Susan Emshwiller
I caught up with Susan shortly before the release of her latest novel, All My Ancestors Had Sex, to learn more about this quirky and riveting novel which exploits genealogy as a springboard for a wild, funny, fast-paced tale of redemption and to find out more about her writing process, her inspirations, and ask her questions I’d always wanted to ask. —AMA
You’re someone who has worn many hats— print maker, actor, screenwriter, director, novelist. If you were forced to choose only one hat for the rest of your life which would you choose and why?
I would really hate to make that choice, but since you are forcing me to choose, I’d pick novelist. The thing about it is you can do it on your own. Acting is pretty much done within the realms of film or theater and both of those generally involve productions that require collaboration. Screenwriting isn’t the finished product and also involves getting money/people/equipment… and so, many don’t get produced. I’ve had great fun directing plays and films but it does require a lot of finagling to get something off the ground. I didn’t do any short story/poetry/novel writing until about ten years ago. Previously it was all stage plays and screenplays. When I wrote my first short story I was ecstatic to be able to be “in someone’s head” because it isn’t allowed in writing for film or theater. With novels I can write when I want to and how I want to and not be constrained by anything but my own imagination and will.
Certainly, your mother, Carol Emshwiller, writer, and your father, Ed Emshwiller, visual artist and filmmaker, influenced you and your writing career, but who else in your life directly contributed to you developing into the person, the writer you are today?
As a person, going to therapy and finally getting comfortable talking was a big deal. My husband, Chris Coulson, a writer and actor, helped me learn who I was by listening and loving and giving me encouragement. And let me give a shout-out to writing groups! I’ve been in several— in Los Angeles, Kansas City, Durham NC, and Santa Fe —and all of these interactions have vastly helped me as a writer.
Your brother, Stoney Emshwiller, filmed himself at the age of 18 as if interviewing his older self. He spliced that footage with later footage of himself at 56 to create a sizzle reel, Later That Same Life, of his older self talking to that younger self. If you had this chance, what would you like to say to your younger self—let’s say you at 35—and how would you convince your younger self to listen?
I really would want to say, “Chill out. Don’t be afraid. You’re doin’ great.”
This ties in with the your next question. I didn’t speak except with family when I was younger. In kindergarten they were going to kick me out because they thought I was mentally impaired, but my parents showed the school my drawings, and those convinced them to let me stay. I had one kid I would whisper to if I needed something— “Mrs. Left, Susan says she needs to go to the bathroom.”
At one point I thought my life was characterized by Fear. Then a few years ago I realized this was wrong. My life was characterized by Courage. The thing about my younger self is— I was quite scared of people and situations but I never let that stop me from doing things. I have a lot of respect for that kid—whether age 10 or 35. She was tenaciously courageous.
As to how could I convince my younger self to listen? I couldn’t. I still fight some of those internal battles today.
You have a finished novel, as yet unpublished, in which the main character speaks only when with family. Talk a bit about the inspiration for that novel.
When I first started that novel Exclamation Point it was just for the joy of writing these people and a strange gothic mystery. Of course, the subconscious has its own agenda and pretty soon I was writing about a young teen girl who seemed remarkably like myself. In having her face her own inability to speak with non-family, I healed a part of my past self.
Speaking of inspiration, what are the origins of your recently released novel, All My Ancestors Had Sex. Are there parts of your novel that you appropriated from your own life?
I never know what a novel is going to be when I start it— or even if it will be a novel. I really love to work in a place of discovery via the subconscious. One of the reasons I love art-making is to find out about myself. So, I started this novel with a young woman living a “paint-by-numbers life” that was all mapped out. A while later, I had a dream of a German soldier in WWII who wakes up in a ditch and his leg is no longer attached. I wrote out that dream and for some strange reason, I thought, “I’ll just throw this into that other story.” It didn’t fit at all, but I continued. At the same time, in a prompt-writing group, I wrote a short piece about a thrift store find I have—a silver cup trophy engraved with “Log Race. 2nd Place. 1962. Dragon Lady.” I added that to the mix and little by little this strange tale emerged.
I think we always appropriate elements of our own lives as we write. Most all of the locations in the novel are places I know well. I’ve experienced incidents similar to some in the story. I’ve thought similar thoughts.
If I flew out to visit, walked into your kitchen, and opened the refrigerator door, what would I find that would surprise me?
Maybe the scions (twigs) of apricot, peach, apple trees in a plastic bag waiting for me to graft them onto our trees. I like playing the mad scientist and creating a tree full of multiple varieties of fruit.
Do you plan your novels with a theme in mind? If you had to describe the theme for both your novels, Thar She Blows, and All My Ancestors Had Sex, what would they be?
I never know what the themes will be when I’m writing. I don’t plan at all. I love that I write the first draft and then read it and go, “Wow, look at that! I was writing about what was happening in my life and didn’t know it!”
Thar She Blows was written after my husband and I moved from Los Angeles. I’d lived there for 34 years and it was a shock to no longer have California as home. I felt like I didn’t have a home. I feel like one of the themes of the novel is Home. Brian, living in a whale, names his whale Home. Anne gives up her home to search for her son. And they both find home in themselves.
In All My Ancestors Had Sex I was going through a difficult period of my mother dying in our home, then being executor of her estate, facilitating a retrospective of my father’s art and films, and I was sick of having the past be my present. I wanted to rid myself of the past. That’s the feeling that came out as a theme in the novel.
I’m curious about the cover for your novel, All My Ancestors Had Sex, which I’m told you’d created yourself. Mind telling us more about it?
Having been a visual artist before I was a filmmaker or writer, I feel comfortable in creating the covers. I tried compiling various ancestor pictures into one young woman’s face, but wasn’t happy with it. Finally, I got the idea of buying old ceramic figures and breaking them and using pieces to create one amalgam creature. It’s visually weird and putting it against an artificial background, which I borrowed from another assemblage I’d made, made for a provocative and mysterious image. The title-text is trying to be pulp-sensationalist which I hope makes it seem a bit funny. Which the novel is.
What do you do when you’re not writing? Share a bit about a typical non-writing day.
I really love being outside and creating an oasis. I’ve done this in all the yards we’ve had. Since moving to Santa Fe two years ago, I’ve planted many, many fruit trees and berry bushes and perennials and done more grafting. I love to watch the slow miraculous changes that take place every day.
If a writing genie magically appeared and offered you a wish to select any phase of writing — Inspiration | Drafting | Revising — which would you choose and why that one?
I love all the phases, but the genie is getting impatient so —I like revising the best because the whole massive pile of mud and rusted metal and bits of bone and bird nests and lost marbles is there on the table and now comes the real work of shaping it, pulling out this, shoving in that, discarding, adding… learning what it’s trying to say to me and striving to augment that.
Of all the characters you’ve created, which one would you invite to your house to spend the weekend? Why that character?
Right now, I think it would be Dragon Lady from All My Ancestors Had Sex. She’s really quite an asshole, but for a weekend, she might be the most lively, unpredictable, and —we could listen to Dean Martin, curse, and drink dirty martinis together.
Thank you, Susan, for your straightforward answers. I even learned a few things I hadn’t known about you. I hope our readers enjoy the opening chapter of your novel, All My Ancestors Had Sex, as much as I enjoyed the reading the entire novel.
Susan Emshwiller is a produced screenwriter (including co-writer of the film Pollock), a filmmaker, a published playwright, novelist, teacher, artist, and short story writer. Her novel Thar She Blows debuted in 2023. Other writing can be found in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Dramatists Play Service, Playscripts, Independent Ink Magazine, Black Heart Magazine, Gone Lawn, and Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine. Ms. Emshwiller was a set decorator for many years in Hollywood and a featured actress in Robert Altman's The Player. Her feature film, In the Land of Milk and Money, a wild social satire, garnered awards and rave reviews at festivals in the US and internationally. Susan has taught screenwriting at North Carolina State University, OLLI at Duke, the Met Theatre in Los Angeles, and in conferences and festivals around the country. She lives with her husband and dogs in Santa Fe, NM where she enjoys inventing stories and backyard contraptions.
Novel Except
Vegetable Plan
As I vomit my meds on the sprouting vegetables, I wonder if this plan will work. So far, the plants seem happy. Little leaves reach toward the glass roof in a prayerful gesture as I hydrate them. No matter that the hydration is via stomach acid tinged with a cocktail of drugs I can’t name except for Lithium.
I’m told, “Working in the greenhouse is a privilege liable to be rescinded at any time for behavioral infractions.” I intend to keep this privilege by acting pliant and pleasing, thus getting good marks on my daily evaluation.
Early on, I learned that it’s impossible to hide four pills tucked in the gums or under the tongue. My keepers are used to that subterfuge. Nurse Blinky repeats the song for each of us. “Lift tongue, to the side, other side, thank you.”
Swallowing is the best option.
That day I was strong-armed up the wide steps and into the Institution was the day I succumbed to the effects of my meds—a squirt of bile in my brain that led to confusion, lethargy, dizziness, and dull contentment. I’m not sure how many months I was in this state but as I floundered, part of me, many parts, swarmed to my rescue. My right hand had its finger down my throat when I finally came to. Now I pretend to be confused, lethargic, dizzy, and dully content—all the while keeping this garden fertilized with meds. I intend to stay awake and aware. Mine is a serious sentence and it’s up to me to extricate us from this situation. Up to Me. Us. Me/Us. You’ll get it.
But I’m charging ahead of myself. You want the low-down on how I came to be in this nuthouse. Reckon I’ll start at the beginning.
Paint by Numbers - Born
I’m not cognizant of what went on before I was born or immediately after, so you’ll have to give me license to speculate. Although much of what I’ll recount is fact, other moments are informed extrapolation.
I do know mine was to be a paint-by-numbers life. My course was set and the outcome expected to be magnificent.
When I was not even a twinkle in Evelyn and Philip’s eyes, they made plans. Perhaps you’ve heard of Vision Boards where people paste images and words on a surface, creating a collage of what they want to manifest in their lives. My parents didn’t do that. My parents made Vision Books. They (Mother) cut pictures from periodicals: Architectural Digest, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Prestige, Town and Country. From clippings of beaming babies in bassinets to well-dressed young professionals in well-appointed homes.
My parents planned each milestone of my projected journey and created thirty-one leather-bound Vision Books. One volume for each anticipated year of my life. Babyhood onward to thirty.
Being members of the super-rich and used to outsourcing everything, they opted to forgo the muss and fuss of pregnancy and implanted their fertilized egg into a surrogate womb. Yasmina was already known as a reliable and hardworking housekeeper and was amenable to the incubation payout.
In a Petri dish, Father’s sperm was injected into Mother’s egg and presto-chango I was created. The parental chromosomes mingled, set about sorting which parts of the Deoxyribonucleic acid to keep or discard, and I was concocted of these randomly selected strands. Millions of bits of countless generations. I was made entirely of the past. But whoever did the fertilization procedure got a text or notification on their phone and didn’t give me a stir. At least, that’s my theory. I wasn’t stirred and all that DNA didn’t get homogenized.
After five days in an incubator, I graduated from a multi-celled embryo to a blastocyst. A syringe sucked me up and squirted me into my new home—Yasmina’s insides.
