Showing posts with label Prose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prose. Show all posts
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Andrew H. Banecker, "Capital"
Andrew H. Banecker
Capital
For twelve dollars, you can buy a Cambodian boy for an hour.
He’d learned this a few months ago while watching a Dateline special on sex tourism. Never had it seemed applicable to any facet of his existence until tonight, when Steve Herman watched his date order her third martini. After the second, he’d asked the waitress to bring him the drink menu. Not, as he’d said at the time, so that he could peruse the various offerings unique to the Cracked Mirror—his Coors Light still taking up most of the glass—but so he could view the damage done to his bank account.
For twelve dollars, you can buy a bottle of Australian Chiraz, and still have enough for an impulse buy at the counter.
He’d had his reservations about the place the minute his date brought it up on the phone. “I read about it in The Nashville Scene,” she said. “It looks swanky.”
Furthering his suspicion was its location—in the Hillsboro Village section of town, between $40,000-a-year schools, Belmont and Vanderbilt. He’d pegged Lori—or was it Lauren. Laura?—for the kind of girl you’d have to impress, but that was based solely on her looks. She was impossibly gorgeous, sipping a vodka tonic—bought by a winking kid with a sparse goatee indicative of a fake ID expensive enough to convince the bouncer—through the stirring straw, and wincing at the taste. When she’d pushed the drink away, the kid took offense.
When she pushed the kid away, Steve intervened. That was how he got her number. He’d just come from an unfortunate interview with The Tennessean for a job in the mail room, and was wearing a suit bought from the Men’s Wearhouse that resembled the navy Hugo Boss, striped vertically with a subtle, almost undetectable light blue his father owned. That was how he got her number. Her friends were in the bathroom. That was how he got her number.
For twelve dollars, you can hire a band of migrant workers to till your land until daybreak.
He’d borrowed his father’s car to pick her up. A ’98 Honda Accord, though with the V6 leather package. His father had recently had it waxed, and the interior detailed, so it smelled of artificial new car smell and Armor-All. There was more than enough gas in the tank to get where he needed to go.
For twelve dollars, you can feed a small African village through a Christian charity.
He was wearing the same suit, but with a different tie—a black silk his father was given from a Dali museum in Roma. On the back, stitched into the tag, read, “St. Georges et le Dragon. Image d’une sculpture de Salvador Dali.” An hour before he left, he stood in front of the mirror, reciting that line, careful to remember the proper inflection on each word from the time he’d heard his father say it to an associate. He imagined his date remarking on the intricate stitch work, capturing the featureless saint, on horseback, lance in hand. He imagined her peering closer, seeing the inlaid soft watches and melting clocks hidden between the statues. He would tell her The Persistence of Memory is his favorite painting. She would peer closer.
For twelve dollars, you could buy one eighth of that tie.
She ordered first. A Rose Martini. The very name confused Steve, but he assumed it was named after the owner, or something unique to the bartender—she looked too young to be a Rose, but you never knew. He hardly looked like a Steve. More of a Chris, or Ben. His date began to talk about classes. She went to Belmont for their program in music business. “I’m hoping to get an internship with Sony or BMG this summer,” she said. “But it’s so competitive.”
Steve nodded and smiled. He made a mental picture of the necklace she was wearing—a simple gold chain with a diamond in gold setting, serving as a weighted plum bob splitting the symmetry of her breasts. As she brushed a few strands away from his vision, he made sure to look up into her eyes before enough time had passed to force an accusation of leering. “It’s my grandmother’s engagement ring,” she said. “My mother had it made into a necklace.”
Steve smiled. “It suits you.” Steve immediately regretted his choice of words, but once they were out there, he could do nothing but wait for a response. It suits you? What kind of a thing is that to say to a date? That sounds like something his Uncle Murray would say to him while trying on pants as a child. Something his Great Aunt Rita would tell him if he’d been complaining about a hair cut that was slightly too short for his liking. It suits you? Regardless, it looked as if Lori—Steve was pretty sure that was her name—hadn’t even heard him. Her gaze distracted by the triangular glass being walked to the table—a slightly pink liquid with something floating in it. A single rose, no stem.
For twelve dollars, you can see a five-year-old eat an equal number of worms at recess.
“Isn’t this just to die for?” she said. She took a small sip, draining nearly a third of the glass. She winced slightly at the taste, and coughed after she’d swallowed, just as she’d done with the vodka tonic on the night they met. This time she didn’t push the drink away.
Steve glanced around the periphery of his table, and suddenly felt underdressed. Sure, his suit resembled his father’s Hugo Boss, but it was picked off a clearance rack and tailored by a man who probably felt his obvious comb-over made him look ten years younger. The only thing he had that came close to Italian craftsmanship was purchased at a museum gift shop by his Great Aunt Rita while she was with her church group on a day tour of Rome. And he’d had to borrow it from his father. He had no business being in a martini bar like this. Or any martini bar, for that matter. He was Steve Herman, son of a Murfreesboro accountant. His degree came from Middle Tennessee State University.
For twelve dollars, you can buy a degree from Middle Tennessee State University.
He began to sweat. Not the attractive musk a man gets from chopping wood. No, it was the nervous type, the type that bleeds through clothes. The type that forms on his nose and forces him into the unenviable quagmire of letting it fall off the tip, or wiping it with the sleeve of his jacket. Steve excused himself to the restroom.
“What are you doing here?” he whispered to his reflection, softly enough so the bathroom attendant wouldn’t be alerted. He took a breath to gather himself in, but in an instant was flush with questions. Why did you think you could handle this night? This girl? You’ve been out of school for six months, and you can’t even get mail room work? What kind of drink has a rose floating in it? What kind of bar has a bathroom attendant? Why did you think you could impress her with a gift shop tie and clearance rack suit bought from a man who squinted like he was suffering from a slowly detaching retina?
The bathroom attendant asked him if he needed a towel, or some cologne. He called Steve, “Sir.” Realizing he’d have to tip the man if he accepted, Steve mumbled something incoherent, and rushed out of the bathroom.
For twelve dollars, you can use the bathroom six times and not feel bad about how much you tip.
Looking at the drink menu, Steve had to refrain himself from letting loose a stream of obscenities that would make a longshoreman blush. His vocal chords obeyed. His eyes, however, were stuck on the price list, unable to move from the number directly to the right of the words: Rose Martini.
For twelve dollars, Your Highness can buy two ounces of pink grapefruit juice, one ounce of vodka, and a mother fucking rose floating on the whole damned thing.
“Steve?” his date said, momentarily wrenching his eyes from the page. “Do you want one?”
Steve’s eyes were drawn to something else. A fluorescent blue drink with a green glow stick for a stirrer. That bitch. In the bathroom not two minutes, and Little Miss Princess over there’s ordering another God-damned drink!
“You’ve got to try this,” she said, raising her glass toward the waitress and motioning for two.
For twelve dollars, you can buy a Cambodian boy for an hour.
For twelve more, you can hunt him for sport.
As he drove his date back to her apartment in silence, Steve had to use all the resolve he had not to steer his car into every tree they passed. Who is she to order four martinis and not even think about reaching for the check? Little Miss Wonderful is going into the music business. Well la tee da. Look at her, looking out the window and smiling like an idiot. Thinks she’s better than everyone because she goes to martini bars, wears heirlooms turned into necklaces, and pushes away perfectly good guys who offer to buy her a drink just because it makes her gag? Well, what makes her so special? Who is she that she can turn guys upside down and shake out their wallets over frou frou drinks with God-damned roses in them. What the hell has she got that’s so—
“Would you like to come in?” she said.
“Sure.”
For fifty-seven dollars and seventy-seven cents—plus tip—you can buy a Rose Martini, three Electric Blue Lemonade Martinis, and one Coors Light.
_____
Capital
For twelve dollars, you can buy a Cambodian boy for an hour.
He’d learned this a few months ago while watching a Dateline special on sex tourism. Never had it seemed applicable to any facet of his existence until tonight, when Steve Herman watched his date order her third martini. After the second, he’d asked the waitress to bring him the drink menu. Not, as he’d said at the time, so that he could peruse the various offerings unique to the Cracked Mirror—his Coors Light still taking up most of the glass—but so he could view the damage done to his bank account.
For twelve dollars, you can buy a bottle of Australian Chiraz, and still have enough for an impulse buy at the counter.
He’d had his reservations about the place the minute his date brought it up on the phone. “I read about it in The Nashville Scene,” she said. “It looks swanky.”
Furthering his suspicion was its location—in the Hillsboro Village section of town, between $40,000-a-year schools, Belmont and Vanderbilt. He’d pegged Lori—or was it Lauren. Laura?—for the kind of girl you’d have to impress, but that was based solely on her looks. She was impossibly gorgeous, sipping a vodka tonic—bought by a winking kid with a sparse goatee indicative of a fake ID expensive enough to convince the bouncer—through the stirring straw, and wincing at the taste. When she’d pushed the drink away, the kid took offense.
When she pushed the kid away, Steve intervened. That was how he got her number. He’d just come from an unfortunate interview with The Tennessean for a job in the mail room, and was wearing a suit bought from the Men’s Wearhouse that resembled the navy Hugo Boss, striped vertically with a subtle, almost undetectable light blue his father owned. That was how he got her number. Her friends were in the bathroom. That was how he got her number.
For twelve dollars, you can hire a band of migrant workers to till your land until daybreak.
