Email: sadgoosecoop@gmail.com Website: sadgoosecoop.weebly.com Cover design by Theo Brouse
Fonts: Bungee, Franklin Gothic Book, Timonium Magazine design by Clair Willden
Copyright © 2022 Sad Goose Cooperative
All rights revert to contributors upon publication
Everyone who makes weird art Bones the Sad Goose Migratory Contributors & Luke, who had the idea to make an insane personality quiz in the first place
Phantasmagoria by Maddie Holm...................................................................... 9
4th Floor by Fee Thomas.................................................................................... 12 Nature Photography by Fee Thomas.................................................................. 12 Haiku and Senryu by Jerome Berglund............................................................. 14
The Sweetest Undertaker by Abby Moeller........................................................ 15 Dating App Review by Ian Lax............................................................................ 20 But At What Cost by LM Cole.............................................................................. 21 Chickens by LM Cole........................................................................................... 22 Baali’s Flight by Ashwini Gangal........................................................................ 23 Pentecostal Gurls by Bud Sturguess................................................................. 25 “Navigation” & “Supplication” by Will Davis...................................................... 26 Pome Cube 2 by Moira Walsh.......................................................................... 27 Hiroshima Tree by Kushal Poddar...................................................................... 29 James by Mona Mehas....................................................................................... 30 Pedestrian by Mona Mehas................................................................................ 31 “Turn the Rage - Padova” “Question Everything - Manchester” by Serena Piccoli .............................................................................................................................. 32
“The Capital Fucks You - Marx in Paris” by Serena Piccoli............................... 33 “Blow this Shit Away - Manchester” by Serena Piccoli...................................... 33 Dancing the Hora by Nolcha Fox...................................................................... 34 As You Were by John Finnegan........................................................................... 35 Grieving in a Strange Body by Dorothy Lune..................................................... 37 Underneath the Soil by Lucy Jayes..................................................................... 38
Cassandra Commode by Alexandre Harrison.................................................... 41
Clown by Sadie Maskery..................................................................................... 42 Ghoul by Sadie Maskery..................................................................................... 43 A Change of Heart by Beatriz Seelaender (illutrated by Bianca Rivetti).................................................................................................................. 44
The Starving Poet Craves a Balanced Meal While Paying Reading Fees by Tinamarie Cox....................................................................................................... 52
Clair Willden, Editor-in-Chief
Starting anything new is terrifying. Luke Hauge and I began Sad Goose Cooperative as a personal project from the library of North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND during the fall of 2020. He came to me with the idea for a personality quiz satire that we instantly put 18 hours into creating before realizing: we had no place to put it. So the Cooperative is a website we created purely to have some place to put our goofball writing.
That website has been up and running for two years now. It houses pieces by every friend I could bully into writing something. But there are so many talented writers who are making things that don’t fit neatly into the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and who need a home for their work. In June of 2022, Luke and I decided to open up SGC as a lit mag. We’d do a modest print run, provide free contributor copies, and publish as much exciting work as people would submit to us on a quarterly (or quarterly-ish) basis starting in November. The mission is simple: to publish things that excite us. The work we wanted (and still want!) is work that pushes boundaries, that maybe doesn’t take itself too seriously, but that is well-crafted nonetheless.
I cannot express how lucky we are to have received the caliber of work that fills this first issue. From the opening piece by Maddie Holm to the closing poem by Tinamarie Cox, this issue features work beyond my wildest hopes. In these pages, you’ll find a one-page RPG meant to be cut out, folded, and read as a brochure (John Finnegan’s As You Were), fiction meant to mimic the wilderness of Goodreads review comments (Beatriz Seelaender’s A Change of Heart accompanied by Bianca Rivetti’s illustration), a cube of poetry (Moira Walsh’s unbelievable Pome Cube 2), art of all types--illustration, photography, collage--, poetry that makes your heart race, fiction that transports you, nonfiction that makes you feel a little misty-eyed.
It has been a privilege to edit this first edition, and it is my great hope to edit many more. Please enjoy the first issue of Sad Goose Cooperative!
-Clair
When I wake up, my eyes have to adjust to the harsh contrast between darkness and fluorescent neon light.
The carpet underneath me is rough and worn, but not gritty like I would have expected. It brings a familiar sense of warmth into my fingertips, my palms brushing over the tangled wefts of polyester. I stand and watch glow in the dark stars pass beneath my feet with each step, blacklights charging each one as if to send them back into outer space where they belong. Arcade machines light my way, buzzing in my ears and emitting an amiable aura that reminds me of the games we would play in between ballet classes, seated in the double-sided mirror dimensions that linked studio rooms, pink tights stretched over skin and hair pulled up too tight. I have never been here before, but it feels all too familiar.
I let my footsteps choose the direction while I move forward, depending on this reminiscent feeling to help me reach whatever destination may be waiting for me. The arcade machines flash simultaneously: “Continue? 3… 2… 1…” My eyes drift to skee ball machines bathed in pink and green lights, rings at the far end of the runway blinking and enticing passersby; I’m reminded of school trips and birthday parties, celebratory dinners, and the reverberations of adolescence begging mom and dad to pull over just this once even though you only have 1 hour left to check into the hotel.
Interrupting my musings is a hallway that leads the way out of the room engulfed in lightning bug nostalgia, fading just as quickly as it lit up. I walk in the direction of the long hallway that is enveloped in a dull yellow light from plain light fixtures that hang above. I pass blue lit cases of tickets and dollar store prizes that once symbolized gold in the bartering of youth. The smell of bubblegum Dum-Dums and strawberry Pop Rocks wafts over me when I place my hands on either side of the door frame standing still under a red exit sign. Looking over my shoulder, I can sense tiny footsteps moving in a hurry, trying to make it back to the table for yellow sheet cake and Polly Pockets hidden under holographic wrapping paper. Turning back, I ruminate on that feeling, knowing I have worries now that are much older and more mature, but not quite remembering what they are.
Gradually, I move into the yellow-lit hallway, stepping slowly and counting the white tiles that elapse below me. My footsteps echo and I don’t see anyone around, but the isolation is comforting—like walking through a movie theater during a late showing knowing your friends are waiting for you but taking a few extra minutes to enjoy the solitude, observing the movie posters, and basking in the white light that drifts in from behind them. Just past the end of the hallway is a large atrium,
illuminated only by the signs that glow in the windows of kiosks and above large counters equipped with trays and fountain soda machines. White tables with teal booths and stools are scattered around the room, waiting patiently to seat transient gossip and frozen yogurt jocularity in between sale item shopping sprees and flip phone calls to long distance best friends.
The tile floors are polished and free of debris, aside from a lone pair of sparkly earrings with the security tags still attached, stolen during a teenaged dare, and discarded in
a one-stop exhibition of anxious guilt.
Just beyond the tables are the doors that lead outside. I meander past them, squinting at the city that awaits. I walk beside claw machines that are filled with plush toys and silly gadgets only good for one use, running my fingertips over the glass that stands between me and them, imagining what their stuffing filled hands would feel like inside mine. I recall clutching terrycloth arms packed full of cotton when I was supposed to be asleep, telling secrets and letting textiles catch tears. Reluctantly, I slide back towards the doors and push my way through, leaving behind Top 40 Hits, curly fries, and matching necklaces made of plastic and rhinestones.
glancing at my reflection in business windows as I pass.
The sky above is a deep purple, reflecting the streetlights below and lost in a sea of metropolis vapor. I have walked up and down many sidewalks just like this one—holding my sister’s hand in a crowded marketplace, riding my bike to the gas station for ice cream sandwiches, drunkenly stumbling amidst local bars on Halloween night, running to work in heeled shoes giving myself blisters while checking my watch over and over again to make it there on time.
I am going uphill but not growing tired, observing garish ads for products that people don’t need and clothes that people can’t afford.
Yes, I have walked down innumerable paths just like the one I am on now. I speculate where this one will take me as I stroll through the empty city. I am going uphill but not growing tired, observing garish ads for products that people don’t need and clothes that people can’t afford.
When I arrive at a fork in my path, I have reached the top of the hill. The bright urban sprawl sits before me, still and unaware, undisturbed by mortality and agitation. Unsure of where to go next, I wander into the middle of what would usually be a busy street, sinking into it and reveling in the consolatory despondency that surrounds me.
Outside sits a city, lit up with a welcoming incandescence, but inhabited by no one. Astonished, I look fixedly on the buildings that normally speak so much reduced to silence. Taking my time, I stride over sidewalk cracks and street grates, vacantly
Gazing at the city lights while sitting crosslegged on the asphalt, I wonder what it is I came here to do. When I contemplate how I should get back home, I remember suddenly just what is waiting for me there: commotion, noise, alacrity, loneliness, people. I ponder on whether I should go back at all.
