Upcountry Spring 2013 by Upcountry

upcountry

Spring 2013

upcountry university of maine at presque isle spring 2013

Editors Dr. Melissa Crowe Jessica Edney Kayla Ames Angel Cray Submissions The Upcountry staff reads submissions from University of Maine at Presque Isle students and alumni for the Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer issues each year. For specific submission information (including deadlines), see our website at www.upcountryjournal.wordpress.com. We can be contacted via email at upcountry@maine.edu. Upcountry is a publication of the University of Maine at Presque Isle's English Program. A literary journal dedicated to showcasing poems, short stories, personal essays, and visual art from the campus community, the journal is published twice yearly. The views expressed in Upcountry are not necessarily those of the University of Maine at Presque Isle or its English Program. © 2013. All rights reserved.

In complying with the letter and spirit of applicable laws and in pursuing its own goals of diversity, the University of Maine System shall not discriminate on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, including transgender status or gender expression, national origin or citizenship status, age, disability, or veteran status in employment, education, and all other areas of the University System. The University provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities upon request. Questions and complaints about discrimination in any area of the University should be directed to Barbara DeVaney, Director of Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity, 205 South Hall, 181 Main Street, Presque Isle ME 04769-2888, phone 207-768-9750, TTY available upon request.

Carolyn Anderson Hard Lit (photograph)

Justin Bari A Day in the Life (story)

Fred Clark Sculpture

Shawn Cote Jillpoke Bohemia (comic strip)

Stephanie Jellett Mantle Lake (photograph)

Wendy Koenig Pray for Rain (poem) Pomme de Terre (poem)

13 14

Dan Ladner Calm Before the Storm (poem)

Cory Levesque 360 Landscape (drawing)

Emily Lizotte

Gerard of the Gardens (essay)

Karen McCosker Out of the Blue (poem)

Abby McLaughlin How to Build a Female Body (poem) Of Steel (or The Generous Risk-Taker) (poem) The Going (poem)

6 38 56

Vince Michaud Dry Noon (poem)

Dewayne Morse Thieves (poem)

Chris Morton The Night I Brought Old Dead Jimmy Down (essay)

Anthony Scott Left Over (poem) Determined Dysharmony (poem) Passing Along the Border (poem)

52 10 57

Heather Sincavage Resonance (mixed media)

Jessica Trombley Step Back (story) When I close my eyes (poem)

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Craig Winslow Self Portrait (cover art, watercolor) Richard Zuras Northern Maine, October 2 (poem)

Abby McLaughlin How to Build a Female Body 1. Start from the top. People will tell you otherwise. The body won’t breathe without the brain speaking. In and out. 2. Sculpt the cage. The bone that will hold enough lung to listen, to survive. 3. Take care here. The muscle. Give it sets of strong limbs and a tongue to yell. Give it the heart, make it bottomless. 4. Spend hours finding the empty spaces and fill them: hunger, legend, jet fuel, a sword, language, bravery, will, an escape plan, lust, stubbornness, a belly laugh, and ferocity. 5. Cover it with skin. Behind it, the beginning.

Heather Sincavage Resonance

Jessica Trombley Step Back Heightened, empty clouds are slowly pushed away, against their resistance, as the sun peeks forward, toweling off the dampness. Worms slither from the earth’s moist ground, while baby birds chirp from their nests, hungry for prey. In the distance, school bells ring, while a thunder of children pours out the doors, splashing their rain boots in mud puddles. The rumble of a car exhaust plays loudly in the background, prominent against the silent vehicles barricading the building. The automatic doors flutter open and many of us drop our umbrellas, reaching for picket signs, but the doors snap shut momentarily, locking us out. Children with signs stretch their hands, asking when they can go home and kicking up grass while they wait. The silence is deafening when the car’s engine kicks off and the door groans open, trying to avoid a stir. Lipstick-bright stilettos and a black pencil skirt appear, and when the woman gains balance, something falls out of her lap; she looks at it fleetingly, running her hand over her belly. My hand grips the wooden picket sign, fraying with splinters and peeling from many rainfalls. In sync now, up and down, the signs obstruct the outside world, and the chants begin a wave to drown out indecency. The click of the high heels draws near and as a breeze passes, the woman’s curls bounce slightly. Seeing us, she darts her eyes down. The day is hot and damp after the rain and I wipe the dripping sweat from my brow, swatting a mosquito buzzing in my ear. A swirl of papers trickles to the ground, some crumpled and untouched, and the lady pushes aside those falling in her path, her heels clicking faster now. We draw closer to her, like bees to a flower; a crowd against one, trying to push the irresponsible back, anywhere but the entrance doors. Like a game of Dominos, if one woman falls, breaks down, and turns back, maybe they all will? She’s inching her way through the spectators, and I hurdle forward, in the midst of angry hands and confusion, hastily throwing a flyer her way, but it falls to the ground, ripped under 8

her heel. She hurdles past desperate hands, against their resistance and with her eyes beginning to well with tears, shoves her sunglasses on. A heavy set man, dragging his child by the neck of his shirt, puts his hands out at the woman, and she stops for a brief moment, blocked, nowhere else left to turn. He looks down at her belly, rolling his eyes, and shakes his head, sickened by her casual decision, so careless and foolish. The man places a pin in the woman’s fragile, unsteady hands and instead of throwing it to the ground, she strokes it, standing still, not trying to fight her way through the crowd this time. But then she shoves the pin inside her purse, as chants and flyers swim around her; it is the only thing she keeps. She marches along the sacrificial path; shadows now linger behind her, the hands of onlookers, outstretched, a frantic plea to change the wrong choice. Scrambling last minute, we are pleading, shouting, and praying to stop this train, but she speeds closer and closer to the building, out of sight. As the automatic doors begin to push open, seeping cool air, the woman hesitates, for only a moment, looking into the crowd one last time; she removes her sunglasses, and her eyes are hollow. That’s when I see the faint, fading yellowish bruises on her arms, a few, barely noticeable, near her ankles. And that’s when I understand what she’s been through. Although we are on opposing sides, we know each other in a distant life; we share a common, haunting memory, which seeps venom. As blackness takes over, I see the man cornering me, yelling, pinning me down, the negative sign, such a relief, weeks later. When I open my eyes again, she is already gone and I lower my sign, walking away.

Anthony Scott Determined Dysharmony I’ve been singing to folks without ears, They don’t wanna hear, they don’t wanna hear, Ragged flesh instead on the sides of their heads They don’t wanna hear, they don’t wanna hear A long time ago with dull narrow blades, they self-mutilated the music away, Until they had no tone. They had no beat. Nonsense noise, their words off-key But I tried, you know I tried I tried, Oh, god, how I tried I stomped the rhythm ‘til the ground kept time, I screamed the notes, made the air alive I held their hands, and on two and four, We clapped and clapped I placed myself so they had to see the words on my lips and the chords in me The lyrics so strong that the sky itself wept, wept I tried, you know I tried I tried, Oh, god, dear god, I tried Then they drew those blood-crusted knives sawed off their hands, and cut out their eyes, And locked bleeding stumps in dubious solidarity I tried, I tried, I tried Oh, lord, you know I tried So I’m done singing to folks without ears, 10

If they won’t hear, then they won’t hear.