He’d borrowed his father’s car to pick her up. A ’98 Honda Accord, though with the V6 leather package. His father had recently had it waxed, and the interior detailed, so it smelled of artificial new car smell and Armor-All. There was more than enough gas in the tank to get where he needed to go.
For twelve dollars, you can feed a small African village through a Christian charity.
He was wearing the same suit, but with a different tie—a black silk his father was given from a Dali museum in Roma. On the back, stitched into the tag, read, “St. Georges et le Dragon. Image d’une sculpture de Salvador Dali.” An hour before he left, he stood in front of the mirror, reciting that line, careful to remember the proper inflection on each word from the time he’d heard his father say it to an associate. He imagined his date remarking on the intricate stitch work, capturing the featureless saint, on horseback, lance in hand. He imagined her peering closer, seeing the inlaid soft watches and melting clocks hidden between the statues. He would tell her The Persistence of Memory is his favorite painting. She would peer closer.
For twelve dollars, you could buy one eighth of that tie.
She ordered first. A Rose Martini. The very name confused Steve, but he assumed it was named after the owner, or something unique to the bartender—she looked too young to be a Rose, but you never knew. He hardly looked like a Steve. More of a Chris, or Ben. His date began to talk about classes. She went to Belmont for their program in music business. “I’m hoping to get an internship with Sony or BMG this summer,” she said. “But it’s so competitive.”
Steve nodded and smiled. He made a mental picture of the necklace she was wearing—a simple gold chain with a diamond in gold setting, serving as a weighted plum bob splitting the symmetry of her breasts. As she brushed a few strands away from his vision, he made sure to look up into her eyes before enough time had passed to force an accusation of leering. “It’s my grandmother’s engagement ring,” she said. “My mother had it made into a necklace.”
Steve smiled. “It suits you.” Steve immediately regretted his choice of words, but once they were out there, he could do nothing but wait for a response. It suits you? What kind of a thing is that to say to a date? That sounds like something his Uncle Murray would say to him while trying on pants as a child. Something his Great Aunt Rita would tell him if he’d been complaining about a hair cut that was slightly too short for his liking. It suits you? Regardless, it looked as if Lori—Steve was pretty sure that was her name—hadn’t even heard him. Her gaze distracted by the triangular glass being walked to the table—a slightly pink liquid with something floating in it. A single rose, no stem.
For twelve dollars, you can see a five-year-old eat an equal number of worms at recess.
“Isn’t this just to die for?” she said. She took a small sip, draining nearly a third of the glass. She winced slightly at the taste, and coughed after she’d swallowed, just as she’d done with the vodka tonic on the night they met. This time she didn’t push the drink away.
Steve glanced around the periphery of his table, and suddenly felt underdressed. Sure, his suit resembled his father’s Hugo Boss, but it was picked off a clearance rack and tailored by a man who probably felt his obvious comb-over made him look ten years younger. The only thing he had that came close to Italian craftsmanship was purchased at a museum gift shop by his Great Aunt Rita while she was with her church group on a day tour of Rome. And he’d had to borrow it from his father. He had no business being in a martini bar like this. Or any martini bar, for that matter. He was Steve Herman, son of a Murfreesboro accountant. His degree came from Middle Tennessee State University.
For twelve dollars, you can buy a degree from Middle Tennessee State University.
He began to sweat. Not the attractive musk a man gets from chopping wood. No, it was the nervous type, the type that bleeds through clothes. The type that forms on his nose and forces him into the unenviable quagmire of letting it fall off the tip, or wiping it with the sleeve of his jacket. Steve excused himself to the restroom.
“What are you doing here?” he whispered to his reflection, softly enough so the bathroom attendant wouldn’t be alerted. He took a breath to gather himself in, but in an instant was flush with questions. Why did you think you could handle this night? This girl? You’ve been out of school for six months, and you can’t even get mail room work? What kind of drink has a rose floating in it? What kind of bar has a bathroom attendant? Why did you think you could impress her with a gift shop tie and clearance rack suit bought from a man who squinted like he was suffering from a slowly detaching retina?
The bathroom attendant asked him if he needed a towel, or some cologne. He called Steve, “Sir.” Realizing he’d have to tip the man if he accepted, Steve mumbled something incoherent, and rushed out of the bathroom.
For twelve dollars, you can use the bathroom six times and not feel bad about how much you tip.
Looking at the drink menu, Steve had to refrain himself from letting loose a stream of obscenities that would make a longshoreman blush. His vocal chords obeyed. His eyes, however, were stuck on the price list, unable to move from the number directly to the right of the words: Rose Martini.
For twelve dollars, Your Highness can buy two ounces of pink grapefruit juice, one ounce of vodka, and a mother fucking rose floating on the whole damned thing.
“Steve?” his date said, momentarily wrenching his eyes from the page. “Do you want one?”
Steve’s eyes were drawn to something else. A fluorescent blue drink with a green glow stick for a stirrer. That bitch. In the bathroom not two minutes, and Little Miss Princess over there’s ordering another God-damned drink!
“You’ve got to try this,” she said, raising her glass toward the waitress and motioning for two.
For twelve dollars, you can buy a Cambodian boy for an hour.
For twelve more, you can hunt him for sport.
As he drove his date back to her apartment in silence, Steve had to use all the resolve he had not to steer his car into every tree they passed. Who is she to order four martinis and not even think about reaching for the check? Little Miss Wonderful is going into the music business. Well la tee da. Look at her, looking out the window and smiling like an idiot. Thinks she’s better than everyone because she goes to martini bars, wears heirlooms turned into necklaces, and pushes away perfectly good guys who offer to buy her a drink just because it makes her gag? Well, what makes her so special? Who is she that she can turn guys upside down and shake out their wallets over frou frou drinks with God-damned roses in them. What the hell has she got that’s so—
“Would you like to come in?” she said.
“Sure.”
For fifty-seven dollars and seventy-seven cents—plus tip—you can buy a Rose Martini, three Electric Blue Lemonade Martinis, and one Coors Light.
_____
Barbara Henning, "An Arc Into the Bougainvillea"
Barbara Henning
from An Arc Falling Into the Bougainvillea
* * *
The poet is wearing a pink tee shirt and a turquoise bandana tied around her head, reading a philosophic essay on the poet and critic. Every particular is an immediate happening. At night we walk home from the Boulderado. Barbara, what were you going to say? I could feel you move toward me and then you went back. I have a raw tickle in my throat from eating cheese and corn and from talking too much. We pass under the locust trees. Three poets in white hats. Which is which? The one who begins with ideas, the one who begins with sound, or the one who can’t stop telling a story. Strange dream yesterday morning. A big white rabbit with a long tail. I’m watching it, losing it, forgetting it, catching the tail and pulling it back. Then on the bus I’m trying to get back to the house to put the rabbit in the right place. Lots of wrong turns. The plants I put into the earth, mother of a million little secrets, are populating like night and day.
*
The cowboys scare me because they demand obedience. I like jazz swing better—each of us has the possibility of a solo. At dusk, I unravel the hose and water the cacti. So hot that a bunch of kale cooks inside the car in fifteen minutes. Men on tv in a ring beat the hell out of each other. With fear of poverty, it is difficult to live in the poetic order. Lightening. Doves cooing. Palm trees swaying. Mocking birds. If you mock, you will be mocked. Yesterday I tried to remember Louie Armstrong’s name. Four hours passed and suddenly I was humming What a Wonderful World and his name popped right into my head along with news of torrential rains, streets flooding and body counts.
*
Then the sun comes out and the clouds travel quickly somewhere else. I remember cutting through campus once late at night in Detroit, heading over to a boyfriend’s house. There was no one outside and it was a cold icy night. Frightened to be out there so late and all alone, I ran as fast as I could until halfway across the mall, I met George in an old tweed overcoat. He wrapped his coat and his arms around me. Then he never came back again. I tell Anne about some guy I like today and she looks at me and says, I really don’t understand anything about what you’re talking about, this is so out of my realm of understanding. I’ve slept with two men in my entire life. Both of them asked me to marry them on our first date and to both of them I said yes. When the sky is the sky, it’s like a blanket over the sea at night.
*
In a yoga class in down dog. Om nama shivaya. On one leg, the other parallel to the floor and one hand on the floor and one pointing to the ceiling, flying, breathing. Down into child’s pose and suddenly the woman’s face from Law and Order floods my mind. So what if she killed him I think. The sound of a helicopter overhead. Shifting plates under the city. The smell of sulfur. I inhale, concentrating on my breath and rising up into ardachandrasana again. Om nama shivaya. The moon, the tv and me.
*
Last year during the drought, doves and pigeons were falling over dead in the street from a lack of water. Today, both doors are open and a cool breeze is passing through the house. Then it starts raining, one of those monsoon downpours with giant drops filling up every hole in the yard and the entire street. The trees and bushes are ecstatic. Into or out of. The old woman whose car got stuck in a wash on the far eastside, now a foot and a half into the soil—she’s not happy. And in some parts of the country, the water rushes away with all of our technology and our appliances, dishes, spoons, papers, pillows floating off into the bayou. Gambling and lack of direct action always leave us scrambling at the last minute. After the clouds pass into the mountains, I take Anne to physical therapy, old people rolling in and out in wheel chairs, hobbling around with canes and walkers. Thin skin, sores on legs, arm and faces, sleeping in their chairs. Yes, suffering, yes, stink, yes, frightening, but in fact not all that different from a disintegrating butterfly wing or the waves rushing away with our financial woes.