But where there is commotion, there are stories to tell friends and family. Where there is noise, there is often laughter. The right amount of speed diminishes monotony and loneliness is fleeting, finding its way back into confinement if the conditions are set correctly. Where there are people, there is connection and where there is connection, there are experiences, memories, and self-expression. Perhaps the bad things weren’t bad enough to outweigh the good things after all.
I think I’ll head back soon, but for now, I lay on my back underneath stoplights, staring through a dreamlike haze as they flash red… yellow… green. The lids of my eyes feel heavy, fighting sleep as I ask traffic signs if things will be alright. Wrapped in the luminescence of an empty city, the redolence of rain on an evening in the summer, and the calefacient sensation of sparklers in the palms of my hands, I drift towards home.
Continue? 3… 2… 1…
From the seventh floor window where I was waiting, I could see it so clearly. A patch of grass that seemed more weed than grass. Encircled by concrete. Some agricultural anomaly, I supposed. It just didn’t belong there. Drifting softly and slowly then came the snow. Beautiful and light coming off the higher buildings that surrounded the one I was in. Wind gusts coming in to own the day… The grass or weed that shouldn’t have been; bowing and waving to the drifts of snow.
As if to say, come! This way to the ground! You can land safely right here! I was standing at the window on the seventh floor because of all of the people in the waiting room. I love people but feel lack of settled place among groups of people. Wait for it… Nature reminds that what looks like a error placed thing will always find its purpose. This is where you can land. It’s safe here. And so the snow did. Maybe, me too.
1 sugar and spice regional nice urinal cakes
2 things seem more cozy when mistake thermometer for Fahrenheit 3 seeds of ash tree long been primary food source in Minnesota 4 tell them apart by songs are singing meadowlarks western, eastern
5 raw green diet asterisk will eat alligators ...because f*** ‘em
Grandma has a cemetery in her backyard.
Not actually in her backyard, but in the property just beyond hers, face to face with the carefully planted garden that borders her yard with the birdbath she set up for Grandpa to visit after he died. When I was little, I would have to stand on the tops of my tip toes to see the cracked and crooked grave markers over the daisies and tulips. Older, I could stand flat footed and see the landscape, and in no time my art class scribbles turned into silly, macabre recreations of the view from Grandma’s backyard. They were a nightmare to my teachers and classmates, but to me they were a constant facet of my imagination, my childhood rooted in the stories surrounding this cemetery.
Now, I don’t have to stay on the garden side of the border. I can be, and often am, in the cemetery.
Because of the adjacent cemetery, Mom hates taking me for my weekend visits. She didn’t even like growing up in this house because of it, endlessly complaining that it gave her the heebiejeebies and goosebumps as Grandma often reminds her. Mom would rather sit in her car than set foot in her old house or breathe the same air of the cemetery. She doesn’t wait a second for me to grab my old, ripped backpack and jump from the backseat before reversing out of the driveway with cries of “I love you!” and “Say hi to your grandmother for me!” thrown out the rolled down window. Sometimes Grandma will see this, sitting on her front step, a thermos of tea cupped in her hands and shaking her head with a small knowing smile watching Mom drive away, bracketed on either side by the pots of flowers she has decorating her porch to welcome her guests with open arms. She doesn’t resent her only daughter for being spooked by the strange cemetery. It’s not easy work.
Other times her front door is closed tight, a small “In-Session” placard hanging from the doorknob. I see it now, still swaying from the door being shut. The client must have arrived just as Mom was pulling up the street. A somber meeting not meant for interruption, as was one of the rules I quickly learned upon becoming Grandma’s afterschool company. Instead of traipsing through the front door, I make my way around the small house, skipping on the steppingstones Grandpa had placed for his wife decades prior.
Old and cracked, they have become overgrown with grass and weeds. We never mentioned replacing them, it was taboo. It was as if the lingering life of Grandpa’s spirit lay in those tiles, and with each step we took on them, he was holding us up for another day and supporting us, even if we couldn’t see it.
The birds sing loudly as I go and take my usual seat in the lawn chair in the back corner of the yard, nestled between yet to bloom rose bushes and the birdbath nearby, bubbling and waiting for visitors. All of whom I think are the cemetery’s residents, since most of the birds coming by are cardinals. I hear the murmurs of Grandma and her client from the open kitchen window but turn my attention away from them. It’s too rude to listen in on other families’ grief. Yet sometimes my heart tightens when I hear the stray sob or loud plea from someone telling Grandma their
being a hand me down from Mom but also because I read it at least once a year, letting myself fall victim to the rich harrowing world in its bindings. I lose myself in the text too easily, and startle when Grandma sits on the edge of the lawn chair with me.
“Good book?” She asks, voice soothing and full of love. I know it’s a major piece of why her clients seek her out. Why she keeps doing what she does and helping those she can. You become lost in the lull and comfort of her words and find your heart slowly mending itself as it accepts story and what they want.
She holds their hands in hers and gives them her own strength, too personally familiar with the pain brought on by death.
Day after day, Grandma sits and listens to these heartbreaking tales and does so with a strong heart. As her clients fall into blubbering, apologetic messes, she sits there with her warm eyes and reassures them that they will be okay, and their loved ones will be safe. She holds their hands in hers and gives them her own strength, too personally familiar with the pain brought on by death. Tea or cocoa and fresh cookies or treats always accompany the meetings, even if they go uneaten. To the clients, it’s the thought that counts. The comfort of the implications of homemade goods.
The ratty paperback I slip from my bag falls open in my lap and I quickly become absorbed in the magic battle spilling out on the page, fire and water being thrown about in this mystical world with a vividness that fuels my dreams better than cartoons ever did when I was still a doll-toting child. The book’s spine is cracked, a treat both from it
what Grandma is going to do for you and your family.
“Always,” I mumble into her neck as I hug her tight, feeling her arms come around me in return. Lavender floods my nose and I squeeze marginally tighter. “Did you have a good session?”
“Define good,” she chuckles, gesturing to the pile of loosely bound papers at her feet, the pages smeared with ink and blots of water still damp, all too similar looking to tears. “She just lost her husband a week ago. A young man, they were high school sweethearts and married shortly out of college and were excited to start their life and family together. She found this manuscript in his office while cleaning. It tells their love story, a really sweet and heartbreaking thing, I skimmed through it while she was taking a break from talking, giving her a moment to collect herself in silence. Even details his hopes for kids and pets running around and a wonderful future for them both. It’s so well and beautifully written, could
likely easily be published. But she knows if she does that her love for him would be shared with many and not saved between them. She doesn’t want to lose that close connection, after having already lost him. So here I come in. To take it to the grave”
No matter how many times I’ve heard he use that turn of phrase, I still grow sad. It’s still strange sometimes to look at Grandma and know that her main job is to be a strange sort of undertaker. She says it lightly, but I know it wears here heart down and reminds her too much of her own grief. But I know, after years now watching her, that she would rather take those twinges of personal pain if it meant giving comfort to others, doing what she does. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, love. Ready to get started?”
“Of course.” I stand fast, packing my book away and pulling out my old, dirty gardening gloves from the front pouch of my bag. “I made Mom drop me off early so I can get started earlier than I usually do. I know you had to do a lot of the work yourself last week since we showed up late because of Mom’s thing running late a—”
“My love, don’t worry about it. I did this job with help before when Grandpa was around, and I’ve done it alone before and after he passed. No worries.” She smiles, stooping and grabbing the pages, tucking them under an arm as she stands and starts wandering towards the birdbath.
The steppingstones there are overgrown here too, but we find them easily, picking over them and leaving the sanctuary of Grandma’s yard and entering the cemetery. The birds in the distant trees sing a melancholy tune as we come near, undisturbed by our presence but still sensing the grim business we come on.
I grab my shovel from where it lays next to the path. I’ll have to come back for the grave marker later; I can’t carry both, not yet at least, and I don’t want to risk cracking the stone before it’s set to rest.
Most people associate cemeteries with chills and fog and ghouls. Even Mom did, despite knowing that Grandma isn’t dealing with bodies but other important things. But I have never felt that way walking into Grandma’s cemetery. Instead, all I feel is the love and warmth and comfort these buried treasures find when they go to lay in this field. They don’t come here to be forgotten, they come here to never be lost. Grandma takes great care with her unofficial job, tending to the cemetery as if she is a true groundskeeper in a cemetery. Cleaning off stones when they become overgrown, cutting the grass, and strolling and sharing memories with all the lives contained here. Each stone is spotless as can be, hardly any moss climbing the stone markers and gift ample space to let the love buried there grow and roam in peace.
