Jendi Reiter's Bullies in Love —reviewed by Carol Smallwood

Bullies in Love
poems by Jendi Reiter; photography by Toni Pepe
Little Red Tree Publishing, 2015

I had the pleasure of reading the poetry collection, Swallow, so was looking forward to Ms. Reiter’s newest poetry collection, Bullies in Love, the Winner of the Little Red Tree International Poetry Prize. Ms. Reiter isn’t a stranger to awards as she’s received: the Massachusetts Cultural Council Artists’ Grant for Poetry, Betsy Collquitt Award for Poetry, James Anderbo Poetry Prize, as well as others in fiction.

The fifty-three poems are pretty equally divided in four sections; the collection has an index of first lines and titles; biographical backgrounds of the photographer as well as the poet. Art photographer, Toni Pepe, teaches photography at Boston University.

Ms. Reiter’s free verse poetry is gutsy, bold, direct, and very contemporary but not devoid of humor which appears in the second poem, “I Wish I Were in Love Again”:

Where the sheriff,
big-bellied as Cupid
didn’t see the evidence
of the split rope, the double-smudged lipstick,
the blacksnake-cold gun under the belt.


And in “Possession”


Rats shrink from the sound of crackling, like a teenage boy forced to read a nineteenth-century novel of manners.


“What Dora Said to Agnes” ends with the memorable lines:


When a man undresses a woman
he is unfolding a letter
he expected would be addressed to him,
when he reads it whatever memories
he brought to it he will take away again.
When a woman undresses a man
she is promising to wash him,
she is offering the hand that will close his eyes.


Each new poetry collection is an exploration, a sharing with the poet, a trying to understand and enjoy what the poet says (and what they don’t say) and how they craft it. Readers enter a realm the poet makes—just the right words chosen after a long time of mulling, indecision, revision, finally a letting go of each poem with a mix of satisfaction and doubt.

“Trigger Warning: Pour Homme” is a list of memories with famous perfumes; most have a reference to her mother until “she’d become allergic.”

Some of her lines demand to be read again and again to savor them at will, such as those in “Deep Sister”:

the spoon-eared hare,
leaping from bush to vanish
fast as a memory of God

My favorite, “Inheriting a House Fire” is a stark summary of a family: father, mother, aunts, cousins, grandparents, that cuts to the bone and allows no pretension. The four stanzas are a remarkable assessment, one too penetrating to allow any tears of sentiment.

The longest poem is the last one, “Split Ends” which is divided into six sections. The seven photographs question what our vision takes for granted—what we see; the poems question the ever present role of sex, probes comfortable personal assumptions, and our collective cultural fairy tales. The photographs and poetry work together well; the book is larger than the usual 6”x9” collection most likely to accommodate the photographs.

I recalled the word, fractal, after reading Bullies in Love: a term applied to a type of geometry that allowed us to get a better grasp of our natural world that isn’t arranged in the straight lines of Euclidean geometry. Ms. Reiter’s poems strive to give form through words to lives that follow irregular lines and are as complex as the never-ending patterns of fractals.


_
Carol Smallwood’s most recent poetry collections include Divining the Prime Meridian (WordTech Communications, 2015); Water, Earth, Air, Fire, and Picket Fences (Lamar University Press, 2014). Recent anthologies include Women, Work, and the Web (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015); Writing After Retirement (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching is on Poets & Writers Magazine list of Best Books for Writers.

_

Jendi Reiter is the author of the poetry collections Bullies in Love (Little Red Tree Publishing, 2015), Barbie at 50 (Cervena Barva Press, 2010), Swallow (Amsterdam Press, 2009), and A Talent for Sadness (Turning Point Books, 2003). Her debut novel, Two Natures, forthcoming from Saddle Road Press in September 2016, is the coming-of-age story of a New York City fashion photographer who struggles to reconcile his Southern Baptist upbringing with his love for other men.