In our Central Park West building, Yasmina was moved from her housekeeper quarters off the kitchen to the suite of rooms that was to become the nursery. She was fed nutritious meals, our chauffeur Alberto took her to weekly checkups and ultrasounds, and Mother brought her to the Upper West Side Yoga Center as a guest member to keep the blood and amniotic fluid moving—and to show off. My parents did not ask to know the sex of this growing fetus, yet they had the baby clothes, silver spoon, and silk sheets monogrammed with E.G.G. in anticipation of Edward Gregor Gaston. As I grew, Philip and Evelyn counted the days and set aside Tuesday the 4th of April in their schedules. They pre-enrolled me in pre-school at Sebastian’s and, with a generous gift, secured me a place in Rothschild’s Academy for my high school years. My life was in place.
My first crime:
On April Fool’s Day, during downward-facing-dog, Yasmina groaned and I popped my head out, my features stretching the crotch of her yoga pants. I hollered, Yasmina screamed, and Mother yelled, “Shove it back in!”
Yasmina didn’t. She lowered her pants and I slid out, landing face-first on the yoga mat. Yasmina gently turned me over, and Mother gasped.
My second crime:
I was female.
Unaware of the horror of this infraction, all the ladies in the yoga session curdled around me, cooing.
They say all babies come out a red-faced, scrunched, wrinkly mess that fairly quickly evolves into the cutest button you ever saw.
I didn’t.
My third crime:
I was ugly.
Junious ‘Jay’ Ward
A conversation with poet Jay Ward
In Conversation
While attending the 2023 North Carolina Writers’ Network Fall Conference, I had the good fortune to participate in a poetry workshop, Into The Deep: Writing the Poem That Leaves Us Breathless, led by Junious ‘Jay’ Ward in which he guided his students to discover the heart of what they wished express. It proved to be an incredible experience. Recently, I caught up with Jay to discuss his poetry as well his journey as a poet. —AMA
You’ve been a busy poet of late especially in your role as the first Poet Laureate for the City of Charlotte, NC. What was that like carving out that role? Were you excited by the prospect of creating something from nothing? Or did you find it overwhelming at times?
Being the first poet laureate for my city has been very exciting and I’ve learned so much along the way. I wouldn’t necessarily say I was overwhelmed by the prospect of shaping the guidelines of what the role would look like because I always assumed that each successive laureate would likewise re-shape the role in their own image. I think what I found overwhelming was that without that framework in place there was no one to kindly tell me to take a break, to assure me that I didn’t have to be in constant motion. In most cases it takes a while for a project to get going, especially when you have to secure funding, so early in my tenure I found myself starting several projects in a mad rush just to show progress after my appointment, only to be in the whirlwind of all those projects being funded, beginning, and ending in close proximity to each other. So I learned a little more about grace, delegation, and reasonable expectations for myself. But back to the excitement. We’ve needed a laureate in our city for some time, and I would argue that we had various poets who filled that role before it was official. When I applied for the role, I listed out my objectives, I listed out projects, I described how these things would make Charlotte’s literary (and performance) landscape better. I told myself I could do those things if I were the poet laureate. What I realized after I became laureate was that although the implied authority from having a title helps, these are things I (we) can do even without the title. Sometimes we seek validation and power from others, but in truth we can empower ourselves to make our communities better.
I came across a Charlotte Observer article published shortly after your appointment in which you stated, “As artists, as poets, we are translating the world and handing it back to people, so what we write about is influenced by what’s happening around us,” Ward said. “If we’re writing about the beauty of a bird, even in that, we can’t help but be influenced by what’s happening in Ukraine… “We can’t help but be influenced by what’s happening in our neighborhoods. All that is somehow in the poem, even if it’s not perceptible, it is somehow influencing the way that you’re writing or the way that you’re creating art.”[1]
What influences shape your work today?
For certain, my work is still shaped by Ukraine. It’s shaped by Palestine, Israel, Black Lives Matter. It’s shaped by the Super Bowl and funny dog videos on IG. It’s still shaped by the pandemic and its myriad societal after-effects. I’ve been reading a book dedicated to the genius of Coltrane’s signature album, A Love Supreme, and that is shaping the way I hear and translate the world around me. Which is not to say that I necessarily feel compelled to write about those things (though I might). Art, in many ways, is about our connection to humanity. When we really listen to what’s happening around us, it can inspire us to anger or joy, it can move us to compassion and empathy, it unveils things in us that are far less binary than those examples. At the very least, and maybe in the very smallest sense, it can tell us who we are. I mean to say that there are unconscious choices that we make in our art that reflect the tear-jerking break-up story recounted from our co-worker, or the inside joke shared in public by our partner that makes us smile uncontrollably—it shows up as the use of an em dash in a poem, or an almost imperceptibly light brush stroke in a painting. There are also conscious decisions in bold revolt or acceptance of the humanity that surrounds us in its deluge of halos and pitchforks and all that lies in between. The theme of resilience has echoed through a majority of my recent work. That is a bold and conscious reaction to everything I’m hearing on a daily basis.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention your work as a spoken word poet. I watched your performance during the 2018 Individual World Poetry Slam in San Diego CA. [Note: See YouTube link below[2].]
It’s a powerful performance exploring layers of feelings related to your father. Tell us about your experience with spoken word versus printed word — is one better than the other? Do you choose one over the other to achieve different emotional effects?
I appreciate this question on many levels, so thank you! One thing that performance poetry has taught me is the roles that urgency and accessibility play when it comes to poetry. With a performance piece, the audience cannot re-read and study parts of the poem, they have to get it the first time. And for the poem to be effective the audience has to be moved, they need to receive the poem in both a cognitive and emotional sense. Contrary to what I assume would be popular belief, this is achieved more so through the writing than the performance, though intonation, choreography, and the energy of being with a live audience also helps. In my mind, this (the added layers you get in seeing a performance that can’t always be duplicated on page) is similar to the extra resonance you get from line breaks, punctuation, and form on the page, in that each medium (performance vs printed word) allows something extra that the other cannot, but can also inform the other. I don’t view either the oral tradition of spoken word poetry or poetry in the printed word as being better than the other, or even at odds with each other. I see them both as valid mediums through which poetry can reach and impact audiences. I think for me, and this may sound a little esoteric, when a poem of mine becomes a performance poem or a “page” poem, it has to do with serving the interests of the poem. I imagine that I am listening to the poem tell me what it wants to be. Certainly I could fail in that interpretation, but that is my hope.
One line (actually, so many lines) from that reading resonated for me. “So, you learned doing something for yourself always ends badly?” In the poem, you indicate that this question was asked by your therapist. Is that something you believe to be true for yourself? If it is, let me ask you this: what was the last gift you gave yourself?
You are coming with the hard questions now! So, I don’t think that question is as true today as it was then, but still true to some extent. And it’s not that I believe it of course, consciously I know that it’s ok for a person to do things for themself from time to time. However, actually doing something exclusively for myself still feels objectively selfish in the moment, y’know? The gifts I give to myself are probably not intentionally given as gifts and more so take the form of relenting to temptation in the checkout line, allowing myself a pack of Reese’s peanut butter cups, or finally committing to purchase something that’s been sitting in my Amazon cart for a while. I will say that I am fortunate enough to have friends around me that will call or text and remind me to take time to celebrate achievements instead of just moving on to the next thing. My wife is really good about insisting that I splurge on something when a project comes to a close or a recognition comes my way; a dinner, a new outfit, a movie. Something like that.
As I’d mentioned, you’ve had a busy 2023 which included the release of your first full length collection, Composition, which “interrogates the historical perceptions of Blackness and biracial identity as documented through a Southern Lens.”[3]
I’ve read your poems several times, trying to select one to discuss for this interview, and honestly, it was not an easy task, however, one poem which I found especially telling, is EVERYTHING COULD BE A PRAYER, which speaks to your biracial identity. Why did you choose to shape that poem as you did? (Note: See poem below.)
Thank you so much for looking through the book so diligently! I do think a lot about form and shape when I’m revising. For this poem I was thinking about Psalms as they appear in the bible visually, a kind of stacking effect. I wanted the alternating lines to be shorter so that the reader gets an immediate sense of symmetry but not necessarily balance. I am, after all, juxtaposing several things in the poem; my life and Martín de Porres’ life, my choices and my father’s choices, belief and non-belief. Even though the poem is stichic it also feels like couplets, which felt like a nice way to call back to the two parts of my identity without relying solely on the text. The poem is also centered, which I don’t do a lot. Here, centering made it feel like the embodiment of prayer, the lines, like two hands, reaching toward common ground.
“Utilizing a variety of poetic forms, Ward showcases to his readers an innovative approach as he unflinchingly explores the way language, generational trauma, loss, and resilience shape us into who we are, the stories we carry, and what we will inevitably pass on.”[4] I’m curious about how you used form in this poetry collection as well. You include blackout or erasure poetry for many of your pieces. Why this poetic form? What was your thinking in using it?
The first iteration of this manuscript was a chapbook that only lightly explored my biracial identity. As I did more self-interrogation and as I wrote more poems, I noticed that the manuscript wanted to explore history, documentation, family interactions. Form became a huge part of the manuscript because I wanted to break form, I wanted to combine form, I wanted to create form. My thinking was that every poem would then become a metaphor for the collection as a whole. So I spent a year studying particular forms, determining how form could impact certain thematic choices in the poems, adapting the rules, and etc. Many of the poems were actually written in a different form (or in broken form) and if the result didn’t work, I’d rewrite it in yet another form (or combined form) until I felt that the poem lived the way it wanted to live. In the collection I’m playing with the contrapuntal, ghazal, sonnet, rispetto, sestina, villanelle, and others. Even when I’m “breaking” a form, I’m also committing to rules, so I’m breaking rules by way of creating new ones. This kind of experimentation led to many surprises. For example, the blackout and erasure poetry you mention became a way to manipulate black and white space on the page, a further allusion to my own identity and a dominant theme in the book. It also allowed me, in the words of Tyehimba Jess, to “create supertext” in addition to subtext. But perhaps the main reason I chose to use blackout and erasure poems is because I am working with documents that were a profound part of the conversation about mixed race marriages when my parents were courting; Senate Bill 219 (anti-miscegenation law), Virginia Health Bulletin, a letter from Mildred Loving to the Attorney General, etc. By interacting with those documents, it gave me the opportunity to “talk back”, to be part of the conversation, to change what must have felt unchangeable at the time.
You’ve worked with several organizations over the years —BOOM, The Watering Hole, Breathink.org, among a few. Do you consider literary citizenship an essential role for every writer? Tell us more about your work with the Charlotte community, beyond your responsibilities as its poet laureate.
Great question. I think literary citizenship is absolutely an essential part of every writer's journey, even if they choose not to embrace having a particular role in it. By that I mean, many writers are introverts like me, some are socially awkward like me, a small percentage may even be averse to playing nice with others (I’m trying to skate around calling anyone a jerk…but some of us are!), but even still we were probably helped by someone along the way. We probably helped someone along the way even if only by example. The next logical step is to make connections with other writers and organizations, not to save the world but to do what we can to make this solitary process a little less lonely, to help others on a journey we personally know is tough to make without assistance.
I’m on the board for BOOM and also a curating artist for the BOOM fringe festival in Charlotte, which brings high quality experimental work to the city. I’m a frequent collaborator with CharlotteLit and Goodyear Arts, two organizations that are doing so much for the literary, performance, and multi-disciplinary landscapes in the city. I’m also on the board for Guerilla Poets which, among other things, does amazing work with at-risk youth. I’m also on the board for BreatheInk, an organization that works specifically with teen poets in the school system and abroad. In fact, I was a teaching artist with them for many years before becoming a board member. I’m involved in a lot of things, but there are so many folks out here really working and making a difference. I’m happy to contribute what I can.
