Clamor 2021

CLAMOR 2021 CLAMOR 2021 CLAMOR 2021 CLAMOR 2021 CLAMOR 2021 CLAMOR 2021

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Dedicated to our beloved and respected former editor Hieu Doan.

She brought her whole self to Clamor—seeking ways to improve and expand the journal, taking on as much responsibility as she could, and leaving a lasting imprint on the publication. We will miss her spark.

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UWB LITERARY & ARTS JOURNAL 2021

Clamor is the annual literary and arts journal of the University of Washington Bothell.

Copyright 2021 Clamor. All rights revert to authors and artists after publication.

The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of Clamor staff or of the University of Washington Bothell.

Clamor 2021 Editorial Board Alexa Agustiano Scott Bentley Derek Brown Danny Carrillo-Miranda Jennifer Dormier Catalina Alma Fox

Racquel Farrar Nina Jouval Ruthie Little Joe Lollo Sarah McPorter Sanika Nalgirkar

Taylor Nichols Tram Nguyen Dane Oldham Kalen Schack Janelle-Marie Boncato Tuble

Faculty Advisors: Amaranth Borsuk & Ching-In Chen Cover image: Xinzhu Xu, 2020 Mailing address: Clamor: UWB Literary and Arts Journal University of Washington Bothell Box 358561 18115 Campus Way NE Bothell, WA 98011 Email: clamor@uw.edu Website: http://clamor-journal.com Printed by Consolidated Press, 600 South Spokane Street, Seattle, WA 98134 We acknowledge the generous support of the Services and Activities Fee Committee, the Office of Student Engagement and Activities, and Club Council at the University of Washington Bothell.

Contents

Jennifer Dormier unavoidable 11 Josephine Hartono To Help You Heal

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A. Bunney Tea Party Retro Visions

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Chris Ryan Lauer believing secretly that i would be the one person in the history of man who would live forever

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Abigail Mandlin Honey-Sweet and Slow I gave my innocence to a psychiatrist

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Garrett Rizan why can’t it be us

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Cliff Watson Duck 18 BLUEBERRIES AND CRAYFISH 52 Nicolas Hauser MISPLACED 19 Adrienne Co Untitled 21 Audrey Tinnin Harris County Jail, Houston Texas

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Danyl Stephan Kok So You Can See Them Too

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Joan McBride Our Mothers Died Young

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Alexa Agustiano westport 30 Cindy Bousquet Harris Thunder Voices There Was a Wolf Pack

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Derek Brown The Hungry College Kid

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Samira Rodol Tiny Moments

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Darrell Black Genetic Cross Breeding

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Carl Boon Genesis 35 Corbin Louis Call It What You Will And How Bright

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Kong Solika Tang Earth Must Go On

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Joe Lollo Suburban River

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Geneviève Hicks Ghost Crossing Mad Like Me

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Jorge Azpeitia Joshua Tree Hallucinations

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Donna Sullivan Sleep, Angel of Mercy General Transcendence with Dove, Dog and Castle

50 62

D.S. Maolalai Making your bed

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Bee Guzman-Elliott BROKEN PROMISES

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Kalen Schack An Empty Place Digging to China

55 70

Robert Beveridge Dissension in the Ranks

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Weiling Zhang Emotional Asphyxia

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Denise Calvetti Michaels The Colors of Reeds

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John Grey Roy and Dale and Dad Through these Eyes Alone

63 73

Cindy Fullwiler Bison Hill

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Carson Thomas A short road trip Avocado and melon salad

66 116

Nina Marshall Untitled 68 Michelle Schaefer crime and punishment Night Shift

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Marina Burandt Queer Faces The Queen

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Tram Nguyen Escapism 75 Efflorescence 106 Madison Nikfard Not Thinking Straight

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Lina Dith Living in a Bubble

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Dana Doran, The Baroness of Eads View from the Red Planet The Fall of the Republic

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Stephanie Pipes Peaceful Strength

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Lance Nizami Asilomar, December

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Violet Dahlstrom Modern Plague

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Philip Palios Pandemic Philosophy

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Marinna Ewing Hide in the Light

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Ruthie Little Candle Crabs in Samar

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Ruthann Fernandes Rainier at Ebey Slough Qwuloolt Restoration Site

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Nina Jouval Tired 94 Woman in the Jungle 101 Mudasir Zubair Chill Vibes

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Racquel Farrar The Moon and the Sun

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Devoni Rose D. Whitehead Immigration 98 Sue Selmer Along for a Ride Raking Leaves

99 107

Taylor Nichols My Mirror

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Sanika Nalgirkar The Waiting Room

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Scott Bentley Funhouse Mirror / rorriM esuohnuF 109 Eyes 115 Sarah McPorter Frost and Fog

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Reed Lowell Nightingale 117 Xinzhu Xu 2020 119 Contributors 121 Digital Media 131

A Word From Our Editors Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.

That even as we grieved, we grew.

That even as we hurt, we hoped.

That even as we tired, we tried.

That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.

—”The Hill We Climb” by Amanda Gorman It would be an understatement to say that the years 2020 and 2021 have been difficult for all of us.

Congratulations to all the students and graduates who have persisted. This time living through a global pandemic has forced us all to reflect, and for many of us, it is almost impossible to truly put into words how each of us is feeling. This is where expression through art emerges. The cover of the journal includes the artwork “2020” by Xinzhu Xu. We feel that this piece is a symbolic representation of just a fraction of the hardships that the world has been handed in the year 2020.

In addition to fighting against the virus, we are also fighting against oppression, hate, and violence against BIPOC and AAPI. We want to acknowledge the impacts of these pandemics.

The Clamor Editorial Board has worked hard to bring you this year’s issue with strength in our community in an online environment. With all the difficulties and hardships faced through this time, we have persevered to present to you a collection of artwork and expression from our community.

Clamor would not come to fruition without the editors, contributors, and readers. Thank you immensely to our mentors, Amaranth Borsuk and Ching-In Chen as well as Brenda Dào, the manager of the Office of Student Engagement and Activities.

Please enjoy the 2021 edition of Clamor.

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unavoidable Jennifer Dormier Digital Photography

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To Help You Heal Josephine Hartono Digital Drawing 12

Tea Party A. Bunney

I sat across the table from the brown bear. She offered me a cup of tea.

“Would you like honey or sugar?” she asked.

I took a sip of my tea. “Sugar, please,” I replied.

She placed a spoonful of honey in my cup.

The brown bear stood, stretching her furry limbs in grizzly fashion, claws and teeth shining in the twilight. She stared down at me. Her dark eyes bore into my soul, reflecting my face and the surrounding woods.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

I didn’t know where I was going. “Anywhere but where I came from, I suppose.” My response was half-hearted. I wanted to go nowhere.

The brown bear blinked and cocked her head. “Why are you going at all?”

“There are men with guns after me,” I said. “I don’t know why they’re chasing me, but I feel as though I must run from them without question.”

“Protect what is yours at whatever cost,” the brown bear said. She sat back down and daintily drank her tea.

“What?”

“Protège ce qui t’appartient à tout prix,” she repeated, this time in French.

Then again in Spanish, “Protégé lo que es tuyo a cualquier costo.”

Once more in Latin, “Ista pecunia quidquid tutantur.”

Her voice grew louder as footsteps of many men began to stomp through the detritus.

Turning towards the sound, I saw dark figures accented with orange rise from the ground like many neon suns. I spun back around, and the brown bear was gone. The table and chairs and teapot had vanished. All that remained was a cracked teacup, lying pathetically at my feet.

Those feet began to move. Running, running, running. Trees became brushstrokes of greens and brown, the sky a blue paint spill growing larger and larger as I pressed forward and out of the

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woods.

The land ran out. I stood there, panting on all fours, cornered on a jagged cliff. The men rose from the earth once again, the horizon still allowing them passage.

The barrel of a gun rose to my heart.

“Protect what is yours at whatever cost,” I said to myself.

A flash and a bang were too late to catch me.

I sailed down into an abyss. When I opened my eyes, I was sitting by a small tea table, myself on the other side. My paw was outstretched, a teacup hooked on one claw. “Would you like honey or sugar?” I asked.

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believing secretly that i would be the one person in the history of man who would live forever Chris Ryan Lauer

elizabeth street where several women in shades of green resemble eva but i sleep next to others now and the upper crust of this city pay them all white salary

it’s important to be in love most of the time

all of the time or in something that closely resembles it

i find myself sleeping and waking everyday without an instruction manual

and the postal van that’s parked in front of my mailbox

is the enemy i think through conflicted feelings involving contrived intimacy and a lack of authenticity but coffee & the opening of my soap glazed shower door

allows the light to come in each morning there’s still one cloud left over my home but i don’t pay much attention to it because i live in its interior where a manic scene

of wine

laughter & gesticulation

within a certain vacuous civilization intersect each night 15

Honey-Sweet and Slow Abigail Mandlin

I.

Slow crawl of raindrops across a windshield. Neon burning bright in the background. The car engine stalls. Heat exudes quietly; the radio hums dully.

People pass, blurs across the skin. Her voice is clear, crisp. She says there’s a reason she sat next to you on the first day of class.

Time stops. You shake, you quake, you breathe.

And then you tell her that you told your mom about her too.

II.

Sometimes it’s a kiss to the corner of the mouth each morning; an etch upon the skin; the flash of a ring under the pull of a sweater sleeve; the chill of the air under a diamond sky; words written in the margin of a notebook.

Sometimes it’s breath. In and out and in and out. A million little “I love you”s a day: the gasps, the hums, the “I’m home”s.

Sometimes it’s just the demonstration of life, continued defiantly in a world that would rather you remain unseen.

(Sometimes it’s silence, quiet and soft and forgiving.)

III.

For who else can put words to the tug and pull of sinew in the fingers when someone goes to lift a cup of coffee to their sleep-warm lips? Who else can wax poetic on the sheen of someone’s hair, tumbling over the sheets like the rippling of tides? Who else can notice the delicate arch of a foot, the bend of a waist, the jut of a wrist, the freckles that smatter the cheek, the bridge of a nose, the give of a thigh, the grace of a collarbone, the depth of an eye?

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None but I.

No one else can be trusted with a task so great.

why can’t it be us Garrett Rizan Digital Art 17

Duck Cliff Watson

I stopped Squarely in my lane was

A few paces to her right

little brown mama duck Her four tiny ducklings Slowly and uncer tain ly travel l ing By f l u f f y Brownian motion Toward the edge of the road

Mama braced Demanded I give way

Head high

Coal-eyes unblinking Damning the drainage control that hides their water and Requires them to cross unyielding asphalt and Breathe my suffocating fumes and Face rolling wheels of death

Damning our house cats that eat her children Damning the fertilizer that poisons their wetland weed

She did not disapprove She was angry Not a gentle flock, a tasty brace, a sweet waddling But a murder of ducks

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MISPL ACED Nicolas Hauser Digital Photography 19

I gave my innocence to a psychiatrist Abigail Mandlin

I gave my innocence to a psychiatrist— let him strip me down, fill me up— an affair behind closed doors, a quiet tryst—

It was long and arduous.

He didn’t touch me at all— just let me spill my guts, tell my life story to the tune of careful breaths, the clacking of keys— I let him see all of me.

He reached in and felt around— probed my soul, tore me down until I felt hollow within, until I had nothing more left to give.

A verbal dressing-down on the first date— to question, to berate— to press me, to ask me why I hadn’t been before, to hold me under his thumb.

And I had nothing to say—nothing to offer—other than “Sorry, sir, that it took me so long to come.”

