The Oklahoma Review, 20.1

Spring 2022 | Volume 20, Issue 1

The Oklahoma Review

Cameron University

The Oklahoma Review Volume 20: Issue 1, Spring 2022

Published by: Cameron University Department of Communication, English and Foreign Languages

Managing Editor GARY REDDIN

Faculty Editors

WILLIAM CARNEY & LEAH CHAFFINS

Layout and Design GARY REDDIN

Cover Art

AIDAN ROOF

Mission Statement

The Oklahoma Review is an electronic literary magazine published through the Department of English at Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma.

The goal of our publication is to provide a forum for exceptional fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction in a dynamic, appealing, and accessible environment. The magazine’s only agenda is to promote the pleasures and edification derived from high-quality literature.

The Staff

The views expressed in The Oklahoma Review do not necessarily correspond to those of Cameron University, and the university’s support of this magazine should not be seen as any endorsement of any philosophy other than faith in – and support of – free expression.

The content of this publication may not be reproduced without the written consent of The Oklahoma Review or the authors.

Call for Submissions

The Oklahoma Review is a continuous, online publication. We publish two issues each year: Spring and Fall.

The Oklahoma Review only accepts manuscripts during two open reading periods.

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•Reading dates for the Fall issue will now be from August 1 to October 15 •Reading dates for the Spring issue will be January 1 to March 15.

Work sent outside of these two periods will be returned unread.

Guidelines:

Submissions are welcome from any serious writer working in English. Email your submissions to okreview@cameron.edu. Writers may submit the following: •Prose fiction pieces of 30 pages or less.

•As many as five (5) poems of any length.

•Nonfiction prose pieces of 30 pages or less.

•As many as five (5) pieces of visual art—photography, paintings, prints, etc.

•All files should be sent as e-mail attachments in either .doc or .rtf format for text, and .jpeg for art submissions. We will neither consider nor return submissions sent in hard copy, even if return postage is included.

•When sending multiple submissions (e.g. five poems), please include all the work in a single file rather than five separate files.

•Authors should also provide a cover paragraph with a short biography in the body of their e-mail.

•Simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Please indicate in your cover letter if your work is under consideration elsewhere.

•Please direct all submissions and inquiries to oklareview@gmail.com

Table of Contents Poetry

from Primer | 7 from Flood Season | 8 Eischen’s | 9 Haunted Attraction as Metaphor for ____ | 10 Wide | 11 Power | 12 Hope | 13 The Gulf | 14 Left Turn | 15 Flyover States | 16 Apocrypha | 17

Fiction

Homeless | 19

Non-Fiction

An Excerpt from “Four Million Friends” | 23

Review

Review: “The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller | 26 Review: “Burning All The Time” by Christopher Murphy | 28

Contributors David Bublitz William Carney Seth Copeland Patricia Adair Goetz’ Taylor Gonzalez Sandesh Pokharel Gary Reddin Alexandra Rosone

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Poetry

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from Primer Outside the city, we dust eaters watch the crumbed sky, gone all red like a muddy river the ground smoking away like a dying moon.

This edge where the soil begins to turn desert favors a chad flower like a buffalobur, their yellow flay & spiked calyx bullying water from liatris aspera— lacerate blazing star, gayfeather, leaning toward the sun, just wanting to show off its shaggy purple buttons, the bowing old mountains just in sight— escape, revenge, everything denied in this real life western.

- Seth Copeland

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from Flood Season Oklahoma drowns in a muddy May moon.

The old highway comes apart between counties on a 23-span bridge, the North Fork all glut & flush, a rare thing, rare as a boy who forgives his father. Over a hundred years ago, Granddad’s brother went missing in a flood like this.

People whispered about his taskmaster daddy— shouts in the night over an icebox’s missing oranges, glares in the market, cuts from ‘farmwork’—Brother Luther, gentle boy, was last seen running into bullets of rain.

This bridge wasn’t even here then, closed off now for ten years, a lonely rusted stretch.

What does the North Fork give up?

In dusk husk, middle school prairie goths haunt its hang, tagging the trusses, raising Satan and the finger against their own fathers, against base assignments, against being exiled to a cowtown in the gutted-out plains.

