Amendment 2010

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AMENDMENT

social progression through artistic expression

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Staff Editor-in-Chief Audrey Walls

Faculty Advisor Liz Canfield

Managing Editor David Osnoe

Production Managers Mark Jeffries Dominic Butchello

Editorial Staff Zaynah Akeel Kasia Clarke Carrie Flint Jane Harwell Katie Houston Amber Jones Yasmin Malek Cassie Mulheron Mari Pack Nathan Plummer Sophie SolomonResplendy Peter Wellford Makiko Wholey

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Student Media Director Greg Weatherford Business Manager Lauren Geerdes Cover Artist Julie Pence “Don’t Mind Me”

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Mission amend·ment

\ə-men(d)-mənt\ noun 1. an annual literary journal that seeks to promote discussion on issues of equality, class, race, gender, sexuality, ability, and identity.

2. a socially progressive student-run organization that advocates for social change through artistic expression, as well as provides a platform for marginalized voices in the artistic & literary community.

3. what you’re holding in your hands.

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Acknowledgements Since it allegedly takes a village to raise a child, it’s no wonder that the editors of Amendment have called the journal our “baby” since day one. From conception to birth, the process of creating this journal would not have been possible without the guidance and friendship of many people.

We would like to thank firstly, those who make up the foundation for our platform, the cast and crew at the Student Media Center: Greg Weatherford, Lauren Geerdes, Mark Jeffries, and Dominic Butchello.

Without their knowledge and patience, we would be making our journal with Sharpies, glue sticks and a copier machine.

Our gratitude extends to the faculty of the newly transformed Women’s Studies department, especially Dr. Janet Hutchinson, and our fabulous faculty advisor and den mother, Liz Canfield, for giving us the tools necessary to break down barriers and re-create an artistic medium. Thank you for allowing us the space to promote our journal on your time, at your parties, and in your classrooms.

Equal appreciation goes to the rock stars and rebels at the English department who were always willing to help us in one way or another. So, thank you Margaret Altonen, for your snacks and storage space, Lily Rose Dunning, for being the best administrative assistant, Marie Potoczny, for promoting our journal and letting us crash your classroom, and David Wojahn, for sending our editors to a creative writing boot camp at Sweet

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Briar College.

We’d like to thank the long line of past editors at Amendment that have lighted, lifted, and thrown the torch through the years to get us to where we are today: Danielle Shutt, Celina Williams, Heather Cohu, and LeaAnne Eaton. Additionally, we’d like to thank the future editors who will take the lead in the next issue for their courage and dedication: David Osnoe, Mari Pack, and Peter Wellford.

And lastly, we need to thank you: the writers, the readers, and the submitters that create the community we serve. Thank you for trusting us with your writing and art. Thank you for giving us your voice. Thank you for believing in our mission. This is your journal.

This is your “baby” too. You were a part of the village that raised this child.

Thank you.

Amendment is an annual fall student publication funded by student activity fees. Amendment accepts rolling submissions year-round and offers workshops for writers and editors. We encourage submitted works of creative essays, personal narratives, short stories, plays, poetry, and prose. We also welcome artistic media including drawings, paintings, photography, and other forms of fine and applied arts. For submission guidelines, please visit our web site www. studentorg.vcu.edu/amendment or contact our editorial staff at amendmentvcu@ gmail.com. You may visit our office in person or mail submissions to: Amendment, VCU Student Media Center, 817 West Broad Street, P.O. Box 842010, Richmond, VA 23284-2010.

No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission of the VCU Student Media Commission and the editors of Amendment. All materials copyright 2010 by Amendment. All rights reserved.

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Introduction It is with much pride and enthusiasm that I introduce you to the seventh annual issue of Amendment.

The journal has gone through a number of changes through the eight years of its publication, and these changes have culminated in what you see in the pages that follow. The ever-broadening social justice mission and the expansion of our editorial board and readership are testimony to the fact that VCU students, community members, and faculty are dedicated to positive social vision through creative expression.

If you’ve never seen Amendment before, please allow me to indulge in a brief history of the publication.

Amendment was created out of a discussion in my Feminist Literary Theory class. Students from that class wanted to publish their creative and critical work around issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality. We threw together a rag-tag army of editors and designers and published our first issue out-of-pocket. Once the SMC saw what we were up to, we were able to receive University funding, and since then, the journal has grown in scope and sophistication, thanks to the generosity of the SMC, the hard work and dedication of the VCU student editors, and the support of VCU faculty and staff. Both the VCU English Department and the VCU Women’s Studies Department have been highly supportive of our work, and along with the SMC, have provided us with the institutional support we’ve needed to allow the journal to grow and flourish.

In “Toward a New Vision…” Patricia Hill

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Collins writes, “Once we realize that there are few pure victims or oppressors, and that each one of us derives varying amounts of penalty and privilege from the multiple systems of oppression that frame our lives, then we will be in a position to see the need for new ways of thought and action.” These “new ways of thought and action” are explored in the pages of Amendment and beyond, with the art, activism, and academic work that the students involved with Amendment take part in. As the journal matures, so does its critical lens. While still embracing “the personal is the political,” writers and artists featured in this issue also call for structural and intersectional analyses. These contributors and editors have given us critical and creative work that challenges us and calls us to action, while also giving us work that we can relate to and embrace. I am continually impressed with what I read in these pages and I hope that you will enjoy it as much as I do.

To get involved with Amendment, or to submit to the journal, email the editors at amendmentvcu@ gmail.com. To read more of Dr. Collins’ work, perhaps start with her important book, Black Feminist Thought (1990). The above quote can be found in the journal, Race, Sex, and Class, No. 1 (Fall 1993).

In solidarity, Liz Canfield Faculty Advisor

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Editorial Note Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I’m not the kind of person who rushes into things.

There isn’t a spontaneous bone in my body. So when the position for editor-in-chief of Amendment became available halfway through my junior year, I honestly have no idea what impulse took over me to nominate myself for the job without any hesitation. Especially considering that since I had joined the journal’s staff, I had noticed that many of our past editors seemed completely stressed out all the time. What if that happens to me? I wondered. Do I really have enough energy to work a part-time job, go to school full-time, and run a literary journal? What in the world have I gotten myself into?

I voiced my concerns to Liz Canfield, our faculty advisor, who knows me pretty well. She and I have both been notorious for historically almost biting off more than we can chew. Knowing this, she rolled her eyes at me and scoffed when I told her I was nervous about becoming editor-in-chief. “Honey,” she said, “this job was made for you.”

With her vote of confidence, I undertook the daunting task ahead of me of completely rebuilding our journal from the ground up. I went back to basics: recruitment, distribution, publicity. This was no time for hosting fancy events or shopping around for guest speakers. We needed a foundation again, and I feel confident that I have worked my hardest to provide this

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for the upcoming crew of editors and staff members.

This has not been a very glamorous year at Amendment, but it has been productive.

When I spoke about Amendment to Marie Potoczny’s creative writing class last fall, it was filled with mainly shy and awkward freshmen and sophomore students. One brave soul spoke up and asked me how I got the job of editor-in-chief. Did I fill out an application? Did I go on an interview? Did I get paid?

I thought about telling them similar stories about how the journal gets passed from one editor to the next, like an adopted child that someone must carry on their back for the entire academic year. I thought about retelling that story.

But instead, I went with the truth. I told the young student that I simply wanted the job more than anyone else did. I told her that some instinct in me knew that I would love doing this service to the community, so I crossed my fingers and stepped up to the plate. And in the end, Liz Canfield was right all along. The people who contribute to this journal, from our dedicated staff members, to our talented writers and artists, to our allies and friends we’ve made along the way do it because they were made to do this. And who knows… maybe you’re made to join us, too. Turn the page and find out.