You dedicate one of your poems, Southern Cross, Thirty Feet High, to Bree Newsome who on her website states the following: “I think Nina Simone said it best; ‘an artist’s duty is to reflect the times.’”[5]
How do you build social activism into your poetry and into your life as a poet?
Funny story that I love to tell about Bree Newsome and that poem. The week before she took that flag down, I was part of a wonderful recurring event in Charlotte that brought musicians, singers, and poets in-the-round to perform together. At the end of that event I’m doing a freestyle poem with the musicians, including a young lady on the keyboard who had been rocking out all night. Fast forward to me sitting in my home office overhearing a news reporter talking about the flag coming down at the South Carolina state house. As I’m rushing around the corner to the television (because this was historic and it certainly felt historic in the moment) they called the name Bree Newsome and I said, no way! Then they showed her face and I said, no way! It was the same Bree Newsome I had just met and collaborated with. I say that to say, Bree’s music may be influenced by social activism, but her practice is social activism and I think that’s a difference that’s important to recognize. My poems are influenced by social activism and can maybe be used to help with social activism in some way in terms of giving people reasons to change their mind about something or encouraging them to stay on task. And my poems, certainly true to Nina’s words, “reflect the times.” But I think real social activism happens out in the streets, the rallies, the courts, the flagpoles. I’m not distancing myself from social activism at all, I just want to ensure that while I acknowledge that the arts have a great impact by reflecting the times, there are people out there on the frontline, literally risking their lives to make a better tomorrow for all of us.
“To pinpoint my answer to your question, I don’t know that I intentionally build social activism into my poetry, I think it manifests because it has to, because I have to reflect the times, because as a father I’m seeing the future through the eyes of my children, because as a global citizen I know that I must contribute my voice against atrocities and toward justice.”
What’s next for you now that your responsibilities as Charlotte’s poet laureate are nearing an end?
As you can imagine, balancing laureateship, work life, and family life can be a bit much and have, frankly, left me with little time to devote to my own craft. I’ve written drafts here and there and I’ve thought about personal projects, but mostly those things have been relegated to the back of my mind for now as my focus has been creating spaces and platforms for others. My creative life post-laureateship is going to be wonderful—I’m tingling just thinking about it (I’m kidding, but also serious)! First up, I have drafts that I haven’t revisited yet and the editing and revision process is easily my favorite part of writing. I’m looking forward to getting back out into the plethora of rejections that hang out on the submission trail. Second, one of my drafts is exploring a fringe connection between lyric essay and speculative fiction and I’m very excited to spend more time figuring out what it is or what it could be. Third, I’m going to continue to provide programming in Charlotte and to visit schools and libraries, but perhaps at what would feel like a less fevered pace.
Thank you, Jay, for taking time to share more about your writing and your life.
Thank you so much Anne, for these thoughtful questions! Wishing much success to you and Does it Have Pockets!
[1] https://www.charlotteobserver.com/entertainment/artsculture/article263175593.html#storylink=cpy
[2] https://youtu.be/zYotT_zOZ04
[3] https://buttonpoetry.com/product/composition/
Junious 'Jay' Ward is a poet and teaching artist from Charlotte, NC. He is a National Slam champion (2018), an Individual World Poetry Slam champion (2019), author of Sing Me A Lesser Wound (Bull City Press 2020) and Composition (Button Poetry 2023). Jay currently serves as Charlotte's inaugural Poet Laureate and is a 2023 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. Ward has attended Breadloaf Writers Conference, Callaloo, The Watering Hole and Tin House Winter Workshop. His work can be found in Columbia Journal, Four Way Review, DIAGRAM, Diode Poetry Journal and elsewhere.
Discover more about Jay: https://jwardpoetry.com/home
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Everything Could Be A Prayer
Marin de Porres is recognized as the patron saint of mixed-race
people & public health workers & all who seek racial harmony.
Credited with many miracles, Martin died of fever in 1639.
I won’t pray to you, Martin, but if I did how would that even work,
me to you, you for me, or jettison all hope
of intercession and just kick it dorm-room-style? Pink and fevered
as a baby, my body may have passed
your bronze statue on the way home from Vassar Brothers Hospital.
Mulatto dog. Slave-son. Rebel of soft heart.
We’ve been called many names, but I’d never seek my own sale to save
A convent (unless you’re thinking of convents as a way
we house faith or the myriad of small faiths we call home—a name
versus what will truly follow a person).
The early whisper of morning’s mouth in the green ragtop’s
backseat hid mason jars for Tyrone and me
to pee in. After we moved to dad’s hometown in Carolina
we’d visit New York each summer, stopping
at a trusted truckstop with a heat-lamp halo perched over day-shift
burgers. I wouldn’t know this for decades
but as a teen my father had been taken by the Ku Klux Klan
or by the police or by some white men or all
of the above, and was miraculously released on the third day,
Grandpa Bud serving as mediator.
It makes me question whether surging out of the South the way we did
whenever we traveled north, each precaution,
was a ritual or prayer, a lasting standard by which a father delivers, watches
over. Are all such choices so clearly black
and white (I’m asking if salvation is without consequence)?
I feel obligated to say here, talking to you
like this does not constitute supplication. I speak to many selves,
especially in light traffic, who are dead or holy
or exist only as a voice in my thirteen-year-old Camry, a fervent recycle
of breath, disembodied but not ghost. To say I revere you—
as opposed to saying we cohabit our skin—is to say you prompted a white
dietician from Mass a Black Army cook from Rich
Square to the same city of winding mazes, cleared a hand over them, said
In the blessing of this union I shall be reborn,
and kept safe so that I’d be in position to move my own three children
across Mason-Dixon borders, across darkness,
to what we hoped was a better life. No, I can’t believe in us. Father,
Risk taker. Saint to those whose eyes
are tinted with need. We are many names if we choose
not to believe in coincidence.
I’m not what you would call a believer of all miracles, but I give you this:
bilocation. You could appear beyond a locked door
to minister to ill, they say, while also kneeling in the darkness
of your dormitory across the courtyard.
I assume these accounts owe much to the ebbing cognition of the sick, the time-
lapsed dispersion linked with intermittent
consciousness. Still. This might be the miracle I fall unto like revelatory light:
residing in two truths at once,
place & time subjective, alone in a crib of night sweat.
a cool, damp towel pressed, somehow, to my face.
Kodak 4200 Slide Projector Asks if I Ever Held Hands with My Father
I.
In the first picture
my father’s hands
ain’t holding nothing
but a cooking spoon
I hold
the wired remote, clicking
to the next slide a lifetime
flashing against yellowed plaster
*
In this one his hands are empty
near a hollow steel pot
first day as a cook at
Hudson River
State Hospital where
he and Mom met I imagine
there is a photo his hand
focused on her belly
my hand walled within
reaching impossibly
toward
*
Here a custodian his hands
covered in grease
& callus—hot water
heater memento He really could
fix/love
whatever
needed to be
loved/fixed if I’d let him
instead I’d pretend
not to see him in school
head down timid
waving as he passed
II.
Memory merges
light & dust
an odd hum
with the present—
hospital room
a blink of tethered
machines oscillating
like
past lives against
a transfigured wall
his thin fingers
resting in mine
Previously published by Columbia Journal in March 2022 and winner of the 2021 Spring Poetry Prize selected by Hanif Abdurraqib
The Makers
White folks hear the blues come out,
but they don’t know how it got there – Ma Rainey
I. Ma Rainey speaks to Elvis
What a strange sound to mimic and call creation.
My rent been making a sound the same color as these keys.
I sang a song that broke my own heart more than once—
mind you, that’s even when I didn’t hit the right notes.
Can’t take that. Hard as you try you can’t.
Can’t thank the grass for rain while a cloud is watching.
II. The Ghost of Elvis Apologizes. Kinda.
I’ve only died once / so I wouldn’t
say I was good at it / or anything
but I did make a tune / didn’t I
could sing a song so blue / and black
you would swear / I colored / the chords
I been thinking / about how thrifters
pop / tags and sell something inferior
to the original / for more than it’s
worth / and I know my work was not
in vain / I know I’ll live on / there will never
be another me / how could there be
my soul wasn’t even mine
III. The Music Speaks for Itself
The smoke
cleared, exposed
your dissipatin
wisdom. I been
waitin to burn
red-faced and neck
bent back, waitin
for the curtains—
storm clouds breakin
like records—
to be pulled back,
to shake n shimmy
n sweat, to grunt
n falsetto n coo,
to slide one leg
like a pastor
slick cross
the floor,
finger extended,
to say now that
there, son,
that’s how
it’s done.
Previously published by Crab Fat Magazine in August 2019
Epithalamium from Dad to Mom
after my parents’ wedding photo
Skip to the end—you have to know I’d still die
for it, to hold it all. You: Caregiver, Master of Loss,
Weary Hands. The boys: shades of us. Of course I
would risk the law, Town Hall, even the courthouse.
In fact, break open these doors—I’d meet you anywhere.
You: A-line dress, angled angel, halo of white-headband,
look at me and say promise. I whisper into your nape:
we both shall live. Just outside our blessing
is called blasphemy, forbidden, hanging, strange,
a tree that was, and is not, and yet will be. In your belly,
a branch—fruit, wing—yes—a way. Steal away
south. part. Reunite like doves midheaven. We’ll fly
and dance & light, sunlit as any new beginning.
have & hold. We don’t have much but everything.
First published in Composition, then published in July 2023 print issue of WALTER Magazine
(One Hand in My) Pocket-Sized Fiction Winners 2023
2023 (One Hand in My) Pocket-Sized Fiction Prize
Editor’s note: For a bit more on our contest, read a note from EIC, Camille Griep, here.
1st Prize - Kik Lodge
On the off-beat
Drummer Boy’s gone missing, and Ms Mutch has gone feral.
She’s a tangle of red hair, stomping her heels on the skanky brown carpet of the music room.
When you’ve been missing this long, the probabilities, well.
We pour into class and stick our bags in a pile in the corner. I head to the back, sit behind the music stands. Others sit crossed legged by the window, whispering things.
Everything has been about Drummer Boy at school today. Where and how and why. Why.
It’s the last lesson of the day and everyone’s done in.
Ms Mutch doesn’t say a word. She’s stomping so hard her jewellery is jangling and the cymbals in the corner are making a tinny sound.
No wonder Ms Mutch checks herself into the psych unit most holidays. Too much discordance sometimes, she told Drummer Boy, who told me.
Two girls are on their feet now, looks like Lisa and Ame, the nice ones who have all the empathy, and they’ve started stomping in sync with Ms Mutch. Even the panes have started rattling.
Ms Mutch’s eyes, shot with blood, flash in my direction, and I look at my shoes, my arms hugging my knees. Now she’s brought her fist to her chest and is thumping it, on the off-beat.
Drummer Boy tried to teach me the off-beat on his snare drum once, but the off-beat’s hard. It’s about holding the weak beat, not keeping to the common pulse.
So lame to throw yourself in a river, if that’s what he’s gone and done.
So lame to not say a word.
A few more pupils are on their feet trying to mirror Ms Mutch’s syncopation.
Ms Mutch is thumping her heart because her love for Drummer Boy is a simple love.
Not like my love for him which is on and off, on and off.
A masterclass in confusion.
I kick the music stand over and Ms Mutch sees me and says, Right, Matthew, out!
Apparently I am the only one to find this harsh.
