, sitting across from each other again, this time in a restaurant instead of an office. Why was I playing games, trying to woo her with my death-sparked soulfulness?

“Hong Kong would’ve been amazing,” Jennifer said. “I’d have figured out the work thing later.”

“Had it happened after the cancer,” I lied, “I’d have gone with her.” I’d recently written Mika, my ex, opining that our split was for the best because we didn’t truly love each other.

Jennifer smiled with furrowed brows. “Are you sure?”

“No,” I admitted.

“You seem like a stay-in-one-place type of guy,” she said. “You’ve never left the City. You watch the river go around you. I can’t. I get restless. I’m, like, two different people. There’s the dutiful bank employee who loves animals and the adventurer who moved to the City at nineteen with nothing but twenty dollars.”

“So, like, the Democrat and Republican in yourself.”

Jennifer laughed. “Which is which?”

“The lesser of two evils!”

Jennifer laughed, which made me laugh, which made her laugh.

Later, walking with Jennifer through the cypress groves of S—, I learned there was nothing she wouldn’t try. Ribbon dancing. Sky diving. Trapeze. The old me would’ve been intimidated by someone so up for everything, but the post-death me was emboldened. I was now like Jennifer—restless and in search of adventure too! Maybe she’d be up for cheating on her long-time partner! With a man, no less!

Storm clouds gathering, we passed the gates of the town’s famous cemetery, which looked alive, ironically, the wind its breath, the trees stretching and bending, like giants doing calisthenics. The headstones looked like a child trying to wriggle out of a sweater. I realized I had lost track of time; my death was likely imminent.

“I should go,” I blurted, interrupting Jennifer’s story about a recent trip to Bhutan.

“Is everything okay?”

“I have a work call.”

“On a Saturday?”

“Yeah, my boss is a dick,” I said, spinning around. “How do I get back to the hotel?”

Jennifer gave directions I was too agitated to absorb. I saw the yellow light. She smelled of pine needles. She said my name. I said hers. I considered asking if I could kiss her. If not in the moments before death, then when?

I thought I could see her thinking: The next time I hear about him, it’s going to be because he’s dead. She hugged me so tightly that I squeezed harder to match her force. We seemed to embrace for a long time. I worried I’d die at any moment in her arms. But then Jennifer let go. And I had done nothing. I was indeed the stay-in-one-place, watch-the-river-go-around-me guy.

“I’m glad you got back in touch,” she said, professionally, as if to erase what had just happened. “Keep me updated on your health.”

I said goodbye and bolted. Rounding the nearest corner, I died.

When I came to, my cheek was on the sidewalk, badly abraded. I tongued a salty gap in my gums. I’d lost a bicuspid. I staggered back to the hotel, spitting blood along the way. The doorman eyed me suspiciously and didn’t offer any help. The concierge returned my phone (only half-charged though I’d been gone for hours). I went to my room, cleaned myself up, checked out, bought a car charger, and drove back to the City.

◊

Soon after I returned, I began to die for two minutes twice a day. A few weeks later, three minutes. My oncologist warned that, according to “the brain lady,” after six minutes of heart stoppage, the brain begins to die. And yet, when my deaths surpassed six minutes, I continued to rise undamaged. That’s when the doctors requested my consent to be studied. I refused, having had my fill of hospital time.

Now, after about a year, I die for a full hour daily. One down, twenty-three to go! I did make one concession to my oncologist and agreed to wear a CPAP mask during my times of death to ensure some oxygen flow to the brain, and at work, where I had blinds put up over my office window, I frequently extol to my colleagues the many virtues of afternoon meditation. I block off more and more time, telling anyone who will listen that our lives are borrowed on credit, the interest rates are variable, and we’re all headed for zero balance.

Mika returns from Hong Kong tonight to celebrate my birthday. We’ve been corresponding daily for the past year. She’d recently said recovery had changed me, that I’d been given a new life. Not new life but death, I hadn’t said.

◊◊

Leland Cheuk author photoLeland Cheuk is the author of three books of fiction, including the novels The Misadventures of Sulliver Pong and most recently, No Good Very Bad Asian, forthcoming from C&R Press in October 2019. His work has appeared in Salon, Catapult, Joyland Magazine, Literary Hub, among others. He has been awarded fellowships at The MacDowell Colony, Hawthornden Castle, Djerassi, and elsewhere. He runs the indie press 7.13 Books and lives in Brooklyn.

 

 

Image credit: Karen Rile

AFTER MISS COLUMBIA by Kathryn Fitzpatrick

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

a beauty queen receiving her crown

AFTER MISS COLUMBIA
by Kathryn Fitzpatrick

On Memorial Day other small towns watch parades. There’s hotdogs and fireworks and tall bearded men dressed up like Abe Lincoln with plastic top hats and that old man who might ride the streets in his vintage Mustang, decked out with streamers and his pre-teen granddaughter. The topiaries are usually draped in American flags or sprayed with blue and white paint. The toddlers run in the street while volunteer firefighters chewing tobacco throw fistfuls of Bazooka at them, almost missing their heads. Veterans march. Wives throw rice like they’re at a 1970s wedding.

Thomaston’s Memorial Day celebration is almost like that. We do the parade and the candy and the cars, the police smoke cigarettes and glare at the kids on skateboards, but at Thomaston’s parade, everyone wears white. Thomaston’s parade trickles down the center of town and builds momentum as it marches up the hill up to the cemetery with the manmade lake in the middle. Miss Columbia recites the Gettysburg Address in a boat in the pond. Girls toss daisies at her. Women cry.

Miss Columbia is the prettiest girl in the senior class. Maybe she’s sporty, involved. Each year she’s the product of a long line of Thomaston folk—the daughter of the basketball coach or the owner of the Country Grocer or the head of the Thomaston PTA. She’s blonde, usually, and her destiny is set in stone the minute her parents decide to bunker down in the town they grew up in. Voting for the event takes place in September, when the PTA picks three girls who’s names they recognize in the senior class and nominate them. It comes down to the senior class to make the decision. Sixty kids hold the fate of the most important title in all of Thomaston.

When my mother was a senior in high school, she was a Miss Columbia. There’s still pictures in the house: 80s feathered hair, a white dress with sleeves puffed up to her ears, the little brown boat. Men in curly mullets nestled between headstones, their children splashing in the water.

Her mother was a Miss Columbia too, only it was the fifties and people had big dreams: nice cars, nice wives, nice place to raise a nice family.

My senior year of high school saw me shave my head and walk the halls in Birkenstocks and Hillary 2016 t-shirts. I didn’t shave, and I wanted everyone to know. In class once, when the English teacher asked why Holden Caulfield called everyone phony, I proudly raised my arm to show off my armpits, bleached and dip-dyed blue.

“He doesn’t fit in to the adult world,” I said.

Everyone groaned.

When Miss Columbia voting rolled around, I wasn’t nominated, and I didn’t care, but my mother, clinging to the window when I got home from school, wanted to hear all about it.

“So who is it?” she asked. “Did you get it?”

I gave her a look.

“Well, who was it?”

She looked concerned, panicked. As if she’d just received news that her parents were both in intensive care. She busied herself with the dishes, wiping nonstick pans and putting them in the lazy Susan beside the stove.

“I don’t know yet.”

◊

Everyone in town could tell you who Miss Columbia is, but no one could really tell you what it is—the strange boat ride across the man-made pond filled up with dog piss and green scum, the gravediggers halting their work to catch a glimpse of thong under a flyaway skirt.

The tradition started as a welcome home celebration in mid-July in 1919, when Union veterans were still alive and the most important pillars of the community. Thomaston was at its height back then, and the fanfare of the celebration matched the commerce. The New York Times had called Thomaston the ideal place for families and businessmen alike (just two hours from the city and three hours from Boston), so the Miss Columbia celebration served as both an honoring of war heroes and a self-congratulatory pat on the back. Businesses closed their doors at noon and everyone marched together and Miss Columbia stood proud as the pure symbol of victory, white against the murky water, driving her community forward in the “best parade event” the town had ever seen.

But then the last Union soldier died, and the Great Depression rolled through the area with all the force of a crumbling building, and everything was consolidated. The armistice homecoming was kicked out in favor of a “Miss Columbia Celebration” during the annual Memorial Day Parade, and the boat ceremony was rebranded to suggest pride for Naval officers serving in World War I. Organizers added a convertible ride through town for their queen, along with a firing squad and a trumpet.

Of course, if you asked a local today what Miss Columbia stands for, they’d probably say it’s an excuse to drink Bud Light in public.

◊

The year my mother was named Miss Columbia, she took her then boyfriend, Scott Lambert, to prom. He was a skinny white guy, with one of those wiry haircuts parted straight down the middle. In pictures he’s wearing a white tux and too much acne, cradling my mother in an awkward, sexually-charged embrace that saves almost enough room for Jesus. From the pictures, it’s clear they didn’t belong together; she didn’t belong with any of the people she took pictures with that night. She was six feet tall and played JV basketball—which meant she was still womanly enough to be desired, not muscular enough for the big leagues. All of her friends had home-done hairdos and messy eyeshadow; dorky, shy boyfriends with bad teeth.

At family parties she’ll pull out the pictures and say something like, “look how pretty I was,” then rattle off the story about dumping Scott Lambert after a quickie in the car when he sneezed, and a booger fell in her mouth.

“I said, ‘I’m better than this,” she’ll say. “I deserved better than him, so I ended it.”

Dumping Scott Lambert, to this day, remains one of her biggest achievements.

I, on the other hand, wore Dr. Martens to senior prom and brought a kid from church. There was enough room for Jesus to stretch out his legs.

◊

Holly’s is Thomaston’s townie bar. They’ve got green felt carpets, wood paneling, a sink with rust stains in the bathroom. On Fridays and Saturdays Holly’s does karaoke, where white guys do Darius Rucker covers or “God Bless America” on an infinite loop. They sell Cheetos by the bag and fine cheese platters for $3.99, and the owner, Holly, is always sipping Absolut behind the counter, so you have to tell her how to pour a Guinness while she slurs along in agreement.

Holly’s is always open. On Christmas and Easter they open at four, but most days they start serving at noon, perfect for the old men who loiter at the sticky bar and complain about their wives and kids. Holly’s does Veteran’s specials on national holidays: red, white, and blue Jell-O shots for a dollar, which works, because every surface of the place is draped in American flags and “Don’t Tread on Me” paraphernalia.

Everything’s cheap there—the clientele, the drinks, the ladies’ night specials—so I’ve recently become a regular, but my mother, who’s worked as a fine dining waitress for the past thirty years, never dared.

“That’s where the homeless go,” she said once. “They’ve got bedbugs.”

Once I got her to go with me, drove the quarter mile downtown in her red Audi to the bad side of town near Reynold’s Bridge where the people without cars loiter.

“I can’t do this,” she said. “What if somebody sees me?”

“It’s fine, I’m here all the time.”

She gave me a look.

The bartender that night was Courtney, a girl a few years younger than me who was expelled from school for starting fights. She was pretty in that way aging actresses might be pretty, like her time had run out, except she was only eighteen.

“What can I getcha?” she said. She sounded like cigarettes.

My mother asked for a sauvignon blanc.

“What? We don’t have that.”

I asked for a Beefeater soda.

“What kind of soda, hun?”

I asked for club, but she said they didn’t have that and gave me Sierra Mist.

“I hate it here.”

“No you don’t—it’s fun. And cheap,” I said. The gin and lemon-lime combo wasn’t working, but at $3.75, I couldn’t do much better.

“Anyway, what’s that bartender doing here?”

I laughed. “Courtney?”

“Yeah. Wasn’t she a Miss Columbia?”

Maybe it was unclear to my mother, but we all belonged there. There were old men she recognized from high school sitting at plastic tables, mouths caved in where their teeth should be. The place was owned by Holly Chandler, longtime Thomaston raggie. Her family had worked in the lipstick tube manufacturing plant for years till, like everything else in town, it closed up and moved South.

There’s always a desire to escape in Thomaston, with the label “raggie” lurking overhead with the seagulls. Most people get their biggest escape at Holly’s, since they can get piss drunk on cheap Yaeger shots without worrying about getting home. My mother tried to get out once, got her degree in fine arts alongside kids who wore parachute pants and asymmetrical mullets. But she failed art history—twice. Now she paints people’s dogs on canvases in our living room, stacks them against the wall and takes pictures for everyone else to see. It’s her side hustle—she’s lucky if she gets forty bucks apiece.

I thought I was better than Thomaston at one point too, so I went away to a private liberal arts school where the girls shaved their heads and wrote communist propaganda. When I came home the second weekend into the semester, crying over the lesbians who’d called me apolitical, over the gluten-free food and the Lunar Howling Society, I decided I was a raggie too. Not even a nose ring could disguise my hometown roots.

My mother was mad at me after I brought her to Holly’s and I was mad she didn’t like it, which was immediately obvious as we drove home in tense silence, with not even the radio to mediate. I wanted her to see Thomaston for how it was and what it wasn’t and what it never would be. There weren’t any cul-de-sacs or gated communities, and most people lived in the sort of ranch-style houses she liked to point out as a place she was glad she didn’t live. Miss Columbia was the cover that people in town used to pretend they lived somewhere special, even though nobody really knew its roots. Maybe going to Holly’s was mean-spirited or selfish, but in the same way it’s mean to tell your friend she looks fat in that dress. At least it was honest.

◊

Miss Columbia, my year, went as expected—it wasn’t me. The honor went to some girl who was head of the student council and played field hockey, and all the men in town were there to watch and lip-synch to her quiet rendition of the Gettysburg Address. Some old veterans played a march on out-of-tune trumpets. I went for the free beer someone else’s dad might offer me. But my mother, who was in the market for some new cabinets, went to the Lowe’s Memorial Day Sale instead, dreaming of the kitchen she’d always wanted.

◊◊

Kathryn Fitzpatrick HeadshotKathryn Fitzpatrick’s essays have been featured in Out Magazine, Gravel, Crack the Spine, and elsewhere, and were called “brutally honest and not school appropriate” by her high school principal.

 

 

 

 

 

 Image credit: jbundgaa from Pixabay

DEAR FAMILY AND FRIENDS, a Visual Narrative about Depression by William J. Doan

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

DEAR FAMILY AND FRIENDS
A Visual Narrative About Depression
by William J. Doan

Depression is a wiley adversary. Those fortunate not to know what it’s like to exist in this dark realm can’t grasp its life-sucking grip. Those afflicted are told, “ You look fine,” or “You have nothing to be depressed about. Your life is good.” But to read Bill Doan’s visual narrative Dear Family and Friends, an intimate, heartfelt account of coping strategies, is to viscerally feel what it’s like to live under the leaden sky of anxiety and depression. In a series of mostly black-and-white self portraits done in ink, Doan’s visage morphs wildly in expression and mode as he writes a letter, in elegant script, explaining how one can look outwardly fine while inwardly struggling on a minute-by-minute basis with crippling depression. Doan’s letter lifts the veil on a shrouded topic that is often spoken about yet still widely misunderstood. “Dear Family and Friends” is part of the rapidly emerging genre known as Graphic and Narrative Medicine, which combines words and images to relate personal experience with illness. Doan is a professor of theatre in the College of Arts and Architecture and artist-in-residence for the College of Nursing at The Pennsylvania State University. He will serve as the Penn State Laureate for 2019-2020. I’m am so pleased to present Bill Doan’s work in my maiden voyage as Graphic Narrative Editor for Cleaver Magazine.
—Emily Steinberg, Editor
    Philadelphia, September 2019

Download PDF Version of Dear family and friends

◊◊◊

William J. Doan, Ph.D. is a past president of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and a Fellow in the College of Fellows of The American Theatre. In addition to articles in scholarly journals, Doan has co-authored three books and several plays. He has created solo performance projects at a variety of venues across the U.S., and abroad. His current work includes a new performance piece, Frozen In The Toilet Paper Aisle of Life, part of a larger project titled The Anxiety Project. Work from this project includes multiple short graphic narratives published in the Annals of Internal Medicine/Graphic Medicine. He is a Professor of Theatre in the College of Arts and Architecture and Artist-in-Residence for the College of Nursing at The Pennsylvania State University. Doan will serve as the Penn State Laureate for 2019-2020.

Text for Dear Family and Friends

Panel One: Dear Friends and Family. Text bubbles around the figure read from left to right: 1. It was as if I had brain worms constantly moving around in my head. Changing my mood and making me feel afraid of something all the time. 2. Fear responses. 3. Amygdala 4. Neural Circuitry. 5. Hippocampus 6. Prefrontal Cortex 7. I’m screwed 8. Where’s the off switch?

Panel Two: Seventeen million adults had a major depressive episode last year. And the numbers for children are staggering. The personal, social, economic, and ethical cost of anxiety and depression is almost impossible to imagine but is certainly real. Seventeen million adults had a major depressive episode last year and I was one of them. Text bubbles in image: 1. 17 million adults had a major depressive episode last year. 2. No shame if you were one of them.

Panel Three: Seventeen million adults had a major depressive episode last year and I was one of them. Text bubble in image: It’s one thing to think the unthinkable. It’s something very different to say it.

Panel Four: If you’re going to write about a life lived with anxiety and depression, you have to take a hard look at the past. But how do you do that without judging yourself, others, or all the social circumstances not of your own making? There’s nothing to be gained from blame. But there’s no moving forward without an honest look at the varied and complicated events that brought me to this confession.

Panel Five: There’s nothing to be gained from blame. But for me, there was no moving forward without an honest look at the varied and complicated events that brought me to this confession.

Panel Six: Sharing what it’s like to live with anxiety and depression is like undressing in front of strangers. It’s awkward, and I’m sure I’ll get tangled up, stumble, and fall into something.

Panel Seven: But how to confess, how to tell this story? I tried doing it in my head like I did as a boy in church, bless me father for I have sinned… But the fact is, hiding it was actually one of the ways I survived.

Panel Eight: Maybe I should try a letter. I sat for days in front of a blank page. I couldn’t remember the last time I wrote a letter. Dear Family and Friends.

Panel Nine: When anxious and depressed, which was most of the time, I would laugh a lot. My laughter was fake as often as it was honest. I knew that laughing and smiling were key to hiding the truth.

Panel Ten: Don’t’ misunderstand, it’s not that I didn’t feel happy, or experience joy. It’s that I figured out how to use a smile of a laugh to mask feeling anxious or depressed.

Panel Eleven: The fact is I can be surrounded by a thousand people and feel completely alone. Text inside the image from top to bottom: Ingredients of Anxiety and Depression, Luck, Evolution, Brain Stuff, Shit Happens, Brain Stuff, Gender, Trauma, Brain Stuff, Class, Childhood, DNA.

Panel Twelve: I always felt like the whole world was going one way while I went another. I laughed it off as often as I could.

Panel Thirteen: Over time I developed an advance ability to pretend everything was OK. This made it possible to show up for social events, work, whatever was required. I mastered “fake it til you make it.” Often, once I was present, I could find a way to enjoy myself for a time. But the cycle of dreading having to be somewhere, followed by regret, anger, or feeling guilty was exhausting. I just knew I had to keep moving.

Panel Fourteen: Pretending easily became lying, which became telling people what I thought they wanted to hear. I could pretend my way through almost any situation by lying to myself, convincing myself that I was the problem.

Panel Fifteen: Just push it away and keep moving. Text inside the image: series of words about being above and below the threshold of awareness, fighting feelings, blocking feelings.

Panel Sixteen: Inside I was slowly dying.

Panel Seventeen: As I got older, I grew angrier. And as I grew angrier I grew desperate to keep what I was feeling inside. Sometimes I thought my brain was on fire and I would never be able to hold back my rage. It became increasingly difficult to keep all this hidden.

Panel Eighteen: I’ve barely reached the heart of the matter in this brief letter. But it’s a start. What I know for certain is that it’s no longer possible for me to pretend I don’t live with anxiety and depression and I hope this helps you understand why I need to talk openly about it. My mental health, my well-being requires me to tell the truth. Especially to my family and friends.

Love, Bill

LAST SUMMER AT SUMMERLAND by Dana Fang

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

dark image of lilac flowers

LAST SUMMER AT SUMMERLAND
by Dana Fang

I

When she trimmed the holly,
when she trellised each lilac,
her knuckles were starchy blue,
her skin luminescent as if
she had been torched with apricot
light. At last, for a handful
of hours each week,
she burnt, and my heart outbid
all else for her attention. To be
her shelf and shovel, her shear
and sled for just a little while; to ache
an ache that justified the rest
of her calculations—
is how her garden grew.

II

The garden is built like the guts of a palace               evergreen and glistening

the way any beautiful thing                                        glistens ripe with being

beautiful                                                                      The garden is

the inner sanctum of a dream     pink like peach flesh

lush with sewer cap lilies and

a little lake to litter with wishes                                 There is nothing

of the World in this world                                          On the other side

of the limestone wall is a pallet door

maybe the door to someone’s single courtyard, where a basket of shelled

peanuts sits in a pile of loose skin and someone

who has departed has

finally returned with sweets and toys

Now anyone can visit

After a fee       any sweaty sack          can sit and

maybe sheer proximity will make my dream reappear

as the skittish animal that animated

the dark           that no matter how little money I make

I will be happy

III

The most famous gardens in China are

south near the sea. I wonder

whose hands mixed the lime, held the

tree before swinging the axe, whose hands

touched the tiny parcels of stone. I think

it would have been people like my family,

we want more than we can afford, we want

to participate because we want

to know we are people who can still

see the arch of light at sunset despite

the scattered pink haze, a bit

of the sky we bite, we breathe.

IV

 

I found the pamphlet online, through the
library. The photos inside the pamphlet
blur the bodies of gardeners
in the gardens, except for the photos
at the end, of the garden being assembled
for the Museum and even then
no names. No wonder why resurrections
go on forever in America. I wonder
if the language of gardens is the same
language I use to ask for money, to be
a little drunk in the cemetery,
the familiar language of mercy, of
shame.

My cousin purchased an audio tour
of The Humble Administrator’s Garden
when we were there. While we strolled
between bodies, along the pavilion
and into the shade, I noticed
that she did not sweat. Not
a single dark stain on her denim dress.
She stopped to fiddl
with her device, is yours broken too?
I don’t have any sound on mine and while
my little black box, strung around
my neck, sang to me, I knew the word
plum and none of the rest, so
I said yes.

V

There are too many ways that say

this is the right way                There is

always the half hour of the day

where I am overcome by the certainty           of time passing

and all the leaving bundled with it                 I think this summer is

the last summer

we will be back which means

I must remember                                             would give everything

to ensure that I remember

Why wait

for change when you could become the changing

…………thing

◊◊

Dana Fang, author photoDana Fang is a queer, nonbinary, Asian-American poet living in the Midwest. They are a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop. Their work has been published in phoebe, Black Warrior Review, Gigantic Sequins, and is forthcoming in Sonora Review.

 

 

 

 

Image credit: Antonina Bukowska on Unsplash

MAKING HUMANS by Misty Urban

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Little girl working with hammer

MAKING HUMANS
by Misty Urban

The girl wants to go to the kids’ museum. Since her brother is sick and dad has command central on the couch, dispensing Tylenol and blankets and puke bucket and juice, that leaves me to drive her. I want to shut myself in my office and work on my novel, far from puke and clacking toys, but then she’ll say of her childhood that her mom did nothing but sit in front of her computer all the time. Aren’t her needs supposed to be bigger than mine? I take my journal and magazines along with snacks. I’ll sit on the bench and read. I’ll never be Mom of the Year, but look, my mom never played with me. She considered it her job to feed and clothe me, make me go to school, drive me to appointments, and I turned out just fine.

But the girl doesn’t want to play with the exhibits, she wants to go to the tool shop. This requires a supervising adult and a pair of plastic safety glasses that press my regular glasses into my head in a painful manner, and entails me standing around reminding her to tighten the vise and keep both hands on the saw while a background soundtrack of hammering, the instructions of other parents, and an endless loop of Disney tunes also presses into my head. There’s nothing, in this particular moment, I’d like less.

I ask her what she’s creating.

“A magical make-believe machine that can do anything you want it to,” she says.

Oh good, I can use one of those. How long will this take? There’s no place to sit, and I’m bored. I’ve finished my project, an airplane for the boy, so I ask if she’s nearly done.

“Do you know how long it takes to make a human?” she says.

In fact I do: thirty-eight weeks. Forty weeks counting from last menstrual period, which I don’t know why anyone does since the egg isn’t ripe until two weeks later and you have that narrow window to do something that can never be undone, not ever. Or thirty-seven weeks in her case, same for the boy, both my little over-achievers, pushing their way out early in great gouts of blood.

She ignores me. She’s the authority, seven years old, plastic safety glasses, pink nylon pants I bought for pajamas, the purple spangly shirt that says “Play Like a Girl.” Hair tangled in a cowlick though I brushed it three times. Dirty beat-up sneakers missing half a Velcro strap. She got dressed when I asked so I decided not to fight about what she chose. Her belly sticks out like a full moon and I’m the only one who cares about this; she’s gluing string, silk flowers, plastic hats to her piece of wood and sometimes to her finger. Other parents help their kids, sawing, measuring, offering items to nail and tape. I watch and criticize, the whiny chaperone. I don’t like it, but I don’t know how to make it stop. Stick it to the surface before it sets. That’s too much glue. Aren’t you done yet? I have to pee. You know we have a glue gun at home.

“Yeah, but we don’t have all this stuff.” She slugs another round into the glue gun, picks yards of gooey string off her hands.

Such patience she has. Creating humans. I know how I must sound to the other parents, the ones directing and guiding and gluing for their kids. This creation is her own and she wants it that way. Am I helping her become a scientist, physicist, mathematician, engineer? Am I failing to teach her female grooming habits, the lack of which will cause her no end of agony when she’s thirteen?

She drops her wood pieces and the tape breaks. She swoops in with glue. The flower eyes were my limit; now toothpick eyelashes? We can do this at home, I tell her in the modulated, low-pitched voice of the chastising parent, especially the parent being an a-hole. I know not to say it, yet I hear myself saying it: I didn’t pay to come here to do stuff we can do at home.

What is the matter with me? A dad glances our way, keys and cell phone clipped to belt, gluing the pieces he sawed for his daughter while she wanders around rifling through buckets, bored. Hashtag parenting fail. He hijacked his kid’s project, knowing how to do it better, and I’m killing hers. Both of us trying to keep things between the rails, wishing we had the blueprint for how this turns out.

She’s so focused, those eyes brown as walnuts—the same surprising shine, the intense concentration I remember in her as a baby, or at least remember from the pictures of her as a baby. The times I don’t have photos of are hazier in my mind. Still so chubby, and I worry about that, too. My head hurts and my feet hurt and all of a sudden it’s intolerable right now, standing here with the Disney songs and nothing to do but watch her start on glue stick number three.

“Fine,” she says when I set the limit at four eyes. “I’m done anyways.”

I get to pee, sit, open my journal, take a breath and let my head clear of the smell of glue. I lose sight of her, find her again, climbing the tree house, picking fruit, following a new friend into the toddler house, reading a board book to a baby doll. Then she’s in postal coat and bag, sorting mail, so serious, so intent. At the fire station she pulls on the chief’s hat and too-big jacket, hauls out the hose, puts out the fake fire. I’m watching, but she doesn’t glance over to see this; she’s off to the store to tie on an apron and ring up other kids’ groceries. Her hair’s sticking out every which way again and she makes perfect change every time.

On the bench her creation, thick with glue, stares at me with its strange flower-spiked eyes. She’ll put it on her dresser and forget about it. But she won’t forget my head in a book, nagging I didn’t come here for this. Or if I let her put toothpick eyelashes on her humans. Let her wear the pajama pants. Let her toss her imagination into the air like a weather balloon and stood beside her, watching to see where it lands.

She floats by the bench, leans silken hair to my cheek. I wrap my arms around her and rub her back and, for a moment, she lets me. She’s solid and she smells like cupcake hair spritz and that new, clear, talc-y scent of seven-year-old skin, unscarred. Then she’s off, and I can pocket one moment, one, before she’s eighteen and moves out and doesn’t have to put up with my crap any longer, when I held her, when I told her I liked the thing she made, when I was the mom she deserves. Thirty-seven weeks to create her, no idea what was coming. So much longer for her creating me.

◊◊

Misty Urban headshotMisty Urban is the author of two short story collections, A Lesson in Manners (Snake Nation Press, 2016) and The Necessaries (Paradisiac Publishing, 2018), and several works of medieval scholarship, including the co-edited essay collection Melusine’s Footprint (Brill, 2017). Her creative nonfiction has appeared in Literary Mama, 3Elements Review, Draft: A Journal of Process, and My Caesarean (The Experiment, 2019). She lives in real life in Muscatine, Iowa, and online at mistyurban.net or femmeliterate.net, a site for literary feminism and women in/and/of books.

 

Image credit: PxHere

SILO by Meggie Royer

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

17th c tulip painting

SILO
by Meggie Royer

In one town, an apricot held in the mouth
of a rabbit like a swollen tongue.
In another, a pear clasped between the fins
of a fish. The pit of a cherry nestled
in the eye socket of a crow.
Once, my grandfather’s aneurysm
bloomed in his body like a tulip.
There are certain things that shouldn’t be,
and yet they are.
Out of place, the way the jawbone migrated
into the ear region over time.
To think,
we used to be able to taste pain
long before we could hear it.

◊◊

Meggie Royer is a writer and photographer from the Midwest who is currently working in the domestic violence field in Minnesota. Her poems have previously appeared in The Harpoon Review , Melancholy Hyperbole , The Minnesota Review, and more. She runs a literary journal, Persephone’s Daughters, dedicated to empowering survivors of domestic and sexual violence and child abuse.

 

 

Image credit: Wikipedia

DEAR CITY  by Poul Lynggaard Damgaard

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Houses in Aarhus, Denmark

DEAR CITY
by Poul Lynggaard Damgaard

I want to tell about the gap between houses and the way the windows are beyond everything. Do you know anything about that? Do you know the way neighbourhoods have been pulled on a string through your consciousness, and the groups of people emerge on the fringe of an area? I am not sure you do. Sometimes the zip of your coat is a downhill highway and you turn your back, you throw your coat off, jump into the water and swim away. The shining of your long wet hair is the light of the night´s illuminated space. On the corner of the main road where the neglected house without windows used to be, a booth has been placed, where the gaps and the building’s memories are being sold to visitors. Was it really your unknown brother, or was it just you, I looked into the eyes right there?