Take care, Audrey Walls Editor-in-Chief 2009-2010

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Contents Writing Rockaway Beach / Jane Harwell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Tibetan Sky Funeral / Crissy Done . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Y’all Got Breadsticks? / Sean McGhee . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Scorched Earth Policy / Amy Sailer . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Frail Wings Tethered Dry / Peter Wellford . . . . . . . 12 Smoke & Mirrors / Lauren Streagle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Slut: My Story as a Stripper / Kitty Meader . . . . . . .16 The King of Nowhere / Owen Prettyman . . . . . . . . . 30 Sweet Mississippi Mud / Chadwick Hildebrandt . . . . 32 Separate and Equal?: The Future of Women’s Studies in Academia / Katherine Taylor . . 34 .

754-pies / Lindsey Thorner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Lying To Your Wolf / Crissy Done

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Art All The World’s A Stage / Kasia Clarke . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Roatan / Yossera Bouchtia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 I Had Such Friends / Kasia Clarke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Papa Was A Rolling Stone / Robert Gibson, Jr. . . . . 47 Untitled #7 / Sarah Brosnahan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48

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Stolen Silence / Rachel Woodward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Vibe Out / Robert Gibson, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Mrs. Beasly / Azalea Faye Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Quetzal Kid /Robert Gibson, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Left / Julie Pence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Receso / Kasia Clarke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 We’re Not In New Zealand Anymore / Robert Gibson, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Writing A Ride With Daddy / Chloë Saïd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Moonlighting / Alexis Hutchinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Locked Up And Forgotten / Nandi Shabazz . . . . . . . 63 Tongues / David Osnoe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 And On The Eighth Day... / Owen Prettyman . . . . . 71 Smoke Rises Trees Gasp / Peter Wellford . . . . . . . . . 73 In Defense of Diverse Families: The Right to Adopt Internationally / Katherine Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Soul At Sunrise / Robert Gibson, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

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Rockaway Beach Jane Harwell

Ghost shrimp pace the moonless beach cutting in front of bare, callused feet.

And moon jellies illuminate the southeastern sea.

A braid plaits into my breasts saltwater sews into my scalp, she knotted through my hair her voice: the breaking tide at night

moonlight stains on freckled knees.

Cicadas chirp into morning birds;

the beach unfurls- an oyster.

We study, pensive, its many folds

prying senses like the cracked shell:

a sweetness like honey and pearl.

Dunes roll into a flattened coast and tan lines eventually wear away.

Cross rows of trees freshly cut 1

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from summer storms.

And lifeless sea turtles melt into the shore.

Say one day let me lay here too.

Horseflies biting in breezeless june.

Crab traps and peach baskets

floating into the dunes.

While we decompose in farmer’s moon.

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ROCKAWAY BEACH / Jane Harwell

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Tibetan Sky Funeral Crissy Done

When it’s late in the night I show pictures to my sister and tell her stories.

“Remember how we opened our mouths to the sky, hungry?”

It was never easy filling the soul to fullnessI think that’s why you ended up giving me yours.

Still, it’s hard for me to explain how the mind can be so packed with the heart.

But when it’s late in the night I tryand I still open my mouth to the sky where I left you.

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Y’all Got Breadsticks?

Sean McGhee

This is a story about Brenda Steely and Alice Dewitt. Ricky never called back but it really didn’t matter anyway, and Brenda really wanted some bread sticks. Alice and she piled into Alice’s step mom’s white boat of a car, that had wood panel on the sides and scrunched up leather details over the window like a hearse. Alice hated the car, hated her step mom but she was gone and Brenda overpowered her with such ease and frequency. The $40 they spent on weed was actually only $20 because of stupid Ricky and Brenda was really craving bread sticks, like bad. So like I said, the two teenagers squeezed their wide, sunburned thighs into the car right as it began to rain.

Isn’t it the worst when it starts off such a beautiful, sunshiny day then out of nowhere the clouds roll in and it’s a torrential downpour? Well it was a day like that and Brenda had invited herself over to Alice’s house.

Alice was a direct representation of everything Brenda loathed about herself packed into an even dumpier body but lacking the tough exterior to defend it tooth and nail. However, she had a pool in her backyard and her place was within walking distance which was essential 4

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because Brenda had lost her license for six months due to an underage possession of alcohol charge the previous October. She walked over to Alice’s, knocked on her window and informed her of their plans for the day. As much as Alice would have loved to sit in her room all day devoting herself to magazine tear-outs of Freddy Prinze Junior, biting her lip as her fingers curiously slipped underneath the covers, she couldn’t really say no to Brenda. There had been plenty of instances when Alice felt powerless against the sheer titanium laced will of Brenda. It was a nice day out so why not lay out at the pool? Come on, get up out of bed. Brenda knew she could get Alice up, it just would take the appropriate amount of angry raps on the reinforced glass of Alice’s basement bedroom window with her ex-softball shortstop playing knuckles and some whiny words dipped in affected southern twang to do the trick. She really knew how to get Alice going.

Add on to the fact that the pair had been sexually experimenting with each other since late February and you have yourself quite the dynamic relationship.

“Can’t we just go to Wendy’s, or Arby’s or something closer? It’s so far,” Alice complained.

“You’re not even driving, shut up,” Brenda spat as she pulled into the first fast food restaurant they would potentially patron. Before the employee could 5

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make a greeting and as the white boat of a car’s tire clunked over the rail at the bottom of the order screen pole, Brenda proceeded to inquire as to whether the establishment carried bread sticks. The employee responded in the negative and with no further vocalization or acknowledgment, Brenda pulled out of the drive-thru and into the wet street.

“Ricky should have called back by now,” Alice mumbled as her fingertip rolled over the radio dial.

“Ricky’s an asshole,” Brenda replied, gesturing for Alice to leave the radio alone.

“It’s at least 20 minutes till we get to Olive Garden,” Alice spurted after a few moments of labored silence but Brenda was intent on her garlic enriched quest, eyes glued on the road like a fox fixated on a hare in the forest. The rain came down a lot harder all of a sudden and it became more difficult to see the road. Upon Alice’s insistence to turn on the brights Brenda found difficulty in finding exactly which mechanism to adjust in front of her. Then in the blink of an eye, the brake lights from the van in front of them flashed in the windshield. Alice let out a whelp and Brenda slammed on the brakes with the fervent blunt force of both her black and white striped soccer cleats, narrowly escaping a three car pileup. After a few moments waiting to see if the violet (well at least 6

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Y’all Got Breadsticks? / Sean McGhee

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it seemed violet in the murky downpour) van in front had noticed that it just almost got rear ended at 34 miles per hour, the girls exhaled. Guess not, and the next thing you know the traffic cleared up. Weird.

For Brenda pulling into the Olive Garden parking lot provided an almost orgasmic relief. The pair had tried out three separate fast food and sit down restaurants on their hasty pursuit of “some fucking bread sticks”.

It was about an hour before closing and Alice was nervous the blond 1980s mermaid looking hostess would be able to tell she was high. Luckily Brenda didn’t mind talking just as much as she didn’t mind driving. The dimly lit restaurant felt more like an ancient cavern to Alice as her eyes wrapped around the eggshell columns and brown and red paintings lining the walls.

“Fuck man,” Brenda sputtered as she bumped her left, still wet shoulder into a fern looking plant they passed on their way to their table for two.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the hostess replied as she turned and Alice couldn’t help but notice frosty pink eye shadow that faded to blue in the corners of her eyes.

There was maybe even a layer of glitter sprinkled on. Maybe she had a hot summer date planned after work with a boy that resembled Freddy Prinze Junior.

Maybe she was counting to milliseconds until she 7

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could see him again. As she pondered this, Alice felt a strange twinge of...well it was pain in her side, like an electric cramp. The two teenagers sat down at the table and perused the large menus.

“I fucking want everything, I swear. Endless bread sticks better be exactly that, I swear I could eat probably 80,” Brenda had this weird tendency to scrunch her bushy eyebrows like she was mad and smile wide like she was happy when she got excited.

Alice always noticed that.

“Yeah, shit’s good,” she then responded, trying to sound more street savvy than she would ever hope to be, that odd snap of pain slipping up and down her side.

“Ricky’s party is the same day as my first night at my new job, so he be--,” Alice did something she never thought she’d do, she interrupted Brenda’s tirade.

