Weber—The Contemporary West

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NULC FOCUS Spring/Summer 2018 | Volume 34 | Number 2

INSPIRATION

1,000,000+ PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES READ POEMS AT POETS.ORG EACH YEAR.

from the editor’s desk

931 POETRY JOURNALS ARE ACTIVELY PUBLISHING POEMS.

93,000+ readers currently subscribe to Poem-a-Day.

26,000+ people have viewed videos of poets on the Poets.org YouTube channel in the past six months (January - June 2014).

200+ poems have been displayed in New York City subway cars since 1992, as part of the Poetry Society of America’s Poetry in Motion programs, and have been read by millions of commuters.

221 graduate writing programs in poetry are attended by thousands of students.

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365,000 students participated in the 2014 poetry memorization and recitation contest POETRY OUT LOUD

which is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.

POETRY MATTERS Few other art forms are asked to defend their cultural value, impact, and relevance as often as poetry. With a gift for language and its sheer infinite pliability, poets have for centuries rhapsodized the ordinary and connected humans to themselves, their communities and their environment.

The Academy of American Poets notes that the United States is currently experiencing a poetry boom. Writers and readers are sharing poems online by the tens of thousands, and those writers and readers are attending poetry readings, workshops, conferences, slams, and festivals by the hundreds of thousands as well. The Academy has recently gathered some quantitative (which is not to say, unpoetic) data to demonstrate how poetry matters in the United States.

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Deriving from the German weben—to weave—weber translates into the literal and figurative “weaver” of textiles and texts.

Weber are the artisans of textures and discourse, the artists of the beautiful fabricating the warp and weft of language into everchanging patterns. Weber, the journal, understands itself as a regional and global tapestry of verbal and visual texts, a weave made from the threads of words and images.

35+ CITIES ACROSS THE UNITED STATES (INCLUDING OGDEN!) HAVE A LOCAL POET LAUREATE POSITION. THIS NUMBER HAS GROWN RAPIDLY IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS.

Front Cover: Gerald Purdy, Winter, oil on board, 12.5” x 10”, 2017

1,000+ poets apply to the National Endowment for the Arts for fellowship support.

8,000+ people are dues-paying members of the Academy of American Poets.

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VOLUME 34 | NUMBER 2 | SPRING/SUMMER 2018

EDITORIAL BOARD EDITOR

Michael Wutz ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Kathryn L. MacKay Russell Burrows Victoria Ramirez Brad Roghaar MANAGING EDITOR

Kristin Jackson EDITORIAL BOARD

Phyllis Barber, author Jericho Brown, Emory University Katharine Coles, University of Utah Diana Joseph, Minnesota State University Nancy Kline, author & translator Delia Konzett, University of New Hampshire Kathryn Lindquist, Weber State University Fred Marchant, Suffolk University Madonne Miner, Weber State University Felicia Mitchell, Emory & Henry College Julie Nichols, Utah Valley University Tara Powell, University of South Carolina Bill Ransom, Evergreen State College Walter L. Reed, Emory University Scott P. Sanders, University of New Mexico Kerstin Schmidt, Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt Daniel R. Schwarz, Cornell University Andreas Ströhl, Goethe-Institut Washington, D.C. James Thomas, author Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner, author Melora Wolff, Skidmore College EDITORIAL PLANNING BOARD

Bradley W. Carroll Brenda M. Kowalewski Angelika Pagel John R. Sillito Michael B. Vaughan ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Shelley L. Felt Aden Ross G. Don Gale Mikel Vause

Meri DeCaria Barry Gomberg Elaine Englehardt John E. Lowe

LAYOUT CONSULTANTS

Mark Biddle Jacob Hansen EDITORS EMERITI

Brad L. Roghaar Sherwin W. Howard Neila Seshachari LaVon Carroll Nikki Hansen EDITORIAL MATTER CONTINUED IN BACK

VOLUME 34 | NUMBER 2

ART 73

Gerald Purdy

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONVERSATION 6

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Mali Subbiah, The Threat to Literacy and the Arts—A Conversation with Azar Nafisi Laura Stott & Tanner Lee, Sorting, Compressing and the Poetic Paradox—A Conversation with Matthew Olzmann Dan Bedford, How to Communicate Climate Change in a Post-Truth Era—A Conversation with John Cook Sam Zeveloff, The Trickster “Howling the Original American Anthem”—A Conversation with Dan Flores Scott Rogers & Sarah Vause, Offering not only Comic Relief—Unlocking the Creative Mind Through Comics—A Conversation with Lynda Barry

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POETRY 24 62 63 64

69 71 85

88 90 92

95 96

99 101 102 103

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110 112

Matthew Olzmann, Minor League Legend Gerald Purdy...............................73 Richard Robbins, The Invention of Water Kate Kingston, Kayak Lois Marie Harrod, Icarus’s Mother Talks to Her Son, My Mother’s Voice like a Fluorescent Light, Hoover. . .

Maya Khosla, Afghanistan, End of Eighty-Seven, Injury Linda Swanberg, The Strait of Juan de Fuca, Morning Dream Christopher Suda, An Introduction to Melody, Strolling the Hudson’s East Bank, Assembling Firewood for Winter Sarah Fawn Montgomery, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Mercedes Lawry, Echo, Ascending Blue, Eventual Eric Paul Shaffer, What My Brother Might Say as a River, A Blessing for Companions Who May Never Again Share a Table, On the Bright Side Azar Nafisi.....................................6 Wm Lynn, Because My Name is Known A Bit Larsen Bowker, In the Music of Silence, High Mountain Melt in Wyoming, In Time’s Wicked Flight Nathan Whiting, Sparrows, The Quilt Lynn Hoggard, Venus of Willendorf Daniel J. Langton, Clearstory Joel Long, Rozell Point Matin, Matin, Letting Go, The End Without Us, That Certain Light that Keeps You In It. . .

Sheryl L. Nelms, Forgiveness, Veteran’s Day, 2009, Taos Pueblo Casino, The Taos Pueblo Donna L. Emerson, Marin Art Garden, Who We Leave Virginia Thomas, Amazing Grace Matthew Olzmann..............14 & 24

ESSAY 36 142 146 150

John Cook, The Antidote to Fake News is a Little Bit of Fake News Dallas Crow, Tempted by Grayling Bernard Quetchenbach, The Man by the Fire Leslie Van Gelder, The Memory of Rain

FICTION 113 121 130 134

Louis J. Fagan, Slit Bruce Holbert, Boorman nv baker, A Bored and Repetitive Accounting of Childhood Issues Jenny Irizary, Icebox Canyon

READING THE WEST

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Lynda Barry.................................52

C O N V E R S A T I O N

THE THREAT TO LITERACY AND THE ARTS

AZAR NAFISI MALI SUBBIAH in Conversation with AZAR NAFISI Dr. Azar Nafisi was born in Iran and educated in Switzerland and at the University of Oklahoma. Now a citizen of the United States, she is the Executive Director of Cultural Conversation at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University. Nafisi is known to many readers through her semi-autobiographical memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran (2008), which was on the New York Times Bestseller List and translated into 32 languages. She followed Reading Lolita with two further memoirs—Things I’ve Been Silent About (2010) and The Republic of Imagination (2014)—securing her place among internationally recognized writers. For her work, she has won numerous literary awards and recognitions.

For all her fame and eminence, those who have had the opportunity to meet Ms. Nafisi in person find her very humane, kind, witty, and gregarious. Easy to talk and interesting to listen to, and engrossing in conversation, she regularly thrills audiences with her impassioned speeches and convictions. With a glint in her eyes and a smile radiating from her face, she becomes so animated when talking about literature that her passion becomes infectious. A fierce defender of the humanities, she speaks her mind against any oppression that would compromise the core values of literature and the arts—critical inquiry and independence, the search for truth, openness, tolerance, and accommodation. Because of her extraordinary experience—teaching the enlightening values of literature in Iran during the Iranian Revolution—her call to stand up against censorship doesn’t ring hollow, but carries the weight of historical memory.

The following conversation took place during the National Undergraduate Literature Conference, held annually on the campus of Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, in April 2017.

I LEARNED FROM EARLY CHILDHOOD THAT I COULD REMAIN IN THIS SMALL ROOM IN TEHRAN AND THE WHOLE WORLD WOULD COME TO ME. THE IDEA THAT YOU COULD HAVE THE WORLD AND EVERYTHING BEYOND BECAUSE YOU IMAGINE THINGS THAT YOU HAVEN’T SEEN MADE ME THINK THAT FICTION CREATES THESE DEMOCRATIC SPACES WHERE THERE ARE NO BOUNDARIES. YOU LIVE HERE IN OGDEN, UTAH, BUT ONCE YOU BEGIN A BOOK BY DANTE, YOU MOVE NOT ONLY TO ITALY, BUT YOU MOVE TO A DIFFERENT CENTURY, AND THAT IS THE MIRACLE OF WHAT WE CALL FICTION.

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7 Stanley Staniski

C O N V E R S A T I O N You said fiction is the most democratic of all works of imagination. Could you explain it?

I want to tell you about an experience of mine and what first made me think about fiction the way I did. I mention in The Republic of Imagination that my father, when I was very young, as soon as I became conscious that I was a person—it was about the age of three or so—every night he would tell me a story, and this was our private world in which we shared these stories.

Once I had a fight with my mom; I used to have a lot of fights with my mom. I wanted my bed by the window. My mom wanted it against the wall, and every time she would put it against the wall, I would cry and I would change it, and the next day she would do it again. So once I just went on strike and refused to eat with my parents or talk with them, and the next morning my father came to my bedside with a small plate of my favorite chocolates and said, “Why don’t you and I start a new game? Why don’t we make up stories? And why don’t you tell us what you want us to know in those stories?”

So, we started that, and of course he was very clever, and whenever he wanted me to do something he would say things like, “There was a father who loved his little daughter, but she wouldn’t drink her orange juice.” But the whole point was that I realized through stories you get a sort of control over the reality that you cannot control.

With that story, I could not only put the bed right by the window, but I could also fly out of the window and go to different lands.

But one thing he did with the stories, which brings me to the democratic aspect of it, is that one night I would be listening to stories from our great epic The Shahnameh or Scheherazade, then next day we would fly to France with the Little Prince, and the next day we would fly to England with Alice in Wonderland, and the next day we would go to Denmark with Hans Christian Ander-

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sen. So I learned from early childhood that I could remain in this small room in Tehran and the whole world would come to me.

The idea that you could have the world and everything beyond because you imagine things that you haven’t seen made me think that fiction creates these democratic spaces where there are no boundaries. You live here in Ogden, Utah, but once you begin a book by Dante, you move not only to Italy, but you move to a different century, and that is the miracle of what we call fiction.

A novel is democratic for many reasons, but the most important is that a great novelist needs to give voice to all the characters, including the villains, and I think that is the essence of modern morality: before you judge, you have to understand, and you have to understand the enemy and not just the friends. The worst novelists impose their own message on the whole wide world and take away from the reader. It is insulting because they take away from the reader the ability to judge on his or her own, to experience the book and decide whether Elizabeth should have married Darcy.

Of course, I think every woman should marry Darcy. I am a feminist, but I think every woman has the right to dream of Mr. Darcy at least one day in a month and you’re okay.

Otherwise there’s something wrong with you.

You mentioned that of all the works, fiction is the most democratic work. What about other genres, such as plays or poems? Do you think poetry and plays embody that same kind of democratic spirit?

Of course they do. I was talking about democracy in very specific terms because I think that the novel as we know it is a very modern phenomenon, which goes back to the 18th century and the industrial revolution. And it reflects, for example, the idea of free choice. Storytelling, I think, is a way of survival. You go back to the beginning of the history of humankind, and you find that we articulated and tried to

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understand who we were as human beings on I wanted to write about all the differthe earth through stories. From Greek and Roent times and different places I had read man to Persian and Indian, whatever mytholNabokov, how those times had affected ogy you look at throughout the world, it is an my reading of Nabokov, and how Nabokov attempt to explain and to connect. To make himself had changed my perception of reality. things concrete. Even the gods of mythology But I couldn’t do that— not just because of are alive. political reasons. When I was thinking about When you come to religion, I mean the that book, I remember the moment the first Bible, the Torah, the Quran, they are all based paragraph came to my mind. I was walking on stories. Religion is the language of stories, from this poet’s house, who was also in love because we as human beings need to be able with Nabokov, and I was ecstatic. I was comto place ourselves in the minds and hearts of others. And the only way we can do that is through having the experience explained to us, not through LIVING IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC HAD MADE ME VERY preaching, not through guilt-tripping, CONSCIOUS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FICTION but through telling the experience so AND REALITY, AND HOW THE TWO OF THEM ARE SO you feel the experience, and that is INTERCONNECTED AND HOW ONE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT the miracle.

THE OTHER BECAUSE WE NEED TO BE ARTICULATED AND My dad once said God exists SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF OTHERS. THAT IS WHAT because Shakespeare does. It is a miracle. That is why Plato talks about LITERATURE DOES. IT EXPLAINS US TO OURSELVES. poetry being an inspiration. You also know that stories used to be told through great plays and great poetry, like ing down this slope and I stood and wrote on the epic and the romances later on. I think the trunk of the car. The first book I read by they have different functions. The novel is the Nabokov was Ada. My boyfriend gave it to me, language of our times, but not necessarily the and he wrote on the flyleaf, “To Azar, my Ada. only language.

Love, Ted.” I couldn’t share that because in a totalitarYou talk about the value of fiction in all ian state, one of the first targets is privacy your books, and you revere poets, but you and the individuality of a human being. A chose to write those sentiments in not one totalitarian mindset, even in the United States or two, but three memoirs. What is your of America, or Germany, or Iran, is to take fascination with memoirs? away your sense of integrity, your individuality. So, I kept loads of notebooks, and I The first book I wrote was on Nabokov, and started creating columns in my journal, and it’s been translated into English now. Living writing on one hand the absurd reality of livin the Islamic Republic had made me very ing in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and on the conscious of the relationship between fiction other hand the books that were the colors of and reality, and how the two of them are those realities that I had taught most over the so interconnected and how one cannot live years. So, I had things like going to a Gypsy without the other because we need to be arKings concert in Tehran, reading Jane Austen ticulated and seen through the eyes of others. in Tehran, and reading Lolita in Tehran.

That is what literature does. It explains us to When I came to America, there was this ourselves. great desire to talk about those experiences,

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C O N V E R S A T I O N and one of the things that shocked me when I came here was how little people knew about the real Iran. They thought Iran was a bunch of men with turbans, a bunch of women all wearing black from head to foot. I wanted to write about that, and then it turned into memoirs of Iran because I am interested in the intersection between history and personal history, between the public and the private, between narrative and ideas about that narrative, so I wrote Reading Lolita in Tehran.

It wasn’t going to be followed by my memoirs of my parents. I never thought I’d write a personal memoir; it was taboo in Tehran. I wasn’t going to write The Republic of Imagination. At the end of Reading Lolita in Tehran, I ask a question: Those who survived the ordeal of holocausts, how would they survive the ordeal of freedom? Because freedom is an ordeal—and I felt we are forgetting it in this country—it is something you constantly pursue, like happiness, and you constantly guard; otherwise it will be taken away from you. I began The Republic of Imagination with the ordeal of freedom in mind.

In January of 2003, my mother died while I was writing the acknowledgments for Reading Lolita in Tehran, then my father died a year later; I couldn’t think of anything else—it just paralyzed me. I felt there was a conversation with my parents and with my country

I ALWAYS TELL PEOPLE I’M NOT POLITICAL. THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL FIGHT. THIS IS AN EXISTENTIAL FIGHT. AS INDIVIDUALS, WE WANT TO BE KEPT DIGNIFIED AND TO HAVE CHOICES. THAT IS WHY GIRLS IN IRAN, WHERE THERE ARE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, SHOW A BIT OF HAIR. I ALWAYS SAID, “OH MY GOD. DO YOU KNOW HOW STRONG I AM THAT MY LIPSTICK MAKES KHOMEINI GO NUTS AND WANTS TO PUT ME IN JAIL?”

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that I had left unfinished. Writing Things I’ve Been Silent About was both a way of saying goodbye to and a celebration of Iran and my parents.

You often warn that writers and readers should be aware of tyranny. Tyranny doesn’t happen in totalitarian regimes only. It can happen in a democratic country as well. Why should writers be aware of the tyranny that could happen in a democratic society?

In every single country with a totalitarian state, first they ban books, then they kill people. Usually. Iran began its Islamic Republic with an attack on women, minorities, and culture. One of the first things they did was purge the universities and then, like China, they had a cultural revolution where a lot of students and some faculty were killed. I talk about that in Reading Lolita in Tehran. The same happened in the Soviet Union, and all of these regimes talk about writers, journalists, poets, and artists as enemies of the state.

Why are these men against writers who only have a pen in their hands? What makes these tyrants so bloody scared of writers that they have to torture them and kill them?

Writers are always in search of the truth, and truth, as we are discovering in the world we live in today, is one of the most dangerous things. Once you know what happened in Nazi Germany, once you know what happened in the Soviet Union, once you know what happens in the Islamic Republic, once you know what happens in this country to some people, you cannot be silent. And if you’re silent, you’re complicit. That is what makes writers so dangerous.

A great writer has no choice. If you’re a writer, you have to write what you investigate in yourself and in the world. Therefore, freedom of speech becomes the first rule in order for you to exist. I always tell people I’m not political. This is not a political fight. This is an existential fight. As individuals, we want to

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be kept dignified and to have choices. That is why girls in Iran, where there are weapons of mass destruction, show a bit of hair. I always said, “Oh my god. Do you know how strong I am that my lipstick makes Khomeini go nuts and wants to put me in jail?”

When he died it was early in the morning, and we were sitting in the living room and my daughter was five years old, and she kept going to the window looking outside, and coming back. And finally she came to me and said, “Mom, mom, he’s not dead. The women are still wearing their scarves.” And I thought, Is there a relationship between this man’s life and death and how I dress? He must be very weak to want to kill me! So for me this is existential because I want to show him that I am me. And that’s what happened in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and in my country.

You mention in Things I’ve Been Silent About that readers have a responsibility to be free. What do you mean by that?

What is true for writers is true for readers as well. Nabokov had this line that goes, “Readers are born free, and they ought to remain free.” And in Lolita, if you notice, I think twenty-seven times he addresses readers as “ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” and once he calls them the “winged ladies and gentlemen of the jury.” And the whole point is that you are the jury. When you read a book, you become accountable to the book.

The whole idea of our democratic country is individual accountability. It was Washington who said, “If you fail, it’s your responsibility.”

Every single one of us is responsible. When you read a book, you’re responsible for the way you react to the book. You want these books to keep coming and you want them to be good. Fifty Shades of Grey should be there, too, you know, but not all of it. Keep the bookstores and the libraries, and show the publishers that they’re the idiots, not you.

That is the point.

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Sarah Vause: Being in a nation where you’re allowed to read whatever you want, I don’t think we always understand what it means to have that freedom. A lot of times, my students, as they read Frederick Douglass’ narrative, have never thought about the fact that he risked his life in order to learn how to read. Will you please say something about the freedoms we have here that have been taken away in other places like Iran?

YouTube has a video titled “Iranian Happy,” which is about these amazingly gorgeous young Iranians dancing to Pharrell Williams’ “Happy.” I always tell my American students, “You want to know what the young people in Iran are like? They’re like you. They like to be happy. But you know the difference between you and them? Two hours after they made that video, they were arrested. And that is the difference, that people in other parts of the world—in China, in Iran, in Saudi Arabia— are being flogged and tortured because they read Saul Bellow, because they read Lolita, because they listen to western music or Iranian music.”

My books have been translated into Chinese, so I keep having interviews with Chinese reporters, and one of the interviewers was this young Chinese woman. She just broke my heart. She was wearing the cap with “US” written on it, and she said, “You know, you’re popular in China because we feel the same way. We go through the same problems, but they don’t understand it here. I’m so excited I’m in this town,” she said. “After I’m done here, I’m going to go to the Smithsonian, and then to the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center. You’ve got to do these things.” She gave me a button by George Orwell, which said something to the effect that freedom is telling people things they don’t want to hear.

Once I took one of my students to a museum in Washington, D.C., where they had an exhibition of the ballerinas by Edgar Degas, and when I came to pick her up, she was

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C O N V E R S A T I O N standing in front of the museum crying. I said, “Why are you crying?” and she said, “I can’t believe all of these people are passing by this museum and not going in.”

I see my American students saying, “Why should we read Huckleberry Finn?” “Bloody hell,” I say, “because of the joy, the ecstasy, and don’t be utilitarian by thinking that everything you do should have a material reward.

Steve Jobs dropped out of school and started auditing the most useless course. What was it? Calligraphy, which he later used for the design of the Apple logo. This is why America is great, not because all of us want to make money, money and more money. This country is great and will remain great if you take the risk to do something for the beauty of it, for the meaning of it, for love.

Now, your life is precious. How do you want to spend it? This is what our politicians are not telling you today, and I hope the young people will rise up and say, “No, we don’t want this crap.” Take the risk. It’s the best thing in life, and you only live once—as far as we know.

Audience: How is life in Iran different today for women, artists, and writers than it was when you lived there?

Today is the same. The laws have not changed. The Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin, the first woman circuit judge in Tehran, was defrocked by the Islamic Republic and became a lawyer for human rights. She always said, “You want to know what kind of state a country is in? Go to the laws.” The laws have not changed, and still to this day women are considered half the worth of men in the courts. There are still laws around the hijab.

What has changed? I think the Iranian people have been amazing, and people should learn from them, especially Iranian women. People resisted, but not with guns, not with violence. Of course, when they came into the streets, they were killed, but they never reciprocated. What they resisted was

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going against the regime by not wearing the veil. Going against the regime by reading the books they were not supposed to read.

Culture became the most important way of fighting it.

So, those who retreated were the morality squads from the streets of Tehran, and many from within the regime defected. I had students who were orthodox and prejudiced, but by the end of their time at the university, they would have completely changed. Now the jails are not just full of Christians and Jews and atheists and secularists, but also full of Muslims within the system. The last Prime Minister of Iran, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and the Speaker of Parliament, Mehdi Karroubi, were both held under house arrest in 2011.

So, that is how you change: Not by changing regimes, but by changing mindsets.

Audience: How old were you when you started writing, and what did you decide to write about?

My family was a crazy one, and one of the things we did all the time was just write diaries, and my cousins and I even created magazines where we would have travelogues and paintings and poems. I started writing a diary when I was nine. In that diary, I would write things I considered to be poetry, but heaven knows what they were. I wrote poetry about everything. I would be infatuated with someone at the age of twelve and write a very yucky poem where I would try to be grown up and say things about how horrible life was and how alone I was. And then stories. I loved writing stories.