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Untitled Adrienne Co Digital Illustration 21

Harris County Jail, Houston Texas Audrey Tinnin

Saturday April 4, 2020 told my girlfriend I was feeling bad no soap no testing no nothing sick on last friday I don’t want to die here. placed in a tank three dozen in quarantine sick on last friday I don’t want to die no soap no testing no nothing they put me in quarantine tank I am no public threat. sick on last friday I don’t want to die here.

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me in quarantine tank 4th floor I am scared Some guys in here sicker than I Fever up to 110 sick on last friday I don’t want to die rushed out in an ambulance medication, a shot, x-ray no one informed us no one tested us only takes one guard to spread like fire no soap no testing no nothing I am 54, bad combination I can’t get the virus sick on last friday I don’t want to die here.

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suffering symptoms with our situation What is going to happen? no chemicals to clean.

Area needs sanitizing. no soap no testing no nothing inmates beg to see doctor officers won’t even call them sick on last friday I don’t want to die I could use help I have become homeless since the pandemic started sick on last friday I don’t want to die here Any information Would be helpful sick on last friday I don’t want to die

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58 men in one room beds 2 feet apart frightening times here at Harris County Jail 1100 inmates tested positive literally living in bunks no social distancing here sick on last friday I don’t want to die locked up with no fighting chance basically it’s like living on death row sick on last friday I don’t want to die I wake up in fear of my life.

Is there any help for us? not all of us are guilty take this letter seriously sick on last friday I don’t want to die everyone is concerned they let some out

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sick on last friday I don’t want to die People’s lives are in danger keep us in your prayers we will do the same. sick on last friday I don’t want to die here.

This place focuses on money High risk-we all still here People’s lives are in danger keep us in your prayers we will do the same.

Thank you for your time.

PS: I need a lawyer, I have some money.

A special thanks to Paul Rayes, Ren Cheeks, E, Rich, C, Ken Greggory “Shane” Nevellis and other detainees from Harris County Jail who have written letters about their experience during the COVID pandemic. These words are their own.

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So You Can See Them Too Danyl Stephan Kok Collage 27

Our Mothers Died Young Joan McBride

I. so we sat around a table drinking wine at a couple of tables many tables 100s of tables no nachos

maybe a bowl of mixed nuts

a boiled egg in a restaurant

many deserted parks after midnight

100s of bars explain please notes in margins

lost teenage years bad seed connotations worse drugs many views from one mirror II. mine never wore a pair of slacks mine smoked camels (want one now, tapped out of a pack, filterless, zippo-lit, deep breath in, out, smoke obscuring faces and whereabouts) mine couldn’t didn’t wouldn’t drive, mine took a switch to me, mine made banana pudding, mine had an abortion, mine told stories to get us new school clothes, mine wasn’t scared of snakes, mine loved seconal, mine walked to the store in a house dress, mine packed bologna sandwiches, mine could yodel, mine married a one-legged man, mine slapped me,

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mine sewed a bull durham pouch into her bra, mine liked dandelion greens, started her period the day her brother died andthoughtshewasdyingtoo, mine liked to keep house and then she didn’t III. our mothers died

in bed

in a hospital on a couch on a bathroom floor in a car, a green buick with fins longer almost longer completely longer than a city block with plastic seat covers that don’t absorb blood in an old bathrobe in uniform

in comfortable shoes the color of mud after a day

a year decades half a century looking back forward it is clear

we outlived those mothers

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westpor t Alexa Agustiano Digital Photography 30

Thunder Voices Cindy Bousquet Harris Let’s use our rainforest voices as we sinew and vine through kiwi colors, listen to macaques, plantain squirrels scuffle in the canopy before the flash, the crack, shreds leaves to purple and blue.

I will shake you into bold and bug-eyed patterns scribbled on white-backed sky.

What about ribcage fronds, the quiet pool, dragonfly that rests in plum shade?

Slice them a pie they won’t forget, shell of indigo tumbling past centipedes— and drown out those screeching mynas.

Only for a moment.

Even so.

Once, I dreamt I was a mandolin strumming above the storm.

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The Hungry College Kid Derek Brown

College diet, ramen noodles, leftovers for dinner, Cooking up a recipe to be a breadwinner My wallet’s always empty and I’m looking kinda thinner But life’s a wheel of fortune and everyone’s a spinner Life of a college kid, I don’t care what my father did Stress is like a wound, so don’t even try to bother it A diploma is irrelevant? I do this for the hell of it?

What’s cooking in the kitchen? It’s success by the smell of it Working all day and study all night Screw all the haters, they just don’t believe the hype Looking at the future, there’s a vision in my sight I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m just trying to get it right I’ve got my best friends with me but I’m still alone despite, I’m just a low boy trying to reach new height You think I’m all together? Bro I might Success is for dinner and I’m hungry for a bite

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Tiny Moments Samira Rodol Digital Art 33

Genetic Cross Breeding Darrell Black Pen and Ink Drawing 34

Genesis Carl Boon

Being from Eden, we believed the sea was something to be held, tamed. You turned your back to it and six golden terns gathered at your ankles.

When you faced it, it stilled and gave you fowl and starfish.

Those were the hours of no blemish, of being, and we ate mackerel roasted by a nameless angel on fire that couldn’t burn us. We slept on jewel-beds under satin and the stars, and the satin and the stars were one until I saw you flinch— a storm in you, a body. From before the first I feared it, you becoming needful and a man, you blending language to your skin, desiring pain. menigedu yihi newi menigedu yihi newi In the morning I offered you a plum, an earthworm, a strawberry, but only you could clutch my hip and wonder if the closed would open, if the bodies given us would last if there were puncture and a cry.

In a distant place a horse’s hoof touched sod, a sapling snapped, a leaf descended, and then you came at me in anger, demanding the only thing I had no power to give. A thorn

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caused your wrist to bleed. A woman not Me broke bread on the plateau and made a song for us of human sounds.

You strode away in silence, hurt, while I washed my body needlessly. inami ya mech’eresha neberi inami ya mech’eresha neberi

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Call It What You Will Corbin Louis

2016 we decided fast and loose we decided rooftop spell “say it with your chest” with your cigarette and your incubator and the light rail half built like the skeleton of a concrete god

In Seattle we drank gallons of tomorrow u, resurrected angel,

made me ramen at 3:20am

u, kept me warm through February

in a year I had nowhere to be

and that’s how I survived the oxycyclone the second part of a friday shift dragging my body like a blinking corpse

my chief complaint, is life I explain

u nod ‘atrophy and fireworks’ ‘what’s the difference’ I ask ‘perspective’ u whisper

but call it what u will haywire

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diagnosed borderline

the wino monsoon on 1st and Cherry

if now is all we have

then does it matter

how insane I went getting sober

or does it matter how hard

my teeth chattered to write goodbye certainly

or not don’t overthink it I tell myself enjoy pink lemonade

light on your dirty window

the 3 hours of crisp morning on halloween before I crashed

in a ditch u kissed me before I ate the silos and orchids and felt to a certainty I can’t work not today

maybe I won’t be sick if I sleep today

maybe I won’t be sick

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2 for operator on the nurse line and u with 1000 ecstasy tablets in your hair

u took me in like slow poison

and what a year

to cherish the drink of the city 30 inches of rain your name on every drop

and what it means to be drenched with each other

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There Was a Wolf Pack Cindy Bousquet Harris

(After Joy Harjo)

There was a wolf pack.

Some wolves ate what they killed.

Some ate what the others killed.

Some didn’t eat, but killed anyway.

Some hid while the rest were killing.

There was a wolf pack.

The wolves were grey and massive.

The wolves were skinny and rakish.

The wolves were red, and bounded through forest with deer in their tails.

The wolves were white fog disappearing into itself.

There was a wolf pack.

Wolf sounds echoed in cavernous sky.

Wolf sounds wove thick threads of howling.

Wolf sounds filled the space between birch and star.

Wolf sounds shivered the night till the stream had to cover its ears.

There was a wolf pack.

Some wolves groveled and licked.

Some let pups climb and tumble all over them.

Some couldn’t remember who the alpha pair was.

Some showed their fangs, chased the alphas away.

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There was a wolf pack.

Their yellow eyes struck like lightning.

Their golden eyes held the moon.

Their citron eyes glowed in the hunt.

Their glint-eyes made darkness twitch and stir.

There was a wolf pack.

The wolves were wild and didn’t know it.

The wolves were wild and loved it.

The wolves were wild like storm surge, blizzard teeth.

The wolves were wild like new green after fire.

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Retro Visions A. Bunney Digital Photography 42

And How Bright Corbin Louis

[move back] shattered my brain [come close] opened my brain searched for resources to assemble the heart found a whale inside harpooned and plunged [break in] [don’t move] I see the sun feast I eat with every tooth becoming a pill becoming a landslide

my mouth pleads with itself I beg for carnage—undone with every day becoming more of a compressed 0—as the detail as the vivid sheen ripples goneward—[move in] I gesture to air, I dance in the panorama [spin] set loose like a string unwrapped everything so far has a lot to do with splitting and the cracks mean surely and I anticipate the other whale’s blood clot and I pray and crack the code bandage corinthians what pertains to me is the slit a california purple deep in the arm from punch drunk some thing impact means of course waking up why do my codes break easily why do my deserts divide themselves into rags [move through] I ten commandments the wind for nothing I beg and demand for nothing I carry myself out like a wish from the apartment to the sidewalk I see fractal twentyfold the trees shoot their commands in rose quartz nebula I drink the well calmly

I split momentary disarray

shattered my brain

I kiss womack

[plunge] I kiss instruction

the sound of a whistle

and the sound of a movie

from yesterday’s absence

[dancehall] I raise myself

off the carpet and into

the splash of light

pouring through the

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window pane

how lovely and insufferable

to sense this cut

to feel the blade

of everything

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Ear th Must Go On Kong Solika Tang Collage 45

Suburban River Joe Lollo Digital Photography 46

Ghost Crossing Geneviève Hicks

Walking away from the hospital after a long day’s work, crossing over the Lake Washington ship canal on the Montlake bridge. He’s coming towards me quite quickly, too quickly, as far as I am concerned.

I hold my breath.

I can feel his irritation through his mask despite the distance between us. Most likely he is not even aware of me because he seems so focused on trying to get the oncoming traffic to slow down. Traffic won’t stop for him even as he uses obvious hand signals to influence oncoming drivers. He begins to motion more aggressively then leans his body into traffic to force the slow-down.

I swallow fear.

I keep walking and move farther away from the road towards the edge of the sidewalk, as far away from the scene as possible. My waist is touching the cold handrail of the bridge.

I am worried for myself and also worried for this black man. His face is friendly and intent.

Will the friendliness of his face be an adequate buffer for his black blackness? Running while black is dangerous.

Danger zone.

***

Hand signal guy steps off the curb into the roadway, onto the grate of the drawbridge and cars finally start to slow down.

Walking across the metal grate of this bridge always feels like walking through a danger zone. I am afraid that somehow I’ll slip through one of the small holes into the water beneath. I know this is physically impossible but spiritually, it can happen, it has happened.

Next, I notice a black guy. A really black black guy with his face mask in hand, instead of on his face, who is jogging towards me and white hand signal guy.

The ghosts of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd back to Emmit Till and beyond. The unknown and never to be known. Alongside them are the ghosts of the

I taste fear.

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needless victims of Covid-19.

Hungry for Breath. Hungry for Justice. Hungry for Release.

Walking across the man-made cut in the land, over this waterway, these hungry ghosts pull at me, perhaps strengthened by the ancestors of this land and water, they reach up and grab hold and pull and keep pulling.

On this part of the bridge it is impossible for me to forget what is happening, all that has happened.

Hungry for Breath. Hungry for Justice. Hungry for Release.