Almost instantaneously Brenda’s brown eyes flared and her distinctly large and oval shaped eye lids disappeared. One time she put on some “porn star” makeup and had asked Alice what celebrity she most resembled, fully aware that her natural penchant for intimidation was the main influence on the response, much more than her cosmetically enhanced features.

But Alice hesitated and after careful deliberation retorted with “Belinda Carlisle”. This was also the 8

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Y’all Got Breadsticks? / Sean McGhee

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first night they had kissed after splitting a bottle of Wild Turkey and a bowl of popcorn in Alice’s older, cooler sister’s room. For some reason, that memory mixed into the unpleasant, lonely feeling she was now experiencing.

“Um...,” her eyes rolled down to the table, it was much too cold in the restaurant, especially for a rainy day. “Well you know, I was thinking, when was your last date?” Along with her eyes, Alice rolled the tip over her index finger over the edge of the menu. Brenda still looked pissed.

“Neveruary 31, what’s it to ya?” she spat.

“Well, you know, I was thinking...I haven’t either, it’s weird, right?” Alice knew it wasn’t weird. She had next to no self-esteem and the only boy to ask her out at band camp in ‘97 was a far, oily skinned cry from precious Freddy Prinze Junior.

“Yeah...I guess,” Brenda calmed down a bit and folded her beefy arms. Alice swallowed the lump in her throat and proceeded with her line of questioning.

“You know I was thinking, I don’t know but, isn’t this kind of like a date...now?” Alice looked up from the table and made eye contact with Brenda who sat, lips barely parted and visibly struck by some anxious spurt of energy she hadn’t anticipated. She was for once caught off guard.

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“Oh fuck, yes, here’s the bread sticks!” Brenda exclaimed as her eyes darted from Alice’s small blue puppy dog ones to the steaming hot basket of perfectly seasoned and immaculately golden brown bread sticks.

On the way home, “Heaven is a Place on Earth” came on the radio and Brenda cranked it. Alice shrunk slightly in her seat and rubbed her side.

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Y’all Got Breadsticks? / Sean McGhee

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Scorched Earth Policy Amy Sailer

I hold the rake in my hands, its dry pine, and my mittens splinter. This is what I know to do each year, once the maple and oak emaciate.

The bark is black, and the leaves, a flare of scarlet and orange, extinguish. Gaunt trees claw against the sun-sapped air; leaves crack along vein-vertebrae.

They shiver and fall, like pepper to the ground. My rake scratches at the earth and gathers up the remains, indistinguishable from dirt, from ash.

As I collect leaves into bags, I feel the pungent mold and insect scavengers. Even now, they rustle against the hush of life, as they wait to burn.

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Frail Wings Tethered Dry Peter Wellford

This shopping cart is nearly empty.

Every feather bound to capital momentum, every time that machine beeps I turn too late from the debt of yesterday.

No thanks to the automated butcher.

A restless cage of infinite boundary guided by every baked lawn and rising from seething asphalt in every day and its tomorrow.

These cracks run far higher than any ivy dared to crawl; apartments that cling to any surface, it is too dry anyway.

There is no Icharus here.

These tenants who always leave their tacks in the walls, who always stain the carpet with their dreams of heroic fallacies; of arms and men and sweat and fire orgasming through generations, these tenants who sucked that fine American 12

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tobacco through a lofty grail with chapped lips, licking them so seductively just to get rid of the pain.

The highways of freedom are stacked, built upon drivers who fail to signal incessantly and yet always took the same turns home, back to bed, waiting for tomorrow to be over, for the next ‘For Rent’ sign to come up, waiting, for myself to come home.

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Smoke & Mirrors Lauren Streagle talk of god priestly duties, humble servitude and marshmallow high-fives sticky fingers smeared in money-grease drawn stick-forms of sick innovators in their element of creation far-fetched idealism halted, tested and disqualified for bad form breech call me back to calamity and put me to work on a new era of systematic extermination writing the programs, clipping the toenails donning the swift gloves of execution cleaning the chopping block of crusted motherboard chemicals refinancing the holy-budget and romancing the stone 14

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nfdlty faulty programming prescribed in accidental overdoses challenging the inherent-question, roving through acidic byways for belief in artificial faith and god – misnomer and political prison – no committed creature would prosper in holy light witness to lack-of-protection, the racket low and steadied buried beneath the dust and dead skin of higher thinking unfed opinions lacking formal structure pious insurgents jumping through 8-story windows into traffic, smearing khaki pants with melting tar and motor oil, but their bones are too new for the carbon-dating old is new is not god

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Slut: My Story as a Stripper Kitty Meader

My story begins in April 2009. I had next to nothing in my bank account and my monthly rent’s due date was creeping closer and closer. I knew that I did not have the power to stop time, but I still wished for that power. I had been looking for a job for about three months and no one seemed to be hiring. I knew I couldn’t wait any longer, so I went to the last possible place I wanted to go to find work: the strip club. I started out waitressing, but eventually I ended up on the pole and in the laps of strange men literally working my ass off to make rent. I told next to no one, but after a couple weeks I realized why am I hiding?

So when people asked me what I did, I said I work at a club; when they asked me which, I answered Paper Moon. Some people knew what type of club it was and others pretended like they knew. It never caused any problems. I tried to surround myself with people who understand the concept “You do what you have to do.” One day at work someone popped my bubble and I was completely put off guard.

I was at work trying to ‘hustle’ as many lap dances as possible. Every dancer knew that the way 16

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to making the money was lap dances. I was trying to hustle one from this group of guys. I put on my work face and acted like they were actually funny and I cared what they were talking about. I knew the guys had been drinking, which can either be a good or a bad thing. The more people drink, the easier it is to convince them to throw their money at you; the bad side is sometimes when people drink they become aggressive. I would soon learn this time was one of those bad times. The guys were talking and one of them turned to me and said and I quote, “You sluts make me so horny.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; did he really just refer to me as a slut? I then asked him what he said and he repeated, “You sluts make me so horny,” but this time he gave me five dollars.

Well excuse me for trying to make rent, but I knew I sure as hell would rather keep my dignity than take this guy’s money; I mean he called me slut! I politely excused myself and went to the bathroom. I allowed myself to gather my thoughts and not let my emotions overcome me. I thought of the possible solutions to avoid further distress. My options were: I could make a scene; I could take the money, hustle a dance and forget it ever happened; I could remove myself from that group of men and go find someone else to sit with; I could get the guy kicked out for offending me; or I 17

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could just leave work early and remove myself from the situation altogether despite the possible fines. After weighing all the odds, I made a decision. I politely got one of the bouncers and had the guy thrown out.

After the guy was escorted out, I told the manager I was leaving and did not feel the need to explain my reasons, paid my one hundred and fifty dollar fine for leaving early, and I walked out. I had enough sexist remarks for one day.

The definition in modern dictionaries and thesauruses for the word ‘slut’ is “vulgar promiscuous woman who flouts propriety,” and is usually associated with other words degrading women’s sexuality such as the term whore. (Attwood 234) Unfortunately, this word is far too common in the everyday vocabulary, especially among Generation Y. Although this word is common, rarely the person who is being called a slut is told directly. The word is used by both men and women, but is usually only directed toward women regarding the idea of promiscuity. Angela Meader of the Baby Boomer generation and my mother says a person does not “set out to be a slut or promiscuous.”

It is evident that the term ‘slut’ is not considered to be flattering and by no means a compliment; however, the question that must be addressed is what does it mean to be promiscuous? The most important issue 18

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Slut: my story as a stripper / Kitty Meader

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to identify with this question experts and my mother say is that women are judged differently than men, especially in terms of sexuality. Therefore, to answer this question one must establish what it takes for a man and a woman to be considered promiscuous.

Based on my experience and my exploration, I have discovered that what is considered promiscuous varies depending on the person and their experiences.

For example, some may consider a person who sleeps with “x” number of people a promiscuous person, or a slut, while others consider not the number of sexual partners, but the motivation behind the sexual act.