* * *
_____
from An Arc Falling Into the Bougainvillea
* * *
The poet is wearing a pink tee shirt and a turquoise bandana tied around her head, reading a philosophic essay on the poet and critic. Every particular is an immediate happening. At night we walk home from the Boulderado. Barbara, what were you going to say? I could feel you move toward me and then you went back. I have a raw tickle in my throat from eating cheese and corn and from talking too much. We pass under the locust trees. Three poets in white hats. Which is which? The one who begins with ideas, the one who begins with sound, or the one who can’t stop telling a story. Strange dream yesterday morning. A big white rabbit with a long tail. I’m watching it, losing it, forgetting it, catching the tail and pulling it back. Then on the bus I’m trying to get back to the house to put the rabbit in the right place. Lots of wrong turns. The plants I put into the earth, mother of a million little secrets, are populating like night and day.
*
The cowboys scare me because they demand obedience. I like jazz swing better—each of us has the possibility of a solo. At dusk, I unravel the hose and water the cacti. So hot that a bunch of kale cooks inside the car in fifteen minutes. Men on tv in a ring beat the hell out of each other. With fear of poverty, it is difficult to live in the poetic order. Lightening. Doves cooing. Palm trees swaying. Mocking birds. If you mock, you will be mocked. Yesterday I tried to remember Louie Armstrong’s name. Four hours passed and suddenly I was humming What a Wonderful World and his name popped right into my head along with news of torrential rains, streets flooding and body counts.
*
Then the sun comes out and the clouds travel quickly somewhere else. I remember cutting through campus once late at night in Detroit, heading over to a boyfriend’s house. There was no one outside and it was a cold icy night. Frightened to be out there so late and all alone, I ran as fast as I could until halfway across the mall, I met George in an old tweed overcoat. He wrapped his coat and his arms around me. Then he never came back again. I tell Anne about some guy I like today and she looks at me and says, I really don’t understand anything about what you’re talking about, this is so out of my realm of understanding. I’ve slept with two men in my entire life. Both of them asked me to marry them on our first date and to both of them I said yes. When the sky is the sky, it’s like a blanket over the sea at night.
*
In a yoga class in down dog. Om nama shivaya. On one leg, the other parallel to the floor and one hand on the floor and one pointing to the ceiling, flying, breathing. Down into child’s pose and suddenly the woman’s face from Law and Order floods my mind. So what if she killed him I think. The sound of a helicopter overhead. Shifting plates under the city. The smell of sulfur. I inhale, concentrating on my breath and rising up into ardachandrasana again. Om nama shivaya. The moon, the tv and me.
*
Last year during the drought, doves and pigeons were falling over dead in the street from a lack of water. Today, both doors are open and a cool breeze is passing through the house. Then it starts raining, one of those monsoon downpours with giant drops filling up every hole in the yard and the entire street. The trees and bushes are ecstatic. Into or out of. The old woman whose car got stuck in a wash on the far eastside, now a foot and a half into the soil—she’s not happy. And in some parts of the country, the water rushes away with all of our technology and our appliances, dishes, spoons, papers, pillows floating off into the bayou. Gambling and lack of direct action always leave us scrambling at the last minute. After the clouds pass into the mountains, I take Anne to physical therapy, old people rolling in and out in wheel chairs, hobbling around with canes and walkers. Thin skin, sores on legs, arm and faces, sleeping in their chairs. Yes, suffering, yes, stink, yes, frightening, but in fact not all that different from a disintegrating butterfly wing or the waves rushing away with our financial woes.
* * *
_____
Mark Jacobs, "My Letter to Sandy"
Mark Jacobs
My Letter to Sandy
So here it finally is, that letter I never got around to writing you. I’m thinking it to you, word by word, all the way to Buffalo. Because of my current and probably future situation, thinking is all I can manage. Though even if I could get to a computer, which I can’t, I don’t trust email. Somebody with evil intentions and unlimited memory is recording all the keystrokes. Take it from me, Sandy. Keep your important thoughts analogue.
I have this feeling the letter won’t get to you unless you’re at home. What happens if you left the apartment, or you left Buffalo altogether? Where would you go? You’re urban and traditional, and I don’t see you being happy anywhere but Black Rock. But I can’t think about that right now. I’m assuming you’re still in the same place on Creeley Street, and the landlord never fixed the windowsills so they’re still warped and flaking blue paint, and every morning you still put out hunks of bread soaked in milk for that yellow cat with the bad tail and the battered psyche.
Here’s the headline you’re probably waiting for: I’ll never get out of Turkey. Türkiye, the Turks call it. Just so you understand where I’m coming from. Going from, I guess I should say.
There’s a limit to the kindness of strangers, and I’m over it. These people are poor, but it’s not the small money to keep me that bothers them. The husband sharpens knives, he has a place in the market. The wife sews stuff. The old folks do other things, not sure what. The kids sell these brown baked items that look like swollen pretzels. They get by. But it’s not the money, it’s me being sick and foreign that’s getting to them.
At this point I need your help with a word. It has to do with what they lay over dead people, and sometimes it hangs over cities. It’s not a riddle, I just can’t come up with the word.
You used to tell me I had a hawk mind, and I felt flattered. Once you said it was a lizard mind, and I didn’t mind that, either, although I knew it was not exactly a compliment, or not the kind of candy compliment the smiley people give each other. All that’s gone. My strong mind, I mean. You’re thinking it must be the drugs but it’s not. In my opinion it’s mostly the sickness, something like ninety percent.
I would like to say a few things about dying, but first I need to talk about this smoke. The town, I can’t pronounce the name, sits in a bowl, and there’s been no wind for a week. So the gunk goes nowhere. It gets in my ears and eyes and nose, which I can handle. What I can’t take is the dirty feeling it gives me when I suck smoke down my throat. That’s partly why I’m sick, or why I don’t get any better. This is only December. Evidently the worst is still to come. January is the killer month, and February. If I could get past February, I’d have a chance.
I’m not into pretending anymore.
Here are three things I hope you will remember. One, people are kind, more than they aren’t. Two, I never stole anything. I only starting borrowing when I decided to go back home and needed cash, and I only borrowed from people it didn’t hurt. Three, I used to have a hawk mind, a lizard mind, a bad cat mind. With occasional gusts of insight.
Contrary to your predictions, I never got into the hard and heavy shit. Never found the need to. Smoke enough dope for long enough, hang out in some miserable mountain fantasy land, and you get the same results. Although like I say, in my opinion it’s mostly the sickness that’s fuzzing my brain, not drug residue in my system.
You should know that since leaving the shores of Babylon my eyes have witnessed several flashes of aggravated reality. I’m talking about moments that people might give twenty years of their life for. Anyway they would if their souls had eyes and ears and a mouth the way I think they must.
A Catholic school story I am moved to tell you. Just before Thomas Aquinas died he had a vision. The vision convinced him everything he’d done, written, amounted to nothing. So much thin straw in a high wind. When I left, I remember this argument we had where you told me I was wrong about America being the world’s imperial Babylon, and I told you how it might take a thousand years but a genuine people’s revolution was going to remake the world in the image of justice, and meantime I was going to take my stand with the oppressed, not the oppressors. All that. At the time, you thought I was posing, but I wasn’t. I believed what I said. Now, I hope you’ll take it in the right spirit when I admit that the actual real reason I left was to hunt me up a vision like St. Tom’s.
The world needs fewer agonized Catholics, is my contention and prayer.
This morning the family called in a kid who spoke some English to suggest politely that I get in touch with this American teacher who supposedly might help me. He teaches at some school on the other side of the city, I think. I went by the place once, when I was still mobile. The kids wear uniforms and sing songs. I say, fuck that noise. At some point my death in this house will become a gem, a blood-red ruby of inestimable value. The family will tell the story of my demise more often than I deserve. Once the inconvenience wears off, people like remembering the sort of sad and unfixable thing I seem to them to be.
Besides, if I got a little better, I could hustle enough cash to move west, towards Istanbul. From where I’m lying now, Istanbul is next door to Buffalo. First thing, I’d soak some bread in milk and put it out for the cat. Only cat I ever saw with fur the color of a battleship. But I can’t get all worked up about future plans.
Saying west makes me think of The Journey to the East. A high-risk book if ever I read one, and I can prove it. In India I met a girl who later killed herself because tongues of fire didn’t flash in her consciousness like they did for Buddha Hermann. I told her there was nothing wrong with her journey or her motives, she was just born in the wrong generation. The one time we went to bed there were fleas in the blanket. When I picked one from her head and threw it into a candle flame, she cried. To her credit, no? You were the one who said we have to resist the dark pleasure of inflicting pain (I give you credit for the quote when I think about such matters). But then Ruth, her name I’m almost positive was Ruth, kept kicking herself for what she called excessive moral compunction over the killing of an insect. Are fleas insects, I wonder?
My head used to be a bird of prey. That was one of the features about me that attracted you. You admitted it the same night we saw shooting stars out over Lake Erie.
Right now, you’re stuffing dirty clothes into a duffel bag. Not because you’re leaving home. You’re only going to the laundromat, the one with the Salvadoran manager who was always watching you fold your underwear until you told him to cast his lecherous eyes elsewhere. Although it’s possible he got another job by now. His name may have been Luis. One thing is certain. Sunlight through the kitchen window makes bright butterflies of your hands while you’re stuffing the duffel.
People are kind. When I told these people I didn’t want help from the teacher at the school, where they have trees on both sides of the drive going up to a big white building, they accepted it gracefully. They are fatalists. Also, kind as they are, they’re interested in the process. How long can it be before I die?
I’m pretty sure I don’t have hepatitis, but maybe I do. Have it.