***

Just then, I notice an old rusted-out truck stalled in the far lane. Blinkers flashing. Hand signal guy bangs on the driver’s side panel of the broken down vehicle, barks some words through the partially open window. I can’t hear what has been shared over the noise of rubber tires on metal grate but the driver’s face softens and the shape of his rigid torso softens. These two guys, hand signal guy and black guy, one masked and one holding his mask, not six feet apart—are teaming up to help the driver.

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Fear subsides.

Out of nowhere, maybe from beneath the grate, a third ghost of a man appears behind the stalled-out truck. The three of them are now pushing the vehicle across lanes of traffic, off the bridge. We are now all walking, in tandem at the same pace, in the same direction. The three men are bantering as they push the vehicle towards the curb.

Their good deed and instantaneous camaraderie buoys my spirits. The grip on my heart loosens and shadows of my long day at the hospital in the height of multiple pandemics fall away. We are off the metal grate and the rumbling subsides, I can hear them now. Hand signal guy says, "It's such an easy thing to do and it makes such a big difference."

Tears roll down my face.

I am breathing.

Joshua Tree Hallucinations Jorge Azpeitia Digital Photography 49

Sleep, Angel of Mercy General Donna Sullivan Painting 50

Making your bed D.S. Maolalai

pulling your linens hard against the mattress. like flags at airports, tight in high winds. piling old sheets in the corner and putting down new ones— our tangled scent and memory given way to smells of chemicals.

I don’t know if I like this; replacing the comfort of odors with something that comes from a bottle, which smells the way that someone has decided flowers smell, but I know you do. and really, who wants dirty bed linens?

I’ll like this just as much when we’re both asleep tonight.

I tuck it at the corners and strip the comforter for new covers. you are in the kitchen sorting the rest of the washing. it’s winter, walls batting cold like a horsetail with flies.

I feel that I could take your laundry and pile it with my fingers. push it down like leaves in compost. fall in it backward and sink.

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BLUEBERRIES AND CRAYFISH Cliff Watson

—Form after Billy-Ray Belcourt, Shapes of Native Nonfiction (UW Press, 2019).

I LOVE TO WALK THE BELLEVUE LAKE-TO-LAKE TRAIL \ MY DOG WINSTON IS A BIG FAN, PEEING ON EVERYTHING ALONG THE WAY \ MESSAGES \ I WAS HERE \ I BRING LITTLE BAGS TO COLLECT AND THROW AWAY HIS DOGGY BUSINESS \ THIS CAN MAKE RUNNING CHALLENGING, A STOP-AND-GO AFFAIR \ THE TRAIL IS A HODGE-PODGE OF GRAVEL DIRT BARK ASPHALT \ SIX YEARS OF WALKIES \\ I LOVE TO PICK BERRIES AT THE LARSEN LAKE BLUEBERRY FARM ALONG THE TRAIL \ I BRING A BUCKET AND WEIGH THEM AT THE SHACK BY THE MAIN ROAD \\ I READ THAT DUWAMISH PEOPLE LIVED IN THIS AREA FOR OVER ONE THOUSAND YEARS MAYBE TEN THOUSAND YEARS \ PERHAPS SOME OF THEM ENJOYED PICKING BERRIES NEAR LARSEN LAKE \ SALMONBERRIES RASPBERRIES TRAILING BLACKBERRIES STRAWBERRIES HUCKLEBERRIES SALAL THIMBLEBERRIES \ I WONDER ABOUT BLUEBERRIES \ WHICH ARE BLUE LIKE AN EVENING SKY \ AFTER THE SETTING SUN OF A DAY \ AN ERA \ BLUE LIKE EYES \ BUT DUWAMISH EYES? \\ PART OF THE CREEK CONNECTING THE LAKES HAS BEEN COVERED OVER \ UNDER ASPHALT \ STRAIGHTENED \ REROUTED \ REDIRECTED FOR NEW REASONS \ COMMERCIAL REASONS \ INTO A LARGE METAL PIPE \\ LARSEN IS NOT A DUWAMISH NAME \\ BELLEVUE WETLANDS FLOW TO LARSEN LAKE AND ON TO LAKE WASHINGTON \ SINCE 1894, ALL KINDS OF REROUTING OF WATERWAYS HAS HAPPENED FOR AGRICULTURE AND OTHER LAND USE \ ANYWAY, SOMEONE DROPPED CUTE RED CRAYFISH INTO A BELLEVUE WATERWAY FOR FISHING \ OR SOME REASON \ I FOUND A CUTE FIERCE RED CRAYFISH ON THE TRAIL AROUND LARSEN LAKE \ I READ ABOUT THEM ONLINE A FEW YEARS AGO \ RED SWAMP CRAYFISH \ YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO KILL THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE INVASIVE AND OUTCOMPETE THE NATIVE BROWN CRAYFISH \\ DUWAMISH PEOPLE CATCH NATIVE CRAYFISH AND FRESHWATER MUSSELS FOR FOOD \\

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THE IRONY OF KILLING RED INVADERS \ CRUSH THEM SO THEY CAN’T GET BACK TO THE WATER \ IT SEEMS SO FIERCE \ ALL THIS KILLING AND INVADING \\ I LOVE TO WATCH THE BIRDS AT LARSEN LAKE \ TALL BLUE HERONS HUNTING FROGS \ SOMETIMES THEY STALK BETWEEN THE ROWS OF BLUEBERRY PLANTS \ BILLS LIKE LONG KNIVES \ YOU’VE GOT TO SEE ONE FLY AT DUSK THEY LOOK LIKE PREHISTORIC BEASTS \ HERE FOREVER \\ I’VE SEEN COYOTE RACCOON RABBIT DUCK RED-WING BLACKBIRD BARN OWL GREAT HORNED OWL \ I’VE WATCHED ROCKUS CROWS CHASE THE BIG QUIET OWLS AWAY \ HARASS THEM UNTIL THEY LEAVE \ LIKE THEY OWN THE PLACE \\ SOMETIMES PEOPLE DON’T PICK UP AFTER THEIR DOGS \ THERE ARE POO BAG DISPENSERS IN AT LEAST 5 LOCATIONS AROUND THE LAKE AND NEARBY CEDAR GROVE \ THESE PEOPLE ACT LIKE THEY OWN THE PLACE OR SOMETHING \ I’VE SEEN A DUCK MISSING MOST OF A WING \ PROBABLY FROM A DOG SOMEONE DIDN’T LEASH \ LIKE THEY OWN THE PLACE \\ THEY PROBABLY LOVE THE TRAILS TOO \ EVEN IF THEY TREAT IT LIKE THEIR OWN BACKYARD \ OR MAYBE SOMEONE ELSE’S BACKYARD \ NOT MY PROBLEM SYNDROME \\ THE THING I DON’T LOVE ABOUT THE BLUEBERRY FARM IS THAT IT BORDERS 148TH AVE NE A BUSY THOROUGHFARE \ THE GRINDING RHYTHM OF TRAFFIC CAN DROWN OUT BIRDS AT SOME TIMES OF DAY \\ I LEARNED THERE IS NO WORD FOR LOVE IN LUSHOOTSEED \ THAT LOVE IS EXPRESSED THROUGH GOOD KIND CHARITABLE THOUGHTS WORDS ACTIONS SONG DANCE \ DRUM \ RHYTHM OF LOVE \ THAT THE DRUMBEAT IS THE HEARTBEAT OF THE FIRST PEOPLE \ THE LAKE AREA IS VERY DIFFERENT NOW \ I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO LISTEN FOR THE HEARTBEAT \ MAYBE THE BIRDS KNOW \ IT’S HARDER TO FIND A CRAYFISH TO ASK

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BROKEN PROMISES Bee Guzman-Elliott Video Still Frames 54

An Empt y Place Kalen Schack

Brilliant white fluorescent lights reflect off

The frantically spiraling moths with their dusty

the speckled laminate floor. Recently mopped aisles shimmer under the flickering beams above. The mesmerizing sign, hung crookedly from the window, flashes: “OPEN” on and off in red and blue neon, radiating into the abyssal night. The harrowingly welcoming message emits a low crackling buzz then falls silent.

The air was pregnant with the potent scent of gasoline, lingering around the tall, plastic pump terminals, with their rigid tubing and grimy handles. The keypad’s plastic coverings are worn through from decades of motorist fingers and scathing sun.

wings makes a street light flicker. the beam glowing into the dust of the arid night—a traveler’s respite from the black road.

On this night, the rocks are still warm from the day’s light. The clock reads “1:16.” A lit cigarette wastes itself away in a crack on the sidewalk below a dusty payphone, its dangling handset vocalizing a hollow tone. In the card reader, a peeling credit card ending in 1182 protrudes from a slot. The message on the screen reads; “Please remove card” and the device honks its tiny speaker in agreement. Behind the counter, the mosaic of cigarettes looms and dominates the room. Shining, crumpled packages of snacks want nothing more than to be adopted into a sweaty truck driver’s mouth.

This deserted place provides comfort in its lack of judgement and its ghostly tranquility.

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Dissension in the Ranks Robert Beveridge

occluded front battles over Lake Erie spewing tornadoes and raining on my groceries.

The time of clouds has passed; this is the hard rain, the rain that breaks the skin if left unchecked.

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Emotional Asphy xia Weiling Zhang Digital Photography 57

The Colors of Reeds Denise Calvetti Michaels

Look for a flaw in the net that binds us tight, burst through, break free!

Go, I’ve prayed for this for you—now my thirst will be easy, my rancor less bitter. . .

—Eugenio Montale, Cuttlefish Bones / “On the Threshold”

1.

Mom hands me a stationery box of old photos, 3x5’s of childhood, black and whites of the 50’s, a few miscellany.

We are standing in the shade of the giant sequoia, my mother dressed in summer whites, celery green shirt sleeves.

I clutch the box as her car turns left on Valota Road.

I know I won’t join her; my father with dementia doesn’t want visitors.

2.

In this photo, I’m with Nona Jenny and my girls, the last Polaroid of us together since I left California for Florida, first in the family to attend college. Only now I realize what it means to become preoccupied with daughters, ignore premonitions Nona would need more care.

3.

Unfold what she left to you in the cedar chest—two blankets crocheted during WWII. Tally the stars and squares; count the evenings mother is a girl doing homework.

Stitch intentions into pieces of light linen, biancheria; 288 for one, 456 the other.

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4.

My youngest takes the ferry with me to Port Townsend and we drive out to Fort Worden with our notebooks and the camera trying to match thread to the colors of reeds—ecru, buff and tawny tan, yellow-brown, and canary. On the bluff with no border between us and the sea, we unfurl the blankets to set them free.

5. buff tan buff

ecru

tawny

yellow-brown ecru

tawny

tan

yellow-brown

buff

ecru

tan

yellow-brown

buff

ecru

tawny

tawny

tan

yellow-brown

buff

ecru

tan

yellow-brown

tawny

tan buff tan buff tan buff tan buff tan buff

yellow-brown ecru

tawny

yellow-brown ecru

tawny

yellow-brown ecru

tawny

yellow-brown ecru

buff tan buff tan buff tan buff

ecru

tawny

yellow-brown ecru

tawny

yellow-brown ecru

tawny

yellow-brown ecru

tawny

tawny

tan

yellow-brown

yellow-brown

buff

ecru

tan

yellow-brown

ecru

tawny

tawny

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6. wren warbler tanager towhee sparrow junco bunting lark finch nuthatch kinglet wren warbler tanager towhee sparrow junco bunting lark finch nuthatch kinglet wren warbler tanager towhee sparrow junco bunting lark finch nuthatch kinglet wren warbler tanager towhee sparrow junco bunting lark finch nuthatch kinglet wren warbler tanager towhee sparrow junco bunting lark finch nuthatch kinglet wren warbler tanager towhee sparrow junco bunting lark finch nuthatch kinglet wren warbler tanager towhee sparrow junco bunting lark finch nuthatch kinglet wren warbler tanager towhee sparrow junco bunting lark finch nuthatch kinglet wren warbler tanager towhee sparrow junco bunting lark finch nuthatch kinglet wren warbler tanager towhee sparrow junco bunting lark finch nuthatch 7.