The wet fissure, hairline off the Red River, spills sideways under them, gagging the sand.

Up the road, the family plot, a row of dead siblings and a gap for a lost boy. How many queer and silent in a country cemetery?

How many queer and silent in no cemetery?

By mudlight the air force brats wade to its edge in their Tripp pants, black shirts heavywet, mouths slushy blue and lipstick bruised, eyeing gar jerks in the grainy water, looking for crawdads, finding only the shells they left when they escaped.

- Seth Copeland

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Eischen’s Coca-Cola still relieves fatigue, according to the painted brick between exits.

It costs more than five cents now, and you are hungover in the backseat, riding with your parents, girlfriend beside you weary with the same. Okarche, north of the City, and the oldest bar in Oklahoma.

Fried chicken pours through it, paper boats grease-spotted, the meat on the bone wet ivory muscle bursting out the oozy crunch. “All souls but an ass soul are welcome,” says the server. You wish you still believed in souls. Your parents don’t know, but when they look at you, they know.

Sunfaded in the window, a laminated Poster: Support Our Heroes/Pray for their Safe Return One table over you see the Loneliest Cowboy™ this Great plain has rustled up, sitting alone, his blank stare sharpened by your red eyes. The Dos Equis bottle in front of him leaves him one Equis shy of what he wants, judging from the rage in his shotgun sad blues. Against the wall: charred Spanish backbar from the original interior, sick with as many ghosts as you, both of you. Forty minutes later and its back on the road, cured by the grease of slaughter, and fingers crossed on Christ.

- Seth Copeland

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Haunted Attraction as Metaphor for ________ If you fuck Satan you’ll see symbols in the grass What a thing to whisper to someone in line oh my— Nowhere here knows anyone the hot chocolate is pumpkin spiced 80s nostalgia act Jibber Jabber plays to the crowd In-between a local radio deejay talks about vampires w/ the cadence of a joke—hocks his TEX-AS STYLE HOTT PICKLES We could just take a walk down D Avenue to see this Natural terror bullets in libraries tear gas Hayride takes us to Rotgut Bog Nobody gets swamp creatures right anymore all muck & moan should be mud daubers slick blue drones all shell & fury Drive-Thru C-SPAN psy-ops occult gospel of the maintenance guy at our old theater job Agent Orange karma filing a grievance against UFOS but look all the werewolves have mange & scarecrows? Fuck man nobody grows corn here Nobody needs to buy nightmares anymore Think of Samhain then now tell me that churches have changed Dad & I used to watch horror flicks together popped corn w/ a crank and considered terrible stories masks & screams all our apish shames Machete breathing soft speaking big stick Clowns chasing you down a pasture under a few dry stars till the bloody mud & paper are spent to let the wig slip the makeup slur & you see it’s really Not bad man naw I went to The one in Roosevelt this was much better yeah man That killer in the grain fuzzy transmission generation zombie w/ hands on your head & teeth in your eyes.

- Seth Copeland 10

Wide

- David Bublitz 11

Power

- David Bublitz 12

Hope

- David Bublitz 13

The Gulf

- David Bublitz 14

Left Turn Sometimes when I’m sad I fantasize about another timeline In this one, you’re older than I am but we’re both younger than we are now Your license is new You take me for a ride You let me cry with my head against the window Watch my breath fog up the glass and I never see the end of the road and maybe that’s the point so I sit back and watch you drive

- Alexandra Rosone

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Flyover States The closest I’d been to middle America was eastern Pennsylvania where the roads are lined with nothing more than churches, farms, and graveyards As if the Middle Americans know all there really is is blind faith, Earth, and death Now, the closest I’ve been to middle America is a friend from Oklahoma who has taught me there is no difference between blind faith, Earth and death No difference between us or the galaxy and starless skies No difference between free falling and standing on the edge Abandoning and starting over And no such thing as middle America

- Alexandra Rosone

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Apocrypha I’m not keeping any of these words even though I know that they’ll linger in the white space just out of view Julien lies and tells me there is no glory in love I know, I know that’s why I’m cutting these and leaving only the gore

- Gary Reddin

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Fiction

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Homeless

by Sandesh Pokharel Hemu’s scrawny father sat on a mattressless bed on the bare front yard, the tin roof of his stone house shining behind him under the full moon. Grey hairs leaped out of his white undershirt as if waving hi to onlookers. He stared below at his legs hung from the bare wooden bed, his left hand moving a cigarette back and forth to his mouth in a plodding rhythm.