Audience: I appreciated your comments last night about the misguided sense that the arts and the humanities are somehow obsolete. With the National Endowment for the Arts potentially on the chopping block, it seems to me that this is a particularly important time for scholars and writers and artists to be talking, not

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just with each other, but with everyone on the outside as well. Could you say a few words about how we could do that?

That is one of my criticisms of some of the great organizations that are doing fantastic work within the humanities or the universities. Â One of the things they have not figured out how to do is to reach the public.

Universities, especially the humanities and English departments, all seem to be going against the flow. James Baldwin said artists are here to disturb the peace. That is essentially our job. I think universities have become so involved with themselves that they never train the students to get acquainted with the books themselves, rather than with the theories that are imposed on them. We have forgotten that all of these arts that now are elite came from the public.

In Iran, even people who are illiterate know the poems by Hafiz and Rumi and Saadi by heart. Our truck drivers have the poems on the back of their trucks. That is what we are missing here. Maybe we can create a national organization involving artists, bookstores, and libraries; these are our allies. I am thinking of taking the organization to the streets, not by protesting, but by organizing street theater, poetry readings, and music. I think the public would love it. Maybe we can create a website where we brainstorm and can bring in the public to share their views.

Thank you so much for your time.

Mali Subbiah (Ph.D., Oklahoma State University) is Professor of English and director of the Master of Arts in English program at Weber State University. He teaches world literature at the undergraduate and graduate level and has given numerous presentations related to world literature at local and regional conferences. His current research interests include teaching hybrid courses, translation in world literature, magical realism, and spirituality in literature. He also teaches technical writing and has published in regional, national, and international journals on the topic.

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SORTING, COMPRESSING POETIC PARADOX and the

LAURA STOTT & TANNER LEE in conversation with MATTHEW OLZMANN Poet Matthew Olzmann was born in Detroit and lived for 15 years in Hamtramck, Michigan. He earned his BA from the University of MichiganDearborn and his MFA from Warren Wilson College. He is the author of two collections of poems, most recently Contradictions in the Design, published by Alice James Books in 2016.

A former Kundiman fellow, his first collection of poems, Mezzanines (Alice James Books, 2013), won a Kundiman Poetry Prize. His honors and awards include fellowships from the Kresge Arts Foundation, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop.

With Ross White, Olzmann edited Another & Another: An Anthology from the Grind Daily Writing Series (2012). In 2012 he was the Joan Beebe Teaching Fellow at Warren Wilson College. His poems have also appeared in New England Review, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, The Southern Review, and elsewhere.

Olzmann’s poems can make you laugh and cry in the space of a single poem. Through juxtaposition and the use of the absurd, he takes the reader on a journey through disparate ideas and connects the landscapes we are all trying to navigate. As Sarah Gambito put it, “Olzmann guides us toward a hard-earned gratefulness that can exist when in the presence of impossible questions.

We are not given easy answers but lucid and heartbreaking portraits of a brave conscientiousness.

Olzmann is the one to watch.”

The following conversation took place after listening to Olzmann, other visiting writers, and community members reading aloud their favorite poems in Ogden, Utah, in April 2017. This reading was part of The Favorite Poem Project, organized in connection with the National Undergraduate Literature Conference held annually at Weber State University.

MATTHEW OLZMANN

Tanner: What was your earliest connection to poetry?

It was most likely when I was in high school— it was my earliest, most meaningful connection to poetry. During my junior year, I was in an American lit class and our teacher brought in some xeroxed copies of poems.

There was a copy in there, an amazing story

by Stephen Dobbins. The poem was strange and odd and eerie and unlike anything I had read before. But it also created a metaphor for complicated things that were going on in the world—such as people’s boredom—making them numb to the condition of others around them; how boredom can damage or dampen our levels of empathy or how we might use violence as entertainment.

After that, I started seeing poetry as a way of explaining complicated things that were going on in the world in a compressed form.

Tanner: A lot of the poetry I have read from your collections deals with complicated ideas. These are existential concepts that are classic in poetry—death, existence, beauty, and boredom. How do you get away with that? How do you approach these topics without being cliché or shallow?

I don’t always start off saying, “I’m going to write about violence, or I am going to write about fear or existential dread.” Often, I discover that connection through metaphor later on. Often, I begin a poem with a voice that I find interesting or compelling, or an image, or an odd juxtaposition—a personal anecdote, and then something, and then a piece of art.

The metaphor that I am getting at sometimes becomes apparent later, and then I start writing toward it. I usually feel much more comfortable starting a piece of writing with something else—a question, an odd juxtaposition, something that makes me laugh, or something that confuses me. I usually find that I do better from beginning there than I do if I say, I’m going to write about institutional oppression today—or something like that—and then figuring out how to get to it from there.

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Tanner: I like that, because if you start off with something like an anecdote or something that is smaller, it is probably easier than beginning with something that is larger. I have a hard time making my poems continuous, and you do a really good job of making yours about something at the beginning and then kind of evolving them into something bigger, like your poem “Possum Drop,” for instance. Do you have any advice on how to make a poem a solid continuous unit?

I think I understand what you are asking.

Some of those poems take unusual turns or have odd juxtapositions. When I look back at the final draft—the work it takes to get there isn’t necessarily made apparent by the final draft. So I think if I had advice for writing those types of poems, it would be to be patient. Allow yourself to make wrong turns in the drafting process. I have a mind that is pretty easily distracted, and early on, I would try to resist that and really focus in on what I thought I was trying to say. Later, I learned that if you are writing a poem about an opossum and for some reason you think of the col-

I started seeing poetry as a way of explaining complicated things that were going on in the world in a compressed form. osseum, maybe run with that and see why you made that connection. What do these things have in common? Be open to distraction and don’t see it as a negative, though it can lead you to a lot of false starts, or to one-way paths that don’t take you to any place productive.

Have the patience to allow yourself to go in a lot of unexpected and unproductive directions before figuring out where it’s going to end up.

Laura: One of the questions that I get the most from students, or if I ask them, is, “what do you want to ask this writer?”

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C O N V E R S A T I O N They are always really interested in process. And I remember feeling a bit like, is the way I am doing this the way that you are supposed to do it? I think a lot of writers might ask themselves what the right way to do it is—is this really how you write poems? (laughs) So, I am curious to hear a little more about your process and your revisions.

I am still excited about. Part of my process is knowing what to discard, what to abandon, and then it’s a long process of revision. I don’t see revision as a first draft, second draft, and third draft. You have a first draft, and then it is this process of revision. Because I just have a first draft, I have one file for the thing and keep working on it. I usually work on six or seven things at once and shuffle among them.

For communicating any sort of advice for Tanner: In the presentation that you gave younger or newer writers—I don’t know if today, you said that your poems will turn there is a right or wrong way. That is one of on you. Could you talk some more about the things that is really terrifying about bethat? ing a writer, or maybe any type of artist. What works for someone might I write a little bit every day. Most of the time, there not work for you. There is are some gaps in that. But often I’ll write just a little no clear path. I am a very bit every day. It’s not necessarily with the intention driven person. I would like to say, “If I do this, of producing something great, but it’s the process of this, this, and this, then how it slows me down and makes me think through I am going to reach this it. Later, I will go back and see what I am still excited destination.” It doesn’t work like that with about. Part of my process is knowing what to discard, poetry. If you want to be what to abandon. an engineer, you kind of know what college you need to go to, what I turn on my poems. Once it’s been around tests you need to take, what grad school you for a little while, I start to doubt it, or quesshould go to. If you want to be a lawyer, you tion it. They asked what my favorite poem have to go to law school, you have to take this is, and I said that I think that it’s usually exam. All of those things are very challenging, a poem that I’ve just finished—I am really but you at least sort of know what you are exexcited about it, I have a fresh enthusiasm pected to do to get there. With poetry, you can for it, and I can see it clearly. But after it has go to grad school, you can read all the books, been around for a couple of weeks, maybe and then you still have to create something even sooner than that, I start to turn on it. I that has never been created before. Then, you start to say, “Oh, this doesn’t work, or this have to hope that it finds an audience and was kind of stupid, or I don’t know what I was that people connect to it. My own process for thinking here,” then I start trying to fix it. writing— I write a little bit every day. Most of the time, there are some gaps in that. But Tanner: So how do you stay with poems often I’ll write just a little bit every day. It’s long enough to put them into a collection? not necessarily with the intention of producing something great, but it’s the process of I don’t always. But, as I was saying earlier, how it slows me down and makes me think a large part of the process for me is knowthrough it. Later, I will go back and see what ing what to abandon. I gauge it mostly by

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excitement—what am I interested in, what do I see potential for—but that’s not a really foolproof method. I do tend to generate a lot of rough drafts; sometimes I’ll have a bunch of them at one time, so I try not to feel an obligation to return to each one of them, especially if it’s something that I look at and there’s not a spark there, or it’s not something that I am still drawn to. You can look at a piece of writing and say, “Here’s something that I wrote because I forced myself to write something.” There are words here, but I don’t feel any obligation to continue trying to develop them. So, it’s a lot of guesswork.

Often you are going by a gut feeling, saying, “This is something I’m interested in, this is something I am less interested in,” and trying to make decisions from there.

Tanner: Speaking of abandoning poems and collections, I wanted to ask you about your first collection and the idea behind Mezzanines—specifically, if you wrote poems for the collection, or if you had a bunch of poems and wanted to pick ones with a common theme to put into that collection?

In the case of both Mezzanines and, to a lesser degree, Contradictions in the Design, I was writing one poem at a time. I wasn’t thinking about how they were related to other poems; I was mostly just trying to think, “How can I make this into a good poem?” With Mezzanines, once I got to a certain point where I knew I had a lot of poems, I tried to put a manuscript together. I was putting together books of poems long before Mezzanines became a book. I was shuffling poems in and out when at some point I decided, “This is done; I am going to let it be its own thing and I am not going to touch it, I am just going to work on new work.” I sent it out for a year and nothing happened. Then I revised it and sent it out for a year and it was selected for the Kundiman prize. The act of putting it together, or getting the right grouping, was: you start with poems that you like—the ones that you are the most excited about—then

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you see how they fit together and where they overlap, where they contradict each other, where they are repeating things in a good way, and where they are repeating things in a redundant way. I assembled the book with the other poems in mind—there may have been one or two examples of poems where I was trying to write into something that would fit there—but more so, I was revising into the collection. I was seeing if there were two poems that were doing the same thing, discarding one, or getting rid of the thing that was repetitive. Or, if they were doing something similar and I liked the echo, I would find a way to intensify it or heighten it. Contradictions in the Design is pretty similar, although I had more thematic clusters of poems. The gallery poems and the ekphrastic poems, and a couple of others, went together in a group.

Laura: Was that something that you consciously did ahead of time? Or did it happen organically?

A lot of those gallery poems were written before Mezzanines came out as a book. I was working on maybe three of them, and I thought, “I don’t know if I am going to put these in this book, or if it is going to be some other project,” so I just set them aside. I’m really good at starting a series of poems—thinking, “Oh, this might be a book,” and then it’s three poems. “It’s going to be a book,” no, it’s four poems. (laughs) That happens to me a lot.

Laura: Speaking of the ekphrastic work in the gallery poems, I was wondering if you could talk about other artistic influences to your writing besides poets—artists or musicians?

You know, I find it really inspiring to watch stand-up comedians. Not because I am trying to come up with something funny, but because I think comedians are very good at creating an expectation within their audience and then heightening it, and then undermin-

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C O N V E R S A T I O N ing it, to create this moment of surprise. Or taking that expectation and going in a completely different direction. As a writer, I learn a lot from watching comedians and how they develop the audience’s sense of expectation and twerk those expectations to suit the performance. It is really kind of daunting to watch them, what they write and then perform. It’s one of the types of art where the performer is declaring the emotional response that he or she is going to evoke from the audience before presenting the art. I would find that terrifying if we had to do that as poets. If we had to say, before writing a poem, or before publishing it, we had to declare, “This poem is going to make you cry three human tears.” (laughs) “This poem is going to make you sit quietly, rethinking your life. This one is going to make you call your father and say, I’m sorry, three weeks from now.” If you had to say the reaction that your poem was going to produce, it would be terrifying. Comedians do that every night—they say this is going to make you laugh, or I have failed.

Tanner: I love that. I am a huge fan of comedy and I think that it has a lot to do with spoken-word poetry. It is one of the few art forms that is just talking—it’s widely popular, and widely acclaimed. Who are some of your favorite comedians?

Aziz Ansari, Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor, Louis C.K., Tina Fey, Ali Wong: Baby Cobra.

Laura: This is a selfish question, because I love finding new work from other writers. Outside of comedy, what writers are

influencing you right now? Who are you reading?

I think the most immediate influence is my wife. She is also a poet, so we are always talking about poetry. Those conversations have a big impact on my writing and my world view. But other writers that have influenced me, and others that I have been interested in lately, are Pat Resolt, Jamaal May, Tarfia Faizullah. There are some contemporary writers that I return to, or that I feel that I am in conversation with a lot. Writers that I return to very frequently are Robert Hayden, Wislawa Szymborska—those are the two big ones for me. Also, Steven Dobbins, my former teacher, and other teachers like Brooks Haxton, Heather McCue, Martha Rhodes, and Steve Orlan. I think when you talk about influence, you’re thinking about where your ideas come from and how they’ve been shaped.

Laura: I am always really excited when a new book comes out from my past professors—I am always going back to them.

Speaking of Jamaal May, the poem that you read today, the conversation poem “The Letter to Jamaal May Regarding the Existence of Unicorns,” I know the poem that you were referencing—“There Are Birds Here.” I think the idea of poetry as conversation is really interesting. I think that that is something that we do, even with those we don’t know personally. I just wondered if you would talk about the idea of having conversations with other writers.

As a writer, I learn a lot from watching comedians and how they develop the audience’s sense of expectation and twerk those expectations to suit the performance. It is really kind of daunting to watch them, what they write and then perform. It’s one of the types of art where the performer is declaring the emotional response that he or she is going to evoke from the audience before presenting the art. I would find that terrifying if we had to do that as poets.

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I think one of the great things about poetry is that, with such a small audience generally, you can just write directly to people.

Tanner: By name?

Yeah. I am working on a series of epistolary poems. That is what I think my next book will be, I hope. It will be a long series of letters. Some of them are letters to people who are never going to respond to me. Some of them are letters to friends that are also writers. I’ve sent them those letters—like the one that you just mentioned. In some ways I was writing toward specific people. In something like Contradictions in the Design, there are a lot of names in there, either with epigraphs or listed in poems, but using the letter form does it a little more directly.

Tanner: Speaking of conversations, I wanted to ask you about social conversations. A lot of your poetry is political or addresses issues that are also being addressed in politics now. Do you think that poets have a political responsibility?

I think people have a political responsibility. I don’t know if poets have that more or less so. I don’t know if poets get it right more than other people—we are just as inclined to have horrible opinions and to be wrong. I find that I am often in agreement with a lot of people in the poetry world. We tend to find ourselves on the similar end of the political spectrum. But I don’t know if that is what every poet is called upon to talk about. I think it is important as citizens to be engaged and actively discussing some of these issues, and so naturally I think it should find its way into poetry and into those public discussions of politics. I would hesitate to say that it is the role of a poet—especially if someone is a poet who is not inclined to enter a public discussion from that angle. They might be addressing it in a dozen other ways in their own lives—whether through the organizations they work for, places they donate,

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where they volunteer, types of community services. There are lots of ways to be engaged in the world rather than just writing a poem that says, “I’m against this, or I’m for this,” that others might find more effective.

Laura: I am interested in poems that are a witness to what is happening currently.

Sometimes poets address it very directly, sometimes indirectly. Do you have advice for younger writers who are trying to handle that kind of material? What advice would you give to help those poems work?

For younger writers who are trying to address political or social concerns, I don’t know if it is much different from any other poem. It may have some slight subtle differences, but you are still trying to write a poem that takes a larger concept and allows the reader to access it, or experience it, or understand it in a different way. I think a lot of poems do that. You might have some new challenges with writing on a subject that people have emotionally charged opinions about.

You have to remember that people do not want to be preached to. People are capable of speaking for themselves, so you want to think about how this situation impacts you and not try to speak for everyone. There are ethical concerns with writing about trauma or from a position of privilege. I think for someone who is trying to write about those issues, they are going to have to tackle them sincerely and honestly. Be aware of the larger discussion and the risks that come with that.

At the same time, you are writing a poem that has the same tools and similar goals for the end point. Don’t lose sight of that.

Tanner: I think it’s really important that poetry is included in the social conversation. How can we make poetry more prominent in the community? I think that what poetry is saying right now needs to be heard. Even though what you are saying is right, that poets’ opinions aren’t any better than the average citizen’s—they are just

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C O N V E R S A T I O N trying to make sense of the world as well— I think that oftentimes poetry is neglected or not given enough attention. What can poets do to reach a wider audience?

It seems like poems have been gaining a wider and wider audience with the internet—online magazines, social media. There are poems that have been written relatively recently that have been shared a million times online. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. But I do think about it.

I’d like to live in a world where there is this massive audience for it, but you can only worry about so many things as a poet. Try to make work that you are proud of and put it in a space that is accessible to other people.

The rules are: make good work, try to make better poems, put them in a space where lots of people can view them, and hope for the best. That wasn’t the best answer, but I don’t have a visionary plan on this one. (laughs)

Laura: So I have been having villanelle jealously. (laughs) The first villanelle that you read today, “You Want to Hold Everything in Place, But,” is so good. I feel that you are really good at handling formal verse.

I have two villanelles. (laughs) That hardly makes me to be very good at them.

Laura: Well, I don’t have any good villanelles.

I have a third villanelle that’s out in the world somewhere, but...

Laura: Well, I am interested in hearing about your process. Is your process different when working in form rather than in free verse? What do you do differently when approaching that craft? I’ve heard different theories—writing the poem as a villanelle as you go, or having some text and deciding this will work as this kind of poem.

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It is very different—especially with a villanelle. You’re repeating yourself, and if you don’t like the lines that you’re repeating, it’ll grate on you very quickly. I am sure you know, you can’t accidentally write a villanelle. You’re consciously setting out to write a villanelle, and you’re looking for the two lines that are going to repeat, and you’re trying to think of how they can repeat. That’s not to say that I’m not thinking about form when I’m writing a free-verse poem—I think of form in terms of pattern and variation, the structure of the poem, the order in which the information is released to the reader. Form can show up in linear patterns, but it can also be in rhetorical patterns that you’re using, or tonal patterns.

Often, I’ll write a poem and then try to find the right form for it later. If I, early on, think these two lines could work in a villanelle, I’m trying to fit the poem into the form and find ways to make it work. You realize pretty early on if it’s going to be a received form, such as a sonnet or a villanelle, or something else.

Laura: Do you find that you learn from the process, as a writer, when you write in those fixed forms?

For me, the villanelle challenges me in how I think about a sentence and the relationship between the sentence and the line. I am often trying to enjamb the line in ways that’ll make it new, so that the line doesn’t read exactly the same each time, even though it is basically the same words. There might be a period in the middle, so it’s the end of one sentence and the beginning of another sentence, rather than a complete thought. It challenges me to think of the relationship between syntax,

The rules are: make good work, try to make better poems, put them in a space where lots of people can view them, and hope for the best.

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I think it’s good for writers to have access to as many tools as possible.

And to develop as many skills as possible in order to decide what to use later. It’s like having a tool box—you might not need to use the hack saw, but it’s good to know it’s there. You might not need a Phillips head screwdriver, but you’ve got it.

I find that part of the process of writing in received form to be exciting sometimes.

Laura: I like what you said about it being liberating. I feel like most of the time, the comments I hear is that it’s restricting you, so that’s a nice way of looking at it. That restrictions open up new avenues.

the sentence, the line, and the poem as a whole, and how that can find new shapes.

Yeah, but who says that, though? The same people who are saying that likely have no problem writing a complete thought in 140 characters and posting it online.

There are all kinds of forms that we write in all the time, and we don’t sit there and feel that it is so oppressive—but when it’s a sonnet, we suddenly hate it. (laughs)

Tanner: Do you think it’s important for emerging or young, new writers to write in form?

Tanner: I want to ask you about rejection.

You said you sent Mezzanines out for a year and didn’t hear anything.

Probably. I think it’s good for writers to have access to as many tools as possible.

And to develop as many skills as possible in order to decide what to use later.

It’s like having a tool box—you might not need to use the hack saw, but it’s good to know it’s there. You might not need a Phillips head screwdriver, but you’ve got it.

I got a lot of rejections. There was a book before that with many of the same poems and that was getting rejected.

Tanner: I know it’s an odd question, but Professor Stott is always encouraging us to write in form, and there is always an audible groan in the classroom—”Oh, no.” We all want free verse.

It was frustrating, but sometimes I would know the people who were winning, and I’d say, “Oh, yeah, that person’s book!” I was excited for the books that were winning. Similar to sending out individual poems, you have to think about it as trying to find the right fit.

Also, you have to be aware that, as an artist, you have a certain high standard too. You’re kind of rejecting presses left and right by not sending your manuscript to them. As an artist, you decide to send it to these ten contacts, or these twenty. However many you send it to, there’s one hundred you’re not sending it to.

You’re trying to find the right match. You only get to publish a first book once, so you want to have your book published by a press that you can be proud of, that you like the books that they are putting out, that’s going to do

Laura: Well, I had to do it. (laughs) I think when you set out to write in a received form, it can often be liberating because it forces you to create and think in ways that you wouldn’t have otherwise. When you are writing free verse, you can write anything you want. In form, you can say anything you want, but you have ten syllables in a line and this one line has to rhyme with this rhyme, so you’re going to have to rearrange the words to make that happen.

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Tanner: I can handle a poem, or a set of poems, being rejected, but what were you telling yourself when your collection was being rejected?

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C O N V E R S A T I O N Like I was saying earlier, it’s a matter of trustthe things for your book that you want—like ing those moments of distraction. But you can maybe keep it in print or make it available equally try to force that, like any other thing in through their distribution. So you have to be writing. You can say, “This is what I’m going to patient. With poems, I’ve learned to be kind of aim for.” You have a personal anecdote about grateful for rejection. It’s not easy in the mogoing to the grocery store, and then in the ment, but when I look at poems that I sent out next stanza, your’re going to write about the seven, sometimes eight, years ago, I thought I sun imploding, and then train yourself to find was sending out my best work, and now I look the correspondences between those things. at it and I think, I’m really glad those poems Give yourself exercises and prompts. I don’t didn’t get published and I’m grateful that they know if there is a natural/actual way to do it, aren’t out there. Publication, especially on the internet, can be like getting a tattoo on your face. Everyone can see this thing forever now. I Publication, especially on the internet, can be try not to sweat it too much, but it is challenging and it is difficult. like getting a tattoo on your face. Everyone can Sometimes you feel like, I’m see this thing forever now. I try not to sweat it writing just as well as so-and-so too much, but it is challenging and it is difficult. who’s in this magazine. There is the urge to compare yourself and Sometimes you feel like, I’m writing just as well to evaluate. But I think it’s good as so-and-so who’s in this magazine. There is the to look at it as an opportunity urge to compare yourself and to evaluate. But I to send work out into the world.