She stomps over to the door and opens it, sweeps her hand and fingers to motion me out, but I don’t want to be in the corridor with all my thoughts, I want to stay put and fill the silence with something, so I don’t move, I say no and I say fuck you Miss, and Ms Mutch stomps over to me, banging her heart off-beat, fever-eyed she bangs, fever-eyed she looks at me, right into my core, maybe she sees my love for Drummer Boy is uncut, she grabs my hand and takes it to my chest, motions my feet to stomp in sync with hers, and in my mind’s eye Drummer Boy is in the hollow of a bass drum, the one he places at an angle when he’s sitting on his swivel stool, and he’s saying don’t you just love the fucking boom of it, Matt?
~
Kik Lodge is a short fiction writer from Devon, England, but she lives in France with a menagerie of kids, cats and rats. Her work has featured in The Moth, Gone Lawn, Rejection Letters, Tiny Molecules, trampset, Maudlin House, Milk Candy Review, Splonk, Bending Genres, Ink, Sweat and Tears, and other very fine journals. Her flash collection Scream If You Want To is out with Alien Buddha Press. Erratic tweets @KikLodge
2nd Prize - Gabe Sherman
Apple Seeds
I am out walking the dog again. Early morning and the sun croaks, feeble but awake. The birds move about and chatter; the road is desolate and still. A rabbit stands on someone’s neatly manicured front lawn and watches us walk past like a dare. The rabbits are too complacent around here; they chew clover and go about their business as if there isn’t a dog — salivating, leaping in violent circles, fantasizing about first kill — right there. Grass carries dew heavy like a backpack, while the fog lifts as if pulled like a curtain on a string. Sammy shits on the sidewalk, tail pointed sharply up to the heavens — I always imagine dogs as nervous poopers. I am not walking this dog. I realize sometime after, with a poop bag in my hand, that my movement through the world feels automatic and stilted, like a person trying to remember how to be a person for the first time. I am stuck in last night, before I got high and watched Michael Laudrup highlights and went to bed, before I threw the dishes in the sink and thought I’ll deal with these tomorrow. I am in the living room, Uncle Leon across from me, lentils and chicken still scattered on our finished plates, stagnant in the other room. I am back at the first thought I had after he told me how great-grandmother died, after he told me how great-grandfather died: Having chosen to go out of this world together, did they hold hands?
~
Gabe Sherman is a writer based in New York. He loves words, scallops, and unfortunately, the Celtics.
Honorable Mention - Marc Sheehan
On Liminality
Each year the town raised funds for the public good by placing a junker car out on the lake ice before the thaw began. A betting pool was then organized about when the car would sink. In a rare example of the town’s early ecological awareness, the engine and gas tank were removed to prevent fluid leakage. That also reduced substantially the car’s weight, which extended how long the thinning ice would support it. Which, in turn, extended the betting pool’s window, increasing ticket sales. Once the weather warmed, volunteers took shifts as spotters to record the precise moment the car sank. One spring the ice got thinner and thinner until it disappeared, and yet the car remained. A television crew from the city arrived – which, had it not been for the unsinkable car, would have been its own miracle; no one remembered the station ever covering a village event before. Crowds gathered. Someone, apparently angry at the invasion of city people, stole a rowboat and set fire to the car, which stubbornly remained atop the water. Despite the crowds and the car now being an eyesore, the town council deadlocked on whether to remove it or not. An attorney advised that since the boosters who put the car on the ice formed a private organization, they had a right to do as they saw fit. And so, one morning it was gone. Despite reports of the car being towed and crushed, people preferred to believe it had been taken up in a kind of automotive rapture. Boosters reimbursed members of the betting pool who requested a refund. The story passed into folklore. With the advent of the Internet, sites published snapshots of the car, but they were grainy and blurred. Most people dismissed them as fakes. No car was ever placed on the ice again, only the usual fishing shanties, at least one of which each year fell through the spring ice when its owner failed to retrieve it soon enough. They were fishermen, after all, and only human.
~
Marc J. Sheehan is the author of two full-length poetry collections and two poetry chapbooks. His flash fiction has been featured on NPR’s Three-Minute Fiction series and Selected Shorts. His hybrid/flash fiction chapbook, The Civil War War, was recently published (2021) by Paper Nautilus. He lives in Grand Haven, Michigan. www.marcsheehan.com
Honorable Mention - Kathryn Kulpa
Switch
You meet a woman on the train and decide to switch lives.
Criss cross. Prince and the Pauper. The Parent Trap. You’ll be her and she’ll be you.
When you were twelve you wrote a story like that, about people switching lives for one week. One was a new mother. You never wrote about how she felt leaving her twin babies behind. You never wrote how anybody felt. You wrote about “mishaps.”
Switch! Was the name of that story. Your teacher gave you a B. Cute! She wrote. But far-fetched, no?
Switch is what you do with the woman on the train. The woman doesn’t look like you, but she doesn’t not look like you. Two women riding the train. Under the tunnel, over the bridge.
You think about twins. Lookalikes. Lives you can step into and drop out of. You exchange bare facts. Will that be enough?
The train seat is covered in a rough-fibered fabric, concentric circles and squares. Rust-colored, cranberry-colored, mustard-colored. They all fit into each other and so will you.
The woman you switched with left you notes on a 3 x 5” index card. The son will only eat sandwiches cut on the diagonal, not the square. He won’t eat tomatoes unless they’re peeled. The husband likes Tater Tots but not French fries. He likes nooners, sex under bright midday sun.
You throw the card away, because what kind of monster doesn’t like French fries?
You didn’t give her any instructions. You don’t care what becomes of your life. Let your work nemesis take your job. It might make her happy, for a moment, the way Gargamel would be happy if he destroyed all the Smurfs.
You imagine the morning staff meeting. The guilty few sneaking in late, reeking of cigarettes. LED lights that make everyone look hung over. Will the new you make it there on time? Will anyone think she looks different? Will anyone care?
Nobody looks at you as much as you look at you, your mother used to hiss, when she saw you studying your face in the magnifying mirror.
In your new life, you slice, but do not peel, tomatoes. You cube melons into chunks, humming a song your mother used to hum while she swept the floors, made the beds. Did she know the name of that song? Did your grandmother hum it?
Circles of squares. You peel potatoes, chop them into finger-sized sticks, tip them into a yellow ceramic bowl of water to blanch. You slide potato peels and melon rind into the garbage disposal, run the water, flip the switch.
The house you grew up in had a garbage disposal. Had a dishwasher that shook the floors like an invading army, but never died. Had a stove and refrigerator older than you, harvest gold. They never died either. You imagine them still in your childhood house, though people you don’t know live there now. You imagine them still breathing.
That night at dinner you serve grilled cheese and tomatoes, cut on the square. You serve French fries. You serve melon drizzled with balsamic glaze. Everyone eats the food you serve. Everyone says it’s good. The husband dips a French fry through a brooklet of balsamic. Licks his lips, eyes wide.
You look at the photos the woman on the train gave you. This is Gary, she said. Or was it Larry? This is Zachary. The man is tall with wire glasses, thinning brown hair. The son is stocky, with the kind of almost-white hair that will turn dark later. You look at the man and the boy. Are they the same husband? The same son? You can’t tell.
How many people are out there, living lives not their own?
There’s a bottle of wine, tasting of plum and pomegranate. Gary pours two glasses. Or Larry does.
Softly, softly, you hum a song your mother used to hum. You have never known the words. You follow Gary or Larry into the bedroom, dim the lights. Shut the door.
The next morning, you ride the train again. Over the bridge, under the tunnel. You see a woman who looks vaguely like you.
Criss cross, you say.
~
Kathryn Kulpa has work published recently in Dribble Drabble Review, Fictive Dream, and Ghost Parachute and forthcoming in Fractured Lit. Her flash chapbook, Cooking Tips for the Demon-Haunted, won the New Rivers Press Chapbook Contest, and her stories have been chosen for Best Microfiction and the Wigleaf longlist. She is an editor and workshop leader at Cleaver magazine.
Honorable Mention - Sam Crain
Tacit
Susan had an understanding of sorts with the older woman who lived upstairs. It was a big house; they both rented rooms. In wet-erase marker gleamed the schedule that allowed each tenant a turn for the kitchen and the washer-dryer. The different boarders did not comingle, the spaces common in name only. But Marjorie lived upstairs because she had come later than the rest. The extra flight of stairs hurt her hip, but she didn’t complain. Susan had learned so much by watching Marjorie shuffle, leaning hard on the railing with one hand.
Their understanding was never formalized with words. Marjorie could come into Susan’s room, anytime. She usually didn’t, but she was allowed. She had dark eyes, like a doe’s. For most people, that would be an insult, but not for her. Her hair was ash-grey and she wore it in a bun that always tumbled down by the end of the day—her hair was too fine for styling.
One particularly bad night, Marjorie had slipped over Susan’s threshold between rumblings of thunder, still wearing her work clothes, the only time she had come straight to Susan, with no intervening steps, recalling morbidly curious Susan from a magazine article about a haunted theme park. When she was furtive, Marjorie looked more like a doe than ever. Her tongue, a healthy pink, darted out to catch a drip of rain down her face.
If it were a tear, it’d be salty, Susan thought, but she was already out of her chair, fetching the towel from its hook by her sink. “We can’t have that,” she said, allowing Marjorie to dry off while she took the terrycloth robe from her closet. “Here.”
Majorie’s mute look of gratitude gave her eyes an unprecedented luster. Her hair came all the way down as she dried it, and she looked questioningly at Susan as she undid her shabby blazer. Susan brought a hanger. The blouse beneath was old-fashioned—cream rather than white, with buttons hidden under a flaring of ancient silk. It suited Marjorie exactly, even crumpled with wet.
“How was your day?” Susan asked as Marjorie undid those concealed buttons. There were eight of them.
Marjorie was a secretary. She’d worked longer at her company than anyone and knew more than she could ever say. Words came hard. “Good. And yours?”
The shirt was on its own hanger now, hung from the curtain rod, the drapes already closed against the lashing rain.
“Mine was fine, Marjorie.” Susan had never liked that name in the abstract, not til she’d met someone so suited to it that her very forehead, furrows and all, sounded it out. Marjorie had a flatter stomach than her shapeless serge skirt suggested. It was freckled. Susan wanted to believe—with a sudden, passionate intensity—that she had got those freckles sunbathing on a postcard-ready beach, devil-may-care and graceful, stretched out just above a tide-line the color of her hair. A small mole, almost flush with her skin, winked darkly from just north of her navel. Modestly, Marjorie donned the robe over bare arms and torso before shedding her bra and skirt from beneath it.
“Come here,” said Susan, indicating her bed, made up so tightly you could bounce a quarter off it, like in army barracks. At its foot was a chest with a pillow across it, so that it doubled as a bench. Scooching it out, Susan could perch on the bed with Marjorie in front of her, the drying hair lank against her terrycloth-ed back. Susan snagged a hairbrush from her nightstand and began at the crown of Marjorie’s head. Marjorie sighed but no words escaped her as the boar-bristles passed through her hair, tugging small knots free until each tendril lay in its proper place. Even knowing it was futile, Susan gathered the hair into three parts, plaiting them for the sheer pleasure of its sensation against her hand. Marjorie sighed again, and Susan tied off the braid with a thin ribbon of deep blue, knowing it couldn’t stay in.
None of them were allowed hotplates, but Susan knew Marjorie would never tell on her. She heated water and added packets of cocoa, stirring quietly in case the next-door boarder heard through the shared wall. She brought Marjorie a mug that still steamed, watching the blue ribbon fall away as Marjorie tilted her head to sip. The chocolate kept them silently together. The digital clock on Susan’s nightstand said it was past ten already. Without her needing to say anything, Marjorie rose to set her mug by the sink. A smile lit her face.