Nona Jenny worked while I was a girl, her husband lost to a gunshot accident by the time she turned sixty. She returned to Italy for a year but found she could not stay. It was Nona Jenny I always came back to; her house, a haven. At night she fell asleep on the divan watching TV so I could have the bedroom. She covers me with the blankets crocheted when my mother was a girl.

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8. alar bar alula axillaries band

flashmark

cere

gorget

coverts

humeral

crissum

lamellae

crown lores

culmen distal

malar

mandible

mantle nanus occiput spatulate supercilium tarsus totipalmate tympani vane

wattle

supercilium

wingstrip spatulate

wattle

occiput

vane nanus

tympani mantle

totipalmate

mandible

malar

tarsus lores

lamellae humeral gorget flashmark distal band culmen crown crissum coverts

cere

axillaries

alula

alar bar

alluls

axillaries

cere

coverts

crissum crown culmen distal band flashmark gorget humeral manellae lores

malar

mandible

mantle

nanus

occiput

spatulate

supercilium

tarsus totipalmate tympani vane wattle wingstrip wattle vane tympani totipalmate tarsus supercilium spatulate occiput nanus mantle mandible 9.

There was a flaw in the fabric, so I ran to you!

You hid me under the needlework.

10.

My work transforms what she gave me.

Wherever we ran from each other—her hands.

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Transcendence with Dove, Dog and Castle Donna Sullivan Mixed Media 62

Roy and Dale and Dad John Grey

He was looking for a spare part for his Subaru but instead, from a hill of metal, procured himself a Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lunch box, which he proudly proclaimed to be the holy grail of lunchboxes, better than the Munsters, Gilligan’s Island, even the Brady Bunch.

“They were my dad’s favorite,” he said to me as he rushed back to the car with his prize, hooting like a boy younger even than me and Subaru be damned.

“Who were they?”

I asked, immediately cutting myself out, posthumously. from my grandfather’s will.

“And what’s a lunchbox” which was like a dagger to my father’s heart, a dagger with shiny insides,

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a metal clasp, and painted on top, a cowboy and cowgirl and a palomino with a rusted face.

In the car ride home, we both sat silently.

On the horse ride home, Roy, Dale, and Dad galloped on ahead, never once looked back at me.

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Bison Hill Cindy Fullwiler Digital Photography 65

A short road trip Carson Thomas

A short road trip The houses of Belle Meade, the wealthiest Nashville neighborhood, are dark as I drive.

In the daylight, heavy houses and verdant lawns are visible, and floating wraparound porches are barely sustained by Grecian columns. Antebellum era plantation-style, though gutted and refurbished. Rust-red brick skinned with thick white paint. In the darkness, trees appear wet with clotted pollen, thick dark ooze. My headlights detect a flash of something white hanging. I look over. White cloaked figures, strung up by their necks; there must be a hundred. The ghosts float on burnt October breeze, weightless on makeshift nooses. A voice pops into my head: they never got to rest. But the road is abandoned. No one there but me and the ghosts.

Leisure My first grade class took a field trip to a preserved plantation at the end of this street.

The slave quarters were still there, huts of thin wood planks with dirt floors. A docent led us to the weaving room, full of wooden wheels and wicker baskets of cloud-like cotton. The cotton seeds looked like pinpricks of blood. It was women’s job to work here the docent said (though she didn’t mention which women).

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Three white female volunteers in lacey white bonnets sat on wooden chairs, pretending to spin cotton. The docent sat us each at a wheel.

I punched the pedal aggressively. The wheel spun to life so quickly I was scared it would come off its hinge. The docent tried to stop it with her hand. She got a splinter. We were not allowed in the weaving room anymore.

Gone with the wind The volunteer room: black metal chairs and styrofoam cups of coffee. It was lined with clothing racks. The docent lined us up by gender; boys were given britches and blouses, girls, the pink burlap dresses and bonnets, even the only black girl in my class, with whom adults avoided eye contact . We were assigned different locations to stand in and cards to read to visitors. Two other girls and I had to stand in the same place the whole afternoon.

After the adults left, we took off our bonnets and sat on the floor. Our dresses were itchy and horrible. I colored in the Nike swoosh on my sneakers with a pen I found on the ground.

All the visitors were old, with powdery white skin and hair. They made me nervous and I messed up reading the words on my flashcard.

I stood by a mural of the plantation when it was active. The foreground was the building,

in the distance were rows of cotton plants,

complimentary wine tastings. A mansion

and barely visible, so faint they were almost invisible, outlines of slaves holding baskets.

tour is $30 for adults, and educational tours are priced individually. The “Journey to Jubilee” tour explores the stories of the AfricanAmericans who were brought to, and born at, Belle Meade. Discover more about their vital presence on this property ($24). It is followed by a complimentary wine tasting. The image framing the tour is of a smiling black docent, the only black person on the website.

Christmas songs At the Belle Meade Country Club in fourth grade, my class choir performed for Christmas.

It was mandatory. We rehearsed for a month ahead. Two girls in my class whom I hated choreographed a dance; one for the girls, a different one for the boys. Our parents were told to dress us in our Sunday best. We drove over in a school bus. The building was huge.

We passed under the white columns and in through the heavy wooden doors. Inside, there were taxidermied deer heads, white linen tablecloths, a huge Christmas tree like a cone of light. The choir leader whispered to stand up straight without locking our knees, or we might pass out. We stood in rows in front of the enormous tree. The audience was almost all old women huddling in their furs, beaming.

Their black-gloved hands looked like claws snagged in leather.

Wine tastes its best from loamy soils with plenty of silt. Sand, silt, and clay. We have strong soil in Tennessee. It is mostly clay, but given the right introduction of organic components, it can be quite fertile. The land where the cotton grew is now the land where the grapes grow, meaning the soil has plenty of carbon bases. Roots interred in soils with particles of sweat and blood. New soils were generated from rotting food that fed mouths and the mouths themselves over generations.

The plants are the unintentional headstones to unmarked graves. Bodies, even in death are still working for profit.

Bread and wine Today, the plantation has done some rebranding. It’s now called Belle Meade Mansion. They offer segway tours and

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Untitled Nina Marshall Digital Photography 68

crime and punishment Michelle Schaefer

solo confinement she finds herself wanting to stretch the length of time is double on the in(side) she has always avoided (tenements) even though her key was bull/et proof and opened the bro/ken door (she never felt safe) outside she had an artificial hobby of stealing shiny bodies she had no(where) to put her mistakes she pretends to be a cave dweller her only friends a bat and a shiv/er somewhere a sound like a home she for/got a night train rumbles on a distant causeway she jumped parole (once) but it was too high for some(one) like her she could escape live below (sub)terranean scratching dirt under her nails a way to make a clean/er living she imagines breathing for (ever) like she (once) did on death row (some) say it’s a crime for clubbing fish

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Digging to China Kalen Schack

There was a hill with grass stubble that shone with dew in the peeking morning sun.

That hill would hide a project that would land four or five young boys— depending on attendance— in the heart of Mainland China.

The teacher claimed that if you were to tunnel through the earth you would eventually reach China.

We thought to dig straight down with hands and sticks like early man, a rubber-handled garden trowel if we were lucky, and pop our heads out somewhere new.

We didn’t know where or what China was or who lived there.

We only knew the shape on a map and the little gold stickers that came hidden on the bottom of all our toys.

I couldn’t imagine how one place could have so many toys, and how happy the people there must be.

Each day we crept through the woods to a field, grappled by a rusting chain link fence, to crouch and dig with grubby hands and talk about things that children think are important.

We wiped our hands 70

On each other’s shirts and pants And returned to class.

Our hole filled with water and orange autumn leaves during common rains and we moved On to other things—monkey bars and wood chips— Until our hole dried and we resumed.

Later that week we learned of Earth’s tumbling core and that we’d have to dig around it, so we started digging at an angle.

Our three-foot-deep hole was filled with soft soil by the groundskeeper one dozing afternoon while the sparrows swooped down on him and the caterpillars crawled on their creaking fences.

Later that year we learned that if we dug the tunnel to the other side of the earth, we’d end up drowning somewhere off the coast of Madagascar.

Fifteen years ago I learned that we wouldn’t have even made it past the mantle.

Sometimes I think about the four or five Chinese boys— depending on attendance— who thought they were digging straight toward us and that maybe our tunnels would have met in the middle.

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Queer Faces Marina Burandt Digital Drawing 72

Through these Eyes Alone John Grey

Golden shapes emerge from gray dusk then dissolve in moonlight.

Why can no one else see them?

Are my eyes in contrast to the eyes of others?

Sight is such a small thing but its stage is boundless.

Once it’s seen what’s there, it can work on what is missing.

And the heart is a wrench to one side or the other, an invitation to linger, amid forgotten senses and old fires that reanimate from ashes.

And the sky fills with parallel years, framing lights, particles like tiny ants nesting in the stars.

Unmutilated, whole,

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everything passes this way, past, present, and future, It gathers in the foreground.

It’s held in place by sighs.

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Escapism Tram Nguyen Film Photography 75

Not Thinking Straight Madison Nikfard

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Living in a Bubble Lina Dith Collage 77

View from the Red Planet Dana Doran, The Baroness of Eads Oil on Canvas 78

Mad Like Me Geneviève Hicks

I hear screaming coming from outside of my

this woman but instead, I turn the question

office. At first, I think it’s from the bar across the street. Something about this yelling is oddly familiar, though—the cadence or perhaps the tone, can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s acting like a siren’s call. Part of me knows it’s safer to stay inside and another part of me is being drawn outside towards the parking garage. This black woman is hollering so furiously.

onto myself. What are you so angry about?

“Fuck you, you stuuuupid fucker,” and, “You are a fuck face of an asshole mother fucker.”

Her voice grows louder as she escalates and despite my intention to watch from afar, her rage pulls me towards her.

“Don’t you ever put your goddamn hands on my shopping cart ever again,” and, “Damn if I’m not going to kill you when I find your fuckered two-face bitch-ass.” Spittle flies as she curses.

Not far off, I see a white man cowering behind a large pillar cradling a small dog in his arms.

He appears to be waiting the scene out.

I am of two minds, worried now that she used the phrase ‘kill you’ that the police will get involved and also feeling my own fury toward this cowering white man.

What are you so angry about? I think of asking

*** Bags of cotton carried on black haunches and hips, bent backs forced to toil in the southern sun, the site of auction blocks covered by water fountains, shackles, and whippings, shitting on one another in the bowels of the ship, the door of no return.

Tumbling through a portal of transhistorical rage.

Treat us like cargo, brand our bodies, disembowel us of organs and fetuses and then have the nerve to cower like a small boy who wet his pants when we show our rage.

Without those iron chains, we could have eaten you alive. One fleshy morsel at a time. You, who have committed the most heinous crimes against humanity the world over, have the nerve to act surprised when we show our rage.

You should wonder how it is that we don’t allow our rage to consume us. It doesn’t just naturally dissipate because it was over 150 years ago when your ancestor raped my ancestor. I’m fucking pissed that I am the descendant of a slave master raping his enslaved. I’m fucking pissed that I have to worry that this woman who is expressing a justifiable rage might have the police called on her.