One other thing worth mentioning. In fourth grade, the nun told our class when we died we would all get together in one big room in Heaven and watch movies of the lives of every single individual who ever lived. Since we would already be in eternity, there would be no hurry. Her idea was to worry us into behaving, so that the movies they ran of us in Heaven would not embarrass our family or reflect poorly on her teaching. But I never got past the thought of how long it would take to show all those movies. The idea of so much time infinitely spooling time appalled me. At the same time I assumed it would be a sin to be bored by so much film.
If it happens, if the nun was right after all, my idea is to jump up when the big argument with my father comes on the screen and distract everybody. I can’t remember what we argued over, but it probably had something to do with Latin, which I don’t remember if you knew he taught forever. He had this complicated thing going on in his head all the time about cultures degenerating. It could make him cry. You should have known my old man. I should have, too.
Pretty soon now, things will come to a head. The whole family has gathered around me. The father has brought home his knives. I can hear that slippery scraping sharpness of blades on the whetstone. The mother is probably sewing, she always is. I have a hunch she’s sewing something to bury me in. The old folks are fussing with bread and something to drink. Tea, maybe. The Turks drink a lot of tea. The kids are trying to be quiet but can’t be. Things are coming to a head. I can never tell if it’s day or night any more because of the smoke, not what’s outside so much as the stuff on the inside.
Pall. That’s the word I couldn’t come up with. Here it is, Sandy. Spread it gently over the body.
I haven’t talked about pain because you never liked melodrama, which I respected about you. Anyway most of the time I’m hanging around on this weird threshold between befuddlement and sleep, so it doesn’t hurt as much as it could.
I want to think this is how it was for St. Thomas. He expected a spangled flaming God, and all he saw was a handful of people worrying him, being kind. Enough. I never stole, I borrowed. Long term. I don’t believe they really show movies in Heaven. The smoke is awful, especially on the inside. I appreciate how the family is watching me, thinking about me. It’s not that they wish I would die. I’m a windfall for them. I’m entertainment. I hate the smoke inside as much as I hate that scraping-on-the-whetstone sound.
If you get this, I hereby bequeath everything I ever thought to you.
How could you not get it?
Tell me I’m right, this is the way it was for St. Thomas. The vision doesn’t come in the colors you expected. But I agree with him. Straw in the wind. You can’t help but notice that people are kind, pretty much. I’m almost certain the mother is sewing something to bury me in. That is what I want to keep in a quiet spot in my darker mind, that people are kind.
_____
Mark Jacobs has published over 70 stories in commercial and literary magazines including The Atlantic Monthly and The Iowa Review. His most recent book is A Handful of Kings, from Simon and Schuster. He plays lead guitar in The Double Crossed Band http://doublecrossedband.net/
My Letter to Sandy
So here it finally is, that letter I never got around to writing you. I’m thinking it to you, word by word, all the way to Buffalo. Because of my current and probably future situation, thinking is all I can manage. Though even if I could get to a computer, which I can’t, I don’t trust email. Somebody with evil intentions and unlimited memory is recording all the keystrokes. Take it from me, Sandy. Keep your important thoughts analogue.
I have this feeling the letter won’t get to you unless you’re at home. What happens if you left the apartment, or you left Buffalo altogether? Where would you go? You’re urban and traditional, and I don’t see you being happy anywhere but Black Rock. But I can’t think about that right now. I’m assuming you’re still in the same place on Creeley Street, and the landlord never fixed the windowsills so they’re still warped and flaking blue paint, and every morning you still put out hunks of bread soaked in milk for that yellow cat with the bad tail and the battered psyche.
Here’s the headline you’re probably waiting for: I’ll never get out of Turkey. Türkiye, the Turks call it. Just so you understand where I’m coming from. Going from, I guess I should say.
There’s a limit to the kindness of strangers, and I’m over it. These people are poor, but it’s not the small money to keep me that bothers them. The husband sharpens knives, he has a place in the market. The wife sews stuff. The old folks do other things, not sure what. The kids sell these brown baked items that look like swollen pretzels. They get by. But it’s not the money, it’s me being sick and foreign that’s getting to them.
At this point I need your help with a word. It has to do with what they lay over dead people, and sometimes it hangs over cities. It’s not a riddle, I just can’t come up with the word.
You used to tell me I had a hawk mind, and I felt flattered. Once you said it was a lizard mind, and I didn’t mind that, either, although I knew it was not exactly a compliment, or not the kind of candy compliment the smiley people give each other. All that’s gone. My strong mind, I mean. You’re thinking it must be the drugs but it’s not. In my opinion it’s mostly the sickness, something like ninety percent.
I would like to say a few things about dying, but first I need to talk about this smoke. The town, I can’t pronounce the name, sits in a bowl, and there’s been no wind for a week. So the gunk goes nowhere. It gets in my ears and eyes and nose, which I can handle. What I can’t take is the dirty feeling it gives me when I suck smoke down my throat. That’s partly why I’m sick, or why I don’t get any better. This is only December. Evidently the worst is still to come. January is the killer month, and February. If I could get past February, I’d have a chance.
I’m not into pretending anymore.
Here are three things I hope you will remember. One, people are kind, more than they aren’t. Two, I never stole anything. I only starting borrowing when I decided to go back home and needed cash, and I only borrowed from people it didn’t hurt. Three, I used to have a hawk mind, a lizard mind, a bad cat mind. With occasional gusts of insight.
Contrary to your predictions, I never got into the hard and heavy shit. Never found the need to. Smoke enough dope for long enough, hang out in some miserable mountain fantasy land, and you get the same results. Although like I say, in my opinion it’s mostly the sickness that’s fuzzing my brain, not drug residue in my system.
You should know that since leaving the shores of Babylon my eyes have witnessed several flashes of aggravated reality. I’m talking about moments that people might give twenty years of their life for. Anyway they would if their souls had eyes and ears and a mouth the way I think they must.
A Catholic school story I am moved to tell you. Just before Thomas Aquinas died he had a vision. The vision convinced him everything he’d done, written, amounted to nothing. So much thin straw in a high wind. When I left, I remember this argument we had where you told me I was wrong about America being the world’s imperial Babylon, and I told you how it might take a thousand years but a genuine people’s revolution was going to remake the world in the image of justice, and meantime I was going to take my stand with the oppressed, not the oppressors. All that. At the time, you thought I was posing, but I wasn’t. I believed what I said. Now, I hope you’ll take it in the right spirit when I admit that the actual real reason I left was to hunt me up a vision like St. Tom’s.
The world needs fewer agonized Catholics, is my contention and prayer.
This morning the family called in a kid who spoke some English to suggest politely that I get in touch with this American teacher who supposedly might help me. He teaches at some school on the other side of the city, I think. I went by the place once, when I was still mobile. The kids wear uniforms and sing songs. I say, fuck that noise. At some point my death in this house will become a gem, a blood-red ruby of inestimable value. The family will tell the story of my demise more often than I deserve. Once the inconvenience wears off, people like remembering the sort of sad and unfixable thing I seem to them to be.
Besides, if I got a little better, I could hustle enough cash to move west, towards Istanbul. From where I’m lying now, Istanbul is next door to Buffalo. First thing, I’d soak some bread in milk and put it out for the cat. Only cat I ever saw with fur the color of a battleship. But I can’t get all worked up about future plans.
Saying west makes me think of The Journey to the East. A high-risk book if ever I read one, and I can prove it. In India I met a girl who later killed herself because tongues of fire didn’t flash in her consciousness like they did for Buddha Hermann. I told her there was nothing wrong with her journey or her motives, she was just born in the wrong generation. The one time we went to bed there were fleas in the blanket. When I picked one from her head and threw it into a candle flame, she cried. To her credit, no? You were the one who said we have to resist the dark pleasure of inflicting pain (I give you credit for the quote when I think about such matters). But then Ruth, her name I’m almost positive was Ruth, kept kicking herself for what she called excessive moral compunction over the killing of an insect. Are fleas insects, I wonder?
My head used to be a bird of prey. That was one of the features about me that attracted you. You admitted it the same night we saw shooting stars out over Lake Erie.
Right now, you’re stuffing dirty clothes into a duffel bag. Not because you’re leaving home. You’re only going to the laundromat, the one with the Salvadoran manager who was always watching you fold your underwear until you told him to cast his lecherous eyes elsewhere. Although it’s possible he got another job by now. His name may have been Luis. One thing is certain. Sunlight through the kitchen window makes bright butterflies of your hands while you’re stuffing the duffel.
People are kind. When I told these people I didn’t want help from the teacher at the school, where they have trees on both sides of the drive going up to a big white building, they accepted it gracefully. They are fatalists. Also, kind as they are, they’re interested in the process. How long can it be before I die?
I’m pretty sure I don’t have hepatitis, but maybe I do. Have it.
One other thing worth mentioning. In fourth grade, the nun told our class when we died we would all get together in one big room in Heaven and watch movies of the lives of every single individual who ever lived. Since we would already be in eternity, there would be no hurry. Her idea was to worry us into behaving, so that the movies they ran of us in Heaven would not embarrass our family or reflect poorly on her teaching. But I never got past the thought of how long it would take to show all those movies. The idea of so much time infinitely spooling time appalled me. At the same time I assumed it would be a sin to be bored by so much film.
If it happens, if the nun was right after all, my idea is to jump up when the big argument with my father comes on the screen and distract everybody. I can’t remember what we argued over, but it probably had something to do with Latin, which I don’t remember if you knew he taught forever. He had this complicated thing going on in his head all the time about cultures degenerating. It could make him cry. You should have known my old man. I should have, too.