For example, they may consider if a person only sleeps with, romances, or dates people with money, even though they have the resources to be financially independent, a promiscuous person or a slut. The average street walker or prostitute may not be a slut, because they are doing what they have to do to survive; generally, people who use sex for money as a business such as prostitutes rarely have another option due to background or other factors.

When considering if a woman shall be considered promiscuous, an idea to keep in mind is that it is also very hetero-normative. “Historically, women have been seen in terms of their sexual relations with men.” (Attwood 235) What about lesbians or bi-sexual 19

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women? This adds to even more confusion as to what is considered promiscuous, because then that means that non-heterosexual females cannot be assessed on their sexual actions due to the fact it is not the “norm” of society. Therefore, it is nearly impossible to make a ‘rational’ assessment on the idea. When there are too many, “ifs,” “ands”, or “buts,” placed on a scenario, then it is virtually, if not impossible, to have the ideal circumstances in life in order to make an assessment on the issue.

Next to assess is how men are judged on their promiscuity. I think for men it is almost the exact same standard set for women. Men are seen in terms of their sexual relationships with other men.

Homosexual men are usually the group of males that can be labeled promiscuous in society. Therefore, unlike for heterosexual women, heterosexual men are out of the equation for being assessed on promiscuity.

As a result, only a certain segment of society can be labeled as promiscuous, which probably means that the routes for the terms slut or promiscuity are rooted in a hetero-normative patriarchal society.

Although the origins of the term of slut are historically unknown, the word sluttish dates back to the 14th century and a term used for both men and women; its meaning was associated with “dirty 20

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and untidy.” (Attwood 234) “In the 1660s, men used ‘slut’ as a fond but condescending address for female domestics.” (Attwood 234) So examining this, the term is associated with pollution, women, and usually those of a lower class. Taking into the social concept of the “long standing association of active female sexuality with pollution,” the term slut is beginning to take form.

(Attwood 235) ‘Slut” is historically associated with pollution, women from a lower class, and usually used in terms of a person’s sexual relations with men.

I look back to my situation and try to make sense of it. If you look at the setting in which I was a called a slut, it was a strip club, also referred to as a ‘Gentlemen’s Club.” Society generally views the sexual exuberance of women in this form as a form of pollution. In addition, strippers usually are thought of as women, particularly of a lower class, and the fact it is called “Gentlemen’s Club” explains the dancers’ sexual relations with men. Therefore, my understanding of the historical and social associations of the word ‘slut,’ I have solved the mystery as to why this man called me and my colleagues sluts. However, I do not agree with his opinion and as a result it cost be $150.

Since my personal experience pertains only to the idea of being a slut, I cannot go on without addressing its social counterpart: being a prude. Although I have 21

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been called a slut, my mother was called “a cold fish” by her mother, because her mother, my grandmother, never knew of her having boyfriends. My grandma called my mother “too prudish,” “too picky” and even “thought (she) was a man hater.” I continued to ask my mother if she felt she was any of those things; my mom said she realized it was all based on my grandma’s assumptions that my mom wasn’t dating. My mom said, “She never knew if I had a boyfriend.” With this idea, it completes the idea of the ‘slut/prude binary’ and most of the evidence we use to assess if someone is either a slut or a prude is based on assumptions, rather than actual knowledge about the person.

My mom grew up in the 1960s and 1970s in England and Germany, the former where she spent most of her adolescence and young adulthood. She explained that although there was this binary of being either a slut or a prude in her family, the German culture in which she was surrounded by her peers was in her opinion healthier. She explained that a person, male and female, were not expected to wait until marriage to have sex, but they were taught to be safe and make a conscious decision to have sex.

My mom continues by saying, “It seems most people of your generation lose their virginity while they are drunk or high. They don’t make a conscious decision.”

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Slut: my story as a stripper / Kitty Meader

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In addition, she says the idea of a “fuck buddy,” where there is just casual sex is “a newer concept” and in her experience casual sex occurred but rarely. She said one night stands of course happened, but usually when the people were in an altered state of consciousness; therefore, the two parties involved were rarely making a conscious decision.

I believe my mom has found the grey area in the binary of slut/prude: the idea that sex is about a conscious decision. My mom is a nurse and of course brings her medical expertise into the equation when talking about sex, especially to her daughter. She says that STDs are “running ramped among college students,” which is why the idea of making a conscious decision and being safe is so important. She even admits, despite some of her “kids these days” ideas, that people of the younger generation have it harder than her generation due to the high rate of STDs. “When you had a one night stand, you just had to worry about getting pregnant, now you have to be careful you did not contract Chlamydia, syphilis, HPV, or even HIV.” Now making a conscious decision is going beyond the idea of having sex to reproduce the species, but about the long term health of an individual.

In our society, the idea of being a slut or a prude holds negative connotations. The word ‘slut’ derives 23

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from an original meaning of “dirty” (Attwood 234) and its counterpart, being a prude associated with a “cold fish” shows a lose-lose situation for people, especially for women and those who do not fit in the heterosexual norm of society. The goal now is to find the middle ground. My mother is not the only one who has been pondering about the middle ground, but many people in the feminist movement. Wendy Shalit crusades for young women to dress more modestly, and blames the present fashion trends on the third wave feminist movement. She claims this back-to-modesty movement is the fourth wave movement. However, some feminists feel that this is just enhancing the slut/prude binary.

Shira Tarrant evaluates this idea in an article for Bitch Magazine. She claims that this idea of Shalit’s sets up “the equation of modest clothing with moral purity.” (Tarrant 64) In addition, the idea that women are the ones that need to be more modest “keep(s) the onus on women and their behavior, while giving men a pass.” (Tarrant 62) In the words of Tarrant, Shalit is simply stating “men are sexual brutes and women must keep them in line with crossed legs and high neck lines.” (Tarrant 65) Other feminists argue that today “girls are sold a vision of empowerment that’s more about a commercial version of sexuality than an authentic one.” (Tarrant 65) If this is so, then what 24

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is the authentic version of sexuality and can women, who “have a long history of trying to manage and organize sexual fears and desires,” overcome the past and find the version of sexuality they are looking for?

(Tarrant 63) My answer to this is: of course.

I believe my mom was on to something when she said making a conscious decision. In my experience and those of other friends, the common thread was that quite a few of us were indeed in an alter state of consciousness, whether we were drunk, high, or caught up in the moment or our emotions, and most of the random hook ups or experiences of casual sex is also during an altered state of consciousness.

Again, this is based on mine and others around me’s experiences. However, the time I was called a slut and resisted being categorized into this social binary, I can honestly say I was sober, not caught up in emotions, and making a conscious decision. I had thought out what I was going to do and how I was going to do it.

I acknowledged the fact that I would have a fine for walking out of work, but I knew my pride and dignity is worth more than a monetary value. It all boils down to making a choice, acknowledging present emotions and the possible consequences, following through on that decision, and overcoming the societal pressure to rationalize the decision to conform to social norms.

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In my experience, I still to this day feel I made the right decision; I was asked and still asked by people I worked with as to why I did it, and all I have to say is I made a decision I felt was best, taking into account the possible consequences. I had made a conscious decision.

Even though I had made a conscious decision to leave after being called a slut, some people could argue that by consciously choosing to work in an environment such as a strip club, I was almost setting myself up for the sexism to come racing toward me. However, I do not feel that my decision to become a dancer was a conscious one. I feel that I was backed into a corner and felt that I had no way out. I was financially in the toilet, and I was flushed down with the pollution of sexism, classism, and racism. Most of the people who work there are in the same position that I was in; they really have no choice but to work there. Most of the time working as a stripper at a Gentlemen’s club, the euphemism for strip club, is not a conscious decision. Notice how I say most of the time.

Although many people who work at the strip club do not have many other options, there are the few who do make the conscious decision to work there. They took into account the behavior of some patrons and consciously decided that the pros outweighed the 26

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Slut: my story as a stripper / Kitty Meader

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cons. That does not mean that their decision should be any less valued than anyone else’s just due to the fact it does not fit into what society thinks is right or what one personally agrees with. I am learning that people’s conscious decisions need to be more understood and supported. The one down fall to many feminist movements is the lack of unity among the feminists themselves even though they were fighting for the same cause: freedom of choice and self expression.