Hearing footsteps around him, he looked up, stood, and took a long last puff before squashing the butt under his flip flops.

“Ba,” his son said. Hemu grabbed his father’s legs and let his forehead touch his feet.

“Ashirbad,” the old man blessed. “Did not expec—Who is this?” he inquired about the lady in red sari standing behind Hemu as if she could hide.

“My wife ba.” He grabbed the shoulders of his wife to bring her forward like an award. “I got married.”

She caught the end of her sari and covered her head to bow down with her hands clasped together. “Ashirbad,” the old man blessed with a smile across his long leathery face.

“Offo, oe ama,” he shouted behind to the kitchen on the left of the porch with smoke escaping its window like lucky fugitives. “Come outside. Look who your son has brought home.”

“Hemu’s here?” asked a woman and her hand appeared outside the kitchen door, holding a green lantern that trapped a weak, flickering fire. The small old lady took short steps toward them to bear her huge body that stretched visibly from the edge of her dhoti to the end of her pink blouse. A yellow shawl covered her head and was tightened like a ponytail on her back. Hemu’s wife bowed down to her until a blessing allowed her to stand right.

“Get everything ready for puja. Let’s have her enter the house,” Hemu’s father announced.

Hemu’s mother hurried inside.

“Sit down,” old man said to the newly married couple, picking out a cigarette from a pack of Khukuri in his pocket. “What’s your name?” he asked and lit up his cigarette; the tiny world around them basked in the match’s temporary glow.

The couple floated their behinds midway through the air before standing with their backs slumped.

Hemu let in a heavy breath, as heavy as tradition, before letting his father know, “She’s a Chettri.”

Hemu had asked her to go up to the second floor. The room was lit by a bronze oil lamp stained in dark soot, and her shadow trembled against its wavering light. A calendar was stuck referring to the month of Poush from two years ago on its top. She sat on the middle of the floor crafted of mud and browned with gobar, her head bent toward her right shoulder and her back bowed as much as she could to hear the whispers doing their rounds in the porch below. She could smell the strength of the dust, veiling everything across the room, which seemed unused and untouched in a long while.

“Hy the hell wou…I do tha?” “...make…it…big dea…”

She blew away the dust in front of her, and they flew like gnats swatted by an irritated hand. Pasting her palms on the cold floor, she stuck her right ear to let the words travel better. “….love her.”

She beamed at the clear remark.

“What? You married a Chettri’s daughter because you love her? What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me. She is a human too.”

If only she had been born a Bahun. The whole village would have gathered outside to watch the newly married bride enter the house and filled the air with their whispers, chatters, laughter, tease.

“Are you talking back to your ba right now? Do you not have a single shred of shame in you?”

A pundit would have let a high-pitched mantra float across the front door.

“What is there to be shameful about?”

Two small, round bronze vases, full of water, crowned with green leaves of sal and orange marigolds 19

would have accepted her, their narrow tubes pointed toward the edges of the main door as she enters the house as its new bride.

“Why not go marry a Kami’s daughter too while you’re at it?” she heard the old lady’s voice; the same voice would have welcomed her with palms accompanying her shoulders to direct her toward her room.

“You keep quiet,” ordered Hemu’s father. “Here’s what’s going to happen, he’s going to get divorced, get married to a girl of our choice—you don’t even need to do that, we will allow you to marry a girl of your choice but she has to be a Bahun. Let’s compromise, huh?”

“I won’t,” murmured a voice but she deciphered them right away. That must have been the clearest set of words in Nepali language she had ever heard. She could feel joyous tears well up behind her eyes.

“What did you say?”

“I will not leave her.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes.” “Then you will choose. It’s either her or us,” roared through the floor.

“I choose her,” replied Hemu with an unexpected calmness.

