Hawaiʻi Review Student of the Month, March 2016 by Hawaiʻi Review

MARCH 2016

STUDENT OF THE MONTH

CARRIE CALLAHAN

HAWAIʻI REVIEW

Student of the Month

Carrie Callahan

Carrie Callahan is from the mainland, and when she says that, she means she’s from at least half of the country.

She’s lived in 7 different states, now including Hawaiʻi, and not just because she’s a military spouse. She supposes that she just likes to travel.

Carrie is currently a first year MA student in English with a creative writing focus, and wouldn’t focus on anything else; it’s her favorite thing.

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT MĀNOA

MARCH 2016

CARRIE CALLAHAN

Citizenship A. Citizens— Enactors, Play actors— Performing On the world’s stage of Law, Writing rights up To tighten up the national identity. Tell her to do the laundry Because the men are in The courtroom being boys Poised for citizenship. That ship is marked destiny. Leave them to it. Capsize the oversized egos Left unchecked by centuries Of canon.

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT MĀNOA

MARCH 2016

CARRIE CALLAHAN

B. Whither goes the Wendy? To William or Wuthering or some other where where she can breathe. Whither goes the Wendy? Under writhing willows passed billowing trees. Whither goes the Wendy? Washing wishes from the well, masking prince’s pleas. Whither goes the Wendy? Finding lost boys wandering free. Whither goes the Wendy? Cannot write tap tack clack attack desperate keys. Because boys will be boys, wither goes the Wendy – suds up to knees.

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT MĀNOA

MARCH 2016

CARRIE CALLAHAN

C. Find the poetess. Find the plot. I know of no reason Wendy Darling Should be forgot. She flew too. Knock sparks off of her Patent leather Mary-janes. Write her over. Give her something better. Take some of her worries away with your pen. Let her fly. Teach her a writer’s responsibility. Make her more.

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT MĀNOA

MARCH 2016

CARRIE CALLAHAN

D. Work-life balance In the life of a writer: Grade Grade Lecture Grade Write. Work-life balance In the life of a writeress: Wash Grade Scrub Cleanse Grade Lecture Babysit Degrease Grade Soak Scrub Again Lean toward the blinking cursor and try not to let it hypnotize you to sleep. You are too busy having it all To let yourself dream. UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT MĀNOA

MARCH 2016

CARRIE CALLAHAN

E. Balance pedagogy. Creativity. Housework. Sex appeal. Smile! You’re a writer. Now pay your taxes. Literary activist, Artist, Craftswoman in the workshop Discovering how to teach: By example. Unpacking process, Giving access to the disenfranchised masses. Teaching them how to write. Let them speak for themselves. Citizenship: It’s a class thing. Not an ass, cash, or grass thing.

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT MĀNOA

MARCH 2016

CARRIE CALLAHAN

Context I wrote the poem, Citizenship, for my 625 level colloquium presentation. I wrote it in part as a response to the identity politics that most affect me as a woman writer—an idea I picked up from Claudia Rankine’s Citizen. I’m not normally a poet, but I find poetry helpful to synthesize and express my emotions in a way that reflects the complexity of human thought. Puns, alliteration, internal rhyme, and references to other works are all important in that process of self-expression. Neurons are constantly crafting new connections in our brains—shortcuts between thoughts most easily expressed (at least for me) in poetry.

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT MĀNOA

MARCH 2016

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Abbey Seth Mayer

MANAGING EDITOR Chase Wiggins

DESIGN EDITOR Avree Ito-Fujita

POETRY EDITOR Julia Wieting

FICTION EDITOR Kapena Landgraf

CREATIVE NONFICTION EDITOR Rain Wright

GRAPHIC NOVEL EDITOR Scott Ka ʻalele GRAPHIC NOVEL DESIGN EDITOR Crystel Sundberg-Yannell

A NOTE ON THE SERIES

Our Student of the Month series features on our website stellar student writing and visual art from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mā noa, the institution where our roots dig deep. In print for more than 40 years, our journal has been an established voice in the Pacific and beyond for decades, featuring work from emerging writers alongside literary heavy-weights. The Student of the Month is our latest effort to expand Hawaiʻi Review’s reach by fostering the creative efforts of UH students.

This could be You … If you are a student and would like to feature your work in Student of the Month or an instructor for a creative writing course and would like to submit exemplary University of Hawaiʻi student work to Hawaiʻi Review ’ s Student of the Month initiative, please send submissions to our Submittable account at bit.ly/submit2HR

Featured Calls

We invite you to submit “a review,” however creatively you might define that, of a forthcoming or recently published work or a recent literary event. We are interested in casting our net into literary scenes beyond Hawaiʻi , but we give special preference to reviews of literary works or events from Hawaiʻi. DEADLINE: ONGOING