Often you can send poems out think it’s good to look at it as an opportunity to for relatively low prices, or for send work out into the world. free, and a stranger is going to read that. We should have no reason to expect a stranger to but for me it just comes from trusting many read something that we’ve written, and then false starts and not being afraid—seeking to think about it, and maybe publish it. It’s an them out and then if it doesn’t work out, being opportunity to send a poem out and see if it’s fine with that and trying something different. connecting with someone who you’ve never met before, and if not, just keep working at it.

Tanner. I like that.

Laura: Yeah, that’s great advice. I love that way of thinking about publication.—You talked about this a bit already, but I’ve been impressed by how you put content together that you normally wouldn’t see in poems.

We were talking earlier about trusting that impulse and that process, this idea of working with juxtaposition or the surreal, or the absurd. In what ways can we as writers cultivate that in our own poems?

Maybe through what we read or as we are writing...

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Laura: I’m always so delighted when poems do things like that. I don’t know if that’s something that mirrors a view of the world—that it can be an absurd, magical place. What do you think about poetry mirroring the world around us?

I don’t know if it does—though the kind of juxtaposition you are talking about, I think people tend to think in ways like that.

Thoughts aren’t always linear, they don’t always move rationally, or progress from A to B to C. They go from point A to point F to something else and back. We ascribe

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a type of logic in creative writing that we don’t necessarily have in our actual lives.

Tanner: That’s something that I’ve noticed about your poetry: it’s conversational.

One comment I heard during your reading was, “He makes it sound so easy to write a poem.” I think it’s because you have a conversational voice in your poetry that is like a stream of consciousness. You’re talking about all of these different points, and then they all come together. Does that affect your revision process? Do you just write all of that out and then trim it down?

Actually, it’s almost the opposite. I know a lot of folks who write a lot and then start cutting back. I write a little bit and then start expanding parts. Then later, I go back and say, “Oh, that’s not working, or this part should go in this direction instead.” Initially, I have just a really short fragment, and then when I start revising I start expanding, or building upon it. As far as a conversational voice, I think that a voice, whether it’s conversational or formal in tone, is the speaker’s attitude toward the subject matter, whether it seems angry or melancholy or reflective. Those are things that, regardless of the voice or the

tone or the sound, you’re going to actively look at as you are shaping the subject. I find the conversational approach appealing as a reader, but I’m not sure how much of it is achieved in the revision stage and how much has been trained into me early on.

Laura: I have one last question. I get asked this question a lot when we get to poetry in intro to creative writing classes: Why poetry? Why not short story or essay?

Why should I write or read poems? I love hearing the different reasons why we go to this art.

Why I read poems is because they give me, in the most compressed form, a way to understand complicated and abstract things that are going on in life around me. In an elegy, it won’t just say, “I’m sad.” It gives you a way to understand grief. That’s what draws me to poetry. But when you say, “Why poetry, why not stories or essays?”—why not all of it? There’s room for all of it.

Laura: Absolutely. Thank you for taking the time to do this.

You are welcome.

Laura Stott is the author of the book of poems In the Museum of Coming and Going (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2014). Her poems can be found in publications such as Copper Nickel, Bellingham Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Cutbank, Sugarhouse Review, Rock and Sling, and the anthology All We Can Hold: Poems of Motherhood. Outside of poetry, Laura spends as much time as possible with her family in their garden or in the mountains of Utah. She is an Instructor of English at Weber State University and is on the board of Writers@Work.

Tanner Lee lives in Ogden, Utah. His writing has appeared in Hobart, Glass, Lost Sparrow Press, Clementine Unbound, and The Tower, and is forthcoming in The Comstock Review. He is an assistant blog manager at The Blueshift Journal. Find him on twitter @heytannerlee.

P O E T R Y

Matthew Olzmann

Minor League Legend

Maybe you’re the second baseman for the Montgomery Biscuits. Or the backup shortstop for the Albuquerque Isotopes. Entire civilizations might not know these teams even exist, but the ghosts of Michigan assembly lines still gather in the stands to watch you snag fly balls as centerfielder for the Lansing Lugnuts. Pig iron gets melted down to make steel, and memories of the industrial revolution smolder beneath your city. And look at you: starting catcher for the Leigh Valley IronPigs. Designated hitter for the Ogden Raptors.

Middle reliever for the Toledo Mud Hens. Most of history gets forgotten, a foul ball sailing into the dark. Out there, in the crowd, a spectator makes the catch and takes home a souvenir. That could be my grandfather sixty years ago. Or maybe his brother. Whichever one it was, they’re both long dead. Perhaps they too dreamed of championships. Instead, tool and die makers. Instead, bleacher seats and a long walk home. Not even a fraction of the eight billion people on the planet can do this better than you. This means you’re elite.

Third baseman for the Vermont Lake Monsters. Setup man for the Hartford Yard Goats.

And somehow, so far from where you hope to finish. The big league. The illuminated field. Your hands lifting a trophy. But for now: utility infielder for the New Orleans Baby Cakes. Pinch runner for the Altoona Curve. Left-handed specialist for the Akron RubberDucks. It’s the ninth inning. Someone keeps shouting from the cheap seats. In another life, he’s cheering you on. In this one, he’s ordering a beer.

C O N V E R S A T I O N

HOW TO COMMUNICATE in a

Climate Change POST-TRUTH ERA DANIEL BEDFORD in conversation with JOHN COOK

John Cook is a climate science communicator, perhaps best known for two high-impact projects: his website, SkepticalScience.com, which examines commonly used but fallacious arguments against the mainstream science of climate change; and an analysis of the peer-reviewed climate science literature that found roughly 97% agreement that global warming was happening, and was largely caused by humans. The scientific paper detailing this finding, written by a team of researchers under John’s leadership, was published in 2013 in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research Letters and is now the most downloaded paper in the journal’s history.

At the time of this interview, John had recently completed his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and just relocated from his native Australia to Virginia, to begin work as a research assistant professor with the Center for Climate Change Communication (4C) at George Mason University. He visited Ogden in March 2017 to lead a workshop on effective debunking of misinformation. The workshop was a part of Weber State University’s annual Intermountain Sustainability Summit. John and I have worked together for several years, publishing two peer-reviewed papers and an introductorylevel textbook, Climate Change: Examining the Facts (2016). We have also collaborated (with a large team of others) to produce a MOOC—a Massive Open Online Course—that teaches climate science by addressing misconceptions. Under John’s leadership, SkepticalScience.com earned the Australian Museum’s Eureka Prize for the Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge in 2011, and the National Center for Science Education’s Friend of the Planet Award in 2016.

C O N V E R S A T I O N whole list of arguments that he would present to me at family get-togethers. Like any son-inlaw, I was determined to beat him in the arguments. So between family get-togethers, I started researching climate change—listing all the arguments he gave, anticipating any other arguments. Like any nerd, I started a database of all of these possible arguments and what science said about each one. I started collecting all of the relevant peer-reviewed papers.

Over time, as I built this database up into a useful resource for myself, this lightbulb moment came and I started thinking maybe other people would find this as useful as I did. Other people have fathers-in-law or cranky uncles who have similar attitudes toward climate change—so I put it online as Skeptical Science.

I’m here talking with John Cook of skepticalscience.com fame and 97% consensus, among others. John is research assistant professor at George Mason University working with the Center for Climate Change Communication, or 4C. So, John, you’re probably best known—I would imagine it depends on the audience—but you’re probably best known for your work in developing the website, skepticalscience. com. Could you talk a little bit about how that got started?

The website began when I started getting into conversations about climate change with my father-in-law. He didn’t believe in climate change, thought it was a hoax. He had a

You weren’t involved in climate research yourself at that time, is that right?

No, I wasn’t involved at that time in science at all. I had a background in physics at the University of Queensland. My Bachelor was in science, I majored in physics. But at the time, I was actually working in the creative industry. I was doing graphic design, illustration, cartooning, web design—so this was really just a hobby on the side.

It’s interesting, the graphic design background, because one of the great resources of skepticalscience.com is that you’ve got this whole graphic section. You use that graphic design background to distill down

Climate change is not only a scientifically huge issue—it’s a huge issue for human society as a whole. Climate change has the potential to literally transform our lives...

Climate Change: Examining the Facts, Daniel Bedford & John Cook

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to the essence of the communication that you are trying to accomplish. I am thinking in particular of The Debunking Handbook, which is another major effort that has brought you widespread recognition— something like 100,000 downloads—is that right?

More like half a million.

Half a million downloads—unbelievable!

This PDF distills a number of arguments about how you debunk myths. Could you talk a little bit about how that came into being?

After I had been running skepticalscience. com for a few years, as someone with a physical science background, I really had no idea how to communicate science other than just gut instinct—how you feel it should be communicated. I quickly learned that I was a bit off base. I got an email from a psychologist sending me research, which basically pointed out all of the things that I was doing wrong on my website. So I started collecting all of this psychological research— how to debunk myths and communicate science more effectively. There was decades of research, so I asked this psychology professor, “Had anyone summarized this into a short, concise, practical guide for communicators?”

There wasn’t such a summary, so we coauthored The Debunking Handbook. Stephan Lewandowsky was the professor who sent that life-changing email many years ago.

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LIKE ANY NERD, I STARTED A DATABASE OF ALL OF THESE POSSIBLE ARGUMENTS AND WHAT SCIENCE SAID ABOUT EACH ONE. I STARTED COLLECTING ALL OF THE RELEVANT PEERREVIEWED PAPERS. OVER TIME, AS I BUILT THIS DATABASE UP INTO A USEFUL RESOURCE FOR MYSELF, THIS LIGHTBULB MOMENT CAME AND I STARTED THINKING MAYBE OTHER PEOPLE WOULD FIND THIS AS USEFUL AS I DID. OTHER PEOPLE HAVE FATHERS-IN-LAW OR CRANKY UNCLES WHO HAVE SIMILAR ATTITUDES TOWARD CLIMATE CHANGE—SO I PUT IT ONLINE AS SKEPTICAL SCIENCE. One of the things that’s striking about The Debunking Handbook is that you utilize graphics particularly effectively to communicate—that was principally your work?

No, actually. The content of The Debunking Handbook was all written by myself and Steve, but I also asked my wife to help with the design of the book. She’s a graphic designer, she’s a real artist—I’m a hack—she’s very talented and skilled. She created the design, a lot of the graphics.

The infographics are kind of a mix. I would create something, I’d give it to her, and

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C O N V E R S A T I O N she’d make it look good—a process I call “Wendification”—after my wife, Wendy.

It seems like graphics are a very powerful tool that you’ve used in communicating the science of climate change. The Debunking Handbook is one of these examples, Skeptical Science as well, but also, particularly, getting the word out about your finding a 97% consensus among scientists working on climate change. That was a really effective communication strategy and campaign.

Maybe you can talk a little more about how that came into being and how it went.

The Skeptical Science team wanted a quantifiable level of consensus in peer-reviewed climate papers. We spent months going through 21 years of climate papers and just reading the abstract of each paper—working out just how many agreed with human-caused global

THE “CONSENSUS GAP”

to help communicate climate change. So I said to them, “we’re working on this project about measuring the consensus—we think that it could potentially be important. Do you want to help us with that?,” and they agreed to help.

While we were doing our analysis, as soon as we had our results, we would share them with SJI, and they would start working on graphic material. When I saw what they produced, I realized that compared to the work that we were doing, this is what real professionals could produce—it was amazing material. They would do things that never occurred to me, like doing a temperature graph without numbers on the Y axis—that was almost scandalous.

It was blasphemous from a scientist’s point of view. From a communication point of view, they’d put enough information in there to tell a story—but only with the required amount of information. It was quite a revelation.

They put together infographics so that when the paper was published, we also published the website that they designed and a series of shareable infographics. The combination of the peer-reviewed papers, the website, the infographics, and also sending press releases to the media, all combined to draw a lot of attention to the paper. It didn’t hurt that the day after, President Obama Tweeted about it as well.

Yeah, that would help. Where did the inspiration for doing that research project come from?

warming. This process went on for months.

While that was happening, I got an email from a PR company based in New York, SJI Associates, and they said that they were very passionate about climate change and offered to do pro-bono work on anything they could do

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In 2004, Naomi Oreskes, who is well known for her book Merchants of Doubt (2010, co-authored with Erik M. Conway), published a widely circulated analysis of peer-reviewed climate papers entitled “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” in the journal Science. She looked at about ten years of climate papers, just to

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see what the level of consensus was. She found that amongst 928 papers, zero rejected the consensus. This was in 2004—her analysis looked at papers up to 2003—so it’d been nearly a decade since. I thought there was a lot more research. Basically, we wanted to do a follow-up of Naomi’s analysis, with another decade of research. We also tried to expand it in certain ways. We tried to extend it and flesh out our understanding of consensus a little more deeply.

Because of the effectiveness of the way you communicated your findings, you and your team have really become the high profile result on consensus—by no means the only one, but the high profile one. You’ve consequently taken a certain amount of heat for that result.

Yeah, a good summary of that is, Senator Ted Cruz said in a T.V. interview that the 97% consensus was based on one discredited

study—presumably referring to our study. We aren’t 100% sure of that because there have been a number of studies that have found a 97% consensus that humans are causing global warming—the first was in 2009, another in 2010. Ours came out in 2013, and then a paper was published in 2015 by Stuart Carlton, a Healthy Coast Ecosystems & Social Science Specialist at the Texas Sea Grant College Program of Texas A & M University, and his colleagues. I had a discussion with the authors of the other 97% consensus papers, asking which of our studies is that one discredited study Ted Cruz is talking about? Our paper has got a lot of criticism over the years, really a disproportionate amount. I thought it was because we had done a fairly good job in communicating our findings, although in 2014, when we were putting our MOOC together, I had the opportunity to interview Peter Doran, the lead author of the first 97% consensus study and Professor of Geology and Geophysics at Louisiana State University.

How many climate experts agree that the global warming we are witnessing is a direct consequence of the burning of fossil fuels by humans?

The public perception data comes from a survey of a U.S. representative sample conducted by John Cook. The options available were Less than 5%, Between 5% to 10%, Between 10% to 30%, Between 30% to 50%, Between 50% to 70%, Between 70% to 90%, Between 90% to 95%, and More than 95%.

The actual 97% scientific consensus comes from analysis of peer-reviewed studies (Doran & Zimmerman 2009, Anderegg et al 2010, Cook et al., 2013).

This difference is significant because research shows that people are more likely to support policy actions to reduce carbon dioxide emissions if they are aware of the overwhelming agreement among experts that we are causing global warming.

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The Consensus Gap is the difference between the public's perception of how much agreement there is among scientists that humans are causing global warming, compared to the actual 97% consensus among scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature.

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C O N V E R S A T I O N He told me that when he gets emails criticizing his research, he just refers them on to me. (laughs) So maybe it’s all Peter Doran’s fault.

Maybe you should refer the criticism on to Stuart Carlton.

Exactly, I hadn’t thought about that until now, (laughs) but I’m definitely going to do that.

Problem solved. (laughs) So, a lot of the work that you’ve been doing recently has been on the psychology of misinformation and equipping people to debunk misinformation. You were leading a workshop at the Intermountain Sustainability Summit just a few days ago on exactly this. Can you talk a little bit about the overall approach to myth-debunking as you address it in workshops?

When I talk about debunking, there’s really two key elements to effectively debunking misinformation: The first and most important thing is what I call “the golden rule of debunking”—fight sticky myths with stickier facts.

The way people understand the world is, they build these mental models where there’s lots of different moving parts all connected to each other. A causes B, B causes C, and so on. Some parts of those mental models might have myths, false information. When you debunk a myth, you’re basically reaching into their model, pulling that myth out, and you’re ripping a hole in their mental model. You’re creating this gap, and people don’t like gaps in their models. If you don’t fill that gap with a replacement, then the myth comes back to influence people. Psychologists call that a Continued Influence Effect. So it’s really crucial that when you debunk a myth, you replace it with a replacement fact. You need to take that gap and fill it with a fact that meets all the causal explanations of the original myth.

If A causes B, and B causes C, and B was that myth, the replacement fact needs to slide into that spot. So that’s the first, and most

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important, element of debunking, though it isn’t enough. What psychological research shows is that when people encounter fact and myth together—conflicting pieces of information—they don’t know how to resolve the conflict and they often end up just leaving with nothing. Myths can essentially cancel out the good, positive effect that science communication impact might have. This leads to the second element of debunking, which is that you need to help people reconcile fact and myth—to work out which is fact and which is fiction—when you are presented with pieces of conflicting information. The way you do that is, you explain the fallacy or the technique that the myth uses to distort the facts. These are the two elements of debunking—the fact and the fallacy. I usually structure my debunking(s) as: fact, myth, fallacy.

WHEN YOU DEBUNK A MYTH, YOU’RE BASICALLY REACHING INTO THEIR [MENTAL] MODEL, PULLING THAT MYTH OUT, AND YOU’RE RIPPING A HOLE IN THEIR MENTAL MODEL. YOU’RE CREATING THIS GAP, AND PEOPLE DON’T LIKE GAPS IN THEIR MODELS. IF YOU DON’T FILL THAT GAP WITH A REPLACEMENT, THEN THE MYTH COMES BACK TO INFLUENCE PEOPLE. PSYCHOLOGISTS CALL THAT A CONTINUED INFLUENCE EFFECT. SO IT’S REALLY CRUCIAL THAT WHEN YOU DEBUNK A MYTH, YOU REPLACE IT WITH A REPLACEMENT FACT. YOU NEED TO TAKE THAT GAP AND FILL IT WITH A FACT THAT MEETS ALL THE CAUSAL EXPLANATIONS OF THE ORIGINAL MYTH. So on the subject of misconceptions and fallacies, one sticky fallacy that seems to be out there, one sticky misconception that

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used to be out there among scientists— including those who try to communicate science actively—is that facts don’t really matter, that you can’t change people’s minds with facts. Trying to communicate facts is barking up the wrong tree, going down a blind alley. How would you talk to somebody who holds that perspective?

What would you say to them?

I think there are several levels of answers to that objection. Firstly, for most people, facts do matter. The research shows that when you present information to people—when you present the facts, when you explain the science—for most people who don’t have a reason to disbelieve it, it does have a positive effect. So we don’t want to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and throw facts out the window just because there are certain amounts of the population that have trouble with facts. We should never forget that facts do matter, facts are important, and they have a positive effect. Secondly, my research has shown that when you explain the fallacies, the techniques people use to distort the facts—when you explain the magician’s trick— that works for everyone across the spectrum.

We’ve also found that with climate change, there’s a wide range of responses across the political spectrum. As people are more politically conservative, they are more receptive to misinformation about climate change, and they are more resistant to facts about climate change. There is this group, this small minority at the far end of the political spectrum— strong conservatives—who are resistant, who might not be receptive to facts about climate change. What we have found is, when you explain the techniques used to trick people about the facts, everyone across the spectrum—even those on the strong conservative end—were no longer influenced by the misinformation once they saw how they’d been misled. And what that tells us is, no one likes to be misled. They don’t like to be tricked no matter where they sit on the spectrum.

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Does that hold true even in these times, given that Oxford Dictionaries identified “post-truth” as their word of the year for last year?

Well, I can only go based on the data and research. I think that misinformation is very prevalent—“post-truthism,” fake news, and altering the facts are more prominent than ever at the moment. This means that taking a science-based approach to how we address misconceptions is more important than ever. Rather than throwing our hands up in despair, we need to look to what the research says and find effective ways to approach and implement that research. I don’t think these kinds of communication approaches—the idea of inoculating against misinformation, or the educational approach of teaching science through addressing misconceptions—have been broadly implemented.

If they were implemented in communication and in education—on a much wider, broader scale—we would make much bigger in-roads in countering misinformation.

You’ve done some large scale education efforts—particularly a massive open online course, in which I was involved as well.

Can you say a little about the MOOC? Yeah, we put together a MOOC or a Massive Open Online Course. It was a MOOC about climate change, but for me, with my discipline being psychology, we took a more multidisciplinary approach. It was a MOOC not just about climate change, but how people think about climate change. The most important thing we did—and as I said, communicating the facts is the most important thing—was, we identified all the key facts about climate change. In a series of about 50 lectures, we addressed and explained the key facts. At the same time, we identified myths associated with each fact. So during every lecture, we explained a key climate fact, a myth associated with that fact, and then the fal-

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C O N V E R S A T I O N lacy that the myth used to distort the facts.

We were telling the story of climate change, explaining the facts, but also inoculating people against the most common misconceptions about those facts. Our goal was not only to raise climate literacy levels, but also to increase critical thinking skills.

So that draws on a body of research referred to as inoculation theory. What are some of the key findings of inoculation theory?

Yeah, I kept on hinting at it, but I didn’t flesh it out. I was conducting research trying to debunk misinformation but even to “pre-bunk” it—warn people before they encountered it.

And while I was presenting this research, a professor came up and said, “What you’re doing sounds like inoculation theory,” which I hadn’t even heard of. Turns out, I was implementing psychological research that was over 50 years old. What inoculation theory does is, it borrows from the idea that you can stop a virus from spreading. You can give people immunity against the virus by exposing them to a weak form of the virus. This enables them to build up resistance, so that when they encounter the actual virus, they won’t be infected. What psychology researchers found is that if they exposed people to a weak form of misinformation, when they encountered the actual misinformation, it no longer influenced them. In “weak form,” they introduced the myth to people, but also explained the techniques—the false arguments that the myth used. The two key elements of an inoculation are: a warning—you have to

warn people that they may be misinformed; and counter arguments—explaining how the misinformation is wrong—what fallacies or techniques it uses to distort the science.

The MOOC is one example, but this runs through a number of the different projects that you’ve been involved with. I know this, because I’ve been involved with some of them myself. Another obvious example is the 97% consensus project that you did.

You rounded up a large number of volunteers, and the level of energy that you bring to keeping everyone on track and keeping everybody on task—that level of energy is really quite extraordinary. Where does that passion come from? You’ve fundamentally shifted the direction of your life. You think about where you were 7 years or so ago, compared with where you are today. What is motivating that change?

For me, climate change, rather flippantly, began as arguments with the in-laws. It became real when I realized that climate change was more than just an environmental issue—it was a human issue, it was a social justice issue.