Each major feminist movement has been to about free choice. The first movement of the suffragettes who were trying to pass national legislation mandating women’s right to choose who they wished to be elected into political office. The second movement was working toward the free choice in the workplace, the home, and decisions regarding a person’s own body. Now the third movement is working toward decisions regarding free choice and expression of sexuality. I have concluded that feminism is the struggle for freedom to make conscious choices, for both men and women.

The main goal for me during this journey of exploration and analysis of research was mostly to find out what a slut is in actuality and did my past as a stripper constitute being or a slut. What I discovered is far different than what I imagined I would find. I do not think there is such a thing as a slut. It is a word 27

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made up to deem those who are not a heterosexual male as inferior. All and all it is a plain and simple label that adds to racism, classism, and sexism in society.

Our society loves to label people as sluts, prudes, black, white, male, female and we have gone overboard. We love to focus on differences. We are not all the same, but there are similarities among all of us that we fail to recognize. Through my self-examination, I have learned that there is continuums that people fail to admit is there. Therefore, I do not think I was or am a slut for being a stripper and really a slut is not a concrete idea.

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Slut: my story as a stripper / Kitty Meader

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Works Cited

Attwood, Feona. “Sluts and Riot Grrrls: Identity and Sexual Agency.” Journal of Gender Studies (November 2007): 233-247.

Tarrant, Shira. “The Great Cover-Up.” Bitch Magazine: Feminist Response to Pop Culture (Winter 2008): 60-65.

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The King of Nowhere Owen Prettyman

All hail; the King of nowhere!

Blare the trumpets and sound the horns, for the good King has returned.

With fantastic glee He gazes upon His glorious kingdom and no, He is not disappointed.

The King could see an endless orange ocean teeming with undiscovered forms of life or a vast desert where the amount of sand is rivaled only by the good King’s pride and no, He would not be disappointed.

The King could smell the potent scent of purple pine trees strewn across His Kingdom by the breeze or hear the cackling caw of the crickedoo birds and no, He would not be disappointed.

The undying admiration of his subjects fills the King with royal joy.

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Faceless men and women raise their hands in praise. Yes, the good King is content, for the King of nowhere knows no boundaries nor borders.

He imposes His rule across the largest terrain imaginable.

For the King of nowhere, the title is enough.

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Sweet Mississippi Mud Chadwick Hildebrandt

Sweet Mississippi mud pours out my throat It crusts on to my shirt as fireflies float along beside me I drift away like it’s the end of a day And the sun crawls along the sky My momma screeches that I shouldn’t lie, so I tell her about the frogs I squished on the front porch Thu-thud-crunch-crunch I can smell the green they 32

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leave behind And as I turn from her, I find the Sweet Mississippi sweeping by

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Separate and Equal?: The Future of Women’s Studies in Academia Katherine Taylor

The future of women’s studies programs in colleges and universities is a topic that has not only spurned discussion between the feminist and anti-feminist communities, but also has given rise to differing opinions within feminism itself. While the founding of these programs in the 1960’s was clearly a step towards equality between the sexes in the academic world, there remains debate about whether or not these programs are still a valuable part of higher education institutions today, and if they will be necessary on college campuses of the future. While we can only speculate on the future of women’s studies programs today, I believe that the present issues at the center of this debate stem from two different perspectives within feminism. Therefore, I propose that the question of whether or not the academic endeavor of women’s studies will still be relevant and necessary in the future can be boiled down to an essential issue at the core of all feminist studies: the question of whether men 34

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and women are essentially alike or radically different.

Those who believe that men and women are alike usually stem their opinions from the foundations of liberal feminism, one of the earliest stages of feminism brought forth by writers such as Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mills (“Liberal Feminism”). The goal of liberal feminism holds that “women, as well as men, have a right to such freedom due to their status as selfowners” and that “the law should not treat women and men differently” no matter what the circumstances. (“Liberal Feminism”). So, for individuals who adhere to the liberal feminist perspective that men and women are inherently equal in ability and mindset, the overall need for a separate program for women’s studies is one that would hopefully diminish as women’s history and experiences are gradually blended into mainstream academic classes until equality between “history” and “herstory” is achieved. In this perspective, the abolition of a women’s studies program would come about because of a more comprehensive educational agenda, not because of an anti-feminist reactionary movement.

Currently, women’s studies courses could be seen as supplemental education because women’s perspectives are largely not included in other academic areas, but if those other academic departments fully 35

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integrate women’s issues into their courses, the need for an independent women’s studies program would be unnecessary. This idea can be seen as already flourishing as some women’s studies programs have morphed into “gender studies” programs that often include masculinity studies, and may include gay and lesbian studies as well. This change in academic feminism could be seen as a more open, comprehensive approach to issues of sex and gender, or conversely as a kind of dilution of the core of women’s studies. If a women’s studies program includes not only gay and lesbian issues, but masculinity issues as well, the issue then becomes where do women’s issues and feminism still hold ground in this new curriculum.

On the other hand, proponents of a different perspective known as radical feminism, believe that men and women are not essentially the same and should be treated equally, but differently as well. The two main branches of feminism “contrast sharply in certain of their fundamental views” and thus would be assumed to have very different approaches to feminism in college academia (“Radical Feminism”).

These individuals would believe that men and women are separate beings with distinct attributes, physically, mentally and psychologically, that can be compared, but not combined. Taking this perspective 36

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separate and equal?: the future of women’s studies in academia/ Katherine Taylor

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into consideration, there will always be a definite need for women’s studies programs in the present time as well as the future.

Despite the attempts to include women in all or most college’s academic courses, none would ever fully succeed in covering all the areas that a women’s studies course would address. The interdisciplinary nature of women’s studies programs would also have to be taken into consideration, since a women’s studies department may share courses with areas of science, history, and humanities departments, allowing for students who are not focused on women’s studies to gain a feminist perspective on a topic in their program.

In addition, the continuation of women’s studies as a separate program would allow students to focus on a major or gain a minor in that area. Without a distinct women’s studies program, students who are interested in studying the issues facing women would probably be brushed off into departments such as sociology or psychology.

Finally, there are some who believe that there is no further need for women’s studies because feminism has allegedly “served its purpose” and has nothing more to offer future generations of women. After all, since women have won the right to vote, the right to participate in the workplace, and take control of their 37

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own reproductive rights, what else could there possibly be to work for? In my opinion, the answer is this: plenty.

While women today are certainly excelling in areas of the workplace, the private home and the academic world, it is largely due to the efforts and sacrifices of the generations of women who came before them. If women’s studies programs and feminism as a whole disappears either today or in the distant future, the status of women will be radically altered. The area of women’s studies has also grown more comprehensive to include women of color, women of different sexualities, and adopting multiple multicultural approaches to women’s lives and women’s experiences. Just because the different waves of the women’s movement may have brought women further than ever thought imaginable does not give the women of today, or tomorrow, the right to rest on their laurels and become complacent.

In my personal opinion, I hope that the existence of women’s studies programs at colleges and universities becomes a more widespread and highly valued component of the academic arena, instead of being pushed into the back of the college agenda like other areas of minority studies. Likewise, I hope that the other academic departments of universities take a giant step into becoming more comprehensive to allow women’s voices to be heard in every course and in 38

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separate and equal?: the future of women’s studies in academia/ Katherine Taylor

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every department, from history to biology. This does not, however, mean that I would like to see defined women’s studies programs dissipate once college courses become more integrated, because this would disallow the possibility of younger generations who wish to study women’s studies as a sole focus. Rather, I think the combination of keeping the departments separate but the overall knowledge and integration equal would be the most effective, viable and valuable approach to keeping women’s studies programs alive, flourishing, and providing a diverse perspective to all areas of a future college environment.

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Works Cited

“Liberal Feminism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 18 Oct 2007. Stanford University.

19 Apr 2009 <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ feminism-liberal/>.

“Radical Feminism.” Feminist Issues. 1997.