Carolyn Anderson Hard Lit

Wendy Koenig Pray for Rain Bone white breasts, your milk has dried. Where will your children feed? The corn has curled like pineapple sticks; There will be no bread for supper. Our pond is cracked earth. The larders are empty. Crops have been mown, cattle sold. The grass turns to dust. We wait, choke on our sweat and watch the skies in our land of cream and honey.

Wendy Koenig Pomme de Terre The air is soft up here. It cushions the blows of our economy, never more than depression wages. The world staggers from market turmoil, but we – we struggle solidly on planting one foot in front of the other, like we plant our potatoes in long straight rows. The rain falls gently, slowing the rate of our decomposition. Our young leave and never return. Or, if they do it is only to raise children who abandon our hope. They follow our water-driven power, exported to another country.

The snow pours down in fat flakes

driven deep as hell by winds that remind us we are alone. Drifts as tall as our houses muffle our cries of injustice indignation as we are forced to live by rules that don’t apply set by distant people with a different lifestyle who have never lived on a harvester sorting out rock and rot, reaching contentment like a firm, round potato, earth apple, from our own Garden of Eden.

Emily Lizotte Gerard of the Gardens Gerard Desjardins, my pépère, lay in the bed at the Borderview Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center, his skin pasty white and creased like a used t-shirt. The nurses came in and out of the room, carefully getting him ready to make the trip. He wanted to see his home, go to the river, the little piece of the river that had been his for the past thirty years, before it was his time. Gently, a short dark-haired nurse buttoned up his blueand-white plaid shirt. The other nurse waited and when his black, puffy down jacket was also buttoned, together with Paul, my father, the two nurses slid him from the bed to the wheelchair. It had been arranged that the Borderview van would take him to the house. Paul and his sister, Anne, sat in the handicap accessible van for the three miles it took to get to Upper Keegan. What a beautiful three miles. On that mid-April morning, the sky was a crisp blue, like the early spring air. Gerard wore dark sunglasses to shield his eyes that hadn’t seen real light for many, many days from the bright sunshine, but still he looked from side to side as the van traveled down the road. To the left there was Irving, a common spot to stop and talk with old friends, and down the road and to the right was St. Bruno/St. Remi Catholic Church where he occasionally went on Saturdays for the 4 o’clock mass. Then there was Tasty-Food, which Gerard called Tastee-Freeze. He had consumed many deep-fried meals, probably one too many, from this ice cream/fast food joint. As the van traveled past houses in Keegan and entered Upper Keegan, Gerard’s eyes shifted more to the landscape – the rolling hills, open fields and beyond the railroad tracks to the river. This was familiar ground. The van bumped down the long gravel driveway to the house. Anne and Paul held Gerard’s hands so that he would not move so much from the bouncy descent. Much of the family was waiting outside on the piece of cement in front of the house. Considering that Gerard was the father of ten, grandfather of fourteen, and 16

great-grandfather of twelve, it was obvious not everyone could make it. Gerard’s wife of sixty years, Lorraine, waited inside for her husband. When he was finally out of the van, Gerard sat in his wheelchair. His hands gripped the armrests. The eighty-threeyear-old hands of a carpenter and a gardener. He looked out, over all the buildings he had built over the past thirty years. First, there was the house; he built it after he acquired this land from his Uncle George. He built a one-story home that later gained three additions – two to the back and one to the front. Second, he built the animal barn that, for many years, housed pigs, cows, chickens, and turkeys. He enjoyed having the animals but could never kill them. He would ask someone else to do the dirty work. What an interesting fact about Gerard Desjardins, the hard-ass, no-nonsense man who would bring out his leather belt and raise his fist when he was angry. Third, there was the garage. Lorraine had painted it, all by herself, she would add, a mixture of brown and red from leftover paint. Inside, however, it was painted with tools. Every kind of imaginable tool covered the walls, each hung up on an individual hook. Some of the tools were not even out of packaging. When Gerard saw something he liked, or even better, if it was on sale, he bought it. Sears was his favorite place, and Craftsman was his favorite brand. Lastly, Gerard built another barn five feet away from the garage. This is a bigger barn that has an apartment-like room on the second floor and a garage door that opens up to the first floor. The stairs leading up to the second floor are outside, and over the years some of the steps have rotted. The best view is at the top of those stairs, a view of the garden and the river. Gardening was one of Gerard’s well-known hobbies. He started off planting the seeds and tending the field to supply food for his family, but later it became a pastime. After planting, Gerard would go out into the garden and weed. Using his hands and his whole body to work the land, he would weed a few feet, stop, take off his worn leather hat, lean against his hoe and look out at 17

the river. By noontime, he’d be up by the garage again, sitting in a white lawn chair facing the house. Sitting this way, Gerard was able to look up at the road and turn his head to look down at his garden and the river. He planted rows and rows of vegetables and there was always a bountiful harvest, too many vegetables for Lorraine and him to pick by themselves. Reinforcements, his children and their children, were called in, and buckets of string beans, carrots, onions, tomatoes, and wagons of pumpkins covered the driveway and yard. Some went to waste, but most of the vegetables were picked up by locals who knew Gerard had a good crop and wanted a bucket full of this or that. He accepted payment, but never made anyone pay. He was doing what he loved and wanted others to enjoy it, too. Before Gerard and his family entered the house someone said, “Look, an eagle!” Everyone looked up and took in the beauty of the bird that soared. Seeing an eagle here was common, but never taken for granted. Gerard looked up with his eyes, full of macular degeneration, as Paul pushed the wheelchair closer to the house. Inside the house, Gerard sat in the wheelchair against one of the living room walls that was plastered with family photos, and his family sat around him in the mismatched chairs and on the bedsheet-covered couches. Lorraine wanted to keep the furniture she got second hand from her children clean. For a while everyone just sat in silence waiting for Gerard to say something. But he was being slowly engulfed in cancer cells and filling up with fluid, and so, he didn’t have the strength to say anything. Last night, in Gerard’s room at the nursing home, he was not silent. His body took up the whole width of the bed, and he moaned as he slid his legs up and down. The fluorescent light from behind the bed bounced off the waxed floor and onto Paul and Anne sitting in a recliner and a high backed comfortable 18