“Why are you doing this son?” His mother sobbed. “You choose her instead of us? The parents who gave you birth? I had you inside me for nine months, so you can choose a stranger over your own family?”

She lifted her pounding temple from the floor, held her hand against the middle of her brows and shook her head, repeating to herself “Why? Why? Just why?” It sounded like a mantra, as if its repetition would invoke the appearance of one of many Gods who must know the answer. Why didn’t she have the power to open the door and walk down to the first floor, bring herself down to the parents’ feet and say, “I never meant to do that. I speak these words from the bottom of my heart.”

But she couldn’t, just like she couldn’t speak to anyone who visited her home when she was small. Her brother was the talker. Everyone would ask, “Why doesn’t she speak?” as she went to her porch with a steel plate, carrying steel glasses of tea for her father and brother and the questioner or sometimes questioners. Why didn’t she? Maybe it’s because the questioners always announced her future. “He’ll study and be a great man. She’ll marry and be a great wife.”

She talked even less after her father passed away. Gone in a bus accident while returning from Kathmandu even though he’d said he would come back after her brother gets in “one of the best schools of Nepal.” He’d even promised to bring her a watch for her naked wrist since she had no one to draw it for her after her brother left.

Her brother used to grab her wrist in his palm and sketch a watch for her in black or blue ink with its hands always resolute in time. She felt alienated from her other sisters who were all married before she grew up, before she could even call anyone of them a sister and know the meaning of that word. They’d visited once in a while, but they felt as unfamiliar to her as this room she inhabited at the moment.

How she wished she could go back in time. A time stuck in her younger days with the sketched clock always on hold so she could prepare herself for her father’s demise and perhaps this moment too. She would make herself stronger. She would tell herself “Ba will die” for a part of the lingering frozen eternity. She would talk a lot, so she could voice her words at this moment too or better, she would just tell herself to never set foot in Kathmandu. She would tell herself to let ama go live with her brother, so she could live alone in the village.

She would tell herself that even if she does go to Kathmandu, do not speak to the man downstairs. She would tell herself that even if she does speak with him, don’t accept his flattering comments.

Time didn’t work that way though. One moment she laughed at the ticklish pen writing down numbers for a clock on her hand, another moment she was suddenly married into a house that did not want her.

The doors burst open and her husband barged in. “We’re getting out of here,” he said grabbing his black bag from the floor. She looked at him. “Let’s go,” he repeated with his hand sweeping toward the door.

“Why? What happened?”

“Stupidity, that’s why. Let’s just go okay?”

“Calm down,” she said and walked toward her husband.

She let her hand comb his hair and end up under his chin, cupping it in her kind fingers. His stubbled 20

beard prickled her palm. She lifted his head, hung toward the ground, and looked at his round face before she grabbed his hands to say, “Just sit for a moment please.” He set down the bag.

“Tell me what happened,” she said as she sat him and herself on the bed ignoring the amount of dust on it.

“I am kicked out of this house forever. Apparently, I am not their son anymore.”

“But what did he say?”

“Well he told me to get out of the house if I wasn’t going to divorce you. “No son of mine shall marry a lousy Chettri.” It’s like talking to a brick, just how he is. We’ll just give him what he wants, get out of here.”

To that, she could not think of any word to reply with and express her reaction or calm her husband down. In the darkest corner of her heart, she had already accepted the connotation of his words. She had examined them like an object strange to her, rotated it in her hands, and said to herself, This is my fate.

“Let’s get out, okay? You’ve heard the story. I don’t want to stay in this house for long.”

“What about your ama?”

“She begged him not to kick me out. To give me time to come to my senses. She cried and cried but nothing worked. He told her she could get out with her beloved son. I just couldn’t handle any of it.”

“Let’s just stay here for the night and go tomorrow. Maybe your ba will calm down by then and things might turn out for the better,” she replied even though she didn’t believe herself.

“My God, you think so? You really think a man who spent his entire life as a teacher still needs time to learn things?” He hit his forehead with his fist in quick succession before turning toward her again, “Don’t hope Pramila, please don’t. It’s the worse. You hope today for my family to accept you as my wife, and tomorrow that man will drag you out with his hands wrapped around every strand of your hair.”

