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Cleaver Magazine

Fresh-Cut Lit & Art

 
 

Category Archives: Novel Excerpt

IF YOU DO NOT KNOW by David Hallock Sanders

Cleaver Magazine Posted on December 11, 2014 by thwackMay 8, 2015

Busara Road
IF YOU DO NOT KNOW
by David Hallock Sanders
Excerpt from BUSARA ROAD, a novel in progress

“King Solomon was a very wise man. This we all know. How do we know this? Because the Bible tells us so! Right here in ….”

Pastor Hesborne Kabaka made a small production out of opening his Bible and reading from it.

“…right here in the book of the Wisdom of Solomon. There you go—clear as can be!”

Someone in the congregation exhaled a soft laugh. The pastor shut his Bible.

“So…we know that Solomon is wise. We know there are many, many stories of his wisdom. But how did he become such a wise man? What was the source of his wisdom?”

The pastor let the question hang in the hot, humid air of the chapel. The smell of sweating bodies mixed with a scent of cow dung wafting in the open windows. Mark found the sour-sweet blend surprisingly pleasant.

He was attending his first Sunday service at the Friends Church. Mark had arrived just days before at the Kwetu Quaker Mission, a modest clutch of cinderblock-and-tin buildings high in the equatorial rainforest of western Kenya. It was just three years ago that the country had gained its independence. Only a year ago that Mark’s mother had died. Mere months since his father had accepted the job to support Quaker schools for the newly independent nation.

“A fresh beginning,” his father had called the three-year appointment. “For Kenya. For us.”

Pastor Kabaka answered his own question.

“The source of Solomon’s wisdom was the source of all wisdom…God!” The pastor shouted the name of the Almighty. “When Solomon became the king of Israel, God came to him in a dream and said, ‘What do you want from me? Would you like great wealth? Would you like great fame?’ And Solomon said, ‘No, Lord! I only ask you for wisdom. I am facing many great challenges and responsibilities. Please give me the wisdom and knowledge to rule my people well.’”

The pastor trilled his r’s like thunder.

So far, little of this Kenyan service had resembled Mark’s Quaker meeting in Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, the service was an hour of silent worship only occasionally punctuated by spoken ministry. Anyone in the meeting could speak from the silence, as long as he or she felt led by the Spirit. Some weeks, no one spoke at all. There was no music, no singing, and certainly no one standing at a pulpit waving the Bible above his head.

“Solomon’s respect and humility greatly pleased the Lord.” The pastor’s voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “How could you not love a man like that! So the Lord said, ‘I will give you what you ask for—wisdom, knowledge, and common sense. And because I like you, I will add the wealth and fame for free!’”

Mark couldn’t remember ever hearing laughter at his meeting back home.

“So now…” the pastor’s voice began to rise. “What is our Swahili word for wisdom? For understanding and common sense?”

Mark heard a cowbell outside.

“That word is Busara.” Pastor Kabaka nodded as though letting the congregation in on a secret. “And what is the name of the road that runs directly beside this house of worship?”

A few congregants whispered the word.

“Correct! Busara Road. You see? Right now, we are on the very road to wisdom and understanding. And right here…” He lifted the Bible above his head. “…we have the road map!”

The pastor removed a white handkerchief from inside his black suit coat. He carefully unfolded it and wiped his brow.

Mark was sitting toward the back of the chapel next to his father on a long wooden bench. The chapel was filled with a mix of Africans and whites. Some of the African women held babies in their arms or small children at their sides. He recognized a few grownups from the Fourth of July party his first night there, but he saw only two of his classmates—Darrel and Mathew. He wondered if the other children were all skipping church.

Mr. Mbote was seated near the front, but his daughter, Layla, wasn’t with him. Also near the front, but on the opposite side, sat a man dressed in a suit. He had a square head and looked familiar, but it wasn’t until he turned his head and Mark saw his thin mustache that Mark realized it was Mr. Okwiri, the man from the Industrial with the missing arm. Mr. Okwiri caught Mark’s eye, but Mark turned away.