wheelchair. The hum of the fan that was pointed right at Gerard’s body created a kind of background noise. Anne got up and wobbled to the other side of the bed and began to rub her father’s legs. “What you want Dad? What you thinking?” she said, rubbing. The night continued like this. At times Gerard wanted his back rubbed and Paul heaved his father’s body up on one side and Anne rubbed his back. Other times Gerard just talked about different things. He said he saw Jesus and Mary in the room and talked about going home. Anne got him a Popsicle and he would suck on it while she held it up for him. His mouth was so dry, but he did not lack in fluids. How ironic – to be thirsty but be internally drowning. Gerard’s stomach proved the water weight gain. He had always been big, but this was different. The rest of him wasn’t getting bigger, just his torso, which made it seem as if his head and neck were getting smaller. Anne and Paul switched chairs throughout the night, hoping to catch a little catnap here and there. Gerard made that impossible for them. Every time either one of them would drift off, he would groan and move his legs around or talk about something that they could barely understand. As night rolled out and the new dawn offset the harsh fluorescent light, Gerard, Anne, and Paul slept, finally but lightly, in cockeyed positions, in a place no one ever wanted to sleep. “Will someone sing to him?” Paul’s wife, Norma said, “Cheryl?” “I,” Cheryl shook her head, tears filling up her eyes, “can’t.” “Emily? You know, that song you sang at convention?” I mustered up the courage to sing for my pépère because, well, I just should sing for him, even in front of other people. Softly, as I sat next to him, I sang, “Jesus you are, you are everything I’m not and everything that I want to be. Jesus you are, you are 19

maker of my heart – finish what you started in me.” Gerard had a hard time keeping his head up; he was tired. “Chante encore, chante encore,” he whispered. “What did he say?” I asked because he had said it so quietly. “Chante encore,” Norma said. “Okay.” I sang again, repeating the song three times. I struggled to finish the last repetition as tears streamed down my face. Gerard was quiet and his breathing deep and steady. There was silence in the room again and then Paul said, “Well, I think he should go back. He’s tired.” Everyone took a turn saying good-bye to Gerard. Isaiah, Gerard’s youngest grandson, hugged him for longer than usual and then scooted off to sit with his mother, Cheryl. Some gave him a kiss on the cheek, while others gave him a hug, but everyone took one of his white hands and held it before letting go. The ivory walls and the ceiling fan were slowly zooming in on the family. It was time for Gerard to go back to the Borderview. It was time for him to leave his home by the river for the last time. Once out the front door, Paul turned Gerard toward the river one last time. Then, Paul, Anne, and Gerard got into the Borderview van and headed up the gravel driveway, through Upper Keegan, then Keegan, and back to Borderview, the place where nobody wanted to be.

Stephanie Jellett Mantle Lake

Dan Ladner Calm Before the Storm My woods are quiet today, trees naked and still as bones, bruised leaves covering the path and forest floor – ready for winter’s shiver – like a warm cloak. The stillness belies the forecast of high winds, rain, and maybe even early snowfall – the chilly air smells of wintry possibilities. It’s light in the woods now, no leaves to shade the way – Here and there a brave young oak clutches her babies, mossy logs are covered in emerald green till spring. There’s no sound but my feet crunching amongst the leaves – a happy echo of children jumping in high piles of fall’s color-filled pleasures. And, ah – that smell. It tweaks the senses… so pungent no perfume presumes to come close in sweetness. I must save it for refrigerated days ahead. And again the path ends, the smooth pond lies ahead, chubby ducks swimming quietly, their wanderings leaving V-shaped wakes on the mirror. Are they ready for the storm? Am I ready for the storm – ready to usher in another new season? The paths will soon be snow-covered, footprints buried until spring. But memories will snuggle by warm fireplaces and the perfume lingers forever.

Richard Zuras Northern Maine, October 2 The flies gather at my window. They go in pairs, one by one— accumulate, in droves, the last flip of a leg, like a walking stick. On the precipice of a warm day. It will be snowing in three weeks. Today the sun shines on them, their growing carcasses. So brilliant. Rainbows attached to black licorice nubs. The persistent ones crawl up the window— then tire of this mortal traverse, find their places among the newly dead. This one lands upon that one. For a moment we are stealing dimes from the devil.

Chris Morton The Night I Brought Old Dead Jimmy Down Dad and I stared down at Jimmy’s body. The sun was setting in the picture window behind the organ. Twin orange funeral lamps deepened the shadows and the creases on Jimmy’s face. His placid smile became a grimace. Clearly aware of my need for moral support, my father leaned over to me. “Poke him.” “WHAT?!?” I convulsed involuntarily. “NO!” “It won’t hurt him,” Dad coaxed. “He’s dead.” “NO! I’m not going to touch him! That’s sick!” “They wash the body,” Dad continued, grinning at me in what he probably thought was a comforting manner. “It’s just like wax. See?” He gently probed Jimmy’s cheek with his index finger, then shrugged. “He won’t bite.” “I didn’t think he would,” I sputtered, thinking, Yeah, but I never thought he’d die, either. While I was 99.9999% sure Jimmy wasn’t going to bite my finger, I felt no need to test my hypothesis. “I just don’t feel like I need to touch him, Dad. It’s . . .” I shrugged. “. . . freaky.” Dad bowed his head slightly to the right, a clear indication he was ready to pass along a deep spiritual insight. “Chris . . . ” He tapped Jimmy’s arm. “This is just a shell. Jimmy’s not here anymore. His spirit has moved on. It’s like—” He glanced up at the parking lot outside. “It’s like driving a car. Jimmy isn’t driving a car any more. The car—” He tapped Jimmy’s hand. “—is right here. But Jimmy—” He pointed a finger skyward. “—is up there.”

We stared down at the open casket together. “Yeah, but . . . 24

Dad?” “Yes?” “Do you believe in . . . carjackings?” *

My neighbor Jimmy had been a dried-up old man since I was too young to understand what smoking could do to a body over the course of fifty years. He and his sisters Stella and Aggie lived in a long, narrow shack next door to the church my Dad pastored. The shack had a chicken coop tacked onto one end. No one was entirely sure where the coop ended and the house began. There may have been no designation, which probably made breakfast a little less complicated. The decades of cigarettes had teamed up with an equal number of years being exposed to second-hand (and probably third- and fourth-hand) smoke to leave Jimmy looking a lot like a Slim Jim abandoned on a dashboard for a month or seven. He could have been fifty. He could have been a hundred. He could have been half-stump. Nobody really knew for sure, supposedly including Jimmy. He told me once that the Micmacs weren’t big on paperwork. “Besides,” he wheezed with a wink, poking me with a bony elbow, “If I needed to figgeridout, I’d jes’ cut off my arm, count the rings! Like a tree!” He laughed asthmatically. Jimmy was a good guy. I liked him a lot. It was a shame I couldn’t hang around him for more than a minute without my eyes watering up from the smell of clothes saturated in smoke, soaked in more smoke, and then slow-smoked. The flies never seemed to bother him much, though. The day Jimmy died, Stella stopped by the parsonage to visit my Mom and pick up a consolatory casserole. She came bearing gifts. To my younger brother Sam she presented a kitten. “Here,” she rasped, handing him the limp pile of scruff. “Remember Jimmy when you look at him.” 25