Best regards
a house

◊◊

Poul Lynggaard Damgaard author photoPoul Lynggaard Damgaard, born on 24th December, 1977, is a Danish poet living in Aarhus, Denmark. Since 2012 he has been connected to the Aarhus Centre for Literature and the Hald Hovedgaard, the Danish Centre for Writers and Translators. His work appears in many Scandinavian anthologies and Danish poetry collections. He has participated in several International Poetry Festivals in Europe, and his poetry has been translated to many different languages.

 

 

Image credit: Steffen Muldbjerg on Unsplash

KINDNESS WOMAN by Michelle Ross and Kim Magowan

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

woman smiling broadly

KINDNESS WOMAN
by Michelle Ross and Kim Magowan

Kindness Woman has been working here barely seven months and already we hate her. This hate is of a different flavor than the antagonism we feel for Faye, who takes so many damn smoke breaks over the course of a day that even her emails reek of cigarettes—emails that often include full sentences in all-caps, sentences that bend and break with her scorn like the cigarette stubs she twists and grinds into a tin coffee can behind the building.

Kindness Woman’s brand of obnoxiousness sits on the opposite end of the spectrum as Faye’s. Her emails contain rainbows—each sentence a different color and a different font. Her emails invite us to help ourselves to the cake or brownies or homemade cranberry-walnut-unicorn bread that she has baked for our enjoyment on this beautiful day. Her emails always end with the word, “Enjoy!” It’s a command. As if that isn’t enough, some days she will walk around the building hawking a platter of brownies or a jar of lollipops. She stops at every desk. She says, “A brownie to make your morning sweet?” or “A lollipop to brighten your afternoon?” The price: only your dignity and having to endure her self-satisfied grin.

Kindness Woman won’t just anonymously leave her baked goods in the kitchen, like everyone else around here who wants to kill us slowly with sugar. Kindness Woman wants credit for her kindnesses. She wants applause.

“The thing about her is she never matured from high school,” says Terry, who works in HR and maintains that HR will turn the sweetest, most extroverted person into a misanthrope, so it’s not her fault she hates the world. “She’s still on the hunt for Senior Superlatives. Cheeriest Demeanor! Most Spirited!”

“Most Likely to Fill Up Your Email With Exclamation Points!” I say. Terry and I exchange a meaningful glance. Exclamation points are to us the splinters of punctuation marks. We share a deep disdain for those rows and rows of exclamation points in Kindness Woman’s emails, stiff and spiky like the barbed hooks of a stickabur. We share a disdain, frankly, for enthusiasm. Sometimes the only words Terry and I will exchange over the course of the day are “Shoot me now.” And yet—and I am being completely sincere here—we communicate so much with those three words, depending on where emphasis is laid. “Shoot me now” means seriously, it’s my turn to moan. “Shoot me now” conveys urgency, this level of bullshit is surpassingly dire.

Now Terry says these words, and she emphasizes all three. Her use of emphasis is so extreme, it brings to mind Kindness Woman’s exclamation points, but I don’t point this out to Terry. Kindness Woman is the reason for this bloated, bloodshot “Shoot me now.” Because Kindness Woman filed a complaint to HR against Faye for being mean to her.

“There’s a form for meanness complaints?” I say.

Terry squints at me. Then she says, “And who do you think Pamela tasked with the joyous assignment of investigating this complaint?”

“What’s an investigation entail exactly?” I say. “Do you tap their phones?”

Because we’re talking in the break room, we both eye the door constantly.

“Why doesn’t anyone file a complaint against Chad?” is what Terry says.

“Hard to prove a man is consciously looking at your breasts every time he talks to you?” I say. “Could be like being cross-eyed? He could say he can’t control his eyes?”

Terry sighs. She says, “For starters, I have to talk to these women. I have to sit down at a table and have conversations with the two most intolerable women in this lunatic asylum of an office. I have to get their sides of the story. I have to take the complaint seriously.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m kind of envious. I want to be a fly on the wall. Maybe you could record your interviews? Just surreptitiously turn your phone face down? I’d love to hear Faye explain why she’s mean to Kindness Woman. What do you predict? ‘Because she’s fucking annoying?’”

Terry does not crack a smile. She folds her arms over her chest and looks at me bleakly. “Do you know why I got into HR?” she says. “I thought I could do some good in the world. I thought I could have some kind of influence on, say, diversity of hires. On practices of inclusivity. Bringing in good people and, okay, slapping the bad people, because dudes like Chad deserve to have their lives made uncomfortable. But no one utters a peep about Chad! Instead I get complaints along the lines of, ‘Faye said, Get those blondies out of my face, I do not give a shit if they have butterscotch chips.’” Terry bites her lip, then passes her hand across my forehead. “Obliviate. You didn’t hear me say that.”

Terry is always doing this, letting confidential things slip and then wiping my memory clean. I let my tongue hang out and glaze my eyes in response, performing successful memory eradication, but there is no cheering Terry up today.

“I think I’ve finally hit bottom,” she says. “I think this is the bottom of the goddamn well. The ninth circle of hell, here I am, getting chewed on by fucking Satan.”

“Here’s what I don’t get,” I say. “Isn’t this against Kindness Woman’s whole ethos? Isn’t lodging an official complaint pretty much the antithesis of kind?”

Terry looks at me pityingly. She says, “Isn’t our company motto, ‘All for one, and one for all’? Yet you remember how Pamela said to Julie when she found Julie using Isaac’s office when Isaac was on vacation, “You’re not on an office-level paygrade.” And then Julie came to me about it, me in my little cubicle five feet outside of Pamela’s office! All I could do was laugh until my face hurt. I said to her, ‘Julie, when the president of the company is also the director of HR, and your complaint is about said president, what do you expect me, who is also not office-level paygrade, to do about it?’”

Pamela enters the breakroom then, so I quickly switch the subject. I say, “Yeah, I started buying the generic sparkling waters. They taste the same but they’re nearly half the price.”

“Which flavor?” Terry says.

We try to look like we’re not monitoring Pamela out of the corners of our eyes as she slices a chunk of Kindness Woman’s latest will-you-please-be-my-friend bribe: something crumbly and weirdly white, like it might just be made entirely of sugar. That or cocaine.

“Lemon,” I say, “though the coconut is pretty good, too.”

Normally, I take pride in my ability to quickly come up with inane shit to talk about in Pamela’s presence, but right now, for some reason, I feel this sickening sadness. A lost-every-tooth-in-your-mouth kind of sadness. And that’s when I remember that I had this weird dream last night that I was excruciatingly depressed. Weird because normally I dream out-of-this-world shit, but a dream about being depressed is dreadfully of-this-world. In the dream, I was walking very slowly through a putty-colored landscape. I was on my way to buy Cascade liquid-powder combination dishwashing capsules; my shoulders were slumped. When I first woke it wasn’t immediately clear to me that I had been dreaming, or was now conscious, or what, if anything, distinguished the two states. I actually said out loud, “Wait, what?” and rolled over to my left. But of course there was no Karl lying next to me.

“Anything wrong, Grace?” Pamela says. She’s watching me narrowly with her bulbous eyes.

“I was just remembering this incredibly boring dream I had,” I said.

“Hmm. People say they have interesting dreams, and when they describe them, they’re incredibly boring. I wonder if that would make a description of an incredibly boring dream interesting? Or would it just be that much more boring?”

Pamela’s affect is so flat and deadpan that it’s impossible to distinguish between her philosophical observations and her jokes. Terry takes a gamble and laughs, and Pamela smiles graciously, so we know Terry guessed right.

“Well, I’ll leave you two to your dreams and sparkling water,” Pamela says, and departs holding aloft her powdery square of Kindness pastry.

Terry raises her eyebrows. “Now I know how to get Pamela to make a fucking fast exit. That was even speedier than when Sam starts telling stories about the latest accomplishments of her twins!” She looks at me more closely. “Hey, what’s up with you? You look like someone hit you with a hammer.”

There are a lot of things I could say at this point, but what I latch onto is what I woke up thinking, what made me so sad my reflection in the bathroom mirror shimmered and blurred. “I miss Karl.”

Terry looks at me, just looks at me, then nods. I’m pretty sure I know what Terry’s thinking but not saying—that I was the one who pushed for the separation, that I said Karl lacked the introspection to really love someone.

We hadn’t yet separated when Kindness Woman first showed up, and I told Karl about that woman’s damn emails and her peddling her treats around the office, and he said, “You sound like that Faye woman. It’s like you’re allergic to kindness. It’s like you want to be miserable.” I tried to explain to Karl that that’s the thing: it’s not kindness if you’re constantly begging for credit for your actions and if you’re pissed off when people don’t give you the thanks you believe you’ve earned. I said, “Maybe she believes she’s being kind, but that’s not kindness. It’s phoniness.” I’d talked before that point about us separating. I’d already said many times that I didn’t believe he really loved me. I’d said to him that I believed he believed he loved me, but that I didn’t feel genuinely loved because I was constantly having to ask him to be thoughtful towards me, and that on the rare occasions he was thoughtful, he made a big fuss about wanting me to praise him. When I called the Kindness Woman phony and manipulative, that was the turning point for Karl. That’s when he said, “You know what? I think you’re right. We should separate. Because you’re impossible to please.”

That’s when I thought, shit, he really doesn’t love me.

“Shoot me now,” I say.

Terry, who passed me Kleenex six months ago and said, “But Grace, isn’t the point that you didn’t really love him either?” nods again, turns her fingers into a gun, and takes aim. I’m standing there waiting for that too-slow, invisible bullet to pierce my heart when Kindness Woman enters the kitchen. She looks at me. She looks at Terry. Then she turns around and leaves, as though she couldn’t remember what it was she’d wanted.

◊◊

author photo michelle ross and kim magowanKim Magowan lives in San Francisco and teaches in the Department of Literatures and Languages at Mills College. Her short story collection Undoing (2018) won the 2017 Moon City Press Fiction Award. Her novel The Light Source is forthcoming from 7.13 Books this July. Her fiction has been published in Atticus Review, Cleaver, The Gettysburg Review, Hobart, New World Writing, Smokelong Quarterly, and many other journals. Her story “Madlib” was selected for Best Small Fictions 2019 (Sonder Press). Her story “Surfaces” was selected for Wigleaf‘s Top 50 2019. She is the Fiction Editor of Pithead Chapel. More at www.kimmagowan.com.

Michelle Ross is the author of There’s So Much They Haven’t Told You (2017), which won the 2016 Moon City Press Short Fiction Award. Her fiction has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Colorado Review, Pidgeonholes, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, SmokeLong Quarterly, and other venues. Her story “One or Two?” was selected for Wigleaf‘s Top 50 2019. She is Fiction Editor of Atticus Review. She lives in Tucson, Arizona. More at www.michellenross.com.

Image credit: Alexander Krivitskiy on Unsplash

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNEXPECTED, WITH FRIENDS by Peter Leight

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

green door, doorbell

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNEXPECTED, WITH FRIENDS
by Peter Leight

When you don’t know what to expect you’re almost always expecting something, even if you’re mistaken, as when you expect somebody to come and somebody else shows up—it’s not mutually expected. Or you expect to hear from your friends and they don’t even text. It’s true, your friends have a lot of things that are happening in their lives that you’re not even aware of, it’s kind of like takeout you never ordered. You’re not sending it back, you’re not angry, after all they’re your friends, even when they’re not telling you anything, even when they’re unfriendly, as if they’re eating the takeout you never ordered. Sometimes it’s easier to think about what you don’t expect, I mean you’re not thinking about whether they’re actually your friends, even the ones you like, even the ones who are just like you—you’re not giving up on your friends. You don’t want to disappoint your friends. It is difficult to anticipate what’s unexpected—there are always times when you expect something to happen even though you’d rather expect something else, as when your friends are supposed to come and you think they’re not going to show up—you don’t need to believe your friends. You often think it’s better not to expect anything at all, even though they’re your friends, because you almost never see them anymore unless they need something from you and they’re stopping by to pick it up, they’re in a hurry to get somewhere, they never stay—honestly you never expected them to.

◊◊

Peter Leight headshotPeter Leight lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. He has previously published poems in the Paris Review, AGNI, Antioch Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, FIELD, and other magazines.

 

 

 

 

 

Image credit: Antonina Bukowska on Unsplash

AQUIFER by Thomas Cook

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

blue water

AQUIFER
by Thomas Cook

I could be more perceptive. Beneath me, 750 ft., my wife is thinking. I fool no one. My sweater is nice, and it keeps me warm, but at the end of the day it folds into a flowered bag and I am naked with the thoughts lonely in my mind.

My arm is asleep. All morning I shake it and wait for the blood to come. I confuse Denver with New Orleans, and then I consider the real differences. How French are any of us, anyway?


Thomas Cook is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection Light Through a Pane of Glass (Big Table, 2020). Since 2009, he has been an editor and publisher of Tammy and Tammy Chapbooks. A recent series of poems appeared online in the Quarterly West special feature Salvage/Selvage.

 

 

 

Image credit: Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

HOW IT IS by Alison Hicks

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

white car, aerial view

HOW IT IS
by Alison Hicks

The white car that lives in the white of the eye
comes out of the sun
behind the line of parked cars,
the potted plant on the corner.

Always there, travels submarine.
Hides in white blood cells,
cruises arteries and veins,
slides through the body politic.

All the times it hasn’t shown
you’ve sensed its filmy existence,
so never completely a surprise
when it surfaces in peripheral vision.

The white car could be an actual car.
It could be an election,
getting lost in the woods for five days and nights,
a birth or death.

Too late to hit the gas, to swerve,
always your fault.
Tuck your head as it pulls you down,
slide through until it stops.

◊◊

Alison Hicks author photoAlison Hicks is the author of poetry collections You Who Took the Boat Out and Kiss, a chapbook, Falling Dreams, a novella Love: A Story of Images, and co-editor of an anthology, Prompted. Her work has appeared in Eclipse, Gargoyle, Permafrost, and Poet Lore, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Green Hills Literary Lantern. Her awards include the Philadelphia City Paper Poetry Prize and two PA Council of the Arts Fellowships. She is the founder of Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio, which offers community-based writing workshops.

 

Image credit: Mathias Bach Laursen on Unsplash

BISCUIT POEM by Sophia Friis

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

a hand holding a biscuit

BISCUIT POEM
by Sophia Friis

Bitch I.

An animal, let’s say
my dog, has issues
with the end of the world.

She’s lined the back porch
in plastic bottles
to collect moon water

to pour in a juice glass
to drink with breakfast
to douse her children with you are

holy.
In our side garden,
the bees

lap it up like Mountain Dew.
Inside a church,
the pendulumic golden bowl

of donation passes while the soul sits
like an ephemeral burrito
in the abdomen or thorax. These

are her meditations.

Bitch II.

Here wet heat wrinkles
the ridges of stretch marks,
a bellied tomato

vines rot at the speed
of a sleeve of ash,
humidity

stills in a woman’s
vertebra, they’re all sleeping
with their chiropractors.

This is the after.
Man,
left her high and dry as a leather saddle.

Her poems
used to be of
overwhelmingly this

the yellow green of tannery water,
marrow, oily eyes.
Bury a skull, any skull

and cavernous tomatoes
will walk from the fields,
red valves onto pavement.

Bitch III.

Everyone knows how
a biscuit should sit
in the hand. Sage gravied,

say grace-full spring onions
the second largest beginnings.
Here,

the order goes
seed, bulb, biscuit
all split open the same way,

steaming, such delicately constructed
biology. We used
your mother’s recipe.

Over the phone, she and I
spoke of ham hock,
jaws, a creaminess

that could be the inner thigh
of almost spent milk,
the expiration dates.

◊◊

Sophia Friis author photoSophia Friis is from South Carolina and a current undergrad at Furman University for a degree in Sustainability Science. Her work appears in the Barely South Review and the Yellow Chair Review. She keeps bees.

 

 

 

 

Image credit: Kira auf der Heide on Unsplash

BESIDES YOURSELF by Jean-Mark Sens

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

BW image of two figures with shadows

BESIDES YOURSELF
by Jean-Mark Sens

As of lately you said you have been strangely strange—a bit besides yourself, which you noticed when you take a walk someone constantly in your shadow, a palpable presence almost shoulder to shoulder-not disturbing, even companionable.
On the fence along the park, passion flowers trellised through a canvas of lozenges– appearing, reappearing, the old German church steeple, something of a fez with a cross on top in the course of your steps through the interstices.
Blood remembers its mechanism of cells, globules, given to you and borrowed and what you eat becomes a minute replica of its substances to rarest–in a few steps still a mark on the sidewalk—where blood splurged, crimson and oxidized as a long map between life and death out of an old man bleeding against the curb stone. A presence, you and not you, till as in a motion picture in a slow back reel you call up help, and the man before you with his pepper curly hair sits up.
You still walk feeling besides yourself, a sort of double entendre and yet you are not a puppet or a ventriloquist—tempo, time, rage time, 100% pure rag, you wonder—words on liner—tattooed water mark, a page inevitably creates margins even at the first word, a lean spine between silence and thoughts, Capital letter, the urge to start the larger size of the letter to launch word after word, afterword, foreword, beside themselves–do they respond to a pre-order, reptilian part of the brain, syntax and transgressions, you wonder “love” in a two way mirror.

◊◊

author photo jean-mark sensBorn in France, Jean-Mark Sens has lived in the American South for over twenty-five years. He is currently in Pre-Theology II, formation for Priesthood at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. His work has been published in the U.S. and Canada, and he has a collection, Appetite, with Red Hen Press. He is also working on culinary book Leafy Greens & Sundry Things.

 

 

Image credit: Thomas Leuthard on Flickr

TWO POEMS by Andrew Hamilton

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

yellow umbrella hovering over a lake

TWO POEMS
by Andrew Hamilton

How to Serve a Yellow Knife Lunar Side Up

Green
stripes only.
No round, less square,
don’t forget orange grapes.
Stem-plant that table, soldier!
Christ, where’s a pinstripe umbrella
to kite a ripple in the glade of this sleep tide?
Go on then, dive a slice of those paradise knives,
but do not peel the spoon orbits off that licked brick!
I know you broke the yolk rope when I ordered
eggs unshaded on the Darkest Side of Hades.
Dummy. You niced ’em dry on inverse—
money is slicked outside amphibious.
Even the weather is up to you and
I’m looking for clock the sun
hit moonlights out of me!
Back when lightning
sold out the strike
and fire
cried.

◊

Wanted: The Ego

Hidden from searchlights
stabbed electric through barbed
fire walls at Fort Lauderdale’s
Asylum, rain and red stoplights
smear blood across wet streets
knocking on dead room door.
Telephone rings. Flashback
flood flashing locust buzz
through static television set
screeches dark radar warning
the weatherman the Poltergeist
sees Hurricane Andrew’s eyes
“I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!”
Hissed the Sandman licking
light beneath the bedframe,
humming dead dial tones
from phones off receivers—
tornado sirens twisting
rusty red shriek sounds
scratched from the attic
off meat hooks scraping
chalk through eardrums
panged against the pane
of palpitations eating
love through the heart
of fear stalks faith
self-masticating
all religion.

◊◊

Andrew Hamilton author photoAndrew Hamilton graduated with his MFA from Saint Mary’s College of California. He received awards for creative writing at the University of Tennessee. His work has appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, The Main Street Rag, San Antonio Review, Blue Fifth Review, The Rush, BlazeVOX, Glassworks, Crack the Spine, and Yes Poetry with new work forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, Dream Pop, I-70 Review, Dead Mule Surfaces.cx, and Abstract Magazine TV. For more information, please feel free to visit his website: andrewhamiltonwrites.com

 

 

Image credit Saffu on Unsplash

SONNET FOR ALEXANDRIA by Benjamin Renne

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

sunset colors

SONNET FOR ALEXANDRIA
by Benjamin Renne

1. I caught you staring at that great Midwestern sunset sewn together with photons from the last six months
2. in the hibernation of the moment, beneath blue water towers or stunted trees, the metaphors dried so you sealed them onto flat circlets of pine
………………—for preservation, you said
3. highways ran the length of your spine, the whole suburban vertebrae, your body down in Mokena, and the sky held onto the afternoon snow for so long it made us heretics again
4. where we picked up each others’ breaths and condensed them onto our chins
5. from my stiff beard to your perpendicular hands
6. the ritual persisted
7. uninterrupted by the new routines we made for ourselves or the contrasts against everything that came before
8. in the way your body reassembled itself like a Cubist, forming and reforming fragments in space beside mine
9. …………in the locked screen your reflection
10.………..in the locked screen a spring crown
11. ……………..in the locked screen color became slowly archived
12. ……………..in the locked screen ultra violet rays pulled at your hair
13. ……….and your breast glowed amethyst, shined brightly on a lineless
…………….page stained with lavender, your voice bubbling up
14. …………………….to jump clear and purposeful into the corrugated evening

◊◊

Benjamin Renne author photoBenjamin Renne lives and teaches in the Washington, D. C. area. He reads feverishly in his time off and likes the feeling when a poem or story curls up behind his brain for a few days and just sits there, refusing to budge. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University and his poetry has appeared in Ghost Proposal, SLAB, CatheXis Northwest Press, and more.

 

 

Image credit: Joshua Fuller on Unsplash

How to Boil a Child by Michael Zimecki

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

child facing into the sunset

How to Boil a Child
by Michael Zimecki

My grandson is five months old, and smiles as he orients to the burble of voices above him, the sounds we adults emit when we are making baby-talk. We coo when we are cuzzling infants and raise our voices when addressing foreigners, as if the sound and tone of our speech will cue them to what we mean. Someone should give us a talking-to, or, perhaps, a spanking.

The soft vocalizations that make us sound like Old World monkeys are the least of our offenses to the young. Baby talk, researchers say, may even aid children’s development.

What we are doing to the planet is another matter.

A June heat wave cooked mollusks in the rock beds of Bodega Bay, littering the shoreline with shells opened like the mouths of infants waiting to be breastfed. Someday, climatologist James Hansen warns, the earth’s oceans may even boil away.

◊

Imagine the earth is an enormous pot. Solar radiation warms the pot like soup in a microwave, but the pot doesn’t boil over because some of the sun’s rays are reflected back into space in the form of invisible light, called infrared radiation. Since the Industrial Age, greenhouse gases entrapped in the upper atmosphere have significantly reduced the amount of infrared radiation reflected back into space.

It is like partially closing the pot with a lid. Infrared radiation still rises from the pot like steam, but the kettle is getting hotter and hotter.

◊

You can throw a frog into a pot of cold water and gradually increase the temperature of the pot to the boiling point, and, contrary to popular opinion, the frog will NOT allow itself to be boiled to death. The frog will leap from the pot. That’s because frogs, like other ectotherms, use environmental cues to regulate their own body temperatures, and will respond to increases in external temperature by getting out of the heat.

Thermoregulation by changing location—seeking sun or shade or Calaveras County-jumping from a boiling pot—is a necessary survival strategy for frogs. With human beings, particularly very tiny ones, not so much.

Humans, like other endotherms, such as dogs and birds and rats, regulate body temperature metabolically. We raise body temperature through muscle contraction and reduce it by increasing blood flow to the skin. We shiver, we sweat, we pant.

These mechanisms enable us to maintain a constant core body temperature.

Unfortunately, children may not thermoregulate as efficiently as adults. The human infant is more vulnerable to cold temperatures and more prone to hypothermia than adults. Due to this vulnerability, the infant’s body compensates with extra fatty tissue and reduced sweat production, but this compensatory response may make infants more susceptible to higher temperatures. Infants and younger children also may be physiologically more vulnerable to elevated temperatures because they produce more heat in relation to their body mass, and expend more effort to cool down, shunting blood to the skin and away from the body’s core muscles.

◊

Physiology may not matter much at all, of course. Neither frogs nor children will escape the boiling cauldron of our planet’s future. Unless you are one of the billionaires booking a flight on Elon Musk’s SpaceX, there is nowhere to leap.

In space, you cannot hear the screams of those you left behind.

◊

Like Musk, I am a citizen of the only country to refuse to sign the Osaka joint statement on climate change, the nation that withdrew from the Paris Accord in 2017. The main aim of the accord, ratified again in Osaka, was to keep the rise in the global average temperature below 2ºC (3.6ºF) above pre-industrial levels, primarily by reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. Due, in very large part, to my country’s refusal to get with the program, that goal will not be met.

◊

As the sun sets on Bodega Bay, it almost looks like the ocean is aflame. Sunsets, the novelist Laura van den Berg once said, remind us that we are at the raw mercy of the earth.

As the sun sets on the planet’s future, our grandchildren’s mouths are like seashells, open in arrested cries.

◊◊

Michael Zimecki author photoMichael Zimecki is the author of a novel, Death Sentences. His prose has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The National Law Journal, and College English, among other publications. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his wife, Susan.

 

 

 

 

Image credit: Alexandre Chambon on Unsplash

EXPECTING HIM  by Natalie Gerich Brabson

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Little girl drawing with markers

EXPECTING HIM
by Natalie Gerich Brabson

Maite and her daughter Pala arrived home only minutes ago, and already Pala’s settled in. She’s plopped in front of the TV, watching an inane show on the cartoon channel, all done telling Maite how she ate a cupcake at snack, that Lucy wasn’t playing nicely during recess. Maite hasn’t yet had a chance to change her shoes or chug a glass of water. Her feet ache like hell.

It’s quarter to six. Maite’s father should be here by now, should have beaten them home. Maite pulls back the curtains and scans the street once, twice, before acknowledging he has not arrived. She steals a moment to go into the bathroom, pull off her work shoes, and wash her swollen, sweaty feet. Hair strands and dust gather on the tiles; she hasn’t had time to clean for weeks. Sitting on the rim of the tub, she tips her chin up and shuts her eyes as she holds her feet steady under the cold stream. She pretends she is elsewhere, imagines she is smiling, then laughing open-mouthed.

Back in the front room, she peers through the window, and still her father’s car isn’t on the street. Pala has come to expect his visits. Every Friday afternoon, after Maite finishes her shift at the restaurant and picks up Pala from aftercare, he arrives at the house at 5:30 to take Pala to the neighborhood park. But it’s nearly six and he’s still not here. Maite’s throat tightens. She wants to huddle next to the window and press her face against it, watch until his car pulls up, just as she used to.

Word travels fast in their too-small town. When her father returned last fall, after many years gone, he soon learned of Pala and tracked down Maite’s number. He called and left a voicemail. He called again. She promised herself she wouldn’t pick up. She didn’t have to. When she did, he told her, “I’m different now. I wouldn’t have left you, Maite. Or I’d at least have visited. I wish I could do it all over again.”

She said nothing. Eventually he cut through her silence. “Can I meet my grandbaby?”

No, no, Maite thought. Pala. But should she deny any relationship? And if he was, as he averred, in town to stay, and if he really could be in Pala’s life…

Half a year now, every Friday. He has never been this late. Maite stands clutching the curtain—she wants to curl up, and, if his car doesn’t appear soon, hide her face in her knees. But she cannot, not in front of Pala.

Pala tugs at Maite’s pants, and Maite steps back. Pala wants to look out the window too; already she’s resting her chin on the windowsill. Maite places her hand on Pala’s head and guides her toward the kitchen, where she prepares Pala’s snack, apple slices alongside a dollop of peanut butter. Pala eats noisily, looking around the room, squirming in her chair to look at the door.

“Soon,” Maite says. “I’m sorry.”

Pala nods. She puts an apple slice flat on her plate and squishes it until a drop of juice emerges. She licks the drop off the plate, looking at Maite as she does so, but Maite doesn’t correct her behavior.

Maite notices the emptiness in her own stomach. Most days, she doesn’t eat lunch because the restaurant where she waitresses makes her pay for any food she takes, and it’s too expensive. Now, she fixes herself her own apple and peanut butter snack, the two munching in silence. Then Pala asks, “Can I watch my show?”

“I think it’s over by now.” The clock shows a quarter past six. Maite checks the voicemail, but he hasn’t left a message. She thinks, This is the time, this is when it will happen. He’s not coming for her.

“I want to make sure,” Pala says, glancing back at the front room.

“Your show ended.” Maite doesn’t want Pala checking for him again by the window, nor discovering that the cartoon channel plays endless reruns after new episodes air. “You can draw here.”

Pala scowls at Maite, but she finds her markers and paper and returns to the kitchen table without complaint. Soon she’s immersed in her artwork. Pala’s expression is strained, betraying her worry, but Maite doesn’t say anything more to her. Maite chomps into her second apple, this time without cutting it up first. She dips the skinless wound into the peanut butter, then takes another bite, gooey.

Finally, his knock. Maite opens the door, and he stoops right on the porch, stretching his arms wide. Pala leaps from the couch, and runs into his embrace.

“My sweet little bee girl,” he coos. He kisses her head only once, his eyes meeting Maite’s.

“I’m so sorry I’m late. Traffic, you know. Hi, honey.” He rises to hug Maite. She lets him, but she goes stiff, moving away from his body until he releases her.

“How was work?” he asks.

She shakes her head and turns away, toward Pala. “Well, your grandpa is here for you,” she says. “Do you want to show him your drawing?”

Pala crosses her arms behind her back, and softly says, “Later.”

“Let’s get going,” Maite’s father says to her.

“Hold on,” Maite tells him. “It’s 6:30. Maybe the park’s not a good idea anymore.”

“It’s safe. It’ll be light out all evening,” he says.

“Let me finish this apple,” Maite says. I’m almost done.”

“You don’t have to come with us. Rest. I’ve got her.”

“I’m coming.”

The park is down the street. Maite’s feet still hurt, and she drags behind her father and Pala. Her father glances back once to smile at Maite, saying to Pala, “Your mother should be like me. She shouldn’t work so hard.” Maite can’t get herself to smile back.

She speeds up, walks close enough to overhear their conversation when her father turns again toward Pala, who’s chattering away, no longer, apparently, distressed at her grandfather’s lateness. He’s good at talking to Pala. He’s better at responding to her tangential conversation style—new since she turned five—than Maite.

“What did you like about school today?”

“It was Ella’s birthday.”

“Did she bring any treats for the class?”

Pala nods. “The cots in kindergarten are bad.”

“What makes you say they’re bad?”

“We have to nap every day.”

“You’ll be missing that in a few months, when you grow up and go to first grade.”