Ed. Sarah Bromberg. International Conference on Prostitution at Cal State University, Northridge. 19 Apr 2009 <http:// www.feministissues.com/radical_feminism. html>.

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754-PIES

Lindsey Thorner Split into three portions, like a hot messy pie from the Italian Family Kitchen Over continent, and over state.

Who decided this?

That would be an offer too good to refuse, two-fold, Once in a lifetime opportunities.

Submerged in British culture and rolling hills, having to find a footing alone.

Everyday a local fresh market, mounting a bike for the first time in years Aged neighbors that lend measurement conversions for baking; Store clerks that cannot understand because of the American “accent”.

Everyday a different part of town, exploring all that this city has to offer Public transportation now a necessity, no longer the unspeakable.

Indian food and late nights penetrate the comfort barrier of home;

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The walls slowly dim and hairline fracture, leaking change.

And then there is brother, still located at command central.

The refrigerator pipe bursts, but he still has to feed the cats and get to his exam.

The city’s not like back home, where ten minutes Separated the gap from home to the rest of life; school, friends, work But now its seven hours.

Seven hours and traffic, Or eight hours and time zones.

And money.

3000 miles cut the telegraph wire The inbox slowly fills, a brief slice of their hot pie.

The outbox empties, now an unusually long narration Calls for emergency only Skype for coincidental run-ins A three-fold new way of life, over continent, and over states.

We all took a portion of the hot, messy pie from Consol’s kitchen that last night.

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754-PIES / Lindsey Throrner

8/20/10 12:01:37 PM

Lying To Your Wolf Crissy Done

My house used to be here.

We walked among its remains of aluminum and cracked glass and watched as a group of children chanted and roasted a pig on an open fire: “Our mouths are full, but we are roasting the rest of it.”

Its buttered back cracked a faint smile, perhaps dreaming painlessly.

You pinched my hand hard when my eyes welled as the rest of flesh spilt open, dripping.

Your house will always be here, because you made a window of me one night and climbed right through my bared teeth and rising fur.

When you forgotten I was supposed to be your door.

As the last of the pig was eaten, the rain came.

All that was left were bones, shutters, a cabinet and some chairs.

Everything but the bed that grew too small for either of us.

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All The World’s A Stage/ Kasia Clarke 44

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Roatan / Yossera Bouchtia 45

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8/20/10 12:01:40 PM

I Had Such Friends / Kasia Clarke

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8/20/10 12:01:47 PM

Poppa Was A Rolling Stone / Robert Gibson, Jr.

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Untitled #7 / Sarah Brosnahan 48

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Stolen Silence / Rachel Woodward 49

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Vibe Out / Robert Gibson, Jr.

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Mrs. Beasly / Azalea Faye Smith

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Quetzal Kid / Robert Gibson, Jr.

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Left / Julie Pence 53

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8/20/10 12:01:54 PM

Receso / Kasia Clarke 54

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8/20/10 12:01:55 PM

We’re Not In New Zealand Anymore/ Robert Gibson, Jr. 55

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8/20/10 12:01:57 PM

A Ride with Daddy Chloë Saïd

“Chloe, come to the car dealership with me. I want to get the car checked.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

It’s raining today…

“Do you want to sit in the front seat?”

“Yeah!”

You found me in my room where I had been lying on my bed listening to the sound of you and Mama’s voices, biting and muffled sounds seeping, wafting like smoke through the floor of my room situated directly above yours.

You and Mama, the happy couple: you used to play tennis together every Sunday, early morning games you both returned from sweaty and smiling. Ladies don’t sweat, they glisten. You would wake me up before you left, and while you were gone I would read and make pancakes for when you got back. I, the oldest child 56

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at age 10, would wake my younger brothers up while you took off your shoes, and we would eat poorly-shaped pancakes at the dining room table – the same dining room table where we sat four years later when you told us that you were leaving – while you both recounted the final score, noteworthy shots, and country club gossip. You and Mama, so strong in your convictions, with a foundation of love so deep even your occasional screams couldn’t shatter it until you realized that those pancake mornings weren’t worth it… but we weren’t there yet.

We got in your car, the black Mercedes you had worked so hard to make out of nothing. It was raining, grey and bleak to match your mood. We drove to the dealership, your refuge. You would go there whenever you needed an escape, whenever supporting a family and maintaining your spending habit became overwhelming. You would test-drive cars you would probably never buy, only to see how fast you could go.

You frightened quite a few salesmen and your license had been suspended twice in your search for a breath of freedom, fleeting and brief. You thought it was a small price to pay.

As we drove, the morning’s argument simmered in your mind. You didn’t talk much anyway, so I wasn’t expecting conversation. I was happy to pick the radio 57

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station and watch the rain make crooked paths on the windshield and windows. I wasn’t aware of what went on behind your blank expression.

You parked and turned off the car – a test-drive wasn’t an option today. The weather wasn’t right for it and besides, I was there. Instead, you spoke, quickly and angrily as if the argument was with me rather than her, which scared me because I didn’t know what I had done. You stumbled over the words as you translated them in your head and they came out broken. They made crooked strings in my head: “You know, Chloe, I don’t understand her.

She’s just… I can’t… I can’t handle

Mama being like this.

She wasn’t always this heavy, you know?

I just, I don’t know why she

can’t lose this weight!

I try to help her, but she seems like she doesn’t want to lose it.

She is angry at me for

trying to help her!

I don’t know what is wrong with this woman.

I don’t know how she can

expect me not to look at

other women if she

doesn’t lose this weight.

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a ride with daddy / Chloë Saïd

8/20/10 12:01:58 PM

I can’t help it, she isn’t beautiful to me anymore like this!

I don’t know how she expects

me to be happy...”

I try to let the words fade into the background as I studied the drops on the windshield, the web they made as they joined forces and raced each other down the glass. What a trivial thing to be so upset about, I thought, and I kept my eyes lowered and I held my tongue. All I wanted was for you to stop.

“Listen to me, Chloe.”

I hear every word.

“Never, never get as heavy as Mama. If you want to keep your husband and have a happy marriage, you have to be able to be happy – and when you’re so heavy, when you’re like this, no one can be happy.”

“Okay, Daddy.” I nodded, still maintaining my concentration ahead on the rain.

You sighed, and then you painfully smiled at me, saying “Thank you. Thank you for listening.”

“It’s okay. I know you’re upset.” I vaguely wondered if you heard what you said after it issued from you, 59

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if the words really made sense or if they were just as crooked to you as they were to me… perhaps I just didn’t understand. I was young yet – but even then I knew that I was being pulled into your adult world, that I was being forced to intrude where I wasn’t allowed.

We sat there for a few more minutes, maybe five or ten, and then you turned the car back on and we drove home. I resolutely watched the rain, the way that the world was so distorted in those little moving droplets. I would follow them individually to see where they would go, how inefficient their path was. They were like balloons, floating up into the atmospheric realm of the windshield.

We came home and I went back to my room.

I cried, tears carving tiny crooked paths down my cheeks. Ten years later, I still feel the paths these tears carved, I still hear your words.

I never told anyone else about that day until you left Mama, and I wanted to hurt you. When I told Mama, she cried; then she called her lawyer.

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a ride with daddy / Chloë Saïd

8/20/10 12:01:58 PM

Moonlighting

Alexis Hutchinson it’s sunny after a noon shower all the rain has dripped from nature’s branched tower as i sit beneath for the rainbow’s sweet heat to awaken my soul from my fingers to my feet there’s a feeling that i get starting at the colorful bow the reds, oranges, yellows and blues all nestled in a row that it’s just good to know that the bow is there so i can breathe the beautiful misunderstood air i quietly creep from cover to cover hoping that no one will discover the moonlight that shines upon my face when i don my satins and lace i teeter between here and there searching for the commonplace world of error shall i hide and go to sleep? or tell the world and watch them weep?

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for the moment and anyone who asks i’ll give a knowing smile and laugh it’s hard but awfully exciting this thing we call moonlighting

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moonlighting / Alexis Hutchinson

8/20/10 12:01:58 PM

Locked-Up and Forgotten Nandi Shabazz

Behind the concrete walls of the Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Facility lie a group of Virginia’s most dangerous and disturbing female child criminals.