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*** I am pissed that I may never have the opportunity to express my personal rage so fully. *** Stealing an unhoused person’s shopping cart can be the thread that unravels it all. Even if you are not technically stealing—just relocating it for your personal ease and convenience.

She and I connect our eyes and before I have a chance to figure out what to do next, through the sound/taste of her rage, I am transported back in time. *** Collapsed, with hands and knees on the ground, she screams through clenched teeth into the space around her, at the earth, at no one in particular and at everything simultaneously.

Vocal cords quivering with the force of the air coming from her lungs. First there’s a guttural sound then a higher wailing—He toooook my baby, he tooooook my baby, he tooooook my baby—over and over and over again. Spit and venom slip through her teeth and mix with the tears of despair which I can now taste in my own mouth. A bolt of lightning like the lash of the whip stings my back. I stiffen and stand rigidly to stop myself from heaving forwards.

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I take in a slow deep breath.

How did we withstand hearing one another spit out pieces of our crushed hearts?

“Sister, sister are you hungry? I have some food,” I say over top of her persistent loud cursing. She quiets, looks straight through me and we recognize each other.

“No, I’m alright,” she says in a perfectly normal voice, turns and walks away “but thank you,” she says over her shoulder. She pushes her shopping cart down the mostly empty sidewalk. Quiet now, the only sound are the wheels skipping over small cracks in the sidewalk.

The Queen Marina Burandt Digital Drawing 81

Peaceful Strength Stephanie Pipes Digital Photography 82

Asilomar, December Lance Nizami

1.

Surfers, far black dots, rise and fall on green liquid The wave-swells: high and long, the water: slow and heavy White froth tips the breakers Grey clouds, layered, sunbaked, filter light Gusts sweep the brown, soaked beach as breakers froth in white upon it Long and heavy “whips” in olive, ocean’s litter, stems of kelp, lie rotting Asilomar, December 2.

Asilomar has a heavy surf Ducks bob on the heavy surf Men bob on the heavy surf, in wetsuits Is the wet and windswept Asilomar beach a hospice of surrealness?

The Pacific Ocean, green, rolls in; it froths in white A godwit quick-strides back and forth It’s surfwards, beachwards, back and forth, mesmerizing How long its black-tipped bill How sane its fear of ocean’s pull The ocean pulls; a surfer rises, freed.

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Night Shift Michelle Schaefer

An average female barmaid and an ambitious cockroach are pulling another late shift.

Outside the joint the night trees are blowing and it’s raining in the biblical sense.

Mabel wipes down the endless bar with the same rancid rag she has used every night.

Mabel is not her real name but the regulars find it easier to say and easier to remember.

Her hands run through her shocked red hair and she glosses a weary smile back into place.

She calls them all “Hon,” a word she’s learned and leans forward to give them a low cut peek.

They smile at her with blunt plastic teeth shaped like the big fat homes in which they live.

Their lonely hands fill her tip jar to the brim with the blurred green paper of her dreams.

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Not yet tomorrow she stifles a sigh as the scheming roach skips out early to catch the late train.

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Modern Plague Violet Dahlstrom Digital Photography 86

Pandemic Philosophy Philip Palios

“The future is in your head, the past is in your

reality, even if the ivory tower manifested

head, the only thing that’s real is the present.”

Someone probably had a better, more poetic assemblage of words for this not so novel idea, but Bradley didn’t take the time to find them while preparing for his lecture.

itself as a dilapidated concrete structure that resembled a re-purposed public toilet in the rural Scottish lowlands.

“So you didn’t say what you just said because it’s in the past now, not the present, right?”

Isabelle tilted her chin with genuine curiosity.

“You might be right.”

Bradley relished opportunities to trot out his go-to nonresponse. “So tell me Isaac, why are you here?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Because I lost my job and ain’t gonna find no job while covid keeps shutting shit down in this shithole town.”

“Right.”

“Oh, better in London is it?”

Bradley knew that he had unintentionally affirmed his student’s flawed point, but he didn’t care.

Isaac fell silent, Bradley grinned.

Isaac from the back of the classroom raised his hand and began speaking without being called upon. “This is bullshit! A bunch of mental masturbation if you ask me…”

Bradley grinned, reflecting on when Isaac’s sentiment was brought up in his first philosophy course as an undergraduate student himself – he agreed with Isaac, the ivory tower was a pointless mental circle jerk to a large extent, but at the same time he was enchanted with the opportunity to escape

As the clock struck three, the classroom erupted in a collective sigh of relief. Everyone hastily made their way out of the building and eagerly removed their masks after scattering in their various directions. When the room was empty, Bradley removed his own mask, switched off the light and laid down on the classroom floor, staring up at the ceiling while pursuing some sort of meditative or prayerful state. “Dear God, please help me to believe my own bullshit. Don’t lead me into an existential crisis, because if teaching isn’t my life then I really don’t know what is. Just lull me into

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obedience and acceptance of this useless life,

As students arrived and learned of Bradley’s

please!”

plan, they proceeded to wander aimlessly around the green space that separated the college building from the road. None of them seemed to pay any mind to the uprooted tree.

The following week, as Bradley was making his way to campus on foot, the sight of a recently uprooted tree sparked an idea for that day’s lecture. He had planned to use a slide deck he found by Googling “fun lecture on Kant,” but the crisp winter air made him inspired to teach outside, something he loved to do in his early days of lecturing but had opted for less often as the years had passed.

Rather than enter the building, Bradley strapped on his mask and stood outside the entrance ready to catch his students as they arrived.

“Locked out?” The first student asked with a strange hopefulness in her tone.

“Who knew this was going to happen?”

Bradley shouted, bringing the students to order as he began his lesson.

“They’ve been saying we’re due for a pandemic sooner or later for quite some time now, haven’t they?” Isabelle responded with hope she was ahead of the curve on this one.

“No, not that. This!” Bradley pointed at the tangle of roots shooting into the air.

“Class outside? Well, you knew...” Isaac said while rolling his eyes.

“For fuck’s sake!” Bradley grumbled as he marched 15 metres to the dying tree. “THIS!”

“No, we’re having class outside today.”

“But it’s December!”

“It will be fun!”

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“Ah, well probably the bloke who pulled it out the ground.” Isaac grinned after responding.

“Pulled it out of the ground? Really? Can you pull a tree out of the ground like that?” As Bradley finished his questioning he shrieked

as Isaac ran to a nearby tree and began trying

sentence responses. He wandered around and

to pull it from the ground. “Stop it!”

listened in, glad to hear everyone staying on topic. Was any learning happening? Or had he just resigned to hosting a social club? He had no idea, but hoped for the former.

“But you asked…”

“This tree, it had been standing here, growing, minding its own business, making plans for its future, and then all of a sudden, wham!”

Bradley clapped his hands for dramatic effect.

“No one knew that would happen. No one.”

After a dozen minutes had passed, he asked his final question, “Is the new plan better or worse than the old one?” …

“Can we take our masks off ?” Derrick was sitting on the ground plucking leaves of grass.

“Um.” Bradley wanted to say yes but was pretty sure the answer was no. He decided to deflect, removing his own mask to use it as a prop. “Who knew we would all be here, wearing these? Who had this in their well thought out plans? Anyone?”

“This is the same lecture as last week.” Isaac responded.

“Alright, fine, get in pairs and discuss how covid has impacted the plans you had for your life.”

Everyone did as they were told and Bradley was surprised to see students continue talking with each other far beyond the usual one

ON THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING SEMESTER… Bradley arrived three minutes late and was surprised to discover the classroom empty. A piece of paper lay on a desk at the front corner and he picked it up expecting a cancelation notice. Maybe the university finally came to their senses about bringing people together in the middle of a raging pandemic. Instead, he read in Isabelle’s familiar scrawl that the class had decided they would be meeting online and had e-mailed him a Zoom link. Could they do that? Should he report this? Would he get in trouble if he…joined in?

Bradley couldn’t help himself. He had his laptop out and email opened while still in the classroom. Following the Zoom link, he saw the familiar “Please wait to be admitted”

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screen and couldn’t help but laugh at having

What sort of town has its castle hidden away,

to ask his students permission to enter.

boarded off and surrounded with barbed wire?”

The screen blinked. “Yo, ho, hello there!” He said.

Twelve angry students stared back at him before Isabelle resumed speaking. “The gardens are just hideous at the convent, have you seen them?” Isabelle questioned. Bradley was dumbfounded and clicked his mute button on.

“No, I mean, how did you get in? It’s all fenced off…” Derrick asked.

“How do you think?” The class broke out in laughter. Isabelle continued, “But seriously, we can either keep meeting online, meet in class, or you know, do something...”

Bradley jumped in, “Um, the university is still requiring in-person learning-“ “You called that learning?” Isaac leapt into boisterous cheers.

Bradley resigned himself to observing as the students continued to discuss their illinformed plans of cleaning up the memorial garden at the convent and wondered how he would get them on track for the new semester of philosophy.

As the discussion was drawing to a close and the students had made plans to start their gardening project, Bradley jumped in to remind the students that they were still expected to come to class.

“And do what? Continue pretending the world falling apart outside doesn’t matter? Keep calm and carry on?” Isaac questioned.

“You can do both, your garden thing and this.”

“No, you don’t seem to understand, Brad. We want university to be useful.”

Bradley did too. “Fine, I give up. What now?”

“Well, if you just wanted to garden, why are you in university?”

“It’s not just gardening, it’s an act of protest.

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“Listen.”

Hide in the Light Marinna Ewing Drawing 91

Candle Crabs in Samar Ruthie Little

We were bored, we had no toys to play with. So at night, we would go down to the beach with the tiny church candles. Mountains shield the beach from both sides and stretch the length of the island. Distant mountains sit on the horizon like dark unmoving waves, keeping us at home and warm. Life bubbles green across their backs. The island breathes and blows the waves back and forth. We found its pores where the crabs had burrowed beneath the sand and stuck our fingers in, not too deep, gathering lots of them. We lit the candles until the wax turned soft.

It trickled down their stems, swollen from flame and a wet coat. We stuck them to the backs of the crabs, our faces mirroring their color in the candlelight. Their shells protected them as they ran swimming in the shadowy shores, like a parade of lanterns scuttling after a night sky.

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Rainier at Ebey Slough Ruthann Fernandes Digital Photography 93

Tired Nina Jouval

I woke up in an empty room. To a noise so

above me with no sky in sight. Various jungle

uproarious that it rattled my skull. I can’t move. My room looks lonely with nothing but a bed. Is this my room? The worries of yesterday are weighing me down. All I can do is think about how tired I am and how wonderful it sounds to doze back off to dreamland. But the noise grows stronger and causes the walls to buzz. I try to drown out the noise by pressing my pillow hard against my ears, but the commotion persists. Then suddenly I start floating out of bed. And once my feet hit the floor the noise abruptly ceases. My ears say thank you. As I walk toward the door, I don’t seem to get any closer. I walk faster, and faster, and start to run, but somehow, I’m not going anywhere. I look up to the ceiling and see a black sky with speckled stars. I look out the window and see a bright blue sky with clouds fluffy enough to eat at a carnival. The deep dark sky suddenly begins to spin like a planetarium.

Faster and faster until my mind starts doing cartwheels and I fall on my knees. I stay with my eyes closed to wait for the spinning to stop, but it doesn’t. Seems like hours have gone by. I slowly raise my heavy eyelids and the twirling stops. When I look around, I’m no longer in my room. I’m in a dense jungle. The soft, mossy ground feels comforting on my bare feet. The countless plants and trees loom

animals squeak, squawk, and purr… Purr? I leap around, ready to be attacked by a tiger, but it’s a charming little black cat.