Mark’s bench was just like the benches at his Quaker meeting house back in the States—long, hard, and uncomfortable. The whole chapel was similar to his Friends meeting. Simple white walls. A weathered wood floor. A small balcony at the back. Rows of windows on both sides. Benches in the middle.

But there were also a lot of differences. Instead of the benches facing each other from all four walls, they were lined up in one direction. Instead of a facing bench up at the front for the clerk and other meeting elders, a series of steps led up to a raised platform and a low brick wall decorated with flowers. Behind the wall stood a tall-backed wooden chair beside a pulpit, where Pastor Kabaka carefully folded his kerchief in fours and returned it to his pocket.

“Now!” he continued, his voice filling the chapel. “Let us say that you are living someplace in Kenya. Not here in Kwetu. Someplace far away. Let us say…Nairobi. And let us say that you want to come visit us here in Kwetu, but you have never been here before. Maybe someone in your family lives here now. You want to come visit, but you do not know the way. So what do you do? Do you go and find a map of Tanzania or Uganda to consult? No! What good would that be? Or do you go and ask directions from a friend who has never been to Kwetu? Someone who does not know the way? Of course not!

“If you want to find your way, you must consult the correct map. You must ask the correct friend to guide you.”

The pastor took a deep breath, then his voice boomed across the room:

“It is just the same with your life!”

He leaned over the pulpit and let his eyes pass slowly over the congregation. He looked deeply pleased to see everyone’s eyes on him. He nodded as though he were about to share some special secret.

“To find your way, my friends, you must trust in the wisdom of your guide.”

His voice was a whisper, but everyone could hear.

“To find your way, you must trust in the correctness of your map.”

His voice began to rise.

“And who is your guide? God is your guide! And what is your map? The Holy Bible is your map! God’s wisdom is your map! James 1:5 says, ‘If any of you lacks wisdom; let him ask of God who gives to all men generously.’ God will provide! If we desire wisdom we must ask God — humbly and deeply in faith — to grant us that wisdom!

“Let us pray.”

Mark looked around the chapel. All heads were bowed, even his father’s.

Maybe this was when they did the silent part? Mark had been told by his father that Quaker worship in Kenya had less silence than his unprogrammed meeting in Philadelphia. So far, though, there hadn’t been any silence at all.

He took a slow breath, exhaled, and let his focus soften. Back in the States, Mark had a private game he liked to play in meeting for worship. He called it, “Catch the Spirit.” It was a simple game. During the silence of worship, he tried to guess who would be the next person to stand and speak. He imagined the silence as a pool of still water, and the leading of the Spirit as a ripple in the stillness. Sometimes it was easy to guess. Somebody’s breathing changed or someone’s body shifted. But other times it was much more subtle—like an electric current in the air that circled the room until it settled on one person or another.

Today, though, all he was sensing was the sound of voices drifting in the open windows and the smell of smoke and dung from outside.

“Amen,” said Pastor Kabaka.

“Amen,” the congregation echoed.

That was it? That was the entire silent worship?

“And now,” the pastor gestured to someone in the front row. “Imani, if you please?”

An elegant woman in a long, blue dress rose from the bench. A soft chime rang from the rows of bracelets that shined brightly against the black of her skin. She stood by the pastor’s side.

“My dear wife,” said Pastor Kabaka, “may not have the wisdom of Solomon…”

The woman fluttered her hands, and her bracelets chimed like bells.

“…but the good Lord granted her a beautiful voice. Imani will now sing, ‘The Wise Man Built His House upon the Rock.’ When she has concluded, we invite any children still among us to join Teacher Salama and the others in Sunday school.”

 

Mark stepped tentatively through the open doorway. Imani’s hymn was still echoing in his head.

The wise man built his house upon the rock,
The wise man built his house upon the rock,
The wise man built his house upon the rock,
And the rain come tumbling down…

The dining hall was filled with children scattered in clusters on the floor. Some sat atop the long tables lined up in a row down the middle of the room.