Interview of Stacy Lynn Mar — by Carol Smallwood

Stacy Lynn Mar is a thirty-something American poet. She has published four chapbooks of poetry, the latest titled Mannequin Rivalry. Her poetry has been showcased in over 40 online (and print) literary journals/magazines. Her previous work was nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Web. Stacy is editor and founder of the small, independent press Pink.Girl.Ink. She obtained her undergraduate studies in psychology at Lindsey Wilson College, then concluded her education endeavors with several graduate degrees (and Certification) in Mental Health Counseling from Capella University. Her formal undergraduate studies in English Literature were conducted at Ellis NYIT. She currently lives and writes in Kentucky.

1. Please describe your website and your duties as editor/writer:

Pink.Girl.Ink. was created with the intent to provide a platform for creative women to share their work, voices, and experiences. The press actually serves a three-fold purpose. We aim to inspire, encourage, and inform our readers via weekly posts that teach various elements of creative writing and personal development. Our quarterly journal Think Pink showcases a plethora of talented writings and art by women from all four corners. Likewise, our independent press thrives on publishing unique voices and diverse writings of talented women from all walks of life. We also offer weekly writing prompts on Saturdays, and monthly posts, The Inspirational Almanac, which is designed to keep writers inspired.

Although a very small group of four women work to make Pink.Girl.Ink. happen, a great deal of the work falls upon me. It is quite a lot of work to juggle manuscripts, weekly posts, and the quarterly issue but it is a labor of love and I enjoy the vocation. I have met so many wonderful women writers and am grateful for the opportunity to publish their work.

2. Tell us about your career:

I have worked in various professional helping settings. Most of my work has pertained to case management and adult counseling in an outpatient setting. I have over five years of experience, but currently am taking a brief sabbatical in hopes of getting my press, and my own writing projects, off the ground. As far as my career aspirations, in the near future I hope to attain my state licensure for mental health counseling. My primary goal is to work in group therapy settings, I wish to implement journal writing, art, and creative writing into the therapeutic process for recovering addicts and within those currently incarcerated.

3. Which recognition/achievements have encouraged you the most?

I have attained a total of five degrees, three of which are graduate degrees. Being a long-time student (well into my late twenties), it takes a great amount of perseverance and self-discipline to attain that much education and to well as maintain a 3.6 GPA. Education has always been important to me, I earned my degrees as a single mother and was driven not only to be educated and independent, but to set a thriving example for my own daughter, and for other women.

Having my work published, anywhere, always feels like a grand achievement. I believe it’s quite a feat to have another person read your work and feel it’s worthy of sharing with the world. I think, to some degree, every writer thrives on their publications (no matter how small or big) as it allows the advantage to have your work (and your name) known.

4. What writers have influenced you the most?

I would have to say Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Sharon Olds, and Erica Jong. I feel that each of these women, in some fantastic way, helped pave the path for women writers to gain notoriety for their hard work, and their outstanding talents. Anne Sexton’s poetry was raw, confessional…she sort of slapped you with the truth but left you in awe with the way she said it. Sylvia Plath also came into the poetic scene back when women were really struggling against societal norms and expectations. Both Sharon Olds and Erica Jong are brilliant in the way they have braved taboo subject matter, have said the things we all wished to say…they have made it okay to say those things, to make poetry with those experiences. I am filled with admiration for these women.

5. How has the Internet benefited you?

The internet is an amazing tool for networking. I have met so many amazing writers, and fostered friendships with talented women for whom I stand a common ground. Many of these people I would not have met otherwise. The world wide web also allows me the opportunity to share my work, my views, my writings with the world…literally! I am always astounded to find blogs from creative people from all the way across the world. I love the insight and experiences that I can share with other people (and vise versa). It’s almost like traveling from your desk chair! The internet is also an invaluable tool for finding publications, (and a publishing home for one’s work) as many journals and magazines are only available via the internet these days.