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She hops up on my shoulder and whispers, “What are you doing in a place like this? You don’t belong here.” I know. We start walking aimlessly and come across a bridge, but I can’t see where it ends. I start on the bridge with the cat trotting beside me. First, I see a giant multicolored butterfly the size of a grand piano. It blocks the way with its wings and stares at me with its mesmerizing motif.

I say, “Do you mind moving out of my way? I’m trying to get somewhere.”

The butterfly says, “Well where are you trying to go?”

I pause and reply, “I don’t know. Home?”

The butterfly’s wings start to shift and change.

“You seem uncertain.” Before I can respond, the cat lunges at it. The butterfly lifts off with its colossal wings. I continue on the bridge and see a spotted blue boa constrictor. It slides up my leg and wraps around me loosely.

“What are you doing?” I say.

The snake replies, hissing, “You’re missing something. There’s a hole somewhere.” It tightens ever so slightly, and I panic. I squirm to get the snake off, but it keeps getting tighter.

My heart races and I can’t breathe. I wish it to be gone over and over in my head and it finally loosens and disappears into the jungle. The cat hisses as the snake crawls away. I start to wonder how much longer this bridge is going to be. Why won’t it end? I see what looks like a white door up ahead and I run toward it. But then I see a figure in front of it. It’s a big, dark owl. I stop, and uncontrollably, I begin to cry.

The tears are an inky black, running down my silk pajamas. I look for the black cat and she’s gone. I cry harder. The owl says nothing. It embraces me with its massive wings, encasing my entire body and I go limp. At this point, it feels like a year has gone by, but at the same time, it’s felt like no time at all. I finally let out a powerfully strident scream and I reach the white door, turning the knob and finding myself outside my room. My mom asks me what I have been doing lately.

“I’m tired,” I say.

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Chill Vibes Mudasir Zubair Digital Art 96

The Moon and the Sun Racquel Farrar

the moon and sun dance

perfect and completely in tune

never touching though

—long distance is a bitch

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Immigration Devoni Rose D. Whitehead Digital Art 98

Along for a Ride Sue Selmer

A child so small, rode on the bicycle’s jump seat, helmet so large it rested on tiny bundled-up shoulders as little arms stretched sideways moving slowly up and down became a freely soaring bird above the bicycle’s quicker cadence while the mother pedaled on, earthbound unaware that her child flew.

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My Mirror Taylor Nichols

My eyes that are staring back Youthfulness dead Mean to my hips, stomach and lips I hate you Regret looking Repeat, repeat, repeat Over and over I look Remorse, breathe…

I shall not stop next time

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Woman in the Jungle Nina Jouval Digital Collage 101

The Waiting Room Sanika Nalgirkar

It was a normal morning in the waiting room.

“Oh Yes! Let me just check” Linda checked her

Just like every day, the receptionist, Linda came into work. She had been working there for 6 months now and still had no idea what her job entailed. Everyday people came into the waiting room, went through a door, and never came out. This just fueled her desire more to know what was behind that door. She had tried to find out the mystery behind the door but was unable to. To this day, she had barely met her employer once, maybe twice.

computer and saw her name on the screen and only her name for the day. Seemed strange as every day, there are almost hundreds of people who come here but she turned a blind eye to that.

The entire room was white, the walls, the furniture, Linda’s computer, and even her uniform. It was a white dress. The very white room sometimes made it hard for Linda to distinguish where everything was. She managed though because the carpet in the room wasn’t as bright as everything else and the door people go through every day wasn’t white at all. It was brown. It was different from the rest of the room.

After a while, another person walked into the office. Linda looked up to see a middle-aged woman. She had quite a colorful outfit on. The lady walked up to Linda’s desk.

Linda started on her work for the day and soon after she was blessed with a presence.

It was an old lady who looked well in her 60s, maybe even 70s. Her colorful outfit brightened the room instantly.

“Hello! My name is Emma. I have an appointment at 11 am.” She said.

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“You can go in.” Linda said with a smile and watched Emma as she went through the brown door. Linda sighed and went back to work.

“Hi! My name is Emma and I have an appointment here at 2 pm.” Linda looked at her with a confused stare. She didn’t recall seeing any other names on the screen. “uhh… let me check.” Linda said and turned to her computer.

Linda saw that there was in fact an Emma scheduled in a few minutes. And just like in the morning, there was no one else except for this Emma.

“You can go in.” Linda said with a perplexed

tone. The woman who came in the morning

here. There was no one who could play such a

was Emma too. Was that a coincidence? Linda shook her head and didn’t dwell on it further.

She went back to her work.

prank on me.

After a while, again, someone entered the place, and it was a young lady. She seemed almost too young, she looked like a teenager.

Just like the previous two ladies, her outfit was colorful. She walked up to the desk while Linda’s eyes were as big as golf balls.

“Hello! My name is—” the girl started talking but was interrupted.

“Emma?” Linda completed her sentence.

“Yes! How did you know?” Emma grinned widely.

“You can go in” Emma walked to the door while Linda had still not recovered from her shock.

One is a mistake, two is a coincidence but three is a pattern. Was someone playing a joke on me? how could that be? No one knew I worked

So many thoughts were swirling in Linda’s mind. She was so confused, and she had no way to find out what was going on. There was one way to find out what was going on—to go through that door. But she had never done it before. She was too scared to do it. She didn’t know what would happen to her. It was either the door or nothing at all. Linda was tired and frustrated of not knowing what goes on around here. She wanted some clarity on what was going on today and also what has been going on the past few months.

Linda slowly got up from her chair and proceeded to the door. She stopped for a couple of moments midway, just waiting to see if anyone or anything would stop her.

There was nothing to stop her. She advanced towards the door. The rest of the room completely disappeared for her; the sole focus was on that brown door. Her heartbeat rose every second and sweat formed on her palms.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she reached the brown door. She put her hands on the door handle. It felt like every other wooden door. It didn’t seem out of the ordinary. She took a deep breath, closed her

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eyes, and opened the door. All she could see

looked down to see the same outfit she wore

was a bright white light. It was so bright, she had to close her eyes. When she could no longer feel the white light, she opened her eyes and was surprised to see where she was.

in the morning. She shrugged and entered the building again and did the same thing again.

The people were hustling around, and the cars went by. Linda saw the busy street from the sidewalk. It was a familiar street to her as this was the street, she took to get to work every day. She seemed confused as to why and how she came out on the street. She spotted her office building and went inside. She could feel a slight difference in her body but couldn’t tell what it was.

She went into the room and waited for a while. Was she in trouble? After all, she did something she wasn’t supposed to do. She still hadn’t gained any clarity in what was going on.

Now, that she knew going through the door wasn’t much dangerous, she did it again.

The same thing happened, she was faced with a bright white light and again, she was on the street she ended up on last time. She looked around to see if anything was different but, nothing was different. It seemed like a normal morning with people walking and driving around. This time too, she felt a little different. She ran her hands on her body and

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Nothing changed and this time she could feel frustrated and angry. The fact that she was in public cautioned her or else she was ready to let out a screeching scream. This time, her clothes felt a little loose on her. She figured it must have been because she had been walking around and sweating too much. At this point, she was adamant about figuring out what was behind that door. Why was it so hard?

She ran to the building and did it again. Just like the other times, she ended up on the streets. This time, however, she could feel she was shorter in height and her clothes were sagging on her body. She got scared and freaked out. This seemed like a major change, something she couldn’t fix herself. Soon enough she started crying right there on the sidewalk where people passing by could just stare at her. She didn’t care that she was the center of attention. She knew, she just wanted to cry. After a little while, her feet got tired of standing and she sat down on the dirty sidewalk.

She didn’t want to go through that door anymore. She was tired and exhausted. After

sitting on the sidewalk for a while, she looked around and her eyes fell on the huge glass building near her. She could see her reflection.

She got up and slowly walked towards the building. The reflection on the glass wasn’t her except that it was her. It was her younger self.

She looked 9 or 10 years old. She touched her face and her hair. It really was her. She started breathing heavily and her heartbeat started increasing by the second. She was having a panic attack. It isn’t every day one goes to work, and they are 10 years old.

Is this what the door does?

Yes, the door makes you younger.

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Ef florescence Tram Nguyen Film Photography 106

Raking Leaves Sue Selmer

Under a row of sweetgum trees, brittle leaves lie curled and deep.

I rake them into colorful heaps swish-crackle, swish-crackle.

The sound and tempo surprise me, recalling some other place.

On a calm day, wavelets lapped a gentle rhythm at the edge of a pebbled sloping shore swish-crackle, swish-crackle.

I hear the pulse of the ocean in the sweep of fallen leaves.

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Qwuloolt Restoration Site Ruthann Fernandes Digital Photography 108

Funhouse Mirror / rorriM esuohnuF Scott Bentley

mirror / rorrim peep / peep a distorted reflection / noitcelfer detrotsid a to look through a small opening / gninepo llams a hguorht kool ot from convex and concave sections / snoitces evacnoc dna xevnoc morf or from a concealed location / noitacol delaecnoc a morf ro a popular attraction / noitcartta ralupop a me / em to look slyly / ylyls kool ot ghost in a reflective surface / ecafrus evitcelfer a ni tsohg an ecology / ygoloce na or pryingly / ylgniyrp ro a compartment of the phantasmal self / fles lamsatnahp eht fo tnemtrapmoc a or furtively / ylevitruf ro a muddle of mending / gnidnem fo elddum a to look curiously or playfully / yllufyalp ro ylsuoiruc kool ot in constant flux / xulf tnatsnoc ni to glimpse / espmilg ot a community / ytinummoc a to show / wohs ot or protrude slightly / ylthgils edurtorp ro not / ton a quick or furtive look / kool evitruf ro kciuq a expression of negation / noitagen fo noisserpxe or glance / ecnalg ro denial and refusal / lasufer dna lained the first appearance / ecnaraeppa tsrif eht or prohibition / noitibihorp ro leave / evael the formless being / gnieb sselmrof eht

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to go out of or away from / morf yawa ro fo tuo og ot to quit / tuiq ot nor / ron to depart / traped to the crying in the air / ria eht ni gniyrc eht or let remain / niamer tel ro a place into my head / daeh ym otni ecalp a have remaining behind after going / gniog retfa dniheb gniniamer evah a disappearing / gniraeppasid a out and alone / enola dna tuo or ceasing / gnisaec ro as of dawn / nwad fo sa sa fo nwad / dawn of as ro gnisaec / ceasing or tuo dna enola / alone and out a gniraeppasid / disappearing a evah gniniamer dniheb retfa gniog / going after behind remaining have a ecalp otni ym daeh / head my into place a ro tel niamer / remain let or eht gniyrc ni eht ria / air the in crying the to traped / depart to ron / nor ot tiuq / quit to ot og tuo fo ro yawa morf / from away or of out go to eht sselmrof gnieb / being formless the evael / leave ro noitibihorp / prohibition or eht tsrif ecnaraeppa / appearance first the lained dna lasufer / refusal and denial

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ro ecnalg / glance or noisserpxe fo noitagen / negation of expression a kciuq ro evitruf kool / look furtive or quick a ton / not ro edurtorp ylthgils / slightly protrude or ot wohs / show to a ytinummoc / community a ot espmilg / glimpse to ni tnatsnoc xulf / flux constant in ot kool ylsuoiruc ro yllufyalp / playfully or curiously look to a elddum fo gnidnem / mending of muddle a ro ylevitruf / furtively or a tnemtrapmoc fo eht lamsatnahp fles / self phantasmal the of compartment a ro ylgniyrp / pryingly or na ygoloce / ecology an tsohg ni a evitcelfer ecafrus / surface reflective a in ghost ot kool ylyls / slyly look to em / me a ralupop noitcartta / attraction popular a ro morf a delaecnoc noitacol / location concealed a from or morf xevnoc dna evacnoc snoitces / sections concave and convex from ot kool hguorht a llams gninepo / opening small a through look to a detrotsid noitcelfer / reflection distorted a peep / peep rorrim / mirror