It’s early June, and near the park, cottonwood seeds float everywhere. The wind gusts and releases more from the trees. There’s a gully alongside the path, filled with a few inches of water. Some seeds have been blown by the wind into the runoff. They form clumps on the surface as they are carried away in the slow-moving water.

A seed catches in Pala’s hair.

“Snow,” Maite calls to her, but Pala doesn’t hear.

They step through the park’s gate. There are already children on the playground, and Pala studies them before reaching for her grandfather’s hand to walk over to the hill. Maite follows them to the top and finds a tree trunk to lean against. From this tree, she’ll be able to see Pala all the way down to the edge of the park, and on the playground too, if Pala leads her grandfather there.

Pala pitches forward, briefly on all fours, then sprawls on the ground.

“Are you going to roll down the hill?” Maite’s father asks.

“You roll, please,” Pala responds.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know how. You have to show me.”

She springs up. “You know! You know!”

“I don’t. Teach me how to roll down the hill.”

Pala lies at the top of the hill again, and tips into motion. Her limbs are loose, and her roll is clumsy and slow. She’s not yet halfway down when she stands and falls again, trying to roll faster. Her white leggings, new, are streaked green and brown.

Maite’s father trails Pala’s path, only a few steps behind her. Maite hopes he’s keeping an eye out for rocks that Pala could bump her head on. She wants to look out herself or take her father’s place behind Pala. If she saw any danger ahead, she’d pick Pala up, run. She could run fast, even on her work-swollen feet. She could run faster than anyone for Pala. She imagines running with Pala all the way down the hill, gaining momentum, and flying her out of the park, across the street and beyond, to the good side of town. They’d go to New York, somewhere big, a place where Pala could do anything, where she’d be unharmed.

If they left now, Pala might forget these early years, the last few months. They would have to leave soon, though—her memory is getting stronger, and she’s beginning to track patterns. She knows when Friday is coming, when Friday’s here, when to expect his car in the driveway.

Maite takes off her shoes and socks, folds the socks into a ball and places them in one shoe. She lets herself feel the soles of her feet on the bristly grass. She pulls the grass up with her toes, then gathers the blades and throws them into the air. They do not hover—they fall before the wind can catch them. The blades of grass don’t have the magic of cottonwood seeds.

Pala is tumbling down the hill again, but the hill isn’t steep enough, and she comes to a halt every few rotations. The late afternoon light, glaring, hits Pala’s hair, makes it glow. Momentarily she lies still, belly-up. Her hair has fallen in front of her face, tangled and wild. Watching, Maite holds her shins and pulls her legs close, huddles, hugs.

Pala jumps up to catch her grandfather’s hand, dragging him to his knees. He calls, “Mind yourself! Log coming through,” and waits until Pala backs away, safe, before he begins to roll. Pala takes another cautious step backward, then springs into motion and runs after him.

Maite won’t admit it to him, but she remembers her father took her to this same park, before the playground equipment had been replaced. It must have been only a few months before he left. She was twelve, and was reluctant to play, believing she was too old to be at the playground with her father. She remembers too well.

Watching Pala chase her grandfather down the hill, Maite feels a tickle on the bridge of her foot: an ant. She is momentarily fascinated by its steady crawl, how it wields its antennae like windmills. Then she reacts, shaking her foot violently to free herself from the ant. It falls to the grass, and soon disappears.

Her father has not yet led Pala back up the hill. If Maite called to Pala now, her voice would not carry. She digs her feet into the earth and pushes her back against the tree trunk. She scrapes her heels furiously, and the dirt loosens and allows her to hollow out depressions. She cannot root herself enough.

The sun has not yet neared the horizon. It’ll be light for another couple of hours, but there are fewer children on the playground. Those remaining are much older than those Maite noticed when they entered the park. She can’t see any adults among them. The teenagers cluster near the swings. Their laughs are loud and movements loose. One boy has his arm hooked around the swing’s pole and hangs back carelessly. He looks toward the hill. Pala might not be visible to him. Maite hopes he won’t lead the teenagers any closer to Pala.

Finally, Pala races her grandfather up the hill.

Maite calls to her. “Let’s go home!”

Pala glances over briefly but pretends she doesn’t hear. She bows her head as she runs, her eyes directed to the ground, serious.

Maite cries, “Let’s go! Let’s go!” She pronounces go like goo, as if she’s joking.

“We just got here. Let’s stay a little longer, Mom,” her father says. “Maite, it might be the best day of the summer. Let her play.”

Maite throws her head back to the sky, too blue, and doesn’t argue. Pala recognizes that she has more time, and she pulls her grandfather toward the teeter-totter, which is thankfully far from the other playground equipment and the teenagers. Maite’s father walks slowly, and Pala hangs on his arm, dragging him, giggling, shouting, “Faster, Papa!”

He slows down, and says, “I can’t! You’ll have to leave me behind.”

Pala’s overtaken by peals of laughter. She’s clutching his arm too tightly, refusing to release her grasp. Maite thinks, Let go, let go. One day you may not have a choice.

Maite will tell him he can’t come late for Pala. No, she will tell him it is best if he doesn’t come at all. She fears that his disappearance will repeat, that it’s inevitable.

She’ll tell him today, she promises herself. She’ll send Pala to her room to clean up her toys when they get home. Pala doesn’t clean yet, but she pretends: she will get caught up with playing and won’t try to overhear. Maite will tell him then. She’ll say it doesn’t matter that he is Pala’s only grandfather—she can’t let Pala get attached to someone who eventually won’t be there for her.

But when they arrive, Maite is slow to take off her shoes. Pala immediately leads her grandfather to the kitchen, hands him her drawing, and beams at him as he studies it. Maite can’t bring herself to interrupt their connection. She lets go of her breath, remains silent for one more moment.

“It’s beautiful,” he tells Pala. “Is it a cheetah?”

Pala shakes her head.

“A lion? An ocelot?”

No, no.

It’s a housecat, Maite thinks. It’s the only thing Pala ever draws, for years now. But her father is patient with Pala, and he plays her game and keeps guessing until he gets it right. And when he does, he tries to hand the drawing back to her, but she tells him, “You can have it.”

He bends down to hug her, not apologetically as he did when he greeted her, but fully. Pala steps on his toes to hug him back. She looks toward Maite, waits for her grandfather to pick her up.

◊◊

Natalie Gerich Brabson author photoNatalie Gerich Brabson is a recent graduate of Sarah Lawrence College’s MFA program, and holds a BA in Hispanic Studies from Vassar College. Her fiction has been published in New World Writing and Eunoia Review. In 2017, she received the Go On Girl Book Club Unpublished Writer Award. She lives in Philadelphia, and is at work on her first novel.

 

 

 

Image credit: Rudy and Peter Skitterians on Pixabay

TINY THINGS by TALEEN A. SHALEH

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Little girl with big glasses

TINY THINGS
by TALEEN A. SHALEH

The way she squints worries me, my mother tells the optometrist. In the dim room, sitting before the gentle doctor, being whispered to, One or two? Three or four? I learn a secret. My ability to see tiny things up close is superhuman. The doctor tells me so, not like she’s telling a child a complimentary fib, but like she’s embarrassed since it was the only word to use and it sounds silly.

It makes sense, though, because I’m tiny, too. At school, a boy I hate calls me “mouse”. My friend Nina says, At least a mouse is cute, and totes me around like a doll. We line up by height for all occasions, and I’m always first. During lessons, I bend as close to the page as possible, examining the shapes inside the pencil-letters, and I’m so focused I don’t hear when the teacher calls my name. Sometimes the principal doesn’t even notice me sitting in her office, I’m so small, but there’s no office to send her to for not paying attention.

My mother doesn’t believe the optometrist, but she’s too busy to make another appointment with a different one.

At home, armed with the knowledge that my up-close seeing isn’t me being a total weirdo, but a power, I search for the tiny. I realize the problem with being called a mouse is that a mouse is not small enough. I can do so much better.

The ants that march through our kitchen are okay, but even more interesting are the near-microscopic mites. The ones that look like specks of nutmeg until they start to move. I invite one of them onto my finger.

The day-after-Valentine’s-day tulip bouquet my mother bought for herself is nice, but way better is zooming in on the center of a single bloom, taking in every grain of pollen dusting each stamen’s tip. The threads of color striping along the petals are playground slides to tumble down. I reach out and smuggle a dot of pollen.

In the healthy dinner I’m forced to eat because my mother is just one woman trying her best, a fleck of quinoa is still too large. I concentrate on the mini tail whipping out and pick it apart from its seed. Why are you squinting at your finger like that? my mother asks.

Because they’ve invited me to tea, I want to say, but don’t. After dinner I run upstairs with my three new friends on my fingertip. One breath, and I join them.

We’re sitting together in downtown Crayola, surrounded by sixty-four multi-colored skyscrapers. The mite, the velvety fleck of pollen, the curly quinoa tail, and me. We don’t need teacups. We slurp directly from the single droplet before us.

When my mother enters the room, she calls and calls, but doesn’t see anything.

◊◊

Taleen Alexander author headshotTaleen A. Shaleh’s writing has appeared in The Bold Italic and Cal Literature and Arts Magazine. She lives in San Francisco, where runs a research team by day, parents a spirited toddler by night, and writes when she can (you should see the notes app on her phone). You can find her on Twitter at @taleenashaleh

 

 

 

 
Image credit: Luisella Planeta Leoni on Pixabay

TWO FLASH PIECES by Joshua Shaw

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

a candle

TWO FLASH PIECES
by Joshua Shaw

Later They Didn’t

After the house fire, the neighborhood boys searched the rubble. A chimney teetered. Cinders smoked. Parents said it wasn’t safe. Stay away. The boys didn’t listen. Treasures might be found. A young couple had lived there. Maybe a bra had survived the fire? Maybe a blackened spoon?

Only metal eyelets were found, shoes erased by flames, metal tarnished by heat so the eyelets looked like tiny ancient coins.

The boys hid them in a hole by a tree. Later, they remembered where. Later, they didn’t.

◊

Wicked Source of Light

Before he dies, my father asks, “What’s a six-letter word for a wicked source of light?” Outside, wind shakes power lines. Plastic bags snap on bare tangled limbs. Dad’s newspaper rustles.

“A wicked sort of life?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “A wicked source of light.”

A week later, my sister’s kids find a box in his closet, scented candles, the ones Mom used to decorate their home. Her kids line them up on the kitchen counter, rank the scents. Christmas Cookie is best. Balsam Wood and Life’s-A-Breeze are the worst.

“Don’t you want any of Dad’s things?” my sister asks.

There’s an empty bowl on the stoop outside his kitchen’s sliding door, a dish he’d leave out for strays. I think, candle.

◊◊

Joshua Shaw author picJoshua Shaw is a philosophy professor at Penn State Erie who began writing fiction midcareer because it made him glad to be alive. His stories have appeared in Hobart, Booth, Split Lip Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Sundog Lit, and Kenyon Review Online. More information about him can be found here.

 

 

 

 

Image credit: Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash

 

HOW TO (TRY TO) BE CUTE by Julie Benesh

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Little girl in sailor suit looking down into street

HOW TO (TRY TO) BE CUTE
by Julie Benesh

Before Trying

Your daddy took one look and said, “She’s beautiful—she looks just like me!” Funny, but no joke. He’d experienced mirrors, and mirror neurons, even if he’d never heard of the latter. It helps to have a handsome father because evolution makes babies look like their daddies so their daddies will know they belong to them and take care of their genes.

Don’t Try Too Hard (TTH)

Your uncle is a professional photographer, and your mother always wanted a little girl to dress up—she’d waited 15 barren married years to get one. There’s a picture of four-year-old you in a navy sailor suit with a brimmed hat. The hat makes your head itch and you pitch it out the car window after the shoot, you temperamental mo-del!

You’re a fourth grade crossing guard—they still have children do that in 1970s Iowa. You have an orange flag and you use the pole to push the walk button to let the littler kids cross. One day on the lunch patrol two boy hippies walk up. One asks your name and mentions that you have curly eyelashes. When he asks if you are “old enough” and chortles, you feel nauseated and tell your school he asked “if you were old enough—to take drugs.” Which makes no sense or just makes it worse, you don’t realize until you are just about old enough for whatever.

Quadruple whammy: glasses, braces, nose zits. Acquire a terrible, clever nickname based on your last name. Epic cuteness fail for several years.

Try Harder

Braces off, tanning helps heal the zits and acts as nose contouring, and you only need glasses to see. Meanwhile you’ve grown your T&A and got some nice curves.

“Hey sexless,” some guy will yell from a car, just when you thought you’d made it.

“She tries to be cute.” Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. You are controversial, like Sarah Jessica Parker, like Jennifer Aniston will one day be. A girl’s girl. Good company.

Take a Break

Live in an engineering dorm in college. Just saying. At the time, 90% of your dorm mates are men. It’s a numbers game.

Get married young (snag an engineer!) and don’t have kids. Work out. Don’t wear a lot of makeup.

Try Harder

Get divorced. Work out more. Get an expensive haircut and go all-out blonde. Discover spray tanning.

Juggle a lot of jobs to pay the rent while middle-aged randos on the street stop you to say: “Smile! It’s not that bad.” It is, though.

Surrender?

Settle down with an actual aesthetics professor and stop dating. He thinks you are both cute and sexy. He also thinks beauty is a real thing, and also not your thing. But it’s hardly anyone’s! Why are you crying?

Get older. Try to straddle the line between Trying Too Hard and Letting Yourself Go. Keep the long bright hair the homeless guys always comment on. You’re still getting caught trying!

A woman will try to compliment you by saying she likes you because she prefers smart girls to pretty girls. What? Can’t one be both? Why not? Better try a lot harder or else give up completely.

Some guy yells from a car, “I want to ________ you in the _______,” then: “No I don’t.” Caught trying again?

Do beach yoga as two adolescent boys lounge nearby, gazing toward you in a friendly fashion. One starts talking about his grandma—she’s so crazy and hilarious. He obviously loves her a lot. Realize why he thought of her, at the beach, with so much else to pay attention to. You…reminded…him…of her!

Just Be

Make up. Make up to break up with makeup. Make up with your mirror; make up with yourself. Make up your mind. Make up your own rules. Make up for lost time.

◊◊

Judy benesh author photoJulie Benesh lives in Chicago with two cats and a lot of books. Her creative writing has appeared in Tin House, Florida Review, Crab Orchard Review, and other magazines and has been anthologized in Bestial Noise: A Tin House Fiction Reader. She has earned an MFA in Fiction from Warren Wilson College, an Illinois Arts Council Grant, and a Pushcart nomination. She is completing her first short story collection and is working on a book length micro-memoir manuscript. She teaches writing workshops at the Newberry Library and has a day job as a professor and management consultant.

 

Image credit: Dulce Láriz on Unsplash

CONSTANCE COMES HOME by David Priest

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

living room with sofa, plant

CONSTANCE COMES HOME
by David Priest

Danielle hated her feet. She hated that the knuckle at the base of each big toe bulged out like a Ping-Pong ball. She hated that if she pressed the pad of her finger against, say, her right foot, it would leave a little oblong mark for full seconds before blood seeped back in. They were always cold, too, but sweated continuously. This was the worst part. It was the reason she wore socks in her own home. Otherwise she’d leave moist negatives of her feet on every hard surface in the house.

But now Danielle was barefoot. She was walking slowly, allowing each foot to light on each tile, one at a time, in Constance’s house. When she closed her eyes Danielle was Constance, with her white pants that boasted a runner’s lithe confidence, confidence that rendered the usual socks unnecessary. Of course, neighbor Constance was really at the gym—Monday/Wednesday/Friday—and daughter Harmony was at school and husband Dorian was working till five-thirty. She had the house for hours.

Here was Danielle—walking tile-by-tile, sitting at the kitchen island, perusing Fitness Magazine, sauntering to the fridge and pulling out a futuristic glass cylinder of sparkling Norwegian water, drinking it luxuriously, savoring the carbonation tickling down her throat. Danielle straightened a picture magnet of the pert young Harmony gripping a platinum-blue tennis racket and resting it on her shoulder—the sinews of her forearm pronounced as if she’d been perfecting her backhand only moments before the photographer had snapped the shot.

Danielle turned, screwed the metallic top back onto the water bottle, and gazed at the rich cream tile floor. In the bay window light, her damp footprints tracked from the front hall to the kitchen like soft gold islands. The tracks led to ten wiggling toes, nails colorless.

Danielle turned to the clock as Constance had probably done countless times while making dinner, waiting for Harmony and Dorian to come bursting in, poised to smile and laugh—activities catalyzed by Mother’s wonderfully aromatic food. Spaghetti and meatballs, a classic, magically infused with joy. Dorian would cup one breast while Harmony looked away, embarrassed by her parents’ carnality. He would nibble her neck in just the way to make her shiver. Danielle shivered.

◊

Danielle’s daughter Julie had screamed the night before. She’d been standing in the center of her pink room, Danielle in the hallway looking in. Husband Bob was downstairs on the couch. In the silence right after Julie’s first shriek (“You’re such a bitch!”), Danielle thought she heard the volume on the television downstairs tick up.

Danielle made herself small. She felt apparitional in the dark hallway. Julie was standing splayfooted, hair mussed, the ceiling light above her purging the room of shadows. One side of her head was shaved.

Danielle didn’t fully understand why Julie was screaming. Mother Danielle had simply expressed concern for her daughter’s romantic possibilities with such a haircut. Dark purple tears were tracing parentheses on Julie’s face, around the “o” of her mouth. It was like some indecipherable text message.

“Why do you even care?” Julie had screamed, fists balled at her sides and torso tilted forward. Danielle thought her daughter looked cartoonish, a mannequin donning adolescent fury.

The teen curled her upper lip—experimentally, Danielle thought. “You’re going to die alone, you know.” Now the girl was aiming for cruel. “But you don’t know. You have no idea. I almost feel sorry for you.”

Be the adult, Dani, Bob had chided some years before, when Danielle had shouted at Little Julie to go to her room. Little Julie had said dinner tasted like dog shit.

The casserole wasn’t worth a fight, he’d said. Be the adult, Dani.

“Julie,” Danielle said now, arms folding, “don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic?”

◊

By this time, Danielle knew Constance’s home intimately. She visited twice per week, on Monday and Wednesday, since schedules seemed a bit more fluid on Friday, what with Harmony returning home early to pack for weekend tennis tournaments, and Constance of course pumiced and made-up to drive her daughter counties or states away, as needed, always smiling.

But today (Wednesday) fell in the middle of the workweek when, Danielle knew, most men of the subdivision would be preoccupied amid the routine of eat/work/sleep, and most women’s to-do’s would dwindle to kiddycare, hubbycare, and bodycare. She and Bob were no different, only he stayed late most weekdays now.

Wednesdays were Danielle’s favorite, because she felt the safest in others’ homes. Less chance of being interrupted, of having to slip out a sliding glass door in back as she’d had to do twice before—neither time a Wednesday. But today was not just any Wednesday. Today was special. Danielle could feel it.

◊

The back stairway hair-pinned, a strip of plush carpet rolled directly down the middle of each flight, hugging the contours of each stair, attached with a line of heavy-duty construction staples under each wooden flange and at the crook of each step. Danielle knew the staples were hidden in the carpet’s abundant pile because she’d examined them closely the first time she’d explored Constance’s home.

Danielle was proud of her eye for detail. She went barefoot on these expeditions to memorize the feel of each carpet, laminate, tile. She laid her cheek to each countertop, watched how her breath stayed or dissipated from the marble, the soapstone, the quartz. Danielle could write a book on the empty homes of Court of Spruce, a book only for her.

First floors, for example, tended toward the immaculate, with untouched sitting rooms and wife-kept kitchens. The only rooms that occasionally showed some wear were those the men inhabited—shoes congregating in the corners, plates with crusted-on unidentifiables slid halfway under the couch, video game consoles in the middle of the floor with bundled cords slithering out and toward the televisions. When one visited another’s home (socially, that is), one was almost guaranteed a brief tour, including the controlled mess of the male-inhabited living room (which sometimes even boasted a live specimen before he fled upstairs).

On Wine Wednesdays, for instance, Ilana Burkins made a habit of clicking her tongue in gentle reproof at her eighth-grade twins finishing a shooting game on the TV.

“Boys,” she would say knowingly, and the other women would sigh and roll their eyes.

Boys, men, and their mess were to be displayed, within reason. Danielle knew this, because she’d often seen Ilana’s house six hours prior to Wine Wednesdays, and she knew which rooms were tidied, and which weren’t.

At first, Danielle had found first floors to be of great interest. She discovered pornography stashed in cardboard boxes and external hard drives, sometimes in plain sight. She quickly came to understand that most men on the block watched pornos, and many women were either fully aware or in denial. Bob was one of the few who seemed not to masturbate daily, and Danielle had secreted in her chest both a bud of pride at this revelation and a flowering, prurient captivation with the unfulfilled sexuality in other husbands. Like animals caged, she thought.

With time, though, Danielle tired of the performance of the kitchen, the living room, the entryway. The clearest windows into the life of each house were in the bedrooms.

The second time Danielle had visited Ilana Burkins’ house, she’d found a large, purple and elaborately textured dildo tucked snugly between the baseboard and the mattress of the master bedroom. She looked at Ilana differently for weeks.

While Ilana was out of town, though, Danielle made the discovery that Ilana Burkins wasn’t the one who utilized the tool. It had been moved, recently scrubbed with lavender soap, midway through her vacation. It had to be Husband Alex. Danielle seriously doubted that Ilana was unaware of its presence, and would smile to herself while making dinner, imagining that Alex may in fact have asked his dutiful wife to penetrate him with it. Danielle had to fight back the titters imagining it. She was certain Ilana would comply with any such requests.

The drama reached its pinnacle, though, the week Ilana and Alex celebrated their anniversary in the Caribbean, when Danielle had found the dildo missing from its usual spot. Instead it was tucked haphazardly under the bed of one of the twins. The boy must have fantasized about his vestigially pretty mother using it. The families on Court of Spruce all had such secrets that only Danielle knew.

◊

Constance Jones’ home was the first Danielle visited. This was a year ago now, after Bob had asked whether Danielle still used her gym membership. Realizing he truly wouldn’t notice, she canceled it, leaving two hours of every weekday suddenly unoccupied. She began by reading, picking up a stack of books—mostly romances—from the library and flipping through them while cradled in the front window seat. But she couldn’t concentrate, and so found herself watching the other homes around Court of Spruce. It was like a miniature society, so slickly routined Danielle could unfocus her eyes and the day would pass in moments.

It was nothing at all that started it. Constance’s daughter, Harmony, the last to leave on Tuesday mornings, left a cup of coffee on the roof of her car—a cute European toy made life-size. It slid off the roof, smashing on the street as she raced away.

Danielle walked out to the street, gathered the porcelain shards, and gingerly carried them to Constance’s front door. She knocked, though she knew no one was home. She tried the knob, found the door unlocked. Then, without knowing why, she entered. Closing the door behind her, Danielle realized suddenly that she hadn’t taken a full breath all day, maybe all week. She inhaled the lingering essence of Constance, and discovered it to be the same Sweet Pea perfume Danielle had worn in high school. She recalled holding her wrist to a friend’s nose, the friend breathing and sighing. I like it. When had Danielle started wearing more “adult” perfume, and then just deodorant? She couldn’t remember.

Danielle started testing the doors of all her neighbors, at first bringing long-forgotten borrowed eggs or cups of sugar, then bringing nothing. Only two of the women on the block worked. One, Charlene, had a maid. The other, Breena, couldn’t keep her home clean. When she made it to Wine Wednesdays, she would half whisper her contentment to the other women, her confidence that Husband Barry fully supported her law practice. But Danielle knew Barry didn’t even delete his laptop’s history, which boasted video of busty maids after video of “lonely wives,” grinding against various cleaning and cooking tools. There were no videos, Danielle noted, of sexy lawyers.

The stay-at-home mothers like Ilana had their secrets, too, their weaknesses. Danielle would remind herself of this while staring in the mirror after the evening she hosted Wine Wednesday, where Katerina Fuchs averted her eyes from the kitchen sink, empty but still streaked with grime. How had Danielle forgotten to scrub the sink? Well, thought Danielle, how had Katerina allowed her daughter to get pregnant in college?

Yet in all her time inspecting Constance Jones’ home—two days a week for a year now—Danielle never found anything out of place. Nothing to suggest sexual kinks in Constance and Dorian’s room. No drugs or alcohol or even condoms under Harmony’s bed. Closets were in order, desks were work-only, and computers practically sparkling.

◊

Danielle stood in the center of Constance and Dorian’s room. The carpet was beige, the walls white, the bedding brown with ornate, crème stitching. In one corner of the room a door led to the master bathroom—all marble and frosted glass. On Dorian’s side of the bed (right) lay a short stack of police novels, edges flush. Constance’s side was furnished with a vanity. A gold carousel of jewelry and a makeup bag rested on top.

Danielle felt something click inside her chest, like a clock’s hour hand locking into place. She picked up a glass bottle of Crybaby-Pink polish and hopped onto the bed like she was at a slumber party. She’d always wondered how the bottle would feel in her hand, how Crybaby-Pink would look on her toes. She’d always wanted to lie in this bed. The perfect bedspread broke pleasantly underneath her. She rested her chin on her knee as she layered thick polish in even stripes onto her toenails. She sat back against the pillowed headboard and stretched her toes, worming them in the gentle draft of the A/C.

Danielle could breathe out, reclining on Constance’s bed. This house was calming her. She could always count on that, from the first time until now. Everything was organized, proper. Everything was soft. She pulled the lump of her cell phone from her back pocket and dropped it on Dorian’s pillow. She turned toward the open closet door and began planning the outfit she would put on when her toes dried.

Lying there, Danielle fell asleep.

◊

Last night, Mother Danielle had pulled Julie’s laptop from her backpack and sat in the living room. She decided to read some of Julie’s school assignments. Maybe there she could find some sense in the girl’s behavior. It’d only been a few months of this, of new music, new clothes, new makeup—all darker. Maybe it was just a phase. Or maybe, she thought, mousing through folders on the desktop, it wasn’t.

“Not a good idea,” said Bob, feet on the coffee table, hand on the TV remote.

It’d been a few months since Danielle had inspected her own home, let alone Julie’s laptop, but she quickly found a folder called “School.” She skimmed an essay on the Civil War, on democracy. She read the introduction of an essay on an author she’d never heard of, tried to bite her imaginary tongue, failed, thought, Well, it’s not grabbing my attention. She deleted a comma, exited without saving.

Julie’s door opened upstairs, and Danielle slid the laptop back into place, pulled her knees against her chest, and hugged them.

◊

Danielle’s phone was vibrating beside her head, floating across the pillow as though trying to creep away unnoticed. It was an unknown number. She picked it up.

“Hello, this is Constance.”

“Hello?” A man’s voice. “I’m sorry, I’m looking for Mrs. Danielle Kimpan.”

“I’m sorry,” said Danielle, yawning the sleep from her voice. “This is she.”

The clock beside the bed said 2:20. Constance should’ve been home by now. Danielle stood, surprised by her own calm.

“Your daughter is Julie Kimpan? This is Principal Quinn.” The man covered the mouthpiece of his phone and spoke to someone on the other side. He returned. “I’m sorry to call you, but Julie’s in my office right now. A teacher found her smoking marijuana in a school bathroom. Can you come in today?”

He sounded bored. Danielle could empathize.

“I can’t,” she sat on the bedside, gazing down at her new toes. They looked nice, and for once, Danielle didn’t mind her feet. “Actually, can you call back another time?”

She hung up. After a few moments the phone vibrated again. She silenced it.

Where was Constance? Danielle wondered again at her cool, wondered if it was simply this home, so perfectly composed, that made Constance herself so perfectly composed.

Another part of Danielle nagged. Something was wrong. Then again, Constance was often late. If she met up with friends for a post-workout brunch. If she stopped at the bank or grocery.

But maybe something else had happened. Maybe, maybe Constance was in an accident. Maybe she’d gone to the hospital. Maybe she wasn’t coming home at all.

Danielle yawned again, stretched, and felt her whole body expand. Why worry? She tossed her phone back onto the bed. Who cared where Constance was? She was here.

◊

That morning, Bob had been eating breakfast in his dress shirt and boxers, daubing flecks of egg from his plate with a too-small bit of sourdough. His fingertips were yolky. With the other hand, he scrolled through headlines on his phone, reading them aloud the same way he read signs and billboards as they drove, to fill the silence.

“South Carolina man dives off waterfall trying to save dog,” he said. “New Jersey mom strangles newborn, throws her in garbage.”

Danielle sat beside him, taking slow bites of yogurt, setting her top teeth to drag against the curve of the spoon, her tongue to hollow it out. Suddenly, she realized it’d been weeks—maybe more—since she and Bob had made love. Finishing another bite of yogurt, she scooted her chair toward Husband Bob, and slipped her feet under his thigh to warm them.

“Entitled parents are hurting their kids.” He lifted his leg, pushed her ankles with his yolky hand. “Jesus, your feet are clammy. Put on some socks.”

Danielle waited until Bob left for work, then she went to his desktop to watch porn—perhaps just to leave a single blemish on his history. When she clicked on the browser, a window was already open—an icon for an online document, connected to Bob’s work email. It was titled, “Dear Danielle.” For a moment, she couldn’t think who would’ve written it. To Julie, she was “mom,” and to Bob, she was “Dani.” Yet there it was. She hesitated a moment, then clicked it open.

Dear Danielle, We’ve been married for a long time and it has not been an unhappy marriage but not a happy one either.

Danielle cringed at the punctuation.

I think it would be best if we took some time apart. Julie says it is better to grow up with divorced parents than miserable ones, and I think we are both miserable if I am being honest.

Danielle felt her jaw pop, and realized it was locked shut. She tried to open it, failed.

Next steps might be hard but they are what we must take. We both contributed to the house but I think whoever Julie decides to stay with should keep it.

Son of a bitch. Of course Julie would pick Father Bob, because Father Bob—soon to be Bachelor Bob—let her do whatever she wanted. Fifteen years ago, they’d used Danielle’s inheritance from her dead aunt to put a down payment on this house, and now—now what?

The room began to spin. Danielle gripped the arms of her chair, felt their edges dig into her palm. She squeezed her eyes shut, lowered her forehead between her knees. She tried to breathe, found her lungs weren’t working properly, and ran outside, across the street, into safety.