The places and the people that were the most impacted by climate change were the ones that contributed to it the least, and were the least able to adapt to it—the developing countries. They emitted hardly any carbon dioxide pollution, but they were being inundated with sea level rise in Bangladesh. African countries were suffering food scarcity issues because of climate change. To me, it seemed like an incredibly unjust thing that developed

WHAT INOCULATION THEORY DOES IS, IT BORROWS FROM THE IDEA THAT YOU CAN STOP A VIRUS FROM SPREADING. YOU CAN GIVE PEOPLE IMMUNITY AGAINST THE VIRUS BY EXPOSING THEM TO A WEAK FORM OF THE VIRUS. THIS ENABLES THEM TO BUILD UP RESISTANCE, SO THAT WHEN THEY ENCOUNTER THE ACTUAL VIRUS, THEY WON’T BE INFECTED. WHAT PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCHERS FOUND IS THAT IF THEY EXPOSED PEOPLE TO A WEAK FORM OF MISINFORMATION, WHEN THEY ENCOUNTERED THE ACTUAL MISINFORMATION, IT NO LONGER INFLUENCED THEM.

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countries that had been emitting CO2 for decades, centuries even, had the wealth to adapt to it to some degree—although they are struggling as well. I think that’s when I got a real fire in my belly about climate change. I then also realized that this was a long-term project. I’ve realized that I need to stop sprinting and treat it more like a marathon.

I’ve started to pace myself, and the way I do that is by taking both a short-term and a longterm approach to science communication. I think the short-term approach is things like social media campaigns and internet communication. The long-term approach is more educational approaches, like the MOOC, like providing educational resources and trying to get this type of misconception-based learning approach implemented in classrooms.

I’ve been more on the pessimism scale in that we have already been committed to a great deal of climate change impacts and we are not changing our trajectory quickly enough to really avoid some of the worst impacts or severe impacts. The way I think about this is that climate change isn’t a binary thing. It’s not, we experience climate change, or we don’t.

We will experience some kind of change, it’s just a matter of degrees, literally— it’s how bad are we willing to let it get. The thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is the idea that every little bit, every effort, contributes to reducing those impacts. That’s why I fight every day to try to get the message out there to build that public support for action.

Hopefully that will contribute to less impact than there otherwise might have been.

Skeptical Science is now one of the top picks for science teachers, it’s one of the places that they go to.

What kinds of things can people do on an individual level to feel like they’re making some kind of contribution, some kind of difference?

Yeah, the National Center for Science Education did a survey of high school science teachers, and I think Skeptical Science was the second resource— the second highest resource in terms of where they got their climate change content. It was gratifying, it was first and foremost gratifying. As a numbers guy, I like to measure everything and have graphs and spreadsheets for everything. It’s a little frustrating that the impact that Skeptical Science is having is an undefined, unmeasured thing out there, but that’s okay. The main thing is it’s being used, so that’s a good thing.

You were talking about the impact on the places and people who’ve done the least to contribute to the problem, but who are going to feel the impact the greatest. They are the least able to adapt, and the impact on them will be the worst. Where are you at the moment on the optimism/pessimism scale in regard to whether we are actually going to solve this problem?

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People can make a big contribution on an individual level by reducing their emissions, reducing their carbon footprint. The big turning point for me personally, at an individual level, was where I lived in Brisbane, Australia, and the local council had a smart meter program. They would give you a smart meter, and suddenly you could see how much emissions, at every moment in time, your house was producing—that changed my thinking.

I was already aware of climate change, but to actually see it as a number, suddenly, I became my dad. He was always thumping the walls when we were having long showers and running around the house, turning off light switches, saying that the place was lit like a Christmas tree. Turns out he was an environmentalist decades ahead of his time, not just a grumpy father. (laughs) Seriously though, it did make me aware. It got me thinking about emissions and all the different ways that we waste energy thoughtlessly because

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C O N V E R S A T I O N we’re just not aware of it. That was the first step. Then, once I started thinking about it, it was a series of progressions addressing the low lying fruit regarding our house. Reducing the use of hot water took a big chunk out of our house’s footprint. Eventually we got solar panels, photovoltaic panels, so most of our electricity around the house was solarrather than fossil fuel-based. Then it was just lifestyle decisions like using the bike and public transport to get to work. No one huge thing, but a series of short decisions that contributed to reducing my carbon footprint.

Will those kinds of changes by themselves be enough?

It’s important that we do it. It’s important that we all walk the walk. But ultimately, what

we need to do is change society. We need to change the way society burns energy. We need to transition from fossil fuel electricity to renewable energies, to clean energies.

Changing lightbulbs and adding solar panels won’t achieve that alone. What we do need to do is talk about this issue. To get societal change at this kind of level, there needs to be two things: We need broad, deep public support for climate action; and we need leadership. Politicians, we know, they care about one thing: Keeping their job at the next election. If politicians hear from the voters that they care about climate change—that they are concerned, and that they will vote accordingly—you’ll find that politicians will suddenly be providing a lot of leadership for climate action. I think that talking to our friends and our families in order to build

The consensus project website is the product of a community of scientists and other volunteers scattered across the globe, united in their dedication to communicate climate science. Using peer-reviewed science, it plays an active role in debunking climate misinformation published across the spectrum of media, including TV, online, and print.

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public support, and talking to our elected officials, are some of the biggest ways that we can contribute to climate action.

I know that in terms of building that conversation, we need some kind of evidencebased approach to communication of science, for people and politicians as well. So the way we communicate needs to be based on evidence. You started a podcast on that recently, is that right?

Yes, my big thing is evidence-based science communication—possibly because I started my science communication not knowing any of the evidence or how to talk about evidence. So now my job is researching how to communicate, and also communicating that research. One way we are doing that is through podcasting. I’m a big consumer of podcasts. I find it to be an enjoyable and informative way to kill time. When I am exercising, or walking, or doing chores, I’m listening to good quality podcasts that provide all this information. So I thought this could be a useful way to take all the social science research, science communication, and

WE NEED TO CHANGE THE WAY SOCIETY BURNS ENERGY. WE NEED TO TRANSITION FROM FOSSIL FUEL ELECTRICITY TO RENEWABLE ENERGIES, TO CLEAN ENERGIES. CHANGING LIGHTBULBS AND ADDING SOLAR PANELS WON’T ACHIEVE THAT ALONE. WHAT WE DO NEED TO DO IS TALK ABOUT THIS ISSUE. TO GET SOCIETAL CHANGE AT THIS KIND OF LEVEL, THERE NEEDS TO BE TWO THINGS: WE NEED BROAD, DEEP PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR CLIMATE ACTION; AND WE NEED LEADERSHIP. climate communication, and make it available to people. In the same way that Skeptical Science was about making climate science available, we are now looking to make social science available to people through podcasts.

Thanks, John. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Daniel Bedford (Ph.D., Univ. of Colorado) is a geographer and climate scientist with interests in the climate-society interface.

Originally from London, England, he has been studying, teaching, and writing about Earth’s climate system for 30 years. As the scientific evidence of the reality and seriousness of humancaused climate change has become clearer, he has increasingly focused on communicating this evidence to the general public.

He now teaches and speaks about climate change to a wide variety of audiences, in both academic and community settings.

His textbook, Climate Change: Examining the Facts, co-authored with John Cook, was published by ABC-CLIO in August 2016. He is a professor in the Geography Department and director of the Honors Program at Weber State University.

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E S S A Y

John Cook

The Antidote to Fake News is a Little Bit of Fake News

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has decreased acceptance of humancaused global warming, and reduced public support for policies to reduce climate impacts.

However, misinformation has another, more insidious effect. It can cause people to stop believing in facts. When people are exposed to conflicting pieces of information, the facts and fake news cancel each other out. People don’t know which is fact and which is fiction, causing them to disengage, believing in neither. This illustrates the unequal playing field between facts and alternative facts. Misinformation doesn’t need to be evidencebased or coherent to be effective. Its mere tion ma existence is sufficient for n i s mi to sow doubt and reduce acceptance of facts.

This has deep consequences for educators and science educators. It means that explaining the science is necessary but insufficient to increase science literacy levels. No matter how well designed and evidencemisinformat ion

T

hirty years ago, hundreds of thousands of people suffered from polio, an incurable disease. Today, there are only thirtyseven confirmed cases in the world.

The key to the virtual eradication of this disease was vaccination. Exposing people to a weak form of the disease helped them build immunity so that when they encountered the real disease, they didn’t get infected. When enough of a community get vaccinated, they achieve herd immunity—protecting even those not immunized.

Misinformation bears some similarities to a disease. It spreads from person to person through social networks.

Once implanted, it is notoriously difficult to dislodge. Some types of misinformation influence some segments of the population more than others. And it does damage in a variety of ways.

The most obvious impact of misinformation is it causes people to believe false information. This can lead to harmful and even fatal behavior. Misinformation about vaccinations reduces parents’ intent to vaccinate their children, allowing preventable diseases to make a comeback. Conspiracy theories about the science linking HIV to AIDS led South Africa to implement policies that caused 330,000 deaths.

Misinformation about climate change

based our science communication, our efforts might be wiped out by a single piece of potent misinformation. However, understanding how misinformation cancels out accurate information also points to how we can protect our science.

If disengagement is caused by the conflict between facts and misinformation, then the answer is helping people resolve the conflict. One way to achieve this is to explain how the science can get distorted. In other words, explain the techniques or fallacies that misinformation employs to distort the facts.

Inoculation theory provides a psychological framework to apply this approach. This branch of psychology takes the idea of vaccination and applies it to knowledge. If you expose people to a weak form of misinformation, they build up immunity so that real misinformation has less influence on them.

What is meant by a weak form of misinformation? An inoculating text contains two elements: a warning of the threat that people might be misinformed, and counter-arguments refuting the misinformation.

For example, one common climate myth that can mislead people about climate change (threat warning) is that climate has changed naturally in the Earth’s past, so current climate change must be natural too. This argument commits the non sequitur fallacy, also known as jumping to conclusions (counter-argument). It’s like finding a dead body with a gun wound and arguing that people have died of natural causes in the past, so this person must have died of natural causes also.

For over half a century, inoculation has been tested in experimental studies and found to be an effective way

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to neutralize threatening arguments.

In addition, inoculating people before they encounter misinformation is more effective than trying to debunk misinformation afterwards, proving the adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Inoculation has also been applied in the context of climate change and found to effectively neutralize climate misinformation in several studies.

One study, “Inoculating the Public against Misinformation about Climate Change,” led by Sander van der Linden, found that exposing the errors in a specific piece of misinformation neutralized it. In another study led by myself, we neutralized the misinformation without even mentioning it, by explaining in general terms the technique used by the misinformation.

This result echoes research finding that inoculating against one argument can convey immunity against other arguments. In other words, inoculation conveys an umbrella of protection.

There is another benefit to inoculation. People who are inoculated against misinformation on a topic are more likely to talk about the issue to friends and family. Learning the counter-arguments against a topic gives people the confidence to have conversations about it. This benefit is particularly important with climate change, where even people who are concerned or alarmed about climate change mostly don’t talk about it with friends and family. Inoculation can help break this unhelpful climate silence.

Lab experiments are one thing, but how do we put into practice the findings of inoculation theory? One practical and effective way is the teaching approach known as misconception-

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E S S A Y based learning. This involves teaching science by explaining how that science can get distorted. This approach has been found to be one of the most powerful teaching methods. Compared to standard science lessons, it achieves greater learning gains that last longer.

It develops critical thinking and provokes greater interest from students.

I first learnt of this teaching approach when I met Weber State professor Dan Bedford at a conference dinner in San Francisco. Bedford had pioneered this approach in his college classes on climate, coining the term “agnotology-based learning” to describe this teaching approach. We both recognized the power of this teaching approach but also lamented the lack of resources that other educators needed to teach through refutation.

We have since collaborated on several educational resources. One was a textbook, Climate Change: Examining the Facts. This book covers the key facts of climate change, while also explaining the technique employed by

climate misinformation to distort the science.

We also collaborated to produce a Massive Open Online Course, Making Sense of Climate Science Denial. This course features a series of short video lectures, each around seven minutes long. Each video adopts the fact-mythfallacy format. First, we explain an important climate fact. Next, we introduce a related climate myth. Lastly, to resolve the conflict between myth and fact, we explain the fallacy that the myth employs to distort the facts.

When scientists and educators send their science out into the wild, they need to include some protection to prevent the facts from being annihilated by misinformation. Inoculation theory provides a theoretical framework to help design such protective measures. Misconception-based learning offers a practical way to put the theory into practice. If this teaching approach could be implemented broadly enough, it could allow us to eradicate science denial in the same way we eradicated polio.

Works Cited Van der Linden, Sander, et. al. “Inoculating the Public against Misinformation about Climate Change.” Global Challenges, vol. 1, no. 2, 2017, doi: 10.1002/gch2.201600008.

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C O N V E R S A T I O N

DAN FLORES THE TRICKSTER “HOWLING THE ORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTHEM” — SAM ZEVELOFF TALKS COYOTES WITH DAN FLORES

In February 2017, I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Dan Flores, the accomplished historian of the American West, in Ogden, Utah. Our discussion followed his keynote address to Weber Pathways, an organization committed to the promotion of trails and open spaces in northern Utah.

A native of Louisiana, Dr. Flores now lives near Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is the A. B. Hammond Professor Emeritus of the History of the American West at the University of Montana, where he taught for over 20 years. He is the author of ten books, including American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains and the recent widely praised bestseller Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History. In 2017, Dr. Flores received the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award from Northland College for Coyote America.

The focus of our interview was this book.

Dr. Flores’s essays on the environment, art, and culture of the West have appeared in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, and in such magazines as Texas Monthly and High Country News.

His work has been honored by the Western Writers of America and numerous other organizations. The Pulitzer-winning novelist Annie Proulx has written that “his work ranks with that of Thoreau, William Bartram, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, and Peter Matthiessen.”

C O N V E R S A T I O N In your latest and widely acclaimed book, Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History, the bulk of the stories about coyotes and Native American folklore are related to exposing elements of human nature and instructing people in the proper way to behave socially toward one another.

What are examples of such ways to behave according to these stories?

I reproduce four of what I think are sort of instructive coyote stories in the book, and these are in the first chapter which I’ve titled “Old Man America.” I think these are the oldest literary pieces in North American history. Some may go back 10,000 years. We don’t know exactly when native people in the West adopted this animal as their avatar but it was a long time ago. For those stories, each from a different tribe, I write in modern prose to make them accessible to today’s readers.

One of the stories that I re-tell is about Coyote and the Frog people. It essentially relates an incident where Coyote hears from other animals that the Frog people are hoarding all of the water. Coyote goes to investigate and what he finds is that the Frog people have built a gigantic dam and they have impounded all the waters behind it (they speak of the world, but it’s North America they’re referring to).

The Frog people are charging everyone who needs water for the right to take it from their impoundment. Coyote finds a jawbone, as I recall, that he goes to the Frog people with and offers as payment for getting a drink.

What Coyote does is to check out the impoundment. He looks very carefully at it and starts getting a drink, and the Frog people, sort of checking the time, notice that Coyote seems to be drinking for a very, very, very long time. After a while, one of the Frog people goes to see what’s happening and discovers that Coyote is not just drinking out of the impoundment, but has been furiously digging at the base of the dam to tear it down, which he does, and releases all the water out across the landscape. The Frog people are outraged at this, but Coyote essentially says at the end

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of the story that the Frog people have to understand that no one should hoard a resource that everyone needs. Water thus belongs to everybody and not just a few people for their benefit. That’s the kind of story that portrays Coyote as a positive force in the world.

Mark Twain would have loved these kinds of stories because they attempted to portray proper behavior by showing Coyote doing what you weren’t supposed to do. Coyote acquires the reputation in these stories as being a buffoon and a narcissist, and most are very funny. They were told out loud and delivered by people who were probably very good storytellers. They were often told in the night, during the winter, and were very, very, funny.

What they portrayed was a character who sort of did the opposite of what you were supposed to do. He was instructing proper behavior by being selfish, narcissistic, lustful, greedy, jealous, and all those things.

So it really worked by looking at him (or her) being a bad example?

That’s exactly right, and there are a few Coyote stories where the coyote deity is female, not very many of them, though. I would say I’ve only seen three or four out of the hundreds that are out there. Now, in some of the stories, Coyote is male but he has a wife and a family.

Sometimes he’ll have children and daughters and he often will lust for his daughters.

Mark Twain would have loved these kinds of stories because they attempted to portray proper behavior by showing Coyote doing what you weren’t supposed to do. Coyote acquires the reputation in these stories as being a buffoon and a narcissist, and most are very funny.

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Despite being held in such high regard by various Native American tribes over many centuries, European settlers and their succeeding generations characterized the coyote in very derogatory ways, for example calling it contemptible, cowardly and especially perverse. Why did European settlers consistently describe it in such a manner?

predators of any kind as the enemies of their economy. I think that a lot of them — which I know from looking at the bounty accounts that were established on wolves in the 1860s in the western territories and states — don’t distinguish much between actual gray wolves and coyotes. They think of them as pretty much the same animal, and don’t distinguish them usually until fifteen or twenty years into the bounty I have a chapter called Mark Twain wrote a book, period.

“Prairie Wolf” about the The other thing that Roughing It, in the 1870s.

It European discovery of happened, and I put was a national bestseller that was quite a bit of credence the coyote. That’s what Americans, starting with reprinted a number of times and on this especially for the Lewis and Clark, called reading American pubbecame a classic of the West.

In the animal for much of lic, was that Mark Twain it, he described the coyote for the the 19th century, until wrote a book, Roughing they discovered the an- first time as this contemptible, It, in the 1870s. It was a cient Indian name for it. national bestseller that cowardly, little rash of an animal Since Europeans didn’t was reprinted a number with a forsaken look and sagging have any experience of times and became a with coyotes (they are wolf skin over a bag of bones, that classic of the West. In it, purely a North American he described the coyote pretty much lived off carrion. animal), they didn’t for the first time as this Twain went on about this for three contemptible, cowardly, bring any pre-loaded folk traditions, or pages in Roughing It, and also little rash of an animal stories or notions about with a forsaken look and introduced the American reading them, the way they did sagging wolf skin over a with wolves, bears, and public to the old continental name bag of bones, that pretty foxes. So for a good bit for the animal, and even taught much lived off carrion. of the 19th century, the Twain went on about us how to pronounce it.

From that reactions to coyotes this for three pages in point on, almost everyone who as people encountered Roughing It, and also inthem in the West (and writes about coyotes adopts the troduced the American that’s where they are, reading public to the Mark Twain description. they’re originally from old continental name the Great Plains westfor the animal, and even ward) was pretty value taught us how to pronounce it. From that point free. There are quite a number of naturalist on, almost everyone who writes about coyotes descriptions of them in the 1830s, 1840s, adopts the Mark Twain description. Twain was and 1850s that don’t resort to the contemptvery influential, and within three or four years, ible, cowardly, and perverse descriptions. everybody traveling in the West began to use They’re fairly value free, but a couple of things his description. began to happen in the late 19th century.

One was that American stock-raising Why do you think that Mark Twain characpeople took animals like goats, sheep, and terizes the coyote in such a manner? cattle into the West. They had long regarded

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Well, for one thing, he was traveling on the Overland trails. When he got farther west, into the Great Basin and Nevada, people had for decades abandoned furniture and stock animals that had died along the trails. Both wolves and coyotes scavenged their animals. I think he either heard stories about this or perhaps even saw it. So he didn’t view the coyote as some kind of noble predator that was bringing down pronghorn antelope or something; he saw it as sort of the mammalian equivalent of a vulture.

It’s clear that quite a few species have been systematically slaughtered in our nation’s history. Indeed, you wrote about the demise of the bison as well as attempts to eradicate coyotes. Why do you feel that the coyote wins the dubious distinction of being the most persecuted large mammal in American history? Perhaps you might be willing to compare and contrast some basic aspects of the attempts to exterminate these animals.

One of the reasons I make the statement that this is the most persecuted large animal in American history is that the persecution goes on for so long. It starts in the 19th century when coyotes are targeted for the fur trade. In the 1870s and 1880s, people are poisoning them with strychnine to take

their pelts, which were actually used as a medium of currency in the West, worth a dollar apiece for much of the late 19th century.

The persecution starts there but really amps up when gray wolves are pretty much extirpated across most of the West; that happens by the 1920s. The government agency, the Bureau of Biological Survey, which had been formed around the idea of controlling predators for the livestock industry, turned just about all of its efforts toward the coyote.

They were going after bears and mountain lions too but really focused on coyotes from the 1920s on. That went on through the 1970s, and in fact it actually still goes on. That agency is now called Wildlife Services. They still kill 70-80,000 coyotes a year, primarily on behalf of the sheep industry.

An activist group in California with a lot of biologists on its board has made a careful study of this and asserts that we probably kill about half a million of them a year today. So one of the reasons I put coyotes in this sort of rarefied air of being the most persecuted animal is that it not only involves many millions of animals and is still going on, but it’s been going on for so long, more than 130-140 years.

What would be an estimate of the total number of coyotes that have been killed since the 19th century?

When Montana was a territory and just becoming a state, from about 1889 through about 1920, it is believed that they had bountied eight hundred and eighty-five thousand to nearly a million coyotes. The Biological Survey attempted to keep records, and between 1945 and 1972 they believe that they killed six and a half million of them. Part of an admitted problem with their estimate is that they were collecting the carcasses of millions of animals, but were often poisoning two or three times the number of animals that managed to get away from them. Many were unreported and of course people were shooting them on sight. All over the West, people were setting out strychnine baits on their own, so we have no idea but the figure has to be many, many millions of them.

Well, there’s no way of telling. George Bird change people’s minds. As I describe in the Grinnell thought that on the Great Plains of book, by the 1920s the American Society of the West in the late 19th century, during the Mammalogists was adopting positions opheyday of the fur trade, that maybe a hundred posed to the attempt to exterminate coyotes. thousand to three hundred thousand coyotes But I think they simply didn’t have any science were killed, but this was just a guess. The Buto go on yet. Interestingly enough, even by the reau of Biological Survey was trying to keep early 1930s there’s no real science, either from more careful records, as were a lot of the states the biologists or from the government bureaus and territories that were offering bounties. that are trying to wipe out the animals, about I’ll give you an example from where I lived coyote natural history, not even what they ate. for more than 20 years: Montana. When MonI tell the stories of Olaus and Adolph Murie tana was a territory and just becoming a state, who are sent, in Olaus’s case, to Jackson Hole from about 1889 through and in Adolph’s case, Yelabout 1920, it is believed lowstone National Park, that they had bountied I interviewed scientists at the to do the first biological 885,000 to nearly a milstudies of coyote natural Predator Research Facility lion coyotes. The Biologihistory. In the 1930s, we cal Survey attempted to outside Logan, Utah, working had been poisoning them keep records, and between for Wildlife Services, and for decades, and their task 1945 and 1972 they bewas to determine if the they’re in the same position lieve that they killed six government position of and a half million of them. today. They know what the trying to exterminate them Part of an admitted prob- biology and ecology of the was the correct one belem with their estimate is cause they’re supposed to coyote are, but because the that they were collecting be the “arch predators” of the carcasses of millions sheep industry wants them our time. Both Olaus and of animals, but were of- to continue to kill them, they Adolph, to their credit, are ten poisoning two or three scientists who believe in continue to do so. times the number of anibeing ethical and honest. mals that managed to get They go out into the field to away from them. Many do these studies and come were unreported and of course people were back with reports that this is an animal whose shooting them on sight. All over the West, peoprimary prey is not all our game species, but in ple were setting out strychnine baits on their fact they primarily eat rats, mice, and rabbits. own, so we have no idea but the figure has to They eat fruit, insects, and all kinds of vegetabe many, many millions of them. bles; they’re omnivores, really. Both say that about eighty-five percent of what coyotes do It was a bit surprising to learn how many in the world is actually beneficial to humans. prominent biologists, not just a hundred But they file their reports and the government years ago, but even more recently, bought agencies they work for just ignore them beinto the notion that coyotes were vermin cause they fly in the face of their policies. that had to be eradicated. Why do you think I would say that most of the prominent biso many biologists, even several prominent ologists by that point, in 1940 or so, are beginones, held this view? ning to understand the role of predation in the world. But what you end up with are biologists I think they held this view up through the outside the Bureau who are struggling to stop 1930s, when Aldo Leopold’s work began to

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C O N V E R S A T I O N this extermination campaign and biologists who are hired by the Bureau (with the exception of the Muries) buying into it.