The rain come down
And the floods come up
And the wise man’s house stands firm.

Some of the children stopped what they were doing to register the arrival of Mark, Darrel, and Mathew. Mark noticed Sarah and Robin playing some kind of hand game at the far side of the dining hall. They glanced in his direction, then returned to their game.

An African boy, sitting on the floor with a book in his lap, jumped to his feet and ran to greet Mark. He was Mark’s age and Mark’s height, dressed in tan shorts and a white tee-shirt. His skin was dark, almost a bluish black, and his hair was a closely cropped nest of black curls. His eyes were wide and bright, and a smile lit up his face as though he recognized Mark.

“I’ve been waiting for you! I saved you food.”

Mark was confused. He didn’t know the boy.

“Your name is Mark,” the boy continued without waiting for a response. “My name is Radio. My father is the doctor. Do you want to play together?”

A tall woman approached from the far end of the room. She wore a long brown dress with a yellow apron. Her hair was a waterfall of black strands tied at the back.

The woman placed her hand atop Radio’s head and gave him a gentle warning glance.

“Raymond, if you please,” she said. “Give our new friend some room to breathe.”

She extended her hand to Mark.

“Welcome! I am Teacher Salama. Salama Mwendia, your Sunday school tutor. And you must be Mark. We are very pleased you have joined us. In future, you may attend the opening of chapel as you have this morning, or you may come directly here for Sunday classes. I save my Bible studies until all the children have gathered. But do not fear, it is not so serious as it sounds! We also enjoy many games and art projects, as well as refreshments. You will find that we manage to have some fun while we are learning the Lord’s lessons.”

Salama put a gentle arm around Mark’s shoulder and led him toward the waiting group.

“I believe you have already met most of the American children. And Radio has lost no time in making his presence known. But let me introduce you to the others.”

“I’ll do it!” said Radio.

 

Mark’s father sat on the edge of the bed, reading aloud by the light of the single lamp. His voice was accompanied by the night sounds of the jungle—the rhythmic hissing of cicadas, the rasping of frogs, the occasional chuck-chuck-chucking of some larger animal.

It had been a long day, and Mark was already tucked beneath the mosquito net and under his covers. He felt safe here in bed, as though the netting not only protected him from mosquitos, but kept all dangers at bay.

His eyes were heavy and sleep was near, but he wanted to stay awake for the end of the chapter.

“When the monkey groom was announced,” his father read, “the Jade Emperor said, ‘Come forward Monkey. I hereby proclaim you Great Sage, Equal of Heaven.’”

Tonight’s chapter had followed the latest exploits of the stone Monkey as he journeyed through the Southern Gate of Heaven. Mark’s father had started reading the Chinese folk tale to him back in the States, and Mark was happy they’d finally returned to Monkey’s adventures. Monkey had already talked his way past heaven’s Guardian Deities, gotten himself appointed keeper of heaven’s stables, and then, insulted by the lowness of his position, abandoned his post and returned to earth where he fought a series of battles with magic spirits sent to arrest him. Monkey was finally tricked into returning to heaven by the Jade Emperor’s offer of an honorary title.

Mark wished he were more like Monkey. Always ready to take risks. Always ready to rock the boat and do what he wanted. Never worried about disappointing or messing up. Never scared.

“‘The rank is a high one,’” His father intoned the Emperor’s deep voice. “‘And I hope we shall have no more nonsense.’”

Mark yawned and rolled onto his side. He blinked rapidly to keep from falling asleep. He didn’t want to miss his favorite part: the final words that closed each chapter.

His father’s body was warm next to Mark’s. A single lamp lit the book in his hands. A moth beat at the window. Sleep gently pulled and pulled as his father read.

“Monkey was begged not to allow himself to get in any way excited or start again on his pranks. But as soon as he arrived, he opened both jars of Imperial wine and invited everyone in his office to a feast.”

Mark could sense the chapter’s end was near. He studied his father’s face, its features softened by the dim light.

“The star spirit went back to his own quarters, and Monkey, left to his own devises, lived in such perfect freedom and delight as in earth or heaven have never had their like.”