◊

Constance’s closet was organized by season and color. Across from the monochromatic tones of Dorian’s suits, Constance’s blouses (top rack) and pants (bottom rack) opened up like a box of pastels. On one end of the pants rack was a bureau with the top-drawer half open, bras carefully folded inside.

Danielle shed her clothes in a small pile and walked to the dresser. No pushup bras, she knew. Constance was pragmatic. She fished out a lacy bralette Constance didn’t wear enough and pulled it over her head, cupping her breasts into place one at a time. The underwear drawer remained, as usual, unopened. Danielle slid on a pair of white jeans, sucked in her belly, and buttoned them. She couldn’t wear them as low on her hips as Constance, but she could wear them.

For her top Danielle already knew the tunic she wanted. It matched her toes—a pink, loose fitting, button-up whose translucence whispered of the bra underneath. On Constance, the top hung loose with subtle swells at her breasts and over her bottom. But as Danielle buttoned up in front of the mirror, she thought it fit her better. The buttons at the bosom looked eager to unclasp, revealing a hint of black lace and soft flesh underneath.

Constance’s summer heels were still under the bed. When Danielle looked for them, she realized they had migrated closer to Dorian’s side over the cold months. She circled the bed, knelt, and stretched, hooking two fingers over the straps of a pair of toeless heels. Suddenly she noticed the tearable fabric under the mattress falling strangely: the faint shape of an envelope. New since last week.

Sitting on Dorian’s side of the bed, heels beside her, Danielle turned over in her hands what she’d found. Thick paper. Plain white. Written in tiny, exact print on the front: open alone. The flap looked to have been torn open hastily. She pushed it open and pulled out the card. On the white front, a glittery gold print read Happy Birthday, Daddy! Inside the card was one line, penciled by the same hand as the envelope front: 10:30 in the copy room. -Catie.

That was all.

Danielle’s throat tightened. Dorian didn’t have a second daughter. Little dark-eyed Catie—an intern, Danielle was sure—waiting in the copy room. One lamp would be on in the corner. Her highlighted hair would be teased, playing at her collarbone. A little diamond stud would be tucked in her bellybutton, under that fitted dress shirt and high-waisted pencil skirt.

Danielle snapped the card closed and strapped on her heels, a perfect fit. She stood, a little wobbly at first, and walked to the bathroom. Danielle stared in the mirror at her red-rimmed eyes. She slapped herself, just once. A sharp sting radiated on her cheek before receding into a dull warmth—a cute half-blush, she thought. Danielle turned on the faucet, cupped water, and washed her face.

After she finished, she walked to the bed and picked up the letter, sliding it back into the envelope. As she tucked it into her pocket, she noticed how sexy her heels looked. They were nude leather, and her toes poked out like a pink bouquet, like roses.

She walked down the front stairway, pulling her hair back into a tight ponytail. Someone had left the door cracked, so she closed it. Her heels clicked tile-by-tile down the front hall to the kitchen, Crybaby Pink gloss shining in the light. A glass water bottle was sweating, puddling on the counter. Dorian was always leaving the kitchen such a mess, she thought. She put the water in the fridge.

She walked to the pristine sitting room—where she’d wiped the coffee table and pounded the couches two weeks ago for spring cleaning. The curtain rings squealed on the rod as she let in the sun. Dorian would be home soon. Constance sat on the couch. She folded one leg over the other, reversed them, and set the envelope on the coffee table in front of her, in full view of the front door. She folded her hands. She waited.

◊◊

David Priest author photoDavid Priest is a journalist and a 2018 International Regional Magazine Association (IRMA) Gold Award recipient for Nature and Environmental Writing. His stories and essays have appeared recently in The American Literary Review, Salon, Arkansas Life, Reservoir, Transect Magazine, and elsewhere. He lives in Louisville, KY with his wife, Lindsey, and two sons, Idris and Atticus. In his spare time, he can be found playing board games with his family.

 

 

Image credit: Bernard Hermant on Unsplash

POSTCARD FROM A JAPANESE BOXING GYM by Jason Emde

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

a pair of boxing gloves

POSTCARD FROM A JAPANESE BOXING GYM
by Jason Emde

Joe joined my gym when he started third grade so I pick him up after work and we bike over to Gifu Yokozeki Boxing Gym, companionable, Joe chatterboxing the whole way and throughout each session, Dada, Dada, his lungs propelling his eight-year-old voice, small, high, curious, into the ambient soundscape that includes whirring jump rope thwacks, heavy bag thuds, the quick rattling smack of the speed bag, the start and stop of the three minute timer, general shufflings and cracks and grunts, somebody yelling with every punch, somebody’s ragged panting breathing, my own. And because Yokozeki-san puts it on when Joe and I arrive there’s also the Beatles radio channel: Getting Better, I’m So Tired, Joe singing along to Strawberry Fields Forever.

Usually: warm-up stretches, jump rope, shadow boxing, mitt practice with one of the trainers, heavy bag, weights, that roller wheel thingamabob, cool-down stretches. Sixty to ninety minutes.

Joe uses a stool so he can reach the speed bag. I can hear his faltering, patient practice over the sounds of Ruito and Nozomu whaling on each other in the ring.

When you’re finished with heavy bag work you mop up your sweat with one of the yellow mops provided for that purpose. It’s customary to mop up everybody’s sweat, whether they’re finished or not, when you mop up your own. Joe sometimes forgets this.

My mother had asthma, and recently I’ve felt a tightening in my chest. Try and remember to relax with the breath. Leave the breath alone.

The unlikeables I imagine while I belabor the heavy bag: the janitor at the school where I work and his incessant hissing, the teacher who grunts all day long, various enemies and rivals from my near and distant pasts. Joe has his enemies too: mockers on the dodgeball field, unkind classmates, the fifth grade kid who kicked him in the balls.

Jogging with my father, a long time ago. Legs and lungs working. Proud to keep up with him.

Boxing is getting back to your body, staying in the body. Boxing is getting lost in your body for three minutes at a time. Boxing is running your breath down your shoulder to your fist. I forget this sometimes.

The world is full of things that will hurt my son. Leave the things alone.

The ring floor is blue, the ring ropes red, white, and blue. The neutral corners feature a smiling cartoon tiger face with the words CHINA FOOD above and SAN COCK below. Joe and I drape our hand towels over the red top rope and do two rounds of light sparring. Very light. But if he gets lazy or sloppy I’ll tap him on the forehead or belly. He needs to know.

Japanese uses one character for both breath and son.

◊◊

Jason EmdeJason Emde is a teacher, writer, amateur boxer, Prince enthusiast, and graduate student in the MFA Creative Writing program at the University of British Columbia. He’s also the author of My Hand’s Tired and My Heart Aches (Kalamalka Press, 2005) and the co-author of the parodic action novel The Crunch Gang Meet the Deadly Zombie Ninjas of Japan (Amazon e-book). His work has appeared in Ariel, The Malahat Review, Anastamos, Miracle Monocle, Prometheus Dreaming, and Short Writings from Bulawayo III. He lives in Japan.

 

 

Image credit: Arisa Chattasa on Unsplash

THE PASSENGERS by Vivien Cao

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

beach at night

THE PASSENGERS
by Vivien Cao

When your father tells you he secured a flight for you and your husband and children, you don’t ask questions. You race home and fill up a suitcase with photos and heirlooms. You tell your three-year-old to grab a spoon and thank god that the baby is still fed by your breast. Your husband tells you to slow down so he can remember where he put the passports and you regret ever loving him. You wish you had more time to hug your mother and father. You wish your children would stop crying. Fraught but calm, you try to memorize the shadows on the wall cast by the afternoon sun, bougainvillea tapping lightly at the windows, a tender scent woven into the furniture and the textiles and all that you will leave behind.

You push your family into the taxi and tell the driver where to go, to hurry. He nods and sweats and stomps on the accelerator. The car crunches down a rocky driveway, stirring up a cloud of red earth. You can’t see them but you know the neighbors are watching, always. And soon the commandos will come. They will knock knowing no one will answer. They will enter knowing no one will return. They will take knowing no one will stop them. No one will be there to resist them—yet their sandals will still leave skid marks.

Your husband instructs the driver to go faster, but the square is glutted with mopeds and bicycles. “Fuck this country,” your husband sputters. You hate how quickly he blames others. You stare out the window and paint a memory of this place. Mothers yank on bony child arms. Food vendors stir and grill. A lunch crowd spills into the streets, bodies lithely crouched and clustered and doing what they must to survive uncertainty. Mutts are shooed away. A legless man pulls his torso along, trailing empty trousers. Your three-year-old is hungry and asks to stop for chè. You shush him with dried mango strips as your baby roots for your breast by kissing the air.

Your family arrives to chaos. The plane is full. But how can that be. No one will listen to you. But your father made arrangements. But nothing. But wait. Your children cling to you, frightened by your forceful insistence. Your husband drops the suitcase to clutch your arm. Do something, his grip begs. Why did you choose this man to marry? An official in a crisp white shirt scurries by and you thrust your passport in his face. You announce your name, your father’s name, his job and title. You promise your father’s good word. You promise glory and status. You hold out your jewels and promise to keep your promises. You demand to speak to someone with more authority. You plead. You pray. You fall apart. The plane departs without you.

You spot the driver’s scaly elbow slung out the window, a cigarette smoldering towards his thumb. Your family files inside the idling taxi, but where can you go when there is no one to trust. “Fuck this country,” your husband whimpers while you weep. The driver nods and steers, knowing of another way. He takes you beyond the hustle of the city. Past the pastures and the paddies. Heavy with fatigue, your children sink into your flesh. They smell like sea mist, so potent that it fills your lungs and lulls you under, and under, until dusk turns the earth to rust.

Your family arrives as moonlight sweeps the water. You walk to where the shore is shallow. Your three-year-old dips his spoon into the mud and makes a little hole that can’t be seen. The dock is neither here nor there. The boat is neither big nor small. On it is a figure crouched and waiting. The driver says the captain is a kindly man who can take your family to a place, and there it should be easy to keep going—but the boat cannot accommodate your suitcase. You stare at the driver whose eyes are gleaming in the dark. You glance at your husband, whose eyes are also gleaming. Your heart racing, your eyes must be gleaming, too.

◊◊

Vivien Cao author photoVivien Cao is originally from Los Angeles. She previously worked in film and television, and has taught writing at several CUNY campuses. Her writing has also been published in SmokeLong Quarterly.

 

 

 

 

 

Image credit: Ryan Parker on Unsplash

LIVE FOREVER by Stephen Wack

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

A shriveled peach

LIVE FOREVER
by Stephen Wack

A mother leaves her daughter in a highchair by the window, baking in direct sun. Eventually the child shrivels up into an old, brown, decrepit woman. She expires quietly, motionless, in similar fashion.

“Rats,” sighs the mother.

Her child is unrecognizable. A dried-up peach pit in her hands.

She buries her daughter in the garden with the others, moonlight gnawing at her back, knowing the cycle of life is a hoax, and that nothing else would grow.

Her husband laughs heartily at the TV in his cold, dark room, “!”

At every birth, she checks her children for an expiration date — tucked under armpits, on the bottoms of feet, inverted in nostrils — to no avail. She discovered her own date at a young age, stamped beneath an eyelid. With each blink, a countdown. The future bulldozing towards her, heels dug firmly into the ground.

Her husband falls asleep in his armchair. She checks him for an expiration date, but finds nothing.

He is obviously far past his prime. She sniffs at his salted skin, his pale meat dripping off the bone. Fungus spores plague him in his moistest corners, yet his life force remains strong. His heart thrashes behind his ribs like a caged monkey.

What is the secret to immortality? What is it?

“Tell me,” she begs, and smacks him when he doesn’t comply. His squishy body sloshes like mud in a bag.

The mother births another child, who falls down a well.

The mother births another child, who chokes on a bug.

No offspring will survive her — is she even, then, a mother?

Her husband thaws into a puddle in his armchair, holding tight onto his secret, despite his own wife’s expiration date, which is fast approaching.

Across the hall, the mother takes shelter in the empty nursery. She nails up a blanket over each window. Shoves towels between the cracks in the door. She curls up under the crib, a pillow pressed to her head, perfectly still. Eyes shut tight, she watches her expiration date pass by into the next, then the next, then the next, endlessly forward.

If I can stay just like this, she thinks, I just might live forever.

◊◊

Stephen Wack is an Atlanta-based writer. He earned an undergraduate degree in neuroscience from the University of Georgia, where he briefly interned at the college’s literary magazine, The Georgia Review. His work has previously appeared in Five:2:One Magazine, After Happy Hour Review, and is forthcoming in The Hunger and Rougarou. To get in touch: @stephen_wack / stephenjwack@gmail.com

 

 

 

Image credit: Charles 🇵🇭 on Unsplash

WHEN THE FAT LADY SINGS by Meg Pokrass

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

WHEN THE FAT LADY SINGS
by Meg Pokrass

“I’m too shy,” I said.

Back then he said he could make anyone’s confidence bloom, especially mine, and I said that if he ever could really pull this off, it would be his best gag yet. I chalked the failure up to his lack of creativity, but then I remembered that I was part of the act.

But sometimes, in the middle of the night, when he was down there, going for the standing ovations, his act became old. The way it felt to me, he stood between me and the Strong Man. “Now that’s a bit of business!” I said about the Strong Man. After that, Chuckles stopped trying to win me over every night. He rested his cherry-nose on my stomach and cried about how I had never really loved him.

“Honk if you believe in Jesus,” he’d croak, and I’d reach down, honk it twice, make him laugh.

The betrayal didn’t happen at first, not when it should’ve. And later, it wouldn’t stop. I loved Chuckles, and I didn’t want him looking up at me like that anymore, trying his best, but failing to make me sing, every time.

My final act of defiance, of course, was to actually sing my song. I’d been waiting my whole life to do it. One regular night, Chuckles doing his mediocre best, it warbled out of me like breaker waves in Maui. He stood up, as if the alarm clock he’d been waiting for, pretty much forever, had finally gone off. “It’s time,” he said, love dripping from his chin.

◊◊

Meg Pokrass author photoMeg Pokrass is the author of five flash fiction collections. Her work has been recently anthologized in two Norton Anthology readers, Best Small Fictions, 2018 and 2019, and has appeared in 350 literary magazines, both online and in print. She currently serves as Flash Challenge Editor at Mslexia Magazine, Festival Curator for Flash Fiction Festival, U. K., Co-Editor of Best Microfiction, 2019, and Founding/Managing Editor of New Flash Fiction Review.

EMPTY WORDS, a novel by Mario Levrero, reviewed by Ashlee Paxton-Turner

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

EMPTY WORDS
by Mario Levrero
translated from the Spanish by Annie McDermott
Coffee House Press, 122 pages
reviewed by Ashlee Paxton-Turner

Empty Words Book JacketMario Levrero’s Empty Words is no ordinary novel. Organized as a series of handwriting exercises, Empty Words offers a look inside a novelist’s mind as he attempts to improve himself by improving his handwriting. Originally published in 1996 in Spanish, it is Levrero’s first novel translated into English. Annie McDermott, who introduces English language readers to Levrero, has translated other works from Spanish and Portuguese, and her translations have appeared in many places, including Granta, the White Review, Asymptote, Two Lines, and World Literature Today.

At first blush, however, Empty Words appears to be an unusual work to translate because it is ostensibly less of a narrative and more of a meditation on language itself. After all, it is structured as a series of handwriting exercises. But it becomes clear rather quickly that translation does not hinder the reader’s ability to appreciate Empty Words because that meditation on language and the shape of individual words creates a narrative of its own. Words do not exist in a vacuum, and the narrator’s efforts at writing words without meaning is futile. Both the shape of the letters and the words those letters form convey meaning. As Empty Words has semi-autobiographical undertones, it is ultimately the perfect introduction to Levrero for readers of English who might have otherwise remained unfamiliar with him and his work.

Levrero was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. He died there in 2004. Levrero has been referred to as the Kafka of Uruguay, possibly because his first novel, The City, published in 1966, was inspired by Kafka. In fact, Levrero once said that The City was “almost an attempt to translate Kafka into Uruguayan.” Levrero also claimed that he “didn’t realize it was possible to tell the truth” until he read Kafka. But despite such high praise, Levrero himself tended to shy away from such recognition, often avoiding publicity altogether. Further, as Annie McDermott put it in her translator’s note, he denied the existence of any literary career.

But Levrero does have a literary career, and Empty Words, through its series of handwriting exercises, showcases a talent for probing the innerworkings of an individual’s mind while writing about something ordinary and mundane: penmanship, handwriting. The handwriting exercises form the core of what the unnamed narrator, a novelist and writer, terms “graphological self-therapy.” As explained to the reader from the outset, the theory behind graphological self-therapy is that “by changing the behavior observed in a person’s handwriting, it may be possible to change other things about that person.”

This motivation for performing the exercises establishes an intimate space, where penmanship may reveal anxieties. The reader then has access to the innermost thoughts of Levrero’s anxiety-riddled protagonist. Although the focus is apparently on “draw[ing] the letters one by one and giving no thought to the meanings of the words they’re forming,” the narrator ultimately ends up considering the meaning of the words, all of which culminate in a humorous and engaging meditation on daily life and one’s own existence.

Mario Levrero author headshot

Mario Levrero

By structuring Empty Words as he does, Levrero may be implicitly asking the reader whether we can derive a deeper meaning from the shape of the letters, the form of the handwriting, just as the narrator asks this question of himself. Can the shape of the letters tell us something that the words themselves cannot?  To be clear, the novel is all in typeface; we do not see any handwriting. We only hear (or rather read) about the narrator’s difficulties with forming certain letters. “[H]ow the hell do you do a capital S?” Later on, a paragraph is devoted to improving “r’s”—“[r]ound and round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran.”

But this is hardly a book of repeated words and letters. Indeed, any concerns that the exercises are a “clumsy substitute for literature” are unnecessary. A discourse on the shape of letters becomes an opportunity to step inside someone else’s mind. Why is he picking these words? Is he struggling to focus on the exercises? Why? Is there something else he wants to write rather than focusing on the exercises? It inevitably becomes like reading a diary that was not meant to be a diary. But because words inherently express ideas, meaning is inevitable.

To discover the meaning behind Levrero’s words takes patience. Empty Words does not follow a linear storyline (even if each handwriting exercise is dated and appears in chronological order). But Levrero encourages the reader’s patience by peppering the novel with clever and rather dry humor. The reader is incentivized to keep turning the pages to find the next digression from handwriting exercises to deadpan observations about daily life.

translator Annie McDermott headshot

Annie McDermott, translator

These observations crop up as the protagonist deals with his anxiety, with an impending move to a different house, and with the tense relationship between his dog, Pongo, and a white cat that appears one day. For example, taking a deadpan tone, Levrero’s unnamed novelist observes that his handwriting is messiest when he smokes more cigarettes than usual. He then concludes that “bad handwriting is caused by anxiety.” In other words, bad handwriting is evidence of anxiety, which must mean that the anxiety has subsided when the handwriting improves.

Although a short novel, Empty Words is the type of work one might start and stop somewhat frequently given the lack of a linear of plotline. Levrero seems to be aware of this possibility. Specifically, just as the reader may interrupt her reading of the novel, Levrero inserts various household interruptions that distract from the effort at perfecting the shape of letters. But these interruptions and distractions do more than reflect the potential that the reader may be experiencing something similar. Indeed, they add a richness by inviting the reader into the daily life of the world inside the novel. For example, the narrator’s wife and stepson keep different schedules and have different priorities that interfere with any strict focus on handwriting exercises.

After establishing this tension, it becomes especially easy to understand his trouble falling asleep when he knows his wife and stepson are awake and cannot be relied on to turn off the lights and the television or “refrain from making any noise once [he has] fallen asleep.” In this way, the non-linear structure succeeds: it is the logical choice for a novel about anxiety and self-improvement because anxiety and life hardly follow a linear trajectory.

In addition to these external interruptions, Levrero includes internal interruptions where the narrator interrupts himself. As often happens, he gets “carried away by the subject matter and forget[s] about forming the letters.” In a way, this makes sense, even if “sense is nothing but a complicated social construct.” Letters, too, are “a complicated social construct” that provide a framework for sense. By focusing on his handwriting, on something so mundane, his mind wanders. Perhaps, Levrero is also contemplating the reader’s mind wandering in these moments. But it is in these moments that Levrero shines as an author and McDermott as a translator, pulling the reader back into the novel. For example, in an early exercise, it is explained that “[t]o get anywhere in life, you have to believe in something. In other words, you have to be wrong.”

Such a strong statement tends to grab the reader’s attention and maybe refocuses the narrator, too, on the task at hand. At times, “despite the psychological pressure . . . to do other, more urgent work,” the handwriting exercises are prioritized because of their potential for self-improvement and what they might reveal about identity and personal principles. Of course, who knows if this “graphological self-therapy” leads to self-improvement. Levrero never actually says one way or the other. The narrator becomes more reflective as the novel progresses, but his anxiety remains in the background. But even if the exercises do not create the type of self-improvement that the narrator hopes for, they do provide a vehicle for offering a number of insights on life, which Levrero somehow offers without becoming cliché.

Levrero considers the ambitions we hold for ourselves—that “sometimes it’s no bad thing to aim high, especially in a field where everything colludes to make you aim low, where mediocrity is what really impresses people.” This sentiment is also part of the core of the novel. Self-improvement based upon improving handwriting is a high ambition, which common sense would suggest may well be futile or at least encourage low expectations of success.

But Levrero’s work is also a meditation on figuring out what we want to say. After all, even though the whole novel is apparently about forming letters (and not the words those letters form), there are frequent digressions and attempts to articulate any number of concerns or thoughts. In doing so, it is not unusual to get frustrated at “not being able to condense [the] story, to get to the heart of what [we] want to say.” We may “tr[y] again and again, and every time [we] end up going around in circles and getting lost in minor details.” For as much as the narrator gets lost in minor details, it is precisely those minor details of forming certain letters, looking after his dog, and engaging with his wife and stepson that make the novel so compelling. Sometimes, going around in circles is simply the point.

Levrero also makes a point about figuring out how identity evolves over time. At the end of the novel, the narrator explains that “[w]hen you reach a certain age, you’re no longer the protagonist of your own actions: all you have left are the consequences of things you’ve already done.” Perhaps, then, the benefits of improved handwriting are limited, and any self-improvement cannot wash away the consequences of prior decisions. Similarly, the writing itself outlives the writer, so at some point, even when the writer is gone and no more can be said, the consequences of what was previously written remains.

Or maybe, Levrero’s point is that arriving at any of these insights requires attention to ordinary activities like forming the shape of the letter “r.” In a tribute to the ordinary, Levrero creates an extraordinary work, reminding readers that words will never be empty.

◊◊◊

Ashlee Paxton-Turner

Ashlee Paxton-Turner is a native of Williamsburg, Virginia, and graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she was an English major with a creative writing concentration. A former Teach For America corps member in rural North Carolina, Ashlee is now a lawyer and graduate of Duke University School of Law.

THE WAY THROUGH THE WOODS: ON MUSHROOMS AND MOURNING, a memoir by Long Litt Woon, reviewed by Beth Kephart

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

THE WAY THROUGH THE WOODS: ON MUSHROOMS AND MOURNING
by Long Litt Woon
translated from the Norwegian by Barbara J. Haveland
Spiegel & Grau, 292 pages
reviewed by Beth Kephart

Cover art for The Way Through the WoodsWhen I read memoir I want: something to crack and something to rise, something to arc and something to stream, something to move across the page and, as it does, to move me.

I bought Long Litt Woon’s The Way Through the Woods: On Mushrooms and Mourning for the promise embedded in the premise. How would Woon make her way back into the world after the shocking, sudden death of the fifty-four-year-old husband with whom she had spent all her adult years? What do mushrooms have to do with recovering from such a loss? Does anybody ever actually recover?

Woon, who moved to Norway from Malaysia as an exchange student at the age of eighteen and stayed because of her love for her husband, Eiolf, is not, as it turns out, interested in the literary fissures and expansions and movements that generally interest me. Her prose, as translated by Barbara J. Haveland, is determinedly straightforward, lavishly undecorated, direct and directly to the point. Her structure is neither chronological nor intuitive. She holds her memories of her husband close, revealing little of the man she clearly loved, disclosing only the smallest glimpses of herself. She begins:

This is the story of a journey that started on the day my life was turned upside down: the day when Eiolf went to work and didn’t come home. He never came home again. Life as I had known it was gone in that instant. The world would never be the same again.

It’s the mushrooms that primarily preoccupy Woon in this book—the hunt for them in Norwegian forests, the challenges presented to amateur students and foragers, the friendships that begin to form over mushroom-themed meals, the way Woon’s “concentration is sharpened and the tension mounts” as she goes out into the Fungi Kingdom and reports back on the wildly interesting species that bruise, poison, delight, elude, or (depending on your preference) catalyze hallucinations.

Woon is, as it turns out, a terrific guide to mushroom secrets, scents, and dishes. She gets so good at this mushroom thing that she passes the difficult-to-master inspector’s exam. Her plainspoken prose provides essential clarity when she reports, say, on the fact that “the bulk of the mushroom consists of a dynamic, living network of long, shoestring-like cells known as mycelium, which spread underground or through trees and other plants,” then goes on to describe the world’s largest organism, the honey fungus, which “covers a stretch of woodland corresponding to almost four square miles” and is “estimated to be between two thousand and eight thousand years old.” It’s interesting stuff, riveting in its way, and about halfway in I decided to stop looking for the lyric leap so that might I experience this tale the way Woon chose to tell it. To follow her as she zags from morels to brain mushrooms, from the vocabulary of mushroom smells to the art of catching mice, from psychedelia to mushroom “bacon.”

Sure, I would have liked to have seen so much more of the husband that was tragically lost too soon; Woon shares a few tidbits, but we rarely meet Eiolf inside a scene. Sure, I would have liked to have known more than what Woon shares about the essence of her once-shared home. But the more I read, the more I remembered that this memoir had not been written for me. It had been written because Woon discovered, in the dark country of her grief, so many lanterned forests. She discovered mushrooms hiding in plain sight, and she took them into her kitchen, and she invited friends, and she was alone no more.

◊◊◊

Beth Kephart is the award-winning author of more than two-dozen books, an adjunct teacher at the University of Pennsylvania, and a co-founder of Juncture Workshops, which offers memoir resources and teaching. Her first memoir in many years, Wife|Daughter|Self, is due out from Forest Avenue Press in early 2021. More at bethkephartbooks.com.

ART CAN HELP, essays by Robert Adams, reviewed by Beth Kephart

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

ART CAN HELP
by Robert Adams
Yale University Art Gallery, distributed by Yale University Press, 88 pages
reviewed by Beth Kephart 

Art Can Help Book Jacket“[I]f you begin with an idea you’re usually beat before you start,” writes Robert Adams in Art Can Help, as he tries to imagine Edward Ranney photographing the Canyon del Muerto, and, so, here I begin, having been holding this slender silver volume in my hand all afternoon, interrupted only by the sound of a neighbor’s lawn mower and the smell of some ambient spray paint.

(A long sentence, a beginning.)

The book marks Adams’ attempt to dissuade his readers from Jeff Koons-style glitz, which is to say “imitations that distract us or, openly or by implication, ridicule hope.” We are reminded of the power of art, Adams suggests, by studying art that is real.

The work of Edward Hopper is here in these pages, as are the images of Eugene Buechel, Ken Abbott, Julia Margaret Cameron, Dorothea Lange, and others, but if you are already concluding that this is a book of pictures and captions, you’d be wrong. This is a book of eclectic wisdoms and collegial awe.

“I am asked with surprising frequency, ‘How do you know where to make pictures?’” Adams, himself a famed photographer of the American West, announces as he ponders Eric Paddock’s miniaturized views of Colorado’s byways. Adams answers the question like this: “To the extent there is a rule, the answer is that it is usually where you stop long enough.”

(Where you stop. Long enough.)

Robert Adams author photo

Robert Adams

The earned erudition is useful, it seems to me, for novelists and poets, memoirists and playwrights who wonder—an occupational hazard—where and what the story is. Indeed, so much of the book serves as a primer for the questing soul, as Adams encourages beauty without sentimentality; heralds the plausibility of gifts; hails Terri Weifenbach’s portrait of a hovering bee “as aeronautically improbable as an angel.” Adams reminds us that “some of the best photographs are both discouraging and encouraging at once.” He prompts us with this thought: “Is there anyone more comically, more courageously of another world than a grade-school music teacher, especially a band teacher?”

(Imagine a story about that. Pause to see it.)

When Adams quotes from Emmet Gowin, who photographed the Nevada test range—“What we all want in our lives is a way to put ourselves into accord with the mystery out of which we came and into which we will return.”—we have no choice but to close the book and close our eyes and ponder what this means while, beyond, the lawn mower mows and the can of spray paint sprays.

Adams wants us to take heart from the form of art. He wants us to choose to care. He knits a line from Marilynne Robinson into a brief appraisal of Dorothea Lange, and then, after all of this, he stands back and informs us that “We are in important ways the sum of the places we have walked.”

(Where have we walked?)

Which leaves those of us who have gone a handful of years without the sight of something new, those of us who have been walking with familiar dust upon our shoes, those of us who have felt the perimeters of our lives squeezing in, squeezing tight, grateful for the ambulation of this book, the places we have traveled through it, the pause that it has pressed upon the beginning, and now the end, of the afternoon.

◊◊◊

Beth Kephart is the author of more than two-dozen books in multiple genres, an adjunct teacher at the University of Pennsylvania, and the co-founder of Juncture Workshops. Her essays appear in Ninth Letter, Catapult, Literary Hub, Creative Nonfiction, and elsewhere, and a new memoir in essays, Wife|Daughter|Self is due out in spring 2021. More at bethkephartbooks.com.

 

 

 

 

BLOODY SEOUL, a Young Adult Novel by Sonia Patel, reviewed by Kristie Gadson

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

BLOODY SEOUL
by Sonia Patel
Cinco Puntos Press, 276 Pages
reviewed by Kristie Gadson

Bloody Seoul jacket artTo Rocky, the city of Seoul is truly something to behold. Sprawling skyscrapers dare to kiss the sky, thousands of lights rival the sun at night, and millions of people bustle through at any given moment, while the Han River remains a calm force through it all. And it will soon be his to rule, just like his father, the leader of the city’s most notorious gang, Three Star Pa.