Months and even years of lost freedom serve as punishment for their poor choices. Velcro-strapped black shoes, grey sweatshirts with open colored collars over navy blue pants comprise their daily wardrobe.

Some wear styles of neatly patterned cornrows.

Others wrap their straight, silky hair in ponytails.

Belittling comments from prison staff joyfully greet them once the step out of their cells. Indifferent and deflated teachers frequent these juvenile delinquents’ classrooms. Garbage scraps best describe their morning and evening meals. Their mundane existences act as constant reminders of their mistakes in the outside world.

Remember, no one put a gun to that girl’s head and ordered her to rob that bank. As for her, her own fingers stuck that needle full of heroin through her veins. She engaged in such drug use with a baby sleeping beside her? Oh, she should feel ashamed. For those girls over there, well, they should learn you can’t 63

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resolve your problems with violence. We cannot allow such bullies to roam our streets. Didn’t their parents ever teach them about self control? We mustn’t sympathize with the state of these criminals. They reside in those cells for good reasons. Isn’t that right?

Not exactly.

The teenage girls I tutor at the facility’s high school are indeed responsible for troubling behavior.

They deserve to face the consequences of their actions.

But beneath their tough exteriors and deviant records rests pain and great misfortune. Verbal, physical, and sexual abuse flows freely through these girls’ histories. Love is foreign concept in their minds. Most of them arrived from drug, crime-infested economically devastated neighborhoods.

One cannot underestimate the difficulty in escaping the allure of street life. There is no parental support to reinforce a sense of self worth within these girls. Crumbling school buildings signify society’s apathy towards their futures. Blood-covered needles hang outside of swing sets and monkey bars. Youth and outreach community programs lack proper resources and adequate funding. Governor Bob McDonnell’s deep budget cut in Department of Juvenile Justice services foreshadows catastrophic effects.

You mustn’t interpret these lines as excuses for 64

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Locked-up and forgotten / Nandi Shabazz

8/20/10 12:01:59 PM

these students’ illegal activities. And I am not asking for donations of pity. I am simply telling it like it is.

No, no one forced that girl to stick up that bank. But empty paychecks don’t satisfy hungry stomachs or clothe naked bodies. And yes, that other girl held that needle with her very own hand. Let’s just hope her baby survives our broken economic system. And as for the others, well, homes of constant rape are not the best places to learn self control. Society often ignores how it perpetuates such destructive behavior. There is enough blame to go around.

Several of the incarcerated females I visit each week hold the capacity for great change. Handfuls are smart, articulate, and funny individuals. But all are in need of desperate help. Success and willpower begins with them, but outsiders only hurt their potential progress with dehumanizing and demonizing rhetoric. Society often forgets the human element of these criminals, these children. Intervention is urgent during this fragile period, before their interiors evolve into the hard and cold shells of their exteriors. Wait a minute. When is it too late? Routine disrespectful behavior from these girls creates much frustration and early defeat of volunteers and prison staff. When does empathy run its final course with the young women of the Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Facility? One can only cling to the past for so long. Isn’t that right?

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Tongues

David Osnoe The preacher stalks down aisles and pews galvanizing drowsy parishioners in his severe black suit he entices, encourages, entreats all to listen to his loving treatise on the Host of Hosts and the purest love of all.

Swooping nearby, my heart lurches, will his lucid, livid eyes destroy our sin?

Another man, nearby fits and starts to life his arms flap wild and tongue lolls out of his head like an eerie, possessed dog, my mother hunches me closer my father rumbles, “It’s the spirit of God.” Flying from his pew the touched man 66

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sings out into the warm, North Carolina summer night banging through carved oaken doors.

The congregation still hears his noisy flight as he circles the church, again and again as if warding off some evil spirit with the pure sermon of his body.

The preacher is ominously silent inside only crickets needed to finish the terrible, yawning noiselessness.

He finally steps back up to his wooden chair and sits.

Looking out into the sea of pasty, concerned faces, He whispers our names to us, “Sinners, Sinners, Sinners.”

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And On the Eighth Day...

Owen Prettyman

A visceral wind forces a rusted church bell to wail into action and echo a boom of despair across a barren field. The grass is too long, and brown. Shadows of great men wander aimlessly, hopelessly.

As the viney fingers of Earth grip humanities finest creations and rip them into the obis, the creators struggle to grip reality.

Stars shudder before they crash into Earth; glorious figments of light sparkle and sink to the desolate landscape. Many run to go and tell the king that the sky is falling in.

Their king has no authority; their king has no reign in the kingdom of disaster.

Flames escape the cracks in the earth, roasting the remaining residents of the planet.

Fire precedes water, and the heavy, remorseful rains saturate Earth to its core, 71

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forcing scores of enormous worms to the surface.

Beasts of supernatural power roam the wasteland breeding destruction among a doomed race. The wraith of apathy casts a vengeful shadow on an already blackened shore. Power lines sink and kiss the cracked concrete, a mechanical peck of sadness. The rain continues for days weeks years. Washed away are the sins and structures of mankind.

And when the sun rises after decades of darkness, this feature-length funeral, supported by a sole mourner, violently concludes.

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and on the eighth day... / Owen Prettyman

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Smoke Rises Trees Gasp Peter Wellford

Just below in a small sandy valley the trees lean in. More than wind swept these dead leaves from the pit.

A man makes ash from oak and hawthorn.

A woman snaps apart snakewood.

It hisses in the flame.

Where is our dinner?

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In Defense of Diverse Families: The Right to Openly Adopt Internationally Katherine Taylor It is a sad but simple truth that many children around the world wake up every morning to a life left lonely, as they continually wait for a family to adopt them and provide them with the social, financial and emotional stability that they deserve. This kind of reality is one that much of society is familiar with already, as our global population continues to burst and many young mothers find that they are unable to raise the children they give birth to in increasingly dire circumstances. Similarly, there are couples in our own country that wake up every morning to find their lives a little less complete than they would like. Since they are often unable to have children of their own, they seek out adoption as a way of starting a family.

Despite their ability to fulfill or surpass the basic needs of every child, such as protection, nourishment and most of all, love, they are shunned by both domestic and international laws simply because of their sexual orientation.

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Although it may seem that placing more stringent requirements on individuals who want to adopt a child internationally ensures that these children are adopted by the most qualified and prepared individuals, there are certain stipulations that greatly hinder or halt the adoption process, hurting both the child and the prospective parent simultaneously. By not allowing gay or lesbian couples or individuals to openly adopt children from other countries, much of the international community and several U.S. states are subscribing to a judgmental and conservative definition of family that denies children from other countries a place in a safe and loving, though “nontraditional” family. This desire to so narrowly define the parameters of what exactly “family” is largely hypocritical and unattainable, as less than 24 percent of homes in the United States contain a father, mother and children under eighteen years old, according to the 2000 U.S. Census (Cooper 1). I believe that gay and lesbian couples in the United States should be allowed to adopt children from international countries based on simple principles of economics and ethics: gay and lesbian couples would be able to help fulfill the need for stable homes for adoptive children, and that no legislation should impose such a conservative definition of what constitutes a family in a changing and diverse world.

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At this point in time, the only way a gay or lesbian couple or a gay or lesbian individual can adopt a child internationally is by concealing his or her sexual orientation. While many countries have “explicit laws or policies” prohibiting gays and lesbians to adopt, there are still more subtle barriers in other countries that take the form of “implicit cultural or societal codes” that quietly turn away gay and lesbian couples and individuals from pursing adoption (Levine). Understandably, international adoption has become more difficult for heterosexual couples as well, with additional restrictions placed on age, health, and financial resources. China, for example, stipulates that couples must be married at least two years, have no family history of mental illnesses or physical disablements, and have a joint income of at least $80,000 a year (United States Department of State, “Country Information”). Although these hurdles are high, they are still able to be cleared by certain heterosexual couples. However, China also stipulates that married couples be “defined as one man and one woman” (United States Department of State, “Country Information”). So in comparison, gay and lesbian couples aren’t even eligible to enter the race, no matter how healthy or wealthy they may be.