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Frost and Fog Sarah McPorter

I walk a world of frost and fog Skeletal trees like ghosts, wraiths wreathed in vapor Tree tips softening, blurring, smudging into the clouds Pearlescent silhouette, fading back into the brume realm Hidden land discovered with each step, drifting further Deeper, leaving behind all known and real and solid Haze upon the ground, leaves rimmed in shimmer Glitter sparkling diamond dust on branch and duff Dawn twilight gloaming, entering ethereal grey mists Haunted hallowed halls of the forest, eerie, enchanting Wander with the hidden fae, calling soul to slip away Disappear in shrouding fog and frost, lured by will-o’-the-wisps Skin chilling, thrilling, trilling with delight in winter Heart rushing, blood flushing, excitement bursting inside Listening, yearning, brisk air freezing stinging biting, effervescent Wisps covering the forest floor, beckoning, whispering Step through the veil, the doorway between the trees Seek the secrets, aerial, twixt shadow and light Fire heart, wind spirit, rambling on into the uncanny realm Tree and ice and mist your home and heart and hearth Fair folk, undine, sylphs, and dryads, kin and kith and ken Ride the trail of icing dew drops, follow their dancing laughter Like chiming bells, crackling hoarfrost, urging transcendence Shedding soul’s cage, adventure into the unearthly realm Land of fantasy and wonder, heart’s desire Traipse through dream and delight, discarnate Among the trees in the cold embrace of ice crystal clouds Come, dreamer, wandering heart, discover and play Join the mischievous fae, with the lady of the masks Wear the shadow’s cloak, twirl with the guardian of dreams

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The keeper of the keys treading carpet of moss Dance with the lord of the fae, alluring charm and wicked glinting Draped in spider silk beneath mistletoe in the forest cathedral Dreamy moonlight evanesces to waking sun, dispersing Ephemeral moments, time lost, chance fleeting, fleeing Magic forgotten, return to people, things, structure Soft delicate realm vanishing, slipping away, back to bygone places Modern world of hard lines, solid material, stark cacophony Frost melting, giddy glinting joy dimming, spark dwindling Dissipating before bright harsh light of day

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The Fall of the Republic Dana Doran, The Baroness of Eads Oil on Canvas 114

Eyes Scott Bentley

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Avocado and melon salad Carson Thomas

Perfume spheres of light green and orange, butterfly-cut creamy lobes of avocado made me want to cry for California mountains, fruit trucks laden with fresh melons along twisting highways cutting through rich farmland valleys, patches of dry grass and gnarled trees.

Blue mountains hazy with mist and smog over the ranch where my grandfather lived where we cracked clay pigeons with rifles, a sound like terra cotta pots shattering.

God, some things are beautiful and worth protecting.

I can almost understand why he mistrusted liberals to his grave— when I hit the target, his eyes sparkled, it kept him alive all those years.

How could I love him and mistrust him? both at once like a Schrodinger’s cat— a thought experiment I never understood, like America.

I can love it, hate it, remain baffled by it— but when winds picked up through California mountains to spread my grandfather’s ashes over his land, I understood for a moment America sang like Whitman to me.

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Nightingale Reed Lowell

Each nightingale is rapturous.

Dreaming of Halcyon, king, and queen to be fish for their crowns.

Ascent on the wind.

A chase erratic.

Sing, writhe, and croon.

The climb maxes.

Day breaks and morning follows.

A reflection in descent over placid waters.

That spring has echoed for too long.

A pursuit in cacophony never better than the first.

And the fall will come again with gale and rain and ardor.

But for once,

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I wish it wouldn’t.

I wish not to race for a rise only a moment to be.

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2020 Xinzhu Xu Mixed Media 119

Contributors

Eric Michael Acosta is a poet who lives and works in Seattle. He also makes noise. This is his website: www.printcopiesavailable.com Alexa Agustiano is a senior majoring in Interactive Media Design.

Susanna Andrews is an artist who explores emotion’s potential to push their own limits in her work. She is fascinated by the unknowns of the mind and believes leaning into the darkness that reveals truth. Most of her ideas come from free-write musings about her inner world and how it co-exists alongside reality. Recently, she has done this through video and digital comics.

Jorge Azpeitia is a fourth year at the University of Washington Bothell, double majoring in Media and Communication Studies, and Culture Literature, & the Arts. Jorge has been experimenting with photography since 2011.

Scott Bentley is a student and teaching assistant in the Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing and Poetics at the University of Washington, Bothell. He is a curator for the Gamut literary series and an editor for Clamor. His writing and art is forthcoming from yehaw and have appeared in Submergence, Vote the Earth, and elsewhere. bentleygarden.wixsite.com/home Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in the6ress, 1870, and The Hope Anthology, among others.

Darrell Urban Black was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Far Rockaway and Brentwood, Long Island, New York. In high school, he excelled in science with an affinity for outer space. In June 1969, as America fulfilled J. F. Kennedy’s dream to put the American Stars and Stripes into the dusty surface of the moon, Darrell’s fascination with spaceships grew. As a child he made spaceship models eventually placing his artistic visions on paper resulting in some 500 drawings. Phantasmal spaceships that eventually carried Darrell to a unique wonderland of strange forms and colors. In 1982, he joined the National Guard. During this time his previous drawings were lost – but not his passion. In 1988, Darrell joined the US Army

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and served another four years. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Science of Criminal Justice Administration at the University of Phoenix. http://darrell-black.pixels.com/ Carl Boon is the author of the full-length collection Places & Names: Poems (The Nasiona Press, 2019). His writing has appeared in many journals and magazines, including Prairie Schooner, Posit, and The Maine Review. He received his Ph.D. in Twentieth-Century American Literature from Ohio University in 2007, and currently lives in Izmir, Turkey, where he teaches courses in American culture and literature at Dokuz Eylül University.

Cindy Bousquet Harris is a poet, photographer, licensed marriage and family therapist, and the editor of Spirit Fire Review. Her poems can be found in Nostos, Unlost Journal, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Pomona Valley Review, and in several anthologies. Cindy lives in Southern California with her husband and their children. You can contact her at: SpiritFireReview2@gmail.com Derek Brown is a 24 year old, Asian-American student at the University of Washington, Bothell. He enjoys staying active and living a healthy lifestyle. His intended major is Media and Communications studies and works at an international fashion retailer called Zara.

A. Bunney is an interdisciplinary artist from the Pacific Northwest. Her work focuses on memory and how it intertwines with imagination, history, and the environment. She is currently in her second year of a Creative Writing and Poetics MFA at UW Bothell where her thesis includes long exposure, uncertain perceptions of reality, and Edgar Allan Poe. She has been published in Clamor (2020), The Journal of Occurrences (2018) and is scheduled to publish in The CROW in 2021.

Marina Burandt is a recent Creative Writing & Poetics MFA graduate from UW Bothell. She is currently continuing her studies as a PhD candidate.

Adrienne Co is a UW Bothell alumna who majored in applied computing and minored in visual and media arts. She has an interest in both digital and traditional mediums.

Denise Calvetti Michaels teaches Psychology at Cascadia College and completed the MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics in 2019 at the University of Washington, Bothell. Her new book, 122

The Things Downriver, is a lyric mapping of childhood on the Salinas farm, recently published in December 2020 by Cave Moon Press. New poems appear in the 2020 edition of the Paterson Literary Review and Yours Truly. You will find her blog at denisecalvetti.wordpress.com Violet Dahlstrom, who is a senior at the University of Washington Bothell, is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Community Psychology, Gender and Sexuality Studies, with a minor in Visual, Media, and Arts. Officer in the club Palette Talk. Always interested in the ability of the arts to bring humanity closer together, whether that is through small art nights with friends or large scale communities coming together to work on art for a common cause.

Lina Dith is a first-year UW Bothell student. Lina has experimented with her abilities in the arts and came to enjoy creating pieces based on self-reflection. Her recent collage titled “Living in a Bubble” is accompanied by the statement: “A bubble acts like a lens. As we walk around, we see the world through our lens. Memories, losses, celebrations, and connections are made as we bounce around from place to place. It’s our sanctuary, our scrapbook, and the embodiment of our character. My intention is to grow my bubble until it bursts, so I’ll be able to share my world with others.”

Dana Doran is an alumni of UW Bothell and a former Clamor editor. Her oil paintings have been published in Clamor seven times since 2013. She graduated magna cum laude in 2014 with a degree in interdisciplinary art where she learned, very successfully, to incorporate messages into her visual art. Today she is semi-retired in Tennessee. Known as the Baroness of Eads, she paints most days, exhibits her work when convenient, blogs on Wordpress and accepts commissions.

Jennifer Dormier is a senior majoring in Media & Communications and minoring in Human Rights at UW Bothell. Her studies and passion surround global inequality.

Marinna Ewing is a self taught artist and enjoys creating art whenever possible. She has earned several visual art publications and an award for her work. She has also achieved a B.A. in Arts as a double major.

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Racquel Farrar is currently a Media and Communications and Community Psychology Major.

She enjoys reading and writing short poems and her main inspiration is nature.

Ruthann Fernandes is a graduating senior pursuing a degree in Media and Communications.

During Ruthann’s time in college, they studied photography, radio journalism, video production, and creative writing. They are currently very excited for the end of the Covid19 pandemic so they can see their friends again.

Cindy Fullwiler is a self-taught North American nature and wildlife photographer. After her retirement in 2010, she knew this was the time to travel and learn the art of photographya lifelong goal. Cindy has traveled and photographed the coasts of California, Oregon, Washington, Vancouver Island, and England. Her love for wildlife and nature combined with her environmental education degree translate into a unique perspective in her photographs. It is Cindy’s goal to produce not just pretty photographs but also to tell a story with a conservation center stage. Cindy has accomplished much in her short time as a photographer, most recently exhibiting at the Lynnwood Convention Center, Washington State Convention Center, Sequim Civic Center and Sequim Museum and Art Gallery. Her work has been published in several local visitor guides, brochures, art journals, blogs, and newsletters. www.cnature.net John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, Dalhousie Review and Blood and Thunder. Work upcoming in Hollins Critic, Redactions and California Quarterly.

Bee Guzman-Elliott pursues interdisciplinary environmental studies at UW Bothell with hopes to further their work in environmental arts and social practice as they believe arts, culture, and race are essential for climate justice. Bee holds an intimate relationship as a musician, rooted in their experiences of music as medicine, drive, culture, grounding, connection to ancestors, and it’s deep invitation to feel. Bee’s work challenges the business as usual perspective and aims to invite the audience inwards, as they believe the only way to heal the world around us is to start by healing inside ourselves first.

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Josephine Hartono is a Chinese-Indonesian-American artist and a junior at the University of Washington Bothell. She majors in Interactive Media Design and Interdisciplinary Arts. She specializes in digital illustration and participates in independent publications such as zines and art books. Her primary focus in creating work is capturing feelings of whimsical nostalgia.

Geneviève Hicks works as a physical therapist and puts words on paper on occasion.

Tasha Jeffrey is a 23 year old bi-racial female student at the University of Washington. She has worked for Digital Future Labs during 2018 and has been doing independent contracting for customers who want art or designs for their products. Her website is https://tjeffrey2015.wixsite. com/website and her instagram handle is tallyg_1.