6. What classes have helped you the most?

I believe that college courses in multiculturalism, religion, philosophy, psychology and sociology really opened my eyes to the opportunities and diversity that’s out there. Growing up in a small town, as endearing and beautiful as the Appalachian is, did not ready me with the skills or knowledge of just how grand, how colorful, the world could be. I feel that these classes, coupled with Literature (Greek, American, English, Mythology & Folklore, Poetry Writing Workshop, Creative Writing Workshop) fostered within me the knowledge of opportunity and the beginning seeds of creativity. I am forever in debt to amazing Art, English, and Psychology professors (as well as my own mother) for instilling in me an indelible curiosity.

7. What advice would you give others?

Become a voracious reader. The more you read, the better you write! This applies to any style of writing (novels, poetry, etc). If you can’t even properly read it, you sure aren’t going to be able to write it. I would also tell writers not to take rejection letters personally.Rather, try to utilize them as learning experiences.Take them into consideration, allow them to inspire you to do better, and then go write some more. Be original, persevere, and keep working. I believe that good writing is 10% talent and 90% passion!

8. What is your favorite quotation?

Try as I may, I cannot pick only one. So, I have compromised with five:

“Blessed are the weird people: poets, misfits, writers, mystics, painters, troubadours. For they teach us to see the world through different eyes.” -Jacob Nordby

“Not all who wonder are lost.” -J.R.R. Tolkien

“Set your life on fire, seek those who fan your flames.” -Rumi

“Be humble, for you are made of earth. Be noble, for you are made of stars.” –Serbian Proverb

“She’s mad but she’s magic. There’s no lie in her fire.” -Charles Bukowski

___
You can find Stacy Lynn Mar's personal blog here. She is the founder of Pink.Girl.Ink. Press, which you can check out here. She also does Gothic Romance Reviews.

___
Carol Smallwood’s over four dozen books include Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching on Poets & Writers Magazine list of Best Books for Writers. Her most recent books include Water, Earth, Air, Fire, and Picket Fences (Lamar University Press, 2014); Divining the Prime Meridian (WordTech Communications, 2015); and Writing After Retirement (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).

Review of Carol Smallwood's "Divining the Prime Meridian | by Ann McCauley

Award-winning poet Carol Smallwood writes poems that are easy to read and hard to forget. Her newest collection, Divining the Prime Meridian, raises the bar for creative, soul searching, and deep poetry. The poems are woven through the book in categories that might at first seem unrelated, but with Ms. Smallwood’s skill, Cities, Seasons, Geography, Domestic Life, The Natural World, The Mental Realm, and Health and Welfare are cleverly connected with an insight few poets possess. Smallwood eclectically mixes free verse poems next to sestinas and villanelles. She makes poetry seem easy …until I tried to write it myself. Poetry is most definitely not easy!

Though many of the poems dealt delicately with negative aspects of life, Ms. Smallwood managed to torch the flames without setting the house on fire. Leaving the reader to ponder, is anything what it seems?

The nostalgic poem, Clabber Girl Biscuits, contrasts loneliness and the desire to fulfill expectations of making a proper home. Smallwood’s knack of noticing the mundane and crafting memorable poetry is unique.

The witty and thoughtful, Using Available Light, contrasts our human dependence on the power grid, and our anxiety when the lights go out…with her cat who waits patiently with folded paws, using a feline’s innate ability to see at night. “…there wasn’t any warning when the power went out.”

Dante’s Circles dances around dark secrets that no one wanted to talk about, though could not be denied. I am haunted by the final line: “Dante’s ninth circle is made of ice.”

The blatant sadness of Aida Sestina lingers long after closing Divining the Prime Meridian. This is a collection of poetry that deserves to be read slowly with a hot cup of tea close by; there is much to contemplate in these 116 pages.

___
Book: Divining the Prime Meridian
Author: Carol Smallwood
Publisher: Word Poetry, 116 pages. (Cost: $16.52)
ISBN#: 2014955072
Publication Date: 2015

___
Ann McCauley is the author of Runaway Grandma, (2007) and Mother Love, (2004, Revised-2012). She’s a contributor to the anthology, Women Writing on Family: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing, (2012) as well as the anthology, Writing After Retirement, (2014). Ann has an M.A. in creative writing. As a freelance writer; her work has been featured in online newsletters and journals, in magazines, professional journals, and newspapers. Learn more at annmccauley.com and like her on Facebook.