The stories buried here, no matter how they are contained, will always live on in the memories of Grandma and the people who gave them to her to bury. She will care for them as if they are any other person she loves.
Silent, we walk down the aisle of graves until we find a vacant space. Further down the row are other haphazard graves, their stones unmarked, some of their earth still recently turned over from her careful work last week. Each plot is perfectly dug and recovered, the edged clean and straight, the earth patted down as flat as possible and smoothed over. Each plot holds a flower, picked from her garden. A small token welcoming the new gift to the cemetery. Once wilted, it’ll be replaced,
again and again, ensuring an extra speck of beauty is left beside each memory buried. “Here should be good.”
Without pause, I start digging, first with the shovel before dropping to my knees in my dirty jeans to smooth out the bottom of the shallow grave. They are never large ones. We only make them as large as they need to be. Sometimes they are only as big as a teacup, shallow and simple. Other times the small shovel is my best friend, helping me clear out the plot big enough for a suitcase or a moving box bound tight
her husband’s love is in a safe place, in a loving place, taken care by the most unlikely of undertakers. Grandma always laughs about how her clients have come to calling her that, saying that that is how her story and her specialty for creating graves for family heirlooms is shared among the town and its grieving folks.
It’s been her specialty since she was a young girl, after losing her childhood best friend and burying their matching bracelets in this very cemetery and keeping her love and friend’s life alive. I remember sitting and impenetrable with packing tape. Today, the space for the stack of papers takes no time to clear away. Even still, I level out the bottom and make sure it is perfect and neat, as Grandma taught me to do when digging for the cemetery.
Almost reverently, Grandma straightens out stack of papers in front of her, tapping them against her front to straighten out the pages and make them neat from where they shifted under her arm during our short stroll. I watch quietly as she runs a slow hand down their front and murmurs something soft under her breath. Usually it’s a short prayer, a few words devised by what she learned from the client who gave her the object to be buried and her own feelings from the story she was told. Carefully, she hands it to me, placing it in my dirty gloved hands and nods solemnly. With as much care as possible, I lay the manuscript in its new home, smiling knowing that this young wife will find some peace knowing the story of her and
Even still, I level out the bottom and make sure it is perfect and neat, as Grandma taught me to do when digging for the cemetery.
on Grandpa’s lap when she told her story and how she came to be who she was in town and how he came to find a job she loved more than anything. She knew some families would not want things lost but could also not bear the heavy grief of seeing such tokens of memory every day. So, Grandma’s cemetery became the home for them. No matter the person, nor the object. Love is buried here, pure and simple, cared for by a woman who loves her task as much as she does her family.
Soon, everyone came to her, bringing different things to be buried and telling the heartbreaking stories of their lost owners and their meanings. Grandma, the ever-patient listener making her clients a temporary sanctuary in her light-filled kitchen where people feel most safe, as they cried at the worn table and asked to have their loved one’s belonged buried by Grandma. The one patting backs and slowly pushing tissues boxes within reach and turning to look away as tears and
snot were cleared away so the stories can continue. Not a look of judgement on her face as clients spoke to her with cracked voices and red-rimmed eyes.
A younger sibling’s favorite teddy bear that survived the deadly car accident unscathed. The shattered and chipped pieces of a mother’s favorite mug when it shattered at the heart attack’s onset. A twin’s baseball bat never to be swung again.
Grandpa’s watch he had worn since his wedding day, tucked safely in his favorite hat that he wore while helping Grandma maintain her cemetery. A task I took over when I saw how much she struggled some days to kneel down and dig and bury the treasures.
Her love and dedication to the cemetery grew with his passing. My help made it possible to keep it going. I don’t feel the fear most do when walking into a cemetery. I only feel love, even if it isn’t solely the love I have for Grandpa.
And when I become the next undertaker for Grandma’s cemetery, it will continue to flourish as it had under her guiding hand.
anonymousdater005
Dating App Review
We didn’t meet at church or a bar... Just a simple search from afar I ask questions piercing and wise, How did your last love meet its demise?
After 10 minutes of mine, you responded with a beautiful line: A calculated response, but a witty flirt save How was I to know you would be a shitty first date? The sex was great but snore
Signed, a reviewer on the app store
To someone else, it would’ve been a regular, but somewhat uncomfortable, 12 hours at their neighbour’s, but for Baali, it was more than that. She had spent the day in an unoccupied, sparsely furnished apartment on the third floor of her building. It belonged to her neighbour Toru, who had moved out, curtains and all, a few months ago. Baali, who lived one floor above this place, was using it as a quarantine ward because her own family, crammed in a similar apartment upstairs, was sick.
To someone else, it would’ve been just that. But Baali – perceptive, intense, furious Baali –noticed audio-visual minutiae that coloured her experience of living there. The sound of car horns was unfiltered and loud; her own apartment on the fourth floor received a milder version of this vehicular cacophony.
When she spoke on the phone, her voice, unimpeded by furniture, collided with the walls of this empty house, creating echoes that mocked her solitude.
The view was misplaced too. From Toru’s balcony, the neighbourhood looked familiar yet incorrectly placed; Baali saw her very own St. Madame Besanto Road from a new angle. The position of everything, on that busy, six-road junction, a popular landmark in suburban Mumbaska, was disturbed, because she was on a different floor; the tops of the skyscrapers across the street were farther away, the shops on the footpath were larger, and she could read things – shop names, posters and advertisements stuck on lampposts, ‘no parking’ signs – more clearly from here. She felt as though the street she lived on was one large movie set that someone had pushed closer to her, magnifying everything slightly.
Baali had spent the day trying to write a short story. She played with three ideas.
The first, a story of a fictitious housewife, the timid kind who dutifully wears traditional black and gold beads around her neck to symbolise her husband’s breath, who migrates from semi-urban Indroska to a large, brown-unfriendly megacity in The United States of Ambroska and eventually hangs herself in the bedroom of her husband’s house, a place she never really came to call her own.
In the second story, a priest, in 12th century Italoska, sits at his desk by candle light and dips his feather in a pot of ink to write a prayer about compassion, love and peace. By dawn, when his 20-verse prayer is finally complete, the priest, sleepy and cranky, gets frustrated enough with a buzzing fly to swat her and wrap her in his parchment, before going to sleep,
forgetting all about his smudged, crumpled words, now a tomb for an insect.
In her third story, an industrious, exhausted mother, weathered and worn by circumstance, doesn’t give up dodging avalanches and storms till she finds a safe place to keep her babies; the ‘big reveal’ at the end of this story is that the mother is a housefly who finds a warm, cozy home for her larvae in the open wound of an aged stray dog. It’s a happy ending for her baby maggots who eat into the dog’s flesh and grow up to become healthy, fully functioning
commentary on the reason paranoia across different kinds of psychopathology often came down to recurring themes, like ‘abduction by aliens’, ‘they are out to get me’, and ‘they’re listening to my thoughts’. It would be a good break from her darkthemed fiction. But first, she needed some fresh air.
She went to the balcony, straightened out her posture and flapped her wings. It felt good to stretch out after a day spent indoors. Spreading out across the breadth of the balcony, she took off for a midnight flies.
Baali liked to write stories that bordered on the absurd and ended with a magical twist of some kind, often morbid or shocking. That day, though, she was unable to concentrate in that apartment, hostile in its otherness. It was, after all, someone else’s place, with some other family’s memories, dysfunctionalities and fights hanging in the air, swirling along with the spirits of someone else’s foremothers.
Even the ghosts of this house were unfriendly… or maybe just unfamiliar to her
glide, flying out of Toru’s house, into the night, squinting to keep the glare of the city-lights out of her eyes.
Compared to her own overstocked, airless apartment, the breeze moved differently through the empty spaces of this one. Even the ghosts of this house were unfriendly… or maybe just unfamiliar to her, like the ghost of Toru’s dazed aunt who stared at Baali from the sofa all day while she tried to write her story.