Mark leaned his head back on his pillow.

“And if you do not know what happened in the end…”

He closed his eyes and let the familiar words wash over him.

“…you must listen to what is told in the next chapter.”


David-SandersDavid Hallock Sanders has had his short fiction, plays, and novel excerpts published in journals and anthologies that include Sycamore Review, The Laurel Review, Baltimore Review, 2000 Voices, The Best of Philadelphia Stories, and others. His novel-in-progress, Busara Road, was shortlisted as a finalist for the 2013 William Faulkner–William Wisdom Prize, and he is a winner of the Third Coast national fiction competition, the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary Autobiography Project, and the Dwell/Glass House Haiku Competition.

Image credit: Greg Westfall on Flickr
Author’s photo by Nancy Brokaw

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Published on December 11, 2014 in Fiction, Issue 8, Novel Excerpt. (Click for permalink.)

THE DIG by Nathaniel Popkin

Cleaver Magazine Posted on June 4, 2013 by thwackMay 14, 2016

“THE DIG”
From LION AND LEOPARD (The Head and the Hand Press, October 2013)
by Nathaniel Popkin

Charles Willson Peale, Belfield, November 24, 1818

I woke at half past four, drank two glasses of water, and with the wind in my eyes, walked past the sleeping elk’s pen and into the barn.  There, I milked the two cows, remarking to myself on the double economy of doing one’s chores oneself.  It is apparent that many a gentlemen farmer, if that is how I am to be labeled, pays good money for his own idleness and sloth.  It is like purchasing one’s hastened demise.  The body in motion stays in motion, says Mr. Newton, the body at rest stays at rest.  I don’t need to be convinced of the better alternative.

I set down the bucket of milk, took a spade and a basket, and so I trudged, suppressing worry of danger, through the fetid late autumn field, which felt thick and even overgrown (and not winter raw or empty), into this splendid darkness.  Breathing deeply as I walked, I passed through the grazing field, our small vineyard, and ducked under the bare branches of the pawpaw and into the little apple orchard.  The sky was the black of wet ink, blotted in places where clouds showed through the darkness.  One stares into the darkness as if it is made of substance, as if it can be touched or felt or even inhabited.  Nothing in darkness is greater than darkness.  In day, the experience is opposite.  The air has no form, no mass.  It has no structure.  The air signifies nothing more than the state of the weather.  It is cold, it is humid, or it is crisp and still it is nothing.Charles-Willson-Peale-Belfield-FarmIn painting, the blue sky is not only an object of its own merit, but it carries with it various symbolic meanings.  Likewise, clouds, the rays of the sun—mostly invisible to us—become the life force of the landscape picture.  Naturally, Birch’s nautical scenes, mere paeans to war and national feeling if not for the otherworldly clouds, come directly to mind.  And so it is, yet again, the opposite when a dark background—chiaroscuro—is employed by the painter.  Darkness thus becomes, exquisitely, invisible.  Only the subject comes forth; only the person matters.

I stepped through the orchard, taking care not to trip in a fox hole.  Mrs. Peale says she will withhold sympathy for me if walking in the dark I fall into a hole and break a bone in my leg or wrench my back.  I don’t tell her that at times like this I feel myself a hawk.  (The savages who once roamed this land knew something, I believe, of the power of this feeling.)  The hawk never sees the little mouse clambering through the leaves made papery by the hoarfrost; he doesn’t have to because he senses the vibrating earth.  And thus I become the hawk and just the feeling of it increases the acuity of my senses.  So on I went, beyond the third row of trees and there, finding my prey, I planted myself, now no longer the hungry raptor but as a small child alone amidst God’s creation.  This is, after all, my own earth.  As I hunched over to begin my work, the lipid heat of mold and decay rose to warm my face.