Interview with Alfred J. Garrotto —Carol Smallwood

Alfred J. Garrotto grew up in Santa Monica, CA. At the age of seven, he worked as a stand-in for Robert Blake in The Thin Man film series and appeared (briefly) in Universal Studios’ Butch Minds the Baby. At 10, he went into sales, hawking peanuts and soft drinks on the beach. With that theatrical and business background, he entered the Catholic priesthood. A mid-life career change triggered his professional writing life. He recently published his eleventh book, There’s More: A Novella of Life and Afterlife. He is now writing the screenplay.

1. Please describe your website and your duties as editor/writer.

I currently maintain three personal websites. My primary personal page is alfredjgarrotto.com. This site features and promotes my published writing (six novels and a novella, plus four nonfiction works). My favorite and most active site is The Wisdom of Les Miserables: In Search of Practical Wisdom for Everyday Living (see link below). This site is inspired by Victor Hugo’s classic 19th Century novel. I also maintain a dedicated site for my sixth novel, The Saint of Florenville: A Love Story.

2. Tell us about your career.

I did not write professionally (for pay and publication) during the 18 years of my ministry as a Roman Catholic priest. However, I had collected tons of material from workshops and seminars I conducted. I organized some of this material into a three-volume nonfiction series (Adult to Adult) and sold them immediately to Winston Press, Minneapolis, MN. Buoyed by my early success, I launched into long fiction with a romantic tale titled A Love Forbidden. A sobering eight years later, it was finally published in Canada as a mass market paperback novel. I followed that dim success with six more novels and a nonfiction work of personal reflections on life and everyday wisdom, inspired by my passion for Les Miserables and its main protagonist (The Wisdom of Les Miserables: Lessons From the Heart of Jean Valjean). My most recent book (2014), There’s More: A Novella of Life and Afterlife, has been well received (to date, all 5-star reviews on Amazon.com).

3. Which recognitions/achievements have encouraged you the most?
I am not a New York Times bestselling author. Nor have my books won any awards. For encouragement, I rely on readers and reviewers who report that my stories are well told, my characters real enough to jump off the page, and my style of writing such that the pages keep turning. Less or more important (I’m not sure which) is my sense that I am getting better at my craft with each new book I publish.

4. What writers have influenced you the most?
Victor Hugo has had the greatest influence on my writing. Not that I can ever come close to his brilliance and spiritual insight. My “patron saints” are Jean Valjean and Bishop Charles Francois Myriel, Bishop of Digne. In many ways, they inhabit my writing, even to the point of taking over, as they did in both The Wisdom of Les Miserables (nonfiction) and There’s More (a novella). In this latter work, the bishop made it clear to me that he wanted to narrate the story about a big league pitcher who dies when struck by a batted ball during the World Series. -- I admire Ann Patchett (Bel Canto is a novel I wish I had written). I like Ken Follett’s ability to write in epic form and style, which I cannot. I recently read all three volumes of his 20th Century Trilogy (3,000 pages). Other favorite novelists include Jussi Adler-Olson and Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

5. How has the Internet benefited you?
Being primarily an Indie author for the last 10 years, I rely on the Internet as my chief marketing tool. Amazon is my most productive marketing site, with nearly worldwide distribution. My e-books are also on Smashwords (with expanded distribution). With my blog and two other personal websites to maintain, I feel maxed out, because I still have a full-time day/night job.

6. What classes have helped you the most?
I must confess that I have very little formal training in the literary arts. My most helpful instruction in the craft of writing over the last 18 years has come from workshop leaders and speakers sponsored by the historic California Writers Club. Added to this, I have soaked up the wisdom of fellow CWC members, who collectively possess an abundance of experience and expertise in every aspect of publication. After 11 books, I am still learning and looking for ways to become more proficient in my craft.

