Silhouette Spring 2016

The Silhouette Spring 2016

Dear Readers, On behalf of the editorial staff, I'm honored to present this semester's issue of Silhouette. We've taken a different direction with this issue; a reinvention of minimalizing in size, while maintaining the aesthetic brilliance of Connor Sherman's design. As always, the issue is a showcase for the immense creativity and artistic talent that Shawnee State has to offer.

Many of the pieces inside complement one another across disciplines, while still representing the voice and vision of the individual artist. For example, Luke Thompson's "Untitled: Lake View" captures the beauty and wonder of the local land, which Mikhail Smith explores in her nonfiction essay, "Appalachian Wilderness."

Other works of poetry, such as Zeb Cottrill's "Black Liquid" and Erika Proffitt's "The First and the Last" carry the traces of the same darker nature rendered in Calvin Lye's always-impressive digital paintings.

We have also included the winning entries from the student art competition which, along with the submitted pieces, provide the bookends to a candid interview with visiting poet, Dr. Scott Minar, who shares his wisdom of writing, as well as some of his upcoming work.

I want to personally thank Silhouette's advisor, Neil Carpathios, for his guidance, and our editorial staff for their vision and input I hope you thoroughly explore this issue , and enjoy the imaginations reflected on the pages inside.

Regards, Dane Palla Editor of Poetry & Prose

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The First and The Last Lie

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Untitled: View of Lake

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Touching the Truth A Conversation *34 with Scott Minar C.M.A.R

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Untitled: View of Lake Luke Thompson

The First and The Last Looking back on it now, it's very strange that he was there .

Then, it wasn't. It had been a pleasant surprise, That the stranger who called himself my father had shown up.

He had long since stopped showing up for my firsts, Shortly after the first time I spoke.

But there he was, standing underneath that tree with me , Holding on to the back of the seat, As I teetered on the two wheels of that orange, Tweedy-Bird bike.

He had promised he'd hold on, And, at six, I put my faith in him for the last time.

I pedaled forward , through the grass and out into that field.

I was high on the exhilaration that I was almost doing it by myself, But also that he was the one there for me, helping me do it.

Then I glanced back and saw him still standing by the tree, And with a sense of betrayal , I promptly fell over.

-Erika Proffitt

Lie On the cold ground; horizontal, Motionless; stretched out and Dependent on the floor below.

Also beside, with, or next to The person you want, Love , or need.

Falsehood, false accusations, To me, to them, to everyone, So it's beneficial for you.

Through your teeth, malicious, Unforgiving betrayal, Without even slight guilt.

Sydney

Trash June Borell

Eliot Probably Did it Better In case you're wondering, No, I won't be using any rhyme.

There isn 't time for such childishness.

Hasn't anyone ever told you to grow up, El se the world wi ll spin on without you, Rotating on the grand tilted rod , Orbiting around frightening mass Of fission and fusion?

My existence is the cause no more than yours.

That's always been the way of it.

Have we any reason to care?

Everything matters as much as it doesn't.

Wh ere I am a poor poet, Others have succeeded, Men and women of El egant verse and imagery, Nothing like my own.

Change my ways?

Only if being a better poet Makes me a happier person.

Everyone has things they're bad

At that still make them happy.

Now, why shou ld that change?

Don't call yourself a good poet, but Go ahead and write another bad poem.

Only a fool would tel l someone not To write because they're no good.

Al l great poets started bad, Let's not pretend otherwise.

Kin g of prose or verse or oration Inevitably they started at the bottom.

Now, if you want to do the same, Get a notebook of your own

Open it up and on every page Fil l it with crap and rant to yourself.

Make the worst poems you've ever seen.

It's best to get them out of the way early 'Cause there 'll be many, many failures, Have no doubts about that.

Eventually you'll be good, but till then Leave the greatness to the greats.

All you need at first is simple verse Not a poem that stands the test of time.

Get used to the fact that others write better.

Everything is fine . Just promise you won't Lean over blank page, put off by The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock.

-Tony Neja

Black Liqui d What kind does God use, In his everlasting book.