Susan did not want her to leave but could not ask her to stay, for the single bed was too narrow for them both. But she could make herself return the smile. Marjorie took her clothes from their hangers and Susan inwardly cursed herself for not laying them over the radiator that had fogged the window behind its curtain. She must remember, next time.
Still smiling, Marjorie nodded to Susan, hand on the doorknob.
It was a nameless desolation Susan felt as the door clicked closed behind Marjorie. Setting her own mug by the sink, she went to take down the bedclothes. Doing so, she saw there was no glint of blue against the off-beige of the boarding-house carpet. She searched carefully, but it was definitely gone. Inordinately cheered by this, Susan got under her top sheet, curling shrimp-fashion among her pillows. For a moment, she could believe Marjorie was still there, her back against Susan’s chest. No, Susan thought. That’s Marjorie’s bad hip. She turned over. There. That was right. Bless you, Marjorie.
~
Sam Crain lives in Fremont, CA. Now that she's finished her PhD in English, she's free to return to her first love, writing stories, which she does whenever she can steal her pens back from her cats. Her stories "Debts Discharged" and "Eyes Full of Promise" can both be found on Mythic Beast Studios, where the latter was a first-prize winner.
Honorable Mention - Zachariah Claypole-White
Obsessive-Compulsive
You have a Thought. And It will never let you go.
You wake up and the Thought is crouching on your chest. It’s a pathetic thing—all soggy-limbs and jealous eyes, pushing you down into the sheets. Every time you breathe the Thought rams into you, driving the air back out.
But.
You could stay like this.
(Couldn’t you?)
You need to piss, and the alarm will go off soon, followed by the second alarm (the one you always leave out of arm’s reach), but you won’t move. No. You’ll lie here, with your aching bladder and sweat-tight t-shirt, the Thought’s weight holding you still and close.
You walk to your commute and the Thought stays with you. It is in your throat. It scuttles across your teeth and waits—with arachnid-patience—for your lips to open, for any careless word to spill out.
On the train you wonder if other passengers can see the Thought. Surely, they can. Him! The man who caught your eye when you boarded. Or her—the woman who switched seats just a minute ago. (Did she move because of you?) She saw It. How could she not? The Thought is larger now; can almost take Its own seat. Soon It might.
You have a Thought. It is with you, in the office, at your desk. Your coworkers make coffee, argue over the good mug, and who’s up for cleaning the fridge (you volunteer). They do not have thoughts like this.
The Thought watches them. Oh yes, It always watches. It grows new eyes to peer into their successes. Catalogues them. Whispers each back to you: those you should have achieved and those you will never deserve. It is meticulous, spiteful. You chew your nails low and wince at the blood. The Thought giggles.
In the elevator, the new hire is coughing. She pushes the button for your floor and smiles. You have a Thought. It skulks towards you through the closing doors, wedges you into the metal box. The Thought breathes through hospital tubes, reeks of bile and industrial bleach. The elevator stops. Doors open. No one speaks.
The Thought is in your stomach, sitting like rancid meat. It guides you to the bathroom, to the medicine you keep nearby. It scuttles through your gut, doubling you over. You imagine skin distending, tearing, and all your small cruelties pouring out over the tiled floor.
You have a Thought. But you push It down, unacknowledged, buried beneath irrelevancies and distractions. You fill spreadsheets. Drink more coffee (despite the current therapist’s advice). You arrange papers on your desk from left to right, right to left. Try to make plans for the evening, cancel them before anyone can respond. You will not admit the truth: the Thought wants to be alone with you. And you want to be alone with It.
In an Uber home, the Thought takes front seat. You hear It in the snow-hiss between stations, in the radio’s promise of warming summers, a new strain of virus, the rising likelihood of drought.
You have a Thought. It leads you from the car and unlocks your door. Tucks your shoes neatly into the corner. Its footsteps fill the house like flocking birds. Do you notice how—as the days pass—the Thought has begun to walk like a man?
You no longer sleep. You close your eyes and listen as the Thought paces your room. Some evenings It stands over you like a concerned lover. Some evenings It slips into bed besides you. Slides Its fingers between your teeth.
The Thought looks like you, with unkempt hair and scratched glasses. When you stare into the mirror you can no longer tell who stares back—you or the Thought.
You miss work again this week, or maybe you didn’t. Maybe the Thought went in your place, and no one could tell the difference.
And perhaps you notice when I begin to move your hands, or when I first speak with your lips. Maybe, by now, you have simply stopped caring, not that it matters.
You have a Thought. And I will never let you go.
~
Zachariah Claypole White is a Philadelphia-based writer and educator, originally from North Carolina. He holds a BA from Oberlin College and an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. His poetry and prose have appeared in, or are forthcoming from, such publications as Bourbon Penn, The Maine Review, and The Hong Kong Review. His awards include Flying South's 2021 Best in Category for poetry as well as nominations for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Zachariah teaches at the Community College of Philadelphia and the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College.
Honorable Mention - C.A. Coffing
Heat
I paint Katie’s nails red, the color of blood on sand. She rolls on her back, holds her hands up to the sun. “Look at that. These nails are electric, like us.” She turns her head to me and smiles, “Let’s swim.”
We swim in the lake; bits of algae tickling our legs. Our faces emerge again and again, fresh with drops of lake water. We climb on the dock to dry our wet bikinis, our legs stretch long, our feet pointing to the horizon. I tip my head back, let my dark hair fall between my shoulder blades. Katie piles her blonde hair on her head, loose strands fall across her face.
We play Frisbee in our bare feet, our tracks in the grass giving testimony to our youth as our bodies soak in the fresh smell of soil and stray leaves. We flirt with the boys we like and taunt the boys we don’t like. We bask in the gazes of men staring from picnic tables, as their wives gesture and talk beside them. Men glancing over their shoulders as they walk to the lake’s edge. Men turning their heads in our direction as they push their toddlers on swings at the playground. We drink with Jonathan — Rainier Beer poured into empty pop cans — and smoke one cigarette shared between the three of us. Our laughter rises above the motorboats and floats to the treetops, to the cloudless sky.
"The summer of eternity," Katie says. She holds up her hand. We touch palms, our fingers entwine. Jonathan snorts, tilting his head back. Our heels press into the soft earth, our bodies absorbing the heat and falling whispers. We stay until the sun grazes the top of the lake.
We pile in the pickup. Jonathan’s driving; Marlin rides up front. We sit in the truck’s bed with Samantha and Dustin. The wind whips our hair about our faces. We laugh as our bodies toss about, searching for handholds as the truck makes abrupt turns. Jonathan and Marlin have the radio up loud. Songs drift out the open windows. I hear their voices singing along.
My mom’s cooking pot roast when I get home, the oven contributing to the hot July kitchen. "You've been at the lake?" she asks over her shoulder.
"Yea. Why?”
She doesn’t answer. She’s returned to the pot roast, pushing a thermometer into its sizzle.
The television drones in the living room with the evening news. I grab the remote and scan the channels, falling back on the couch and putting my dirty feet on the coffee table. The telephone rings.
“It’s you,” mom says.
I pick up the phone beside the couch. “You see the news?” Katie asks.
“Not really. Why?”
Her voice drops. “Turn it to Channel 5. Now.”
“Why?”
“He took her today. From the lake. The lake. Shit. We were there. We were right there.”
“Took who?”
“A girl,” she says. “A girl like us.” I wrap the phone cord around my fingers. “Abducted. By a guy. A normal-looking guy. Older, you know, but normal looking. I mean, what the hell? She helped him put something in his car and he… he took her and now… well, she’s missing…” She pauses. “That could have been us. We can’t go to the lake anymore.”
“Did we see her?” I ask. “I mean… what did she look like?”
“Shit. She looked like you. Turn it on.”
I turn to Channel 5. The word Abduction rolls across the screen. “I see it. I think this is it,” I say. A female face fills the screen. She’s young with dark eyes, her long brunette hair parted in the middle. She looks like me. I look like her. I stand and cross to the television, stretching the phone cord. I touch the screen, put my hand against the picture of the girl, feeling the chill of the glass, my feet still on the orange shag carpet, sand between my toes, my skin smelling of lake water and tanning oil. The heat falls away. I picture Katie’s blood red fingernails wrapped about the phone. “Are you there?’ she asks.
~
C.A. Coffing holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University. A self-published novelist and playwright, she was a 2013 Santa Fe Writers Project Finalist, third prize recipient in Flash Fiction Magazine’s 2021 contest and a 2022 Pushcart Prize nominee. Living in a small river town, she spends her time waiting tables, dancing, writing and dreaming. She is an earnest eavesdropper who loves to write about the nonsensical.
Kathryn Kulpa: A Conversation
A conversation with Kathryn Kulpa
I first met Kathryn Kulpa in 2021 when I enrolled in her workshop AFTERBURN: The Art of Flash Revision through Cleaver Magazine and found her critiques encouraging, instructive, and thorough. I subsequently enrolled in four more workshops the following year. Kathryn’s approach to writing workshops is very hands on, giving advice on how to sharpen the story and turn it into a publishable piece. Dozens of writers give her and her workshops credit for the inspiration and fine-tuning of stories now published in literary journals.
This month, I caught up with her during her book tour for her recent flash fiction collection, Cooking Tips for the Demon-Haunted, the winner of the New Rivers Press Chapbook Contest. — AMA
1. Your first publication was a short story in Seventeen Magazine almost 30 years ago. I was surprised to learn that Sylvia Plath submitted nearly 50 pieces before her first short story, "And Summer Will Not Come Again," was accepted and published in the August 1950 issue. Tell us a bit about your publication experience with that magazine.
Well, now I feel old! I still think of the 90s as ‘about ten years ago,’ in my personal chronology. I was also surprised to hear that Sylvia Plath had that many stories rejected—I’ve always thought of her as the golden girl, at least on the outside. My Seventeen story was my first submission there, and really the first story I was serious about sending out. I’d sent it to other places, including the Atlantic, and, of all places, Playgirl (!), where it was often “too young” or “not right for our readers.” It was held for a really long time at Sassy magazine, which felt like the perfect fit. They kept saying it was still under consideration, but I got tired of waiting (good thing, because they folded soon after!) and sent it to Seventeen and they accepted it right away.
2. If you could give guidance to your younger writer self, what would it be?
Be patient! I kept setting these artificial goals for myself—I have to have something published before I graduate high school, or I’m not a writer—I have to have something published before I graduate college, or I’m not a writer. Age-based, and all about getting external recognition. And it’s so hard not to want that, because that is what society tells you makes you a “real” writer. And then I would get so discouraged because I didn’t meet some arbitrary goal, rather than trusting the inner voice that knew when I’d written something good.
3. Someone only needs to follow your Instagram account to recognize your love for felines which makes me wonder, if you were a cat, what would you likely write about?
Ha! An evil empire of mice, foiled by a cat commando, maybe? My cat Smudge, who is normally indoor only, got outside recently and was missing for over a week. I spotted him slinking across the yard, watched over by a deer. I wish he could tell me what he was up to during that time and what made him leave the tribe of Cervidae and return home—that’s a story I’d love to write.
4. Your fiction has been published in numerous top tier literary journals, Smokelong Quarterly, Milk Candy Review, Fictive Dream, Ghost Parachute, Bending Genres, to name a few. Is there a specific journal which you’ve attempted but find is still out of your reach?