7. What advice would you give others?
Since writing book-length fiction is a daunting writing adventure, I’d like to address first-time novelists. Often, writers must make a choice—write what’s in your heart, chase what is currently hot, or try to divine what might be the “next hot thing,” by the time you finish writing your book. Make whatever choice you wish, then give it everything you’ve got. Set your imagination free and sit your bottom in a chair. Work as long as it takes to get the book written, edited, proofed, and published. Most of all, enjoy the process of story building. Have fun watching your characters blossom and grow. Sit back in awe when they take over and surprise you in ways that are nothing short of mystical.

8. What is your favorite quotation?
Bishop Charles Francois Myriel to Jean Valjean: “Forget not, never forget that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man . . . . Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!” – Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, Fantine, Book Second: The Fall, Chapter XII: The Bishop at Work

___
Connect with Alfred J. Garrotto:
http://www.alfredjgarrotto.com/
http://www.saintofflorenville.com/
Blog: http://wisdomoflesmiserables.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/alfred.j.garrotto
Twitter: https://twitter.com/algarrotto

The Interviewer: Carol Smallwood's most recent books include Water, Earth, Air, Fire, and Picket Fences (Lamar University Press, 2014); Divining the Prime Meridian (WordTech Communications, 2015); and Writing After Retirement (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). Carol has founded, supports humane societies.

Interview of Christine Redman-Waldeyer / Carol Smallwood

1.    Please describe your website and your duties as editor/writer.

In 2008 my youngest son was born.  I was looking to make connections with other writers once I felt I lost the ability (even if it was short term) to physically attend writing workshops, readings and retreats. Thus my idea for a women’s journal was born.  After doing some research I wanted the name of the journal to reflect what I felt about my identity as a woman for better or worse.  The name Adanna is Nigerian and means my father’s daughter. In reality it means a daughter looks like her father physically but I infused it with new meaning…We look/act like our founding fathers and I wanted to talk about that. Adanna accepts all literary genres providing the topic reflects women’s commentary on women’s identity. My website only houses these ideologies but it is the work itself that I publish which speaks to my mission as a founder. As an editor, I am looking for both seasoned and emerging artists who want to participate in the conversation whether they are women or men. The topics do not necessarily have to be new conversations about feminism but I am looking for writers/artists who approach these topics in exciting ways.

Ann McCauley’s Interview with Carol Smallwood

A.M. Tell us a little about yourself…what is your earliest memory with books?

C.S. I remember the first word with more than one syllable was exciting to me in my school reading book: the word “Suddenly” after so many like See Spot Run. That words one could read and write would have rhythm to them was a great discovery.

A.M. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? When did you know you’d be a  writer?

Review of Judith Skillman's "Angles of Separation" | by Carol Smallwood

     Buying a new poetry collection is like investing in a travel ticket—the excitement begins when a book arrives with shiny cover and unexplored pages; the cover art of Angles of Separation is Edvard Munch’s oil painting, “Separation”  from the Munch Museum in New York. There is an epigraph from Osip Mandelstam’s Tristia about separation; a dedication; acknowledgments. There isn’t a foreword or preface and the fifty poems are divided into four parts with a page of Notes at the end, followed by an About the Author page, and a page of titles by the poet. I avoid the back cover, blurbs, author page, until writing  the review.

    

There is great energy in Skillman’s work, cosmic power as in “A Sliver of Heat”: “At night the earth collided with comet hair/ and you wanted to tip the Milky Way/ into your parched throat.” In the 3 page poem, “Thrum and Goad” are the lines “I hunger for what is true” and yet the last stanza begins “I yearn for the cessation of wing beats.”

    

Some of Skillman’s work reminded me of T.S. Eliot’s meditative darkness of modern life, his examination of time and meaning such as in her short narrative poem where emptiness is echoed in the last line: “But when I return to the kitchen, nothing lives there, nothing fills the saucepans fitted like Russian dolls one inside the other inside the other.” This search for meaning is repeated in “Cause and Effect” where things mock, cruelty thrives and there is a pattern of violence to those who listen, those who want to hear and have enough courage.