Color of death, Yet full of life.

It can cause creation, With a blot of its essence.

Peace or war, Whatever man chooses.

With a name, Giving children a category.

Lasts longer then lead, Being forced into the skin.

Becomes a slave, In man's tool.

Forming thought into reality, On a white page.

The ink fills the void, With imagination or truth.

But like life itself, The blackness cannot bleed forever.

Zeb Cottrill

Untitled Luke Thompson

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Woe unto those that do not know such honeyed affection.

God, abate their torment and misery: Glittering gold slips through greedy men's fingers , Fettering chains of lust binding their hearts, Foolish beings, grasping at illusionary objects.

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Calvin Lye Scheming Princess of Vines

Appalachian Wildlife Mikhail Smith I'm not usually afraid of much; it just wasn't how I was raised . All of us grandchildren were taught at a young age to tough it out and deal with whatever was thrown at us. I was always out following the older boys of my family, learning from the men how to handle life and how to work. It's thanks to them I can navigate all of the forest our family owns; all two hundred acres of local, Appalachian land.

Th ese woods contain so much , there's always something new, and the entire family tends to be out in th em all year.

The children take four wheelers and dirt bikes up the trails without fear, not givin g a single thought to what is hidden within those trees. I've been feet away from a black panther as it chased down a doe; I've seen Bobcats pounce from a tree onto the smaller prey flittering across the floor. But there's other animals that give me pause in our woods; animals destructive enough to tear apart precious livestock.

I wou ld normal ly feel safe with my father, a navy veteran who towers over me by at least a foot. He intimidated many, and had more experience with danger than I would ever want. I've always felt safe when he was around because I knew he would go to extreme lengths ju st to make sure we were safe. However, this evening ended with me not even feeling safe within our home, on our own land.

It was a crude wakeup call from Mother Nature.

It started out as my mom , dad and I all

stood at the upper end of the property, out in front of the garage. The small dogs were wrestling and running around with my three younger siblings. Within a few minutes, a hoarse mix of what sounded like growls mixed with snorts and loud grunts of air echoed off of the hill across from us. Only about a hundred feet away from where we were standing. Our first thought was a puppy had wandered into the woods, heard us, and was coming to visit. But, there was an unnatural si lence that offset all of us.

There are quite a few options: Bobcats , coyotes, wolves, etc. Those options didn't settle any of our nerves. Instead, they set off warning bells.

Dad issued a quick demand that I keep watch whi le he ran to the house, one of my brothers sprintin g after him. I quickly grabbed the small er dogs and shoved them at my other two siblings, arguing with them to get to the house safely since we didn 't know what was in there.

I kept an eye on the trees, listening to the repetitive short snorts and barks, growing fiercer by the minute. There were interspersed deep growls that sent chills down my sp ine, and I tried to convince my sib lings they needed to be inside. I paused when the noises stopped, before ushering them toward the house in a frenzy. They took off down the driveway, just as my dad and brother started back towards me. Dad passed by me, glaring at the trees and brush and load in g shell s into his rifle. I snatched the spotli ght from my brother and waved him back to the house, to where my mother was standing at the end of the garage.

I had to run to catch back up with Dad .

I wasn't scared at that point, but I was antsy. I felt a weight on my chest; one I hadn't really felt before that was telling me there was something about to go wrong. I felt the need to retreat inside the house, but knew I couldn't leave dad. I didn't know what was over there, but I realized it knew we were there since the barking had stopped. The

silence was nerve wracking, almost as much as the shadows. It was close to six, about an hour and a half until sunset, but the tree line was dark. I stood back, pointing the spotlight into the brush and open spaces while my dad paced back and forth. He's worse than a threatened mama bear when he feels his kids are in danger.

I withstood the silence for about ten minutes, scanning the hillside where we had heard the noises. I dared to drop the spotlight to glance back through the open holler, through the tall grass and back at the far tree line. The light glanced off of something, causing me to jump and jerk the light back to focus on that point. Just out of the range of the light, I saw two bright reflective specks, and a dark figure resembling a post.