We stared at the cat, which had clearly never tasted nicotinefree oxygen. It wobbled on unsteady legs for a minute and then buried its head under the couch and farted. Ten-year-old Sam met Stella’s eyes and nodded solemnly. “Okay,” he said. We both moved away from the cat, which farted again and stared suspiciously at its read end. “Here,” Stella continued, thrusting a plastic Walmart bag at Mom. “Jimmy caught these just last week. Down at the bridge.” A bony brown finger pointed towards the road. “Right off the landin’.” “Oh, wow,” Mom murmured uncertainly, pulling a giant Ziploc bag out of the plastic. “All. . . Nine of them?” The fish ranged in size from four inches to eight. Some of them were trout. Some of them were definitely not. “Donny likes fish chowder. I’ll have to make some.” She set the dead fish on the table. Stella turned towards me. “Here,” she wheezed, handing me a blue plastic Walmart bag. “This was Jimmy’s. He wanted you to have it.” I prayed it wasn’t another cat. Especially in a Zip-loc bag. Instead I pulled out a decorative tomahawk beautifully carved from cedar and mahogany. The wooden blade actually had a keen edge to it. A leather thong was strung through a hole in the bottom of the handle, allowing the tomahawk to dangle from a belt loop. I hefted it lightly. “Wow! That’s very cool! Did he make this?” My thumb caught a silver Made In China sticker on the butt of the handle just as Stella nodded. “Yep. Made it himself. ‘S authentic!” She paused reflectively, then shrugged. “Probably.” The following afternoon, the town funeral director brought Jimmy’s body to the church. He was laid out in style. I’d never seen him in anything other than a faded red or tan shirt and blue Dickies work pants. The three-piece charcoal suit was definite 26

proof that Jimmy had passed on: there was no way he would have stood for that if he were still kicking. Visiting hours were drawing to a close when the awful truth began to dawn on me. I waited until Dad was alone, then stepped in close. “When are they coming back to get his body?” I hissed. Dad grinned happily back at me. “Who?” I blinked. “Who---? Who? The—the—whoever buries him, or whoever. The funeral guy. With the hearse.” Dad shrugged. “Service is tomorrow. No sense driving him back to town tonight. Might as well keep him here.” He pointed out the church’s windows where Jimmy’s shack was clearly visible. “Not like he ain’t been here before.” I was mortified. “He’s staying here overnight?!?!?” “Yes.” Dad added reassuringly, “I’m locking the door so nobody can get in.” I was all for locking the doors. But something getting in wasn’t what I was worried about. Before we go on, let’s get something straight: I’m not superstitious. I don’t believe in ghosts. Or aliens. Or zombies, vampires, werewolves, golems, ghouls, people who hide razor blades in apples, people who hide dirty toilet paper in toilet paper receptacles, people who call your house and listen to your answering machine message and come to rob you if the message says you’re on vacation, Dead Murdered Mary who kills you in your sleep if you don’t forward an e-mail about her to forty of your closest friends in the next five minutes, or TV evangelists. It may be true that there is a sucker born every minute. I like to think I was born late in the minute, after the 27

quota had been filled. Zombies rank right up there with the tooth fairy, for me. (By the way, why is it that your dead friend coming back to life is considered scary but we tell our kids all about a magical creature that steals your teeth while you’re sleeping like it’s not a horrifically disturbing concept at all?) Anyway: all that having been said, it’s well and good to not believe in zombies on normal nights, your bed miles from the nearest cemetery. But try sleeping a couple hundred feet and two locked doors away from a corpse. Then tell me all about how scared you weren’t, and how you dreamed about puppies and sunshine and snow cones in the park and didn’t even bother to lock your door or maybe Google how to make your own bucket of Holy Water. Later that night, long after the rest of the family had gone to bed, I re-checked the locks on all three doors. Just to be safe, I locked the outside storm door too. Then I locked the windows. I put the plug over the drain in the kitchen sink. I still don’t know why. It seemed like a good idea at the time. In my bedroom, I locked the door and re-checked both windows. My shotgun, a present from my parents on my sixteenth birthday, lay on the floor by the side of my bed. Every shotgun shell I owned was mounded up in a pile beside it. My machete was beside the gun, my hatchet was under my pillow, and my BB guns (all three of them) were hidden in the compartments on my headboard. A ring of Bibles ranging from tiny orange Gideons to a large-print-for-the-elderly King James Version Bible with a floral cover and a garage sale tag on it ($.75) surrounded my bed. I’d run out of Bibles early on, so interspersed every two or three books was a volume of Children’s Bible Stories. If that wouldn’t keep Dead Jimmy away, I reasoned, not much would. Not that that was an especially comforting thought. I didn’t sleep that night. Not at all. Too scared to blink, I watched every minute change on the red glaring numbers on 28

my alarm clock. They were all miserable, every last one of them. Several times I rose and glanced out the windows to check for telltale shadows, shotgun in hand. But nothing moved. My terror grew: Dead Jimmy was sneaky! There’s a special kind of paranoia that sets in when you’ve had a lot of time to think about your fears but not a whole lot of sleep. It’s not the wisest idea in the world to be brandishing a shotgun when you get into that mindset. But that’s where I was right around two in the morning on the day of Jimmy’s funeral: locked in my room, back to the wall, clutching my Harrington and Richards 20-guage and fervently humming, “Victory In Jesus.” I wanted to sing something upbeat and spiritually victorious. “Up From The Grave He Arose” and “He Lives!” kept coming to mind. A lot of Pentecostal songs revolve around the resurrection. That’s great, on Easter Sunday. But they make for very bad Zombie-killing theme songs. I couldn’t help it, though: “Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down” chorused through my head over and over and over. My terror-addled mind wouldn’t stop wandering in dangerous directions. Why aren’t there any good church songs about keeping dead people in the ground where they belong? Maybe it was because there were no stories in the Bible about Jesus killing people, just . . . just . . . oh, crap . . . just stories about Him raising people from the dead! Fantastic. Maybe Jesus hadn’t fought zombies in the Bible because He raised them! Lazarus? Zombie. The widow’s son? Zombie. The daughter of the Roman Centurion? Zombie! And what do we do with the body of Jimmy, our neighbor who had invited Jesus into his heart at the alter two years ago? We put him in a church. Surrounded by the power of God. We didn’t even close the casket! Trembling, I scrabbled around in the pile of shells for some buckshot. I couldn’t help it. I had to check the situation out.