When Raphaelle arrived last Wednesday to sit for his portrait, he was armed with a thousand diversions.  He walks slowly and now with a cane, but insisted I take him for a tour of the late autumn garden.  “You aren’t bundled well enough,” I said, but since I think it best in these cases to push on, as the will only grows in proportion to its obstacles through practice, I gladly acquiesced.  Mrs. Peale came to the door with a heavy blanket made of horsehair.  My son draped this over his shoulders, holding it closed across his chest with one hand while grasping the cane in the other, in such a way that only heightened his appearance of derangement (the blanket trailed behind him).  We made our way along the stone path now covered with a skin of leaves, past the greenhouses and, pausing briefly, I started to explain my deep appreciation for the place.  “You will note,” I began to say, “once we rise to the bluff of the summer house, how gratifying it is to sit still and ponder nothing but the glories of nature,” but as I did so, I worried that such a statement might sound to my son as an endorsement of excessive repose and so I quickly amended the statement to include a phrase on the way “such careful study of nature has improved my ability as a colorist.”  We climbed, slowly enough, up the stone staircase I had built myself, to the Pedestal of Memorable Events.  Each of the eighty events is denoted with a little engraved star, but I drew his attention to a single star without descriptor, a space left for an example of the positive progression of the American philosophy yet still to come, with the intention, while looking him over, of suggesting that the place be reserved for a notable advancement of his own.  But this too I amended on second thought.  Instead, I said, and not without truth, the space has been reserved for the glory of industrial invention, perhaps the steam engine, perhaps the prosaic, nay ingenious, mill.

While eating our small, simple dinner of boiled potatoes and cabbage—Raphaelle spent a great bit of time making jokes about the austerity of our meal (at my expense), which Mrs. Peale unflinchingly and quite calmly deflected—I asked him to tell me how he thought he ought to appear in a portrait.

Portrait_of_Raphaelle_Peale_and_Titian_Ramsay_Peale)_Google_Art_Project“I think you had better ask that question of the man with the pencil,” he responded.

“But don’t you care how you are presented to the world?”  I looked across the table.  Alas, the boy looked tired.  His ears were blotched red, his skin waxy.  Upon his arrival at Belfield, I had looked him over carefully.  He was clean, shaven, and wore a high collar and a cloak.  He carried no odor of alcohol, but seemed to mutter to himself rather frequently.

“Well, then,” he said, looking around the room, “why beat around the bush.  Paint me for what I am.”

“That’s what I do intend,” I said.

“No.  Paint me as flesh.  A good cut—Now where’s the difference? to th’ impartial eye / A leg of mutton and a human thigh / Are just the same—for surely all must own / Flesh is but flesh and bone is only bone.”

“That line of argument has already been taken.”

“That may be the point.  Surely you can improve it.  I should think a porterhouse cut with some curls of onion.”  He brushed his hair with his hand.  Did I imagine this, a hand rheumatic, claw-like?  I guided him into the painting room.  The fire in the hearth barely glowed and I took some time to stoke it.  I then arranged him in front of an easel and canvas of his own and put a palette in his left hand, a brush in the right.

“Then why not paint me as Raffaello?” he said a bit imperiously, pausing for effect.  “You don’t get me, do you?  Paint me in the style of Raffaello Sanzio.  Shouldn’t there be a drop of guilt in my eyes?  No insipid despair, what I want is guilt.  It’s more pleasing.”  He paused and I allowed him to go on nonsensically.  “Anyway, I have always desired that—as a joke, you see, what you might call a gesture.”

“You don’t need to act a fool anymore, dear boy.  Suppose I just paint the person I see before me.”

“And isn’t that the quite real Raffaello?”

For some reason he felt the need to press the point.  I tried not to resent the constant go around.  I was already growing tired of the crazy fellow.  I wished to make his portrait as a sign of defiance and if he hadn’t that capacity then I would have to provide it for him.  The portrait would resurrect him.  “I will paint you as Raffaello Sanzio, one of the cleverest members of the papish religion and, my dear boy, a master of the portrait.”

“Then I shall die in the arms of a voluptuous whore.  There will be glory, at last.”