I stood still, trying to force my eyes to focus enough to see that far and tell me if it were truly a post or if it were the source of the harsh barking.

"Dad," I whispered. Whispering was all I could manage since I felt as though my throat was closing and the weight on my chest had increased. Almost instantly he was by my side. I held the light as steady as I could and pointed a single finger back into the shadows. I caught him squinting his eyes out of the corner of my vision, but I couldn't pull my eyes from those reflective specks. He scowled, causing the wrinkles around his eyes to become more prominent.

"I don't see anything," he grumbled, shifting impatiently, possibly in frustration at his failing eyesight.

"There's something there, but it's far enough out I can't tell what," I mumbled.

"Keep an eye on it and tell me if it moves, " he said, then aimed the rifle at the bottom of the hill near us. The round

blew up some dirt, but my eyes hadn't left the specks.

"It took off running!" I yelled, finally able to get some air now that I wasn't locked in a staring contest with it. Its figure was larger than I originally thought as it took off running up the hill. My heart skipped a beat and I wanted to jump back in fear, but I was frozen on that pavement.

"Well this should ensure he won't come back here," he growled out. Rapidly, he loaded , fired , and emptied about nine more shots into the dirt. The explosive echoes bounced off the hills, deafening me even more . I felt a little better after that , knowing dad had chased it off.

It didn 't comfort me that the thing had been staring me down, and I briefly wondered what it was.

My thoughts were that it was a bear. It was a large enough figure, and it was posturing. We had seen them around our farm before. The previous ones had even killed the neighbor's miniature goats and had been shot in the process.

We weren't allowed outside for a solid two weeks after that because Dad said an injured bear would attack anything without a care. I shivered to think of this one getting any of our livestock, or worse, one of my younger siblings.

When we went to the house, we barely walked in the door before Dad grabbed his keys and was ushering me back out the door. He threw the keys to me and grabbed a spotlight. Seeing him slide into the passenger seat unnerved me.

Dad never let anyone drive his truck.

"Where are we going?" I asked, pulling the door open and hiking my leg to step into the truck .

"We have to go warn everyone on the other side of the hill. We can't have kids running around with it running that Cont' on page 30

Courtney Sisk ii giardino

way. I'm pretty sure it was a bear."

I bit my lip and backed into the turn-around, then pulled out of the driveway. I internally stomped down the nervousness as I passed a few scattered houses on our family 's farm before reaching the area on the other side of the hill where houses were grouped much closer together.

We pulled into the driveway of a family friend, one who had twins the same age as one of my brothers. Dad nodded to the door as he started to scan the hillside with the spotlight. It had gotten so dark by this point that I struggled not to trip over the stepping stones leading to their door.

I stepped onto the small porch and knocked on the door. The twins' father opened the door and gave me a curious look once he realized who it was.

"Hey Mikhail, what are you doing down this way so late?"

"Hey Aaron, Dad and I just stopped down to let everyone know we spotted something on the other side of the hill.

We thought it might be a bear," I said.

"A bear? I knew we had wild hogs in this area, but a bear?"

"Yeah," I sighed, lifting my arm to scratch the back of my head, "We just had an incident on the other side of the hill and it didn't seem too happy."

"Well , let me grab some shoes and a light and I'll help you tell everyone."

He disappeared back inside, the screen door flapping shut with a bang. I winced and moved back towards Dad , who was standing at the end of the driveway. He pushed the spotlight into my hands and started walking to old Betty's house.

She'd recently been widowed.

"Scan the hill in short bursts of light," Dad mumbled as he disappeared around the corner to go knock on her door. Still antsy, I started scanning the hill. Frequently pressing and letting go of the trigger on the spotlight. My breath hitched when two reflective spots stood

out, but before I could holler at Dad, the buck raised its head and proudly shook its antlers. I let out a deep sigh. If a buck was over here, maybe the bear didn't come this way?

Dad came back around the corner and I silently pointed up at the buck with a spotlight. He glanced at it only for a moment before moving back up the driveway towards the road where Aaron now stood. We did the next several houses quickly with no incident, but the last house was around the curve. It was a little bit of a walk and wasn't lit. At this point, any fear I had felt had dissipated.