They walked out, their bags behind their backs, looking like kids returning from school together after learning something important, which might as well be that the world is cruel. They could hear sobs quietly climb out the window of the bedroom behind the porch, as if calling to them, “I’ll come with you too.”

They hoped the road was empty, so no one would recognize Hemu in the night. The gravels on the road crackled against each other with their every step. He saw the rectangular shape of his old two-story school ahead of him with its doorless classes, its white paint glimmering against the moonlight. He could make out the name written in black against the white background, “Pragatishil Bidhyalaya” They crossed the huge peepal tree that marked the end of the village up on the hill. A tap hung just ahead of the tree. It leaped out from a stone wall carved on the slope above a concrete pavement, built to confine water without the fortune to end up in a thirsty mouth or an empty vessel. Hemu craved for the water.

“I am thirsty,” he said and dropped his bag on the side of the pavement. He opened the tap and its water splashed against the stone in thunderous speed. It wet the ends of his grey linen pants, so he rotated the tap slightly back for a manageable flow. He cupped his hands in front of it and slurped as the water filled every inch of his tongue and flowed down his neck.

The sweetest water ever, he thought to himself as he could taste the whole hill, its green sal trees, its red mud, its indestructible rocks with every gulp. He distanced his mouth away from the tap and fluttered his hands twice to rid its skin of the clingy liquid before wiping them on his pants. Pramila took turn after him.

He looked at the hill sloping below, silver in the night stretching before him toward the unknown. Will I be back?

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Non-Fiction

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An Excerpt from “Four Million Friends”

by Patricia Adair Goetz’

On this warm afternoon in July of 1987, my sisters, my mother and I are celebrating our birthdays since they are within 30 days of each other. Sitting, drinking lemonade, and laughing together, we discuss the new highlights in our lives.

Suddenly, someone rang the doorbell, so I got up to see if friends or family had come to celebrate. It’s Sam, our postman, may take out. He says, “It looks important, as it is from Washington D.C.” I grab my trusty letter opener and begin to slice the thick, cream colored envelope open. I tell my eager family behind me, “It’s the Peace Corps application I requested.” Weesie says, “You did what?” Another said, “Don’t you have enough to do?” Teddy said, “I am not surprised.” My mother, silent until now, says, “Look out Peace Corps, here she comes.” ______________________________________________________________________________________________ An application is not easy to complete, taking time and thought to make it accurate. Preparing for the application requires me to clear personal situations, like banking and health, and getting people to sign references. A business situation I had to cross off my lengthy list was my photography; I took fireman’s portraits in the Tulsa area. R.A. Williams, the last firefighter I spoke to, said, “I’ll take a photo of you for a change.” I stood in front of a large, yellow fire truck and SNAP—I was the subject. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ The nearest Peace Corps Recruiter Office is in Dallas, so I called to find where I was in the application process and scored an interview. They asked me questions regarding my experience, my motivation for the position, and what I could bring to the Peace Corps. I think it went well. Now, there’s the waiting period. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Patience is not easy, but my family encourages me to think about what they would offer. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ After almost a year of curiosity has passed, the Peace Corps sends me a letter and offers a position for me to teach in Sierra Leone, West Africa. I have to check on the map to find where it is. The official language is English, but other tribal languages are spoken. The population is four million. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ It’s August of 1988, and I accept the offer with much pride, happy about the place where I’d be serving.

There is much to do as I think about being in a different part of the world for two years. I bought a large, red metal trunk and filled it with necessities, of course, and my beloved backpack. Then, there’s the physical check-ups, which are easy, and the vaccinations are seemingly endless, but required.

This American lady is ready to travel! ______________________________________________________________________________________________ My family held a gathering with mounds of food, giving me the last taste of what I would know for a few years. My neighbors, friends, and people I had been working with wished me well and said it must be an exciting experience.

I spend my remaining time in the United States in prayer, accompanied by feelings of duty, yet calm. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ With smiles, laughter, and tears in our eyes, they held me in warm embraces. Goodbyes are not easy. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Only a month after accepting the offer, in September 1988 I attended my first gathering of Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) in New Orleans, Louisiana. There is a great muster of us here, all anxiously ready to learn what will be expected in the next two years of our lives. The program, a pure banality we want to get on with, causes us to roll our eyes and smile.