For some individuals, the discrimination comes 76

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In Defense of diverse families: the right to openly adopt internationally/ Katherine Taylor

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two-fold in both international and domestic forms.

Although no U.S. federal law exists that prohibits gay and lesbians from being an adoptive parent, a handful of states have passed their own legislation banning gays and lesbians from adopting both internationally and domestically (United States Department of State, “GLBT Adoption”). Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska and Utah all have passed laws that specifically prohibit homosexuals from adopting children, some enacted as early as 1977, such as Florida, and some as recent as 2008, such as Arkansas (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force). Although the language varies from bluntly stating “homosexual individuals” to more meticulous definitions like “a person who is cohabitating in a relationship that is not a legally valid and binding marriage”, the message remains the same: gays and lesbians in these states do not have a fighting chance of starting their own family through the adoption process (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force).

Many of the proponents against allowing gays and lesbians to adopt children, either internationally or domestically, hinges on the idea that a raising a child in a same-sex relationship based family poses a risk to that child’s well-being. Several possible scenarios come to mind concerning these children, 77

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including everything from impaired psychological development from having no opposite or same sex parenting figure, increased probability of identifying as homosexual themselves, and lower self-esteem because of prejudice from their community. However, a judge in a 2004 Arkansas legal case filed by the ACLU on gay rights as foster parents found that being raised by gay parents does not increase the risk of psychological problems, behavioral problems, or academic problems in children (Cooper 13). The judge also decided that “there is nothing about gender per se that affects one’s ability to be a good parent” and that there may be “benefits” to having a child in a two-partnered same sex relationship than raised by a single parent (Cooper 13).

In the end, this issue is as much a matter of gay and lesbian rights as it is about the right a child has to a safe and loving home. With over 17,000 international adoptions occurring in the United States in 2008, even more could be possible if gay and lesbian couples were granted the right to both at home and abroad. (United States Department of State). While I acknowledge that some individuals may think that giving equal adoption rights to gay and lesbians is morally wrong, I believe that this assumption is hurtful and damaging. I also believe that it is morally 78

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In Defense of diverse families: the right to openly adopt internationally/ Katherine Taylor

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wrong to turn a blind eye to helpless and homeless children, especially when a possible solution is close at hand. Instead of maintaining a stiff upper lip based on conservatism and morality, countries like China and Russia and states like Florida and Utah need to open their minds and their borders to allow open gay and lesbian adoptions for the advancement of gays and lesbians in the United States as well as the improvement of children’s lives around the world.

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Works Cited

Cooper, Leslie. “Too High A Price: The Case Against Restricting Gay Parenting.” American Civil Liberties Union. 2006. <http://www.aclu. org/images/asset_upload_file130_ 27496.pdf> Levine, Shari. “Adoption Options Overiew.” Human Rights Campaign. 2009. <http://www.hrc.org/ issues/parenting/adoptions/2380.html>.

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “Adoption Laws in the U.S.” 4 Nov. 2009. <http://www. thetaskforce.org/downloads/reports/issue_maps/ adoption_laws_11_08_color.pdf>.

United States Department of State. “Country Information.” Office of Children’s Issues: Intercountry Adoption. 2009. <http:// adoption.state.gov/countryinformationhtml#>.

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United States Department of State. “GLBT Adoption.” Office of Children’s Issues: Intercountry Adoption. 2009. <http://adoption. state.gov/about/who/glbt.html>.

United States Department of State. “Total Adoptions to the United States.” Office of Children’s Issues: Intercountry Adoption. 2009. <http://adoption.state.gov/news/total_chart. html>.

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Soul at Sunrise Robert Gibson, Jr.

Seek solace in Silence.

Learn the Music of your past.

Listen as the genius jargon of Jazz scats like baaalooo ayeeeeee ya diggy diggy— for the dames and gents keep jonzin’ for a hit of horns and drumkicks, guitars and trumpets just Miles and ‘Trane and Monk and Getz The muffled buzz of Bossa Nova skips on vinyl like some smooth stone skimming the lips of a swooning sea— for the needle keeps grooving into grains of thought; the downbeat conversation of crackling fire Warm and worn as a back-pocket poem nestled in darkness but brilliantly scored And God says “Let there be spotlights, and audience and stage and poet and mic!”

The air rips into a rhythmic rift, rapid and runnin’, rapture rushin’ 82

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Revolution is coming! Revolution is coming!

WORD IS BORN goddammit This Music is the fluttering feeling of finally finding your fire then letting your lips revolt against each other and loosening out one long, impossible note— a sound so shaky and bleak, so uncorrupted and sweet, so powerful and meek, that you will stand face-to-face with the dark raspy, rib-rooted truth only you know so well.

And you will rise from the madness of this age, a rare beacon of beauty, with your head held heavenward howling your hymn in the hem of tomorrow’s history

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FAQ All of our staff members are incredibly proud to be a part of Amendment. Because of our enthusiasm and our increased visibility in the community, we get frequent questions about who we are and what we do. If you’re interested in Amendment, here’s a place to start.

What is Amendment?

Crazy. Amazing. Diverse. Challenging.

We are a group of folks from all walks of life that gather together to create an annual literary & arts journal that seeks to promote discussion on topics like: equality, justice, race, class, and gender. Both collectively and individually, we advocate social change through artistic expression, as well as provide a platform for marginalized voices in the artistic & literary community.

How do I get involved?

First, pick up our latest issue and read it. Get a good feel for what we do, who we publish, and what we’re out to promote. Check out our website 84

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at http://www.studentorg.vcu.edu/amendment/.

If you’re still up for it, then send us an e-mail at amendmentvcu@gmail.com. Let us know how you’d like to help out at the journal, whether it’s by joining our editorial staff, helping spread the word with flyers and announcements, or submitting creative work for possible publication.

What kinds of work do you accept?

Anything and everything that has to do with speaking up and speaking out. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, prose, photography, artwork & everything in between. Even if your work doesn’t fit into a category or fits into multiple categories, send it in! Due to the nature of our mission, we allow our artists and writers to reserve anonymity or publish under pen-names if desired.

Is it a problem if I’ve never been published before?

In a word: no. We’re specifically looking for people who have little or no experience in the wide world of publishing. That’s what makes us different: we’re willing to work with you on your writing or 85

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artwork until you’re pleased and we’ve got it published. Other journals take your work at face value and vote thumbs up or thumbs down, we look for potential and a willingness to revise.

Revise?

Yes. Revise. It’s very important to the writing process. Believe us.

I’d like to join the staff, but I’ve never edited creative work before. Does that hurt my chances?

Not a problem. Everyone has to start somewhere.

As long as you have opinions and can handle yourself in giving creative, positive, constructive criticism about the works we review, we’d love to have you on board.

Can I join the staff and still submit works for possible publication?

Yes. All of the works we review are done so anonymously, without any identifying information 86

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on the submission. The only person who will know your work is the executive editor. This is why we stress constructive criticism, because the author may be sitting in the room.

When do you publish?

We accept submissions year-round, and publish every fall semester. Generally, your works need to be submitted by the end of the spring semester to be included in the upcoming fall publication.

How can I contact you again?

E-mail: amendmentvcu@gmail.com Web: http://www.studentorg.vcu.edu/ amendment/ Street: Student Media Center @ 817 W. Broad

Street, Richmond, VA 23220 Social: “Amendment @ VCU” on Facebook

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The Student Media Center, part of the Student Affairs and Enrollment Services division at Virginia Commonwealth University, is a resource center for recognized independent student media at VCU. Current recognized student media include Poictesme; Amendment, another literary journal; The Commonwealth Times newspaper; Ink, a quarterly magazine; and WVCW radio.

For more information, contact VCU Student Media Center, 817 W. Broad St., (804) 828-1058. Mailing address: P.O. Box 842010, Richmond, VA 23284-2010.

E-mail: goweatherfor@vcu.edu

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