I doubted it had come this way, and I was even starting to doubt it was a bear.

Dad had his rifle, and Aaron was here as well. No problem at all.

As we were walking around the curve, I jumped when Aaron put his hand on my shoulder. We were in the unlit portion , as the house that had been on this curve burnt down when I was a kid and was now overgrown with saplings and brush.

"Mikhail, did you hear that?" Aaron whispered. I turned my head slightly over my right shoulder and was about to dismiss that anything was there, but paused.

A growly snort sounded behind us .

I never have been so petrified with fear in my life, but my brain has never worked faster. I was frozen to the spot.

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arms, and my heart was trying to beat right out of my chest. I couldn't breathe; I could only watch the darkness as Aaron's hand clasped my shoulder tighter. He , she, it ..... Whatever it was, was less than fifty feet behind us in that brush where the old house used to sit at the base of the hill. We had walked right by it; it had watched us walk right by it. Hot tears spilt down my face as the growl grew louder and the pure terror sitting in my chest overwhelmed me. I frightfully jerked around, overcoming the paralyzing weight, to see Dad about ten feet in front of us, still blissfully unaware.

I said every prayer I could, trying to get myself to move and to get his attention, to make any sort of sound that would bring him back to protect me.

"Dad," I managed to squeak out. I honestly have never felt my knees tremble, never felt as much fear as what was currently constricting my throat and crushing my chest. I was raised to be tough, to get done what needed to be done, and not to constantly worry about what was going on around me.

I was supposed to be as strong and fearless as my dad. He whipped around and sprinted back to us. Aaron pointed back at the brush. Dad aimed the rifle and Aaron lifted his spotlight. The brush was deafening as it moved around and the light only glinted off the full leaves. I thought for sure it was going to charge

us, and I could only lift a hand to grip the back of Dad's shirt as more hot tears spilled down my face.

The headlights that illuminated the side of my face , and ruined my night vision, terrified me even more. Would I not even see it coming? Was that a blessing or a curse? I turned my head slightly to see a white pick-up truck slow to a stop in front of us, and my night vision returned just enough to see that same black figure from earlier moving steadily up the hill. I bit my lip and continued to cry silently as Dad was confronted by the man in the truck for walking down the road with a rifle .

"I live over the hill, we were walking to warn everyone of the bear we saw since it ran this way," Dad said, swinging the rifle over his shoulder to empty his hands and show he had no ill intentions.

"Bear? What would it be doing over here?" the man croaked out around his beard. His wife pulled her hand back and I heard her shut the glove compartment. They had been prepared for a confrontation.

"Well, where do you live around here?"

Dad asked.

"I live in this last trailer back here," the man said, jerking his head around the curve we had just been rounding.

"Have any of your animals went missing?" Aaron threw in, "I haven't seen your guineas or chickens for a while now. " "They've steadily been going missing for the past week now," the old man said before spitting out his window. I gripped Dad's shirt even harder and saw my knuckles go white. I was thinking exactly what Dad was about to say.

"This has been his feeding ground then," Dad mumbled, "You be safe then sir, we're going to head back before he decides to come back here. You be careful now."

"Have a good night," the old man said as he and his wife pulled off and did a quick turn in the road.

On the way back to the truck, Dad and Aaron were joking about who would've been bear bait I tried to laugh , but terror still unsettled my stomach.

I didn 't want to think about what would've happened had that old man not pulled up. I instead joked about how it would be no trouble to outrun two old men. We made it back to the truck and waited until Aaron had made it inside before backing out of the driveway. Being in the truck with Dad settled my stomach and allowed me to calm my mind. I could reason with myself that being around him created a safe environment. He has always gone above and beyond to make sure I'm safe. There's no way something like a bear could get hold of me while he was around.

My mother actually called official wildlife offices to try and get the bear removed.

We were told that they would look into it We told them it seemed ready to attack, that we feared for the safety of others in the area as well as for our livestock.