I interviewed scientists at the Predator Research Facility outside Logan, Utah, working for Wildlife Services, and they’re in the same position today. They know what the biology and ecology of the coyote are, but because the sheep industry wants them to continue to kill them, they continue to do so.

Your discussion of the role that scientific societies such as the American Society of Mammalogists and the Ecological Society of America played in changing the management of coyotes in the early 20th century, especially in areas such as national parks, was intriguing. These societies now play a comparatively smaller role in such policy advocacy than they once did. Now, nonprofit groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity take the lead in such efforts. Why do you feel that this switch has occurred?

That’s a good question. The source of scholars who go into fields like this tends to be rural areas as opposed to cities and suburbs. I think that makes them a little more sympathetic to the old position about predators and a bit suspicious of environmentalism and the positions that environmentalists take. I’ve got good friends who are in wildlife management, for example, and they follow that model and tend to be suspicious of environmentalists because they think environmentalists are anti-hunting, and these people often think of hunting as an essential tool in wildlife management. That might have something to do with it, but you’re right when you look back at the 1920s and the 1930s.

I tell the story, for example, of Joseph Grinnell, who was a member of the American Society of Mammalogists and who was responsible for starting a major wildlife laboratory at the University of California. He and a couple of his graduate students confronted the Biological Survey and the role it played in harassing

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predators. Also, being around at the time when the National Park Service Enabling Act of 1916 was passed, he had the idea, which became a centerpiece for these biologists in the 1920s, that if the Biological Survey was going to wipe out wolves and coyotes, we ought to argue that at least in the national parks these animals should be allowed to remain a foundational piece of the ecology of the parks. That was the kind of argument you could only make at the beginning of the Enabling Act of the national park system. It’s an idea that prevailed with the biologists, and they made it prevail with the park system even though there were directors who really didn’t like this very much.

This was an age when we were poisoning and wiping out all of the wolves in Yellowstone and in Glacier National Park, and making an attempt to do the same thing with coyotes. The biologists managed to prevail with that crucial idea, and for a long time there were people on the outside who said what these biologists have done is saddled people with these reserves where harmful predators like wolves and coyotes can breed and spread out across the landscape. That became kind of a battle that was waged through much of the 20s and 30s.

And when Grinnell came up with this suggestion, was this adopted as a policy by the American Society of Mammalogists?

I can’t say that it was adopted as a policy, although most of their members bought into the idea. The Biological Survey, for about three years in the late 1920s, originally was not opposed to that. Then they had a meeting in Ogden, Utah, in about 1930 and decided, no, they can’t stand by the idea of predators in the national parks. So by 1930 the Survey was opposed to the idea, but after the Animal Damage Control Act was passed in 1931, there was no mention in that act of the Biological Survey being allowed to poison and harass predators in the national parks. They could do so in the national forests, they could do so in what be-

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came grazing land and future BLM land, but that act did not specify that they could poison and kill predators in the national parks. So the biologists actually prevailed with the idea.

Presently there are far fewer domestic sheep in the United States than there were a few decades ago. They have declined from roughly 55 to 60 million to about 5 to 6 million. So how can the livestock industry still demand and obtain the deaths of so many coyotes by the federal government agency Wildlife Services?

That’s a really good question, and it’s one that I tried to get the scientists at the Predator Research Facility to explain to me. What I basically concluded from my interview with them was that they understand the futility of this.

I’ve known the guy who founded the Predator Research Facility in Logan, Fred Knowlton.

He and another biologist, Guy Connolly, had done a study where they demonstrated that the coyotes’ response to pressure made it almost impossible to reduce their numbers. Connolly’s computer simulations of how coyotes responded when they were being pressured, poisoned, or otherwise subjected to attempts to decrease their numbers, suggested that you could take seven out of ten of the population year after year after year without reducing it.

So these people know that, but their response to me was that Wildlife Services, unlike the Forest Service, for example, has only one constituency and that’s the sheep industry. The Forest Service has to grapple with recreationists and the logging industry, and on and on, but Wildlife Services has one constituency; they called them their “co-operators,” and it’s the sheep industry.

The sheep industry wants them to do something, and what the sheep industry is comfortable with is killing. Whenever there’s an attack, Wildlife Services people always say they try to go after the individual animal that perpetrated an attack. But what the sheep industry seems to want is that if we have a bunch

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of lambs that have been killed by a pack of coyotes, we want you guys to come in with a plane or a helicopter and shoot every one that you see.

I kept trying to get the Wildlife Services scientists to tell me that they were interested in non-lethal techniques. They were mildly interested in these but claimed that the livestock industry was not. I tell the story where they try for several years to come up with a way to sterilize coyotes, and one of the representatives is out in Idaho attempting to explain this to the livestock community. After listening to this guy talk about sterilization for a bit, some rancher stands up in the back of the room and says in effect, “Son, I don’t think you understand our problem. Them coyotes ain’t trying to screw our sheep, they’re trying to eat ‘em.”

One of your statements reveals how individual states can also generate the deaths of numerous coyotes. In regards to Utah, you mentioned that in 2014, 7,041 coyotes paid with their lives for being in a state where neither hunters nor legislators bother to read science. What do you mean by this?

Well, Utah is, as far as I’m aware, the only western state that currently has a bounty on

Whenever there’s an attack, Wildlife Services people always say they try to go after the individual animal that perpetrated an attack. But what the sheep industry seems to want is that if we have a bunch of lambs that have been killed by a pack of coyotes, we want you guys to come in with a plane or a helicopter and shoot every one that you see.

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C O N V E R S A T I O N coyotes, and it’s a recent one. It was passed Utah’s got this strange thing where they alby the state legislature about five or six years low citizens in every region of the state to play ago. It’s called the Mule Deer Protection Act, advisory roles for wildlife, so those advisory and it’s based on the idea that coyotes are macouncils may have overridden what the scienjor predators of mule deer and therefore are retists said. It just seemed an odd thing for this ducing the numbers of mule deer in the state. act to be passed almost on the heels of a major The legislature passed a fifty dollar bounty on study that spoke directly at what they were trycoyotes. ing to do.

The reason I put it that way in my book I imagine that you are pleased with a (that Utah seemed to be a place where neither comment in a review of your book in the hunters nor the legislature read science) is beprestigious journal Ecology in which the cause, strangely enough, about a year and a reviewer stated, “Coyote America should half before the passage of that act there had be given to all legislators to help in makbeen a major multi-year study of the effects of ing informed and more cost efficient and coyotes on mule deer populations in neighborhumane wildlife policies.” Any thoughts ing Idaho. It determined that coyotes play no about this suggestion? Might we encourrole in regulating, in any direction up or down, mule deer populations and that basically, the severity of the winters was the most Utah is, as far as I’m aware, the only western state serious thing that regulated that currently has a bounty on coyotes, and it’s a the populations of mule recent one. It was passed by the state legislature deer. This study came out, as I said, some two years be- about five or six years ago. It’s called the Mule fore Utah passed this Mule Deer Protection Act, and it’s based on the idea Deer Protection Act. It would that coyotes are major predators of mule deer and have been fairly easy for someone in the legislature therefore are reducing the numbers of mule deer to have looked around and in the state. The legislature passed a fifty dollar said, “Well, has anybody bounty on coyotes. studied this before we pass this act” and have found that major piece of work that age your publisher to start distributing this appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, but evibook to state legislators in the West? dently they didn’t bother to look.

Is it odd that the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources would not have entered into this discussion in some manner?

Well, I will say I didn’t look at the debates in the Utah legislature to see who testified in which direction, either for or against the Mule Deer Protection Act, so I can’t finger the state’s Division of Wildlife Resources as not having played some sort of active role. They could have been ignored or discounted, and

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Well, of course I would love to see that happen.

That’s the kind of thing that happened with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring back in the early 1960s. My publisher is producing a paperback edition of the book in September 2017, so that would make it a little bit easier to do so.

You mentioned that unrelenting pressure on coyotes has actually had the effect of triggering relatively larger litters of pups and that coyotes also respond to such pressure with higher pup survivability. There have

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been similar responses in other exploited mammals such as muskrats and beavers, but I have the impression that you suggest this was actually occurring in coyotes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Were there anecdotal reports of such litter size increases and a higher survivability as a result of such pressure?

Another intriguing way in which coyotes are adapted to thrive in many types of landscapes, human and otherwise, is what is termed their fission-fusion societies. Could you explain how this operates?

They’re one of the few mammals around the world that have evolved this particular adaptability. What it refers to is primarily a social species that also has the ability, when pressured, to function as individuals and pairs.

What we think happens with coyotes in a lot of instances is what some biologists refer

This was not as a result of scientists doing work. As I mentioned, we don’t really get any good scientific work on coyotes until the late 1930s. What I will say is that there is anecdotal evidence in the form of things like Ernest Thompson Seton’s story in Scribner’s magazine in 1900. When they’re pressured, poisoned, chased by This was a time when peo- airplanes and helicopters, and so forth, rather than ple who were interested remaining in packs, they tend to scatter and do so in wildlife in America were well aware that charismatic as singles a lot of times or in pairs. They’ll scatter animals like bison, elk, widely across the landscape and colonize new places. pronghorn, grizzly bears, gray wolves, and many others were disappearing, one after another. Yet somehow people understood to as coyotes going into colonization mode. coyotes were doing exactly the opposite.

When they’re pressured, poisoned, chased Seton wrote that piece for Scribner’s in by airplanes and helicopters, and so forth, an effort to explain in an allegorical way why rather than remaining in packs, they tend to this was happening. He attributes the situascatter and do so as singles a lot of times or tion to a little captured female coyote who, in in pairs. They’ll scatter widely across the landa rancher’s yard, observes all the tactics that scape and colonize new places. This is one of the ranchers are using to kill coyotes. She esthe “push” explanations for why coyotes end capes and finds a mate out in the wild and has up spreading out of the West in the 20th cenlitters, and teaches all the human tricks to her tury and across the Mississippi River, into the pups. As he goes on to say, it’s like the story South and the East. There are “pull” factors of Moses who, raised among the Egyptians too: we think that the drawdown of wolf popuand learning all their tricks, manages to lead lations in those same areas probably opened the Israelites to freedom. So it’s an allegorical up the niche for them. It really looks as if the story, but to me it is evidence that people were only thing that the attempt to eradicate coyobserving this ability for animals to survive in otes in the West accomplished was to spread the face of unusual pressure. Ernest Thompson them across North America.

Seton tries to come up with a story that will In a key decision in June 2016, the Canadiexplain it before anybody in biology actually an government decided that the Algonquin knows why.

wolf was a unique species and listed them as threatened, making it illegal to hunt

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C O N V E R S A T I O N them. But just a short while later, genetic research published in the journal Science Advances asserted just the opposite. It revealed that fifty to seventy percent of this Eastern wolf’s genome was derived from gray wolves, while the remainder comes from coyotes. If this new study is correct, then the Algonquin wolf really doesn’t even exist as a separate species; it’s simply a hybrid. What are your thoughts on this complex issue? And if you care to also speak about the issue of the red wolf being a hybrid species, that would be great as well.

I tell the story in my book of being in Yellowstone watching wolves in the Lamar Valley and having my guide at the time, who was one of the wolf recovery team people, say, “So have you met Robert Wayne?,” and I turn and it’s Robert Wayne of UCLA, who is one of the authors of that second study you mentioned and is famous for arguing that all of the wolves in North America are actually gray wolves. His genetic work, he believes, indicates that. I told him, standing there in the Lamar Valley, about how I grew up in Louisiana, and we had red wolves there and I may have seen a hybrid or two when I was a kid, and those animals sure looked a lot like coyotes. He responded by saying there was a good reason why they look like coyotes: they’re nothing but hybrids.

As well, he said that the red wolf doesn’t actually exist as a species, it’s also just a hybrid between a gray wolf and a coyote.

Yet, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its endangered species arm argues that the red wolf indeed is a species. It’s listed as an endangered species, and the Algonquin or Eastern wolf is also regarded as a true wolf species, not a subspecies of the gray wolf. In fact, the Fish and Wildlife Service, in 2012, even renamed it Canis lycaon. It’s giving it its own species designation; the Fish and Wildlife Service relies primarily on the Canadian geneticists who have studied the Algonquin wolf.

I have to say that I’m not a biologist, I’m a historian and an environmental writer and I’m

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corresponding with all these people and trying to figure it out. What we have at the moment is unresolved science, frankly, so I don’t know which way it’s going to go. But I will say that I find the Canadian version of things a little more explanatory of what is happening in the world because they argue that the Algonquin wolf and the red wolf are not gray wolves but are distinctive North American wolves that come out of a clade of animals that are very closely related to coyotes, and probably only separated from coyotes about 800,000 years ago. That then becomes an argument for why, as coyotes have spread into the South and East, they so readily hybridize with red wolves and with Algonquin wolves, because these animals are not separated by very much in terms of evolutionary distance and time, and there are no behavioral barriers to them hybridizing. Yet, in the West where we have true gray wolves, we have no hybridization between coyotes and wolves going on at all.

In fact, in the book one of the things I try to do is to track the demise of the gray wolf to see what was happening in the 1920s in the very last few years when there were gray wolves in the West. While those gray wolves looking for mates were hybridizing with ranch dogs, there was never any evidence that they were hybridizing with coyotes. The argument that the Canadian researchers make is that this is because Western gray wolves represent a

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its endangered species arm argues that the red wolf indeed is a species. It’s listed as an endangered species, and the Algonquin or Eastern wolf is also regarded as a true wolf species, not a subspecies of the gray wolf.

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group of wolves that left North America via the Bering Land Bridge and evolved further in Asia and Europe for a couple of million years before returning here. Thus, there are behavioral barriers between them and coyotes that don’t exist between coyotes and these Eastern wolves.

I’m kind of waiting for Robert Wayne (if he’s right about all these rules) to explain why coyotes seem to see something unique and different among Southern and Eastern wolves that they didn’t see among Western gray wolves.

It’s a problem when we use the Endangered Species Act, as we do now, to protect unique species when within the family Canidae species are notorious for readily hybridizing.

They are indeed, and so the argument some people make is that we’ve got an endangered species out there in the form of the red wolf that we’ve invested a huge amount of effort and money to try to recover.

Now there’s an ongoing debate between the state of North Carolina and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about whether or not to keep investing in the protection of red wolves in the eastern part of the state.

That’s right. They’ve had to be crowded onto a peninsula and protected by a barrier of sterilized coyotes in order to keep their genetic legacy intact.

In your book, you refer to the phenomenon of “mesopredator release” in the context of how the demise of the wolf led to more opportunities for the coyote, and thus increases in its range in numbers. I’d like to ask you about another aspect of this phenomenon, one that addresses the possible impacts of coyotes on other smaller mammalian carnivores. In a paper on “mesopredator release,” it has been suggested that there is rather limited evidence to support the idea that coyotes prey on or limit raccoon populations, and perhaps even skunk populations.

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On the other hand, coyotes appear to have a rather significant effect on smaller canids such as the swift and kit fox. Any thoughts about why coyotes would have an impact on their fellow canids much more so than on raccoons or skunks?

Well, as I said, I’m not a biologist so I’m not operating on sure footing here, but I do know that when coyotes establish territories, they protect them pretty assiduously not only from other coyotes, but from other competitor predators. It may be that they see smaller canids as more of a direct challenge to them than they would skunks or raccoons.

You suggest that coyotes are finding new riddles to solve in urban life. As a result, city life may be selecting for novelty-seeking super-genius coyotes. I’ve actually thought the same thing about urban raccoons but I don’t know if there’s any evidence for that.

Is there evidence for coyotes exhibiting such selection?

Here’s where I think the argument for that comes from, and it was actually an urban Wildlife Services guy in Denver who told me this.

I think the evidence for something related to this may be coming from the work that the Predator Research Facility has been doing.

What they’ve been focusing on has been the individuality of coyotes; one of the things they seem to be discovering is that there is a pretty marked and wide range in how coyotes respond to new stimuli, and in how calm they can be in the face of diverting noises and the kinds of obstacles that city life puts in front of them. They seem to be discovering that in a coyote population, there may be five percent, possibly as many as ten percent, of the individuals that is not put off by the kind of noises, lights, and other diversions that take place in cities.

One of the studies they did to confirm what they believe in this regard is a monthlong study in a closed pen with a population of about 15 coyotes. They put bait at one end of

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C O N V E R S A T I O N the enclosure and surrounded it with all sorts of diversionary lights and horns. Within a day, three or four of the coyotes just waded right through everything, and went and got the bait.

By the end of the month, most of the coyotes had never approached the bait; they had been scared away by it. So the argument that these biologists are making is that city life is selecting for that first group, those animals that are bold enough to take on these new stimuli. So that’s what I think is the evidence for this possibility.

Certainly, attitudes toward coyotes have changed in the past fifty to sixty years, and as part of the shift in perspectives you mentioned the phenomenon called “coyote consciousness.” Can you describe this and the role of unlikely individuals such as Richard Nixon and Walt Disney in changing our consciousness about coyotes?

I used that term because I think it properly expresses a sense that there are people out there in America now, and I’m probably one of them, who once you know about these animals and their long history, and know how adaptable and successful they are, and how much they mirror our own success in the world, begin to have a lot of admirers. That admiration has taken quite a number of forms.

During the Beat counterculture and the ‘60s counterculture on the West Coast, the Old Man Coyote stories of native people became a kind of foundational text for a lot of folks like Gary Snyder, the poet from California. He and many others in California in those years thought of coyotes as their hero. It’s really a sort of American anti-hero character and so I think that there’s a lot of admiration for the animal. I can’t tell you how many times, going and speaking about coyotes and signing books, people have asked me to sign their books to another coyote lover. So I’m aware that there are a great number of Americans out there who have adopted this animal as kind of a totem of a truly American iconic creature.

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I think we began to change our sense about this back in the middle of the 20th century. I argue in Coyote America that Walt Disney’s pro-coyote films in the 1960s and 1970s, which I saw as a kid, were responsible for it. It was a way for pop culture to change our minds.

His first film about this was called The Coyote’s Lament; it was an hour-long animated feature in which he said he was going to tell the coyote’s side of the story in American history. As a twelve-year-old, I sat and watched it and was just completely won over by these animals.

The cartoon character, Wile E. Coyote, played the role of this sympathetic coyote for many of us who grew up in the 20th century.

He is sort of playing in the background like this endless Möbius loop that has been going in the background of American life for half a century, and without even realizing it, I think we understand that he’s one of us. We can identify with him. He’s humiliated, he’s obsessed, and he tracks our fascination with, as I argue in the book, the technological fix with his Acme contraptions and the whiz-bang technology that he employs to try to catch the Road Runner.

During the Beat counterculture and the ‘60s counterculture on the West Coast, the Old Man coyote stories of native people became a kind of foundational text for a lot of folks like Gary Snyder, the poet from California. He and many others in California in those years thought of coyotes as their hero. It’s really a sort of American anti-hero character and so I think that there’s a lot of admiration for the animal.

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A final question: Perhaps revealing how you regard the coyote’s status in the animal kingdom and its personality, taking terms from the movie The Big Lebowski by the Coen brothers, you offer that the coyote really is “The Dude” and that “The Dude abides.” Could you let us know what you mean by this?

Yes, in fact that’s fresh in my mind because Sara, my wife, and I watched The Big Lebowski last night after the Oscars, and we got to see the scene at the end where Jeff Bridges announces, “yeah well, The Dude abides,” and Sam Elliott repeats the phrase. It gives me a great deal of comfort to know that The Dude abides. I think knowing that there is an animal out there, or any element of the natural world, that we humans, no matter how much we have tried, cannot control is comforting.

I like this whole coyote story. When I started working on it, it turned out to be completely counterintuitive because as an environmental writer, most of the things I’ve written about are these declining stories where once we turn our attention on the landscape, it just begins to fall apart and go to pot, but here’s an instance where no matter what we’ve done, this animal has survived every uppercut we’ve taken at it, and has sort of occupied the ground that we’ve been standing on while we’ve been doing it.

So as I like to say to people, this is an animal that has been howling the original American national anthem for a million years in North America, and I think it’ll be howling it over our graves whenever we’re gone.

That’s a great final statement.

Dr. Sam Zeveloff is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Zoology at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, where he was on the faculty for 33 years. He has conducted research on raccoons, mountain goats, and pygmy rabbits, and authored two books: Mammals of the Intermountain West and Raccoons, a Natural History. Dr. Zeveloff is the founder of Save the Ringtails (savetheringtails.org), an organization committed to the conservation of members of the raccoon family.

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C O N V E R S A T I O N

Offering not only Comic Relief—

Unlocking the Creative Mind Through Comics

A Conversation with

Lynda Barry

Scott Rogers and

Sarah Vause

Award-winning cartoonist and author Lynda Barry (above and as depicted by Barry herself at left) is an Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Creativity, a position that allows her to share her long-held belief that art and science need not exist apart and that disciplines can intersect and enrich each other.

In March, 2017, Weber State University’s National Undergraduate Literature Conference (NULC) invited Barry to speak.

Barry is best known for her underground comic Ernie Pook’s Comeek and her illustrated novels The Good Times Are Killing Me and Cruddy. She adapted The Good Times Are Killing Me into a play, which enjoyed a successful run off-Broadway.

She has been teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 2013. We were privileged to have the conversation (redacted, below, for clarity) over brunch during her stay in Ogden. Thank you to Lynda Barry for her time, and to the organizers of NULC for making this interview possible.

Rogers: Have you always been an academic?

I didn’t come up through the university system at all. When they were hiring me, there was discussion about which department I should be in. The English department decided that comics would not count as publishing in their department. I think that they probably have their reasons for sticking to that, but it helped me to understand that that was a department that I was going to have a lot of trouble in—even though I was friends with them. In the art department, being a cartoonist, you hear you’re not really an artist either.