In that moment I never felt more certain that I would outlast Raphaelle—not only Raphaelle, but every last one of them.  My day that begins at half past four ends punctually at a quarter past ten.  That’s nearly 18 hours awake, a full 15 of which is spent in the act of work: six on farm chores, care and feeding of the animals, mending and rebuilding farm utensils and farm buildings, and working in the garden, six in the act of painting—I am determined that the portrait of Raphaelle will reestablish my own reputation as a portraitist—and three in the planning of my cotton mill.  Glory, I am certain, will come in the spinning of the waterwheels, even without the aid of my recalcitrant sons.

Still-Life-with-Steak

The rest is spent eating (one hour fifteen minutes spread over three light meals) and writing to my children.  And who of my children, or even my wife, 20 years my junior, comes close to this example of vigor?  Rembrandt?  He requires too much sleep.  Rubens?  He very competently manages my museum, but lives in the delicate mold of a Roman bureaucrat.  During his long supper break, he strolls aimlessly around the city or idles about the statehouse gardens.  The second Titian, I imagine, works hard on his naturalist exhibitions, but is easily distracted.  The rest I need not mention.  Mrs. Peale tells me I am a wretched father for expecting so much of my children.  “Let them be!” she says.  I tell her I don’t get her point.  “But they must live their own lives!  One way isn’t better than the other.”  I can only look on impassively, but with secret joy in my ice blue eyes.  One’s children are, indeed, like one’s piece of earth.  They must be cultivated, pruned, clipped, fertilized, and arranged to one’s liking.

With the wind beating down on my unprotected neck, now crouched on the ground beneath the apple trees, I began to dig.  A single, last leaf of the apple tree twirled around and around, making a scattered, intermittent sound, the very quality of the noise of children playing upstairs.  After digging through the raised beds beneath the apple trees, I came to realize I had estimated wrong—this patch of orchard had been harvested already.  I advanced to the last row of trees—and here was the motherload of potatoes.  So be it, there were enough to deliver with the sample bottle of wine to Tharp, a chore which Linnaeus hadn’t ever completed.  He’ll only work, he says, if he is to be paid explicitly for his services.  Room, board, and the infinite patience of his mother aren’t quite enough.  I filled the wooden basket until I could no longer easily lift it and carried it to the path that runs between our houses.  There was now enough vulgar light to see clearly and for this, and just for a moment, I felt a usual pang of sadness, for never do I feel as defiantly alive as in these earliest hours, when the world expects a man of my age and standing to be auditioning for the hereafter.  Should I be spotted doing my farm chores at the early hour by some perspicacious neighbor who thinks he’s witnessed the installation of madness, it would only be so much more of a pleasure.  Now, with the rising sun, any bird worth its weight thought it necessary to announce its presence.  Even the creek, which I hadn’t noticed while digging for potatoes, went about its mesmerizing holler and I went inside to escape the clatter.

Still-Life-With-Cake

Mrs. Peale was still asleep; in fact, the house was as dark as the orchard had been an hour before.  I drank two more glasses of water and went into the kitchen to fill and cork a bottle of wine for my neighbor.  I searched everywhere in the kitchen and then in all the possible locations inside the house.  I had already filled the bottle with good sweet, clear wine, which Linnaeus himself had crushed.  But the boy hadn’t cut more corks (or so I thought, as it’s never possible to receive from him a “straight” story).  Instead what emanates from his mouth is both diffuse and cluttered, and therefore impossible to discern.  It’s a bit like the morning’s scattered wind.  Since he was a boy, Linnaeus has driven me, with efficiency and predictability, to anger.  I won’t stand the obfuscation or the undercurrent of deceit.  It was only much later I realized his mother (and the mother of Franklin, Titian II, Sybilla, and Elizabeth) hadn’t the same studied calm as Rachel, the mother of my older children.  This certainly contributed to his instability.  But I’ve always studiously avoided taking pity on the boy.  And so he left for some time and joined the navy, despite my admonitions against war, only to return with a monkey on his back, a sword in his belt, and a sad, shit-eating grin on his face.  His sisters fall for it every time.