Our directors indicate some of us will teach common courses like English or Math, and also some courses on the necessities in life, like how to dig for fresh water and how to fish. We could teach fine arts like drama, dancing, art, penmanship, and other things people want to learn.

This is a time for everyday Americans, like ourselves, to do extraordinary things. By helping others, our hearts will be forever imprinted.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Our last morning in New Orleans is memorable. The hotel gave my roommate and me breakfast at no cost.

Appreciatively, we savored our meals, not knowing when the next time would be that orange juice and sausage would land in our laps. __________________________________________________________________________________________ My journey as a Peace Corps Volunteer starts 18,000 miles from Tulsa, Oklahoma, my home. Hours pass with expectant eyes looking below from the windows of the plane. Connecting flights take us through New York and England. When I awake from a nap, wiping my eyes free of sleep, I see the maybe a diff word capital of Sierra Leone: Freetown. It’s September 18, 1988, and as I stepped off the plane, and my feet touched the earth, I knew that I was home. __________________________________________________________________________________________ The fun begins as the Volunteers welcome us with open arms and well wishes. __________________________________________________________________________________________ We new Volunteers get on a bus to go to our training site in Makali. A mere seven miles into the trip, the road was washed out. Attempting to find another way around, the bus’ wheels become submerged in mud. After waiting for what seemed like eternity, another bus comes to the rescue.

Not too much farther than we had gotten on the first bus, the new transportation halts. Our group leader says, “For a rest stop, the ladies can go on one side of the bus and the gents on the other.” What a new interpretation of rest I learned.

It had already struck midnight by the time we got to the Makali Training Center, and the cooks had gone. They didn’t think we were coming, so 45 Americans split bananas and broke bread. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Lisa Bloom and I became roommates, sharing with two cats our room of the whiskered, squeaky rodents. Most of us had a short night’s rest.

In the early morning, the sun barely kissing the sky with its golden tint, we met our trainers at the center. We begin to learn of the culture and languages, and they tell us how to teach. The laughter in that room was like milk and honey to my ears, foretelling what my future held. __________________________________________________________________________________________ We have two guards at our entrance who like to visit and have their photos taken; Musa is about 45 years old, and David, the other guard, is about five years old. __________________________________________________________________________________________ The children of the village are as curious as cats, following us and asking for our names. Oh, how I grew to love them. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Three African women from the training center cook for us, and the new flavors burst in my mouth like fireworks.

The men of the center do laundry for us and hang our clothes on ropes, where women then use irons with hot coals inside to get them flat as a board. __________________________________________________________________________________________ The Makali school children had an entertainment night for us, and danced and sang marvelously, leaving us in shock of their talent. We are having an American night for them, where I will play the flute, and the other Volunteers will sing for our new friends. __________________________________________________________________________________________ The five weeks we spend in Makali are enlightening, but challenging. __________________________________________________________________________________________ I went to visit with the Chief of the village and his family. He had four handsome little boys and two beautiful little girls. I stayed for a short while and played ball with them. We made memories that I’ll cherish forever.

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Review

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Review: “The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller

by Taylor Gonzalez

Using a variety of critical techniques drawn from feminist and queer theory and cultural studies, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller accounts for the ways in which women obtain masculine power through gender-performative actions in their varied relationships with male characters. Feminine characters’ efforts to maintain power highlight the fact that women are unable to access power except through gender-performative actions, whether by exaggerating their femininity or by emasculating themselves through their actions or ideals.

The Song of Achilles, published in 2011, is set in Greece during the Heroic Age and is narrated by the male character, Patroclus. The novel centers around Patroclus and his relationship to the prophetic warrior Achilles but the fringe female characters play an important role in power dynamics that further and complexify the plot. The Greek Heroic Age is a time when women owned only their inner thoughts and had limited or no access to agency or bodily autonomy. These standards of life denied women a voice or legal rights. Even in marriage, where she played the dual roles of wife and mother, a woman was subject to the whims of her husband regarding her body. During this period, women were treated as possessions of their fathers or husbands, but the characters Thetis and Briseis problematize expectations of women’s submissiveness. Thetis obtains more respect because of her link to divinity as a sea-nymph, incarnating and channeling the powers of the sea, which lies beyond male—or human—power or understanding. Greek men respect her for her divine powers, which exceed their mortal ones, because she is more than a lowly human woman. At the same time, Thetis’s main role in the plot is a mother which exemplifies her inability to obtain any lasting hold on power because she uses her son, Achilles, as a point of access. After Achilles’ death, she loses her desire to obtain and wield power in a patriarchal and mortal society. Even so, Thetis empowers herself by holding the position of creator to the protagonist.