Art Spiegelman said to me that, when people ask whether he prefers being seen as a writer or a drawer, he responds, “Well, I’m not that good at drawing, but I have a little bit of talent for writing.” He was talking to somebody else and said, “Well, I’m not that good at writing, but I have a little talent for drawing.” Marjane Satrapi—she did Persepolis—said cartoonists are kind of like bisexuals. You can support gay people. You can support straight people.

People don’t know what to do with bisexuals. (laughs) Words and pictures have always been fond of each other. Advertisers know that. Victorian literature had lots of that; there were always pictures.

Rogers: So if it was never the plan to be an academic, how did you wind up doing that?

God, it was not the plan! (laughs) Along with making comics, one of the things that I’ve been trying to figure out—maybe my whole life—ever since I met my teacher at Evergreen State College, was the biological function of this thing we call “the arts.” Because I do think it has a biological function—the idea that things that tend to contribute to our survival tend to persist. Art persists. Music persists. I got really interested in how images move through people, why people start drawing and then why they quit? Why do they quit with such ferocity? So I developed a

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week-long intensive workshop. I knew that I just needed to be with people long enough to understand how images work. I also needed to know if you can walk somebody back into drawing who’s given up on it? So I applied to be an artist in residence for a semester and I fell in love. I fell in love with my students and I fell really in love with finding out that I could walk people back into drawing. If I could un-hitch drawing from the cart of art, then I could look at it as another language.

It turns out that people who quit drawing when they were about eight have a much faster trajectory to a very original style as a cartoonist. Because representational drawing and cartooning are two different things.

With representational drawing, you’re trying to get perspective or the shadows—imagine Charlie Brown with a hyper-realistic nose.

Rogers: That would be super freaky. (laughs) It’d be horrible! (laughs) Hyper-realistic hands! It’d be horrible! In comics, we don’t want that. In comics, you want quick marks.

If I could un-hitch drawing from the cart of art, then I could look at it as another language. It turns out that people who quit drawing when they were about eight have a much faster trajectory to a very original style as a cartoonist. Because representational drawing and cartooning are two different things.

With representational drawing, you’re trying to get perspective or the shadows—imagine Charlie Brown with a hyper-realistic nose.

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We start making them when we’re very young.

Once I am able to walk people back into that, and they know they can speak this language, then all these people who aren’t in the arts suddenly have this artistic voice. My science students are my favorites. My organic chemistry students are my absolute favorites.

Rogers: While you were talking, I was reminded of a bit in Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice. Ruskin reads art as one measure of a culture’s enslavement—the uniformity of architecture in a culture is a measure of its enslavement. The more uniform they are, the more that culture enslaved the workers—the artists. He says, if you take the yoke off the artist, and you, say, carve the gargoyle however you want—you’ve made a thinking man of him where, before, he was just a tool.

Yeah! That’s really interesting. (laughs) This is exactly what happens when our work gets stale. It starts to get uniform; we know exactly what we are going to do—there is an enslavement of something. Saul Steinberg did this great cartoon—it’s a guy, he’s

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chained to a wall, there’s a chain around his ankle, but the chain between his ankle and the wall has broken and he’s looking at it like, “I don’t know what to think about this.”

Vause: I am really interested, as a teacher, in how you help students who feel like they have little to no artistic ability.

I prefer people who don’t have a drawing background if possible. There are so many ways I can show people that they know how to draw, that they just don’t know they can.

One of the easiest ways is to take an index card and fold it into quarters. The first person will make a scribble and then everybody passes it. Give them three minutes to turn that scribble into a monster. Everyone can do it. Everyone knows there’s probably some eyes and teeth involved. And then they pass it, and now here they have a monster made of a squiggle of that person. And then I give them four minutes to draw that monster’s parents and everyone can do it. Everyone can say which two monsters had to get together to make that one. Then I say, “now draw that first monster as a toddler and draw it with a

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slightly older sibling.” Everyone can do it.

And the last time we pass it, they draw that monster as an elderly monster dancing with its true love. Earlier I asked people on the index cards to write the following statements: My name is: (only put your middle name, say, “Gene”).

My parents are: “Bob and Pearl.”

They met: “at the PX.” When I was little: (some anecdote).

I love to dance to: (a song you loved in middle school).

I have them flip the card over and have them write those phrases under the pictures.

And suddenly they have this hilarious comic strip, and now they have these monsters that are named Bob and Pearl, and the first one is Helen. It’s just showing that people have this ability to create, and not only that, they get very happy when they do it.

When I take attendance, I have people do self-portraits for three minutes. Yesterday in class, everyone had to draw themselves as the center sculpture of a fountain and the thing that makes the water come out is that you’re crying—you’re crying so hard that you’re a fountain—and they did the most hilarious drawings of themselves just crying.

And we do it for three minutes, and then we just pass the cards so everyone can see it, but we never talk about the work. So in a weird way that critique of putting something on the wall never happens in my class.

Rogers: Is that the point of the time constraint, then? There’s no time for selfediting?

Exactly. Your hand has to move faster than that guy inside you that is going, “I don’t know if I like this.” I have a Ph.D. student in cartography. Her professor forbade her from drawing her maps by hand. They’re not accurate. It became a big deal. So in my class her final project was one of the star projects ever made. It is a big, handmade drawing of

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a map of the United States and the monsters that are in each state. It’s the United States of Monsters. Guess who picked it up? National Geographic! So I got to email her professor and say, “You are a great professor, you must feel proud.” (laughs in a monster voice) My point is that the fear of drawing kicks in. To say, “just draw,” and then say, “relax!”—it’s not gonna happen, right? So it’s like I say, you have to walk people into it, so they don’t even necessarily know what they are doing.

Vause: It’s like that in writing. I give students the assignment to handwrite a letter.

Excitedly, they say, “Oh! Okay!” And they come back and say, “Are you kidding, do you know how much time I spent on this letter because of the handwriting?” I took a course in my Ph.D. work that was all about the evolution of writing technology; we had to chisel our initials in granite and try out all kinds of writing practices. We had to make quill pens and write in the hand and voice of Jane Austen and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I got myself notebooks and fountain pens and kept practicing. I’m left handed, so in school I was always told, “you’re not doing it right,” and I’d do this and not this, and smear my hand over everything.

But this class changed all of that for me.

The best cartoonists are all left handers.

Left handed females in my class are prizes.

They always do well. The student whose dissertation is all in comics form started in my class five years ago and did not draw.

Now she has a publishing contract. She is doing really well; she just found the language. You have all these consonants; you just need vowels. You can’t speak it without vowels. I can show you some vowels. “O!” That’s a head! “U!” That’s a neck! “I!” There’s some arms. Punctuation is great too.

Rogers: Notebooks, pens, and paper are going away, but do you see this as a problem with your students?

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The problem is in manual strength. They have crazy strong thumbs. They could lift a car with their thumbs, but they don’t have manual strength partly because handwriting is not being taught and cursive is gone.

We were taught the way to hold a pen for a reason, you know? So, holding a pen properly has all these advantages, right?, but kids, because they weren’t taught, hold the pen in a fist. What that does is, it temporarily stabilizes something, but you can’t really move, so you are gonna be in pain if you try to write. Part of it is getting them to write.

Rogers: Do your students come in with zero knowledge of art history or experience? Does that bother you, or do you just worry about production?

I don’t really worry. I just like to work with what’s there and just get their hands moving. Students don’t always know Moby Dick and they don’t know Emily Dickinson. They kinda know about them. So one of the assignments I have them do is read the part in Moby Dick where Ishmael meets Queequeg.

I tell them, “Let’s draw Queequeg.” And they are like, “What?” Well, Melville gives us some description of Queequeg. We know there are some tattoos, and we know he’s making this dude up. So how do we draw this Queequeg? They had to draw six scenes from

An example of Barry’s classroom writing/cartooning prompts.

this meeting, with no words, just images of them meeting. It’s really funny, and because it’s comics, they are free to do it however they want. Then I have them take a poem like Emily Dickinson’s “There is Another Loneliness that Many Die Without.” I have them mash it up in a book, so they have to break up the poem into these six parts, then figure out which picture goes with which part of the poem. They don’t go together, but at the same time they totally go together. I call it Moby Dickinson. (laughs) It’s that mashing up.

The thing about a visual image is that it can shift. Once you understand it can shift, then you understand that text shifts like crazy. So that’s what I am interested in: the flexibility of meaning. What’s wild is that somebody can make a mark on an index card that makes them feel crazy. If you had that with a drug or a machine, it would be a big deal, but artists can do it! I can draw something that will make you punch me in the face, and I can do it in not very much time. People are killed over drawings. So drawing carries power with it. I always think of it like an ordinary super-power. It’s like this: if you hated your handwriting, maybe you just wouldn’t write anymore.

You would never think of doing that, right?

What’s wild is that somebody can make a mark on an index card that makes them feel crazy. If you had that with a drug or a machine, it would be a big deal, but artists can do it! I can draw something that will make you punch me in the face, and I can do it in not very much time.

People are killed over drawings. So drawing carries power with it. I always think of it like an ordinary super-power.

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We just wouldn’t do that! Everybody hates their own handwriting. People that like their own handwriting are the ones I worry about.

They’re not that fun to be around. (laughs)

Vause: As I look through Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor (2014)—as a college teacher—I think it’s the coolest syllabus I’ve ever seen. I was talking to my sister about Syllabus. She’s a high school teacher, and I said that your book is like an illuminated journal. And she said, “That’s annotation.” And I say, “No, it’s not. It’s illumination.” So we had this whole semantic argument about your book because we saw it in different ways.

We’re living! We’re all gonna die! Same book. (laughs)

Vause: Exactly! So, you say that comics might be ideal for teaching because they “render complex ideas as a successful symbol. Pictures can help us find words to help us find images.” I was thinking about this for second language learners. When I taught high school, I had a student who couldn’t speak any English and was placed in my class. I didn’t speak Spanish and she didn’t speak a word of English. It felt like abuse.

She was sitting in my class, and I thought it was the most horrible thing that our schools made us both do. If you have a tool like you do, it could change somebody’s whole experience with school and life.

Think about that monster exercise. Anybody can do it. That’s the thing. And comics too.

Comics in my class are all silent the first month. There’s no words. I have people for whom English is their second language in my classes too, and it’s amazing.

Teaching is the thing I think the most about. It puts me right in the middle of where the work comes from. I love it. While teaching, I became really curious about why grad students are so miserable—and why that’s acceptable. Here the grad students are, at

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C O N V E R S A T I O N the top of their game—even in brain development. They’re right at the front of the prefrontal cortex being finished. So why is misery acceptable, and when has anyone made an important discovery or insight when they were miserable? I started to think about what made my experience as an artist better when I was in a jam, and it was always an interaction with a little kid. I noticed that was happening particularly with dissertators; their focus was becoming so narrow, and they had so much pressure on them to make every move they made about that dissertation that they cut off everything else. If they have an advisor that is particularly inflexible, it’s like a Dickens story.

So I thought about what I could do. I found out that there were three pre-k classrooms on campus, so I arranged for them to have co-researchers for their work. The graduate students were in my lab, and I had this big set of windows facing University Avenue, and the kids came down and stood in front of the window, and I told them, these are your co-researchers. They were like “What?,” and I was like, “Yeah! This is who you will be working on your dissertation with. That one right there.”

They worked with them for three months and went to a pre-k class every Monday. At first they got down on the floor and tried to explain their dissertation to the students. Like, one of the mathematicians was saying, “I am trying to write about the nature of numbers.” The kid asked, what do you mean? So he said, “well, for instance, what is four?” The kid goes, “I am four.” And another kid said, “Why do they say, ‘I am four’? I am four years old. I am not four!” So there it was right in front of him. It was amazing to see what happened. Being with people who are actually learning and in the hardcore discovery mode, and then seeing what happens when you are having free play widens the narrowing of the mind. It’s really interesting watching the different systems of the mind work. I saw that they were able to take that and loosen up in terms of their work.

So I have my dedicated classroom on Tuesday mornings and I wear my Carhartt overalls

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because I’m on the floor a lot. I had a meeting afterwards one day so I had to wear my regular clothes. One of my kids, Abby, asked, “Why aren’t you wearing your crawling suit?” (laughs) Don’t you immediately just want to put it on, like it just sounds good. Every time I say “crawling suit,” people look at me like, “what on Earth are you talking about?”

Rogers: There was some interview where you said you were interested in—or had been working with—the elderly.

Yes, with older people. I haven’t worked with dementia patients, but I have worked with seniors.

Rogers: There was a comment about losing their memories, or people with memory problems.

One of the groups I am interested in working with now are older people or people with terminal illnesses. Those people are under a lot of pressure to start to tell their story. How do you do that? If you are going to tell your story, most people start at the beginning: “I was born.” They know they are going to die at this point. It sounds like an obituary already.

It turns out any noun or gerund is a beginning point for people to tell the story of their lives. And those are super surprising. That’s when you get the memory that comes in, the way where you are smelling the smell, like cologne in the eighth grade. Everything comes with a place in time. It’s against your will.

You actually can’t stop that. It’s like nausea or joy, you can’t stop it from happening.

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Rogers: Whether I turn out to be the hero of my own life… (laughs) Right. There was this one elderly woman that felt like she couldn’t write, and I told her, “what if you were going to tell your story with kitchens?” And she said, “countertops.” So I said, “let’s do countertops.” I said, “let’s think of ten countertops,” and so we made this list of ten countertops, and she saw that she could take any of those countertops and tell the story of that countertop and it would be the story of her life. She wrote a synopsis of all the countertops in her life. She was probably in her eighties, and she said when she was a kid, there weren’t countertops.

They had hoosiers or different things, but they didn’t have countertops. Then she talked about getting bigger and bigger countertops and how that started to really improve her life. She liked to bake. She said, “Now I have the longest countertop of all of my friends!”

It was just amazing. It turns out any noun or gerund is a beginning point for people to tell the story of their lives. And those are super surprising. That’s when you get the memory that comes in, the way where you are smelling the smell, like cologne in the eighth grade.

Everything comes with a place in time. It’s against your will. You actually can’t stop that.

It’s like nausea or joy, you can’t stop it from happening. That’s the stuff I’m interested in.

I have worked with these different populations and there are three things everybody reports. It’s that, when we engage in this kind of work, time gets wonky; you can’t tell how long anything takes. There’s a wistfulness usually, unless the person’s really young, asking, “why haven’t I been doing this?”—which means they want to do it.

There’s some part, even though it’s appearing as a reflection—but it’s really a reflection thataway. And then, the third is a sense of well-being—not happiness, but this feeling like waking up from the hamster wheel of twenty things I am worried about. That’s what I do all day, then I sleep for a while, and in the middle of the night I wake up.

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Rogers: That’s interesting, the idea of working with older people who have this impulse to tell their story.

Or they are being pressured. At Penn State Hershey, there’s a doctor, Michael Green, who I like working with. He noted that what such older patients are really pressured to do is make their plans, because some of them know they are terminal, but don’t want to. There’s all this pressure on them from family and everyone else. So we are trying to find a way to walk them in. Sometimes, I give them 90 seconds to make a list of things that changed the way they saw the world.

And then I’ll say just pick one they want to work with and then we make a next page.

Rogers: I’m sitting here going through all the anxieties of, “I can’t do that in 90 seconds! I’ll pick all the wrong events!”

Yeah, the problem is, you will pick all the wrong events, but they will still work. That’s the best part. Like, if it’s pouring rain or the house is on fire or something and you have

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C O N V E R S A T I O N story you’ve never told and then there it is. It’s drawn. It’s all these pictures.

Vause: What a gift!

It’s wild! Another time when a daughter realized that her father had Alzheimer’s, she talked about how it changed the way she saw the world.

She didn’t share it with him anymore, so she had to find a way to see his world with him. And it’s just this amazing comic strip about it. They did great stuff. Another one was by a mom on a high school trip to India. They were in a bus and just driving down the road when she saw a guy lying in the road just cut in half. No explanation. Nothing. They just drove on. She saw cows afterward, but she never talked to anyone about it and wasn’t sure if she really saw it. So it’s like all this stuff— where’s that sitting? I always say, just add water. You can’t wear it out.

Vause: That’s really cool. I like that on the spot coming up with something. to get out the door, you’re not going to try on all the coats and think, “what one is going to fit me best?” Just get the fuck out the door! You have 90 seconds! (laughs) And whatever is there, it allows the back of the mind to pitch something to you, and you can’t bat it away because you don’t know what it is yet, and you kind of don’t know where you’re going. The comics that have come out of that have been amazing. One of my students interviewed a guy who was living in Warsaw, Poland, and saw the bombings in World War II, when he was twelve, but had never told the story. So there’s the whole thing of this old guy now telling this whole thing about being twelve. I have students write it up in present tense, like it’s happening, and then they bring it back to the person. If you can imagine it—having this

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Rogers: Have you always done the time thing? Is that something you picked up at Evergreen?

Yeah, my teacher, Marilyn, taught me that, and I use it for everything. I do diary stuff every day, so I do the assignment the week before I assign it to my students. Right now the diary exercise is to just do drawings.

Last week, they had to spend five minutes writing about whatever was on their mind on this side of the page. Then they have to draw an animal in five minutes and that animal has to have a word balloon saying what was on their mind. It’s one thing when you’re talking about hating your roommate, and another thing when a walrus is saying they hate their roommate. (laughs) I try to change the way they keep their diary every week.

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Vause: It seems like a lot of your work revolves around this idea of observation and seeing things—being in all these different places and seeing things.

And listening. Yeah, I love to watch people.

In fact I am actually noticing an easing off of the phone in my observations. For the longest time, when I was at the airport, everyone was on the phone. But I’m starting to notice a little bit of easing off of it, so now I am fascinated with airport security guards. And other security guards—like the security people that are surrounding a celebrity or the president or something.

Rogers: Why? Well, they are very interesting people. They have, if you watch them, especially if they are armed, this way they stand. They stand if they have a coat this way, and their hand this way. The other thing is, they have this

sweeping gaze that they do. I got to meet this guy that works security, and he said the thing that makes him crazy is iPhones. It makes him crazy because people are training themselves not to use their peripheral vision and that is the biggest and first line of defense. He said he loves to demonstrate to people how he can walk right up to someone on their phone, and they will bump right into him and not see him even though he’s this giant dude. So, I actually also sweep and find the other people at the airport. I find the security guards and they look at me like, “what are you doing.” They know I am not a security guard. “What the hell is that Willie Nelson looking chick doing this sort of thing for?” But I can find them. They are always looking. People don’t look up. I send students out to draw people in their lives, and they are always like, “What if they look up?” Then they come back and say, “I could’ve taken a bite of that guy’s sandwich without him noticing!”

Sarah Vause is an instructor of English at Weber State University and holds a bachelor’s degree in English from WSU, a Master’s Degree in American Studies from Utah State University, and is currently working to complete a Ph.D. at Idaho State University. She is the co-director of the National Undergraduate Literature Conference held yearly at WSU. She has worked as an editorial fellow for both Western American Literature and for the Middle East Policy Council in Washington, D.C.

Scott Rogers (Ph.D., Oklahoma State Univ., 2003) is a Professor of English at Weber State University. He has special interests in Victorian literature and popular culture studies.

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P O E T R Y

Richard Robbins

The Invention of Water

Brian Fink

Ocean and Beach, watercolor, 48” x 24”, 2016

Everywhere and always, the man grows used to the woman’s hand, the whisper at the neck, tongue in the ear.

They have come this far forgetting the new. The sky moves, a blue routine, above them.

He wonders, sometimes, about the origins of love. She wonders, sometimes, if comfort is a form of hatred, or a lie. Their silence fills a mutual grief between them.

Their silence fills a mutual grief older than themselves. They noticed such weather in their parents, in the great models that came before even them. Each passing was a first death and a last.

Everywhere and always, when they discover the other in the night, it’s a not a new body they find but the oldest knowledge, whisper at the neck, tongue in the ear.

Reader, don’t compare their solitude with your own.

Remember, instead, what new thing came to you once, as old as your life on earth.

Then go back from there to the invention of water. Admit, if pressed, your love of the world drowns ferociously and with gratitude in that sea, that under those early stars it concentrates itself in the weight of a hand, the odd breath of another finding you over and over again in the dark.

Richard Robbins has published six books of poems, most recently Body Turn to Rain: New and Selected Poems (Lynx House Press, 2017). He has received awards from The Loft, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Society of America. From 19862014, Robbins directed the Good Thunder Reading Series at Minnesota State University Mankato, where he continues to direct the creative writing program.

Kate Kingston

Kayak

Aaron Lee

This glide through water, clear-cut sever of glass surface, V-trail like the hum of doves or the coo of hornets.

This kayak with its fiberglass song, its knifelike precision. My paddle dips through swamp reeds. I glide as easy as a red-wing through the thicket of cattails, reminisce at the beach, my mother’s book, Hawaii, open on the bench, my sand pail bricking mud into castles.

A school of minnows swims into our net.

When we pull them from the lake, water sieves through the mesh, leaving their silver bodies tortured in sunlight. Her Coppertone scents the air, as she rinses mud from my knees Later our swimsuits hang lazy on the line, held fast in the double clench of clothespins.

Now my kayak is hidden in the carnival of reeds and my voice mimics the crow.

My mother wades through swamp mulch looking for her daughter. I call this place Haven. I call this place Crimson.

I call this place Poison. I call this place Arson.

Kate Kingston has published two books of poetry, History of Grey, a runner-up in the 2013 Main Street Rag Poetry Award, and Shaking the Kaleidoscope, a finalist in the 2011 Idaho Prize for Poetry. Her manuscript Motheresque placed as a finalist in the 2015 May Swenson Poetry Award. She is also the recipient of the W.D. Snodgrass Award for Poetic Endeavor and Excellence Award, the Ruth Stone Prize, and the Atlanta Review International Publication Prize.

P O E T R Y

Lois Marie Harrod

Icarus’s Mother Talks to Her Son I was not given your father’s

engineering mind and the harpies refuse to bear

me up.

So I act a life and sometimes live

it unconsciously a moment now and now,

but then my son, you are thirty-five and still jumping

off garage roofs as you did at five, down-shattering your foot bones

and hobbling for hours pretending your shoes

don’t hurt as if to prove the body has its reasons

which the brain can stand—these manic highs of yours,

these madman wings that inevitably melt down their wax

to solitude, the ocean you so blithely flew as a teenager

a weedy millpond and the great sun

a star so far gone no one can touch it with the most sensitive telescope.

Who can reach you—and what

does the oracle say?

Years we have been moving apart

and you never held flights of conversation worth preserving—

feather-soothing, louse-plucking gnat-clouding—and the self? one more two-winged construct, what’s the point?

Don’t you know I know my briefest hug offends you.