    

This is a poet who bravely addresses the brevity of life and is a close observer of nature from animals, birds, trees, the water lily, grasshoppers, and the wind. This American poet’s sweep is wide: from shingles on skin, eating tongue, bluebells, starlings sitting on wires, seasonal affective disorder, Shakespeare’s characters—and her look is clear, economical, without sentimentality or illusion. And yet she also notes that the world has too much beauty to be understood.

    

I would have liked more on the back Notes page to explain words such as Kore, the Judas tree, Macabee trap, geodes, and the passages in French; giving the four parts names would have been helpful to me as a reader. I’m looking forward to her next collection—the travel time with Angles of Separation, seeing her landscape, was a memorable trip.

      

The most recent books of this multi-award recipient are: The Phoenix: New & Selected Poems 2007-2013 (Dream Horse Press, 2014); Broken Lines—The Art and Craft of Poetry (Lummox Press, 2013). Some of the poems in this collection have appeared in: Prairie Schooner; The Aurorean; Athenaeum: Best Indie Verse of New England.

Angles of Separation

Judith Skillman

Paperback: 96 pages

Publisher: Glass Lyre Press (2014)

ISBN-13: 978-0984035298

___

Carol Smallwood’s recent books include Water, Earth, Air, Fire, and Picket Fences (Lamar University Press, 2014) and Writing After Retirement (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). Carol has founded, supports humane societies.

Book Review of Jerry Craven's "The Wild Part"—a book review by Carol Smallwood

    In the award-winning author’s preface, Jerry Craven relates that his novel The Wild Part came from memory “filtered through imagination.” The author manages the difficult task of capturing a boy’s point of view; some of Don’s views are from movies with which his companion, a native girl, isn’t familiar. The Wild Part is multi-layered fiction for youth and adults about  Don and Rosita that begins when they leave their village of El Tigrito to catch a ride to a village to see a shrunken head supposedly hung in a shop; they end up in the interior of Venezuela.

    Rosita is a strong native girl who knows how to live off the land and tells Don: “Where there are frogs, there will be snakes. We should climb a tree to keep above the snakes.” Don worries about his family who are probably looking for him but after all their adventures, wonders if instead of returning home, they should return to the jungle where Rosita wouldn’t be laughed at.

     The point of view is the coming of age boy reminiscent of Huckleberry Finn and his travels with the slave, Jim. Rosita wisely concludes near the end of the novel, “People are the strangest animals in the jungle” and refers to Evita Peron many times as someone held in high regard by her people. The novel that shows instead of tells, can be read as an adventure story by young adults and as a novel exploring wider questions such as the role of women, faith, good and evil, society, equally resonant to adults: it whispers and avoids shouting. Like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s allegory, Young Goodman Brown which also starts at dusk in the wilderness, it’s a journey into self-scrutiny.

      Rosita’s suggestions for living off the land are especially appealing, such as catching water with a large leaf, and one of the children drinking while the other watches for anaconda.

Don can speak Spanish and they run across a wide variety of characters from miners to witches. Humor is evident as in the chapter when the main characters discuss the best way to deal with bats, vampires, and coffins: the way that each of them deals with the unfolding of events shows their character and their assumed roles of blond boy and dark- haired girl.

        I would have liked to have learned more about the lives of the two main characters before they began their trip—what their families, home, and village were like, and something about how their trip related to their future: more development of the other people in the novel also would give contrast to events.

        At the end of the paperback are helpful discussion questions for teachers and book club leaders, such as ways the novel evokes the Garden of Eden. There are important questions about faith, God, and a variety of native snakes that appear in different scenes; the novel brought to mind Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and its questions about civilized society, racism, and its use of snake symbolism in pilgrim passages.

        The novel won Foreword’s Book of the Year Wards Indiefab Finalist for Best Novel of the Year in two categories. The same author also wrote Saving a Songbird and Other True Stories from Texas to Venezuela.exas to Venezuela.