However, despite Rocky being the sole heir and next in line to become the big boss, his father refuses to turn the gang over to him. Frustrated, Rocky isn’t entirely surprised. It’s one of too many unanswered questions that plague him, especially since his mother’s faded memory threatens to slice the edges of his own mind like a knife.

Aim. Throw.
Sixteen times, one for every year of my life.
Aim. Throw.
Ten times, one for every year mom’s been gone.
Aim. Throw.
Ten times, one for every year Dad’s been the most pissed off person I’ve ever known.

In Sonia Patel’s poetic, fast-paced and electrifying second novel Bloody Seoul, the thread of Rocky’s past unravels the life he has carefully planned. Molding his life to mirror his father’s, he leads his own Three Star Pa gang made up of his closest friends. He beats up his weaker classmates, fist fights to defend his turf against rival gangs, and torments Ha-Na, a mixed Korean and Indian girl whom he regards as an easy target. Rocky’s life is structured to form the future he desires; but his mind frequently dives into the pool of reverie, where the ghost of his missing mother beckons and the needles of his fractured family sting.

Sonia Patel Author Headshot

Sonia Patel

What makes Rocky’s story so tangible is how Patel invokes memory and stitches it throughout the first-person narrative. Rocky’s past comes forth by means of his senses: he sees a family photo and remembers a time when his father was happy, he feels his mother’s love within the careful stitch work of the handkerchief he keeps, and smells her scent when he smokes her favorite brand of cigarettes. He also hears her humming when he plays his favorite songs and feels the presence of his uncles when he eats their favorite dishes. Memory is naturally triggered by the five senses, and Patel uses these to further develop Rocky’s character and have us connect with him.

The memories of his past reveal many open wounds, forcing Rocky to confront his father about what really happened to his uncles, his mother, and their family. But his father answers Rocky’s questions with threats and bruises, a direct violation of the first code of Three Star Pa: Family comes first. Family is to be protected at all costs. His father’s blatant disregard of that code forces Rocky to realize his father’s true nature and the lengths his father will go to get what he wants.

There are many ways I’m like my dad, many ways I want to be like my dad, but killing people isn’t one of them.

Patel’s writing shines. Her words flow across the page like a poem – descriptive yet succinct, observant of an entire world in so few phrases. Her writing style reflects Rocky’s character. It is observant, wastes no time equivocating, and takes everything in while focusing on what’s most important with sharp precision. The language may seem shallow at first – like Rocky’s perception of his own life and goals – but the more Rocky plunges into his memories, the deeper the language pulls readers in.

Patel explores how the interconnectivity of memory and family shapes one’s identity. Rocky’s identity is hugely shaped by his relation to his father and Three Star Pa, which had always remained unchallenged. Memories of his past and, most importantly, of his mother undermine this identity, causing it to crack and break. His journey toward redefining himself is a difficult one that readers can relate to. Who are we if not an extension of our family? When memories of a difficult past cause us to break away from our families, how do we go about defining ourselves without them? And who do we let in to our chosen family?

To these questions, Rocky learns there is no easy answer. Discovering who we are is simply that: discovery. And there is no end to it. It’s a journey with no set destination, and in the face of hardship all we can do – all we must do – is keep moving forward. Bloody Seoul teaches us this lesson through colorful and subtly powerful storytelling, gripping readers from beginning to end. A one-of-a-kind read.

New life just around the bend.
More happiness than I can comprehend.

◊◊

Kristie-GadsonKristie Gadson is a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor’s in English. But, formalities aside, she knew that children’s books would become her passion when she found herself sneaking into the children’s section of Barnes & Noble well after she turned eighteen. She is a strong advocate for diverse children’s books, and writes diverse children’s book reviews on her blog The Black Sheep Book Review.

BLOODY SEOUL, a Young Adult Novel by Sonia Patel, reviewed by Kristie Gadson

Bloody Seoul jacket art
BLOODY SEOUL by Sonia Patel Cinco Puntos Press, 276 Pages reviewed by Kristie Gadson To Rocky, the city of Seoul is truly something to behold. Sprawling skyscrapers dare to kiss the sky, thousands of lights rival the sun at night, and millions of people bustle through at any given moment, while the Han River remains a calm force through it all. And it will soon be his to rule, just like his father, the leader of the city’s most notorious gang, Three Star Pa. However, despite Rocky being the sole heir and next in line to become the big boss, his father refuses to turn the gang over to him. Frustrated, Rocky isn’t entirely surprised. It’s one of too many unanswered questions that plague him, especially since his mother’s faded memory threatens to slice the edges of his own mind like a knife. Aim. Throw. Sixteen times, one for every year of my life. Aim. Throw. Ten times, one for every year mom’s been gone. Aim. Throw. Ten times, one for every year Dad’s been the most pissed off person I’ve ever known. In Sonia Patel’s poetic, fast-paced and electrifying second novel Bloody Seoul, the thread of Rocky’s past unravels ...
Read the full text

WORTHY OF LOVE, a young adult novel by Andre Fenton, reviewed by Kristie Gadson

Worthy of love book jacket
WORTHY OF LOVE by Andre Fenton Formac Publishing Company Limited, 199 Pages reviewed by Kristie Gadson Two hundred and eighty pounds. For Adrian Carter that number isn’t just his weight, it is his shame. A shame he tries to hide underneath layers of black clothing but still faces every day as he is bullied for his size. Tired of the constant ridicule and feelings of inadequacy, Adrian decides enough is enough, and he vows to shed the pounds one way or the other…no matter the cost. Andre Fenton’s heartful debut novel Worthy of Love follows Adrian as he struggles not only with his weight, but with his own sense of self-worth. Candid, earnest, and full of emotion, Fenton gives us a unique yet personal story about one journey toward self-love. Desperate to drop his weight, Adrian scrounges up enough money to enroll in a few kickboxing classes. Along the way he meets Melody Woods, a skinny, quirky girl with a passion for health and fitness. Strong-willed but gentle, Mel’s confidence shines – which both intimidates and enthralls the less confident, timid Adrian. Much to Adrian’s surprise, Mel is unfazed by his size and decides to help him develop a health regimen to ...
Read the full text

A DANGER TO HERSELF AND OTHERS, a young adult novel by Alyssa Sheinmel, reviewed by Kristie Gadson

A DANGER TO HERSELF AND OTHERS, a young adult novel by Alyssa Sheinmel, reviewed by Kristie Gadson
A DANGER TO HERSELF AND OTHERS by Alyssa Sheinmel Sourcebooks Inc, 338 Pages reviewed by Kristie Gadson Hannah Gold was supposed to be enjoying everything California had to offer; getting ahead on her studies at a collegiate summer program; hiking through the mountains and sunbathing on the beach; enjoying her summer with her roommate and new best friend, Agnes. That is, until Agnes falls and lapses into a coma, and Hannah finds herself institutionalized in a seven-foot by eight-foot room, where she doesn't feel she's supposed to be at all. Alyssa Sheinmel's engrossing novel A Danger to Herself and Others, is an intriguing page-turner set almost entirely within the walls of a mental institution. It delves deep into Hannah's mind as she wrestles, not only with what happened the night of Agnes’ fall, but with her own mental state. Reminiscent of Ken Kesey's classic novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Hannah is this story’s R.P. McMurphy – the intelligent, conniving, and self-proclaimed “sane” protagonist of her own narrative. She goes about her first days studying her surroundings, taking note of certain privileges that will get her ever closer to freedom (group showers, cafeteria access, and grounds privileges), as well as keeping ...
Read the full text

CHEESUS WAS HERE, a young adult novel by J.C. Davis, reviewed by Kristie Gadson

CHEESUS WAS HERE, a young adult novel by J.C. Davis, reviewed by Kristie Gadson
CHEESUS WAS HERE by J.C. Davis Sky Pony Press, 242 pages reviewed by Kristie Gadson In the small town of Clemency, Texas Sunday morning worship is even more important than Friday night football. With a population of 1,236 and only two churches in town, everyone looks forward to putting on their Sunday best and lifting the Lord’s name on high. That is, everyone except Delaney Delgado, the main character in J.C. Davis’ debut novel, who chooses to spend her Sundays working at the local gas station. Her sanctuary lies behind the cashier’s counter where she’s free to observe the spectacle without having to engage in any of it. However, when her coworker discovers the face of baby Jesus on a wheel of Babybel cheese, Clemency goes into a frenzy of miraculous proportions. Word travels fast in a small town, and it isn’t long until news of baby Cheesus spreads like wildfire. Del watches in horror as her quiet life becomes an uproar, with classmates and citizens claiming they were healed after they gazed upon the blessed wheel of cheese. How anyone could believe in miracles—or God for that matter—is beyond her; but matters get worse when someone discovers an image ...
Read the full text

HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD, an anthology for young readers edited by Kelly Jensen, reviewed by Kristie Gadson

HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD, an anthology for young readers edited by Kelly Jensen, reviewed by Kristie Gadson
HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD edited by Kelly Jensen Algonquin Young Readers, 218 pages reviewed by Kristie Gadson Feminism. It’s an ideology that has long been approached with trepidation, met with both skepticism and controversy. There have been countless articles, papers, films, and books exploring and defining the concept. However, Here We Are is more than a series of essays on feminism. It’s a collection of stories, blog posts, comics, drawings, and interviews featuring an array of different voices – each more unique than the last – describing what feminism means and how it plays a role in our lives. Each page encourages readers to think about how they, as individuals, can relate to a belief that strives to unite us as a whole. “The people and the world around us shape our individual path to feminism…The journey is always changing, always shifting, and influenced by our own experiences and perspectives.” The book is structured like a scrapbook, having a combination of calligraphy, designs, and doodles drawn across the pages, accenting each chapter. Not only is this visually appealing, it creates a sense of comfort that softens the intensity of the subject matter. Through its playful design ...
Read the full text

RANI PATEL IN FULL EFFECT, a young adult novel by Sonia Patel, reviewed by Kristie Gadson

RANI PATEL IN FULL EFFECT, a young adult novel by Sonia Patel, reviewed by Kristie Gadson
RANI PATEL IN FULL EFFECT by Sonia Patel Cinco Puntos Press, 314 Pages reviewed by Kristie Gadson In her debut young adult novel Rani Patel in Full Effect, Sonia Patel takes us back to the era of faded box cuts, high-top Adidas, and gold chains as thick as your wrist; to the era where hip-hop reigned supreme and rhymes flowed out of boom boxes like water down Moaula Falls. The year is 1991, and here we meet Rani Patel, a straight-A student council president by day and an emerging rapper under the stage name MC Sutra by night. In a one-of-a-kind mixture of nineties slang, pidgin Hawaiian, and traditional Gujarati, Rani's story is told from a perspective that's undeniably fresh and unapologetically raw. From the very beginning the book ensnares you with a powerful scene of Rani shaving her head after seeing her father with another woman. As her tears fall so, too, does all of her hair, giving herself the Indian mark of a widow. Her father once meant everything to her, and she meant everything to him—or so she thought. He lovingly called her his princess, and for a time they were nearly inseparable. With her father now ...
Read the full text

LOCAL GIRL SWEPT AWAY, a young adult novel by Ellen Wittlinger, reviewed by Kristie Gadson

LOCAL GIRL SWEPT AWAY, a young adult novel by Ellen Wittlinger, reviewed by Kristie Gadson
LOCAL GIRL SWEPT AWAY by Ellen Wittlinger Merit Press, 269 pages reviewed by Kristie Gadson Ellen Wittlinger's Local Girl Swept Away is a gripping story of loss, denial, and deception wrapped up in a page-turning mystery that’s hard to put down. When Lorna is pulled underwater during a storm, her death shakes the community of Providencetown, but no one is more shaken than her best friend Jackie Silva. Lorna was everything Jackie feels she isn’t: untamed, beautiful, brave, and outgoing—not to mention lucky enough to have had Jackie’s crush, their best friend Finn, as her boyfriend. Jackie is the undisputed number two and it's something she has accepted about herself. But, with Lorna gone, life becomes confusing and uncertain. Who is she now? In Lorna’s absence, Jackie slowly builds the strength to rediscover parts of herself she had forgotten. Her love of photography takes on a new fervor and, through the camera lens, she experiences the parts of her life that still hold meaning. Her increased volunteer work at the Jasper Street Arts Center opens doors that she didn’t know could be opened: a chance at getting into her dream school, the Rhode Island Institute of design, and ...
Read the full text

BREAKFAST WITH NERUDA, a young adult novel by Laura Moe, reviewed by Kristie Gadson

BREAKFAST WITH NERUDA, a young adult novel by Laura Moe, reviewed by Kristie Gadson
BREAKFAST WITH NERUDA by Laura Moe Merit Press, 252 pages reviewed by Kristie Gadson At some point in our lives, many of us bury parts of ourselves that we aren't ready to face. These layers can form over time; from people we've encountered, from situations we've endured, or from issues we've found lodged deep within our psyche. They can protect us, like a shield, from life's many fluctuations, and they can contribute to a great part of who we are. However, this protection can come at a cost–we can become distant, untouchable, and unreachable to those we love or resist the change we need to grow. In Laura Moe's debut novel, Breakfast with Neruda, we journey with Michael Flynn as he learns to peel back the layers that have shielded him for so long. We first meet Michael spending the summer cleaning his school, which serves as the first part of his two-part sentence after detonating his locker in an ill-conceived attempt to destroy his ex-best-friend's car. Through Moe's simple, yet, descriptive, writing, we soon realize that being condemned to custodial work and having to repeat his senior year are the least of Michael's worries. I go out to my car ...
Read the full text

A 52-HERTZ WHALE, a YA novel by Bill Sommer and Natalie Haney Tilghman, reviewed by Kristie Gadson

A 52-HERTZ WHALE, a YA novel by Bill Sommer and Natalie Haney Tilghman, reviewed by Kristie Gadson
A 52-HERTZ WHALE by Bill Sommer and Natalie Haney Tilghman Carolrhoda Lab, 197 pages reviewed by Kristie Gadson When a humpback whale becomes separated from its pod, it emits a unique song in an effort to find its way back to its loved ones. When certain people experience feelings of isolation, they seek companionship through indirect social interaction. Bill Sommer and Natalie Haney Tilghman's A 52-Hertz Whale explores the nature of loneliness through a series of email correspondences, all between people with little else in common other than the desire for understanding. From the conversations of these starkly different people springs a series of beautiful, if uncanny, friendships. A 52 Hertz-Whale reveals that some of the most meaningful relationships can be forged even when the only thing we have in common is the fear of being alone. Fourteen-year-old James Turner ("whaleboy4ever@gmail.com") sends his first email after discovering that his adopted humpback whale, Salt, was separated from its migratory pod. Recent film graduate Darren Olmstead ("the.darren.olmstead@gmail.com") receives the long email detailing James' efforts to uncover the lost whale’s whereabouts, and a plea for Darren's assistance. What a kid from a middle school social skills class wants with the guy who ...
Read the full text

MAX HAVELAAR: OR, THE COFFEE AUCTIONS OF THE DUTCH TRADING COMPAN, a novel by Multatuli, reviewed by Dylan Cook

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

MAX HAVELAAR: OR, THE COFFEE AUCTIONS OF THE DUTCH TRADING COMPANY
by Multatuli
translated by Ina Rilke and David McKay
New York Review Books, 336 pages
reviewed by Dylan Cook

Cover art for Max Havelaar“I call a man a fool if he dives in the water to rescue a dog from sharks.” This is our introduction to Max Havelaar—a champion of the people, even irrationally so. He is a Dutchman who stands with Indonesian farmers. He is a bureaucrat who pushes against the orders of his superiors. Havelaar is a rare figure of compassion in the midst of Dutch imperialism, one who has the temerity and know-how to make tangible change. And, despite all of this, Max Havelaar is a minor character in the novel that bears his name.

Max Havelaar is likely an unfamiliar title to most American readers, and the Netherlands in general is an often overlooked source of literature. But make no mistake: the world over holds Max Havelaar in high regard. I recently had the chance to talk to a born-and-raised Dutchman, and I asked him if the title rang any bells. “Of course,” he told me. “It’s a classic, everyone reads it.” Think along the lines of Pride and Prejudice. In his short but poignant introduction to this edition of the novel, Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer makes the bold claim that Max Havelaar is one of the most important novels of all time. There’s a reason this novel caught the attention of writers like Karl Marx and Thomas Mann, and there’s a reason that when Freud drew up a list of ten great authors, Multatuli stood on top.

Multatuli is the mononymous pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker, the son of a Dutch sea captain. The name “Multatuli” stems of Latin and roughly translates to, “I have suffered greatly.” When he was just eighteen, Dekker sailed on one of his father’s ships to the Dutch East Indies where he worked in finance before shifting into a government position. After nearly twenty years there, he rose to become the Assistant Resident of Lebak, but, after disagreeing with the Dutch colonial system, soon resigned and returned to the Netherlands. A few years later, in 1860, he would publish a novel about a man who becomes the Assistant Resident of Lebak, only to become disgusted with Dutch imperialism.

Photograph of Eduard Douwes Dekker; 1820–1887

Eduard Douwes Dekker, or Multatuli

Max Havelaar is a highly fragmented, nonlinear text. The novel features several narrators, depending on how you count, and the plot can quickly become cumbersome and difficult to follow. It begins with Batavius Drystubble, a coffee merchant in the Netherlands. He recounts the exact process of how this novel was written, all the while describing the highly political field of coffee brokering and how it requires the majority of his attention (“My business is my life” becomes something of a mantra for his narration). Along the way, Drystubble encounters an old acquaintance, Shawlman, who entrusts him with a packet of his writings, an eclectic mix of poetry and essays that Drystubble claims is the source material for the Max Havelaar portions of the novel. Of course, Drystubble is so engrossed in his work that he cannot possible spend his time writing, for his business is his life. Thus, he enlists Ludwig Stern, a friend of his son’s, to write some of the chapters regarding Havelaar. Only then, a sizeable chuck into the text, does the story of Max Havelaar begin.

The two narrators are not shy and frequently speak directly do the reader to voice opinions and curate information. The source material from Shawlman lingers overhead, and Drystubble and Stern routinely reaffirm that they must cut out certain details that won’t add anything to the novel. These metafictional moments make it feel more apt to group Multatuli along with early postmodern authors than with contemporaries like Hugo, Tolstoy, or Eliot. Multatuli constantly reminds us that he is writing a novel in the same way Italo Calvino reminds us that we are reading a novel. In the revised 1881 edition of the novel, Multatuli added an extensive network of endnotes, inserting everything from new details to personal opinions. He wanted the reader to know that the narrative is deeper than what exists on the page, and he did so in the same way that David Foster Wallace would in Infinite Jest more than a hundred years later.

You see, reader, I am searching for the answer to that how? Which is why my book is such a mixed bag. It’s a book of samples: take your pick.

While Multatuli should be commended for his efforts to restructure narrative, one must consider the downside of taking such risks—there are unfortunately many times where he sacrifices clarity for creativity. The narrators provide so much of their own commentary that it is often difficult to get situated as the reader is torn between the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies. The novel itself is so restless that the reader is  never allowed to get immersed into a single narrative thread. To be frank, the style and structure of this novel read not quite unfinished, but a bit undercooked. For modern readers, there are many points where it may just seem easier to put down this book in favor of something a little more palatable. However, it is important to acknowledge that Multatuli wasn’t trying to write something beautiful and easy to swallow. There is no room for poetics in Max Havelaar because Multatuli’s goal was to inspire mutiny. The value in this novel is in what Multatuli says, not how he says it.

With that in mind, it’s crucial to understand Max Havelaar within its historical context: Multatuli may not have written with beauty, but he certainly wrote with contempt. When this novel was first published in 1860, European imperialism was more than three centuries old. The vast majority of Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East were all under European rule. Any voices that challenged this system were usually mild enough to be suppressed. Max Havelaar is the rare exception. At every opportunity, Multatuli describes the faults of Dutch imperialism. Frequently, the novel digresses into essayish passages against the Dutch that are often more gripping than the surrounding narrative. Critiques are written with surgical precision, always attacking the Dutch and sparing Indonesians. There are no slurs or stereotypes in this novel. There is nothing that paints native Indonesians as anything “less.” On the contrary, Multatuli treats the minutiae of Indonesian life with utmost respect to show his countrymen exactly how equal they are. Unlike Mark Twain, Multatuli was able to write about an oppressed group without including subtle linguistic cues that reinforce their marginalization.

Part of what makes Multatuli so adept as an exponent is his remarkable understanding of why. He does not settle for simply stating that oppression exists. Instead, he clearly explains how oppression is a systemic condition. Through Havelaar, we learn about the tactics of Dutch imperialism that perfected their hegemony. Dutch imperialists effectively made native Indonesians subjugate their compatriots. In the imperialist system, Dutch officials would appoint natives, called adipatis, to control smaller stretches of land. The Dutch would subsidize each adipati’s lifestyle, making them rich. If an average farmer had any grievances, they would direct them towards the newly aristocratic adipati. The Dutch washed their hands of blame because their subjects likely never saw a Dutchman’s face. Indonesians could never effectively rebel against the Dutch because they thought their problems were internal. The Dutch created a perfect system of exploitation, allowing them to create famines in Indonesia, home to some of the most fertile land on Earth. This is just one example of abuse. Multatuli gives us dozens.

Any turmoil that is impossible to conceal is blamed on a small gang of malefactors who will no longer cause any trouble now that overall contentment prevails. If want or famine has thinned the population, it was surely the result of crop failure, drought, rain, or something of the sort, and never of misgovernment.

Of course, any time the narrative begins to describe the atrocities taking place in Indonesia, Batavius Drystubble interjects. This is business after all, isn’t it? And his business is his life (it’s no coincidence that the capital of the Dutch East Indies was Batavia). If the Dutch do not maintain their control over Indonesia, then the coffee industry in the Netherlands will certainly collapse. For Drystubble, one of Max Havelaar’s narrators, imperialism is necessary for economic survival. Any element of the novel that critiques the Dutch system is most assuredly written by Ludwig Stern. Max Havelaar, as magnanimous as he is, becomes less important as the two narrators vie for power over the message. Stern calls for change, while Drystubble calls for stasis. Multatuli highlights how the complacency in existing systems causes change to lag, even in the face of necessity. In the context of the novel, Max Havelaar is a past tense character. Despite the progress he personally made, he did little to affect the Dutch system that Drystubble and Stern live in in the present. Multatuli did not merely want to proselytize, he wanted to show that progress is a generational process.

At the end of WWII, European imperialism was vulnerable enough to be toppled, and Indonesia was one of the first nations in this new world liberate itself. In August 1945, before the Pacific War had fully ceased, Indonesia declared independence. Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president, cited Max Havelaar as a personally influential text. Many Indonesians today agree, which is remarkable considering the novel wasn’t translated into Indonesian until 1972. Indonesia was a model for a path to independence that other nations could follow, and within the next three decades most of Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East would be politically decolonized. Much of the world outside of the United States understands Max Havelaar’s role in this domino effect. Reading this novel shows the absolute earliest stages of revolt in a way that’s still resonant. This is the undeniable importance of this novel. Few novels have had such a profound effect on global politics, and that feat ought not to be ignored. Max Havelaar may not be the most leisurely read, but, at the very least, it’s worth knowing the name.

◊◊

Author photo for Dylan CookDylan Cook is a student at the University of Pennsylvania where he studies English, with a concentration in creative writing, and Biology. He often reads and writes, and when he’s not doing either of these things, he can be found working in a lab, lost in the woods somewhere, or at dycook@sas.upenn.edu.

PASSING FOR HUMAN: A GRAPHIC MEMOIR by Liana Finck reviewed by Alexandra Kanovsky

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

PASSING FOR HUMAN: A GRAPHIC MEMOIR
by Liana Finck
Random House, 222 pages
reviewed by Alexandra Kanovsky

Passing for Human cover artLiana Finck wants to be seen. In creating Passing for Human, a graphic memoir and her second full-length work, she constructs her life story as Leola, and in doing so fantastically reimagines her youth and early adulthood in a quest to be seen and heard—by peers, by readers, and by herself.

Over the course of the novel Finck not only passes for human, but her work dissects what it means to be human. She ponders how to describe this sensation and ultimately realizes that “a human is someone who can see humanity in things”; the work is dedicated to exploring this experience and expression of humanity.

In creating Passing For Human Finck has tapped into the potential of the graphic medium to convey personal histories and memoirs. This is particularly true of Finck’s use of an animate shadow to represent her creativity and strangeness. (“Once upon a time, I lost something. Let’s call it ‘my shadow,’” she writes on the first page.) The shadow is clarified and strengthened by its visual representation, leading the reader to look forward to the moment when Leola and her shadow are finally reunited. The text also invites the reader to question their own personal definition of humanity and how it’s expressed in their lives. Passing for Human ultimately succeeds as a gorgeous tale about the trials and intricacies of anxiety, self-discovery, and the quirks of humanity.

Echoing Peter Pan, Passing for Human chronicles Leola’s quest to recover her shadow, a dark mirror of herself that offers companionship as a child and grows to represent her creativity and uniqueness. Leola thinks of her shadow as human, which is a testament to her own humanity. Finck’s drawings are particularly effective in detailing Leola’s introspection and tender relationship with her shadow and herself.

In a fit of insecurity at age eleven, Leola sends her shadow away and thus loses part of herself. This loss of her shadow signals a decline in her childhood creative freedom; Finck writes that “I was a real artist until I turned 11.” Of this point in her life, Finck describes how “I got my wish. I became someone else. Whatever happened over the course of the next ten years—did not happen to me.” Regardless of Finck’s disownership of her experiences, Leola’s story continues.

Leola and her shadow image

Leola and her shadow

 

The small and spritely illustrated Leola flits through her memories, both honest and anxious in her storytelling. She juxtaposes chapters describing her lonely childhood at a Montessori school run by nuns with anecdotes about a confused and undefined romantic relationship with “Mr. Neutral,” a comic artist who she classifies as her soulmate but who fails to be a reliable presence in her life.

Finck honors the parts of herself she inherited from her mother and father by devoting chapters to their individual and collective stories. Her mother, the bright and ambitious Bess, gives Leola the gift of the shadow. Bess’s shadow is a constant companion and friend, guiding her in her choices and encouraging her creativity, but as Bess’s early marriage implodes and she returns home, away from her abusive partner, she cuts her shadow free. Bess continues her schooling and becomes a brilliant architect, designing a perfect house for her new husband, Shamai, and their infant daughter Leola. This home is a repeated image throughout the text; a curved building shrouded in shade from the mountain behind it, the house is the essence of Leola’s close-knit home life and her childhood solidarity.

Childhood home image

Childhood home

Shortly afterwards, anxious Leola changes tactics and restarts her memoir with the story of her father, the affectionate doctor Shamai, who shares his otherness with his daughter. Finck writes that Shamai is “secretly a huge weirdo;” he is “a stranger […] somehow zipped into a human body,” and he imbues the same sense of outsiderness in his child, a fact that concerns him deeply. Only later in her life Leola will acutely feel this otherness bestowed upon her by her father; she feels as if both of them are “passing for human,” just as she classifies her shadow. Here again, the concept of defining humanity is explored; Leola describes her father as not fully human to indicate not only his outsider status but his sense of discomfort with the world around him.

The penultimate chapter recounts Leola’s childhood from her shadow’s perspective; readers are meant to assume that Leola finally triumphs in reconciling with her other self and childhood creativity. This climax is visibly different than the rest of the work; the background is the inky black of Leola’s shadow and Finck’s lines are light scorings on this dark background, but her scratchy and doodly style are consistent. This chapter draws the reader into the world of otherness that Leola struggles with throughout the text.

Reunion with shadow image

Reunion with shadow

 

Liana Finck author photo

Liana Finck

The narrative is peppered with interludes: short chapters detailing Finck’s interpretation of the story of creation, whimsically designed tessellations, and detailed and colorful chapter and cover pages. These constant restarts and intermittent doodles create the essence of the artist’s space and mind. Instead of presenting an unrealistically tidy retelling of life, Finck’s work mirrors the ephemeral haze of memory. Her assured and scrawling line drawings of animals and humans, sometimes featuring comically intense expressions of joy or despair, lend the text the quality of a childhood dreamscape that is not fully understood until adulthood.

Passing for Human chronicles not only the story of Finck’s parents and her own childhood, but the process of her creating her graphic memoir. She is plagued by anxiety in the face of detailing her personal history; these gnawing worries take the form of rats, sitting on her shoulders and nibbling at her graphic form.

Leola's worries image

Leola’s worries

Finck does not suppress any of her apprehension in her writing, and allows the rats to convince her to continually restart her story; thus, every chapter features a cover page and is titled “Chapter 1.” The repeated image of adult Leola pulling a blank sheet of paper towards her and doodling the heading Passing for Human is a merry-go-round of anxiety; the reader’s experience is akin to consuming the first chapters of several books in a series, randomized in sequence and abandoned shortly after commencing. Finck views the process of creating Passing for Human as not only producing a product for the reader, but an experiment in self-discovery. The heart of the work, with all its cyclical thoughts and false starts, is the process of Leola, and thus Liana, finding her lost shadow, her talent, her strangeness.

Restarting her work image

Restarting her work


◊◊

Alexandra Kanovsky headshotAlexandra Kanovsky is an avid reader and editor and a recent graduate of Kenyon College, where she majored in English and completed her thesis on girlhood in graphic novels. She has interned and worked for a variety of literary locales including Restless Books, Lime Books, and Impress Books. She also served as the Editor-in-Chief of HIKA Literary Magazine, Kenyon’s oldest literary publication. Alexandra can be reached at alexandrakanovsky@gmail.com.

 

I AND YOU, stories by J. David Stevens, reviewed by David Amadio

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

I AND YOU
by J. David Stevens
Arc Pair Press, 64 pages
reviewed by David Amadio

Cover art for I and YouMany of the characters in J. David Stevens’s four-story collection I and You are Chinese immigrants; the author himself is not. In the book’s introduction, Stevens confides that he might never have written about these characters if not for the relationship with his wife Janet, whose ancestors left China in 1899 and later settled in Richmond, Virginia. Reflecting on the source material for his multi-generational narratives, Stevens, whose Mexico is Missing and Other Stories won the 2006 Ohio State University Prize in Short Fiction, admits an apprehension of the age: “[A] part of me still wonders if such stories cross a line, if appropriating segments of our shared history—or Janet’s history alone—is more rightly suited to intimate dialogue. I worry the art is too opportunistic.” This concern is real, and the author is right to acknowledge it. But his outsider’s rendition of the Chinese immigrant experience is respectfully nuanced, and while he does not share the same cultural background as his protagonists, he deeply values their stake in the larger human dilemma that fiction is taxed to solve.