My grandfather warned us to be careful , as even hurting the bear in self-defense could get us fined. It was protected by the state, and nothing would come of reporting it, just as nothing had come of reporting the one that had brutally murdered our neighbor's miniature goats, tearing apart the wire kennel to get to an easy meal that had never known anything but the life of a pet Our neighbors said they heard the goats screaming , came out with the gun in a panic, and shot at the figure looming on the hillside. They said wildlife officers had come out to question them, but denied they knew anything about the bear. They didn't hear from the officers again after they left It was heard behind my great uncle's barn the next night as

he was feeding, bawling and snarling.

I tried to shake the fear at what had happened a couple years ago, assuring myself that the wildlife officers would take care of this bear before it tried anything more.

Yet, there is a fear. My cousin , only two houses away, less than half a mile down the road, saw it nosing around his goats the next night A black bear. I can 't help but wonder what it was after that night Is a miniature poodle or a pug an appetizing snack? How about a small child? The cattle weren't in the field by our house, but rather down the road on the stretch of the farm. No matter how comfortable I am in my home, or along the trails of our farm, relaxing and taking it all in with no fear, I can 't help but feel like this was a wake-up call. I am no match for a bear, and because of that I can no longer naively walk unarmed across my family's land. It lives there as much as I do, but I can't tell if it is pleased with the idea. Nature doesn 't respect man made boundaries, and I was raised better than to foolishly believe otherwise.

Touchin g th e Truth: A Conversation with Scott Minar Dane Palla

Or. Scott Minar received his B.S.S , M.A. and Ph.D. from Ohio University in Athens , and is currently the Professor of English at Ohio University's Lancaster Campus, where he teaches creative writing, literature, and composition.

This past April, Dr. Minar visited SSU's campus to speak with the students of Neil Carpathios ' Modern & Contemporary American Poetry class. Or. Minar also gave a reading on campus for National Poetry Month .

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"Wh at were you trying to do, with your new book, Cymbalism? What was the goal in mind ?"

"In terms of the technique ," he said, "it's a book that's trying to project a kind of difficult family and world situation that one experiences inside, as we all do-our subjectivity-trying to project the subjective outward. And that involves both larger issues, and not all of them negative-some of the poems

are about art, and they're intended as celebrations of what the artist does. Even if the poems have darker connotations, it's still more about the art.

"All writers can be accused of trying to express themselves ." He paused a moment to laugh. "Right? It's the joke. But sometimes you might look back on a situation and think, Why the hell did that happen? And you wrestle with it. And sometimes when you follow the family map , you might embrace a negative aspect of your parents, or your grandparents, but you might not know it. Then you discover that later, and you think , I didn 't set out to be like this, and those things compound at times . So the inner life can get complicated that way.

And if you're just telling a story; here's what happened to me, this was about my friend , or, wasn't this sad, or, wasn't this a beautiful moment; the kind of subrational experience that people have in wrestling with difficult things parallels that story.

"Like me, for example. I grew up during the Vietnam War. Terrible .

The Zeitgeist of the time was tough .

Sad. Brutal. Weird. There was a lot of unravelling with violence going around, and all those things put together make for an interesting subjectivity. So in this book, I was trying to project both the family and this pastiche of political things as an inner experience out onto the page.

"I think the poems that come out are not entirely rational all the time , and that's deliberate. And there's also an attempt to combine things ; I have one poem that's, in part, about chi ldhood, with the line, 'Everywhere we caught a four-leaf snowflake on our tongue .· Trying to conflate the idea of a snowflake with a clover, and that's just

a little thing. To me that's an expression of what goes on inside our heads.

Because if we're having a good day, and we're being thoughtful, we can manage things. We can say, 'Okay, this lines up this way, I understand that that way, I'm going to be tough about this.'

But if you're having an average day, or a not so great day, all that stuff just rolls together. And that's the side of life that I felt the need to try to express. I don't think it's a book for everybody, because it's difficult. It's kind of ... " he paused for thought in a brief second, the looked up smiling. "It's strange."