Pretty soon now, things will come to a head. The whole family has gathered around me. The father has brought home his knives. I can hear that slippery scraping sharpness of blades on the whetstone. The mother is probably sewing, she always is. I have a hunch she’s sewing something to bury me in. The old folks are fussing with bread and something to drink. Tea, maybe. The Turks drink a lot of tea. The kids are trying to be quiet but can’t be. Things are coming to a head. I can never tell if it’s day or night any more because of the smoke, not what’s outside so much as the stuff on the inside.
Pall. That’s the word I couldn’t come up with. Here it is, Sandy. Spread it gently over the body.
I haven’t talked about pain because you never liked melodrama, which I respected about you. Anyway most of the time I’m hanging around on this weird threshold between befuddlement and sleep, so it doesn’t hurt as much as it could.
I want to think this is how it was for St. Thomas. He expected a spangled flaming God, and all he saw was a handful of people worrying him, being kind. Enough. I never stole, I borrowed. Long term. I don’t believe they really show movies in Heaven. The smoke is awful, especially on the inside. I appreciate how the family is watching me, thinking about me. It’s not that they wish I would die. I’m a windfall for them. I’m entertainment. I hate the smoke inside as much as I hate that scraping-on-the-whetstone sound.
If you get this, I hereby bequeath everything I ever thought to you.
How could you not get it?
Tell me I’m right, this is the way it was for St. Thomas. The vision doesn’t come in the colors you expected. But I agree with him. Straw in the wind. You can’t help but notice that people are kind, pretty much. I’m almost certain the mother is sewing something to bury me in. That is what I want to keep in a quiet spot in my darker mind, that people are kind.
_____
Mark Jacobs has published over 70 stories in commercial and literary magazines including The Atlantic Monthly and The Iowa Review. His most recent book is A Handful of Kings, from Simon and Schuster. He plays lead guitar in The Double Crossed Band http://doublecrossedband.net/
Richard Kostelanetz, "Unobvious Disadvantages"
Richard Kostelanetz
Overcoming Unobvious Disadvantages
As I look back on forty years of writing & art, I realize that I survived nearly all the possible professional disadvantages:
I could never spell perfectly, while my skill at proofreading is so deficient that many manuscripts and even books of mine contain, alas, misprints.
Self-consciously unsophisticated parents and blood relatives, none of whom could say they understood what I did.
Alumni affiliations (high school, college, graduate schools in both NYC and London), all purportedly prestigious, with no practical leverage, ever, for anything crucially special at all—zilch, to the surprise of those who think high ‘prestige’ counts professionally.
No teachers ever successfully recommended me to publishers or for teaching positions.
No supportive spouses or lovers either.
I belong to a gender and an ethnic category to which no professional favors were granted (even by those powerful people sharing my gender and sociological categories).
No effective agent, though I tried several of them; nor an effective book publisher, who could publicize my work to people unfamiliar with it.
Probably 90% of my shorter pieces appeared in periodicals with circulations of less than 5000 and no money for contributors.
No elder operatives whose protégée I could have become, who could have created professional opportunities unavailable to an aspirant working on his own.
No institutional connections and thus no positions with power that would not only scare off bullies accustomed to picking on those less powerful but also impress those susceptible to solicitations from powerful people.
Scarce income.
No fad or fashion connected to my name that could have given me some artificial celebrity, at least for a while, before an inevitable fall.
Nary a rave review in the New York Times and no notice at all in the New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, or the Times Literary Supplement.
Work of various kinds that cultural merchandisers in various domains judged that “people didn’t want.”
Art and writing that has been unconventional in more ways than anyone can count, produced at a high level of widely acknowledged integrity.
I worked with some distinction in so many ‘fields’ (and sub-fields) that common tags such as ‘poet’ or ‘critic’ were inadequate, which is to say that I lacked a single familiar ‘hook’ onto which ancillary activities could be hung or a pre-established ‘niche’ in which my name could be conveniently placed.
Politics and literary politics no less fashionable (and no less radical) than my esthetics, poetics, and career goals.
Few of the fashionable ‘disadvantages’ that all self-consciously well-intentioned people publicly honor.
How did I survive? How could I have possibly earned these individual entries in Contemporary Poets, Contemporary Novelists, Postmodern Fiction, Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, A Reader’s Guide to Twentieth-Century Writers, the Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature, Webster’s Dictionary of American Authors, The HarperCollins Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Literature, and the Encyclopedia Britannica, among other distinguished histories and directories? Quite simply, I did strong work at uncommon levels of seriousness and perhaps humor—work that individuals have admired, sometimes enormously, supporting it (and me) thereby, often prompting envy in those professionally dependent upon advantages. Perhaps that explanation is not sufficient; others might have truer answers. Nonetheless, the greater truth, which accounts for my writing this short memoir, is that what was possible for me is certainly possible for others—professional success, at least in America, is not reserved for those dependant upon advantages.
_____
Richard Kostelanetz is a prolific American artist. A political libertarian, he is a contributing editor for Liberty Magazine.
Overcoming Unobvious Disadvantages
As I look back on forty years of writing & art, I realize that I survived nearly all the possible professional disadvantages:
I could never spell perfectly, while my skill at proofreading is so deficient that many manuscripts and even books of mine contain, alas, misprints.
Self-consciously unsophisticated parents and blood relatives, none of whom could say they understood what I did.
Alumni affiliations (high school, college, graduate schools in both NYC and London), all purportedly prestigious, with no practical leverage, ever, for anything crucially special at all—zilch, to the surprise of those who think high ‘prestige’ counts professionally.
No teachers ever successfully recommended me to publishers or for teaching positions.
No supportive spouses or lovers either.
I belong to a gender and an ethnic category to which no professional favors were granted (even by those powerful people sharing my gender and sociological categories).
No effective agent, though I tried several of them; nor an effective book publisher, who could publicize my work to people unfamiliar with it.
Probably 90% of my shorter pieces appeared in periodicals with circulations of less than 5000 and no money for contributors.
No elder operatives whose protégée I could have become, who could have created professional opportunities unavailable to an aspirant working on his own.
No institutional connections and thus no positions with power that would not only scare off bullies accustomed to picking on those less powerful but also impress those susceptible to solicitations from powerful people.
Scarce income.
No fad or fashion connected to my name that could have given me some artificial celebrity, at least for a while, before an inevitable fall.
Nary a rave review in the New York Times and no notice at all in the New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, or the Times Literary Supplement.
Work of various kinds that cultural merchandisers in various domains judged that “people didn’t want.”
Art and writing that has been unconventional in more ways than anyone can count, produced at a high level of widely acknowledged integrity.
I worked with some distinction in so many ‘fields’ (and sub-fields) that common tags such as ‘poet’ or ‘critic’ were inadequate, which is to say that I lacked a single familiar ‘hook’ onto which ancillary activities could be hung or a pre-established ‘niche’ in which my name could be conveniently placed.
Politics and literary politics no less fashionable (and no less radical) than my esthetics, poetics, and career goals.
Few of the fashionable ‘disadvantages’ that all self-consciously well-intentioned people publicly honor.
How did I survive? How could I have possibly earned these individual entries in Contemporary Poets, Contemporary Novelists, Postmodern Fiction, Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, A Reader’s Guide to Twentieth-Century Writers, the Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature, Webster’s Dictionary of American Authors, The HarperCollins Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Literature, and the Encyclopedia Britannica, among other distinguished histories and directories? Quite simply, I did strong work at uncommon levels of seriousness and perhaps humor—work that individuals have admired, sometimes enormously, supporting it (and me) thereby, often prompting envy in those professionally dependent upon advantages. Perhaps that explanation is not sufficient; others might have truer answers. Nonetheless, the greater truth, which accounts for my writing this short memoir, is that what was possible for me is certainly possible for others—professional success, at least in America, is not reserved for those dependant upon advantages.
_____
Richard Kostelanetz is a prolific American artist. A political libertarian, he is a contributing editor for Liberty Magazine.
Francis Raven, "Thanks for Letting Me Read"
Francis Raven
Thanks for Letting Me Read Your Book
1.
The manuscript is politically engaged; the only problem is that it lacks poetic virtuosity. I just don’t think the poetry is strong enough. The use of Arabic and Hebrew is a nice addition, but sometimes it is used to carry the poems, which it cannot do. The work of Rodrigo Toscano (especially the Disparities published by Green Integer) is similar and better. A slightly more experimental approach, and more language from political economics, might have served the author well.
2.
I really wish I could see these plays (“Eating Proust” was especially clever). I’m not quite sure how I’m supposed to read them on the page. It seems like if they were well staged they would be great, but they’re not plays to be read on the page, as far as I can tell (but I’m no expert audience member).
3.
I have to say if the point of the poems was to explore the concept of moral motivation they should not have been poems. The author has no virtuosity, merely ideas. Beyond that, she has no appetite for talent. Merely ideas mean philosophy, but I actually don’t think the ideas are strong enough to be counted as philosophy. Perhaps the manuscript could be saved by a framing device that makes fun of the hyper-seriousness of the verse. (See Stephen’s windbag speeches in Portrait of An Artist. Yes, I too thought they were the best parts of the book when I first read it).
4.