You want me far away, I want you to take your medications so that you can be a little more kin and kind and I can say I’ve been there, my child, I am there now in that self-concerned pond that flows nowhere, I too tried to fly in my own grave way and I still love you, child, as I loved you as a child, floating or falling,

whatever flying means.

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P O E T R Y

My Mother’s Voice like a Fluorescent Light Those fluorescent lights in my classroom

that quiver all period as twenty-seven black pens wobble through their timed essays, 40 minutes 20, 15, you have 7 minutes left, 5, finish up, it’s time.

Those lights the custodians do not replace— they’re on now, aren’t they? they growl, as long as the bands continue their achy-breaky vibrations from above, my mother’s shaking bandstand heart now so congested she thinks she is in school, no one to pick her up.

Please take me home.

And drugs that should calm her do not calm, so she’s caught it seems forever in that tremulo of light that wearies me in grocery stores as it glazes pears and plums and in the convenience store where I pick up news— that terrible tremor of hot light on summer days that shivers asphalt into water.

She is drowning there, my mother who never learned to swim, she can’t pick up the phone, receiver to her ear, she can’t finish the test, my mother who did not graduate eighth grade.

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Hoover What I suck in I blow out— the infinite bits of mite and louse— as a fish draws the river through him or the cow field and fodder, as you too take in the world, release, unable to distinguish what is clean what is crude.

My emptiness fills me, but who can attend what is moving?

Who can understand what remains, what passes through?

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P O E T R Y

The Malapropist She mixed things up, photographer with physicist, Eisenstein with Einstein; painter with panther, Pissarro with Pussy, but she could tell a Picasso in his cubist years from a Brecht or was it Bracht. No, Bracht was that parafinny chocolate, Brecht was MacHeft. A certain rant of light on paper after swoons. Who was the guy with blue guitar?

When she was a child, the Vacation Bible School teacher asked who was Ruth’s husband, and she said BOZO. All the parents laughed, even her father in his clerical collar. They had practiced the morning before, and she had given the answer. BOZO. An olive pit in the pat of

her stomach.

BOAZ, screeched the teacher.

She wrote things done to get them straight, but words crooked inside her. She’d think an exhalation of larks and say a cavil of bats. Her brain was miswired, or as she tried to explain, disenchanted, like a fuse box rummaged by squirrels. Meanwhile, her friends thought she was marvelous, what fun at a party, such a sense of humor. Just get her started on novels— Pride and Preciousness, Sense and Sensitivity, The Fall of the House of Fluster, The Idiot and the Oddity.

Or Shakespeare–The Template, Midsummer’s Night’s Reprieve, As You Get It, Much Ado About Bling Bling. She would laugh, nothing else seemed possible, but she was embarrassed, too much like her father-in-law in his nursing-home years, pointing to the little old ladies in their wheelchairs and saying here come the ewes.

Lois Marie Harrod’s 16th and most recent collection Nightmares of the Minor Poet appeared in June 2016 from Five Oaks. And She Took the Heart (Casa de Cinco Hermanas) appeared in January 2016, Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis (Cherry Grove Press) and the chapbook How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth (Dancing Girl Press) appeared in 2013.

The Only Is won the 2012 Tennessee Chapbook Contest (Poems & Plays), and Brief Term, a collection of poems about teachers and teaching, was published by Black Buzzard Press in 2011. She is widely published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3. Links to her online work are at www.loismarieharrod.org

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P O E T R Y

Maya Khosla

Afghanistan, End of Eighty-Seven

Gouri Khosla

Candlelight skids up a child who walks in asleep, with eyes wide. Waves lower than sound smash windows for miles around.

In her dreams, the blood-apricot trees swell with the darkness of curfew nights.

Touch one and it explodes. Her father’s vigil is crumpled by insomnia: was that wind-shift or voices shrilling above the crack of footfalls beyond his viewshed? It is the hour of curtains jerked from grip, dust floating on a cup of water.

It is another month. He searches through pockets, his child’s coat slumped against a tree trunk.

Pulls out a half-chewed fruit. Arrows of lament scatter like night-birds from the open mouth of falling. Now wind, a half-shout running through.

P O E T R Y

Injury Bulldozers rip the good grass, the O of burrows. Homes of snake, salamander, frog and squirrel, squashed.

Their grassy susurrations hushed. My day’s labor is to relocate the living, what little is left. Plovers alight between water trucks, jab at rhizomes, unearthed worms, a shimmering bicycle tire in the distance becomes alive.

The men cut off their dinosaur engines, leap down.

Their foreman waves and gestures me through the gathering circle. Don’t you need gloves? Thicker than their wrists, the six-foot king snake writhes around a flattened part of itself, where a smear of blood and innards shows through. Lifted, it offers mild ripples of resistance, radial muscles contracting in waves, cream-banded black body inching further and further out of grip. The weight aches, sweat seizes breath, tightens my hardhat.

I cross its leveled savannah, step into willow shade with the king almost out of my arms, a standing wave with a Shiva’s poise holding the head upright. Forked tongue tests for the chance of shelter in the understory where I set it down. Pungent scents all over my clothes, arms sore with a grasp of how often love walks the perimeter of apocalypse, passing the dead grass, the trash and riprap. The job done, terror and elation take hold. How easy to mistake the alternating bands of light and dark for signs of hope.

Maya Khosla’s writing has been featured in Flyway, Yes Magazine, Humans and Nature, and other journals, and has been collected in Keel Bone (Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize) and Web of Water: Life in Redwood Creek (non-fiction). Her new book of poems, Unknown World on Fire, is forthcoming from Sixteen Rivers Press. Searching for the Gold Spot is her new film (trailer: https://vimeo.com/210727274).

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Linda Swanberg

The Strait of Juan de Fuca

We will ride out under the stars of Wales, Cry multitudes of arks

—Dylan Thomas

we dream quiet seas where fan-shoals of gleaming fish and dolphins drift at ease and drowsy whales circle in bright hierarchies of love

mornings you take the boat out on the strait from shore your scruffy hair a speck in noonday sun—Port Angeles! land of miracles! tiny house on the bluff a refrigerator stocked with oranges the German Shepherd pup barking until you return

in Colorado I lose ground—careless with all that matters, I tease decorum to fit the severity of my outcry, my words dying before they reach your ears sick and bewildered, I return to Montana alone—

on the Peninsula Neah Bay breakers hammer islands— in shudder of mist screeching gulls bleed night’s uncanny hours

immensity of the trawling tide falls through our hands dead weight of the intolerable sea

Stefan Kunze

P O E T R Y

Morning Dream

in my dream I hear your voice like the flight of Canada geese over Hellgate Canyon— one long tapering wedge rides the air

this valley contains another life another dream we know and do not know for that is how we came to this place

ancient winds have carried us this far listen!—dreams are meant to be lost, but anything you feel about the dream is true

you don’t remember how the thread is wound it carries the dream awake and then—unknowingly—

carries it back to sleep like a wave that crawls to shore only to fall back into the sea time and time again

your certainty calls me from a world gone mad a world where no one’s rightful place is known nor any true words matter

I see the dream penciled in a bold Montana sky honking geese that give us names authentic lives we call our own

Linda Swanberg received her M.A. from the University of Montana in 1977. In the early 1970s she studied with Richard Hugo and Madeline DeFrees; she now studies with Tobin Simon, co-director of The Proprioceptive Writing Center in Oakland, CA. A lifelong resident of Montana, Linda lives in Missoula with her husband, Gregg, and Nebelung cat, "Blu." Tending her shade gardens has been her main focus for the past 30 years. Her work has appeared in The Griffin, HeartLodge, Pennsylvania English, Quiddity International Literary Journal, RE:AL, RiverSedge, The South Carolina Review, Flint Hills Review, The Adirondack Review, Euphony Journal, Muddy River Review, Willow Review, and elsewhere.

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GeraldPURDY

Ar twork

Beach-O-Maniac The Sun God, oil on board, 11.5” x 7.5”, 2017

ABOUT

the

ARTIST

Escapade, oil on board, 10” x 12.5”, 2017

A lifetime in art has taught me that everything is going on everywhere all of the time. “Movements” are really the product of taste-makers, who, by definition, have no heart. Theirs is the world of influence, or power, if you will. This is good news for the artist because it frees the eye! The bad news is that we have choices to make.

I chose narrative art from the menu and have never looked back. (Some people think I can’t look back because I’m already there.) My heart is in American art of the 1930s and 40s and the sentimentalism of the Saturday Evening Post!

My intellect matured in postwar 1950s when existentialism and abstract expressionism were the chief means for “creative” people to deal with the great catastrophe that had befallen the world. Those movements were not much help, certainly no love was to be found there (although it can be argued that they were driven by a perverse form of sentimentality not unlike that to be found in the Post)!

Time and space have collapsed in art but not in the self of the artist. I happen to think we are still driven by the need to tell stories and to create illusion and order where none exists.

My own stories are basically domestic and tend to be ironic. They may not be visually or conceptually whole, because two or three ideas may intrude on the same piece, but they are intended to be “stories” that contain location, exposition, conflict and resolution. They just aren’t the great stories of salvation or war that populate the history of art and take up so much valuable space on museum walls.

Finally, irony is one of the great forms of the comedic, which drives me—and comedy is anarchy.

So there you have it!!

Gerald Purdy’s work is presented at Phillips Gallery

444 E 200 S, SLC, UT 84111 www.phillips-gallery.com.

Listen, oil on board, 11” x 25”, 2015

Pond Life, oil on board, 9” x 20”, 2015

Livin’ Large, oil on board, 10” x 24”, 2017

Glide Time, oil on board, 17.5” x 23.5”, 1998

Modern Life, oil on board, 10” x 12”, 2008

VOX Populi/Peppermint, oil on board, 11.5” x 7.5”, 2008

Kites Aloft, oil on board, 10” x 13”, 2016

Cascade, detail.

Skaters on Yahara Bend (From Tales of the Midwest), oil on board, 16” x 20”, 2008

The Blue Streak, oil on board, 10” x 14”, 2008

Cascade, maple lumber grafted to a mulberry branch, 88” x 144” x 108”, 2015.

Snowy Night, oil on board, 20” x 24”, 2008

Far Away, oil on board, 11” x 14”, 2009

Night Baseball, oil on board, 18” x 24”, 2017

Serenade, oil on board, 18” x 24.5”, 2017

Inversion, maple strips grafted to a mountain mahogany branch 138” x 72” x 105”, 20

016.

American Flyer, oil on board, 11” x 14”, 2009

Poverty Park, oil on board, 18.25” x 24”, 2013

Scribe, cherry lumber strips grafted to a cherry branch and pencil, 65” x 30” x 22”, 2016.

Penny Ante, oil on board, 13.5” x 20”, 2017

The Children’s Hour, oil on board, 16” x 20.5”, 2017

Winter, oil on board, 12.5” x 10”, 2017

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Herb and Larry, oil on board, 8.5” x 11.5”, 2009

Her Wits Were Gone!, oil on board, 11” x 14”, 2015

P O E T R Y

Christopher Michael Suda

An Introduction to Melody After the music played to no one in particular inside of our private cubicle at Uncle Bob’s Storage, I noticed how everyone had gone missing. I wasn’t lonely but I was alone, walking down the un-lit alley toward the lone dumpster to heave my beer into it.

I forgot about the Parliament perched between my pair of Miller-Lite stained lips until the ash had grown tired of hanging on and fell onto my boots.

That sort of thing happened too often for me to be watchful of it now, but when I delivered the pitch of beer into the trash full of darkness, I saw a line of prose spiking out of it: My father’s name was Meek was all the first page said to me, so I reached in the lonesome garden full of trash and dug. Even God couldn’t have planned what I found that night. A whole life thrown in-between flaps of a manila folder; it had been left for no one in an organized fashion. Photographs of the man named Meek, obituaries sheared from ten different papers by hand, never with cutters. It’s difficult

P O E T R Y to read one’s date of birth and death inked so close together. Fresh out of the cradle, life’s one and only spring.

The eulogy of a son who had thrown away his father now hid inside my fingers.

I’ll never know Meek--it’s not my place; but I wish I had my chance to hear that son’s yowl of delicate words he had delivered at Meek’s funeral that ended in I think that’s why he did it. A line like that deserves no afterwards.

I have had enough; I started the car and drove until the sun shook hands with the steering wheel’s leather coating, soaked in ashes.

Strolling the Hudson’s East Bank Today, each moment turned to kindling; gaps alongside our knees diverged while the Hudson scratched into each window. Your hair continues to muse through my sideburn, then collarbone, both nostrils.

Beneath us, the rails charmed Tarrytown’s soil with delicate sparks while your face endured its collapse against a shoulder.

When awake, look at those eyes. you’ll find two monuments long asleep, dream watching, as still as spoke wheels.

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Assembling Firewood for Winter With the air strung so tight it twangs, goes down so deep you’re likely not to relish the rest of it. Bright, cloud-frozen skies blind the sun’s weak stabs at sympathy for those living and dying below it.

It’s too cold to sing, and the song hasn’t even begun to play. Against the fog, about the house, twisted branches moan all night in peace.

Our half-frozen garden lies prone, tangled between the hose draped in frosted clay.

I look back at our house to meet my sister moving from the window, abandoning her nest—I’m too old to be where I am.

Next year, the young are on their own.

Christopher Michael Suda is twenty-five years old and attended The University of Alabama at Birmingham. He attended the Byrdcliffe A-I-R Program in August-September 2014. His work has been published in numerous journals including Shot Glass, The Lowestoft Chronicle, and Harbringer Asylum. He is in three music projects named Philos Moore, In Snow, and Loveislight.

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P O E T R Y

Sarah Fawn Montgomery

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road You can’t plant me in your penthouse. I’m going back to my plow.

—Elton John

We know that path means fame or fortune, or more importantly, that shoot-for-the-sky lie we believe in the inevitable high of our rosy youth— you know, the one about the blaze your star will leave across what could have been darkness.

But Elton knows not to believe that desperate recycled promise, knows it most likely won’t happen, folks dreaming with their mouths open until their longing is left dry and brittle.

Or maybe it will, and you’ll leave Kansas, or Iowa, or Missouri— Misery, folks say like no one’s ever heard that one before— and you’ll hitch a ride to L.A., some old man’s weathered hand weighing down your knee.

You’ll get there starving, and eat a burger and onion rings, look around at the town unable to see stars or the big sign—unable to see shit— for the smog and façade, When folks back home sing along they clench the steering wheel as they stare out at the fields, then they lean back, close their eyes, because that’s what you do with the blues.

They wail, “Ahh Ahh Ahh,” all moan and sigh, a hint of that dream still desperate to crawl out their clenched throats.

Maybe you aren’t there yet— where home means retreat, defeat— because you swear old Elton is crooning: I’m going back to my cloud.

Sure you hitched yourself back, sure you’re sitting plowside, blades chewing up roots, but you’re leaning back in the sun, still looking up, still thinking sky.

Sarah Fawn Montgomery is the author of Quite Mad: An American Pharma Memoir (The Ohio State University Press 2018) and three poetry chapbooks, Regenerate: Poems from Mad Women (Dancing Girl Press 2017), Leaving Tracks: A Prairie Guide (Finishing Line Press 2017), and The Astronaut Checks His Watch (Finishing Line Press 2014). She has worked as Prairie Schooner’s Nonfiction Assistant Editor since 2011. She is an Assistant Professor at Bridgewater State University.

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Mercedes Lawry

Echo Small birds as echo.

Ruin now familiar.

Ache as definition,

transitive I spar with death as other craving balance. Don’t forget

the gracious blue sky.

Oh, moment of breath.

You have no grave.

Should I apologize?

Confused by the hours, how they move.

How I cannot, at times, move or wish to.

Whatever the finch or sparrow

Urge beyond idea With mundane hunger.

Beth Lawry

Ascending Blue Rain’s brief bruise. You know and don’t know without summary or gift. Tree-green and a clutch as the fields recede to forest.

Dot… dot… dot… the sentence caught by a phrase, a guttural gasp. Words held back. How the trail meanders, boulders blued by disappearing light. You go up…step, step, grazing rock and slurry as if the ancients had not died in their tracks and you were free of their false wisdom, your own specious regrets.

Eventual Shutter-light pale as skimmed moon.

Night’s cooling, stillness of trees as if suspense was laid down on the earth like a veil of mist. We cannot help but wonder when our own breath will cease. As sleep comes or in a sudden burst or thrust or topple?

The hour of the wolf is an envelope sealed fast from everything aside from rogue thoughts that spit and circle, distort and recall.

The trick is to keep from being strangled and this may require artificial means, oblong, white, slightly chalky.

Quick slide into oblivion with only echoes of tender ruin.

Mercedes Lawry has published poetry in such journals as Poetry, Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, and Harpur Palate.

Thrice-nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she’s published two chapbooks. Her manuscript “Small Measures” was selected for the Vachel Lindsay Poetry Prize from Twelve Winters Press and will be published in 2018. She was a finalist for the 2017 Airlie Press Prize and the 2017 Wheelbarrow Press Book Prize. She’s also published short fiction and essays as well as stories and poems for children. She lives in Seattle.

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P O E T R Y

Eric Paul Shaffer

What My Brother Might Say as a River My voice is a rush of white over rocks stacked by the current on my tongue. The passage I’ve cut for myself through the firs,

spruce, and hemlock is too narrow for my language.

The water of which I am made is not what I am: I am the place I pass, the one where you meet me, and I depart even as I arrive where you stand. I am a gathering of storms, of rain and clouds.

I am the cascade that passes, carrying what is and covering what is not. I bear cold from peaks to the plains the sun rules.

If I change, I change slowly or swiftly, under the direction

of seasons and stars. I am one flow, yet stones break my way into many courses. I seek the sea in the thrill of descent, and I yearn to enter something larger than myself. I turn aside travelers and paths, and my presence demands bridges and boats, fords and fishers. Silence is the essence of my surge, yet I am

the last place one seeks peace, for I enforce the solitude of high places. I have no more to say than the rain, frost, or snow, the fog or the sea. I give myself only to those creatures who bow.

Jamie Street

A Blessing for Companions Who May Never Again Share a Table Let us bless this bread with our fellowship and the clatter of silver, the tinkle of glass, and the laden thunk of plates upon the board. Let us speak of the events of the day: the tanager among the pines and prayer flags, the daisies growing beneath the cold, blue surface of the lake, the full moon that means more to us tonight than ever before. Let us break the bread with our hands and pass the loaf through the circle for each one of us to share what completes our meal. Let us raise our eyes to each other and lift our glasses without a toast but with a glad and silent recognition that our gathering on this evening is brief and bright, a swift, slow passage, the quick flit of a falling star through summer constellations that will outlast the light and the fire. Let us remain here in conversation and quiet and the fading light until we must, at last, sleep, and let us not know fully what our departures from this table mean until we are each on a way we truly mean to take. And when we look back, as since we are human, in our strength and our frailty, we must look back, let us happily recall that as we parted, our final words to each other were “Fare well.�

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P O E T R Y

On the Bright Side The bright side of the planet moves toward darkness.

—Czeslaw Milosz

The planet spins at a thousand miles an hour, so the approach of night is no more disturbing than the speed. I will fear no darkness. I have my night-light cycling through the seven shades of the rainbow, and now as the room goes blue, the gloom gleams.

Then, yellow—or is it gold?—radiates into blackness like a small sun in a grand galaxy. Each color leaps the little shadow plaguing the change as my room revolves through seven crowded shades, even taking a shot at Newton’s ill-advised attempt to make a septet of the spectrum with the addition of indigo.

And always, through the night, there are the stars, flaming and far

away, fiery icicles in a void so cold we cannot imagine nor refrain from filling space with silliness and superstition. Here now is red, and when the night-light goes green, I see darkness alone

moves me as much as the planet moves me although I know the light is coming too, at the same relentless speed. For all the good and evil those rays may do, if twilight were the only direction we could ever turn, I think I might yet tread that dusky path if only night were coming, and darkness was all there ever was.

Eric Paul Shaffer’s seventh book of poetry Even Further West will be published by Unsolicited Press in April 2018. Previous books include A Million-Dollar Bill; Lahaina Noon; Portable Planet; and Living at the Monastery, Working in the Kitchen. Over 450 poems have been published in national and international reviews. Shaffer received Hawai‘i’s 2002 Elliot Cades Award for Literature, a 2006 Ka Palapala – Po‘okela Book Award, and the 2009 James M. Vaughan Award for Poetry. He was a visiting poetry faculty member at the 23rd Annual Jackson Hole Writers Conference. Shaffer teaches composition, literature, and creative writing at Honolulu Community College.

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P O E T R Y

Wm Lynn

Because My Name is Known A Bit Because my name is Renegado, too familiar and strangely known, I whisper it now to the wind and listen as it travels along...

In the dark my name travels everywhere, twines around rocks, and bushes, and trees...

Fans over the mountains and plains and streams, all along the razor-edged mesas, quietly renegade in its traveling song.

Renegado, is a good name and strong... means traveling with one’s own mind.

So you call your own name, why come after mine, if it follows its way to here then fine...

Travel with me through sage and sweet-grass, and pine, quietly renegade in our own way, in our own time.

Wm Lynn earned a B.A. in English with a specialty in poetry & American literature from Lewis & Clark College. He completed his graduate work at Portland State University, studying with William Stafford, Vern Rutsala, and Michael Harper. His poetry has been published in Weber, Plainsong, The Journal (Ohio State University), Edgz, Chaffin Journal, Nimrod, Pegasus, and a host of others.

P O E T R Y

Larsen Bowker

In the Music of Silence

High Plains Drift, Jeanette Bowker

In June my wife traveled copper-tipped waves of light that limn the hills of Tuscany.

I knew I’d miss her good meals, her hip warm on mine in the night, the bubble of her breathing as she sleeps, but I had no idea how much I’d miss the silken silence that does not threaten or promise but speaks as if she knows more than words can say, that the best of earth can be told by nothing more than Prairie wind and light… the smell of myth on autumn afternoons, when leaves reel down in throngs… a Meadowlark’s two note glissando, holding the air long after sound has disappeared… or the shy stillness of quail in roadside ditches, as they wait for hunters to pass.