Author photo of J. David Stevens

J. David Stevens

 

The ways in which his characters perform their “liminal identity,” reacting to the dueling social pressures of China and America, give the stories a quiet yet potent drama. In the titular “I and You,” the “I” belongs to the narrator’s seven-year-old self, struggling to learn calligraphy under the exacting Mrs. Lu; the “You” follows his gradual foray into the wider American world, first as a student and then as an accountant for a pharmaceutical company. While on a business trip to Guangzhou, his white bosses hold the “You” to a stereotypical standard, bidding him to procure civets—small, weasel-like mammals thought to be a delicacy in that part of China—from a local market. Mrs. Lu imposes a different set of criteria on the “I,” but mastering a thousand-year-old art form proves no less painful than searching for dinner amid caged reptiles and cats. Though he doesn’t find the civets, he does achieve temporary success painting his name. It turns out that pleasing Mrs. Lu and failing his bosses both result in a feeling of dislocated pride, which prompts the narrator to concede, “There are worse fates than a life caught between true happiness and sorrow, never seeming to touch either.”

Wei-ling, the central character in “Old San,” teeters on a similar emotional threshold. Abandoned by her husband and all but forgotten by her two grown sons, Wei-ling mourns “the family she had lost,” at times feeling lonely and useless. It is Old San, the elderly man for whom she is primary caretaker, who enlivens her with joy and purpose. So close is their bond that even when she is not by his side Wei-ling still senses him next to her, a phantom of interdependence. We learn that Old San was long ago a victim of a hate crime, and arranging a meeting with his now publicly contrite attacker, a celebrity, becomes Wei-ling’s driving need. If she cannot fix the sad things in her life, she will be “indispensable” in repairing the one sad thing in his. But the meeting turns into a photo-op for the celebrity and his agent, and here, instead of probing Wei-ling’s thoughts on the spike and taint of the moment, Stevens reverts to an image of the caretaker and her charge on a busy New York street, the old man “rock[ing] against her like a boat against its buoy.” A fitting simile, but the reader expects Wei-ling, who understands the language of loss, to address, either directly or indirectly, this new injury of the heart.

“Cleave” is about a brief love affair between a pair of female graduate students, Kara and Minzhi, and presents another shift in default perspective for the Other-seeking Stevens. When the story opens, Kara is in a long-distance relationship, and she half-heartedly believes that learning how to cook Chinese for her girlfriend will save their shaky union. Minzhi, who is engaged to a man back in China, takes Kara on as a student, and what starts out as a lark soon becomes a “collaboration,” a “haven from the everyday” where Kara’s “desire to take chances” increases with each new dish prepared. Following the first and only time they make love, Kara asks Minzhi to break off her engagement and stay with her in the states, to which Minzhi shakes her head and replies, “Americans.” In this soft indictment of Kara’s naivete, Stevens is saying that Minzhi’s freedoms—both social and sexual—are not as guaranteed as her lover’s. Therefore, she must be precise, “like a knife sure of its cuts,” in how she honors the ones she loves, a skill that Kara is just beginning to learn and may never fully master.

Minzhi’s rigid rapport is echoed in “Turkeys,” the collection’s final story, and its best. Raymond Chan’s monomaniacal father wants him to play football, and to ready him for an upcoming tryout he subjects the fourteen-year-old to a near-constant training regimen. “Old questions” about his father’s past nag at Raymond, clouding his pigskin focus. The successful tire salesman deserted his first wife and young daughter when he emigrated from China, and for this reason Raymond feels an ambivalence toward the man, respect as well as censure. The ghosts of that former life lurk at the plot’s periphery, as do the wild turkeys from which the story gets its name. The turkeys, one of Stevens’s strongest extended metaphors, are a feathered fly in the ointment of civilized suburban society, “breaking skylights, scratching paint jobs, and leaving a formidable layer of feces that was almost impossible to scrape off once exposed to daylight.” The birds’ “one insane summer” analogizes Raymond’s performance at the football tryout, where he “throw[s] instinct to the wind and beat[s] back against” the austerity of his father.

With I and You, J. David Stevens has set an example worth following. Rather than continue to shy away from “that different face,” writers  might take the preliminary steps to honestly engage it, to “cross a line” both personally and artistically, to observe, relay, and “comprehend the alienation and dislocation” in the lives of people like Raymond Chan, or Minzhi, or Wei-ling. As a response to those who might criticize Stevens for exercising his privilege, I would argue that his collection is more appreciation than appropriation, an obeisance to the immigrants who inspired it. Stevens claims that immigration is not a “finite proposition,” that the newly arrived are never done settling, never done merging. If that is the case, then the act of receiving those immigrants is also an incomplete process, but these stories serve to make it less fraught, less complicated, less strange.

◊◊

Author photo for David AmadioDavid Amadio teaches Creative Writing and Composition at Lincoln University, where he also edits the campus literary magazine, SIMBAA. He received his MFA in Fiction from Bowling Green State University in 2001. His work has appeared in Talking River, Masque & Spectacle, Packingtown Review, and The San Francisco Examiner. He lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two children.

YOUR STRANGE FORTUNE, poems by Chloe N. Clark, reviewed by K.C. Mead-Brewer

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

YOUR STRANGE FORTUNE
by Chloe N. Clark
Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 56 pages
reviewed by K.C. Mead-Brewer

Jacket Cover for Your Strange FortuneI first encountered Chloe N. Clark through her prose, but even then, it was clear to me that she was a poet. Her work often feels multimodal in form, something that shines as a written text but that also seems eager to be performed aloud. Her debut collection Your Strange Fortune is no different, full of rich and devastating moments, each poem stretching with fresh life on the page or on the air. Some of these poems also function as works of visual art, such as “Flora and Fauna of the Outer Rings,” embodying their meaning in shape as well as word.

Fans of Clark’s work will recognize some of these poems from her chapbook The Science of Unvanishing Objects, but not only is there a wealth of new poetry here, the way she’s reframed these poems gives each line new energy and weight. The collection is offered, from the title onward, as a fortune-reading for the reader. Your Strange Fortune whispers in your hands, and you’re struck with the odd feeling that perhaps the book’s seeing through touch like an octopus, examining the love and lifelines of your unsuspecting palms. In other words, this poetry collection reads its readers as they read it, creating a reciprocal acknowledgement rather than simply a unilateral communication. The book warns you of this exchange more than once, each section grinning with a sly new epigraph: the first from a Fortune Cookie, the second from a Magic 8-Ball, the third from a Children’s Fortune Telling Game, and the last appears to be from the poet herself.

Clark begins with “Automatism; or What to Visit in My Town,” a poem about a woman who collects hands—the true window into the soul for any self-respecting fortune teller—its opening rhythm redolent of that classic Once upon a time:

There was a woman
kept hands
lined up in jars
along her walls

headshot for Chloe N. Clark

Chloe N. Clark

Holding the book, reading these lines, it’s hard not to also wonder if the poem’s a bit confessional as well. It’s hard not to wonder if Clark, or perhaps the collection itself, is confessing to being like this woman collecting hands and hands and hands (read: stories and stories and stories), hoping that one of them will catch a customer’s (reader’s) eye such that the customer reaches out and laces their fingers together in a moment of connection and understanding. This desire for connection may be especially poignant for readers today, navigating a world where lines are being drawn starker and starker, walls built taller and taller.

Clark organizes the collection into four parts, Past, Present, Future, and Now. The Past, as you might imagine, is haunted. It’s full to the brim with Longing and all of Longing’s children: ghosts, myths, monsters, and gods.

Clark wastes no time in introducing these children, drawing readers next into the troubled waters of “Like Acheron but Not.” The river here holds echoes of an old pain, things decayed, scorched, and covered up. The river’s creator asks her sister, do you wonder what the river feels like?

but I shook my head
afraid that she
might tell me the river
just felt cold.

Afraid that the river’s pain – her sister’s pain – might be meaningless, afraid that something powerful has been (or might be) diminished, that it might “just [feel] cold.” That “just,” heartbreaking in its reduction of all the river might truly be and feel. In “I Believed Not in God but in Gods as a Child,” the narrator helps build a funeral pyre in the wake of an apocalyptic event and, while sorting the dead’s belongings,

…….I found one tiny
notebook, worn
to softness and most was smudged away
except the letter I
and I wondered if it was the
word. What was useless was burned, paper starts the quickest.

The Past is haunted by this fear of powerful, magical, beautiful things being diminished, and by the longing for them to have any meaning at all. You can see it not only in the story of this poem, but in its shape. The way Clark lends weight and longing to “one tiny” through the line-break, creating a dangling sense of hope that perhaps this isn’t such a small thing after all, perhaps it means something. She capitalizes on this hope, suggesting that, despite the notebook being worn, despite most of its contents being smudged away, there still might be meaning here in the sole-surviving and notably-capitalized “letter I,” the line standing alone like the letter itself, a pillar of hope and intention, a word or a beginning or— Or another “useless” thing tossed onto the fire. The devastation of an entire apocalypse felt in the burning of a single notebook, a single letter.

But as the Fortune Cookie, “circa pre-collapse,” warns us: “If you look too often to the past, you’ll never see where you’re going.” And besides, not all ghosts live in the past. In “The Double Dark Theory of Our Universe,” Clark cracks open the pain of possibility, writing:

I too believe that our lives are
not as interwoven as we are led to
believe, that you and I were
only coincidences in the others
timeline. Still, something

Something remains. Something hangs there and needles us with its presence. Something itches and eats and refuses to let go. The Present, Clark reminds us, has its own phantoms, tormenting us with possibilities of what might be and what might have been.  For instance, in “Missing Girls, Continued,” the narrator is haunted by dreams of lying up with her missing friend, together watching shooting stars disappear and knowing every one of them has a name.

Possibility blurs the path, your vision, turning dogs into wolverines as seen in “Filed Under Hazy Creatures,” and superstition into shields, as Clark writes of in “Tricks to Keep Away the Dark.” The possibility of connection and the possibility of danger creates wonders and terrors. It tantalizes and urges us onward.

But perhaps the strangest ghost of all belongs to the Future, embodied in Hope, a creature demanding resilience and imagination in the face of despair. As the narrator of “Sidelong Catastrophe” admits:

sometimes I imagine

that we can solve everything
design cities that fit into

the Earth instead of making
the Earth fit into them

but mostly we sit at drawing
boards and paint scenes

of decay because that is what
we know

Though the narrator eventually returns to the knowledge that “mostly we sit at drawing / boards and paint scenes / of decay,” still “sometimes [they] imagine” something better. The entire poem from the title itself, “Sidelong Catastrophe,” is about seeing things anew from a different angle, looking at aerial views of rivers and instead seeing the shape of your lover lying beside you, looking at a devastated world and managing to see the hope of a world brought to new life.

The final poem, “In Gratitude,” the only poem included in the Now, shows a man thanking luck for his surviving a car wreck, because something must be thanked. Something must be reached out to and held close. This desire to reach out, to hold and be held, is laced throughout Clark’s collection. The opening poem – the woman with her jarred appendages – ends with her failing to sell any of her collected hands to visitors. Yet the final stanza itself keeps reaching out, yearning, stretching as far as it can to catch the grip, the eye, the heart of its reader:

Still, the collection grew
………..hands floating,
………………..fingers stretching,
………………………..as if to reach
…………………………………out and grasp
………………………………………..another’s.

A willing reader is, by and through this collection, invited to reach out, hold these poems close, and feel them holding back.

◊◊

K.C.-Mead-Brewer

K.C. Mead-Brewer lives in Ithaca, NY. Her fiction appears in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, Carve Magazine, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Tin House’s 2018 Winter Workshop for Short Fiction and of the 2018 Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. For more information, visit kcmeadbrewer.com and follow her @meadwriter.

THE BOOK OF X, a novel by Sarah Rose Etter, reviewed by Elizabeth Mosier

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

THE BOOK OF X
by Sarah Rose Etter
Two Dollar Radio, 279 pages
reviewed by Elizabeth Mosier

Jacket cover for The Book of X

“I was born a knot like my mother and her mother before her,” Sarah Rose Etter’s surrealist debut novel begins, drawing readers into Cassie’s life story, The Book of X. “Picture three women with their torsos twisted like thick pieces of rope with a single hitch in the center.”

Picture, too, Cassie’s family: a father and son who—in Etter’s startling vision—make a living mining meat from a quarry, and a mother and daughter who scrub the house clean with antiseptic lemons while they whittle themselves thin on a bleak diet of rocks. See Cassie’s schoolmates—the male bullies and the no-knot “Sophias,” girls “a boy would like to touch”—who are disgusted by her X-chromosome-linked deformity, driving her to seek a solution in excruciating injections of sugar water. Understand her doctors’ indifference to her painful condition as medical misogyny. The impact of Cassie’s genetic inheritance is “largely emotional,” these doctors proclaim, ceasing research into its cause or remedy because the knot, located just above “the womb,” doesn’t compromise childbirth.

Surrealism seems to be the most rational response to Cassie’s coming of age in a town called The Acres, as a girl blessed or cursed with an ability to see (if not avert) inherent violence beneath the surface of human relationships. In this weird-dreary setting, she falls for Jarred, a cruel sexual predator who carries anger “under his skin that casts a shadow around him.” Of her beautiful friend (the ur-Sophia), Cassie thinks, “I want to slice you open with a knife. I want to hide my body inside of yours.”

Sarah Rose Etter's headshot

Sarah Rose Etter

Narratives of adolescence often promote the very conventions they claim to critique, with plotlines that resolve social conflict, such as a longing for beauty or belonging, without illuminating the contradictions that drive these conflicts—in this case, powerlust disguised or misconstrued as romantic love. What makes Etter’s work original and interesting is her frank examination of sexual desire and her feminist interrogation of the idea of the female body as mere decoration or passive vessel.

When Cassie’s father allows her to try her hand at the meat quarry, she turns out to be “a natural,” outperforming her brother by pulling bigger (and therefore more lucrative) boulder-sized chunks from the bleeding walls. This “fine haul” that earns her father’s praise leaves Cassie exhilarated, exhausted—and empowered. Her engine-like exertion not only reveals her physical capacity, but her body’s true purpose: that of converting energy to motion. “The fat falls from my body, the knot gets smaller,” she marvels. “I can see new muscles in my legs and arms. I work fast as my brother, become the slick machine.”

Working at the quarry also releases Cassie’s pent-up rage, “puts her in motion” as the subject of her own story and not merely an object in someone else’s. Sneaking back into the quarry alone one night, she rips “the flesh from the walls, screaming and sobbing against the red.” When her father discovers the damage the next morning, he mistakes it for the work of a hungry wolf, a tribute Cassie silently savors as she hums to herself, “I am the wolf, I am the wolf, I am the wolf.”

But in this worksite where Cassie accesses her strength and righteous anger, she also opens herself up to greater pain. If part one of the book is a relentless inventory of Cassie’s victimhood, part two, in which she moves away from home and gets a job as a legal clerk, is her proving ground. Donning a false heart and a work costume, she labors as a “passionate typist,” professionally smiling to “contribute to the office culture.” Here Etter’s anthropologist’s eye, which makes the familiar (to us) strange, makes the unfamiliar (to Cassie) even stranger. Cassie experiences her new city as “an orchestra of rusting metal, trucks and buildings, full of bodies, faces, color, electricity.” Buying meat in a grocery store for the first time, she’s surprised to discover its alternative source, not mined but slaughtered, packaged, and labeled with different animal names.

Prone to fantastic visions—of hurling herself at a glass mountain of her father’s half-empty liquor bottles, removing her head before sex, excising a black jewel of jealousy from between her shoulder blades—Cassie is, nevertheless, highly attuned to the difference between truth and propaganda. She “keeps track of the facts” with bullet-point lists dropped between fragments of narrative and presents the events of her life as matter-of-factly as her mother’s fashion magazines dictate absurd-sounding, arbitrary beauty trends. These visions, set off in italics, counter Cassie’s lived experience in a way that reads at first like a coping mechanism but proves prescient. The pleasure and puzzle in reading The Book of X is decoding this parallel prophetic story, which operates according to the logic of dreams.

Readers hoping for neat healing after Cassie undergoes corrective surgery may be disappointed by the ending Etter offers in the third part. But I was surprised and impressed by the author’s integrity. Etter measures her character’s change in movement. And though Cassie does find love with a mechanic named Henry—who enjoys his “meditative” work repairing engines because it “teaches you to think different ways around a problem”—love isn’t the means by which Cassie is transformed. As she is returned to her body, as Henry says, “the sum of all parts makes them come alive.”

◊◊

Elizabeth-MosierElizabeth Mosier logged 1,000 volunteer hours processing colonial-era artifacts at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park Archeology Laboratory to write Excavating Memory: Archaeology and Home (forthcoming from New Rivers Press in 2019). A graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, her nonfiction has been selected as notable in Best American Essays and appears widely in journals and newspapers including Cleaver, Creative Nonfiction, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She writes the “Intersections” column for the Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin.

GREEN TARGET, poems by Tina Barr, reviewed by Jeff Klebauskas 

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

GREEN TARGET
by Tina Barr
Barrow Street Press, 82 pages
reviewed by Jeff Klebauskas 

Jacket cover for GREEN TARGET

In her latest work, Green Target, Tina Barr prods at the simultaneously tumultuous and cooperative relationship between humanity and nature, writing from her cabin in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Barr blends the intimate details of personal existence with the macrocosmic scope of collective human experience, cleverly balancing comfort and misery. Barr’s poetry harmonizes the intersecting lives she details, whether they be animal, botanical, or human. All is seen and accounted for through her kaleidoscopic vision in which events, objects and people are constantly shape-shifting, bleeding into each other, losing their original form, becoming targets for Barr’s eye-opening observations.

Barr introduces us to her unique vision right off the bat in “Tick Tock Tank” where she unveils an invisible-to-the-naked-eye network linking a brutal car accident, the great American thoroughbred racehorse Secretariat, Panzer tanks still embedded in the forests of Normandy, and a Luna moth resting on the top-end of her walking stick. This last image sets the tone for the rest of Green Target as one can envision Barr strolling through the thickets of civilization, her path illuminated by an embodiment of nature crowning her stick. Barr presents the horrors of reality then yanks the reader away before they become too morosely immersed by offering an image of rebirth as a remedy.  For example, when describing the tragic outcome of the aforementioned car accident, she writes:

Inside
the Mazda, a local track coach broke his
spine, his pelvis; his brain
leaked.

This violent directness is later countered with vivid descriptions of nature’s tranquility.  Just a dozen lines down from the accident she writes:

…a Luna moth settles
at the top of my walking stick
at the cabin door, tiny pomegranate
eyes its regalia, big as a hand
the green of a moon not yet seen.

Barr does not deny tragedy; she embraces it in order to show the hope that lingers underneath, revealing the natural potential for rebirth often clouded by the reality of death.

Headshot for poet Tina Barr

Tina Barr

As in her last book, Kaleidoscope, Barr takes the ekphrastic route to aid the visualization of her poems in Green Target. Artwork by Joyce Thornburg and Jasper Johns act as complimentary pieces to the vast scope of the book, though many more pages are spent with Johns, whose work makes quotidian objects like flags and targets seem excitingly unfamiliar to the viewer. This slight shifting of the familiar to something out-of-the-ordinary mirrors Barr’s own examination of subjective observations. Like she did in Kaleidoscope, Barr looks at an object—a painting, a spider web, a copperhead’s freshly-shed skin—then rotates the cylinder, loosening up the bits of glass inside to provide a fresh view of what is often considered the mundane. By merging poems in Green Target with the Jasper Johns paintings that inspired them, the reader is invited into Barr’s kaleidoscopic vision, into an ability to harmonize the image with the text.

In “Target with Plaster Casts, Jasper Johns, 1955,” Barr intermingles the colors used in the painting with the blood of beavers that have been beaten into hats in order to strengthen John Jacob Astor’s fur empire. The yellow rings of Johns’ target become beeswax; the black bull’s eye in the center, a bruise. Barr, in response to her mention of the bull’s eye, declares, “all the bulls I know have lashes and flies.” As for the Bumblebees whose wax colors the yellow rings of Johns’ target; “even their/ colonies are collapsing.” In these examples, we see an inversion of what was done in “Tick Tock Tank.” Here, we are pulled into the horror instead of away from it, reminded of the damage humanity has done to non-human species to maintain its supreme comfort. Barr’s sense of balance demonstrates her pragmatic approach to life. Although she finds the painting aesthetically pleasing, she cannot ignore the horrors that she relates to the colors within. She is not trying to preach. She is simply bearing witness, observing the painting through her sight that, when shifted, reveals much more than what was originally there.

In “White Target, Jasper Johns, 1957”  Barr ponders the oncoming winter, her mind wandering to Italy and France, where the Grands Montets ski resort is getting creative in their fight against global warming by covering Rognons Glacier with a tarp. The possibility of future generations practicing the age-old tradition of making snow angels are obliterated as Barr’s worldview takes a bleak but painfully realistic turn:

Some day children will be unable to lie down
arms and legs plow aside the snow, signal
their imprints, legions of snow angels.

At the local level, Farley, a pseudonym for one of Barr’s actual neighbors, regales the narrator with tales of burning barns, a suicidal pond owner, and a gunned-down game warden. Barr considers the lore, spots the links between all actors, and sees the concentric circles of life “…widening, until they jam against each other,” like the concentric circles in Johns’ target painting. The connection between the tarp on Rognons Glacier and Farley’s tales are not direct but, when viewed through Barr’s gathering eye, they become attached due to their tragic characteristics. Individual tragedies are merged with humanity’s tragedies, joining us all together in our shared struggles and unveiling the natural inside the human.

The final ekphrastic poem, “Target with Four Faces, Jasper Johns, 1958” takes us to the streets of Egypt where Barr finds herself observing while being observed in the Holy Land, post-9/11. Barr weaves this self-targeting in with her physical descriptions of Sohag as she tells of mosquito-infested shower stalls, unmanned kitchens, and jeeps packed with armed soldiers herding tourists as they head to Akhmim to see the weavers. The concentric circles of life continue to widen with Barr connecting the blue, yellow and red circles in Johns’ target with the rounded pillars found within the Karnak Temple Complex, one of the oldest religious complexes in the world. Despite the obvious distance between the complex and Johns’ abstract expressionism, Barr still manages to make a connection, further solidifying her vision of the earth as one massive target for humanity and vice versa.

On display in these ekphrastic poems, and in all of Green Target for that matter, is Barr’s desire to identify the tunnels that lie beneath Johns’ famous target paintings which double as a visual representation of the connective thought-processes of her poems. In “Pot of Gold” the narrator contemplates vengeance on Lindy and Ed, the people who sold her a piece of land. They hadn’t paid their taxes, rendering the land delinquent. The speaker proclaims,

I want to set fire to their trailer, to
bait their place with honey, so bears
tear their cars open like sardine tins.

But, directly after that proclamation, she checks herself, realizes her own inevitable flaws, flaws that are within all human beings by default, and adds,

I line up people like toy soldiers, whose
carelessness is never personal, the way
poison ivy grows…

The want for revenge is like the ivy—poisonous yet organic, honest. Barr does not shy away from this honesty, even when it is naturally vicious, which allows for her convictions to be taken that much more seriously.  She does not exclude herself from her own subjective targeting, allowing for what starts in contention, i.e. the natural and the human, to become gradually more synonymous than oppositional throughout Green Target.

Green Target casts a wide net that captures the good, the bad, and the inevitable that exists within earthly life. The thirty-nine poems that Tina Barr has compiled here bring to light the relations between humans and nature, both collaborative and dysfunctional. The topics touched on demand our attention as they reflect our collective situation regarding humanity’s future and how we choose to both observe and potentially empathize with the world around us. Regardless of the political alignment of its individual readers, Green Target offers its collective audience a glimpse at harmony, cooperation, and the pressing need to target both in our own lives.

◊

Jeff Klebauskas headshotJeff Klebauskas is a recent graduate of Bucknell University where he gained his bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Creative Writing. Before that, he attended the Community College of Philadelphia and received the Judith Stark Creative Writing Award for both poetry and fiction. He is currently applying to MFA programs for the fall 2020 semester. His work has appeared in Confetti Head, The Bucknellian, and Limited Editions.

99 NAMES OF EXILE, poems by Kaveh Bassiri, reviewed by Claire Oleson

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

99 NAMES OF EXILE
by Kaveh Bassiri
Newfound, 40 Pages

reviewed by Claire Oleson

 

In his poem “Memorial Day” Kaveh Bassiri tells us:

My absence is momentous. When I left Tehran, a revolution
……swelled in my place. When I left Berlin, the wall came
……down. And when I leave tomorrow, the airports will close.

Jacket cover 99 Names of ExileIt is inside this momentous absence that Kaveh Bassiri’s prize-winning chapbook 99 Names of Exile traces its focus⁠— a conscientious unravelling of what it might mean to be gone from a place and have it be (at least partially) gone from you. The specific absence Bassiri focuses on is accompanied by a sense of irrevocable inaccessibility; it comes after forced immigration and it leaves behind it a different Tehran, a different Berlin. This exile is complex and shifting, it is not the product of a static or singular expulsion, but perhaps more accurately, it’s an imposed exercise that takes continual effort survive. Later in “Memorial Day” the speaker notes “Each morning, in order not to sink, I have to bail the news out/ of me.” Staying aloft is not a default in Bassiri’s poetics of absence, it too requires a constant expulsion of words as news contends with personal memories. At its height, Bassiri’s work exhibits a living and moving exile that fills and empties, critically and poignantly resisting the urge to allow neither nostalgia nor fear alone to take full residency of the past.

99 Names of Exile begins in landscape. In the absence of the body of a deceased loved one, the book’s first poem “Invention of Country” searches for  a buried “uniform/ in a chest camouflaged as a scarab, its wings latched.” The poem goes on to ruminate on memories and details the speaker wishes they could conjure in the face of death, but cannot. Perhaps inspired by this loss of detail and still searching for a path to grief and intimacy, the speaker explains “I don’t trust flat surfaces” and “I know the earth is round, and if we continue falling,/ the afternoon’s revolution never grows cold.”

Instead of a portrait-styled elegy, this piece zooms out wide enough to catch glimpses of the planet’s rotation and never names the dead person it’s seemingly dedicated to. While it includes identifying and minute details like “blue socks and porcelain inlays” of the subject, the majority of this poem is faced with finding peace in an empty grave, in the remaining “exuviae” of what it searches for. It comes to rest saying “Surely they can find you/ among weeds in the sandpit, the briary fleece of the hills.” taking solace in a literal landscape. Whether the reader takes this as hope of recovering a body or a contented knowledge that something of the lost loved one exists in the environment, Bassiri still leaves his audience at a distance. We are given the fine specificity of “porcelain inlays” but we end on “the hills” having seen that “the earth is round.”  Similarly to the speaker, we do not have access to the coffin, the conventional proximity to and possession of a body, or even a clearly-identified person to mourn. Here the elegy itself is set in landscape, set off from what it tries to reclaim and remember, in its own exile.

Along with giving distance a life (and deaths) of its own, 99 Names of Exile does not leave distance, whether chronological or physical, as a blank space or empty wall. Distance, loss, and absence quickly become dense and crowded spaces. The speaker listens to a phone message from his father where “Reports of celestial bodies contaminate the silent bridge between us” and the speaker learns that his sister has been taken to jail. Within these conversations between a father and son, between Tehran and an apartment in San Jose, the speaker feels that “The Azadi (“Freedom”) Towers” between himself and his father’s life. This line from the poem “Alarm” references the Azadi Tower in Tehran and also fills the space between the answering machine message and the voice of the father speaking into it.

While “the roses in custody” at the speaker’s table are “closed like fists” and “the radiator trembles in the corner,” there is a feeling that this apartment in San Jose is, by the mechanics of a voicemail and this prose poem, pushed suddenly proximate to the “Alarm” experienced in the home in Tehran. Flowers are fists and the radiator trembles, things without bodies take on the symptoms of a human body in fear, and so the room floods with the news that the speaker cannot immediately bail out. “Alarm” rings with Bassiri’s ability to make the distant and intangible feel close, human, and unavoidable.

Kaveh Bassiri headshot

Kaveh Bassiri

99 Names of Exile contends with a home and a family that is both deeply missed by the speaker and one which, as his father warns him, could be potentially fatal to return to. Iran, and Tehran specifically, surfaces in memories, monuments, familiar homes, and a lawn “stretched out like a prayer rug.” The speaker’s recollections bleed into how he sees the world around himself away from Tehran, where the security gate at an airport is a “mihrab, the incantation of departures and arrivals” and “Farsi” becomes “Persian” when it’s spoken about in English. These poems invite the reader into a way of sight, into the joys and aches of not being able to unsee a home, even when it’s been made inaccessible. Though Bassiri writes in “Memorial Day” that:

My family loves divorces. My father divorced twice. I’ve di-
……….vorced my country more than once.

His poems also critically cultivate undeniable and even bodily connection to a family and a place he no longer physically occupies. At the poem’s end, the speaker seems to exhume his own body in a pre-mortem exercise, saying “If you open me, you’ll find cyprus leaves, the smell of traffic,/ the misquoted words of Hafez digesting with Cheerios,/ dates, and naan.” Near the end of the book, the speaker performs a similar exercise on his father, lifting his chest and finding “Splayed, his pelvis filled with leaves.” There is a familial link legible in the cyprus and pelvic leaves growing inside this father and son, one which gestures to the many gardens that the poems in this book seem to mention, search out, and yearn for. Bodies in 99 Names of Exile are shown to contain many possible names, contain shared gardens, contain language (even if it is digested at a similar rate as the accompanying Cheerios,) and, in doing so, manage to contain literal Whitmanian multitudes that connect them to a past.

Whether it’s in “the briary fleece of the hills” where a lost body is sought or in “the fleece of my sleeve” the speaker uses to “Wash off the blood” in the last two lines of the book’s final poem, material spaces and insurmountable distances become populated with memory and emotion. While Bassiri himself writes that “from a distance everything turns scenic” his work is also invested in using the poem as a space for landscape without sacrificing its potential for intimate, detailed, memorial, and occasionally distinctly non-scenic work. From touring the interior of an atomic bomb to the light scraped out of and iris to the irises found inside a dead body, 99 Names of Exile presents a narrative of personal immigration and exile that is incapable of being nested under one name alone.