Just as Baali shut her notebook and reached for a spoon for her night-time tonic, she felt the stirrings of a new idea in her head; that night, she would write an academic
Many a maiden on my path has gone away Spurred by whim and joined the IRA Or off to Portugal to dance the fandangoone to run me o’er with a Dodge Durango
Alas, love so fragile and ill-fated But you, almost otherworldly Woman of faith not indoctrinated Your burdens I would gladly take up Though your pastor frowns upon makeup
On your face no glossy finish Boasting every bag and blemish You need no leaves of figs to hide your shame And your father used the old King James to choose your name
I miss Eliza Dushku, I miss Sporty Spice I miss the goths and their glares of ice I miss Natasha Lyonne and her carrot red curls But most of all I miss the Pentecostal girls
Your hair hangs low as you pray and trim your lamp How it waves and flows at least one score inches and ten, not to hide a tramp stamp written in Mandarin
You were taught the Beatitudes when you were young My darling how you’ve kept them You’ve no deceit when you speak in tongues No steel has pierced your septum When you spoke that baffling language
No more clear than Porky Pig or Kurt Cobain I tugged at my collar, fear and dread in my brain
Though no collection plate was passed Though you asked not for dime or dollar I fled from that old country church Darting out of the pew Leaving the musty smell of Sunday Fleeing far from a treasure like you
Wisdom calls at the gates but gold cannot linger or hold to you a candle I’d have given you a ring that said “True Love Waits” But the snakes you handle bit off your fingers
I miss Bette Davis and Brittany Murphy Cursed be time, gone so soon Their eyes glistened of mystery like water on the moon Is there water on the moon? It doesn’t matter. The moon landing was fake anyway. I dream of bejeweled queens of desert worlds But most of all I dream of Pentecostal girls
THE MOMENT BEFORE there are buds, announcing— sent, leaflike, out of the dark branch—
When our solitudes touch so much sorrow evaporates the windows fog up
Aren’t bodings caught daily? Every failure gets held in juxtaposition. Knotted lanyards? Make nets. Overlooked pearls? Quell regret. Sing to us, violet. Wail, xanthic (yellowish) zander.
impossibly golden
My love has lost most of its sadness
This piece is meant to be cut out and assembled as a true cube. Please feel free to cut along the dotted line to remove this page and assemble your own Pome Cube.
Other than that I can’t complain LOST POEM for Michael Delp
A big fish got away from me last night I had him on my hook, then fell asleep
Cloud forming above mountain: a question
Behind us, one tree flares up a second-hand memory of Hiroshima. Behind us, one solitary tree is Hiroshima, the blast-moment city. We break our breads, sweet, too dolce, with a promise of the cherries on top in the middle, but not quite the real ones. We suck those sugar-glazed red globes. We have inherited the faux world, and we feed the bird because life feels like a taut skin at any moment it can be singed, peeled away. We should kiss - we think together. The air in between us plays a refrain. The notes scattered all over the park to the applause of the pigeons. One moment they are here; in the next not.
Texas, you are troubadour of my heart. Twice weekly entertainer in my home Music weaving lifelines using your art Poetic words, enough to fill a tome.
Coronavirus keeping us apart Texas, you are troubadour of my heart. My computer screen’s a poor substitute But in this day and age, the point is moot.
I love your music, I am in a trance If not on Zoom, I’ll even try to dance Texas, you are troubadour of my heart. So if it freezes, I must hit restart.
You think not, but wisdom you do impart. We buy your merchandise in bounds and leaps We, your fans, loyal followers - McPeeps Texas, you are troubadour of my heart.
I’m a vegetarian but My palate is too pedestrian To try new things. I refuse to eat carrion, To me that’s barbarian, My tastes run more agrarian Begun in age Aquarian. Though not to be contrarian, I’m not the type for marryin’ And I like my beer Bulgarian.
I should have been a librarian Or at least an antiquarian I chose the wrong job. But my mouth is too vulgarian Said my son the seminarian At least I’m not libertarian I’m rather nonsectarian. I’ll make this statement clarion, My mind is not varyin’ I’ll be a centenarian.
“The
I wish I could remember Ariel and Sarah, holding hands and smiling as they danced the hora, at their children’s wedding.
I wish I could remember the happy bride and groom, their arms outstretched, two silver birches dancing in the wind.
What do I recall? Ariel pouring red wine on Sarah’s white lace dress, Sarah smooshing ice cream in Ariel’s powdered face.
What do I recall? Joseph punching Isaac for cheating him in business thirty years ago.
By the time the hora ended, everyone was fighting, the band had fled the party, the wedding cake was flattened.
None of us is speaking, the children are divorcing, until we dance the hora at another family wedding.
You die. No question.
Death
The Lovers Somewhere in this universe, someone cares for you. An ally assists you in your goal.
You lose something valuable in the process of your goal. Small or large.
Temperance
The Chariot Seize the reins of life. Your pure gumption allows you to command the situation.
Indulging in a great passion falls here. Through some circumstances, you are offered to partake in a vice.
The Devil
Might makes right as you use brute force or brute words to solve your problem.
Strength
The tables turn. If things have been going well, they go bad, and vice versa.
Character & Setting
The Tower
A dark secret about yourself is revealed, either to yourself or to others. Things look grim.
The Hermit
around A scorned researcher hoping to save their career
centered 1
Hope against darkness, you find reason to believe in a better future even in the face of the loop.
The Star
Madness befalls all. A sudden chaotic element disrupts every working force.
Wheel of Fortune
A new threat emerges to hinder you, unforseen until this moment.
The Moon
Sudden order arrives. You find some place of solace or comfort to hide out in.
Justice
You triumph! You are able to claim great success in your goal
The Sun
You are seized. A force that wishes you harm surrounds you and takes some control over you
The Hanged Man
Somewhere new. You leave your current location to find a different place to continue the loop.
The World
Judgement You are forced to answer for your past actions. Consequences have caught up to you.
A chef searching for new ingredients 2
6
5
The monarch of a kingdom making a political deal
A young revolutionary disrupting the status quo 3
A journalist for a famous news organization
Setting
4
Yourself 1
A deserted Western
5
NYC, circa 1940
Your Hometown 2
A west coast theme park
A haunted
the experience of time loops and wondering of what could have been. In it, you play as someone who, through the chaos of a tumultuous multiverse, has been caught in a time loop. Through play you will experience your character’s reactions as they live through a cycle of life and death, ultimately deciding what they do with this new life they forge. As You Were is best experienced with a dedicated notebook or journal, but can also be played on loose paper, digital word processors, archaic typewriters, diner napkins, or text messages. You’ll also need a set of the Major Arcana in a tarot deck . You can use a deck of your own or do something as simple as writing the names on index cards. 4
town 6
mansion
The Starship Excelsior
3
Were , ending that timestream.
successfully completed a game of As You
Once you have done this, you have
that was played.
they come from as well, and the tarot card
exploring the library. Note which number loop
for escaping the police, or “Mystery” for
Challenge Points with a title, such as “Escape”
another Challenge Point. Mark your
loop. Continue writing until you reach
shuffled into the deck at the conclusion of a
three cards. Played cards are discarded, then
Then, draw another card, keeping your hand at
unfolds in accordance with the played card.
clues, etc. After playing this card, write how this event
competing in a street race, investigating for
fashion. Challenge Points can also be going on a date,
you escape in a wondrous and comedic
you. However, playing the Fool could mean that
could mean another cop appears and arrests
attempt to escape the police, playing the Tower
guide for how that outcome will play out. If you
Challenge Point . Each of these cards acts as a
may play one of your cards. This is called a
character will attempt a challenging task, you
Once you reach a point where you believe the
make your experiences all the more exciting.
yourself to be intricate in your writing. It will
ground them in reality for this first loop. Allow
nightmare, going to work for the day, etc. Help
called the Jump Point. Waking up from a
should be how your character’s loop begins,
Then, write the first block in your journal. This
shuffle the Death card in.
three cards from the top of the deck, then
Arcana, setting aside the Death card . Draw
As you begin, shuffle your deck of Major
leads the way
narratively satisfying for you?
themself to madness? What would be
life? Do they never escape the cycle, losing
character wake up, having improved their
your character goes from here. Does your
end of the timestream. Here, you decide where
draw three cards at the start. This marks the
you will reach a point where you cannot
removing more and more cards. Eventually,
This will proceed onwards, looping and
before you play your tarot card.
forwarding to “Escape,” you would enter right
of moving through the timestream. Fast
represent your character knowing the motions
loop one in your second loop. This is meant to
you could move automatically to “Escape” from
Challenge Point in a prior loop. For example,
the first, you can fast forward to any prior
according to their loops. In any loops beyond
As you reach Challenge Points, mark them
are uncoupled from linear time.
on the narrative timestream unravels as they
from this loop onward. Your character’s grip
of the deck, setting them aside permanently,
you draw, remove three cards from the top
reinserting the Death card. However, before
shuffling, and drawing new cards and
process of separating Death from the deck,
begins your next loop. You repeat the same
dies, you return to the Jump Point . This
But Death is not the end. Once your character
the loop at that moment.
to play Death, your character dies. This ends
with your remaining hand. When you are forced
cards . Instead, you play the rest of this loop
becomes doomed. You no longer draw other
a card, if you draw Death , your character
After completing a Challenge Point and drawing
hand of the world
fate, the guiding
to be beholden to
and allow yourself
take a back seat
a subtle approach to succeed.
blend in and take
the world. You
The High Priestess Trust the ways of
The Hierophant Conform or die.