Carol Smallwood has appeared in: The Writer's Chronicle and  English Journal. Some anthologies she edited include: Library Services for Multicultural Patrons: Strategies to Encourage Library Use (Scarecrow Press 2013); Bringing the Arts into the Library: An Outreach Handbook (American Library Association, 2014).

The Wild Part, Jerry Craven

Angelina River Press, Fort Worth, Texas 2013

# ISBN-10: 0988384418

293pages,  $15.83,  paperback

___

Interview with RD Armstrong, Editor-In-Chief of Lummox Journal, Lummox Press— by Carol Smallwood

RD Armstrong is editor-in-chief of Lummox Journal, Lummox Press   

1. Please describe your website and your duties as editor-in-chief.

As to my duties as "head Lummox"...I pretty much do anything and everything. This is essentially a one man operation. I do have an excellent art director, Chris Yeseta, who does layouts for me (for the books, etc...been with me since 1997!), but I do the rest of it, including helping create the covers for many of the books we have done together over the years.

As Editor-in-chief, it's my job to solicit material for the project (right now I'm working on the second LUMMOX anthology); read submissions; accept what I like and reject what I don't. Next I will be putting the issue in order which entails arranging the poetry, essays, reviews and interviews, along with bios and table of contents...I also have to write a lead essay to introduce the issue and its theme: place. And while I'm doing that, I'm also going to be soliciting ads for the issue with the help of a friend of mine. 

I'm also publishing books, which means doing a lot of hand-holding with authors, whilst cajoling the material from them for what I hope will be a successful book. This month I published three books, which is unusual, but I have been out of action and have fallen behind, so had to do 3 books at once. And there are more books in the wings! And there's the website which I am having remodeled. So, all in all, I'm pretty busy...too bad I don't get a salary for doing all this...everything I do is speculative. I will make some money someday, I just don't know when.

Thomas Hirsch | by Carol Smallwood

Excerpt from Lily’s Odyssey, a novel, published with permission by All Things That Matter Press; its first chapter a Short List Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award for Best New Writing.

____


One snowy afternoon when school had been closed I saw Thomas Hirsch looking for my house in the road with his coat blowing in the wind. He wore what Uncle Walt called “a damn Russian Cossack hat,” with the jutting earflaps giving him the profile of a pitcher with handles. I’d called the newspaper after reading his appeal for memorabilia on the local opera house so ran out to meet him.

Thomas rarely took the time to button the cuffs of his shirts, so he was affectionately called “Cuffs.” His wife had taught adult education art for years and was a respected northern Wisconsin portrait painter. When I took his coat and hat, I saw a pair of Mark’s underwear he’d put on a chair when I went outside and whisked them into my pocket, and heard my son snickering in his room.

Under his shirt Thomas wore a T-shirt that saidworld’s greatest grandfather. His large round eyes, and his brows shaped like inverted V’s, gave him a startled look, but he was hard of hearing. Some people said he just pretended to be, so they’d speak openly around him, and he could gather tidbits for the newspaper, at which he was a reporter. They said he could hear very well clear across a room when something was newsworthy, but if someone under his nose wanted free publicity, he’d lean forward, shake his head and tap his hearing aid.
I too, was becoming acquainted with selective hearing: Odysseus put wax in his sailors’ ears so they wouldn’t be tempted by the Sirens; I used ear plugs to not hear people talk about lost animals.

After Thomas smoothed back his hair and dried his glasses, I showed him my grandfather’s plate. He was delighted, took a few pictures, and then asked, “Have you been doing any more writing since your book on Wisconsin geology?” He smiled encouragingly.

He seemed sincerely interested, so I showed him some of the boxes of source material I’d gathered.

He shook his head and said, “I’m amazed at all that hard work you do. It takes you hours upon hours just to collect the material. How do you do it when you work too?”

“Because of cutbacks at Nicolet City,” I told him, “I’m only working part-time now, and I like to keep busy.”