Yes, a few! When I wrote longer-form fiction, I used to batter myself against the Atlantic and New Yorker. I kept getting these “this is brilliant, BUT” notes from C. Michael Curtis at the Atlantic, and they made me gnash my teeth in frustration yet kept me going, in a weird way, when I wasn’t getting any other kind of notice. More recently, with flash, my “impossible dream” journals are The Sun, Cincinnati Review, Indiana Review, and Fractured Lit.
5. You earned a Masters in Library Science and currently work as a librarian in two Rhode Island libraries. As a writer, does the thought—Holy cow, hundreds and hundreds of books! How could I think I could add mine to these shelves?—ever creep into your head?
Knowing the realities of how libraries work—it’s not so much getting on the shelf as staying on the shelf that’s the real accomplishment. The shelves of used bookstores and library book sale tables are sagging in the middle with yesterday’s bestsellers no one wants. Not to mention all the weird niche titles, like “Here’s a cozy mystery about a team of crime-solving sister wives!” I’d love to write one classic book, or even a single story, like Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” that stands the test of time and gets republished in new editions and anthologies to be discovered by future generations.
6. Your stories are truly compelling (examples follow this interview). What dark corner of your mind creates these twisted tales?
I’m not sure, but I do know my 10-year-old self is squee-ing at being asked about dark corners and twisted tales! As a kid, I used to read collections of ghost and horror stories and save them to tell at slumber parties. I once put together a collection of adapted scary stories called “CAUTION! DO NOT READ AFTER DARK!,” which of course was exactly designed to be read after dark. As a young teen, I read everything I could find by Poe, Lovecraft, and Stephen King. I didn’t really think those influences crept into my own writing, though, at least in an overt way, but when I was putting Cooking Tips for the Demon-Haunted together I realized how much darkness is in my stories. So much so that I had to reject things: “Well, this werewolf story is spooky, but it’s not really ‘haunted.’ I’ll have to save it for a ‘monster’ collection.”
7. What would I find in your fridge right now that would surprise me?
I’m afraid to look! I don’t want it to jump out and surprise me.
8. Describe your first memory of truly owning the feeling of being a writer.
Well, getting that Seventeen story accepted was definitely one of those moments, but I’m going to go back even farther than that. I was about 13 or 14 years old, and my parents were away so I was spending the night at my aunt’s house. I had my notebook with me, but no pen, and in the middle of the night, when everyone was asleep, I became possessed by an idea: I had to write this story! I looked all over for a pen and couldn’t find one. I finally found a pencil—but it was all worn down, and I couldn’t find a pencil sharpener, so I actually took some scissors and whittled the pencil to a point and wrote the story with this dull old pencil, and I remember it being three or four in the morning and having such a feeling of triumph—I had DONE it!
9. During the months of September and October, Does It Have Pockets is hosting a Flash Fiction Contest. You’ve worked as an editor for Newport Review, Merlyn’s Pen, and now for Cleaver Magazine, tell me, what elements do you consider necessary for compelling flash fiction?
A voice—as distinct from story, or plot, or even characters—that holds you and won’t let go. And I know voice is such a hard-to-define element, but it’s absolutely essential. It’s when you start reading and immediately trust the writer to take you wherever they’re going to take you.
10. Is there a question I should have asked you but didn’t? Anything about yourself, your life, something about your writing or writing journey that you'd like to share with our readers?
Just that finding a writing community can be such a lifeline, and it’s one of the best reasons to take a writing workshop—finding people who get you, who understand that artistic obsession and help inspire you to keep going and make good work even better. My first writing group grew out of a class I took with Jincy Willett, and now when I teach workshops and my students say they’re going to keep exchanging work on their own, I feel so happy at the thought of all these overlapping circles, these incredible writers supporting each other.
11. We so appreciate sharing your thoughts and experiences with our readers. Where can we find more of your work?
Thank you so much for asking! I have links to a lot of them that were published online on my website, which is kathrynkulpa.com, and links to buy print collections and anthologies are also there.
Cooking Tips for the Demon Haunted
(after “Self-Portrait” by Rosa Rolanda)
Keep those demons at bay, is what Mama always said, for they will try and try to find a way in, and they are many and they are everywhere. Even now, standing in the kitchen as I am, a demon is beside me. If a bird flies into your window and leaves a trail of feathers and blood, it is a demon bringing bad luck; if white roses grow where you planted azaleas, a demon sowed the seed; if the paint separates and the color will not fix, a demon dipped his brush; if the beans sour in the soup, a demon stirred the pot; if the rice burns in the pan, a demon fanned the flame; if a young woman twists and turns on a high wire, rope of braid hanging down, she is a demon in pleasing form and that rope is the noose she holds for your husband, or for you. Too many demons crowd my head; they snap and fly like hot grease on a cast iron frying pan, spanging through the sky, leaping and multiplying, they are all busy going somewhere and here I stand as the water boils away, leaving a smell of brimstone. Are you feeling well, child? Mama asks, her fingers cool against my forehead. Surely this is Mama’s hand, the hand I’ve always known, so white and dry and cold.
Originally published in Ekphrastic Review, May 13, 2022.
The Last Thing She Ever Wore
If you thought the clothes you put on in the morning would be the last ones you’d ever wear, you’d choose them more carefully. I would have.
Last seen in a purple t-shirt, jeans, and black Chuck Taylors. May or may not have been wearing a rainbow loom friendship bracelet.
Not, for the record. I took it off weeks ago. And the shirt was more violet than purple. Violet like twilight, which it was, and the end of April, but already summer-warm, and I was zinging, vibrating, every raw nerve brimming with want: to go somewhere, to do something, and my cousin’s confirmation party was not that thing, and Hannah had said we could meet at the skate park later and I was asking my mother, one more time, when we could leave and she said Get lost!
So I did. Slammed my glass of off-brand orange soda on the table and walked out the back door, past the adults talking their boring talk, past the little kids and their dumb party games. I walked to the end of my cousin’s street and kept walking, wondering when they’d miss me, when my mother would be sorry she’d pushed me away. Get lost! I walked until I no longer knew the names of streets, cut through backyards like a spy, seeing the blue lights of TVs through picture windows, hearing lawn sprinklers, thinking how people were carrying on with their ordinary lives, barely awake, barely alive, and this was not the life I wanted. I wanted to ride dragons; I wanted to find lost cities; I wanted to climb a mountain peak in the sharp, red outback, under a sky of a billion stars. I wanted something more, something I couldn’t name.
I pulled a pink flower from a hedge with thick, waxy leaves and breathed in its strange, spicy smell. I tucked the flower behind my ear like a dark-haired girl in a painting I’d seen in a book in the school library. The girl was topless, or would have been, but someone had inked in a bikini top and written Woo! Woo!, and I swayed down the road like I was that girl, crowds of people saying Woo! Woo! in my head; I wanted to be a bad girl, a wild girl; no one had any idea of who I was or what I could become—so of course I got into that car. Got in with my own two feet. The path forked and I took the path that was all wrong, the path the lost girls take, but what other path could I have taken? In that warm violet twilight, with new grass bending under my feet, the music from that car pulsing past me, slowing down, that man leaning out and saying how hot I was, and I was on fire, I was so alive in that moment, every cell in my body tingling, waiting for something, finally, to happen: so alive, so alive.
Originally published in Monkeybicycle, April 29, 2016.
Lights Out : Zelda at Highland Hospital
It’s almost nine o’clock. Time for the night nurse to come and tuck me into bed, and I’ll make a show of yawning, of being dull and slow as most of us are, as they want us all to be. A placid vessel on a tranquilized sea. If I’m quiet, and wait until she’s nodded off over her nurse-romance novel, dreaming of the handsome doctor-lover never to come for her, the old goat, I can slip out, and walk in the night air, and smell the jacaranda blossoms that almost smell like home—like home and the wide back porch where we drank sloe gin on long summer nights, after my parents had gone to bed, and kept our voices hushed, or tried to. My laugh that you loved, and the little green notebook where you’d write down things I’d say.
Was I your muse? Did I amuse? My feet were never still; my toes still tapped out the rhythms of dirty jazz, all those barracks dances and the juke joints we’d stop at, later and drunker. Mama never minded how late I came home; she’d been a belle in her youth, and liked to know that somewhere young men fought their sheets in uneasy dreams and called my name, as they’d once called hers. One night, on a dare, you sipped champagne from my pale-pearl silk slipper, and it always smelled faintly winy after that, a smell that reminded me of moonlight, and sin, and you.
But I’m barefoot now, and slip lightly over the cold tile floors. If I’m caught out after hours one more time they’ll tie me to the bed at night, and I’ll be like poor old Elsie, with her red-chafed wrists and rubber continence panties, howling through the long nights, like the lunatic that she of course is, that we all, of course, are.
I never wanted to be saved. I never wanted to be safe. I still don’t. I let them take my days. The nights are still mine. Only in these dangerous moments of solitude can I remember myself. “One of those fast, dangerous girls”—a murmur of talk, overheard at the nurses’ station. And for a moment I let myself imagine they were talking about me.
This, now, is my life. I rise early in the morning, so they won’t suspect. Lying in bed past eight, wishing to be alone, refusing to eat: all these things are suspect.
I lob tennis balls back and forth to a tired attendant. My head throbs from relentless sunshine. I force a smile and pray for rain.
I long to lie in the shaded grass, barefoot, a tall glass of sweet tea beside me and a book to read, all in a lazy afternoon. But sloth is a sign of—something. I sit in a straight-backed chair. I pretend to listen to a lecture on home economics and the virtues of Victory Gardening, and dream of the French dancer, Emma Livry, turned into a torch by the footlights. Still she turned, layers of tulle, magnificent in flame, to finish her grand jeté.
She never regretted beauty.
Emma Livry. It took me two days to remember her name. I’m not allowed my dance books. Dancing is dangerous; it might “trigger an obsessive episode.” I’m not allowed to practice at the barre. I wear supportive cotton stockings. Me!
I’m sure my knees must weep.
I write Emma’s name in a matchbook, so I won’t forget her again. Matches are contraband, of course. Writing is discouraged, except for therapeutic exercises. A sign of neurosis, grandiosity.
I can’t be you, Scott, no matter how often I let you be me.
I slip past the tennis courts, past the neat rows of seedlings ready to carry us the last mile to victory. Tomatoes and broad beans can well, our lecturer told us.
But I am not content with a vegetable love. I will not plant my feet and root. I will not rot. I will not die on the vine.
I am not your ego, not your twin, not the girl you could have been.
I am tinder. I am tulle.
I am spark. I will fly.
Originally published in the anthology, Up, Do: Flash Fiction by Women Writers (Spider Road Press), February 15, 2014.
A Conversation with Zachariah Claypole White
In 2018, while editing an anthology, I recall reading Zach’s flash story, “Books from Keida,” and feeling swept away by its powerful imagery but it wasn’t until I listened to him perform the story that I felt the raw emotion in his narrative. It didn’t surprise me when I learned he was both poet and songwriter. This month, we caught up to talk about his recent projects and his life as a poet and are featuring four of his published poems including “The Coup” which had been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won the 2021 Flying South’s Best in Category award. — AMA
+++
Let’s start with you sharing details of your writing process. Tell us what you do. For example, what time of day or night makes you most productive as a writer? Where do you write? Pen or Pencil or straight to the keyboard? How many drafts do you generally go through before you consider a piece to be complete?