The bravest thing I have ever done in my entire life was to go 29

check on the body of Dead Jimmy. Every step was a fierce battle of courage versus terror. Every inch was a victory. I slunk down the stairs with my gun poised, as if clearing a crack house. Sam’s new cat was at the bottom of the steps, staring in fascination at a bare spot on the wall. I stepped over it and glanced through the deck door towards the church. The windows were lit from within with that eerie orange glow. Nothing moved in the yard. Slowly I moved around the house, checking closets and cupboards just in case Dead Jimmy was a little more spritely and limber than regular Jimmy had been and was huddled amongst the Tupperware in the cabinet above the microwave, waiting to eat our brains. But the house was empty. Heart hammering in my chest, I put on my shoes. There was only one thing left to do: make sure Dead Jimmy was right where we’d left him. I unlocked the door and stepped into the moonlight, holding my breath and listening for the sounds of—holy crap, I had no idea what zombies sounded like. It stood to reason that they would shuffle with slow determination, their approach marked by the rhythmic scuff of gravel and maybe some low-frequency mumbling. But Jimmy hadn’t really liked to wear shoes, and he didn’t really mumble much either. Basically I was hunting an alleged Micmac zombie with ninja-esque characteristics. And strain as I might, all I could hear was the thundering of my frantic heart thudding in my ears. I don’t know how zombie hunters in the movies did it. I think they used nubile young beauty queens as bait. I wished I had some. For bait. For the zombies. Yep. The great thing about being sixteen was that the distraction of thinking about nubile young beauty queens took a little edge off the terror. I relaxed slightly. Someday I would be sure to tell some beautiful woman at a party or a barbecue all about the night I made sure Dead Jimmy stayed dead. This was exactly the sort of thing that would melt a woman’s heart, I was sure. 30

My confidence bolstered, I began to stealthily make my way towards the church. The gravel in the parking lot gleamed under the light of the moon. A breeze stirred up the branches of the pine trees on the cusp of the yard. This was my yard. I’d spent a thousand nights under this same sky, pacing this same dirt, counting stars or throwing rocks or playing midnight basketball. I’d be darned if Dead Jimmy was going to haunt my territory. I tiptoed up the side-steps of the church with great delicacy, my 20-guage resting lightly in my hands. Peering through one of the triangle-shaped wedges of glass in the door, I half-raised the gun to my shoulder and checked the shadows along the walls for movement. The church was lifeless. Nothing stirred. Carefully and methodically I swept my gaze down the aisles and across the altar until it came to rest on the casket. It remained centered underneath the pulpit. There were no awkward angles, no sign of disturbance, nothing out of the ordinary at all. Except I didn’t remember Dad closing the lid. The world froze. Dead Jimmy’s neatness had betrayed him. But . . . too late?!? My heart in my throat, I windmilled around and frantically searched my field of sight. The yard remained bare. But there, just on the outskirts of the parking lot, nearly hidden amidst the rows of pine and cedar, was the unmistakable shape of— A tree. A birch, I think. About fifteen feet tall. That didn’t look anything at all like a five-foot-two Native American in a threepiece suit. I shot it anyway. PAAAAOOOWWW! Bright orange fire belched from the muzzle of my Harrington and Richardson. Somewhere in the darkness, a load of 20-‐guage birdshot peppered an innocent 31

birch tree. Blinded by the muzzle flash, I ejected the shell from the gun and fumbled in my pocket for the buckshot, cursing the bright blue spots in front of my eyes and expecting Dead Jimmy the wonder-zombie to tackle me full-on at any second. All courage gone, I scrambled down the steps and legged it for the house, broken-open shotgun in one hand, fistful of shells in the other. I cleared all seven front steps in two neat bounds, whipped the front door open and slid inside nearly in one motion. I quietly locked the door behind me, then sank to the kitchen floor and held my breath. In the silence, my Dad snored. Nothing else stirred. Not Mom. Not Sam. No zombies. I eased into a crouch and rounded the corner. Sam’s cat remained fixated on the paneling. I slid back against the kitchen cupboards and exhaled, still listening for just about anything. Nothing moved. There was peace in the house. I crept up the stairs, exhausted and feeling more than just a little stupid. I put my shotgun back in its rack and dumped the shells onto my desk. As I flopped into bed, my foot caught the floral print King James and knocked it out of alignment with the rest of the ring. I lay face down for a minute, thinking about how much it really didn’t matter that my bed was surrounded with the Word of the Lord. Jimmy was still over at the church. And if a series of locked doors couldn’t stop him, I wasn’t sure a ring of New Testaments and Illustrated Bible Stories was going to shut him down. Man. Paranoia hadn’t done much for my intelligence. A few minutes later, I got up and adjusted the Bible back in line. *

I asked my Mom the next day if she’d heard that car backfire last night. She said she hadn’t. Sam said he had, but he’d rolled over and gone back to sleep. I asked him if the body 32

next door had bothered him at all. He stared at me oddly. “Why? You know they make sure he’s really dead before they put him in the box, right?” A ten-year-old should not think like that. “Yeah.” I shrugged, uncomfortable. “I dunno. I just thought, you like Scooby-Doo and all, and that’s about zombies and stuff…” Sam scrutinized me suspiciously. “Yes,” he said slowly. “And it’s usually Mr. Jenkins or the janitor. Not a real zombie.” Shaking his head, he pushed his glasses up on his nose and walked off to go retrieve his cat, wherever he had left it. It didn’t tend to run very far. Mom diplomatically said it was well-trained. Virtually lobotomized, was the term I would have used. Later at the funeral, I leaned over to Dad. “Hey. Why did you close the casket lid last night?” Dad shrugged. “They wanted it closed for the funeral. No sense keeping it open.” He grinned. “It’s not like the view was any better for him, either way.” “Right.” I leaned back. Dad waited a minute, then leaned in my direction. I winced, knowing what was coming. “Want me to crack the lid?” His eyes twinkled. “Wanna poke him?” “No, Dad. I do not want to poke the dead man,” I retorted. Mollified, Dad shrugged and nodded. After a minute he leaned back over. “Your mother made some awful good fish chowder this morning.” “No thanks, Dad.”

“Yeah.” He stared quietly at the casket for a minute. “I don’t like to eat after funerals either.” He turned and smiled at me, but this time there was sadness in it. “He was a good man. Good friend.” Staring at a corner of the altar, Dad pondered his next words carefully for a minute. It didn’t show on his face, but I could tell a steady stream of thoughts and emotions flowed through him. Finally he smiled a little brighter and glanced back up at me. “He’s in a better place now.” He thumped the casket with his thumb. “Absent from the body, present with the spirit.” He studied the casket. “Well.” His grin widened. “We hope the spirit’s gone from the body, anyway.” He turned to me, eyes gleaming. “They only lock these things from the outside.” My skin went clammy. “Dad?” Reverend Dad was instantly on point, ready for any question I might have regarding death and the afterlife and the soul in relationship to the Lord Almighty. “Yes, Chris?” he replied. “. . . How do you make Holy Water?”

Shawn Cote Jillpoke Bohemia

Abby McLaughlin Of Steel (or The Generous Risk-Taker) Outside the boathouse, the city was in its wildest confusion, negative and graphic, the smell of underwater rescue and sea foam, the officer recommends women collect stemware and porcelain, I choose wood tools, adult books, and ammunition. Others snake their way underneath my skin, deep in the gut a war effort, a surgeon’s long bones cluster, attach, removing infection from the marrow, unglazed ivory pottery. This battle, this bull run endless. From head and torso, through clods of mud, I rise to separate blood vessels and nerves, velvet walled, homebound, I float with my unseen bat wings, yellow silk, slick.