But now where were the corks?  It had been my intention to reach Tharp before he became busy at the mill; I lost nearly a full hour cutting down a cork from an old bottle of whiskey I found in the barn, only to have it crumble into tiny pieces and fall into the wine.  I carefully kept my temper in check during this fitful exchange, which also resulted in hitting my head on the pediment to the kitchen door.  Luckily, the slight welt that rose above my right eye was mostly invisible to the unknowing eye.  At last, I employed a decanter, whose glass top would have to suffice.  Now instead of laying the bottle down on top of the potatoes, I would have to secure it standing up for fear of spilling.  I did so, resting the basket every few paces and sweating profusely despite the chill and the wind, and now something else, a sudden soaking downpour that felt more like a remnant of spring than late autumn.  Being a hawk would no longer quite do.

460px-C_W_Peale_-_The_Artist_in_His_Museum

*       *       *

Images:
1. Charles Willson Peale, Belfield Farm, c. 1816. Detroit Institute of the Arts
2. Charles Willson Peale, Staircase Group (Portrait of Raphaelle Peale and Titian Ramsay Peale), 1795. Philadelphia Museum of Art
3. Raphaelle Peale, Still Life with Steak, c. 1816. Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. Utica, New York
4. Raphaelle Peale, Still Life with Cake, 1818. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
5. Charles Willson Peale, The Artist in His Museum (self-portrait), 1822. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts


Nathaniel Popkin

Cleaver fiction review editor Nathaniel Popkin is the author of three books, including the 2013 novel Lion and Leopard. He is co-editor of the Hidden City Daily and senior writer of “Philadelphia: The Great Experiment,” an Emmy award-winning documentary series. His essays and book reviews appear in the Wall Street Journal, Public Books, The Kenyon Review, The Millions, and Fanzine.

 

 

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Published on June 4, 2013 in Fiction, Issue 2, Novel Excerpt. (Click for permalink.)

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SUMMER LIGHTNING '22 FLASH CONTEST

SUMMER LIGHTNING ’22 FLASH CONTEST

SUMMER 2022 CLASSES

MICRO MENTORING: Flash Fiction Masterclass, taught by Kathryn Kulpa, July 8 — August 6, 2022

MICRO MENTORING: Flash Fiction Masterclass, taught by Kathryn Kulpa, July 8 — August 6, 2022

CLEAVER CLINICS!

Cleaver Clinics

Cleaver Clinics

Ask June!

Cleaver’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 today!

ASK JUNE: November 2021 Pandemic Purge and the Ungracious Griever

ASK JUNE: November 2021 Pandemic Purge and the Ungracious Griever

Dear June, Since the start of this pandemic, I have eaten more and exercised less, and have gone from a comfortable size 10 to a tight size 16. In July and early August, when the world seemed to be opening up again, I did get out and move around more, but my destinations often included bars and ice cream shops, and things only got worse. I live in a small apartment with almost no closet space. I know part of this is in my mind, but it often seems that my place is bursting at the seams with “thin clothes.”  ...
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November 18, 2021

Top Ten Today on Cleaver:

  • Issue 38 June 2022
    Issue 38 June 2022
  • SUMMER LIGHTNING '22 FLASH CONTEST
    SUMMER LIGHTNING '22 FLASH CONTEST
  • MAKING THE READER FEEL SOMETHING. PLEASE. SHOW AND TELL,  A Craft Essay by Shuly Xóchitl Cawood
    MAKING THE READER FEEL SOMETHING. PLEASE. SHOW AND TELL, A Craft Essay by Shuly Xóchitl Cawood
  • Opportunities
    Opportunities
  • Submit
    Submit
  • Writing Workshops
    Writing Workshops
  • About Us
    About Us
  • IF YOU WANT TO BE LOVED, LOVE by Meg Pokrass
    IF YOU WANT TO BE LOVED, LOVE by Meg Pokrass
  • WAR GAMES by Peter DeMarco
    WAR GAMES by Peter DeMarco
  • WE’RE NOT ALLOWED OUTSIDE by Chelsea Stickle
    WE’RE NOT ALLOWED OUTSIDE by Chelsea Stickle

Issue 39 Countdown!