I used to write almost exclusively at night. Now, given my work schedule, I tend to do it in the mornings or on my lunch breaks. I do still find myself writing in the evenings on occasion. Oftentimes if I start a longer piece during the day, I’ll return to it at night. (Otherwise I can feel it scratching away at the back of my brain, wanting to be written.) In terms of where I write, I’m honestly not that picky. I do love writing outside, but since moving to New York for my MFA, I’ve found myself writing on trains as well.
For poetry I always write the first draft by hand, and always with pen. For prose I go straight to the computer. In terms of drafts, most of my poems realize themselves in the revision process. In fact, I’d guess about 80-90% of my writing happens during revisions. So, as you can imagine, I have a lot of drafts. In the rare case of a poem arriving more or less fully formed (RA Villanueva once called these “Athena poems”), it will still go through at least three drafts. I never even consider the first handwritten version a true draft; I think of it more as a blueprint or schematic--an attempt to familiarize myself with the topography of the poem. I just checked the manuscript I’m working on and most of the poems in it have had anywhere from seven to ten drafts; a few come closer to fifteen.
You recently completed a Masters of Fine Arts at Sarah Lawrence College. How did that experience shape your development as a writer?
Before the MFA, I was starting to feel stuck as a writer. Not in terms of writer’s block but rather, I knew my poems wanted to grow and move in new directions; I just didn’t know how to follow them. The MFA taught me to trust my poems, to surrender control to language. Several writers I admire have spoken about letting your poems be smarter than you. The MFA let me do just that and helped me learn to trust my instincts as a writer (even if I don’t always know why they are pulling me in a certain direction). The program was also a profound and delightful reminder that you cannot write without a community.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote that “The ultimate measure of a person is not where one stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where one stands in times of challenge and controversy.” I think it’s fair to say you’re tuned into issues of social justice. Does this sensitivity to the world’s challenges and controversies shape your poetry? If so, how?
Of course! Every writer brings their obsessions, worries, and hopes to the page. Even if you’re not “tuning in” to politics, the world will still bleed into your work. When I sit down to write a poem, I never do so with the intention of examining a specific social issue, but inevitably those issues assert themselves in my writing, because they’re a part of my life. I will say, I always try to write towards hope. Even in my darkest pieces. That’s become a part of my voice. I’d like to think that despite, and perhaps because of, the challenges of our world, I’ve leaned more into a poetics that finds delight in resilience and resistance.
Many of my poems also engage with, and draw inspiration from, my struggles with mental illness. I’ve dealt with anxiety and OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) for most of my life. Writing helps me come to terms with my illness; but just as importantly, my poems seek to provide a space where other people with invisible disabilities can do the same, especially when so much of the world demands that we approach such differences with shame and guilt.
In the recent years, you’ve been longlisted in several notable poetry contests. What is your best piece of advice on how to persist as a writer through these rejections?
“Be bloody, bold, and resolute!” (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
Ah, MacBeth quote. That works.
Writing is a career of incredible highs and many (much more frequent) lows. You might have no sense of “progress” (I use that term with some hesitance) for months or even years. Find your writing community: those people who will force you to keep going when you want to quit, who will commiserate when the rejection letters arrive, and who will celebrate your success. People who will push you to do even better. Celebrate your writing successes! However large or small. Do not compare yourself to other writers. That is a great way to make sure you never pick up a pen again. Focus on your own journey. So, in the immortal words of Churchill, “KBO” (keep buggering on).
You’ve mentioned a writing community a few times now but how does someone interested in building a community who isn’t pursuing an advanced degree find their kindred spirits?
It can be tough, and that was certainly something I struggled with between undergrad and the MFA. There are a lot of incredible workshops and residencies (some online and some in person) which you can always explore. Independent bookstores are also great centers of community; they’ll host readings, open mics, book clubs, and even classes.
Remember if you can’t find an existing community, you can always create one. Start a reading series or open mic and invite some writers you admire to perform. Perhaps your community is a group of high school friends you zoom with twice a month to exchange drafts. Maybe your community isn’t made up of other writers at all, but visual artists, or musicians, or just friends whose judgment you trust. There’s no right or wrong way of “doing” community, as long as it works for everyone involved.
The other advice I’d give is, once you find your people, don’t let them go. Stay in touch!
These are excellent suggestions, especially staying in touch with your writing community. It’s essential. I’d like to change topics or maybe shift focus is a better way to describe it since your songwriting is tightly coupled with writing poetry. Up until 2018, you’d played guitar in two bands, The Arcadian Project and Eden Falling. Why did you pause your musical career at that time? I’m guessing music is still very integral to your creative process, what music do you listen to when you’re writing (song, band, genre?)
I absolutely love the spontaneity of performing, especially my own songs. It was my therapy for a while. I could jump around a stage with a guitar or microphone all day, but I was not particularly fond of the business side of music. I also fell into the trap of trying to make every show absolutely perfect (which is never truly possible). The more I pursued it, the less therapeutic it became. Once I realized that music was causing me more stress than happiness, I decided to step back from it (at least in the career-sense). I realized I didn’t love the craft of songwriting as much as I love the craft of writing poetry. I can spend hours pondering over the smallest details of a poem, and delight in that, but the same isn’t true for a song. I still love playing and performing. I practice my instruments every day, but music has gone back to just being a personal escape. I would like to play in a band again someday.
In terms of my writing process, I always listen to music. I prefer recordings of concerts over studio albums when I write. I’m honestly not sure why. I think it has something to do with the joys and imperfections of live music. I switch up my writing music quite a bit, but I tend towards metal, punk, and folk. Recently I’ve been listening to Sleep Token, Coheed and Cambria, the Airborne Toxic Event, Slipknot, Queens of the Stone Age and some Rihanna. For specific songs, I’ve been stuck on “Alkaline” and “Take Me Back to Eden” by Sleep Token.
Who would play you in the film about your life?
Oh, that’s a great question. I would love Viggo Mortensen to do it. Not necessarily because I think there’s a huge overlap between us but because I love Lord of the Rings, and Return of the King is my favorite movie.
Another choice would be Tom Holland. I think he could play a good Zachariah.
Are there people in your life who have influenced your writing? Teachers? Family? Friends? Public figures?
Of course! As I said, despite the stereotypes, writing is not a solitary craft. You need a community. My parents have been hugely influential. In fact, most of the advice I gave on persisting as a writer was stolen from my mom.
That would be novelist, Barbara Claypole White?
Yes. She and my dad have always been incredibly supportive of my poetry. All of my professors in the MFA have guided me, but I’m especially indebted to my thesis advisor, Sally Wen Mao, and my first workshop professor, Marie Howe. The incredible writers in my MFA cohort have also influenced my writing and my approach to craft. Finally, I was lucky enough to be accepted into one of the “Kenyon Review’s” residential workshops last summer to study with Victoria Chang. She really helped shape how I think about my writing process.
What question didn’t I ask but you’d hoped I would?
Nothing specific comes to mind! As I said, OCD and mental illness are key focal points for my writing. It’s worth mentioning that as a Southern (and half-Jewish) writer, coming to terms with what that means and what responsibilities (to home, to history) that entails, has greatly helped to define my poetics.
You’ve worked as a bookseller in recent years. First at Flyleaf Books in North Carolina and now at Womrath Bookshop in New York. Both are independent bookstores. Some say brick and mortar stores are a thing of the past. From your experience, talk a bit about the future of bookshops in this country especially with the recent movement to ban certain books.
As long as there are books to sell, independent bookstores will exist. We lost a lot of them to Covid, but before that I believe the number of independent stores in the US was actually increasing. I’m not sure what it’s doing at the moment, but I do think people are very aware of indies and eager to support them. So many incredible books don’t get the attention they deserve, and the indies are a key part of making sure those books find the people they need to. In fact, one of my favorite parts of being a bookseller is introducing readers to the small press titles they might have otherwise missed.
In terms of book bans: independent bookstores cannot replace libraries and they can’t fully mitigate the damage of removing books from library shelves. That said, they can (and should) make sure those books are celebrated. They can also shine a spot light on marginalized authors and make sure that kids find the books that speak to them. Even without book bans, so many voices are excluded from “literary” discussions. You want to find incredible horror books by queer, POC, or femme authors? Go to an indie and ask for recommendations. Need more trans poets in your life? (Duh, of course you do.) Go to an indie!
I’d like to end our interview with two related questions stolen from the late James Lipton: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? What profession would you not like to do?
This might sound a bit ridiculous, but I’d love to do voice acting, especially for cartoons. I think I’d be a great Squidward. My other option would be an actor at a haunted house. I’d get paid to dress up in a Halloween costume and jump out at people. What else could I ask for?
For professions I would like to avoid: anything involving finance. My brain is just not wired to find any joy in it. I would also hate working in an airport. As soon as I step into one, my anxiety skyrockets (no pun intended).
Aside from reading your poems from the May Issue of Does It Have Pockets, how else can readers find and support your work?
Right now, the best way is to follow me on Instagram, or check my Linktree. I keep both updated. I’m also on Twitter but don’t use it as regularly. I do hope to have a personal website set up soon.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zachariahcw/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/zachariahclaypolewhite
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Zachariah_CW
Poet Zachariah Claypole White. Photo courtesy of the author.
The Coup (Language is a Violence to Rise with the Sea)
November 10th, 1898
Alex Manly’s press will burn
in flame-kissed photos
white supremacists pose
an orchestra awaiting its curtain fall
men stand beneath the dangling sky
grind heels into half-printed headlines
hold nooses like cello strings
state militia are dispatched
only black citizens are arrested
local newspapers
led by the Raleigh-based
News and Observer
help instigate the overthrow
swallow the ash of darker words
each day the News and Observer
arrives under my window
I skim pages
tear them into cardinal wings
taste another’s blood in the ink
reach for violence
the smoke under my fingertips
my brother says
muzzled words
are feral things
clawing at our lips
i say yes
we understand
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November 1898
Wilmington executes
sixty or more black citizens
hands like mine
do not record
the exact number
sometimes i leave the word history in my coat pocket
hand it to a gas station attendant
neither of us sure
how many gallons
it is worth
protests continue
i try to speak with the ghost
sharing my seat
but our tongues have fallen
between the pews
officials note
the neighborhood
declined
decline
which might be a synonym
for overthrow
for no whites arrested
for lynch
i believe a nation
is a bird with no feet
This poem quotes from: “Wilmington, North Carolina’s Taylor Estates Redevelopment Project.” n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.
First published in Flying South, Number 8, 2021
Odes to Insanity
its voice is my voice
nothing like my father’s lullabies
honey-dark smiling
roadkill teeth
fluent in love poems
and declarations of war
my voice is its voice
too much like the emptying
of my grandmother’s ash trays
more akin to a bird
than a fish or prayer
stalking rabid
across my chest
its voice is our voice
too much like God
to be holy
well versed in archaeology
oncology and grief
an architect of failures
hauling Babel
from ruined fingers
our voice is its voice
nothing like a brother or hurricane
copywritten
hereditary
often mistaken
for a sunflower
lover or priest
its voice is my voice
too much like my father’s lullabies
how easily
he called sleep down
from the mountain
gathered its silence
in the warmth of rooms
unbuilt
First published in The Hong Kong Review, Volume 3, Number 1.
A Catalogue of Moments as Told to My Bedroom Window
I.
Today, my father is a hummingbird against the screen,
and we are candles crossing the distance.
He is twenty-one: a prophecy of laughter
counting pigeon feathers, and I—the sand,
waiting his touch.
Today, the surgery. Fingers swell ripe as harvest moons.
His wedding ring will not fit past the knuckle.
II.