Jessica Trombley When I close my eyes A roar of cheers, echoing, becomes a blur of realization. A sea of blue caps, tassels dancing, waving in the air, momentarily. Once cocooned by normalcy, the walls break down and we are free. Thrown into the wild, we hunt different paths, and in an instant, combat boots break in the distance. A rehearsed goodbye lingering on my lips. Words thrash, trying to break free inside— Never the same, say goodbye to the old him, the life you once knew. Gone. Blackness eats me, bursting, resisting— trying to scream but nothing comes out. I read his scrawled stories of rushed promises, hindering words, broken people. But all I can do is wait. In time, miles away, salty, warm air suffocates, while the sun 39

beams. And then, in a sea of green, I see him smile, out of thousands, for the first time. Put back together again, like stained glass. Calloused hands, an unfamiliar hug, an innocence lost in uniformity and power. Sweet flowers, kisses, and butterflies are buried. Sick and defeated, as palm trees swing, promising. My eyelids shut, but there is not blackness this time, instead I see his gentle eyes, feel his touch, see our future. But everything is a little different what I once knew is lost in yellow footprints and a young love.

Justin Bari A Day in the Life I don't know why I did it. I would never do it again. Even under torture, you couldn't make me do it again. I was throwing stones. My friend and I wanted to see if we could clear the school. You'd have to have quite an arm for that! There was this machismo that came with it. Status. You were a strong SOB if you could put a stone over that three-story school. SOB. Why did I always get so bent out of shape when some careless dink would call me that? It just reminded me. It reminded me of my mother. Her bottle was her child. Her bottle was her lover. Her lips didn't kiss our little heads or lock with father's. Her lips wrapped around the ringed end of that bottle. Why not save the trouble? Hook up an IV, ya dumb-I caught myself. I didn't dare think badly of her. Not because I was proud of her, mind you, but because she beat on me. Usually with her fists. When she was more lucid, it was more terrible. I never had heard of somebody else who wanted their mother to be drunk so badly. The more drunk, the better. She couldn't hit a thing when she was raving drunk, and the terrible things she said hurt less, too, for being incoherent. CRASH! The sound was distant, like what a giant might've heard stepping on a large pane of glass, but the gut-wrenching horror that flashed through me might as well have been fed through a megaphone. My buddy booked it after saying his favorite word. The only way he got through a day of classes was by keeping his trap shut. I heard the yelling from the other side, distant, like someone railing at God for smashing his glass house. Since the yelling was happening on the other side of the building, I should've felt empowered. I could just run. The guy 41

might see the back of my head at best. I was a fast runner. Top three places cross-country . . . that is, when I could get a ride to the games. But there I was, feeling as paralyzed. I was the little man now, and this guy was the giant. I dared not move. My brain just wouldn't click. What the hell? The guy was ugly as sin, enormous beer gut, suspenders bowing sideways, one-inch erect white hairs on top of his head with some lame excuse for hair providing boundary around the stalks. He moved forward mostly with the perpetual motion provided by his large middle. He seemed like a beached whale hovering towards me as he listed off every curse word in the English language. I knew he was here to give me an education, but I already knew those words. This was a different matter. This was the prelude to a verbal, and possibly physical, smackdown. “You . . . ” and then the verbal vomit came. I honestly don't remember what he said. I just knew he was pissed. What I do remember was this: “You get in my car, ya little cuss, and show me where you live.” Iron wall in my mind. NO. I could hear the word resound in my head with growing intensity, swelling into my quiet plea: “No. Please, sir.” I started crying, for real. “My parents will kill me. Please let me pay you back for it.” “I'll take it out of your ass, you little piss ant,” he bellowed. “I'll do anything you want, sir. I can get work. I do some odd jobs for the neighbors.” “Little shit like you couldn't possibly make a monthly payment. I won't stand for it. In the car! Now!”

“My mother's a drunk.” I was startled by my own honesty. With 42

great big tears, hands wiping my cheeks, I continued, “She'll beat me senseless. You don't understand!” The angry face waxed softer, still stern, but kind of like he felt he had dug out his stash of Schwarzneggar weaponry when all he needed was a peashooter to get what he wanted. His beastly torso swiveled to the side as one of his hands pulled out a notepad and pencil (tools, I think, for his line of work). “Name and address,” he said in a monotone. Then his eyes fell to the paper to write my answer. He ripped the sheet and stuffed it in his back pocket. He began to write again. He ripped it and smacked my chest slightly as he shoved it toward me. I stepped back a little, looked at it, took it. My eyes scanned the few lines that he had written. “You know where that is?” he said with a mixture of civility and threat. “Yes, sir.” “It's noon on Thursday. You pay me what you can every Thursday by noon. If you make one payment at 12:01, I tell your folks. You keep paying until the debt is settled with interest. You can call me from a pay phone to find out your remaining balance.” And he turned, and walked away. In my mind, his departure came in phases. I didn't see the continuity. I saw him larger than life, then half that size and half again, and then he disappeared around the corner of the school. And I didn't move from that spot until he was gone. I figured he owned me from this day forward. He could make my life a living hell with a few spin dial turns and just as many words. And I just couldn't let that happen. I thought my troubles were over for the day. I had already incurred a massive debt. It would take me eight months to pay off that frigging window. I was far too young to owe so much. I was stuck. No frappes at the local diner or Coca-colas or 43

Snickers bars. Totally screwed. All because I just had to do what my buddy was doing. And who did I meet at the playground but my fair-weather friend. He greeted me with his favorite word and asked “Where have you been?” “What do you mean where have I been?” His favorite word. And then “I was just makin' conversation. No need to get your panties in a twist.” “You're the fairy, not me.” “Yeah, up yours, too.” By his light mood, I could tell he was still not picking up on my hostility. “So what happened?” he asked after a comfortable silence. (I have to say comfortable because we didn't know awkward between us.) “Before or after you left me to face the music by myself?” “Man, I was just asking.” I sighed. I told him. The only other times he was that silent and that attentive (at least that I recall) were all the days he was trying to stay in school. “Shit. . . ” he whispered solemnly. His favorite word. Little did I know what a fitting preamble that word would be to what came next. Some freakishly tall, intimidating middle schooler walked toward me. “Did your mother dress you today, little man?” he said. I could tell immediately he was trying to pick a fight. We middle schoolers were always establishing a pecking order outside of the school walls. I guess we had nothing better to do . . . measure our proverbial penises and see 44

who was the big dog. “You picked a bad day,” I informed him. “So did you.” I was positive he was going to make a move. My move was rather unconventional. No one would believe what happened, but I just tell it like I remember it. I accidentally did a backwards judo flip and knocked this guy on his ass. You should've have seen his arrogant expression melt away to a rage. I stared. I knew that rage. Maybe one of his parents got drunk and beat on him, too. But he clearly was not interested in swapping sob stories. The only way us boys settled that anger was by proving whose rage was greater. The only reason I had a chance to see the malevolence in his eyes was because my deft move had dislodged his sunglasses. I felt the distance between us evaporate as I stared into the two windows, dark with smoldering hate. “Meet me here in one hour, punk.” He dramatically slid his sunglasses on and turned and walked away. I knew he didn't need an answer. I would either be there for his challenge or he would make my life a living hell for the rest of my middle school days. I figured I'd better make our engagement. I turned to find my friend. He was long gone. He was probably gone before that bully had even said one word. That's okay. I was sure I'd get a chance to return the favor to my crappy friend someday when I’d see him in the bathroom getting his hair washed in the toilet by some of the finer citizens at our school. He'd learn from me that the door swings two ways. That was one of the few things I remember from school that carried over beautifully into real life: Every action has an equal and 45