"I noticed several references to other poets and authors-Herbert, Hbd erlin , Kafka-and wondered; what poets interested you the most as a writer?"

"Well, speaking of; Herbertthe Polish poet who should have won the Nobel Prize and never did. Charles Simic, Paul Celan-to a lesser extent.

He's one of the most influential poets in my life but, you can't learn things about writing from reading Celan. Well, there are, but they're not practical things. I've read every poem by Herbert and Simic more than once. I studied them. And Herbert's collected poems is like five hundred pages. I read it all. And then read it again. But it's like any favorite author; you return to it. To learn the mechanics of it. And crazy stuff happens in his poems.

"He invented this persona, Mr. Cogito-think about how funny that isMr. 'I think.' And I realized after years of reading Herbert that Mr. Cogito as a persona is just a stand-in for his own psyche. I don't know why that didn't hit me harder. So after a while, I decided that I wanted to make my own persona, but I didn't want to invent the whole club, so I decided that my personaInsidious, in the new book-is Mr. Cogito's American cousin. And people say that you can't trust writers when they talk about their own writing, but I'm going to say someth ing about it anyway: I don't think Insidiou s' name has a lot

to do with the meaning of the word 'insidious'. I sometimes just like to think of him as 'Sid'. Or maybe a Roman guy."

"Many writers appreciate myriad styles of writing. Which authors would you say inspire you, while maintaining styles very different from your own."

"I love E.E. Cummings. I think he's undersung. People used to like him a lot more, but I think he's way underappreciated. He's in a kind of netherworld. He's in between meaning, and aesthetics, and he loves word play. I love word play. I love to shove words around-it's fun. You create double meanings and intricacies. In anthropology there used to be a term called 'ecotone', which is the border between the forest and the savannah, or the desert and the mountain; that area in between, which tended to be biologically and botanically interesting.

Where life can thrive with elements from both environments, both areas.

I like poetry that works the same, and Cummings is a good example."

"What literary movement best describes your style? Where do you put yourself?

Romantic , Realist , Impressionist?"

"I like to consider myself an Expressionist. Though , that's probably not accurate. And when you talk about Expressionism in poetry, it's difficult to make that parallel, because Expressionism is so much about color, or the absence of color, plus abstraction. But I think that fits with my poetry. In some ways, I also think I'm a Symbolist. Symbolism was the movement in poetry and painting and Cont' on page 38

Calvin Lye The Giver

Calvin Lye The Manic

music where fantastic elements started ari sing as a response to nature scenery. So, I think I would be somewhere between Symbolism and Expressionism . I don't say this out of an overabundance of humility, but I feel there are more skilled writers who might be able to channel those movements better than I do. But I still think I'm in the ballpark."

"When did you know you wanted to become a writer?"

"I still don't know it. I think it's interesting to think about what we mean by 'know'. I think I've always known it.

But, I only recognized it probably when I was an undergraduate. But I think I knew it even before college. I spent a year and a half just working in a warehouse in Cleveland and I remember my girlfriend broke up with me or something, and I walked back to a room where I could get a moment alone, and I just wrote a poem on a piece of paper, by hand. Kept it for years. That was before I even had a creative writing class.

"I once turned in a poem in the early 1970s when I was a senior in high school, and we had a cool English teacher who said we could do an alternative assignment for our last project, so I wrote a poem. I had a friend of mine, who's an artist, do it in calligraphy on a big poster, and I brought it in and he really liked it. He showed it to the whole class. So, I was doing it in that sort of informal way that a lot of people do it. But I knew it was special for me.

"I tell my students that poetry is a room that you can walk into, and you can say things that you can 't say in other rooms. That's poetry. I think reading poetry and literature, to me, always felt like that. I always felt like I was in a special place."

"What was the turning point that led you to where you are now?"

"For me, I think it was schooling. I was an interesting, but kind of starry-eyed, hippie kid when I went to college, so I didn't really have a major for a long time. I took so many upper-level classes in areas that I was interested in, but that I didn't really need- I was an idealist. I thought you went to college to learn. I was seeking to improve myself. But one of my English professors said to me, 'You should think about going to grad school,' and I looked at him like he was crazy. That wasn't an expectation back then- late 1970s. I said, 'I can't do that,' and he said, 'Oh yes you can.' And for me, that was the turning point. But I waited. I worked another year in Cleveland as a janitor, as a musician , and I thought about that and I said, 'Okay, you give that a try.' That was the turning point for me.