◊

Cleaver Poetry Reviews Editor Claire Oleson is a writer hailing from Grand Rapids Michigan. She’s a 2019 grad of Kenyon College, where she studied English and Creative Writing. Her work has been published by the University of Kentucky’s graduate literary journal Limestone, Siblíní Art and Literature journal, Newfound Journal, NEAT Magazine, Werkloos Magazine, and Bridge Eight Magazine, among others. She is also the 2019 winner of the Newfound Prose Prize.  Contact her by email. 

ON REVISION: From story to STORY, With a Little Help from a Doomed Vole and Robert McKee, a Craft Essay by Lea Page

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

ON REVISION:
From story to STORY, With a Little Help from a Doomed Vole and Robert McKee

a small rodent on a dirt path

A Craft Essay
by Lea Page

If memoir is sculpture, where writers must strip away the unnecessary to find the shape of the story, then it is my memory that wields the knife. Memory chooses certain scenes and impressions. Memory snips and stores fragments and shadows. Memory does not follow the rules of chronology or of rational cause and effect. Memory puts any old thing next to another for its own reasons and may preserve for example, the dance of a courageous vole in perfect detail, while jettisoning a crucial conversation with a friend who is now gone. Try as I might to recall that moment with my friend, memory carved it away, leaving only shavings on the floor, which I crushed into ever smaller pieces as I paced back and forth, studying what I had left to work with.

A freaking vole? What was I supposed to make of that vole?

◊

I am still new enough to writing to laugh in delight when I hear myself say I am a writer. And, I am also one of those writers who drafts the whole book before I know what the story is. It’s worse than that: I write the whole memoir before I know what the story is, even though I know what the story is because I’ve lived the story.

Because there’s story, and then there’s capital-S Story. It took working through several manuscript revisions before I understood the difference.

My first draft, which included the dancing vole, was the story. It was 100% accurate—everything I wrote about was what I remembered happening. There were no embellishments, no composites, no made-up dialogue, even. What I brought to the page had been seared onto the skin of my soul. I had been branded by the story. It owned me. So, I was surprised when my writing group flipped my manuscript onto the table (proverbial table—we met by video conference) and leaned back in their chairs and said, “We love your scenes and your language, but we’re not convinced.”

But, I told them, it all happened.

“That’s not enough,” they said, “to make us care.”

Damn. That stung.

“Don’t take it personally,” they said. “Literally, this isn’t about you. That’s the problem. Right now, the story is only about you.”

They explained that I needed an underlying current, an emotional logic. I needed the big picture. I needed to answer the “why” and the “who cares,” as well as the “what” and the “how.” I needed a thematic arc to match the arc of events. In other words, a capital-S Story to go with my story.

Shortly after I received this humbling advice, my husband, a lawyer, surprised me with the audio version of Robert McKee’s Story for us to listen to during a six-hour drive. “Maybe this will help you with your revision,” he said.

I was grateful, but worried he’d be bored. “Oh, no,” he said. “My final argument in any brief or trial is only as convincing as the story I’ve told.” As we hurtled south down the highway, we listened to McKee describing his thematic array of values that forms the foundation of a complete story arc.

Start, he said, by nailing down the basic value at stake in your story.

What had I really been after, I asked myself, moving my young family to a small town in rural Montana? A simple life, lush scenery, sure. But what else?

Belonging, that’s what I had been looking for.

And what, asked McKee, is the opposite of that basic value? What negates it?

That’s easy: being bullied, ostracized, shunned. When your daughter is bullied for years and you cannot stop it, no matter how desperately you try. When people avert their eyes, turn their backs and close door after door, all the while telling you that there is “something” about your daughter, “something” about you. You are to blame, they mean, but just why is unnameable, unknowable, and therefore impossible to change or to fix.

And what, asked McKee, is the opposite of belonging but is not negative?

Who knew, as I was living my story, acting and reacting, that my solution would so neatly fit into this man’s formula? But the structure of stories is what it is because life is what it is, and my choice, when I was faced with the impossibility of our ever belonging in our tiny town, was self-sufficiency: the opposite of belonging, but not necessarily a bad thing.

Not a bad thing at all. Our retreat into the community of wild and domestic animals, into the rhythm of the seasons and the sanctuary of our home and garden, was understandable, given our circumstances.

But, said McKee, even that is not enough. In any story, there are obstacles. Challenges to overcome. Villains. What, he asked, is the worst possible manifestation of the negative? What is so savagely awful as to threaten one’s existence? McKee called it the “negation of the negation.” Take the negative, the opposite of your positive value, and turn it on itself, so that the negation, the challenge to your soul, is exponential.

What was the negation of self-sufficiency, of ostracism? What would be exponentially more damaging than mere shunning? How could that harm be magnified?

The “negation of the negation” was that voice that woke me in the small hours of the night and whispered, “Maybe there is something about you.” The negation of the negation was my belief that that voice was speaking the truth: that we deserved it. I didn’t need anyone to ostracize me or to destroy me. I was doing it for them. I felt a sense of triumph for identifying that last piece of the puzzle. But I also felt despair. This wasn’t fiction, after all. It was my life.

◊

When I was forced by the gods of revision to weave a more expansive and emotionally resonant capital-S Story to justify the inclusion of every word, event and character—even that dancing vole—I began to understand that my story didn’t just happen. That even if I felt a bit victimized by events, once I was inside the revision process, there were no more victims and no more villains. There were only choices. I saw that my main character (me) wasn’t simply the target of relentless persecution. My protagonist had made a series of choices—good ones and bad—rendering the larger Story believable only when I set the events afloat on a thematic current.

By examining the big Story, I came to understand my villains through their choices as well. There were reasons they acted as they did—as badly as they did. Their actions reflected their own limitations and misery. I wasn’t responsible for what they had done, any more than the vole was, the one that fought valiantly when my cat caught it, the one that made her jump back in surprise as it bared its tiny rodent teeth, the one that died because, despite its courage, it was after all, a vole, and she was a cat, and that is the nature of things.

And here is what I discovered as I wrestled again with those scenes— I was not that vole. I had a choice in the end, while the vole had none, and I had chosen, and survived.

◊

It wasn’t until after my husband and I were in the car again headed home that I understood there was a fifth and final element in McKee’s thematic array: the bending of the arc into a circle, the redemption. Without redemption, the story—my Story—would be a tragedy, starting at a positive value, belonging, and ending with a negative one, self-nullification.

Regardless of whether anyone would want to read a tragedy, I didn’t want to have lived a tragedy. When we fled the Montana town where we had dreamed of making a life, we left behind a home we had designed ourselves, drawing my grandmother’s kitchen table on a piece of graph paper and working out from there. We left our work, our animals, our trees—we had planted so many trees! It was hard to deny the sacrifice.

But memoir is truth. You can’t make up a better ending, one that you would prefer. When you have experienced the negation of your negation, when you have possibly had a hand in creating it, how, I asked the wise voice coming from the car speaker, how do you redeem yourself?

The answer dawned on me only because I had written it: the act of writing was itself the answer. The opposite of self-nullification is self-expression. It is even more than that: self-expression is an exponentially higher, more positive value of belonging. It is an affirmation of the affirmative: belonging to oneself. And I have revision to thank for it.

An avid walker, gardener and dog-snuggler, Lea Page lives in Montana with her husband. Her essays have appeared in The Rumpus, The Washington Post and the Brevity blog, among others. She is the author of Parenting in the Here and Now: Realizing the Strengths You Already Have. Visit her at www.LeaPageAuthor.com.

 

ASK JUNE: The Secular Protest and Bin There Dun That

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Two trash cans in an alley

Dear June,

One of my closest friends—I’ll call her Leah—keeps referring to me as Catholic, even though I have repeatedly told her that I am no such thing. My parents and three of my grandparents are Catholic and I was raised Catholic, even went to parochial school until I was eleven. But I haven’t gone to church since the first Sunday after I left for college, which was over fifteen years ago. I consider myself an agnostic and don’t belong to any religious institution.

I have explained all this to Leah, but the last two times we went out with a group she did the Catholic thing again. One of the times we were talking about abortion restrictions and she asked me how I felt about this “as a Catholic.” The other time she joked with the other people at our dinner table that she and I were a “mixed” Jewish-Catholic friendship—and later that night, when we were alone, she asked me whether I had been upset when he group was talking about child sexual abuse in the Catholic clergy.

I am about to marry an equally secular person who comes from a Buddhist family. When Leah heard the news, she asked me how we were handling our religious differences.

How do I get through to her?

—Exasperated in Exton

Dear Ex Squared,

I think you should keep talking to Leah about this. She may know that you disagree with her, but not that you are offended. Tell her you want to make sure she understands how much you dislike it when she acts as if you still have a relationship with or allegiance to the Catholic Church. You can be nice about it, as long as you don’t mince words. Say that she needs to stop making assumptions about your religious affiliation and sharing them with other people. If, as you say, she is one of your closest friends, she should be able to hear you out without becoming hurt or angry.

Leah may not understand how completely your beliefs have changed. If you value her friendship, which you seem to, try (again) to explain how these changes happened. But belief and dogma may not be what your friend is talking about when she calls you a Catholic: I suspect that the two of you have different senses of what it means to belong to a religion. Some individuals, and some denominations, think of religion as mostly or even solely a matter of faith and adherence to dogma: I was brought up to believe that accepting the basic tenets of my religion, or at least trying to, was absolutely required for continued membership. Other people, and other denominations, see religious identity more in terms of tradition, history, ritual, family background, or ethnicity. This may be the way your friend tends to see her own religious identity—which makes plenty of sense given not only the many rich traditions of Judaism, many of which have little or nothing to do with dogma, but also the fact of the Holocaust, where nobody was asking about personal beliefs before they wiped out millions of people. Leah may think of you as a “secular Catholic”—a term which probably sounds like a contradiction in terms to you, as it does to me, at least as regards the American version of Catholicism. This is an issue you might want to explore with her—unless you are getting tired of the whole topic, which is also just fine.

As for your upcoming marriage, Leah’s response may have more to do with concern over your and your intended’s different cultural backgrounds, your families’ attitudes, and so on than with whether the two of you are likely to come to blows over the transubstantiation or the path to nirvana. So I would give her a bye on this one—unless she jumped right in with the “religious” differences question before asking you anything else about the wedding, or even congratulating you!

And as for the “mixed friendship” thing, is your friend simply saying, basically, that she’s Jewish and you’re not? This, of course, is true whether or not you are still a Catholic. But the phrase strikes me as overwrought and slightly off, as if the two of you are flying in the face of some norm instead of just, you know, hanging out. Context is everything here: was her remark part of some light banter after she’d referred to Mary as part of the Trinity or you’d ordered a blueberry bagel with lox and butter? Or did she raise the subject in a general way, one that would hint at her being more preoccupied than you’d like with religious difference? If the latter, that may be the real problem you and she have to work on, or cope with, or conceivably even split over, at some point in your lives.

I hope and trust not, though. Communication should work things out in time. In any case, you should probably not be worrying right now about any deeper implications of what she has been saying, much less discussing them. For the time being, just do what you can to get her to drop the subject until after you have gotten through the stress and excitement of your wedding. With luck, she will understand your annoyance and the issue will evaporate. Mazel tov!

Dear June,

I have a neighborly issue with my new neighbors—well, really a case of over-neighborliness. I’d be grateful for your advice.

My new neighbors moved in two months ago. They’re an established couple in their mid-twenties who have bought the house from his mother (it’s been in their family for generations). I’m very happy because they are nice, polite, helpful and responsible—all the things we like neighbors to be.

I had a bad experience with a new neighbor several years ago which forced me to relocate, so I’ve been keen to make a good impression and establish friendly terms from the off. Part of this has been putting their wheelie bin out front on bin night (here in the UK each household puts their rubbish in big plastic ‘wheelie bins’ which are emptied once a week). This is something the previous neighbors and I would do for each other on a ‘whoever gets there first’ basis, and I think it’s a great way to maintain good relations. The problem with the new neighbors is that I’ve realized it’s always me who does the bins (both out and back in). Week after week, when I can see they’re in and hear them coming and going, it’s always me. Recently he told me they’d do the same for me of course, but he also said he only ever remembers it’s bin night when he hears me doing it. In other words, I’ve inadvertently become the Bin Fairy for next door.

This probably sounds very petty, and more so when I say that she did me a favor early on by spotting that I’d left my keys in my front door on my way in. They have also been generous in loaning me decorating equipment, and of course I’d do any similar one-offs for them. But this kind of assumed role wasn’t part of the plan, and what gets me is that now I’ve been doing both bins so regularly I feel it would look odd and potentially unfriendly for me to put my own bin out/in but leave theirs. 

They’re a young couple and this is their first place together. They’ve rented here and there in the past, but have only had household responsibilities very briefly. Given the chance to establish a routine, I’m sure they would remember that Monday night is bin night and there would no longer be a problem: sometimes they’d do it, sometimes I’d do it. But as it stands nothing happens unless I do it, and I feel bad about doing mine but not theirs, even though theirs is often obstructed by stuff in their yard (which they might clear if they had to wheel their bin around it).

Do you have any suggestions about this, June? It sounds so silly (and I’ve essentially brought the situation on myself), but these little things can cause bad feeling and misunderstandings in the longer term. I’d basically like to either share the wheelie bin honors or just deal with my own (for all I know they might actually prefer to do it separately)—but I don’t know how to do this having established this precedent.

Many thanks,

—Bin There in Brighton

Dear Bin,

Can you bear to live with two weeks’ worth of wheelie rubbish buildup? If so, here’s what I suggest: skip next Monday, or the next Monday when you have minimal trash. (I hope it’s okay to call British rubbish “trash” now and again.) In the unlikely event that your neighbors rally round and take out both bins, thank them and inwardly and hope that they are starting to see the light about sharing—or getting better at remembering when trash day is.

If they don’t take out either bin, which of course is what I am betting on, write or call them on Tuesday and say that you’re sorry, that you totally forgot to put out the wheelies and it seems that they did, too. Then ask them if they’d mind if you each just dealt with your own bins from now on, because that way you’ll only have to worry about forgetting yours. Add that, if they need your help on any specific Monday, all they have to do is ask. If you want, you might also say something vaguely apologetic about having needlessly complicated matters by suggesting shared rubbish responsibility. If you discuss the situation in terms of avoiding confusion, I doubt that your neighbors will be at all upset or offended.

I’m not sure which form of communication would work best in your situation: phoning, or even chatting when you happen to meet, are obviously less formal than writing, and might seem friendlier. Writing, whether a paper note or an email or a rather long text, has the benefit of precision and predictability: you wouldn’t have to fret about being tactless or looking nervous or not making yourself clear. But if you’ve never written anything to them before, doing so now might make it seem as if you are chiding them. If all but the chummiest face-to-face contact makes you tense, and you worry that you might stammer or blurt out something silly or forget your point, try a very friendly note, especially if you and your neighbors have communicated this way before. Otherwise call them or knock on their door, or waylay them, after practicing your best rueful smile.

If your neighbors put out only their own bin on your experimental Monday—unlikely but possible—then, of course, you can and should resume putting out only yours, without further comment.

I wish I could come up with a solution that would involve no stress at all. But alas! If you feel uneasy at even the minor prospect of conflict resulting from my proposal, all you can do is just suck it up, as we say in the States, and keep taking out both bins.

Good luck with your neighbors and their rubbish. And please don’t worry about your problems being petty or “silly.” While it is true that we’re not talking about world peace here, we are talking about peace between neighbors, which can loom very large if you are one of them. I can understand your anxiety, especially given that you actually ended up relocating once before because of your neighbors. Feeling safe and calm at home is a big deal in this stressful world. Besides, one person’s minor annoyance can be another person’s calamity. I say this as a woman who once asked her journal whether anybody else had ever contemplated moving to another state and starting over because of a really bad situation with a carpool.

Thanks, and keep writing.

—June

ask-june-square-for-facebook-no-border-300pxCleaver’s in-house advice columnist opines on matters punctuational, interpersonal, and philosophical, spinning wit and literary wisdom in response to your ethical quandaries. Write to her at AskJune@Cleavermagazine.com. Find more columns by June in her attic.

 

La Wally is the nom de June of June Cleaver‘s adult daughter. In real life, she’s an artist and entrepreneur. What’s up with her name? In choosing a pseudonym, the two of them considered the names of the original Cleaver family offspring, both boys, but rejected “Beaver” for obvious reasons. “Wally” alone seemed too masculine and generally hideous. But “La Wally” brings to mind Catalani’s wonderful opera. Speaking of which, have you seen the movie Diva? You should.

 

Illustration credit: Charles 🇵🇭 on Unsplash

 

HAWAII IN LIVING COLOR: A Travel Essay by Ed Meek

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

HAWAII IN LIVING COLOR
A Travel Essay by Ed Meek

It took a good two weeks to adjust to returning to Boston from Hawaii. Not because of the time change—that only took a few days. It was the shift in the color spectrum that threw me. In Hawaii, it was the vivid blue sky and the turquoise ocean, the yellow pineapples and the pink hotel, the white ginger leis and the red hula skirts. Here in New England, we’re eternally evergreen with gray blue skies and dark blue seas, we live in white houses and wear dark suits. New England is beautiful, yes, but in a much more somber, subdued way.

My wife, sixteen-year-old son, and I spent ten days in Hawaii—five days on Oahu and five on Hawaii—what locals call the big island. This afforded us the range of what Hawaii has to offer—from the romantic chi-chi of Waikiki, to the spectacular sight of an active volcano sending gleaming lava into the Pacific.

View of ocean, beach, palm trees in Waikiki from a high balcony. In foreground, a pigeon

The first half of our vacation we spent on Oahu at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel also known as “the Pink Palace of the Pacific.” It is, as you might suspect, painted entirely in pink. The hotel employees wear pink. The bath towels are pink. Pink umbrellas float in orange Mai Thais. It’s a romantic kingdom rising out of the white sands and blue-green waters of Waikiki, where the ocean temperature was an inviting 80 degrees. Palm trees 100 hundred feet high cooled us like Persian satraps with their fronds waving in the wind. White pigeons greeted us in the morning when they perched on our balcony overlooking the beach where surfers rode four foot waves from 6 am till dusk. The long sloping beach was so different from the quick drop-offs of the New England shoreline, meaning a good surfer could ride a wave for more than 100 yards. At the end of the beach stood craggy Diamond Head, reminding us of the volcanic origins of all the Hawaiian Islands.

Flying to Hawaii from the continental United States, you gain six hours, so it doesn’t take much time to recover from the flight. We arrived late in the afternoon and, following a good night’s sleep, were ready to go. But, since this was just about the most beautiful beach the three of us had ever seen, we didn’t go far for the first couple of days. We wandered down to a sumptuous breakfast buffet with luscious pineapples and papayas, bacon and eggs, Kona coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice.

We body-surfed, swam and floated, and read beside the pool. At night, we had cheeseburgers, ahi and ono sandwiches and tropical drinks at the hotel’s casual outdoor bar and restaurant while we watched the sizzling sun take a well-deserved dip in the ocean. On the second day, my wife went shopping in the giant mall next to the hotel while my son and I took surfing lessons. With the help of a native Hawaiian surfer we were soon riding long boards on the smaller two-foot waves. When we’d conquered those, our instructor took us out to the bigger, three-or-four-foot swells. It was definitely fun, and all you needed was a surfboard. There were no ski pants, jackets, googles, helmets, boots, skis, snowboards, and no tickets.

On the third day, we hooked up with one of my wife’s college friends—a woman who was originally from Oahu and who had recently moved back to Hawaii from Cambridge, Massachusetts. She took us on a whirlwind island tour first to the top of Diamond Head and up the windward coast to the Pali Lookout, where Kamehameha, the original founder and ruler of Hawaii, drove thousands of his Hawaiian enemies off the cliffs in 1795 to unite the islands under his rule. Then we drove down to Kaneohe Bay, where another spectacular beach beckoned us to swim and snorkel.

On the fourth day, we visited the Iolani Palace and learned the history of Hawaii’s tumultuous relationship with the continental United States. We had forgotten that Hawaii wasn’t granted statehood until after World War Two.

During the nights, we trolled the streets of Waikiki. They were jammed with American and Japanese tourists; local wide-bodied Samoyans; beautiful dark-skinned, dark-eyed Hawaiians with long black hair; and skinny, long-haired refugees from the sixties that looked like hippies. It was a wild scene. By the fifth day we were ready to get away from the crowds.

We flew to the Big Island where we were to meet up with a group from an active tour company called Backroads, a U.S. based outfit that leads tours for families and adults all over the world. We had three guides leading four families—18 people total.

View of hikers on Hamakua Ditch Trail from below

We began the tour at the Parker Ranch, one of the biggest cattle ranches in the United States, and then we took our bikes (provided by the tour company) and rode from along the tree covered Mamalahoa Highway and all the way out to Laupahoehoe Point State Park on the coast. There were highland prairies on one side with monkey paw trees, and on the other side dramatic cliffs dropping down to the sapphire blue ocean. Biking was and still is the best way to see a place.

From the coast, we loaded the bikes onto the vans and drove up to Volcano Park to spend two nights at the funky and somewhat musty Volcano House, a hotel located right next to the Kilauea Caldera, a crater that sits atop the most active volcano in the world. Kilauea is a shield volcano, which means that the crater is shaped like an inverted shield composed of a combination of smooth and crumbly lava called pahoehoe and a’a. This makes for a truly, otherworldly moonscape. Steam vents reminded us of the hot lava two miles beneath the surface of the earth. In the morning, we were given a tour of the Caldera by a volcanologist who led us from there into a lava tube—a tunnel formed by an eruption. After, we biked around the ten-mile loop that encircled the immense Caldera.

The next day we pedaled down from the volcano to the southernmost point in the United States and on up the west coast past the site of Captain Cook’s demise to Keauhou Kona where the famous coffee is grown. At the beach next to the hotel there was good snorkeling above coral just offshore where multicolored angelfish and blue tangs swam with giant sea turtles.

That night, after dinner, we drove south to Kau Loa Point where we walked out over the smooth and wrinkled black lava field from the 1950 eruption, to a site 300 yards beyond the point where, from cliffs overlooking the ocean, we could watch gleaming hot lava flow down from Kilauea and right out of the cliffs—what locals call the witch’s nose—into the ocean where the lava sizzled and crackled and hissed hot gas into the air until it was swallowed by the relentless waves. This is a sight best seen at night and a fierce reminder of what simmers at 2000 degrees two miles beneath the surface of the earth.

The next day we met with a local kayak tour guide who outfitted us in sea kayaks and led us two miles down the coast to a secluded point where we went cliff-diving. There were jumps of 10, 20, and 30 feet for the daring. The water is so clear that the rocks beneath the surface, although they are 15 to 290 feet down, are entirely visible, adding to the challenge of cliff-diving.

That afternoon we took the van northeast to continue around the island and spend the last two nights at the beautiful Fairmont Orchid resort on the Kohala coast. Here we found, amidst a lava field, perfectly manicured golf links and giant interconnecting swimming pools surrounded by palm trees. That night we swam in the pool and stared up at the stars through the swaying palms.

On the last day, we drove back north and hiked into the Waipio Valley. After two hours of hiking through bamboo groves, the trail emerges at the upper rim of the valley, where a 200 foot waterfall runs down to a stream on the valley floor. Continuing on the trail, we reached a point from which we could see the ocean 30 miles away between the mountains. We had lunch on a knoll, a short walk from where a landslide had wiped out the trail.

The next morning, we flew back to Oahu and from there we went on home to Boston, where the longing for the vivid Hawaiian hues was disheartening. Nonetheless, a rare experience in our age of hype, Hawaii lived up to, even exceeded our expectations.

Ed MeekEd Meek is the author of Luck (short stories) and Spy Pond (poems). Follow him on Twitter @emeek.

ASK JUNE: Accountin’ for Writing’ and the Untidy Neighbor

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Little girl behind teddy bear, shallow focus

Dear June,

 When I was in my late twenties, I quit my job as a C.P.A. to write fiction. The plan was to spend a year or so banging out a brilliant literary novel, and then see what happened. In the four years that followed I learned that writing a brilliant literary novel was harder than I had anticipated. I also got married to my longtime companion and had a kid. I never did go back to my Big Four firm; nowadays I spend most mornings either working on the damn novel or doing a smattering of freelance accounting work from my home office, and most afternoons and evenings with my daughter. Although I am still hoping to be a successful writer some day, I am basically satisfied with my life, and so is my husband. But I have a problem with many of my friends and family, who keep telling me that I am not following my feminist ideals and not living up to my promise.

They also ask me when I am going to start working again. Sometimes I detect a hint of accusation in their question, as if I am some sort of parasite. Other times what I detect sounds more like pity, as if I am some poor sequestered hausfrau. But even when the question is probably totally neutral, it makes me crazy. What do they think I am doing?

—Livid in Larchmont

Dear Livid,

Let’s take your friends’ and family’s obnoxious attitudes in order:

Not following your feminist ideals. Where I come from, which is a land of many marches and much reading and even some legal activism, one of feminism’s basic tenets is that sexism and gender-based discrimination should not restrict anybody’s freedom. With the possible exception of one or two long-discredited articles from the 1980s, there’s nothing I know of in feminist theory about having to spend your life in a Big Four firm (although I think it was Big Six, or even Eight, back then), even if you’d very much rather not, just because fancy accounting firms used to be mostly white-male-only. It sounds to me as if you are living the way you want to live, and that—unless your free-lance employers are villains of some sort—none of your three occupations runs counter to any feminist ideal I can conjure up. I award you the June Seal of Approval, and hope it helps.

Not living up to your promise. Oh, for God’s sake. Unless your promise was to make pots of money, it sounds to me as if you are doing just fine. You have a child, a spouse who seems to agree with you about what matters (I’m extrapolating), and enough economic security in your family to spend time with your daughter and do creative work. You are keeping your hand in as an accountant while caring for a young child, which seems like a perfectly fine work-family balance to me.

And you are working on a novel, which is a brave and generous act. If you complete your novel and it is a critical or popular success, I doubt whether many of those annoying friends and family members you describe will say you have not lived up to your promise. But even if what you produce is a good but unpopular, or unpublishable, novel, that’s still wonderful. In fact, even if all you produce is simply an honest effort, maybe not so good, maybe impossible to complete, you should still be proud. You had the courage and imagination to try

Besides, it sounds as if you’re not even thirty-five yet. Anything you are doing now could be preparing you for great accomplishments, in literature or finance or something altogether different. Not that it has to. Living a good life is more than enough.

Asking when you will be going back to work. As you and I both know, you are working three jobs right now. There’s your part-time accounting work. And then you have your child care and your writing, each of which can be full-time, even overtime, jobs in themselves, as when your daughter gets sick or you have a writing workshop deadline or your kid keeps you up until five with night terrors and then you wake up at five-thirty trembling with embarrassment over a story you just sent out, and can’t get back to sleep until you reread it.

I suppose some of your friends and family may not know, or remember, how much time it takes to raise a child and care for a home. And they may never understand the extent to which you value and enjoy the contributions you can make to your family life by spending more time at home.

Even the people who do get it about parenting may have no idea how hard it is, and how much time it takes most people, to write fiction, or understand that you take your writing very seriously and see it as more than a sideline. (Since you are a C.P.A., I assume that at least some of your friends are, too. Remember that these people live and breathe our tax structure, which treats jobs as hobbies if they fail to produce significant income.)

Other people in your circle probably do have a basic understanding that your various pursuits—as an aspiring novelist, a part-time accountant working from home, and a stay-at-home mom—all require effort and are “work” in that sense; but those same people may nevertheless believe that working full-time outside the home and being on some accounting-firm’s fast track is the “real work.” These folks probably place a higher value than you do on conventional success and status, salary, economic security, and so on—so they tend to assume that a new parent with a professional degree should return to using it full-time as soon as possible in order to maximize their earning potential and keep their competitive edge. You have other values, and that’s more than fine.

I hate to say this, but some of your friends and family may resent that you are doing what you enjoy; or they may have some visceral sense that, if you are doing what you want, and enjoying it, and not making very much money at it, what you do can’t really count as “work,” which requires either a regular salary, or at least a certain amount of unhappiness and aversion. (Kant and a lot of the more dismal old Protestants extend that idea to all of ethics: being good doesn’t really count if it’s what you’d do anyway, duty or no duty. So you are fighting a strong current.)

Having just explained how wrongheaded and small-minded some of your friends and family may be, I still want to remind you that many people who ask when you plan to return to work often mean no harm and intend no judgment: they simply define “work” as paid activity. This is especially true in the case of stay-at-home parenting. Many people, including feminist stay-at-home moms who deeply value the path they’ve taken, talk about “going back to work” after full-time parenting. I wish they wouldn’t, but I believe that the word usage in their case is almost always purely semantic, and implies no judgment about the value of parenting or unpaid work generally, or the effort involved in doing it.

But even these benign souls could use a little educating. Connotations matter. So when people ask you when you are going to start working again, I suggest answering them—mildly if they seem innocent, and more trenchantly if you suspect some snark—by saying that, for the foreseeable future, you plan to keep working at home on all your jobs: the writing, the accounting, AND the mothering. Tell them that it is a challenging life, but that you find it more fulfilling than spending hours commuting into town and then working full-time at the least favorite of your three current careers.

I also like the way you respond in your letter. When they deserve it and you think you can get away with it, why not just say: “Working? What do you think I’m doing now?”

Annoying friends and family aside, your life strikes me as quite satisfactory. But I do wonder whether you need to be on guard against letting these people get inside your head. I also worry that in some cases you may be projecting doubts and insecurities of your own onto other people, perhaps reading too much into innocent questions and imagining some of that supposed pity and disapproval.

So ask yourself: Are you internalizing what people say and imply, or even reading too much into their questions because of doubts of your own? Your reference to the “damn novel” worries me a little—are you losing interest in the book, or confidence in your ability to finish it? As for your working from home instead of going out to a more traditional, better-paying accounting job, might you feel defensive sometimes even when nobody is implying anything negative about your work situation?

As long as you are doing what you want, and what seems best for you and your family, you certainly do not have to answer to anybody outside it. But you should be vigilant about not sabotaging yourself, doubting your abilities, or slipping into patterns or activities that you yourself don’t find worthwhile or congenial. Give these issues a ponder or two and if you find cause for concern, try talking about it to trusted friends, fellow writers, fellow feminists and moms, maybe a counselor.