You are forced to
goal.
to succeed in your
wits, you manage
The Magician You must engineer a solution. Through
story.
will believe your
goal, but nobody
side. By some fortune you accomplish your
The Fool Luck is on your
some form of powerful, bureaucratic force.
harsh. Your attempt is hindered by
The Emperor “The Man” is
you in your goal.
chosen to assist
The world has
The Empress You are granted
a great boon.
that moment, guiding their actions.
timestream. Your character receives a vision of
another Challenge Point from a prior
associated with a Flash, you may select
guidance. Whenever you play the tarot card
other versions of themselves allows them some
timestream self in a dream. This knowledge of
“flashes” of memories of their alternate
each Flash. Your character receives these
timestream. Note the tarot card you played for
These are considered Flashes for this new
Then, select three random Challenge Points.
single in a different country in this timestream.
a space smuggler, or the married person is now
setting or situation. Perhaps the cowboy is now
same character and place them in another
subsequent timestream. To do this, take your
way through a deck can be connected to a
game as well. Each timestream that works its
As You Were can be experienced as a legacy
Grieving in a strange body
Optimism is as necessary as waving goodbye to the sun / to work in tunnels / with foxes— / as necessary as clasping my hands / to go on about commercials / featuring me in them / grimacing next to Olay / at the hotel room lighting— / as necessary as eavesdropping / on a pansy bed’s conversation: / one is searching for model work; / one is working in construction— / as necessary as an electricity pole / emitting ultraviolet wavelengths / tiring my cones out /
grieving in a strange body— / as strange as optimism moving / to orbit only itself for lightyears / working in tunnels— / as strange as a large yellow vehicle / transporting new bodies to the churchyard.
A group of Aspen trees is not a group of trees at all. They are a single organism, whose individual trees are extensions of a larger life force. They are difficult to extinguish.
These resilient trees lined switchbacks I crossed in the woods of Colorado, appearing as tattooed skeletons, thin white trunks peeling away to darker shades, marked with carved initials. I admired them in all seasons: bare branches the width of a pinky finger in the winter, slender trunks halfsubmerged in glistening snow, technicolor green oval leaves unraveling in the late spring, becoming a dynamic backdrop to lilac Columbines littering wild grasses, then fading to gold for a few, shortlived weeks in the fall, mountains suddenly streaked with ribbons yellow as sweet corn, before finally, peeling away to the ground in the early winter once more. Sometimes, they are interspersed among fragrant, full-bodied conifers, steady and reliable in their army green uniform. Conifers begin to dominate Aspen forests as the forest ages.
But, when a wildfire rips through, obliterating everything in its path, it resets the forest. After the raging flames smolder into cool richness, a proliferation of Aspen suckers will rise from the ashy soil, and soon the cleared land will be populated with their bright green sprouts. Fire removes debris from the forest floor, returns nourishment to the soil through the destruction of the giants that once shaded it, and allows sunshine to penetrate each inch. The dead material becomes sustenance for a new and healthy beginning. Shedding layers is the space in which we grow, become, and settle into the versions of ourselves that will best serve the world and ourselves. For it is only in making space that we can fill it with life better than what so far we have known.
I took a pregnancy test on a whim, alone in my apartment. I didn’t remember my last period; months blurred as did morning and night, a season-long drug and alcohol bender as a suddenly underemployed bartender, with a bunch of suddenly unemployed friends, in the midst of a global pandemic that had shut every restaurant and bar down. I was sleeping with my ex, and I was sleeping with the man who was the reason me and my ex broke up, and it was not outside of the realm of possibility. It was an era where I caused a massive amount of harm, but pretended that everything was fine, which took a lot of help from any substance I could get my hands on. I figured if I was going to keep destroying my body, I better make sure I wasn’t taking a child along for the ride.
The result on that test changed everything. For the first time in my adult life, I took vitamins. I quit weed, alcohol, cocaine, and cigarettes–– cold turkey. I went to sleep sober for the first
time in fifteen years. I was proud of myself for that, but it’s not the kind of thing your OBGYN or mom will congratulate you on. I vomited like I had been poisoned if I saw a raw vegetable. I couldn’t walk through the produce section of a grocery store without becoming nauseous at my ever-industrious imagination detailing how it would feel for raw spinach to rub its way across my tongue and my throat. I ordered Papa John’s pizza and only ate the cheese-stuffed crust. I slept like I was in a coma, but my dreams felt like a 5D movie theater at the amusement park; I could feel every single
detail. They were dark, haunting; I dreamt of my baby in flames and myself seconds away from being able to grab them out of the way. I saw muslin blankets engulfed, turning black. I smelled crisping skin. I dreamt of the ultrasound tech violently prodding my stomach, searching for a sign of life, only for us all to look at the screen and realize, with shock, that I was pregnant with a full bone-in Christmas ham. I slept with eight pillows and got up ten times a night to pee.
colored bourbon dissolve on my tongue like the sizzle of cold water on hot coals. I went to a wedding in rural Kentucky and slept along the bank of a lake, reflecting orange, yellow, and red leaves among the water. I climbed to the scenic Kentucky River overlook at Raven Run Nature Sanctuary, clutching my swollen stomach and ignoring concerned stares, lingering at the edge, high above the murky green river, snakelike amongst barren trees. I drove two hours to Mammoth Cave National Park six weeks before I gave birth.
I have watched my hand disappear into darkness in a cave more times than I could count on that same hand.
When I was twenty weeks pregnant, I moved from my adopted home of Colorado to my home state of Kentucky. I was depressed, failed, sober, and full of regrets. I spent any time I wasn’t working trying to convince myself that I hadn’t made a mistake. I planned solo adventures for myself on my days off. I took scenic drives to jaw-dropping distilleries adorned with historic buildings, obviously pregnant, yet never receiving the side eye I’d expect during the sampling portion when I’d let a small sip of caramel-
As a girl who grew up in Kentucky, I have watched my hand disappear into darkness in a cave more times than I could count on that same hand. We took field trips to Mammoth Cave, Squire Boone Caverns, and Lost River Cave in grade school: unbuckled children on a yellow school bus, bare legs sticking and unsticking to brown pleather seats. It’s a blur of memories, some of them so surreal they feel like a dream: albino fish with eyes like plain white marbles, stalactites and stalagmites adorning rooms, gleaming like freshly glazed pottery. But, I always remember the blackness. You think you can see nothing in the night, but here, in this wide underbelly of this not quite Southern state, there is a darkness that there is no adjusting to.
Even in the winter, the opening, or mouth, of the cave is surrounded by green, moss covering the rocks. I slowly made my way down the stairs, one hand on the black metal railing, to descend into the large opening. Once we entered the temperate,
limestone ballroom called the rotunda, the almost-ready-to-exit child in my womb began to stir. I could hear a slow, cadenced drip of water from somewhere along the walls, their texture like a melting candle. Its rhythmic dripping heightened my senses. Hands and feet stretched my skin, and rippled through my pubic bones, echoing to my calves. This was strange. He always slept during the day, and especially when I was walking, remaining still, sleeping as I went about my days at work as a waitress, bartender, and food delivery driver, rocked to sleep by my gait.
Throughout pregnancy, a woman’s body shifts in practically superhuman ways. She grows an organ that will siphon nutrients from her blood and reroute them to her growing baby. The placenta is made of both fetal and maternal tissue. It takes in nutrients and antibodies and then releases toxins and waste back into the mother’s bloodstream.
Between the mask we had to wear on the tour and my son pressing into my lungs, I felt out of breath. I focused on counting the seconds as I slowly filled my squished stomach with air, before audibly huffing out of my mouth for the same amount of time, grounding myself with the drip of the water. This cave holds history like nowhere else. Indigenous explorers first entered it over 5,000 years ago. The rotunda is filled with junklike artifacts, various pieces of scrap wood and metal left over from the saltpeter mine, in which enslaved people made gunpowder that aided the United States to victory in the war of 1812. We traveled, a herd of tourists through the cave’s widest passages, to some stone huts, which the tour guide tells us were used as housing for people suffering from Tuberculosis, because it was believed that the cave air was restorative.
A cave is created through dissolution. Rain and rivers melt and shape soft stones like limestone, in the example of Mammoth Cave. It is always changing, with underground rivers still carving its interior to this day. Over 130 species of animals live in Mammoth Cave. The forest surrounding it is one of the most diverse ecosystems in the nation with over 1,300 flowering species. Light does not reach beyond the opening of the cave. The species that thrive amongst this unique environment can do so due to nutrients entering the cave by water or visitors from the outside.