The beginning wasn’t compelling. There were many typos in this manuscript. But I’m also not the best reader of creative prose. I don’t get what it is that is supposed to be compelling, but even if it takes a long while to get into a novel you still want to get into it. I didn’t really want to in this case. I’m not saying that it doesn’t have potential, but it needs quite a bit of editing to take it to the next stage. I don’t really know what the author wants from the reader. Maybe it’s supposed to be like Raymond Carver, but it’s a little too sweet and without the correct sort of brutality.
5.
A poetic exploration of the war in Iraq (the election in California) is a great idea. The notes were a great help in working through the text. The Arabian metaphysical poem is accomplished well, but not masterfully, by Shullex. My worry is that such a poem has to be expertly executed and that Shullex falls a bit short in this regard. This type of poetry is direct, spiritual, and political. It seems it could use some condensation and editing in the last section. Such a line as “In Iraq they wash clothes with strange fluids and then there is gunfire over a ballot box in Palm Springs” could be edited down into something more poetic. That said, it does seem to be a good match in other ways for the Exploding Press’s current schedule: it is political, mixes the journalistic and the poetic, and the high and low.
6.
I enjoyed the stories in Michael Olix’s collection, but didn’t find them essential. This fact made me think that the manuscript wasn’t appropriate for the Essentialist Community’s current roster. The country and rural farming life is an important subject, but many of the stories seemed just stories for stories sake. I wish they had been more infused with political motivation, less boring, and perhaps a little sharper (but I’m not a short story writer, so I don’t really understand the craft of such works).
7.
I’m afraid I didn’t think a lot of the poems worked. Lines like, “you are the lover in the shyly lit sky” didn’t capture me and I found many other lines trite or non-innovative. The poems really just aren’t worked over enough. I found that some of the “experiments” had been done many times: letters, diary entries, and dream sequences are especially overused. However, the theme of hair loss is a very good one that could be further used to better effect. I wished there had been more actual research into this topic as opposed to introspection.
8.
I love the idea of poems as patent applications, but I’m just not sure it merits an entire volume (the shortness of the manuscript is an indication of this fact). Most of the applications themselves are pitch-perfect, but I think the applications would be better suited as part of a longer work. I also didn’t think that the “formal complaints” worked. They seem a little self-important or narcissistic. While the applications are an example of formal experiment that doesn’t feel like one any more, the diary should also have been taken as a more formal experiment for it to work (it still feels like it was taken from his actual diary). I think that this work has great potential if it is given a larger framework and clearer idea of how the applications and the diary entries fit together into a poetic exploration of intellectual property law as a whole.
9.
I wished that the collection hung together a little better. This seems like a flaw indicating that Mope Press shouldn’t take it. I also don’t see it bridging contemporary divides in literature. I love all of the water and seasonal references. Let me repeat, the writing in this manuscript is very strong. But a lot of it seemed like 4th generation (or whatever generation we’re on) New York school poetry, and while that is what I love I’m not sure we need more of it.
_____
Francis Raven, http://ravensaesthetica.blogspot.com/.
Thanks for Letting Me Read Your Book
1.
The manuscript is politically engaged; the only problem is that it lacks poetic virtuosity. I just don’t think the poetry is strong enough. The use of Arabic and Hebrew is a nice addition, but sometimes it is used to carry the poems, which it cannot do. The work of Rodrigo Toscano (especially the Disparities published by Green Integer) is similar and better. A slightly more experimental approach, and more language from political economics, might have served the author well.
2.
I really wish I could see these plays (“Eating Proust” was especially clever). I’m not quite sure how I’m supposed to read them on the page. It seems like if they were well staged they would be great, but they’re not plays to be read on the page, as far as I can tell (but I’m no expert audience member).
3.
I have to say if the point of the poems was to explore the concept of moral motivation they should not have been poems. The author has no virtuosity, merely ideas. Beyond that, she has no appetite for talent. Merely ideas mean philosophy, but I actually don’t think the ideas are strong enough to be counted as philosophy. Perhaps the manuscript could be saved by a framing device that makes fun of the hyper-seriousness of the verse. (See Stephen’s windbag speeches in Portrait of An Artist. Yes, I too thought they were the best parts of the book when I first read it).
4.
The beginning wasn’t compelling. There were many typos in this manuscript. But I’m also not the best reader of creative prose. I don’t get what it is that is supposed to be compelling, but even if it takes a long while to get into a novel you still want to get into it. I didn’t really want to in this case. I’m not saying that it doesn’t have potential, but it needs quite a bit of editing to take it to the next stage. I don’t really know what the author wants from the reader. Maybe it’s supposed to be like Raymond Carver, but it’s a little too sweet and without the correct sort of brutality.
5.
A poetic exploration of the war in Iraq (the election in California) is a great idea. The notes were a great help in working through the text. The Arabian metaphysical poem is accomplished well, but not masterfully, by Shullex. My worry is that such a poem has to be expertly executed and that Shullex falls a bit short in this regard. This type of poetry is direct, spiritual, and political. It seems it could use some condensation and editing in the last section. Such a line as “In Iraq they wash clothes with strange fluids and then there is gunfire over a ballot box in Palm Springs” could be edited down into something more poetic. That said, it does seem to be a good match in other ways for the Exploding Press’s current schedule: it is political, mixes the journalistic and the poetic, and the high and low.
6.
I enjoyed the stories in Michael Olix’s collection, but didn’t find them essential. This fact made me think that the manuscript wasn’t appropriate for the Essentialist Community’s current roster. The country and rural farming life is an important subject, but many of the stories seemed just stories for stories sake. I wish they had been more infused with political motivation, less boring, and perhaps a little sharper (but I’m not a short story writer, so I don’t really understand the craft of such works).
7.
I’m afraid I didn’t think a lot of the poems worked. Lines like, “you are the lover in the shyly lit sky” didn’t capture me and I found many other lines trite or non-innovative. The poems really just aren’t worked over enough. I found that some of the “experiments” had been done many times: letters, diary entries, and dream sequences are especially overused. However, the theme of hair loss is a very good one that could be further used to better effect. I wished there had been more actual research into this topic as opposed to introspection.
8.
I love the idea of poems as patent applications, but I’m just not sure it merits an entire volume (the shortness of the manuscript is an indication of this fact). Most of the applications themselves are pitch-perfect, but I think the applications would be better suited as part of a longer work. I also didn’t think that the “formal complaints” worked. They seem a little self-important or narcissistic. While the applications are an example of formal experiment that doesn’t feel like one any more, the diary should also have been taken as a more formal experiment for it to work (it still feels like it was taken from his actual diary). I think that this work has great potential if it is given a larger framework and clearer idea of how the applications and the diary entries fit together into a poetic exploration of intellectual property law as a whole.
9.
I wished that the collection hung together a little better. This seems like a flaw indicating that Mope Press shouldn’t take it. I also don’t see it bridging contemporary divides in literature. I love all of the water and seasonal references. Let me repeat, the writing in this manuscript is very strong. But a lot of it seemed like 4th generation (or whatever generation we’re on) New York school poetry, and while that is what I love I’m not sure we need more of it.
_____
Francis Raven, http://ravensaesthetica.blogspot.com/.
Eve Rosenbaum, "Before Sleep"
Eve Rosenbaum
University of Iowa
Before Sleep
This moment before sleep—counting backwards and conscious and feel the heat from the marsh and can you smooth the hair from my eyes before it becomes free and
I dyed my hair to match yours, I dyed my hair red.
Daisy and you called yourself Daisy and I call myself something without letters.
I call her Lilac because she inhabits Lilac nature she is clustered and purple and really I barely know what lilac looks like, I am not familiar with its nature, I do not know what daisies look like—surely you must know, I don’t—it’s a flower, right? I think it’s a flower.
Footsteps on the trail behind me but I am hidden on the wood deck.
Something to do for love of it—
Hidden and stretched sideways almost in the water but not. Hidden.
Take scissors and drop the stems into envelopes already addressed—I lose more hair that way—
Smooth my hair and
A love so big it scares her, rushing among her small heart—pushing aside the blood and leaving her faint and white in the gust’s arm—
Whisper words and call them flowers, I will count stems single in rows. Lilacs grow clustered, you say and shake branches in sly witness.
The tour guide says we know the color of your hair—this red like fire—because you sent a lock to your friend a lock for your friend to keep when you are old and it is still kept—I dyed my hair.
You are near and she is far and I can hold you both in my satin tremor of eye.
There was a boy and I will call him Ben and he was a boy.
Small flies can walk on water the trick is to jump from petal to floating petal.
She says a rose is a rose but what happens when a rose is a tulip and you try with all your might to convince yourself it truly is a rose, but you are not as persuasive as you once were.
This is the curse. There will be no other.
I will call him Ben. It’s true, he was a boy. I can convince myself of that.
Sand my back down never mind the rough edges, parts of me will fly into the river and will float out to sea.
Ben is a boy and Lilac is a girl and Daisy is dead and buried but facts get in the way most of the time, don’t you think?
Oh do I offend, does Daisy offend
Watch me sleep and count it backwards and I will
A walkway wide enough for two in love
I will
Lift up your arm and I will catch your falling blood in mine.
I will count stems single in rows.
Smell it drying on skin—the summer of Daisy starting clean in May and dying sometime next fall, but there will not be death yet there will not be forgiveness, now there is only possibility.
Read the cards and tell me my future—the queen of cups, Venus—full to bursting with love and she knows not how to empty it. This will be the curse, there will be no other.
You send the water over the Dam in my brown eyes—
Oh does Daisy offend do I offend Daisy I will not dishonor you, I will not take your words for granted. I will chase your shadow with my fractured lexicon.