Even though the novel is told from the viewpoint of the male narrator, Patroclus, and it centers around his life with and love for Achilles, the female characters hold a higher and more subtle source of power. Thetis, as the mother of Achilles, becomes the source of life for the entire plot of the story, and this adds a layer of power due to her divine nature and her simultaneous ability to be the mother of a mortal hero. Even though the plot centers around Achilles, Thetis remains an important element of his life and of his decision-making process. Her ability to orchestrate her son’s actions, which turns her son into a tool for her own purposes, is however a reflection of her specifically divine character. The reason her access to power is finite, although she is a goddess, is because her motherhood of Achilles stems from the unwanted actions of men. Peleus, Achilles’ father, forced Thetis into the role of a mother. With her agency stolen from her, the best she can hope for is to create power through a situation over which she had no control. In this sense, her role in Achilles’ life is an effort to recover her agency rather than an attempt at motherhood. After being physically violated, she continues the cycle of violation by weaponizing the limited power that being a woman, even a divine woman, affords her.

In the end, Thetis cannot maintain power in the role of a mother; her only option is to wait for Achilles’ eventual death and reclaim the control of her life as a divine being, which she forfeited by becoming a mother to a mortal man.

Briseis, the minor female character who mirrors Thetis, loses her position of value within the male community when Patroclus dies, leaving her unprotected, and she chooses to immerse herself with Thetis, a sea nymph, in the primal embrace of Thalassa, the feminine aspect of the sea, rather than to remain in the perilous mortal community where she is valued only in terms of her transactional value among men. As such, Briseis provides a human mirror to Thetis’s divinity as a Trojan woman held captive in the Greek camps. Not regarded even as a human, Briseis is labelled as a prized possession, an object to be awarded to the most valiant, notable soldier. Briseis’ sole purpose in the novel is to act as a plot catalyst as the men fight over her like a valued possession. The contrast between these two female characters shows how the power that Thetis holds but that Briseis lacks arises from Thetis’s ability continuously to shift roles and forms, thereby escaping the net of gendered expectations—and limitations—that confine mortal women. Thetis has the ability to assume multiple forms of femininity through the novel depending on her relationship to the person with whom she is interacting. As mother, goddess, wife, daughter, and divine spirit, she has access to many personae, whereas Briseis is confined 26

to a single, externally assigned persona.

Even with the ability to access a variety of roles to perform, women are unable to gain any advantage, in power or otherwise, while operating within or on the basis of a male-oriented set of standards. Patriarchal points of access provide no opportunity to acquire or exert feminine power. Women will remain inferior in a system made by and for men as long as they are fully immersed in the constructs of a gender binary. Yet, the advantage that Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles possesses is how the reader is forced to view, experience, and sympathize with each character from the perspective of a female authorial gaze that propounds a different set of ideal attributes and expectations for female characters from those typically imposed by an objectifying male perspective. Under the female gaze, the feminine characters become more accessible to the audience, allowing readers to understand the characters’ actual motives and desires: to obtain power by having their voices heard and by achieving agency.

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Review: “Burning All The Time” by Christopher Murphy

by William Carney

Flash fiction is often a dicey proposition. At its best, it provides information about characters and a well-defined story in the way that other short fiction does. In unskilled hands, however, it can be “too clever by half,” over-reliant on authorial moves and inside jokes, failing to provide the whole story. Christopher Murphy’s Burning All the Time (Mongrel Empire Press, 2021), however, shows the reader how it’s done. A collection of short short stories set in northeastern Oklahoma, Murphy uses the collection to give the reader a real sense of the place itself while each individual story can be appreciated as a story in and of itself.