September 16, 2022
73 days to go.

Emily Steinbergs’s Comix

The writer, a middle-aged woman with long grey hair, is driving in car with her dog. She narrates: Since the end of February I've been watching the war on TV. CNN Breaking: "Russia Invades Ukraine. Ukraine strikes fuel depot. Putin pissed off."... And obsessively doom scrolling on Twitter. War Crimes! Odessa bombed! It simultaneously feels like 1939 and right now. Totally surreal.

WAR AND PEACE 2.0 by Emily Steinberg

THE RECKONING by Emily Steinberg

THE RECKONING by Emily Steinberg

Visual Narratives

DESPINA, a visual narrative  by Jennifer Hayden

DESPINA, a visual narrative by Jennifer Hayden

From KENNINGS, Visual Erasures by Katrina Roberts

From KENNINGS, Visual Erasures by Katrina Roberts

CURRENTLY

THIRTEEN POTSHOTS AT THE PROSE POEM, a Craft Essay by Mike James

THIRTEEN POTSHOTS AT THE PROSE POEM, a Craft Essay by Mike James
THIRTEEN POTSHOTS AT THE PROSE POEM a Craft Essay by Mike James An alien lands at a city basketball court at night. He either lands inside a science fiction story or he lands inside a ... Read More
May 24, 2022

SHADE OF BLUE TREES, poems by Kelly Cressio-Moeller reviewed by Dana Kinsey

SHADE OF BLUE TREES, poems by Kelly Cressio-Moeller reviewed by Dana Kinsey
SHADE OF BLUE TREES by Kelly Cressio-Moeller Two Sylvias Press, 79 pages reviewed by Dana Kinsey In her debut collection Shade of Blue Trees, Kelly Cressio-Moeller conducts a tremendous chorus of voices that rise in ... Read More
May 24, 2022

GROWING SEASONS: On Plants and Poetry, a craft essay by Luiza Flynn-Goodlett

GROWING SEASONS: On Plants and Poetry, a craft essay by Luiza Flynn-Goodlett
GROWING SEASONS: On Plants and Poetry A Craft Essay by Luiza Flynn-Goodlett Like most things, it began with beauty: My first apartment after college overlooked the backyard of several Crown Heights buildings, which had become ... Read More
May 18, 2022

SHOW, THEN TELL: Crafting Fiction with Alive Exposition  by Grace Evans

SHOW, THEN TELL: Crafting Fiction with Alive Exposition  by Grace Evans
SHOW, THEN TELL: Crafting Fiction with Alive Exposition  by Grace Evans While writing a first draft of a novel, I turned one scene and an economical one-paragraph description of a mother-daughter relationship into seven scenes ... Read More
May 18, 2022

MAKING EACH STORY ITS OWN: A Craft Conversation with Tony Taddei, author of THE SONS OF THE SANTORELLI, speaking with fiction editor Andrea Caswell

MAKING EACH STORY ITS OWN:  A Craft Conversation with Tony Taddei, author of THE SONS OF THE SANTORELLI, speaking with fiction editor Andrea Caswell
MAKING EACH STORY ITS OWN a Craft Conversation with Tony Taddei author of  THE SONS OF THE SANTORELLI speaking with fiction editor Andrea Caswell Tony Taddei’s debut story collection, The Sons of the Santorelli, is ... Read More
May 16, 2022

A LESSON FROM MY THIRD-GRADE SELF: On Writing from the Heart, a Craft Essay by Vivian Conan

A LESSON FROM MY THIRD-GRADE SELF: On Writing from the Heart, a Craft Essay by Vivian Conan
A LESSON FROM MY THIRD-GRADE SELF On Writing from the Heart, A Craft Essay by Vivian Conan I was fifty-two when I chanced upon the bright marigold flyer taped to a streetlight in my Manhattan ... Read More
May 6, 2022
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