Are there words enough for her—
Words that bring purple and green stems and the salt of blood or water—there are no words are there letters then that form nothing but themselves? Teach me letters and do not believe their harmony.
He is shy and smiling I am neither but we can make a go of it.
Water makes me tired and this water is still and I am still and there could be a breeze if I concentrate enough but really the air is not moving and my eyes are closing and is there something so wrong about sleeping in the spider’s path.
I dyed my hair to Daisy’s color and Lilac notices nothing but silence.
Fiction is true but also false—like my words. Do I speak in fiction—
a love so big it scares her—
Even when I don’t mean to?
I will
Whisper
I will
Keep your secrets strapped to my forearm
Footstones leap across pond and she follows your footfalls from one side to the other. She grabs your arm when toes slip careless into blue green engagement, steadies herself before leaping again. You shake at her fingers, their grasp not tight but binding.
The queen of cups. Venus. There will be no other.
You have the same fingers as
This red like fire.
I could dance but only if no one watched.
If I was invisible then I could dance.
If I was invisible I wouldn’t have to worry about falling in love
it would be one-sided of course, but when is it not.
It wouldn’t hurt so much because I would be invisible
it wouldn’t be tragic it would just be common sense.
It’s hard to be in love with an invisible person.
You never know when they’re around.
That’s what you get for holding eggs to your ears.
A boy. I’m convinced of.
I’ve got a cough as big as a thimble—but I don’t care for that—
You play in scarlet
Swim it sideways until the fire you breathe becomes the site of your weakness.
Ripple against cause and affect the way I do never mind the awkward spelling—can you live in frozen frankness of meaning when meaning is lost and loss is the only thing real enough to bleed yellow.
The stairs the stairs, Daisy the stairs.
I can feel madness in the air up here.
I will catch your blood in mine.
Queen of cups.
Church bells ring here on the hour but they’ve always got the count wrong. I don’t mind—see how far metal will go before it becomes something else.
Madness in spades, not that kind of cards.
I’ve got a tomahawk in my side
Something to do for love of it
Count it backwards and I will
I looked out your bedroom window and touched the wood sill I could feel your fingers in the paint even though the paint is new and you have been gone almost twelve decades. I could feel your fingerprints in the wood and can you feel mine there is nothing like a locked embrace and I’ll stop crying when I can turn back around but the tour guide is still talking and she’s telling people not to touch anything and my back is to her oh Daisy do I offend? Let me write poetry through the tracing of your fingers.
Write poetry through my hands and
She is purple and green-stemmed and she grows in cluster.
There is no love outside of wishful desire.
She must have my letter already, has held it in her lilac hands.
Open your life wide and take me in forever, I will never be tired.
Force of habit, the stumbling between steps neither up nor down—the point not the arrival but the process, the stairs themselves—the fraying carpet and wood maybe oak, who can say anymore it’s been so long since the house was new, no one’s alive who was there for the building and that should mean something should change things.
What have I done? There are none would love me now.
Spring is a most troubling time—the ducks are back.
That don’t hurt me much
Walkway two love
I will
But what if language is the only thing and it’s not enough—what if I could dissolve into the shape of letters and never miss the corporeal. I wouldn’t miss it.
If I was invisible I could dance.
Red I dyed my hair and lilac Lilac let me braid your stems in two let me
What if a rose is not really a rose at all. What if it’s a telephone.
What if it’s a typewriter the kind in old movies and second-hand stores.
He was a boy, I’m sure of that he was a boy named Ben and his name was something I’m sure of—Ben with long eyelashes and a secret passion for the ocean.
I’m an earth sign myself. Together we make mud
Spread thick and porous on skin, catch me as I fall sleeping in blankets of earth and water and count me backwards and
I never took her picture.
I’ve got a tomahawk in my side but that don’t hurt me much.
You are the site of my weakness.
Is that the church bell or the sound of you crying.
Create words to stop the silence—pray silence to stop the words.
I held a daisy once, plucked from a bouquet at midnight when no one was watching. I wound the stem through my fingers and left her there in sheets.
Red like fire like
I will close my eyes if you will count me backwards into sleep.
Hidden—almost in water
A boy named Ben and he hugs me soft under willow branches and leans into my hair dyed daisy can you feel the soft of lips and lockets under sunset he whispers and I turn my head I turn and see lilacs and daisies growing elsewhere. I whisper back careful hidden sonnets.
A girl called Lilac frantic in spring planting—petals I’m not sure what they’re called can you tell me how you sing their names? Let me see the dirt between your fingers let me taste the dirt
Whisper words and call them flowers, I will count stems single in rows.
I can see your teeth when you laugh your laughter like a flower’s blush—
Across the room is too far and next to you is too far and
When you take my hand take it like you mean it don’t be shy because I’m crying.
Daisy oh Daisy did I tell you how she sings in restaurants? I would write her love songs
Except
I don’t speak her language. My words are harmful to her ears and I can find none to translate.
I will
Someone left a cluster of lilac on your grave a cluster of lilac turning brown underneath and wilting but they are beautiful still and I leave you an envelope with these words:
Lift up your arm and I will catch your falling blood in mine.
I will leave you these words.
I will catch your blood.
Tomahawk in my side but that.
Will you leave me your words—write poems through my fingers—
Venus, Queen of Cups.
a love so big it scares her, rushing among her small heart—pushing aside the blood and leaving her faint and white in the gust’s arm.
From petal to floating petal
Whisper.
I will.
Whisper.
Madness in the air.
The tour guide says your stairs were torn out about 1915 and moved and replaced and she doesn’t know where the original stairs would have been.
The stairs the stairs, Daisy the stairs
At least they have your bed.
At least they have your garden.
Your copy of Aurora Leigh your name written in pencil on the front page behind glass in the room that would have been the living room I traced my finger on the glass above your name and smiled as the tour guide hurried us through. Aurora Leigh and they moved your stairs.
I can feel your fingers on the windowsill beneath my fingers on the windowsill.
Twelve decades—is that all?
Teach me letters—do not believe their harmony.
Whisper words and call them
Tell me what these letters mean:
What if a rose is a
What if it’s a book with ten pages torn out.
Could you sing the story in circles?
Faint and white in the gust’s arm.
He was a boy and I will call him Ben and he was a boy and he smoothed my hair beneath willow branches at sunset and he did not mind the cliché but
I’m sorry my words are too fragile and can you point out a lilac branch no there are no clusters and it is orange.
Let me count you back from awkward—
I will give your words to Lilac during summer when it is hot an she is close by and she will say, I know these words and I will say, listen closely to their fragrance can they haunt you
do I.
It will be summer and she will be close and languid and I will twine her stems in braids of two
Across the room too far and next to you too far and—
a love so big it scares her—
The earth between your fingers let me taste the earth let me sit by you whisper words and call them flowers—let me watch you sing in restaurants let me translate without breaking words back into letters.
Red like fire like hair like Daisy like fire
like
whisper
I will
whisper.
I will catch your blood in mine
Daisy let me run through your house with no tour guide let me run from room to room to stairs to porch to garden the way you did when a child and locked in prose let me run my fingers on the walls and have you touch me back—will you touch me back or am I silly—and let me be silly and witty and let me speak your words and have them come from my mouth like I mean them will you write poetry through my fingers they’re yours if you want them just let me run like you let me run.
I’ve got a cough as big as a thimble
I’ve got a tomahawk in my side and I’m bleeding salt and fire
I’ve got your words and they’re spilling from my skin they’re breaking my skin like a tomahawk and I can’t breathe I can’t—
Touch me here never mind the awkward spelling.
I’ll sit on your bedroom floor and watch the poems spill from my fingers like blood and
I’ll sit on your bedroom floor and crawl beneath your bed and turn the color of floor panels and hide there until you come to find me will you come to find me a game of hide-and-seek twelve decades too late and even I can see the tragic ending to this because you will never come to find me but if I hide in prose will you know to look for me there?
Look for me there
Never mind the awkward
Kiss me while I kiss your headstone
Kiss me while I kiss your
If I was invisible I could dance.
I could
This moment before sleep—counting backwards and conscious and feel the heat
This is the curse. There will be no other.
_____
Eve Rosenbaum is a Ph.D. candidate in English at the University of Iowa where she is the managing editor of the Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies. Eve can be reached at everosenbaum@gmail.com
University of Iowa
Before Sleep
This moment before sleep—counting backwards and conscious and feel the heat from the marsh and can you smooth the hair from my eyes before it becomes free and
I dyed my hair to match yours, I dyed my hair red.
Daisy and you called yourself Daisy and I call myself something without letters.
I call her Lilac because she inhabits Lilac nature she is clustered and purple and really I barely know what lilac looks like, I am not familiar with its nature, I do not know what daisies look like—surely you must know, I don’t—it’s a flower, right? I think it’s a flower.
Footsteps on the trail behind me but I am hidden on the wood deck.
Something to do for love of it—
Hidden and stretched sideways almost in the water but not. Hidden.
Take scissors and drop the stems into envelopes already addressed—I lose more hair that way—
Smooth my hair and
A love so big it scares her, rushing among her small heart—pushing aside the blood and leaving her faint and white in the gust’s arm—
Whisper words and call them flowers, I will count stems single in rows. Lilacs grow clustered, you say and shake branches in sly witness.
The tour guide says we know the color of your hair—this red like fire—because you sent a lock to your friend a lock for your friend to keep when you are old and it is still kept—I dyed my hair.
You are near and she is far and I can hold you both in my satin tremor of eye.
There was a boy and I will call him Ben and he was a boy.