And as a writer I've had many turning points, but you always have to push, as you know. You're always push, push, pushing. The problem is that at first, you're trying to figure out what to write, and so , for my students, I give exercises and I talk to them about how to turn corners and get off their triggering subject and discover something new in the same piece of writing. And the other problem is that you start imitating yourself once you learn how to do it. You don't want to be the person who comes out with a third book, and have peop le say, 'Oh, there he goes again. Another book just like the last one.' So there are many turning points. You have to red iscover yourself as you go."

"What other hobbies do you enjoy? In what ways do they connect with your writing?" ''I'm a musician and a songwriter. I teach a songwriting workshop at The Chautauqua Writers' Festival in Western New York State in June. Songwriting and poetry did not connect for me for quite a long time. But they do now, at least in some ways. I teach my students

that one of the most important things they can learn is how to make their writing their very own, how to reach and activate a voice of their own. If we are able to do that, it almost doesn't matter how good our writing is. It will be authentic and satisfying.

That may be more valuable than skill, at least to us as individuals.

Yet, voice is not separate from skill, craft, or technique . These are all aspects of something I like to call design, by the way. Songwriting Cl) has a similar imperative. The song must be yours- your choice, your C. subject, your vibe and rhythm . You 0 Cl) also have to be able to perform it C. alone with a single instrument and still deliver the whole thing. Poetry C: is like that too. You have to be Cl) able to read your stuff aloud in a way that seems like you mean the words while you are speaking them, Cl) nothing artificial or forced if we can help it. As if we're just talking to someone, but in a rather serious or C: authentic way, as if to a very good friend. Very good singers know how Cl) to do this too. It's never by rote, but always real emotionally. The words •have power if we think that they do and act as if they do."

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to my classmates in his creative writing classes, "Try to write poems you don't know how to write." A bit of an enigma there , or a paradox. But what he meant, I think, was that we must use writing as a way of discovering what we don 't yet know. This builds in the energy of discovery and exploration and can be quite powerful. It is also a way of pushing ourselves farther than we might be inclined to go, and that is always a good thing for a writer, and lots of other types of people, to do."

"What's the wri ting process like for you? Wh at kind of environment do you need to fin d creati vity and motivation?"

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"The simple answer is that I'm a coffee shop hound , and I write in coffee shops all over North America.

My favorite cafe is in Stratford, Ontario- Balzac's. I could write a poem in Balzac's now. I write there all the time. It's a part of my day. It's part of the reason I go there. But poems come to me in two ways.

"First is the work way, where I'm aware enough, alert enough- it's not easy to get into the proper mental "0 framework to actually compose in "As a poet and creati ve writer, u, - a way where I go deep. It's hard to what's the best advice you ever Cl) 0 do that , where I sit down and think. rece ived? What advice would you Not your surface emotions. Not what pass on to our readers?" you think you're thinking about. It's 0.C "There are a couple. Once a the perplexities of consciousnessprofessor of mine said to me, 'There consciousness is a weird thing. It's Cl) . . comes a time in life when people I,,.

Cl) not what we think it is ... which is a like you have to be told this . You funny thing to say. But it has layers.

Cl) think like an artist.' I guess my blueAnd with poetry, I have to go deep, collar background sort of precluded which means I have to get quiet, and the idea that I might be that or think I have to think, and I have to open that way, so I needed a little shove. myself to the quiet, and what arises It was great to hear and pretty shocking. from it. I am not able to do that all the "Probably the best advice I ever time . It's very hard, but, that's one place received was from the same man, my where the poems come from , if you just mentor Wayne Dodd , Distinguished open up to them . And then, that's just Professor of English at Ohio University a line, or a title, or a name, or a draft, and former editor and publisher of The or a half of a draft, and then, because Ohio Review. Wayne said to me , and

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Cont' on page 42

C.MAR. Cry Me A River, 20 12.