Nina Jouval is a University of Washington Bothell student majoring in Media and Communication Studies. She enjoys creative expression through writing and photography, and loves spending time with family, friends, and her two cats. She also looks forward to travelling in the future.

Danyl Stephan Kok, just starting his first year at UWB in October 2020, is a self-taught artist who just wants to express his thoughts through different mediums. Visions, ideas, and emotions have been starting to overwhelm his mind and he has been exploring various ways to pour them out. He appreciates purposeful and expressive music and has tried to use audio as a medium, but lately, he has been experimenting with more physical forms of expression.

Edward Kuznetsov is an MFA Candidate at UWB. He enjoys fried rice and the 2004 SpongeBob SquarePants movie.

Chris Ryan Lauer is an author, artist, and academic in practicum at the University of Washington, with interests in the New York School literary movement, modernism, postmodernism, assemblage, montage, film d’auteur, visual culture, and intersection points between film, literature, and painting. He is recognized for his avant-garde, minimalistic, and unconstrained works of poetry.

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Ruthie Little is a senior majoring in Culture, Literature and Arts and minoring in Creative Writing.

Joe Lollo, who prefers non-gendered pronouns, is a junior majoring in Culture, Literature & the Arts and Media & Communication Studies, who also serves on the Clamor editorial board. They enjoy doing all kinds of art, including, but not limited to, photography, poetry, digital art, and photoshopped memes.

Corbin Louis is a Seattle singer and poet. His work is an ode to survival. Through addiction and chronic pain, Corbin writes towards living. The artist is an MFA alumni of UWB and 2018 Jack Straw Writers Resident. His work has been featured in Best American Experimental Writing, Button Poetry and more. The author seeks to expand dialogues of disability and anti-capitalism.

Ink becomes endurance. War call and whisper. The poet lives.

Reed Lowell is a poet and editor whose work focuses on whichever wild hare it decides to chase on a given day. He received his MFA from the University of Washington Bothell, sleeps far less than he probably should, and will read most anything you send him: reedevanlowell@gmail.com Abigail Mandlin is a University of Washington 2020 graduate with an MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics. Her favorite things to write are historical fiction, fantasy as allegory, and personality-driven character studies.

DS Maolalai has been nominated eight times for Best of the Net and four times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016) and Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019).

Nina Marshall is a senior at the University of Washington, Bothell majoring in Accounting.

Outside of spreadsheets, her interest lies in all forms and mediums of art, traveling, and unnecessary amounts of naps.

Joan McBride has been previously published in Clamor, Raven Chronicles, Nightshade as well as other magazines. She lives in Kirkland.

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Muggsy is a producer, songwriter and vocalist. Through his versatile, genre bending beats, Muggsy’s compositions take you through a dream like journey.

Sarah McPorter is a senior at Bothell studying Culture, Literature, and the Arts.

Hiroshi Miki is a senior at the University of Washington, Bothell majoring in Business Administration with a focus in Marketing. Dance has been his passion and joy for almost five years. His goal as an artist is to enjoy creating something that makes him satisfied and content.

When he is overthinking and depressed, dance helps him decompress and get rid of all the external noise inside his head. Dance becomes a form of meditation.

Sanika Nalgirkar is a student in the MFA Creative Writing and Poetics program at the University of Washington, Bothell. She is a part of an online magazine club HerCampus and the editorial team of the literary and arts journal, Clamor at UW Bothell. Her work has appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic.

Tram Nguyen is a Saigon born and raised UWB junior, living in Seattle and taking life one day at a time. Through photography and poetry as forms of self-expression, she reflects on her appreciation for simple yet precious things that might be forgotten amidst a chaotic world.

Taylor Nichols is a gender studies major at the University of Washington, Bothell. She is interested in going to law school and working in social justice.

Madison Nikfard is a current graduate student at the University of Washington’s Bothell Campus. She is studying Creative Writing & Poetics as part of the M.F.A.’s 2020 cohort. Her creative focus combines illustration with prose and poetry. Nikfard’s full publication list, including her books, are available to view via: sissyspacer.myportfolio.com.

Lance Nizami had more than 280 poems in print (not online) as of 3 February 2021 in recognized poetry journals, some recent publications being in Dreich and Poetry Salzburg Review.

Philip Palios graduated from UWB with a BA in Culture, Literature and the Arts in 2018. He won the 2018-2019 US-UK Fulbright Student award at the University of Glasgow, where he 127

completed an MLitt in Environment, Culture and Communication. He has published a novel Electric Love, a chapbook single and contributed to Rubble Riot Chaos Brain.

Stephanie Pipes is a hobbyist photographer who enjoys shooting landscapes, macro, still life, and children. She is currently pursuing her Master’s in Counseling Psychology at Mount St. Mary’s University in Los Angeles, CA. She hopes to one day, blend her love of photography with her clinical knowledge to help individuals who struggle with mental health needs.

Garrett Rizan is a University of Washington alumni who creates illustrations and handprints.

His compositions highlight the way simplicity of form and heavy use of negative space can translate the personal and dramatic that exists in everyday experience.

Samira Rodol is a 19 year old freshman here at UW Bothell. She’s been doing digital art for years and acquired a graphic design job in her senior year of high school. All her life, her passion has been to pursue art, and is currently working on a major in Interdisciplinary Arts.

Kalen Schack was raised in Kirkland, Washington and studied at Cascadia College before transferring to the University of Washington, Bothell. He writes poetry and prose and is interested in creative writing and teaching English.

Michelle Schaefer is a recent CLA graduate from UW Bothell and a former Clamor editor for the 2020 edition. She enjoys writing, hiking and living in the great Northwest. She has been featured in many haiku journals and can be seen on any of the local hiking trails. She enjoys the arts as food for her soul. Her writing is an expression of the value she places on humanity.

Sue Selmer is a lifelong eastside resident, born in Kirkland and lives in the Bothell area. She earned an MLS from the University of Washington, and spent her career in public library work.

Now retired from librarianship, she enjoys writing, reading, gardening, and hiking, with a special interest in Northwest natural history.

Donna Sullivan is a student in the Master’s of Education program at UWB. From her home studio in Kenmore, Washington, she works in watercolor, acrylic, oil, and pastel, as well as mixed media and digital collage. Though typically working in a realistic style to present socio128

political commentary or inquiry, she has recently become interested in surrealism as a means of exploring psychological and emotional themes. Through ongoing study and daily practice, she strives to deepen her understanding of the human experience, expand her artistic vocabulary, and improve her skill in order to contribute a positive creative voice in the world.

Kong Solika Tang was born and raised in Cambodia. He came to America to continue his higher education at UW Bothell and is pursuing a degree in Law, Economics and Public Policy.

He is currently living in the beautiful city of Seattle and enjoys the nature that the Pacific Northwest has provided.

Carson Thomas is a performance artist and poet from Nashville, Tennessee. Her work addresses themes of political life, gender, and environmental degradation.

Audrey Tinnin recently graduated from the University of Washington Bothell with a degree in Culture, Literature, and the Arts. In her free time she enjoys reading, singing, and hiking. She is very grateful for the opportunities she was given as a student at UW Bothell, and she is looking forward to what the future holds.

Dhani Toney is an artist/photographer and a student in the Master’s of Counseling program at Lewis & Clark College, Portland. Donna Sullivan is an artist and a student in the Master’s of Education program at the University of Washington, Bothell. These “sisters-in-life” began collaborating during Dhani’s regular visits to Donna’s home art studio in Kenmore, Washington.

Following a photo shoot at the UWB campus, the pair were inspired by the endless swarm of crows, resulting in this miniature acrylic on canvas. Symbolic of intelligence and prophetic insight, these beautiful black birds have featured prominently in other collaborations and individual works by the artists.

Emmanuel Vemuri is a student at UW Bothell. Some of his hobbies include filmmaking, playing music, and animation. He aims to be completely open minded, and to never be afraid of failure.

Cliff Watson is an MFA Creative Writing and Poetics student at UW Bothell, graduating in 2021. His current work blends fiction, poetry, multimedia, AR/VR, and live performance. In 2017,

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his piece “Dialogue” about croquet in a library was performed by acrobats in a circus show. 2020 publications include hybrid fiction works in Clamor and a technological autobiography in The Crow.

Devoni Whitehead (She/Her/Hers) is a UWB ‘19 alumni that spends her free time creating art that explores topics of environmental racism, injustice, and self-love. She currently lives in Seattle where she attends the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance for her Masters of Public Administration.

Xinzhu Xu is a senior student at the University of Washington, Bothell, majoring in Interdisciplinary Art. She is interested in painting, poetry, design and politics. Currently preparing for postgraduate applications.

Manasa Yadavalli is a senior majoring in biochemistry with a minor in biology. She is a selftaught artist, using her time in quarantine to explore so many different mediums of art. Manasa is also the President of the Chemistry Club. She aspires to go on to medical school to eventually become a specialist in Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Weiling Zhang is a psychology undergraduate student at UW Bothell. She believes emotion, body, and everything about our life imitate art. She finds the aesthetics of interacting with abstract life experiencing (like emotion) with our body.

Mudasir Zubair worked on the 2016 and 2017 editions of Clamor and graduated from UW Bothell in 2018. He continues to do artwork and is creating an original story, starring brave adventurers saving the galaxy from a corrupt commander. He likes to play DND, go on walks, take pictures of the sunset, and read high fantasy books. You can view his artwork on the account @StrayBardArt.

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Digital Media

Visit our website for additional digital content: clamor-journal.com

Eric Acosta, WHTLGHTR, Audio Susanna Andrews, Don’t Do It, Video Susanna Andrews, Play god, Video Cindy Bousquet Harris, “DOG MEAT,” Poetry Bee Guzman-Elliott, BROKEN PROMISES, Video Edward Kuznetsov, “Galaxy 12, Monroe,” Poetry Tasha Jefferey, Lioness, Painting Tasha Jefferey, Guardian, Painting Tasha Jefferey, Tranquil, Painting Nina Jouval, “Again,” Poetry Abigail Mandlin, “Notes on the End of the World,” Poetry Nina Marshall, Energy In Motion, Digital Media Hiroshi Miki, Spread Positivity, Video Muggsy, Certified Organic, Audio Michelle Shaefer, “What She Said,” Poetry Donna Sullivan & Dhani Toney, A Murder in Kenmore, Painting Carson Thomas, “Keeping Plants Alive,” Poetry Emmanuel Vemuri, Subconscious Affirmations, Video Cliff Watson, Boffo - a found poem, Video Mansa Yadavalli, Gotham City, Drawing

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In Memoriam Hieu Doan, John Huynh, Kevin Jiang, Aayush Singh, and all those we have lost in the last year.

clamor clam·or | verb | \‘kla-m r\ 1. to make a loud uproar, as from a crowd of people; popular outcry.

2. to publicly expression (as of support or protest).

3. to make a vehement expression of desire or dissatisfaction.

Clamor is the University of Washington Bothell’s annual Literary and Arts Journal, representing the best creative practices in literary, visual and media arts from across our campus and surrounding community.

Our goal is to support and promote captivating, inspiring, and lively art in the forms of visual, literary and media work. We provide artists and authors with publication opportunities through our print edition, media publication platforms, and website. We foster community by reaching beyond the UW Bothell campus borders for creative works and by offering audiences quality reading, viewing and listening experiences.

Staffed by an editorial board of current UWBothell students, Clamor accepts submissions annually in Autumn & Winter.

Visit clamor.submittable.com to learn more.

We are graciously supported by the UWB Services & Activities Fees Committee.

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON BOTHELL LITERARY & ARTS JOURNAL

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