Small flies can walk on water the trick is to jump from petal to floating petal.
She says a rose is a rose but what happens when a rose is a tulip and you try with all your might to convince yourself it truly is a rose, but you are not as persuasive as you once were.
This is the curse. There will be no other.
I will call him Ben. It’s true, he was a boy. I can convince myself of that.
Sand my back down never mind the rough edges, parts of me will fly into the river and will float out to sea.
Ben is a boy and Lilac is a girl and Daisy is dead and buried but facts get in the way most of the time, don’t you think?
Oh do I offend, does Daisy offend
Watch me sleep and count it backwards and I will
A walkway wide enough for two in love
I will
Lift up your arm and I will catch your falling blood in mine.
I will count stems single in rows.
Smell it drying on skin—the summer of Daisy starting clean in May and dying sometime next fall, but there will not be death yet there will not be forgiveness, now there is only possibility.
Read the cards and tell me my future—the queen of cups, Venus—full to bursting with love and she knows not how to empty it. This will be the curse, there will be no other.
You send the water over the Dam in my brown eyes—
Oh does Daisy offend do I offend Daisy I will not dishonor you, I will not take your words for granted. I will chase your shadow with my fractured lexicon.
Are there words enough for her—
Words that bring purple and green stems and the salt of blood or water—there are no words are there letters then that form nothing but themselves? Teach me letters and do not believe their harmony.
He is shy and smiling I am neither but we can make a go of it.
Water makes me tired and this water is still and I am still and there could be a breeze if I concentrate enough but really the air is not moving and my eyes are closing and is there something so wrong about sleeping in the spider’s path.
I dyed my hair to Daisy’s color and Lilac notices nothing but silence.
Fiction is true but also false—like my words. Do I speak in fiction—
a love so big it scares her—
Even when I don’t mean to?
I will
Whisper
I will
Keep your secrets strapped to my forearm
Footstones leap across pond and she follows your footfalls from one side to the other. She grabs your arm when toes slip careless into blue green engagement, steadies herself before leaping again. You shake at her fingers, their grasp not tight but binding.
The queen of cups. Venus. There will be no other.
You have the same fingers as
This red like fire.
I could dance but only if no one watched.
If I was invisible then I could dance.
If I was invisible I wouldn’t have to worry about falling in love
it would be one-sided of course, but when is it not.
It wouldn’t hurt so much because I would be invisible
it wouldn’t be tragic it would just be common sense.
It’s hard to be in love with an invisible person.
You never know when they’re around.
That’s what you get for holding eggs to your ears.
A boy. I’m convinced of.
I’ve got a cough as big as a thimble—but I don’t care for that—
You play in scarlet
Swim it sideways until the fire you breathe becomes the site of your weakness.
Ripple against cause and affect the way I do never mind the awkward spelling—can you live in frozen frankness of meaning when meaning is lost and loss is the only thing real enough to bleed yellow.
The stairs the stairs, Daisy the stairs.
I can feel madness in the air up here.
I will catch your blood in mine.
Queen of cups.
Church bells ring here on the hour but they’ve always got the count wrong. I don’t mind—see how far metal will go before it becomes something else.
Madness in spades, not that kind of cards.
I’ve got a tomahawk in my side
Something to do for love of it
Count it backwards and I will
I looked out your bedroom window and touched the wood sill I could feel your fingers in the paint even though the paint is new and you have been gone almost twelve decades. I could feel your fingerprints in the wood and can you feel mine there is nothing like a locked embrace and I’ll stop crying when I can turn back around but the tour guide is still talking and she’s telling people not to touch anything and my back is to her oh Daisy do I offend? Let me write poetry through the tracing of your fingers.
Write poetry through my hands and
She is purple and green-stemmed and she grows in cluster.
There is no love outside of wishful desire.
She must have my letter already, has held it in her lilac hands.
Open your life wide and take me in forever, I will never be tired.
Force of habit, the stumbling between steps neither up nor down—the point not the arrival but the process, the stairs themselves—the fraying carpet and wood maybe oak, who can say anymore it’s been so long since the house was new, no one’s alive who was there for the building and that should mean something should change things.
What have I done? There are none would love me now.
Spring is a most troubling time—the ducks are back.
That don’t hurt me much
Walkway two love
I will
But what if language is the only thing and it’s not enough—what if I could dissolve into the shape of letters and never miss the corporeal. I wouldn’t miss it.
If I was invisible I could dance.
Red I dyed my hair and lilac Lilac let me braid your stems in two let me
What if a rose is not really a rose at all. What if it’s a telephone.
What if it’s a typewriter the kind in old movies and second-hand stores.
He was a boy, I’m sure of that he was a boy named Ben and his name was something I’m sure of—Ben with long eyelashes and a secret passion for the ocean.
I’m an earth sign myself. Together we make mud
Spread thick and porous on skin, catch me as I fall sleeping in blankets of earth and water and count me backwards and
I never took her picture.
I’ve got a tomahawk in my side but that don’t hurt me much.
You are the site of my weakness.
Is that the church bell or the sound of you crying.
Create words to stop the silence—pray silence to stop the words.
I held a daisy once, plucked from a bouquet at midnight when no one was watching. I wound the stem through my fingers and left her there in sheets.
Red like fire like
I will close my eyes if you will count me backwards into sleep.
Hidden—almost in water
A boy named Ben and he hugs me soft under willow branches and leans into my hair dyed daisy can you feel the soft of lips and lockets under sunset he whispers and I turn my head I turn and see lilacs and daisies growing elsewhere. I whisper back careful hidden sonnets.
A girl called Lilac frantic in spring planting—petals I’m not sure what they’re called can you tell me how you sing their names? Let me see the dirt between your fingers let me taste the dirt
Whisper words and call them flowers, I will count stems single in rows.
I can see your teeth when you laugh your laughter like a flower’s blush—
Across the room is too far and next to you is too far and
When you take my hand take it like you mean it don’t be shy because I’m crying.
Daisy oh Daisy did I tell you how she sings in restaurants? I would write her love songs
Except
I don’t speak her language. My words are harmful to her ears and I can find none to translate.
I will
Someone left a cluster of lilac on your grave a cluster of lilac turning brown underneath and wilting but they are beautiful still and I leave you an envelope with these words:
Lift up your arm and I will catch your falling blood in mine.
I will leave you these words.
I will catch your blood.
Tomahawk in my side but that.
Will you leave me your words—write poems through my fingers—
Venus, Queen of Cups.
a love so big it scares her, rushing among her small heart—pushing aside the blood and leaving her faint and white in the gust’s arm.
From petal to floating petal
Whisper.
I will.
Whisper.
Madness in the air.
The tour guide says your stairs were torn out about 1915 and moved and replaced and she doesn’t know where the original stairs would have been.
The stairs the stairs, Daisy the stairs
At least they have your bed.
At least they have your garden.
Your copy of Aurora Leigh your name written in pencil on the front page behind glass in the room that would have been the living room I traced my finger on the glass above your name and smiled as the tour guide hurried us through. Aurora Leigh and they moved your stairs.
I can feel your fingers on the windowsill beneath my fingers on the windowsill.
Twelve decades—is that all?
Teach me letters—do not believe their harmony.
Whisper words and call them
Tell me what these letters mean:
What if a rose is a
What if it’s a book with ten pages torn out.
Could you sing the story in circles?
Faint and white in the gust’s arm.
He was a boy and I will call him Ben and he was a boy and he smoothed my hair beneath willow branches at sunset and he did not mind the cliché but
I’m sorry my words are too fragile and can you point out a lilac branch no there are no clusters and it is orange.
Let me count you back from awkward—
I will give your words to Lilac during summer when it is hot an she is close by and she will say, I know these words and I will say, listen closely to their fragrance can they haunt you
do I.
It will be summer and she will be close and languid and I will twine her stems in braids of two
Across the room too far and next to you too far and—
a love so big it scares her—
The earth between your fingers let me taste the earth let me sit by you whisper words and call them flowers—let me watch you sing in restaurants let me translate without breaking words back into letters.
Red like fire like hair like Daisy like fire
like
whisper
I will
whisper.
I will catch your blood in mine
Daisy let me run through your house with no tour guide let me run from room to room to stairs to porch to garden the way you did when a child and locked in prose let me run my fingers on the walls and have you touch me back—will you touch me back or am I silly—and let me be silly and witty and let me speak your words and have them come from my mouth like I mean them will you write poetry through my fingers they’re yours if you want them just let me run like you let me run.
I’ve got a cough as big as a thimble
I’ve got a tomahawk in my side and I’m bleeding salt and fire
I’ve got your words and they’re spilling from my skin they’re breaking my skin like a tomahawk and I can’t breathe I can’t—
Touch me here never mind the awkward spelling.
I’ll sit on your bedroom floor and watch the poems spill from my fingers like blood and
I’ll sit on your bedroom floor and crawl beneath your bed and turn the color of floor panels and hide there until you come to find me will you come to find me a game of hide-and-seek twelve decades too late and even I can see the tragic ending to this because you will never come to find me but if I hide in prose will you know to look for me there?
Look for me there
Never mind the awkward
Kiss me while I kiss your headstone
Kiss me while I kiss your
If I was invisible I could dance.
I could
This moment before sleep—counting backwards and conscious and feel the heat
This is the curse. There will be no other.
_____
Eve Rosenbaum is a Ph.D. candidate in English at the University of Iowa where she is the managing editor of the Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies. Eve can be reached at everosenbaum@gmail.com
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