The cool embrace of the cave calmed me, held me away from what was outside, and relieved me, if only momentarily, from anxieties of the very close future: giving birth, the extremity of the transformation from girl to mother. The underground rooms and tunnels of limestone comforted me and distracted me from mourning the past: what I was running from, and that which I had to leave behind to do so. Caves act loco parentis to a variety of species, including humans. They are arguably the natural feature most suitable to protect from the outside elements. Their temperature remains steady. They are a shield from rain and other elements.
We returned to the rotunda and ascended the same black metal stairs we had walked down, but we all had been temporarily transported through time, walking through the first homes our species lived in. We stepped on a biomat, rinsing our shoes in soapy water to prevent the spread of WhiteNose Syndrome, a disease lethal to bats. I cleansed the cave floor from the soles of my tennis shoes and walked across the asphalt parking lot toward the inevitable future.
ode to you oh demon prognosticator from my posterior hot steaming sulphurous and reeking oh tuesday morning hangover shits some call you a Cassandra with doom forever upon your bronzed and puckered lips truly have you read the future spattered like tea leaves across your porcelain scrying bowl another crappy day
Author: Josephine Burg
The day Dr. Leonard told me her patient had died, I was over the moon. I am sure he was a stand-up guy and all, but him dying really benefitted my patient, Nappy Chester. Nappy was short for Napoleon as his parents are certifiably insane. When Fenton Kirby dies, his perfectly healthy heart is given to Murray’s long-time patient Nappy Chester. Six months later, Murray is being sued for malpractice by Nappy’s wife, Olga.
“A Charge of Heart”, Josephine Burg’s debut novel, has gathered both critical acclaim and mainstream success in its crossover of medicine and law. The New York Diaries has deemed it “the best book as a subject of small talk”, and The Toronto Peep has called it “a masterclass in every single sub-genre”.
With clinical precision, Burg makes her reader into the unheard witness of this intriguing tale both medical and legal, of which many an antihero character may create literary history.
“Schrodinger’s Book”
Addie D. ✓
(This review contains spoilers)
“Thank you so much… Sorry, what is your first name?”, the patient asked. “Doctor.”, I answered.
A Change of Heart, p. 234.
Having had some time now to digest this 500-paged monstrosity, I am still no closer to deciding was the fuck that was.
Murray- we are never given a first name apart from that dry, cryptic answer- is a cynical,
socially unskilled doctor, in the tradition of Gregory House. That itself is nothing new, yet we experience the very first plottwist of the book in the second chapter, when we find out that Dr. Murray is a woman. That works due to the narration style of the novel, varying between the points of view of the characters- one would not have noticed Dr. Murray was a woman because she would not have used third person pronouns to describe herself. However, it is quite a wake-up call for the reader, who is called out on their assumptions: did you think Murray
novels lets her off the hook despite the shadiness of ninety percent of her actions.
Yes, at one point
Judy gets an eye exam by a “streetdoctor” as she waits in line at the bank.
and cannot possibly avoid falling in love with Fenton’s grieving wife, Judy.
I believe that, apart from the unclear ideological stance taken by the narrative and Murray’s unlikability, this is what has most thrown people off about this book. It has been met with many a dismissive snark from reviewers,
For a book so concerned with establishing moral boundaries, it is remarkably exempt of moral behaviour. The unquestionably most moral character, Nappy Chester, still commits adultery multiple timesand, though he clearly feels guilty, the narrative keeps justifying it over and over. That is exactly because- and here lies the central plot point of the novelhe has been given Fenton Kirby’s heart, was a woman simply due to how blunt she is? Or is that perhaps because one is conditioned to think of male narrators as the default protagonists? That is a question right at the start of the book, and that is how it lets you know things are not what they seem here, ever. “A Change of Heart” will sneak up on you.
There seems to be a wide range of opinions regarding this novel- for every reader who sees it as an absurdist masterpiece, there will be one for whom this is just a book trying to answer too many questions all at once. There will be as many positive reactions to Dr. Murray’s characterization as there will be complaints about the portrayal of a female doctor having such questionable attitudes. I am still on the fence about this- while I do not think Burg intended for us to see the characters’ behaviours as exemplary, I am not sure how they are supposed to be interpreted. By disregarding them, it is almost like the
most of whom refuse to read it based on this premise. At the same time, those who have picked this book up only for the romance will be unsatisfied with the two thirds of it that sound like marginally more absurd medical and legal procedurals.
In addition, some people have been reading this under the impression that it is a fantasy/sci-fi novel, when the whole thing isn’t necessarily fantastical. Yes, Olga’s lawsuit is based on Nappy having divorced her after getting a heart transplant and falling in love with the donor’s wife. Yes, at one point Judy gets an eye exam by a “street-doctor”
as she waits in line at the bank. Yes, there is one lab mouse thought to be immune to all disease for whom doctors hold a shrine and take small offerings. But those things in themselves don’t mean anything- just because there is a speculative element to it, it does not make it fantasy or sci-fi.
Which brings us back to the fact that this is attempting to be a lot of things at once. Whether it succeeds or not, it’s up to you to decide. It tackles many different subjects in many ways, and answers none satisfactorily. One subject it dwells upon a lot, since the very first chapter in fact, is the happiness generated directly from the misery of others. The scene in which Murray tells Nappy he is getting a new heart is a bit heavy-handed if not silly, but brings the point home: “Anyway”, I said, “you are getting a prime heart. The man to whom it belonged, Felton Kirby, was very healthy!”
“Really?”
“Yes, up until he was attacked by a giant squid at the City Aquarium. Oh well, his downfall is your luck.”
“Could you not put it that way?”, said Nappy.
“What way?”
“Like we are lucky he died?”
“But you are lucky he died! That’s literally the beauty of organ transplants!”
“Still, it’s not a motive for celebration…”
“Of course it is! If he hadn’t been killed by a giant squid, you would have been killed by your own lazy heart!”
“The Worst Book I have Read This Decade” (one and a half stars)
LitLady
“I’m sorry, Olga”, I said, mostly because
I did not know what else to say.
“It’s this heart of yours. It’s like it’s turned you into a different person altogether. It’s like he’s taking over your body, and you’re just the host.”
I let her think that. It made her feel better.
Move over, The Sacred Plight of a Killing by Elfrieda Pikins. You are now the second worst novel of the decade. You almost made it all the way through, only to be dethroned in the second semester of 2019. I almost feel sorry for you. But if there is one thing no one can accuse Pikins of is pretentiousness. She knows her writing sucks and will not apologize for it, which is more than can be said of Josephine Burg.
While the premise of “A Change of Heart” is over-the-top, a good writer could have made it work. The absurdist perspective that some have misinterpreted this book to show could have been interesting, yet Burg does not push for it enough to own up to it. The characters are always either seriously hinting at it or dismissing the sci-fi hypothesis altogether. Nappy in particular seems to blame everything on “Fenton” one second and laugh about the hypothesis the next.
As much as I would have liked to believe, like Murray, that the whole thing is a ploy that Nappy has invented for the benefit of Olga, the book does not provide enough evidence of that either. Queue to a thousand people commenting “That’s the point, you moron”. Well, if that’s the point, it’s a rather dull one. Maybe it could have made for an interesting short story. But no, instead it wastes five hundred pages deciding what it wants to be.
In many ways, this book is the embodiment of Nappy’s identity crisis- is it a schmaltzy romance about a widow and the man who received her husband’s heart? Is it some weird supernatural ghost sci-fi shit? Is it the tale of a doctor whose textbook unlikability conquers the previously thought unreachable failure of making her look less human? Is it a character study of a boring adulterer who thinks he’s special? Is it a courtroom drama? A serious procedural? The same story recycled each time for a new creative writing workshops on genre? A
At one point in the novel, we are treated to pages of lab results which most people could not understand, but this move was still praised for being so *experimental*. Well, let me use your character’s words against you, Ms. Burg: “Not all experiments are a success. Most of them, in fact, are manipulated, and, its results, cherrypicked”. That is five comas in a twelveword sentence. Was Murray writing through hiccups?
Is it a character study of a boring adulterer who thinks he’s special? Is it a courtroom drama? A serious procedural? ... A frustrated attempt at camp?
as his.”
“The best love story since Wuthering Heights” (four stars) gogi “You’ve reminded me I’ve a heart to feed”, said Nappy, looking defeated. “I cannot let it starve anymore. It’s killing me. Much more than the one that was actually killing me, Judy. You are in everything I do. I don’t know why; maybe Olga’s right and it is Fenton. But I love you as myself, not as him. With all my messed up, sick heart as well frustrated attempt at camp?