opposite reaction. I never knew how one was supposed to prepare for a beating. I'd learned a lot in the school of hard knocks from my mother. She had given me on-site training. But she was a loon. A delirious, spinning stick of dynamite that would just as soon blow her own head off as take off somebody else's. She was uncoordinated two-thirds of her life. The other third she was sleeping, until she would inevitably be awakened by the voice of her liquid lover. I never heard the voice, but she had a set of convictions around that habit that could add up to a whole new religion. Throughout human history, I understand there have been maybe a billion or so adherents to the same faith. I often wished I could've been born into the world under some other set of circumstances. I guess I should be thankful that I came into the world at all, even if it had to be in the shoes of a bastard. But this guy, he was tall, broad, seemed like he might have a lot of connections and training. Maybe he actually took some sort of karate or judo and didn't execute the moves accidentally like some loser kid from some loser parent in the loser part of town. My only exposure to that stuff was television. I think the idiot box was ninety percent of my more crucial education. Maybe this guy went to regular fist-fights with other imposing young men who were in the business of redefining faces. Maybe he was getting a gun. I had no idea. But I waited. I had nothing better to do. There was no school. I was in between girlfriends. My friends were probably smoking weed somewhere and getting their jollies on Playboy. (One of those vices was acceptable to me and the other not. Being that I'm a guy, few would have trouble figuring out which was which.) So I waited. And waited. Time drags when you only have one thought cycling through your mind continuously, lazily, mockingly. Damn you, time. I 46

would have skipped that month, that year, those teen years. The things I loved about that part of my life did not outweigh the things I hated. My fate arrived with two of his henchmen. I could remember him in vivid detail but the two other guys could've been ghosts as far as I was concerned. I felt them more than saw them. I guess this had to happen in the presence of two or three witnesses to be a documented fight. The winner would establish his alpha-male status over the loser. Simple and age-old ritual. “So, you showed up,” he said. “Yup,” I said. “Well, let's get this over with.” I understood what he meant by that after the fight. He meant get me over with. Afterward, I heard him say, “I hope you learned your lesson, little man.” My eyes were drowned in too much blood to really take a good look at him as he walked away with his two henchmen. For what may have been the longest half hour in my memory, I kept wiping my eyes, shaking, moving and wincing and groaning in pain in a continuous, eternal cycle. The only thing that differed was the order in which those things happened. The only sound was my own quivering breaths. I almost thought I might cry. The sadness of this moment was symbolic of my hellish life. If I had to summarize me in a halfhour snapshot, this was the one. I knew it, even in that moment. It wasn't fear of the guy who had just beat me to a pulp. It wasn't the remorse of having to pay the cantankerous pregnant guy for his windshield. It was that I, with all my dreams of breaking free, of no longer being poor, and of overcoming this loser existence passed down through my family, was reduced to this. I started this way. My soul was already this stumbling, whimpering, battered, incoherent mess before my body had, of 47

late, joined the party. This was one of the few times in my life that you could see on the outside what was inside. I think it took an hour or two to get home. I didn't see many people. There wasn't much going on in my part of town. Men were at work. Women were home watching soap operas. Children were off in fields and at playgrounds raising hell. And I was going to the only home I knew. A home where a belligerent and self-consumed mother would, on special occasions, give me a dessert of white rice with milk, and if I was lucky, a sprinkle of sugar. And that would be a good day. I entered the house quietly. The white door swung with more creak than I cared for. “Joseph, is that you?” a voice railed from inside. The onlyslightly slurred speech meant that this was not a good day to get on her bad side. I was sure she was in there with one of her liquid lovers. Was it Jack tonight or Smirnoff? “Yes, mother.” “You've been gone for a while. What did you do today?” “Nothing.” I answered. And then I slipped into my room. I locked the door. For the next several hours, I would continue writing a theatre play. I wanted to be a director. Maybe someday, I thought.

Maybe someday.

Fred Clark Sculpture

Karen McCosker Out of the Blue I In the bow of the Laura B., four women, one man, my friend and I heading toward Monhegan, my usual silent speculation about relationship, if any, among those on board. “Would you take our picture?” one of the women asks. “We’re brother and sisters; our mother died last month and we’re going to scatter her ashes. She was an artist and loved Monhegan.” For any passage at sea the boat itself becomes an island, surrounded as it is by water and the tug of fathoms beneath. Perhaps that is why relief at the sight of land best expresses our reaction-though on this crossing, at the time of delight in the familiar, the brother lowers his head to his hands; the sisters each turn to look at him as if to say, nearly there, then look away: a tableau of grief and understanding. II On White Head we find the family, weather humid, mood somber: One sister sketches in a book, the brother lies outstretched, his hands behind his head, then stands and moves to the cliff’s edge. My friend and I nod acknowledgment, sit awhile, then leave to find another vista when out of the blue a raucous, insistent gull, glaring white in the haze, lands beside the brother, and squawks at those assembled, 50

until the brother answers back: the two of them, side by side on a rock above the sea blaring back and forth, an absurdly comic dialogue between man and bird. One sister, “Perhaps it’s her.” “Could be. Mom always had the last word.”

Anythony Scott Left Over She sits across the table, wide, empty of all but crusting scraps of old dinner, hardening grains, bits of flaccid onion, gristle It is unremarkable to her. To me it is a bird, a plant, a life dead, reduced to piss poor kung pao.

Vince Michaud Dry Noon Water vapors dance on blacktop Wind swings in the trees Leaves sing the song of breeze Waiting for the next raindrop Fragrant flowers lower their shields Shadows hide from the molten Sun Clouds mask the valley of fields Mirage pulls another fast one. Drawn up towards the sky Moisture migrates from the soil Dust devil whips its coil And hops on the dirt gone dry Weeping willows whisper their worries Apple blossoms fall out of style Heat jumps up a few degrees While time passes, without a smile.

Cory Levesque 360 Landscape

Dewayne Morse Thieves My grandfather was dead long before he died. The disease crept inside of him and stole him away on silent feet, a shoddy forgery left in his place to confuse and distract, to buy time until the switch was discovered. But the thief botched the eyes, once soft as the June sky, now raven-like, unblinking. The shell left behind mocked and tormented us. He would return suddenly only to vanish again-a rock thrown down a well, creating hollow echoes before disappearing forever. Piss and disinfectant hung in the air of his new home. His world condensed to a single room where strangers spoon-fed him pureed food. His new bed, awkwardly high, all shiny-metallic. He died alone one night on stained sheets. I held his hand for hours that last time, hatching a plan to steal him back. I mirrored his shallow breathing until our chests moved in unison, In . . . out . . . in . . . out . . . but, finally, I held my breath, praying his chest would not rise again.