Best of luck with the kid, the novel, the accounts, and those vexing friends and family members.

LA WALLY SAYS:

How many of these people are actual moms? If she is happy and her husband and kids are happy, just tell people that. Ask them what they mean by “work.” Try to act interested and not pissed off. Maybe they will learn something.


Dear June,

My next-door neighbor never pays attention to anything, and it really shows in the way he keeps up his house. He does the usual minimum things, like mowing the lawn and shoveling the snow and raking the leaves, and when things get really desperate with his trees or gutters or house paint he will have somebody come and deal with it. But his place just looks shabby and untidy. 

About two weeks ago I did a little experiment, and tossed three pieces of litter next to his mailbox, including a beer bottle. So far he has done absolutely nothing to pick them up and get rid of them, even though I have actually seen him collect his mail. It’s true that he usually gets his mail just by pulling his car up to the mailbox before he drives into the garage, but if he made any effort at all to inspect the area he could certainly see the litter.

What should I do? Should I ring his doorbell and point out that the trash has been sitting there for two weeks or more? Should I tell him about my little experiment, in hopes that this will make a stronger impression on him? I don’t like living next to the least attractive house in our neighborhood.

—Tidy in Tidewater

Dear Tidytide,

I wish I could tell you that your letter arrived in the same batch as one from a man who was perplexed when he saw his next-door neighbor skitter up to his mailbox and drop three pieces of trash there for no apparent reason. But alas.

I think what you should do is go clean up the litter yourself. Just stroll by your neighbor’s mailbox, notice the trash, and pick it up. And I guess it would be fine if he observed you doing so; it might even make him more likely to clean up after himself in the future, what with seeing somebody else picking up his trash, and all. But wait, it’s not his trash, is it?

From what you write it seems as if your neighbor’s untidiness or shabbiness does not rise to the level where you or your homeowners’ association or anybody else has the right to make an issue of it. I suspect that this is why you acted surreptitiously, which is a really unappealing way to act.

If I were you, I would try to stop thinking about your neighbor and direct your attention almost anywhere else. Volunteer. Sing. Go out with your friends. If you just can’t take your mind off residential exteriors, work on your own house and yard instead of obsessing about his. (Many adages and biblical quotations are springing to mind now, but I will spare us both.) Maybe your goal should be to make your own house the most attractive in the neighborhood, with the collateral effect of distracting passersby from the unattractiveness lying in wait just next door.

I advise against talking to your neighbor, partly because I am not sure what you would say, other than “Can’t you do better?” And I certainly would not tell him about your experiment. Your neighbor might find this mean-spirited and a little crazy.

LA WALLY SAYS:

If it is that big a deal to her, I guess she could write him a note and pretend it is to all the neighbors, or maybe actually send it to all the neighbors, about keeping the neighborhood pretty. Otherwise leave him alone.

ask-june-square-for-facebook-no-border-300pxCleaver’s in-house advice columnist opines on matters punctuational, interpersonal, and philosophical, spinning wit and literary wisdom in response to your ethical quandaries. Write to her at AskJune@Cleavermagazine.com. Find more columns by June in her attic.

 

La Wally is the nom de June of June Cleaver‘s adult daughter. In real life, she’s an artist and entrepreneur. What’s up with her name? In choosing a pseudonym, the two of them considered the names of the original Cleaver family offspring, both boys, but rejected “Beaver” for obvious reasons. “Wally” alone seemed too masculine and generally hideous. But “La Wally” brings to mind Catalani’s wonderful opera. Speaking of which, have you seen the movie Diva? You should.

 

Illustration credit: Максим Власенко on Unsplash

ASK JUNE: The Bailing Grandma and the Forbidden Love Lover

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

person in bed clutching eyeglasses

Dear June,

My mother is a wonderful person, kind and smart and fun to be with. So I was really happy when my husband took a tenured position at a college near the town where I grew up and my mom still lives, even though the move was not so great for my own career. My kids, seven and nine, adore her, and so do Jason and I.

One of the things I like best about her is that she has always known how to take advantage of the world around her, finding out about great things to see and do and sharing her enthusiasm with others. Since I moved back she and I have been going out to the theater or other cultural events about once a week. Or we used to. Lately she keeps biting off more than she can chew, so I find that she is constantly inviting me to things, or accepting my invitations, and then begging off at the last minute. I have to say that, as far as I know, she never cancels because a better opportunity has come up. She always makes good on any financial loss, like nonrefundable tickets or a babysitter’s cancellation fee. And she always offers to give me both tickets if she is the one who paid. But it is still disappointing.

What usually happens is that, at some point on the day of the event, often just two or three hours before we’re set to leave, she will call and say that she has a bit of a cold, or a touch of some bug, or realizes that she did too much that morning or the day before, and just isn’t up to it.

Since I have little kids and a spouse who often works late, setting up these evenings is not always easy. And by the time she calls it is almost always too late to arrange something with another friend, or get a sitter if my husband is home and free to go with me (i.e., no homework help needed, no school projects, no youth sports, no taxes, home work or urgent laundry to do). Sometimes I go to the event alone, which I don’ t much like, but usually I stay home.

It is getting so she cancels more often than not. Any advice?

—Puzzled in Piermont

Dear Puz,

I wish you had told me more about your mom’s health and stamina. I suppose she may be a hypochondriac, or have poor time-management skills, or just have had a run of bad luck, but it seems more likely that she and her immune system are slowing down, or that she has a medical condition. The same outgoing spirit and joie de vivre that have always made her so much fun as a companion may be making her unduly optimistic about how much fun she can actually handle.

So, first things first: how much do you know about your mom’s state of health? Is she getting good medical care? Find out what you can, and try to make sure that she is seeing the right providers, and that she isn’t understating her symptoms and their recent effects on her life. She may have some very simple health issue, like a vitamin deficiency or endocrine imbalance that can be controlled with medication. Or she may have a more serious problem. Changes in overall vitality and susceptibility to infections should be looked into, no matter what one’s age.

Second things second: how to handle the cancellations themselves? It would be great if your mom did turn out to have a highly treatable medical problem. But life is rarely that simple. Your mom may be getting more frail and tiring more easily as she ages. Or she may have a chronic illness and be in denial about it, or trying to spare you. If—whatever the reason—your mom keeps cancelling on you, I can see why you would find the situation annoying. Even so, I would go very easy on her. Try not to sound angry or exasperated when she calls. I get the sense that this planning and anticipation are an important part of her relationship with you and her engagement with the world, and that discouraging them could adversely affect her sense of well-being and even her health. Besides, what would you say? You could perhaps talk to her in a general way about avoiding situations where she gets tired from having been too active earlier in the day, or the day before, and then having to cancel something she would probably rather have done. You could certainly call her a couple days before any specific event, and remind her to rest up. But, as for those recurrent “bugs” and “colds,” you can hardly tell her to stop getting sick, or to go out even if she feels terrible.

The worst “solution,” I think, would be to make fewer plans with her. I am a great believer in the benefits of even misplaced optimism. (In fact, I often wish I could drum up some for myself.)

Instead of scheduling fewer events, you might take the lead in scheduling somewhat different ones. Propose nights out (or in) that make her less likely to cancel, or that make you more likely to have a good time even if she does. You might suggest a restaurant dinner followed by a movie on HBO at her place: if she is feeling poorly, you can still bring her takeout and maybe still watch the movie. Include a mutual friend in your plans from time to time, so that if your mom cancels you will still have a companion. (You might even ask your husband on occasion.) When you can, steer your mom toward events that are easy to cancel or postpone, or that you’d be less likely to mind attending alone.

If you have a very flexible, and understanding friend, you could ask him or her to be on call for certain events you’d hate to miss but don’t want to attend unaccompanied. This arrangement could work well for plays or concerts with expensive or hard-to-get tickets, especially if the deal is that your friend goes for free, and maybe gets a dinner out of it.

We had a similar situation in my family, where one of my elderly aunts (the cool, Bohemian aunt) was forever making and cancelling elaborate, ambitious plans. It turned out that she had a very serious illness and all that event-scheduling had been a kind of whistling in the dark. I admired her pluck. Her son and daughter both found it a bit annoying, though, even after her diagnosis. But then again, I lived 200 miles away and didn’t have to deal with the situation—and perhaps, since she was my aunt and not my mother, I was more willing to accept how sick she was.

Good luck. It must be frustrating to cope with so much uncertainty, especially when your life already pulls you in several directions. But try to be patient. Your mother obviously thinks that it’s worth hoping against hope, making plans she may not be able to keep and paying for tickets she can’t always use, just for a chance to spend time with you and share activities she thinks you will both enjoy. I can tell how much you love and admire her. The next time she makes you crazy, think about how kind and smart and fun she is. She won’t be around to cancel on you forever.

P.S. La Wally and I read your letter a bit differently: she assumed that your main concern was missing out on precious time with your mother, while I though you wrote mostly out of frustration over all the wasted effort and missed events. I have to admit that La Wally’s interpretation is equally plausible, and more generous-minded.

La Wally says:

Has she spoken to her mom about it? She should tell her mom how important it is that they spend time together, and tell her to be especially careful not to do too much on days when they have plans. If her mom needs to stay home but does not just want to go to bed, the daughter should go over there to keep her company and take care of her. That way they can still enjoy each other’s company, just the two of them.

Dear June,

For almost three years, off and on, I have been seeing “Bryce,” the man I think of as the love of my life. Since the day I met him—I was dating his brother at the time, and had come to spend Thanksgiving at his family’s house—I have been totally smitten by him and, when things are good with us, I have never felt more delighted by another person. Or better understood.

He really gets me, as they say. But he keeps getting entangled with other women. First it was one of my housemates, then his TA, then a woman twice our age who is married to one of his college mentors. And there have been more.

It is true that Bryce has never explicitly said that he and I have an exclusive relationship. But he implies it all the time—partly by the way he sneaks around, and then acts all sheepish and ashamed when I do find out what he has been up to, but mostly by his constantly talking about how special and unique our relationship is. He says we have a true meeting of minds. He also says that he has never felt an attraction to anyone like the one he has for me. But then I will find out that he has gotten into yet another scrape.

We had been doing well for about six months. Then, about three weeks ago, that former housemate of mine let me know that Bryce had been sleeping with her again, and had given her the impression that he was no longer with me. I confronted him, went ballistic, and said I never wanted to see him again. Packed up his gifts and the few things of his he used to leave here and shipped them to his place. Blocked, erased, and otherwise completely avoided him.

I confess that I did read the stack of paper letters he mailed me begging for forgiveness, making promises, and praising me. I was trying to convince myself to stop even doing that when he ambushed me in front of my apartment last week and proposed to me! He had some family ring and a bouquet of my favorite flowers. He went down on one knee, the whole bit. This took the air out of me, and I just stood there passively until he grabbed my arm at the elbow and walked me across the street, where there is a little park with stone benches. He sat me down and told me that my kicking him out had made him realize how crucial I was to him, and that he wanted us to embark on the “great adventure of state-sanctioned monogamy.” He talked about how he had been mulling this over ever since I confronted him. He’d thought about what I had said (most of which I can’t actually remember), and even consulted the experts, including his happily-married parents and Martin Luther. He talked about how Kierkegaard believed that erotic love could never be fully expressed outside of marriage. He even talked about kids. He told me that he has never believed in making vows he could not keep, and that he takes marriage vows very seriously indeed. He said that he felt as if he had finally grown up.

I told him that, for my part, I felt as if had been hit by a truck, and needed some time. But I have no idea what to do. Bryce is all I have ever wanted—if I could trust him. What do you think I should do? Would I be crazy to take him back and move in with him officially, even marry him? Could marrying him be the best way to hold onto him?

—Smitten in New Britain

Dear Smitty,

You might have a better chance of holding onto him if you married his brother. Or maybe his best friend, or boss. From what you’ve told me, Bryce thrives on forbidden love. He seems to love the thrill of violating taboos, breaking down other people’s resistance, and risking discovery. Although I suppose it is possible that he really does see marriage as representing a clear break with the past, giving rise to a whole new reality with new priorities and even new desires, I would not bet on it.

Bryce may be sincere now. After all, your dumping him gave you what, to Bryce, is a woman’s greatest attraction: you became unattainable, or close enough to it to get his juices flowing and ramp up his philosophical reference skills. But even if he is not currently making promises he already knows he can’t keep, think about how little effect social norms have had on him in the past—how, in fact, going against these norms is a pattern and may be a compulsion. In the three years you have been seeing him he has betrayed his mentor, stolen his brother’s girlfriend, taken advantage of a work subordinate (his T.A.), and persuaded one woman to cheat on her husband and another to deceive her housemate. And lied to you about most of it. Transgression excites this man, and being married or otherwise publicly monogamous might just add the thrill.

I strongly suspect that, if you two did start publicly and exclusively cohabiting, or even if you actually made it to the altar, Bryce’s promises would eventually become just another taboo he could not resist violating. (Do you ever wonder what he would have thought of you if you hadn’t been dating his brother?) This might happen right away: I can easily imagine his spicing up his own wedding with a “heart wants what it wants” episode triggered by some young cousin-bridesmaid. Or he might maintain his enthusiasm and sense of duty for months or even years, while still flush with conscious purpose and moral fervor—revived, perhaps, if you have a kid. But do you really think you can count on him to stay with you over the long haul?

And are you sure that this guy understands you in ways nobody else does? Some people, and some lovers, are great listeners and better talkers because, while they are with you, you are the only person in the world. The problem is that—whether from a sincere hyper-focus on the present, or from a conscious plan to charm or seduce—they often have a similar effect on everybody they find desirable and happen to be with. Bryce may be one of these people: many womanizers are. You should consider this possibility while trying to reconcile his history of deception and wide-ranging sexual activity with the “special” understanding and delight the two of you enjoy when you’re together.

I can only imagine how hard it must be to resist when the man of your dreams proposes, complete with flowers and a ring, to say nothing of philosophy. But grand gestures are easy. Slogging through life is what’s hard—and while it is possible that your finally standing up to Bryce has led to deep reflection and true conversion, it strikes me as more likely that Bryce can’t bear to lose you but may not, realistically, be able give you the honest, monogamous relationship I assume you want.

If your letter had asked for simple thumbs up or down, mine would have turned down, with gusto. But you seem convinced that Bryce is The One, or would be if he cleaned up his act, and you seem quite willing to give him a chance: your final question was about how best to hold onto him, not whether trying to would be a good idea.

My advice, therefore, is that you SERIOUSLY consider giving this guy the boot once and for all; but that, if you can’t or won’t dump him, you take things slowly. Evaluate his sincerity and purpose over time, and get plenty of counseling. By “counseling” I mean help from professionals, for each of you and for you as a couple. I do not mean talking only to each other, or relying on great thinkers from past centuries. Kierkegaard, by the way, is probably not the best guide you and Bryce could choose: after giving a 19th-Century philosopher’s version of the “It’s not you, it’s me” speech, he broke it off with his fiancée and remained single all his life, writing vividly about despair. His ringing endorsement of marriage was: “Marry or don’t marry, you’ll regret it either way.” And don’t even get me started on Luther. It’s true that he was a big fan of married nuns and clergy, and had a stable happy marriage to an ex-nun. But he also believed that women were created for the “precious and godly” task of bearing children, so I would give him a miss, too, and concentrate on exploring whether you can trust Bryce to be honest with you, and whether he can resist further dangerous liaisons.

La Wally says:

I would not marry him right away or move in with him either. I would tell him exactly what kind of relationship I want, which sounds like it means being exclusive and honest. Frankly, he does not sound all that great. So maybe he is not really The One, even if there is such a thing.

ask-june-square-for-facebook-no-border-300pxCleaver’s in-house advice columnist opines on matters punctuational, interpersonal, and philosophical, spinning wit and literary wisdom in response to your ethical quandaries. Write to her at AskJune@Cleavermagazine.com. Find more columns by June in her attic.

 

La Wally is the nom de June of June Cleaver‘s adult daughter. In real life, she’s an artist and entrepreneur. What’s up with her name? In choosing a pseudonym, the two of them considered the names of the original Cleaver family offspring, both boys, but rejected “Beaver” for obvious reasons. “Wally” alone seemed too masculine and generally hideous. But “La Wally” brings to mind Catalani’s wonderful opera. Speaking of which, have you seen the movie Diva? You should.

 

Illustration credit:  twinsfisch on Unsplash

FROM PLAY TO PERIL AND BEYOND: HOW WRITING CONSTRAINTS UNLEASH TRUER TRUTHS, A Nonfiction Craft Essay by Jeannine Ouellette

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

FROM PLAY TO PERIL AND BEYOND: HOW WRITING CONSTRAINTS UNLEASH TRUER TRUTHS
A Nonfiction Craft Essay by Jeannine Ouellette

silhouette of children playing on a hill

“There is neither painting, nor sculpture, nor music, nor poetry. The only truth is creation.”

~Umberto Boccioni, Italian painter and sculptor

Writers seek truth—truth that makes a reader’s hair stand up and speeds our hearts with recognition. But that kind of truth is elusive, both from the perspective of craft and brain science. I spent two decades unable to write an essential truth of my own life, one rooted in my childhood, during which I experienced several years of sexual abuse by my stepfather, beginning when I was four. Not surprisingly, this experience shaped the person I am—and, as a writer, I sensed the importance of weaving this early trauma into some kind of narrative. But my attempts to do so were consistently ineffective and inartistic. Dreadful, really.

So, I wrote other things. From my twenties through my forties, I published narrative journalism, a couple of nonfiction books, a children’s book, plus dozens of essays. Some essays were intimate and a handful took risks. But this one true thing tugged—and persistently evaded me. The problem wasn’t the material itself, which was neither buried nor inaccessible. The problem was my inability to transform it. In print, my life started around age twenty. Meanwhile, that blocked childhood truth coursed beneath, like an undertow that kept my writing from its full potential.

Writing constraints help us discover the truth rather than recite it.

The turning point came in 2010, when I was working full-time as a Waldorf teacher and impulsively enrolled in a three-week writing workshop with Paul Matthews, a Waldorf mentor and author of several books of poetry and two craft books, Sing Me the Creation and Words in Place. Paul teaches writing with constraints—a literary technique that involves requiring or forbidding certain elements, or juxtaposing various incongruities, or imposing one or more patterns. Constraints are so common in poetry that you need only think of the rules for sonnets or sestinas or villanelles to understand how they work. But as a writer of prose—at the time, primarily nonfiction—my first response to Paul’s workshop was alarm. His lectures were riveting, but his prompts were preposterous. Many were collaborative and involved “activities.” We made up nonsense languages. Spoke to plants. Wrote nursery rhymes in iambic pentameter. We blindfolded ourselves and tossed beanbags back and forth as a means of wordless communication.

If I had, that first day, been seated closer to the door, I’d have run through it. I was a “serious writer,” there to write, not babble. I was not near the door though, and that was lucky. Because my writing began waking up almost immediately in all kinds of exciting ways. First, I laughed more than I had in years. I entered into what the comedic actor and creative genius John Cleese heralds as the most essential condition for creativity—“open mode”—a loose, playful state of mind most easily achieved through laughter. Second, and this is related to the laughing, I learned invaluable craft lessons, including the paradox that if I wanted to write dark and serious things, I needed to lighten up. I needed to play.

◊

Playfulness, Paul told us, is the portal to the profound: the English word “silly” comes from the German selig—which means, according to the Babylon German-English Dictionary, soulful, full of feeling, blessed, late, deceased. These opposites work synergistically. As eighteenth-century philosopher Frederich Schiller wrote in his aesthetic letters, “Humans are fully human only when we play, and we only play when we are human in the fullest sense of the word.” Schiller also said art belongs in the same realm of total freedom as play. Both offer the possibility of becoming childlike, of losing ourselves in experience and—according to Matthews—“healing the division in our consciousness.”

My problem is that I am quite unnerved by free, undefined play. The same is true for most people who have endured childhood trauma. But even the untraumatized are not exempt. Most adults experience at least some discomfort in the face of a game with unfamiliar rules—or worse yet, a game with no rules. We shrink back from the innate risk of freedom. Twelfth-century troubadours in the South of France understood this risk. They played a literary question and answer game called the jeu-parti—the divided game. From this root comes our English word “jeopardy,” meaning danger. What an idea! That in the midst of word play we might be confronted by a real question, a creative risk, a jeopardy, to be faced directly or shied away from. According to Paul Matthews, such moments almost always hold the hidden question: Who are you?  What could be scarier—or richer—than that?

Paul’s workshop gave me my first glimpse of what my failed childhood stories were missing, which was joy. Of course, more joy in the process of writing doesn’t—and probably shouldn’t—turn an incest story into a comedic romp. But more joy in the writing will leak into the work. It will add light, not in a way that diffuses the story’s darker truths, but illuminates them more completely, slanting them in a way that surprises us even as we write. This slant, as Emily Dickinson understood, makes all the difference. After all, if I tell exactly the story I’ve set out to tell, I’ve failed. The truer story exists somewhere outside the margins of consciousness. Writing constraints help us discover the truth rather than recite it.

This theory also underlies the work of the Oulipo, the French “workshop of potential literature.” The Oulipo is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians founded in 1960. They create works using constrained techniques, and define potential literature as “the seeking of new structures and patterns which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy.” Note the emphasis on new and patterns and enjoy. The group advocates the use of severe, self-imposed limitations during the creative process, seeing themselves as “rats who construct the labyrinth from which they propose to escape.” One of the most famous members of the Oulipo, Italo Calvino, wrote an entire 300-page novel without the letter “e.” The Oulipo is recognized as one of the most original, productive, and provocative literary enterprises to appear in the past century.

◊

As for me, the more I experimented with constrained writing, the more I came to see its value. Still, I wondered why devices like writing constraints are so useful for accessing sharper angles on certain truths, even in cases when those truths are not particularly traumatic or difficult to tell. The answer stems from brain science, which confirms a sad fact: we’re wired to see and say (and write) the same versions of our various stories over and over, even if those versions are not essentially true—or interesting. Meanwhile, the big truths about our own lives march by unrecognized. The simple term for this is “confirmation bias,” a deep and debilitating hardwiring against seeing virtually anything we haven’t already pictured or that we don’t expect to see.

One of my favorite sources for understanding this conundrum is the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, which explores the dichotomy between our two modes of thought: “System 1” and “System 2.” System 1 is fast, instinctive and emotional. It’s the system we use the vast majority of the time. System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and logical, the system required for solving calculus problems and working out difficult code. System 2 is taxing, and we avoid it; it raises our heartrate and makes us sweat, so we default to System 1. But there’s a hack for getting past System 1’s hold on us. All we have to do is intentionally engage System 2, which effectively disables System 1 and thereby allows us to see beyond our pre-existing beliefs.

Constraints are like puzzles. We use System 2 to solve them, which quiets System 1, and suddenly, as if by magic, we write something newer and truer.

This is exactly how writing constraints work. Constraints are like puzzles. We use System 2 to solve them, which quiets System 1, and suddenly, as if by magic, we write something newer and truer.

◊

One of my literary heroes, the poet and memoirist Nick Flynn, writes and teaches with constraints. In 2005, he described his process in an interview with the University of Arizona Poetry Center:

Well, when I’m walking in a strange city I have this ritual, which is to find three bits of ephemera, usually scraps of paper, usually something torn from advertisements, or maybe a ticket stub, or discarded cigarette pack, trash really, but it has to have some element in it that catches my eye, that interests me, or reminds me of something. I like pages torn from children’s notebooks a lot, with drawings on them, though they don’t always mix well with other images. Once I find one it might determine what comes next, one that somehow either adds to the one I already have or else works against it, creating some tension or juxtaposition, though if it feels too limiting, I’ll throw it away and start over. Eventually, over the course of a day, I’ll settle on the three scraps of paper, and then I’ll force myself to make a collage. I make a collage a day, always from only three scraps, because anything more becomes chaos, and I try to only use things I found that day, and to date the final collage, also finding the “canvas,” usually a weathered piece of cardboard, a technique I learned from Bill Traylor. So I have to carry a glue stick, or buy it in a stationary store once I land, which is even better, because I like stationary stores, especially in other countries. I write the same way.

I write that way, too—or I have since studying with Paul Matthews. I first tested the methods soon after Paul’s workshop, in a memoir class at the University of Minnesota, when we were asked to write a scene from childhood. Totally frozen, I gave myself a restrictive constraint using Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood—a book that beautifully chronicles a sunny childhood vastly different from my own. I opened Dillard’s book randomly to page 185 and forced myself to copy her sentences, replacing Dillard’s words with my own, part of speech for part of speech and syllable for syllable. I quickly gave up on the syllables, but stuck to the parts of speech until I bent that rule also, before finally tossing off the rules altogether when I realized that the first line of the exercise had altered my whole story, shifted it what Nick Flynn calls “five degrees to the left.”

Previously, I’d always viewed the abuse I experienced as a child through a lens trained on my stepfather and my mother. But when I revised Dillard’s first sentence, “The boys were changing,” to “My sister was changing,” and, later, to, “Mary is changing,” my lens focused itself more clearly on the world of the child. That shift was fundamental to unsticking my stuck story and opening it up in unexpected ways. I continued the piece, which I called “Tumbleweeds,” long after the class was over, forcing myself to include several new and incongruous elements, such as fragments of the text of Jimmy Carter’s 1977 inaugural address, facts about the breeding and parenting behavior of the Western Meadowlark, the botany of tumbleweeds, the myth of the jackalope, and the archetype of the mother in fairytales. I was writing about some very traumatic events—which was hard and scary at times—but I was also enjoying myself. It felt almost wrong, really, that writing about incest could be fun. Yet, in order to follow my own rules, I had to be playful. I had to explore new angles on a story I knew by heart, but that was actually far more complex and nuanced than I had understood.

“Tumbleweeds” was a finalist in several writing contests and eventually selected by Joyce Carol Oates as the second-place winner of the 2015 Curt Johnson Prose Contest, published in the journal december, reprinted in Nowhere, and subsequently selected for the Nowhere Print Annual alongside work by none other than Nick Flynn himself.

◊

With that kind of encouragement, especially after so many years of failed attempts, I was more than sold on using constraints to break open difficult new material. Now, I’m always grateful when someone gives me a good constraint, which is exactly what my former MFA advisor, Brian Leung, did during a workshop at Vermont College of Fine Arts shortly after “Tumbleweeds” was first published. Brian’s constraint had ten rules and options, one of which was to include the necessary building of unnecessary stairs. I threw myself in, and months later my short piece eventually grew into a 6,000-word essay, “Four Dogs, Maybe Five,” a winning entry in the 2016 Proximity contest. Eventually, this material coalesced into a novel manuscript, the first chapter of which was published last October as Narrative Magazine’s story of the week.

Of course, in the end, art is art, and art is mystery. For every constrained exercise that’s worked, I’ve produced many nothings. But even those nothings are flexing my creative muscles and keeping my mind playful and limber by turning my own stories sideways. As the late scientist Stephen Gould said, “The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best—and therefore never scrutinize or question.”

Ultimately, the pressure and limitations of writing constraints open doors to truths I can’t see otherwise, especially the hardest truths that hide behind the ones I believe about myself.

Jeannine OuelletteJeannine Ouellette has authored several nonfiction books and the picture book Mama Moon. She is a fellow of Millay Colony and Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, and teaches through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. She is also founder and creative director of Elephant Rock, a writing program based in Minneapolis.

 

 

 

Illustration credit: Val Vesa on Unsplash

FORCE: 2nd GRADE by Jessica Cuello                                                            

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

FORCE: 2nd GRADE
by Jessica Cuello

BW photo of seven-year-old girl looking down in profile

Hunger was secret—hump
on the back, the something else,
the body insisting that it was present.
Child head and child arm. Teeth
like rows of letters written
on colored cards. An assemblage
of girl—put together like a first
sentence. Remember when
shame was the time of day,
when the body spelled need with
her ugly limbs: half blue, half
skin. Shame to eat. Shame to pee.
Shame to enter in and exit out.
Grownups made a body. Made it
like a weed and sent it to school.
The bones grew. The skin stretched.
The body sat in the square of desk.
Hunger pulled. The alphabet lined
the board. The words That This Those
were tacked to the wall, strange suns
of literacy the body grew toward.

Author photo for Jessica CuelloJessica Cuello is the author of Pricking (Tiger Bark Press, 2016) and Hunt (The Word Works, 2017). She has been awarded The 2017 CNY Book Award (for Pricking), The 2016 Washington Prize (for Hunt), The New Letters Poetry Prize, a Saltonstall Fellowship, and most recently, The New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. Her newest poems are forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Cave Wall, Bat City Review, Pleiades, and Salamander.

Image credit: Alexas_Fotos on Pixabay

I MET MY LONG LOST BROTHER FOR THE FIRST TIME LAST YEAR. by Dyllan Moran

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

I MET MY LONG LOST BROTHER FOR THE FIRST TIME LAST YEAR.
by Dyllan Moran

silhouette of a man smoking

No kissing, though we both know that we want to.
You show up at my house wearing the exact same
thing as on your Grindr profile. Pink hat,
cheap diamond earrings, and then, too, a familiar look
that steadily steams underneath my grandmother’s eyes.
It’s the multiplicity of place as body—or how when you
close your eyes you can convince yourself that you’re
lying in a star-streaked field—that convinces me I love you.
You have a name like Atrophy, or maybe it is my cousin’s.
We each light a cigarette, and take turns passing back and forth
the first drag. We drink two cups of black coffee,
double brewed. In the kitchen, we make the same dinner twice,
consecutively, each one after the other, and because I finish first,
I take a shower, and patiently wait for you to come with me.
You finish second, twenty-five minutes later, and you follow.
I anoint your head in oil and leave.
I lay in bed, and I wait for you there, but pretend that I’m asleep.
You open the door, put on my clothes, and walk into the night.

Dyllan Moran author photoDyllan Moran graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with B. A.s in both Creative Writing and Japanese. His work has previously appeared in Gasher Magazine, Entropy Magazine, Journal 2020, and Walkabout Creative Arts Journal. He’s currently working in Nishi-Akashi, Japan as an English teacher and will be returning to America soon to continue his work in education. When he’s not writing poetry, he’s studying languages of both the living and dead and rambling about prophetic dreams. Email him here. IG: dyllanmoran.

 

Image credit: Oussema Rattazi on Unsplash