I am trying to describe the failures of gravity
and my grandmother is dead,
buried in a church with no roof.
But today she is a child, pulling away blackout curtains,
watching the dogfights: strange blossoms
in the garden of our violence.
My mother is born in this house,
once a soldier’s hospital.
My father flees a different war.And I am a riot horse,
still kissing his blood.
III.
Today, the same cemetery
where—twenty years ago—we are remembered
as prayers pebble-smooth.
And I am sitting in this room—five hours now—
hoping to touch a dead boy through the window;
again and again, my mother writes one sentence.
There is no metaphor in this.
IV.
All these todays ago
I pull ferns from my wrist.
With hands ration-strong,
my grandmother holds the river’s slope,
drinks the tree-dented light
till hawks flower from her grave.
Today, the funeral;
today the stones are named
Teacher and Priest.
Today, my father laughs like wind
fresh-born from the mountains.
There is a city in his throat;
it too is dancing.
First published in Pedestal Magazine, Issue 90
A Conversation with Logen Cure
A conversation about Welcome to Midland
Welcome to Midland. Cover design by Justin Childress. Cover art by Ashley Shea Henderson.
I met poet Logen Cure at a reading in her home state of Texas several years ago, and I’ve been closely following her writing ever since. A queer poet and educator, Logen curates Inner Moonlight, the monthly podcast reading series for The Wild Detectives in Dallas. She's an editor for Voicemail Poems. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
This month, we feature a conversation with Logen and feature five poems from her debut full-length poetry collection, Welcome to Midland (Deep Vellum Publishing, 2021) which was shortlisted for the Reading the West Book Awards. — CMG
1. Thanks so much for joining us for a chat here at Does It Have Pockets. First question: dogs, cats, or ?
Both! I have a gorgeous cat, a cattle dog mutt, and a corgi. They bring me so much joy! I love animals generally, though, as evidenced by all the creatures in my book.
2. Strangest/favorite place you’ve given a reading?
Years ago, I gave a reading at an art festival in Fort Worth—the sort of event where they close several blocks of street for booths. I was asked to read in the middle of the afternoon, standing just outside the booth for a local literary organization. There was no stage or microphone. It was very bizarre to just start loudly reading poems as people teemed by. But then people stopped. An audience formed and foot traffic diverted around all the folks listening to me. It was quite an experience.
3. What are you reading or watching or listening to these days?
The most recent book I read is Black Chameleon by Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton. It’s a memoir written by a poet, so it contains stories from life, but it’s also mythic and fantastical. I love books that challenge definitions of genre. I had the privilege of hosting a conversation with Mouton at the Deep Vellum bookstore when she came through Dallas on her book tour. Our conversation was super inspiring and I’m so glad I got that opportunity.
4. Welcome to Midland came out smack in the middle of the pandemic.
A. How did that affect the book?
Yes, so the book was acquired by Deep Vellum in February 2020, and released in July 2021. Deep Vellum threw me an in-person book launch at the Wild Detectives, a bookstore/bar venue in Dallas with a beautiful outdoor space that makes celebrating safer. That was fortunate, definitely. But I had ambitions to do a tour of readings all over Texas, and I will admit I’m sad that couldn’t happen. It was harder, generally, to connect with people and raise awareness than it might have been otherwise. I had to reimagine what it meant to have a debut book. I’ve been really lucky, though, and I’ve found my way.
B. How did it affect your writing?
Honestly, I haven’t done much poetry writing since the book was acquired. The book was a long time coming (like a decade) and I am still resetting after its release. My creative energy also goes toward my monthly poetry reading series, Inner Moonlight. We recently celebrated the 5th anniversary of the show! For two years before the pandemic, it was an in-person reading at the Wild Detectives. When the pandemic started, the show was on hiatus for several months, then I brought it back as an interview-style podcast. Inner Moonlight was solely a podcast for about a year, then we returned to the Wild Detectives, this time outdoors. Now I record the live readings and release them as podcast episodes, so it’s the best of both formats. Sometimes I write book reviews for authors I feature in the series, and that’s been lovely. It’s been positive for me to turn my creative energy toward community endeavors, especially during a very isolating time.
C. What coping strategies were most helpful?
Honestly, making a podcast is the best thing I could have done. It gave me the chance to connect with writers and readers all over the world. The podcast got a shoutout from Texas Monthly, which was very cool. I think the buzz from the show helped the book, too, because it led people to discover my other work.
5. We’ve talked before about the power of confessional poetry when done correctly. Part of what I love about your writing is that you make space for the reader even though these scenes are intensely, sometimes brutally, personal. Still, Welcome to Midland has an almost novel-ish sort of plot that winds through these poems. Was that intentional or organizational or something else entirely?
Thank you for the kind words! Yes, it’s accurate to describe the book as a novel in verse. I didn’t set out with that intention from the first poems I wrote for the project. I noticed the potential for a plot arc fairly early on, however, and became intentional about it. The poems are also about storytelling in a lot of ways—gossip, myth, history—so it made sense for the book itself to tell a story. I didn’t anticipate the nature and history threads at the outset either, but while reading everything I could find about Midland, I was inspired to try a few poems in that vein. They turned out alright so I wrote more. For me, it’s always some intention and some exploration.
6. The illustrations are a big part of the magic of the book. How was the process of working with the illustrator? Did you pick certain subjects together or did she read and draw what kindled her imagination?
Thank you! I’m so happy that illustrations add magic for you. The idea of illustrations didn’t occur to me until around the time the book was acquired. I’d admired countless illustrations throughout my research for the book–scientific drawings, historical photographs, guidebook images–and I asked Deep Vellum if they were open to including art. I was stoked they were on board! I requested the subjects plus grayscale realism with hand lettered labels. They’re all India ink paintings. The illustrator is a fellow West Texan. She read the poems and we worked together to figure out what each piece should look like. West Texas is a weird place, and I think a lot of folks have probably never seen some of the subjects depicted, like the tarantula hawk wasp or the horned lizard. The art captures that bizarre beauty so well and I am pleased with the result.
7. Your relationship with Texas is a big character in the book. So many of us have complicated feelings about our hometowns (hello, Billings, Montana). How is that relationship evolving in today’s garbage political climate? What makes you hopeful?
I’m glad you asked me this. One of the things writing the book taught me is that I am not obligated to speak to a broad “universal” audience—my work can speak specifically to queer folks with hometowns like mine. Giving myself that permission was vital. Just this past April (National Poetry Month), I was invited to visit Midland/Odessa by the University of Texas at Permian Basin and Pride Center West Texas. I taught a workshop at the university and gave a reading for the Pride Center. Growing up in Midland, I couldn’t have imagined a Pride Center could exist there. It was profoundly heartening to talk with queer folks living there now. I was touched to hear that people connected with my work and encouraged to hear their commitment to fighting the good fight. You’re right that the political climate is garbage, but frankly, the political climate is always garbage for queer people. It’s also true that time and again, we find hope in each other, and I’m so glad the book led me to make that trip and meet those beautiful people.
8. What question do you wish someone would ask about your work?
Thank you for asking this! I ask writers this question in interviews, too, and it can be tough to answer. No one ever asks me how I named the characters in the book, so I’m going to tell you. I’m a poet and had very little experience naming characters. Once I leaned into creating a novel-like arc, I decided character names would help build the narrative across poems. The book contains some pretty scathing critique of a certain kind of Christianity, so I took the names from biblical characters. I narrowed down a list of names that would sound natural enough for people in my generation, then contacted a former undergrad mentor (who’d become a priest) for consultation in matching them to the characters in the book. The character name Lily is a diminutive of Lilith, who may or may not be mentioned in the Bible, but is certainly prevalent across other kinds of storytelling.
9. How can readers find out more & support your work?
My author website is www.logencure.com and you can find Inner Moonlight on Spotify, Apple podcasts, and most podcast platforms!
Illustration by Ashley Shea Henderson.
Five poems from Welcome to Midland by Logen Cure
Lucifer at the Tea Party
My mother will tell you about reading the invitation to me—
Hannah Miller’s 4th birthday, a dress-up party—
the way I said, Oh good, I’ll wear my devil costume,
how she explained that’s not at all what they meant.
Think tea party. Think fancy.
Oh, I said. Then I’m not going.
When Hannah’s mother asked me at preschool pickup
if I was planning to attend,
my mother explained the misunderstanding
after I said, Nope.
Oh, Hannah’s mother said,
just bring her in whatever she wants to wear.
I don’t believe I remember this.
Isn’t it strange? The way story blurs
with memory, the sweet mythology
we make of ourselves.
Ask my mother and she will show you the photo:
little girls clad in lace, sashes, tiny gloves,
sitting in a circle, heads bent
as Hannah opens a gift,
and me, kneeling in the background,
dark eyes looking square at the camera,
my horns crooked, the hellfire on my red, red cape
just visible at the edge of the frame.
Elementary
My fourth grade teacher told me
she dreamt I belonged to her:
together we traveled by boat.
I imagined the unending sea,
my young teacher squinting in sunlight,
a life with another mother.
The day I had to explain
why I chased Rebekah Jones across the blacktop,
punched her in the back so hard she fell
and bloodied her skinny knees,
I really thought I was in trouble.
You know that thing boys have
that girls don’t? I said.
My teacher nodded.
She said I have one of those.
Before I could say sorry,
my teacher hugged me;
her sea-green eyes brimmed with tears.
I stood stunned through Rebekah’s stiff apology.
Back at our desks,
she picked at the bandages on her knees;
I drew a series of boats.
Misdirection
The first time I broke
a disposable razor, I accidentally
slashed my thumb.
I did not cry out.
I freed the single, flimsy blade.
My intentional work
came out neater, bled less.
I was twelve and knew my body
was haunted. I slid the blade
between dictionary pages,
returned the volume to my bookshelf.
This is how I learned to hide in the open.
My inner thighs were so
easily unseen,
even in the locker room,
in department store fitting rooms with my mother.
I learned to create distractions,
to stand at the perfect angle.
I knew people cannot see
what they are not looking for.
Warbirds
Ninth grade field trip, Commemorative Air Force:
we filed through the collection of WWII nose art,
massive painted pinup girls on jagged-edge metal,
like torn pages of a dirty magazine.
Boys behind me shoved and snickered,
called each other fag.
I squinted up at cartoonish women,
the perfect Os of their mouths,
heart-shaped bottoms, bare breasts.
They were more bizarre than alluring,
accompanied by slogans for sex or death like
Target for Tonight or
Just Once More.
In the next room, we saw
replicas of Fat Man and Little Boy suspended,
mid-drop, surrounded by photos of mushroom clouds.
How strange, I thought, to go into battle this way,
such sweet phrases for devastation.
Laws
1. A body at rest tends to stay at rest; a body in motion tends to stay in motion.
My sigh steamed in the frigid morning;
the sky was the same color as the parking lot
and I had a physics test to study for.
I liked school better this early.
The quiet gave way to my footfalls,
the equations I murmured like psalms.
The library waited for me.
2. Acceleration is proportional to the magnitude of the imposed force.
I saw the truck take the corner,
rattle down the street as I stepped
onto the crosswalk. It slowed as it approached.
I regarded the driver, a blond boy
I’d known since middle school.
I was square in front of his hood ornament
when his eyes narrowed
and I knew—
Dyke! he yelled over the engine’s sudden roar
as the truck surged forward—
I dodged, barely—
my physics book slapped pavement,
fluttered open.
3. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
His rumbling laughter receded.
I picked up my book.
I found the library empty.