There was no airconditioning in highschool buildings.

Don't use your sharp ies for evil, they'd say.

Draw on the paper, they'd say.

Kids poked fun at the tall bodies we just recently woke up with.

Graduation came.

A four hour drive changes everything.

Lane, friends, and 100 midnight breakfasts.

Now the world looks different, read all the signs backwards.

Creative Minds Are Rare.

Nick Sherman Drought

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you've pried that door open, you have to reenter that space, to finish the book.And that happens overtime. Sometimes, for me, it happens over a long period of time.

"I had a poem that I sent out to a journal, and I thought it was finished.

It had a great opening line. It said, 'On the last rock of Olympus sits a god nobody knows.' That was the opening. I thought, man, with an opening like that, everybody's going to read that. But the ending was sort of facile. It was a nice closing. I sent it out to a very good poet who said he liked it, but he didn't like the ending. I said my usual, 'Well who the hell are you?' Then I thought , Oh, he's right. And it really ticked me off. But I had to go back in. And I had to open myself up , and I said, This poem can't have a rational ending. It's not a rational poem. ' So I just came up with the weirdest damn thing I could think of, which was something like , 'What if the lordliness he was born to shook itself out in the autumn leaves of a great forest, in which the wind itself had become a passenger.' And I wrote that line and I instantly loved it, because I thought , What the hell does that mean?

As if the wind itself were a passenger?

I don't know what that means, but I love it. It's a meaning in between the rational.

There's a suggestion of a truth there, without a linear road to it. That's what I want. That's what I admire in other writers; when they are able to suggest truth , and touch it, like a string on an instrument-bing- but you don't know exactly what it is. For me, that's the gesture. You hit it, but it seems like it's always surprising. That's the hard part; it doesn't come from the rational side of the brain. You have to push.

"The other way that I write just comes from weird inspiration. There are days where you just feel creative, and maybe you aren't aware of it, but these ideas just keep popping into your head-

those gifts. There's a real muse that's flicking the back of your ear, like the bullies in elementary school. Then you just have to write those things down.

And sometimes, they channel out."

Another Theology Insidious prefers to think of God as a partner, a waltz.

One-two-three, one-two-three, and so on. He saw a colossus once, head of roiling clouds in a sky made from his own lost souls.

He has two , or should have .

The rabbi made sure he understood this, though he is only half Jewish.

The other half paganlike a limb growing out of a rock in the abandoned temple wallthe ghost mouse that used to scurry when he sat his lessons, a breeze you feel around your toes.

He has emptied the building of self, then taken his own picture at the end of an extended stickbefore walking into it and disappearing altogether.

Hid den Plot A waiter and the cook share a cigarette in the alley.

The waitress is thinking about going home.

The bartender on the beach pretends to walk a dog with whom he has marvelous speech.

A Probl em with Parad ise The problem with paradise is the work week: It never begins.

So you're left wondering when the back-breaking will start.

A few cherubs loiter around a sign, Will work for food or Down on our luck. God bless.

Soup kitchens grind allusions into speeches and proclamations of change, but there is none.

The only recourse is to remain where you are. Movement is frowned upon. It risks the loss of everything.

So stepping through a cloud the rebels fell.

The air had gone out of the world. One chance had come and gone, and they never even knew itexcept for the One invisible, whose name was the same as the Savior's, in that quirk of chance where one thing may be so like another and yet not quite. This one, the Angel of Names , was borne aloft afterward.

You'll say It's not true and It can't be. But I'm telling you what's written down is not whole.

And that such writing, even such writing as that, has never stopped.

Staff James Hornsby Sara Johnson Jennifer Maschmeier Editors Dane Palla Connor Sherman

Poetry & Prose Editor Art & Design Director

If you're reading this, thank your local printshopl

All in all, I've created my best work within the company of my beautiful wife.

It will be two years this May. Thank you for loving me Aubrey.

You are forever marvelous in my eyes. *Connor

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