Even as I said it, I realized I felt guilty for talking about my work, as if I was flaunting my independence. In fact, my writing was security for me. Whatever else was happening, however frightened or terror-stricken I felt, I knew it was something I could do. But now, asked to talk about it, it seemed that if I acknowledged the success I’d had, I’d be saying that my adoptive father and my ex hadn’t measured up, that I didn’t properly regard men as the head of a household, as Christ was the head of the Church. I could still hear Aunt Hester’s hushed church voice telling me about the Catholic girl’s role in helping men get to Heaven. And how could I be competent when I wasn’t able to protect myself from Uncle Walt growing up--nor had I been able to keep my family together?

According to the Church, Cal, Uncle Walt, and Aunt Hester, and most others, the blame was mine; cutting up my old clothes and those of the children’s and sewing them together to make quilts was one way of going back to my proper role as a woman. Maybe the Church had been right in saying that sex/marriage was for the procreation of children, but where did love come in--or was it one of nature’s tricks?

When I gave Thomas the inch mat of compressed mosses, liverworts, and fossils I’d found when burying leaves, a specimen similar to one I studied in college, his gratitude was sincere and made me glad I was able to share my interest in geology with him. I’d held the specimen many times trying to will it to give me clues about life. Knowing that glaciers shaped the landscape around me always filled me with awe and it seemed that the gouging and relentless movement of immense sheets ice miles thick had happened only yesterday, and that Lake Michigan lapping close by still had ice under the water, fantastic secrets. Knowing how the ground I walked upon was formed made it feel more stable, less likely to split open into a black pit and swallow me. And yet, knowing that the Ice Age was caused by a change in the orbit of the earth around the sun, wasn’t very reassuring. Nor was knowing that all species die. I wasn’t ready to admit that the life force that compelled me not to give up was intertwined with the drive to love, to understand, like a ball of twine—a ball that, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t unravel. Perhaps Caroline was right when she advised, “Don’t look to this world or in yourself. Lift your eyes to Heaven.”

Wisconsin was shaped by the past, a past determined long before man. To help ground me, I got out my childhood atlas and once again was reassured that Wisconsin was surrounded by Lake Superior on the north and Lake Michigan on the east; its western boundary was Minnesota, Iowa; the southern was Illinois. By the way the roads converge, you could tell Milwaukee and Madison were the main cities.

The Great Lakes was dwarfed by Hudson Bay on a map of Canada. Milwaukee was the only city noted in Wisconsin and straight red veins (railroads) radiated from it.

On my globe, Wisconsin is an orange spot surrounded by green Minnesota, yellow Iowa, pink Illinois; the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is sandwiched between the blue of Lakes Michigan and Superior. The globe squeaked when I turned it to French West Africa. The name Anglo-Egyptian reminded me of a hyphenated name of a modern bride.

The globe was made in Chicago but had no date; an eagle with outspread wings clutched branches over the LEGEND showing three dots for Ruins and others. The Population Classification for Cities was indicated by the size of the dots, and the capitals by stars. The LEGEND was between the North Pacific Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean, the Marquesas Islands (Fr.) on the left, and the expanse of blue water on the right.

Under the stand I’d written: “Lily Alger, Grade 6, Age 11, 3/11/51, Sunday.” There were traces of rose decals I applied long ago below Alaska to make the expanse of the North Pacific Ocean less empty.

The north pole had a sunrise, sunset, high noon, mid-night moveable circle so you could tell time all around the world once you pointed the current time where you were: I found that the sun was setting in Ireland, and it was rising over the Territory of Hawaii.

The amount of water covering the earth was so overwhelming I still thought that fish should’ve evolved and ruled everything: as the globe revolved I could’ve been looking at the very spot humans evolved. The continental drift had once sounded too fantastic, but then I saw how the coast of eastern South American fit into the western coast of Africa like an old married couple, it was unreasonable not to accept it.


___
Carol Smallwood co-edited Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching (McFarland, 2012) on the list of "Best Books for Writers" by Poets & Writers Magazine; Women Writing on Family: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing (Key Publishing House, 2012); Compartments: Poems on Nature, Femininity, and Other Realms (Anaphora Literary Press, 2011) received a Pushcart nomination. Carol has founded, supports humane societies.