Damn. I was not expecting this to hit this hard. When a friend first recommended it to me, I was sceptical, mainly because it’s not a typical romance novel. It’s a “literary” novel, and the only literary novels I like are Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice (and, okay, maybe some parts of Jane Eyre). This one is not like those, but it’s good in a different way.
Honestly, kindly fuck off.
PS: This novel includes a full-blown musical number to Mamma Mia’s version of ABBA’s Waterloo despite its inability to reproduce sound. We are told to “read the lyrics and sing in our heads, or – if we are particularly lacking in auditory memory, look it up online and play it on repeat while we read this scene”. So, trigger warning for what the hell that is.
Nappy Chester (get it?) is a heart patient who undergoes a heart transplant and, after that, falls in love with his donor’s widow, Judy. We spend a great part of the book seeing them pine for each other. Once Nappy finally leaves his wife, there’s a big payoff, but the story is far from being over, since his ex (who is kind of abusive, if we’re being honest) decides to sue not him, or Judy, but his doctor, the unbearable Dr. Murray.
Now, this is where the book doesn’t
work for me, and why I gave it four stars and not five. We spend a good chunk of the book reading Murray’s POV, which contributes with nothing to the story, on top of her being a complete asshole. I guess that is the literary part? Does Josephine Burg think that having a mean character who makes fun of everything is a requirement? It’s almost like she’s ashamed of writing romance so she adds someone to constantly mock any display of emotion and feeling- because this is a “serious” book? I wish serious books were more sincere. This one was close to a perfect score but couldn’t help but undermine the moments of real romance. But when it does romance, it is a fucking gem.
I suppose what is most interesting about the Murray character is that she is a typical villain, except that her part in the narrative is bringing Judy and Nappy together, and the villain is really Olga. That makes for an interesting change in the character dynamics. Ultimately though she was just too unlikable.
Anyway, can Judy and Nappy get their literary couple star now? Thanks.
“Awful people doing awful things for 500 pages straight” (two stars)
lorna
Why are people so inclined to reading and writing about terrible characters? Every single thing those characters do is reprehensible, even if they are saving someone’s life. Dr. Murray saves lives so she can “gather hubris and put it away in her lair” (yes, this is actual quote from the book). Nappy spends the entire novel feeling guilty about his actions and then proceeding to act in the exact
same way. Judy doesn’t seem to give a shit that she’s a homewrecker, and Olga is treated like a psychotic ex-wife who just won’t leave the protagonists alone, as if they hadn’t screwed her over.
The success of this novel really does say something alarming about our society. Even if we ignore the female archetypes Judy and Olga are based on, the supposedly positive representation of Dr. Murray sends the message that women can only be successful professionals if they are heartless. And, while Murray is the most informed and fully fleshed protagonist, her life still seems to revolve around this unremarkable dude who I am somehow supposed to feel sorry for? Because he’s cheating on his wife but feels guilty about it sometimes?
I am sick and tired of the romanticising of adultery and cheating in general. Though people’s general attitude towards it has been indifference, I’ve heard some say that is why they picked up the book in the first place. The reason I did not give “A Change of Heart” one star actually relates to this issue precisely; it’s this poignant moment of self-awareness in which it calls out its readers: You know what I think? The more liberal society becomes about sex and love, the less romantic it gets. There’s no Romeo and Juliet if your family doesn’t have a mortal rival. Most people no longer give a shit who you sleep with. The only love story that remains is adultery. Or, like, one when person has died; or is about to die or something. People get really lovey-dovey when they’re terminally ill. It’s because suddenly there’s something in the way of them being with the other person, and maybe love can triumph over all and give their life meaning some bullshit.
A Change of Heart manages to tell the story both of adultery and a person dying. That is because Judy may or may not believe that her husband, Fenton, is still alive inside Nappy’s body. Nappy may or may not believe that as well. Olga definitely believes that, and Murray definitely does not. That’s pretty much the book for you. The citation is obviously a Murray chapter, by the way. It’s not that her cynicism is upsetting- it’s a welcome contrast to Nappy and Judy’s constant pining and melodrama, but it is still so predictable. If the couple
Yeah, sometimes it’s nice to know you saved someone. You get that hubris. But no one likes touching squishy toxic waste for a living. We do it for the money, and that’s the most feminist thing I can think of.
I mean, really, Josephine? That’s a nice message for young women who might be reading your book. Doing things for the money is more empowering than actually helping people, women are either nice or successful, and cheating is okay if you’ve had a heart transplant wasn’t so over-the-top, this extreme balancing act could have worked better.
Doing things for the money is more empowering than actually helping people, women are either nice or successful, and cheating is okay if you’ve had a heart transplant and you do it with the dead guy’s wife.
There is one other moment that could have been nice and feminist, but Murray’s cynicism pretty much managed to ruin it: “That whole logical problem they tell you about the kid and the dad being in a car accident and them both being surgery and the kid needing brain surgery and the brain surgeon saying ‘I cannot operate, this is my son’ and people being confused by it. It was always so obvious to me. I think that’s why I became a doctor, so that it would be obvious to other people”
Oh, shut the fuck up. What kind of buffoonery is this? I hate people who pretend everything they do is out of the pureness of their hearts as opposed to the lightness of their pockets. We all become doctors for the money, Lola. Let’s not be hypocrites, okay? That’s what the Hippocratic Oath is all about.
and you do it with the dead guy’s wife.
“A Breath of Fresh Air” (five stars)
“Murray, this is his wife, Judy.”, Lena said.
“How do you spell it?” “What?”
“How do you spell Judy?”
“With a Y.”
“Oh, the correct way! Good. Anyway, sorry for your loss.”
“You don’t look sorry.”, said Judy with a Y.
“Well, I didn’t really know him. Also, my patient is getting his heart. So, honestly, I’m not extremely sorry. I am sorry I am not that sorry, however. If that helps.”
“Murray, shut up.”, Lena said. “She’s a lawyer”, she said later, “You don’t want another lawsuit.”
“You don’t know what I want.”
Holy shit. I could not stop reading this. I could have gone for another five hundred pages. Josephine Burg’s writing is so addictive and characteristic even though
this is only her first novel, I know I will be devouring every book of hers that comes out from now on.
How weird was this book? It was divided in sections of three, but in more ways than just the POV variation: it was also one third romance, one third medical stuff, and one third courtroom drama. It was one third sci-fi, one third fantasy, one third realism. Murray, Nappy, and Judy each formed one essential perspective of the story as the love story between the latter ones never would have worked if not for Murray’s sobering intervals. And most people wouldn’t have stood five hundred pages of Murray. I love Murray and she is my new favourite literary character ever, of course; but my tastes are unusual.
I see a lot of people here saying that the book was unclear about “the message” it was passing on. Just because a book shows you imperfect people doing imperfect things, that doesn’t mean its narrative is “condoning” what they are doing. It’s not a goddam PSA. It’s time for y’all to graduate from your YA class, twenty-somethings.
Newsflash, assholes:
IT’S NOT A BOOK’S JOB TO GIVE YOU ALL THE ANSWERS. IF YOU NEED IT ALL SPELLED OUT FOR YOU, READ A SELFHELP BOOK, A POLITICAL MANIFESTO. OR AN ACADEMIC TREATY. OR A STORY FOR CHILDREN. MORAL OF THE STORY: PEOPLE ARE HELLA DIM
That being said, Nappy and Judy were kinda lame as a couple as well as individuals. But the Waterloo silent musical sequence more than makes up for that.
You’ve heard of Gender Identity being a social construct- now get ready for the deconstruction of Genre Identity.
Josephine Burg’s debut novel, A Change of Heart, is nothing if not divisive. It’s been divisive of its readers, who might love it or hate it (or both), it’s been divisive of genres (there are at least three conventions of genre at use here at any given time), it’s been divisive in the characters themselves, who seem professionally accustomed to slipping through the cracks of their own selves. In constant existential transit, the genreidentity crisis suffered by this novel simply reflects the crises suffered by each of the main characters. The blend of various genres at once is not always a successful one, but A Change of Heart gets away with it given its premise: if Nappy is experiencing an uncomfortable mixture between his brain and someone else’s heart, in effect so is the reader. Is it a stupid premise? Of course, but isn’t that the point? The self-awareness of this novel is so clear it might suffer from a lack of sincerity, if anything. By criticising the outlandishness of its plot every chance it gets, the reader is often taken out of the story by the story itself. That could have been handled betterthen again, any mismatched polarity will inevitably trace back to the allegory of Nappy’s state of mind anyhow.