The collection begins with “An Annual Report,” a season-by-season highlight reel of life in Tahlequah. August passes into football season. The holidays come and go, with the lights of Tulsa providing a welcome getaway. Spring becomes a hideously hot summer. All the while, Becky Jane Fletcher accosts the customers at Reasor’s market with her medical complaints and overarching anxieties and Makayla Goingsnake looks askance at all the events.

“A Summer Story” deals with a love gone wrong and the resignation that comes from just letting the relationship slide. Other stories such as “Sister” take a darker turn with a love turned violent. “The Game of Marvels” contrasts everyday life with the inventions that truly make a difference to a group of friends, the things that would strike a sense of awe in ancient people. The participants in these stories make trips to convenience stores, to NSU, and to Tulsa, to the Iron Spoke Holiness Church, and other places fueled by Adderall, booze, and fast food in an attempt to make sense of their lives, only to find the truths much closer to home and in everyday events more satisfying than they’d previously imagined. Murphy’s Tahlequah is a tough place but it is also a site of great compassion and unexpected wisdom. “Low Bottom Sky” shows the lure of one’s place and the things it provides.

This is realist flash fiction with just a touch of the whimsical and fantastic. Murphy, a professor of creative writing at Northeastern State University has given his readers a realistic but loving portrait of his adopted corner of the world. The stories, although not connected in plot, nevertheless illuminate the facets of life in Northeast Oklahoma. The collection is emotionally resonant and just plain fun to read, even when the mood grows dark. There are enough surprises to keep the most critical reader turning the pages.

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Contributors

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David R. Bublitz is the son of a veteran. He completed an MFA at the Oklahoma City University Red Earth program, where he was a founding editor of Oklahoma City University’s graduate literary magazine, the Red Earth Review. He is a 2015 Pangaea Prize finalist and a Naugatuck River Review narrative poetry contest finalist. His first full collection of poems, Combat Pay, was published

by Main Street Rag Publishing Company in March 2020. He has also published poetry in CONSEQUENCE Magazine; O-Dark-Thirty; f(r)iction; Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks; and Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors.

William Carney is a Professor at Cameron University and an editor of The Oklahoma Review.

Seth Copeland teaches, studies, and writes in Milwaukee. His work has appeared in Dream Pop, Juke Joint, Heavy Feather Review, Kestrel, and Yes Poetry, among many others. He edits petrichor.

After thirty years of reminiscing, Patricia Goetz has decided to share her story of her time in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, West Africa in 1989. Pat comes from a supportive, loving family, being the youngest of four girls. She has six children of her own and enough grandchildren to count on three hands. Pat cherishes her Creek, Cherokee, and Irish heritage greatly and, in fact, was a health representative for five tribes in Oklahoma before joining the Peace Corps. She also focused heavily on photography in her fifties, specifically firefighters in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area, where she completed 27 fire station portraits. During her time in Sierra Leone, she wrote 256 letters back home to her family within a three-year period. Now, at the age of 93, she is using these letters to share her story of her love of Four Million Friends, her forthcoming memoir.

Taylor Gonzalez is a graduate of Cameron University and holds a Master’s Degree in Literature from the University of Central Oklahoma. A member of the writing group updating the Outdoor Guide to the Wichita Mountains, her interests include womens’ writing and mythos.

Sandesh Pokharel is a writer from Nepal. He has a Master’s in Professional Writing from Southeast Missouri State University. Because of his uneventful life, he pries into other people’s business and blatantly writes about them as fictional work.

Gary Reddin is a writer, poet, and recovering journalist form Southwest Oklahoma. He is a freelance writer and managing editor for The Oklahoma Review. His work has appeared in The Windmill, The Razor, Dragon Poet Review, Marathon Lit Review, Stoneboat, Essay Daily, The Dillydoun Review and elsewhere. His chapbook An Abridged History of American Violence was published in 2019 through Rose Rock Press.

Alexandra Rosone grew up in New Jersey, but her heart has taken her across the world. She is a current MFA candidate at Lindenwood University studying abroad in London where she writes, cooks, and enjoys life.

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Cameron University 2022