Abby McLaughlin The Going Bruised, I am rooted between plum and blue, where you take my air in the lake water days of knee scrapes of sunlit freckled shoulders. Lemonade lips and words like never. This is what it is to be shaken forgetting your voice the heaviness and honey breath, when it leaves, I will be hungry, open-mouthed wet on my tongue gulping at what remains. The gut will ache, the eagerness is half of us. As the coming come, July rushes in. As the going go, with it—the want.

Anthony Scott Passing Along the Border The fog, dim sister to the snow, hugs the firm shoulders, hips, of her sibling along the road. Spruce, fir, the bones of maple, dark ghosts, solidify, vanish again. My foot nudges the pedal, I glide through this between, this merging of solid and shade, before and after. The heart of my machine feels strong, but ahead, three sets of warm red eyes I’ve followed long, are swallowed, gone, gone, and gone.

Â Contributors Carolyn Anderson graduated from UMPI with a BA in Art Education as well as a BFA. She recently published her first book, As Time Goes By, an exploration of life and aging through the imagery of an abandoned home. Carolyn's focus is the old, the abandoned, and the broken. Her photographs and paintings have been displayed in exhibitions throughout Maine. She resides in Littleton with her husband and three children. Justin Bari is a middle school music teacher at Troy Howard Middle School in Belfast, Maine. He holds a BA in Music Education. He is the father of five and has been married seven years to the best wife in the world. His connection to UMPI came about because of an opportunity to pursue a creative writing class online. Justin would eventually like to add a Language Arts teaching endorsement to his teaching certification. He loves creative projects that involve poetry, stories, and songwriting. Fred Clark, an Ashland, Maine native, is an UMPI alum. His degree focus was in painting with a minor in Art History. Sculpture and painting are now his primary mediums. Clark likes to approach his work openly, allowing the piece to grow as it is developed, the end result to be derived from the process instead of predetermined. Shawn Cote is a 1994 UMPI graduate (B.A. English). His work has appeared in Echoes and the online music magazine No Depression. His comic strip, Jillpoke Bohemia, can be found on GoComics.com and NoDepression.com. A self-proclaimed would-be novelist, Shawn describes the transition from writing prose fiction to creating a comic strip as challenging but fun.

Stephanie Jellett is a senior at UMPI studying professional communication and journalism with a minor in art. She was introduced to the world of photography a few years ago and

hasn't been able to put a camera down since. One of her favorite things to photograph is nature's beauty. Although photography is currently just a hobby, she isn't ruling it out as a potential career plan. Wendy Koenig graduated from UMPI with a BA in English. She has written two novels, two books of poetry, and an anthology of short science fiction stories. She is also a contributor to the three anthology volumes published by her writers’ group, Breathe. She lives in New Brunswick, Canada with her husband and two cats. Dan Ladner, a 1959 graduate of UMPI, is now retired after a 40-year career as a local educator. He continues to be a lifelong learner, staying active as a professional musician in Presque Isle and a member of a weekly writers' group. He also facilitates an "Oldies But Goodies" film class for UMPI's SAGE program. Cory Levesque is a Fine Arts and Art Education double major at UMPI who is currently completing his Senior Show Project. He’s a mixed media artist at heart, but he tends to work with alternative painting techniques and his current work seeks to capture the fading beauty of remembered landscapes. Emily Lizotte is a native of Mapleton, Maine and is currently pursuing an Elementary Education degree from the University of Maine in Orono. Her writerly inspiration stems from personal experience and this summer, Emily, her husband, Riley, and their (almost) 2-year-old daughter, Ayla will be moving cross-country, a change sure to provide material for her work.

Karen McCosker's poems have been published in several literary journals, including Harvard Review, Many Mountains Moving, and The South Carolina Review. She is the editor of A Poem a Day, an anthology of poetry meant to revive the learning of poems by heart. Karen teaches in the English Department at UMPI.

Abby McLaughlin, originally from Presque Isle, attended UMPI and graduated from NMCC with a degree in nursing in 2008. She spent the fall 2012 semester as an OpenU student and continues to fall in love with writing. Abby is currently an RN working and living in Portland. She loves Sylvia Plath, Star Wars, running half-marathons, and is newly addicted to skydiving. Vince Michaud lives in Drummond N.B. with his wife, Wendy, and their two cats. He graduated from École Polyvalente Thomas-Albert in 1976. He met his wife in an online writing group and both are members of a group that meets in Caribou three times a month. His work has been published in five anthologies. Vince is taking part in an online creative writing course through UMPI’s OpenU. He loves to read and write in both French and English. DeWayne L. Morse, a native of Houlton, Maine, did a brief stint in the Air Force and then returned home to work with his father as a carpenter before becoming an educator approximately 13 years ago. He teaches English at Houlton High School and is the proud father of two amazing young men: Ethan, 18, and Isaac, 17.

Chris Morton is an UMPI alum who received his BA in English Literature in 2004. He recently opened a music store in downtown Presque Isle, proving that it is indeed possible to find work outside of the fast food industry with an English degree. His book You Kids Quit Pooping on the Lawn! is available at Amazon. Anthony Scott graduated from UMPI with a BA in English in May 2010. In January of 2013, he earned his MA in English/Creative Writing from Wilkes University. He teaches ENG 201 at UMPI and is revising the first draft of an intertextual novel (fiction/poetry) examining the social tensions in a small-town fundamentalist church in the South in the early ‘80s.

Heather Sincavage is an Assistant Professor of Fine Art at UMPI. Originally from the Philadelphia region of Pennsylvania, she received her BFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University and her MFA from University of Washington in Seattle. Her mixed media work has been exhibited and published throughout the United States and Spain. This summer she is looking forward to her three residencies in Finland, Spain, and Iceland, where she has been awarded fellowships. She lives in Presque Isle with the ‘most awesome cat ever (official),’ Marigold. Jessica Trombley, a northern Maine native, was born and raised in Presque Isle. She is currently a second-year UMPI student, majoring in English with a concentration in writing. Always having been a bookworm, she says her bookshelf is one of her most prized possessions and she carries a good book with her wherever she goes. She credits inspirational teachers, authors, and those who have always supported her for spurring her passion for and dedication to writing. Craig Winslow, a current junior at UMPI, is working on his BFA. He is an experienced artist, having drawn since he was very young, and enjoys reading, which has influenced his imagination and his work. He is working on getting more involved with the arts on campus and in the community. Richard Lee Zuras is Professor of English and Creative Writing/Film Studies advisor at UMPI. His novel The Bastard Year was published in 2012 and is available at Amazon.com and elsewhere. He has just completed a new novel entitled The Honeymoon Corruption and is in the process of editing the work. For his next project, Richard plans to write a book of poems.