Not taking itself too seriously ultimately works for the book’s benefit. That is what harsh critics have yet to realise; that the brilliance of the novel lies precisely on its ambivalence. By not disclosing
whether Fenton’s heart actually did still keep some of Fenton or if that is just a crazy justification, Burg manages to tell both stories simultaneously and in parallel. It’s not either one or the other, it is both. And that is A Change of Heart’s ultimate magic trick.
“Why is there discourse about this?” (three stars)
thetea
I wasn’t going to bother reviewing this well-written mess of a novel, but now that I see some of the discourse surrounding this thing, I feel obligated to break it to everybody: you aren’t supposed to be taking it seriously! By having actual serious debates about it, you are only fulfilling the prophecy of the book that folks will believe any gibberish that is told to them despite how unscientific it may seem.
Murray might be the only smart person, but don’t think for a second that either Nappy or Judy buy the crap they are selling to Olga. Neither does Olga, by the way- she is just using it as a coping mechanism. And we are given plenty of clues that this is what was really happening- for starters, Judy was about to dump Fenton. Why would she have fallen in love with “him” if she had filed for divorce? And the only thing Nappy and Fenton have in common is the heart. If he were being taken over, wouldn’t he have picked up some odd habits as well? The novel is pretty clearly telling you this is just a charade. Even Olga seems to realise that at some point, and that is why she sues, I think. In any case, you people are insane to think that a novel that includes a dance sequence to ABBA’s Waterloo is actually
worried about philosophical questions. Yeah, that does happen. It’s actually the Mamma Mia version of Waterloo, around which there’s a whole musical number staring Nappy and Judy (dressed up as Horatio Nelson). Because it is a book, we are only given the lyrics and the description of the dance moves and costumes. So, yeah. It was funny to think of people doing a musical without any sound- you start to realise how ridiculous it actually looks. But still. Not something to write dissertations about.
I prefer my rejections to be free of charge, free as the words I’d allow you to publish with a payment called exposure. I’d rather not pay to receive the quick sting of a preconstructed response, to hear that Thank you but no thank you jingle in my email. My empty stomach is singing along to those Good luck with your work elsewhere themes. They’re so much positively worded negativity in my inbox, I think it’s lost all meaning. I’ve been lyrically desensitized and monetarily robbed. But it’s the latter that annoys me.
Jerome Berglund is the one stocking little free libraries in Minneapolis with Marx and Engels. In his spare time he conducts disorderly orchestras.
Writing Publications: https://flowersunmedia.wixsite.com/jbphotography/post/haiku-senryu-andhaiga-publications
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/BerglundJerome
BLOG: https://flowersunmedia.wixsite.com/jbphotography/blog-1/
L.M. Cole is a poet and artist from North Dakota who now resides in North Carolina. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming with Roi Fainéant, JAKE, Bullshit Lit, The Bitchin’ Kitsch and others. She is a poetry reader for Moss Puppy Magazine, editor of Bulb Culture Collective and her debut poetry chapbook, SALT MOUTH MOSS QUEEN is slated for publication October 2022 with Alien Buddha Press. She can be found on Twitter @_scoops__
Tinamarie Cox lives in Northern Arizona with her husband and two children. She writes to escape her mind and explore the universe. She’s not exceptionally interesting but you can follow her on Instagram @tinamariethinkstoomuch
Will Davis scribbles small things in a poetic manner amongst the bluegrass. Recent chapbook ‘Starter, Opening Prayer’ with Alien Buddha Press. Further scribbles @ByThisWillAlone.
John Finnegan (they/them) is a student of English literature at Chapman University. They have a pension for anything chaotic, queer, or leftist (preferably a combination of the three). You can find them on Twitter @FinneyFlame or on Instagram @JWFinnegan.
When Nolcha isn’t walking with wild turkeys, she writes her little brains out. Her poems have been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Alien Buddha Zine, Medusa’s Kitchen, and others. Her three chapbooks are available on Amazon. Nominee for 2023 Best of The Net. Editor for Kiss My Poetry and for Open Arts Forum. Accidental interviewer. Faker of fake news. Website: https://bit.ly/3bT9tYu ; “My Father’s Ghost Hates Cats” https://amzn.to/3uEKAqa ; “The Big Unda” https://amzn.to/3IxmJhY ; “How to Get Me Up in the Morning” https://amzn. to/3RLDaKc
Ashwini Gangal is a former business journalist who quit her full-time job as managing editor of a business daily in Mumbai, India, to pursue greener pastures in the world of literature and academia.
Alexandre Harrison is mysterious, unknowable, and can be found writing among the birds.
Maddie Holm is a 25-year-old graduate student living in New Mexico. Beginning her adventures in writing with short stories about a child detective who solved mysteries, Maddie has been writing since she was in elementary school. She is currently studying counseling for her master’s program and takes an interest in the intensity and impact of emotions, which she frequently writes about in her poetry and short stories. Utilizing writing as a coping skill, she finds comfort in creating evocative pieces that include beautiful language and imagery. Maddie’s favorite bird is a flamingo, and she would like you to know that they are, in fact, not born pink, but white.
Lucy has fostered a love of writing since she was old enough to hold a pen. Her work has been published in Vast Chasm, Cardinal Sins, Deep Overstock, and the Big Windows Review. She is a second-year MFA student at the University of Kentucky. You can find her on all social media @ LucyAJayes
Ian Lax Ian Lax is an emerging writer and lover of confessional poetry.Dorothy Lune is a Yorta Yorta poet, born in Australia. Her work has appeared in Pinhole Poetry, Pink plastic house, Olit, Ice lolly review, & more. She is compiling a manuscript entitled Lady Bug.
Sadie Maskery lives in Scotland by the sea. Her first chapbook, Push, is published by Erbacce Press (erbacce-press.co.uk/sadie-maskery) and she can be found on Twitter as @saccharinequeen. Her collection ‘Shouting at Crows’ (ISBN 9798358354890) will be available from Alien Buddha Press later in the year.
Mona Mehas (she/her) writes about growing up poor, accumulating grief, and climate change. A retired, disabled teacher in Indiana, USA, she’s at her laptop most days with two old cats as chaperones. Previously, Mona used the pseudonym Patience Young. She’s published in Moments Between, Backwards Trajectory, Loft Books, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, and others. During the early pandemic, she watched every Star Trek show and movie in chronological order and many online concerts.
Abby Moeller is a writer based in WNY who explores her writing in forms varying from poetry to dramatic monologues to epic fantasy stories. Currently, she lives with her growing zoo of pets and endlessly teetering piles of books. She can be found rambling on Twitter at @abbym823.
Serena Piccoli (she/her) is an Italian poet, photographer and playwright. Her poems and photos have been featured in magazines and galleries worldwide. Her latest book of poetry gulp\gasp was published by Moria Poetry (USA) in September 2022. Both her poems and her photos are about social political issues.
An author, journalist and a father, Kushal Poddar, editor of ‘Words Surfacing’, authored eight books, the latest being ‘Postmarked Quarantine’. His works have been translated into eleven languages.
Bianca is an up and coming artist whose bio can only be guessed at and whose name is only spoken in whispers.
Beatriz Seelaender is a Brazilian author from São Paulo. Her fiction has appeared in Cagibi, AZURE, Psychopomp, among many others, and essays can be found at websites such as The Collapsar and Guesthouse. Her novellas have earned her both the Sandy Run and the Bottom Drawer Prizes. Seelaender’s poetry has been published by Inflections Magazine, VERSION [9], etc. “Canon Familiaris”, a chapbook in which she turns canonical poems into poems about her shih tzu, Uli, will be released by Really Serious Literature in 2023.
Bud Sturguess was born in 1986 in the small cotton-and-oil town of Seminole, Texas. He now lives in his “adopted hometown,” Amarillo. Sturguess has self-published several books, his latest being the novel Sick Things. His work appears online at New Pop Lit, Erato, and The Agape Review, as well as in the print anthologies Mid/South from Belle Point Press, and The Daily Drunk’s From Parts Unknown. He lives on disability benefits and collects neckties. Bud’s favorite bird and Batman villain is the penguin.
Fee Thomas is a poet, photographer and activist from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has published two books “Owning the Color Blue” published by Claire Songbirds Publishing House and “Dreams Never Die” published by “Corby Books. She has also been published in many anthologies and articles. Fee loves to be outdoors and being with family. You can find Fee on Facebook, Twitter ( feethomas2) and Instagram (feethomas_listeningtotrees)
Germany and translates for a living. Her poems can be found in Bennington Review, Denver Quarterly, Poetry Northwest, Stanchion, Storm Cellar, and other fine places. She has one Pushcart Prize nomination and no university degree. Read more at linktr.ee/moira_walsh
Michigan-born Moira
Walsh makes her home in southern