How I strut under the vast landscape of her completeness, one that keeps the yammering dogbark of my noisy mind from squandering the perfect stillness just before summer rain… the merge of earth and sky as the snow joins the river—unwritten covenant showing there is judgment in silence holding a heart wild with desire, accountable for what it too easily believes. for Jeanette

High Mountain Melt in Wyoming comes like the evergreen motion of spring, makes this boy who lives twenty five miles from anyone his age, his own best friend, makes May’s bright blue air… red pools of water on red-dirt roads and a mud dirty dog running beside him biting the air in celebration, his reason to be in this sensedrenched, sun-warmed spirit of the earth in revolution… sharing the dog’s delight to be alive, singing it in the endless soprano syllables releasing winter from a dry brown silence, and terrible loneliness of its stores of ice and snow. Love loose again on the ‘Snowy Range’, he sings out his faith in the future to his mother…wanna’ see me empty the mud puddle…wanna see me jump the dog…wanna’ see me do a wheelie…staccato syllables slicing the air like “Laramie River’s” priapic thrust down glistening flanks of canyon walls, percussive rhythms seeking the inexhaustible mouth of high mountain meadows, expectations swelling in the sweet ache of spring calling them to more, more, more… nothing but the future he declaims when he falls, “… didn’t hurt, wanna’ see me do it again!” everything out in front, begging them to chase the sky blue butterfly, delighted with the mystery of things they can’t catch, and the river’s wild freedom, flinging a fence post as if a leaf, one he helped his father make secure with dirt and wire up river—free again to make jazz impressions upon the eye, as it surges back in time—joining chaste green beginnings of sense-drenched, sun-warmed spirit of bright blue skies surging toward the exaggerated glory of autumn, already growing in dark red buds waiting in wet black branches of trees.

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In Time’s Wicked Flight we might have missed each other—you and I— except for the tunnel of time shared at your Friday afternoon guitar lessons… you laughing at your mistakes and telling stories so open the trees outside listen, never imagining the teacher wouldn’t be interested and when he took your guitar to play it the way he wanted you to play it, you’d listen… unafraid of anything you weren’t yet, teaching me to trust your slow nature and emotion that collects in the theater of your dark blue eyes—always holding more than they disclose… your stroke balanced by gift so logical it’s geared to no tempo but its own. ** In the quick march of your lessons, our time stopped and didn’t start again until the teacher’s wolf cry of defeat, “see you guys next week,” released us into our other world—the one I watch from behind— as you take the steep steps three at a time, climbing into Chaucer’s “sweet breath of April,” your neck extended, ‘falcon unfettered from the falconer’ curves of the guitar case thumping your backside like a Blues Shuffle… Trumpeter Swan trading earth for sky, thrashing the air alive in your climb toward

breezy white clouds running swift across long green

island… I follow like groundshadow… watching you… in your own weather now… pleased with the world… with

your mind’s eye… with the sound of your own name. for Sam

Larsen Bowker (Ph.D., University of Rhode Island) lives on the side of an Appalachian Mountain, building trails through ten acres of otherwise inaccessible wilderness. He is the author of four books of poems and two chapbooks. His most recent book of poems, The Indian Chronicles, was released in 2015. He has received three nominations for the Pushcart Prize and has poems appearing recently in the Atlantic Journal, South Carolina Review, Nimrod, Southern Humanities Review, and The Snowy Egret.

P O E T R Y

Nathan Whiting

Sparrows

Przemyslaw Reinfus

People in cities can’t tell sparrows from sparrows, which matters little for most sparrows are sparrows but near parks one may encounter a sparrow where few realize it’s not just a sparrow but is a sparrow which may mean there’s hope to learn differences, so we have lunch perhaps not the same sandwich but always lunch. Also your busy and my busy remain personal as we rush onward “Good bye.”

Sparrows learn to look busy too unless they’re sparrows and don’t know their agendas should hurry.

Social success matters to sparrows.

Have you heard? Chumminess tosses everyone into perfection. Maybe sparrows expect from sparrows impossible and eerie demands.

P O E T R Y

The Quilt Leaves near thorns last longer, needles cold avoids while frost knits the quilt.

Trees, if they can prefer, accept their abandoned look, purpose a barren thought.

White-throated sparrows, a bird ready to claim the future, search dead leaves for uninspired now.

The world could leave and not know if we endorse the absence. Charmed less by hunger than instinct, we nourish desires but their loss would chill less than a breeze.

The pileated woodpecker thumps lightly on bare wood. Gifts unwrap each other. Some offer beetles, others an absence of bugs, needles not the only force to sew, vines a woven jacket for how life thickens cloth.

Nathan Whiting’s work has appeared in many journals and collections including the Denver Quarterly, Texas Review, South Dakota Review, Hanging Loose, Best American Poetry and Virginia Quarterly. He has performed dances in New York and Japan.

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P O E T R Y

Lynn Hoggard

Venus of Willendorf To our self-mocking, ironic eyes, sheltered from the fierce and primal, she’s a four-inch cartoon: spindly arms across her breasts, which look like grotesque, bulbous eyes, wide hips puff like cheeks, and her pudenda hang like twin incisors.

Her torso suggests the bust of a Mad Hatter whose haberdashery— her head—perches like a decorated ball, her footless legs an afterthought.

Icon of pure fecundity, 25,000 BCE. I found a smaller statuette of her, a tourist trinket bought in France, behind a broken box where she had lain for decades in my dresser drawer.

Having rediscovered her, I hold her and stare like a chimpanzee with a cell phone.

How can I see with other eyes?

We coolly understand creation’s method and woman’s part in that process, but how to sense her magic, feel the labyrinthine layers of her mystery?

In a dream I’m kneeling before her, and I’m saying: Create me.

Translator and poet Lynn Hoggard has published six books and hundreds of articles, poems, and reviews. She was nominated in 2017 for a Pushcart Prize, and her translation of Nelida by Marie d’Agoult won the 2003 Soeurette Diehl Fraser Award for Best Translation given by the Texas Institute of Letters. Her most recent book is Bushwhacking Home and Other Poems (April 2017, TCU Press). For more information about Lynn and her work, visit www.lynnhoggard.com.

P O E T R Y

Daniel J. Langton

Clearstory To see things.

To see if you’re home.

To understand. To be patient, to watch, to learn, to discover, to make sure that I do it right.

Do the fish with the painted eye imagine, do they guess, or think, can they meet, do they see things through?

And what are dreams like in the womb?

I’m not jealous of believers except when they say they were blind and now are not, and then I know

Christopher Campbell

what I have felt in my long bones, the weightlessness before you reach the surface, before it is clear the air is just thinner water, rapt in haze and fog and regret.

Daniel J. Langton’s work has appeared in The Nation, Poetry, the Paris Review, the Atlantic Monthly, the Iowa Review, the TLS and similar publications. His book Querencia won the Devins Award and the London Prize. His most recent collection, Personal Effects: New and Selected Poems, was released in 2014.

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P O E T R Y

Joel Long  

Rozell Point Matin

Joel Long

Water hums pink with coffee scarves.

If the water had wind, wind would blow scarves in Arabic, the prophet’s song curling in glazed brine. Light goes in, comes out light. This light, different light, seems to last, to scar that dizzy scar tingling unexplained joy like fever before sickness comes charged. Tongue tastes light, salt that hovers the mile above salt drifts, facets, cut gleam, snow temperature of daylight I sink, bare feet, pink in white, human, mineral which parts, covers the lower extent of self, in silence it recognizes as its kind.

The brain’s strange lamp hovers above lake, says not a thing this time since nothing can be said when vision keeps overfilling, sound the body pulled through water brilliance that dissolves the membrane between the mind and brine, blue and pink, the air and blood that believes it is the air.

P O E T R Y

Matin, Letting Go Nothing grows salt. Nothing prolific, like a weed, beautiful nothing reflects every light, absorbs blue sky hunger unlike hunger of God who shows disinterest after all. Nothing has interest in every thing.

Each morning I wake, think first what’s lost.

I hope to wake hillsides bright as lemons, crusted salt, blue with sky, pink glow begin.

I dig beneath, find darkness, balsamic sweet, obscuring every light the tongue comes. This water does not quench, weighed with brine; instead brings deep thirst that cannot satisfy but time if time enough and time is mine, not gone. I drive fast to get there before light changes, diminishes, some ordinary I do not crave, flat shade cedars, stones faded dirt. And time I know will lift me inside, fill me with wind each moment. Light will never become memory, salty plain extended in mirror in which sky sees itself does not see itself, does not need to know, how day changes narrative unnecessary to be told, tells everything, gull clutter air, spiders tilting sage, crickets shaking dry grass, bombs the past, present comes.

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The End Without Us For Molly Orange Richardson Only backwards does everything reappear, only backwards hope. Observe, she is stretching in the garden among tomato blossoms, bland yellow stars, rays clenched, folded.

True sun is late in afternoon, sifted elms and sumac, cedar slats and little dust we stir, tapping our feet. We let chickens roam, peck dust, thirsting more, picking the herbs she planted for some bright taste that might bring green inside, ineffective bulbs to light the long corridor we feel our way.

Hope looks to the past, moments flourishing in memory, gin sweating glasses with ice melting such mystery between water and ice, the mouth, her mouth, opening, voice, the song her voice, tin toy from the twenties, perfectly snipped, painted pixie girls, cropped hair, mouths like clay bowls, tin cut, wire spring inside the calliope for fleas. Our job is the past, to catch chickens to the delight of the child who has been chasing chickens all afternoon, who wants to pour through rows of peppers and tomatoes, this warm air we are breathing, that surrounds our skin, our hair, complicated spaces our hands and limbs, our hands themselves.

The child wants to catch a chicken—wants her to catch a chicken with delight, child who loves her, child in the past, hope in the garden, chickens rolling free, clucking, pulsing breasts, tipping heads, plumed metronomes.

Sky above us tells us infinity is a trick for our lives and gifts.

Infinity is behind us. We can see the beginning of time.

We imagine the end without us. She has a chicken in her arms. Everything is alive in the backward brilliant even flowers and birds I could never count.

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P O E T R Y

That Certain Light that Keeps You In It That hour of day, sumptuous room you enter, dazzled by opulence, be golden filigree the moss becomes, the tree. Fan branches with myriad arabesques, subtle wine the tip of every twig sprouting, disappearing.

You must open the door—go outside. It is quick.

You know urgent looking, know to look well.

You must be ready to look with deepening, before it goes, shadows retreating in crocuses, and trees breathing twilight, absorbing obvious light into the wood glowing beneath the bark.

You’ve looked long enough, if you’ve left everything, some brilliance from that hour, shift to the better light survives in some gray cell in the brain, a sweet left in the cupboard that some middle of the night cold, sheets turned to swallow’s nest, you rise alone, this sweet there, residue of light, maples budding, hills with purple shadows, the afterglow of green.

You will know what keeps you in it despite the sorrow.

Put the sweet on your tongue. Put it in the dark of your body.

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Memory and Bodies of Birds I do not name the birds they shot, left brined on the shoreline, feathers, shattered glass diluted, ashes. I nearly tell the shape of them, their beaks forced back, the mirror S, not legible S, reasonable S, but one we do not know, full acid, black and sour. The structures of things that functioned, wings matted salt flat, eyes, cluster of sand diminished by the hand brush, the wind tick. So small these things I keep inside to memorize gone. The whiteness that carried all color surrounded the bird, is mute.

The water makes noise but the body does not record sound the way the body must when it lives. Instead it holds form, persists this turn toward oblivion I cannot learn soon enough, chest blast that lets out whatever, what comes comes, a singular being trailing nothing as it always did, calm the body bird.

Joel Long’s Winged Insects won the White Pine Press Poetry Prize. Lessons in Disappearance and Knowing Time by Light were published by Blaine Creek Press in 2010. His chapbooks, Chopin’s Preludes and Saffron Beneath Every Frost, were published from Elik Press. His poems have appeared in Interim, Gulf Coast, Rhino, Bitter Oleander, Crab Orchard Review, Bellingham Review, Prairie Schooner, Willow Springs, and Seattle Review. They have been anthologized in American Poetry: the Next Generation, Essential Love, Fresh Water, and I Go to the Ruined Place: Contemporary Poems in Defense of Global Human Rights.

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P O E T R Y

Sheryl L. Nelms

Forgiveness, Veteran’s Day, 2009 “I never visited his grave until today.

He made me so mad getting shot in the back like he did by his blonde girlfriend in Dallas And me at home that night with our five little children and somebody pounding on our door at 3 AM I peeked out of the window and saw six big men I hollered to them that my husband was not home and I couldn’t open the door and who are they?

One of them shows me his gold badge through the window and says they want me to go with them to Parkland Hospital to identify a body I hollered to them that I can’t leave my kids alone The one with the badge asks me if somebody could stay with my kids and I tell him I will call my neighbor so I did She came right over in her housecoat to watch them I went to the hospital with the police it was my husband and he was dead I never went to his funeral in Abilene and I never went to his grave until today twenty-five years later Took him a flag and some flowers It was the best I could do.”

Kendall Lane

Taos Pueblo Casino giant red letters over the portecochere protect the sad looking shuttle riders on their way home

The Taos Pueblo is full of the incessant pounding of deerskin drums disturbing the sleeping free range dogs

Sheryl L. Nelms graduated from South Dakota State University and has had over 5,000 articles, stories, and poems published, including seventeen individual collections of poems. She is the fiction/nonfiction editor of The Pen Woman Magazine, the National League of American Pen Women publication, a contributing editor for Time Of Singing, A Magazine Of Christian Poetry, and a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee.

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P O E T R Y

Donna L. Emerson

Marin Art and Garden

Under white wisteria we walk and whisper— mysteries of marriage, conceiving late.

Under the wooden trellis sprigs of wisteria hang down close to us.

Our toddlers run.

Tug at vines along the path.

Each one holds flowers— my boy forms mustachios your girl a floppy headdress.

We inhale sweet scent, birds above on branches.

Once a month we meet here.

You from the south I the north.

You talk divorce I want more— of something.

Longings, liaisons, wishes.

How to distinguish— Who will get what she needs?

Secrets gather here weave among the blossoms.

Owls, unseen, won’t tell.

The breeze will blow our sorrow into green.

Owen Yin

Who We Leave I thought I sat with you, Dad, to say good bye.

You talked about your pain and pills. I held your hands with both of mine.

When I thought you were sleeping you said, “Watch—for her. She ruined her son and now she’s ruining your brother.”

You’ll have to come back and help me, Dad. “No one’s ever come back that I know of,” you began to trail off. You could be the first.

I tried to laugh. Spinning, I put my head next to your hip, on my side of your hospital bed, its thick percale, stiff and ironed, unlike my rumpled sheets at home. Wanted to stay like this, however long I could be with you. Your hands warm, fingers still strong.

I could stay here for days and nights and not mind, you know. You drifted… I left your room with gravel in my throat, pins in my feet.

Ten years later, when my brother’s wife didn’t want me at their son’s graduation and my brother agreed, I find myself leaning against the frame of the linen closet door, fingering first the sheets I just ironed, feeling your fine fingers that last time.

I see the gift you gave me, beyond good bye, not courage nor compassion, but something like it.

Living in Petaluma, California, with her husband and daughter, Donna just retired from teaching at Santa Rosa Jr. College. Donna’s recent publications include Calyx, Sanskrit, the Denver Quarterly, The Paterson Literary Review, the New Ohio Review, Weber, and the London Magazine. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and “Best of the Net,” and has received two Allen Ginsberg awards. Her four chapbooks include This Water (2007), Body Rhymes (2009), Wild Mercy (2011), and Following Hay (2013). Her first full-length poetry collection, The Place of Our Meeting, was published in January 2018 by Finishing Line Press.

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P O E T R Y

Virginia Thomas

Amazing Grace He unzips my black dress and I step out like a breath leaving a body.

“A lovely service,” they said.

Better place. At peace. With god. Bullshit.

I once watched snow submerge a man. Mountain became white wave. I left before they found his corpse, got drunk in the empty bar, vomited red merlot onto the snow. His was the first death I saw.

The whole community came to his funeral, I heard.

She fit perfectly into her box, and her box fit perfectly into the ground, where her small body could join the others and they could tap Morse messages to each other. Not that the dead have much to say.

Meanwhile, the living can’t seem to stop, their agile tongues bounce off their pink gums.

“My condolences.” “I’m so sorry.” “We brought a casserole.”

Thank heaven he pressed a hand against my ass as I slid the fourth bowl of fruit salad into the fridge.

I slide my fingers through his warm hair, and he stiffens as my chest meets his.

Our lonely bodies nest into each other, merging the way the dead cannot, as we each chase a little death, temporary remedy against so much small living.

Virginia Thomas is an MFA candidate at Eastern Washington University’s Northwest Center for Writers. Her poetry has appeared in Railtown Almanac and Stonecoast Review. She was born and raised in northwest Wyoming and now resides in Spokane, Washington, with her husband and their cat.

F I C T I O N

Louis J. Fagan

Slit

Patrick Tomasso

N

ever take a ride from Eddie Blackhook. When he pulls up beside you in that rusted-out pickup of his and says to you from across the road, “Get in—I’ll give you a lift,” for Chrissake, tip your hat to him, tell him “Thanks, Eddie, but I’m getting along just fine,” or “Real kind of you, Eddie, I’m almost where I got to be getting anyway,” or tell him whatever the hell you want, but don’t cross Route 51 and climb into his truck with him. If you have to, walk the ten yards to Crooked Shale River and jump yourself in and let the waters take you where they may, but don’t set yourself in that vehicle with him.

I don’t suppose it’s fair of me to steer you away from Eddie Blackhook the way I am without telling you first who I am, but there’s an order of importance in life and when it comes to that fat sonofabitch, hairy bull of a man Eddie Blackhook and not taking a ride from him, well, that just comes at the top of the Important Things to Know List. Everything else sits lower than sugar at the bottom of a cup of coffee.

If you hesitate, if you reach in your pocket and fiddle with your jackknife or you lift your cowboy hat off your head and you swipe the sweat from your forehead, or you spit on the ground and kick a little dirt over the spot where your spit landed, you’ve given him all the time he needs. He’ll have you where he wants you—doesn’t even make a damn bit of difference to him that you’re heading in the opposite direction he’s driving. He’ll shift his truck into Park and lean his fat arm on his door and say with half a laugh, “Now, it’s hotter than the hubs of hell

F I C T I O N out there today. Get yourself in here and I’ll take you where you’re headed.”

Along Route 51, between Clear Springs and Langyin County Line where Elderville sits, is just about the prettiest spot on earth you can be, and so there’s no need to accept a ride from Eddie Blackhook.

The mountains lie to the east, far enough away so that the heat rising makes them look like the bumps of a gray caterpillar inching its way across the prairie, one century at a time. The stretch between you and that mighty caterpillar is covered in wheat the gold of a new wedding band. It glistens like that new ring too in the July sun, and you can almost hear it growing. Like I said, to the other side of you is Crooked Shale River, thirty feet wide, rushing with the rains we got two days back. Crooked Shale River is called a river, but it’s more of a meandering creek meaning no harm without those flood waters in it—and no disrespect meant to the people who named it or the waters themselves when I say that. Creek or river, it’s a beautiful sight to see all the same.

Route 51 ahead of you ain’t so bad to look at either. It cuts through the prairie, green on the side of the river and gold on the other, like God took a pencil and drew a straight line from where you’re standing to the horizon, like He divided things up, to the east you farmers grow what you need to grow and to the west, let’s keep that wild some.

To the north, behind you. Behind you, you just ain’t looking, but there’s some beauty back there too. Something just don’t feel natural, though, about taking in the glory of what’s around you and looking behind you to do it. So take a look at just what’s around you, not behind you, and drink up God’s country before you think twice about sitting in that cab with Eddie Blackhook. The dashboard will be dusty and the smell of burning oil will be coming off the engine because Eddie’s truck has burned oil for years like it’s going out of style. Eddie’ll have the windows rolled down, but you’ll smell the oil and you’ll smell the meat he’s always cutting. Eddie Blackhook butchers for local farmers and hunters and you’d think he showers with a slab of raw meat instead of a bar of soap by the way he smells. That ain’t all, though. The plastic on the seat will be ratty and cracked and torn, giving your legs a good pinch when you set down. Ain’t no reason in the world you should trade where you’re standing with what’s waiting for you inside Eddie Blackhook’s truck.

Trouble with your mama and your old man, aside from their drinking and cussing at one another from about the day you was born to the day you hightailed it out of there, is they taught you to be polite, use your manners, always be respectful to your elders even if they are one of the area’s finest like Eddie Blackhook. Old habits die hard, so what do you do now? You lit out of Clear Springs at 4 a.m. and the sun tells you it’s close to noon and you’ve been walking since you got out of bed and pulled on your boots. Eddie Blackhook might have a brain the size of a shotgun shell, but he is right. It is hotter than the hubs of

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hell and you sure could use a ride in this heat. You can go ahead and scratch that stubble growing down your jaw and tell him, “I do appreciate that, Eddie” and “You’re sure right about that sun. It is a scorcher today.” Go ahead and scratch and say that real polite like you was taught. Put your hat back on your head and tip it back and squint your eyes when you look up at the sun, too. You might buy yourself some time. In the moment or two that slip by, you might be willing to walk twenty more miles rather than climb in with him.

You’ll feel his eyes giving you the up and down. He’ll know just by looking at you—hell, it ain’t that hard to see—that as much as you’re saying no, you’re thinking, well, maybe. And Eddie Blackhook is always good with maybe because maybe and hell, yes, are pretty much the same thing to guys like him.

You’ll be looking at the sun, but from the corner of your eye you’ll see Eddie Blackhook’s arm stretch across his dashboard. He’ll snatch at something there, like his hand’s a claw in one of those crane games at the arcade you went to once in Bliggerton City when you was little.

When he gets a hold of what he’s reaching for, you’ll go ahead and look from the sun. The bright glow that’s seared in your eyes will bounce between you and Eddie Blackhook’s truck, but you’ll see things clear enough. Eddie will be fumbling with a pouch of chew.

He’ll cram a wad in his mouth, some of the brown leaves hanging out like hay from a steer’s mouth. He’ll get it all in there, though, and work it with his tongue over to one side of his mouth and his cheek’ll swell with it there and then he’ll spit on the road and wipe his bottom lip and stretch the pouch out from in front of him and toward you, jerking his head back with an invite.

You probably found yourself working a few different ranches over the past couple years since you left home, maybe with the last one landing yourself as a cowpoke where they could actually afford to pay you, a fine one all diversified, as they call it, so as to get through the poor economy. Grain, beef, dairy, hogs, soybeans, hell, everything but kangaroos and coconuts on one of those big operations. I suppose like me, you took care of the cattle, the beefers not the milkers, and broke the ponies and such with a dozen or so other guys. Milo Altrusim, head of you and the place, will slide into your head right about now because that man sleeps with a chew in his mouth, one cheek always puffed like a chipmunk. Milo Altrusim and Eddie Blackhook are only the same in that way, though, that way and that way only. Milo is as far good as Eddie Blackhook isn’t.

“Ain’t this stretch of highway closed, Eddie?” you can ask because you’re looking to say no to his offer, and Milo sets off a handful of firecrackers in your head. Milo, your leaving, your walk on a route where you figured you wouldn’t run into nobody for at least a day and half. Throw your hand back in your pocket and snap the blade in and out on your jackknife just a little to do some thinking. There ain’t been

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F I C T I O N no flooding as far as you’ve come, but the county sheriff had the road blockaded from where it leaves Clear Springs and must have set up another block in Elderville where it comes in there, you reckon. You were thinking you wouldn’t run into nobody. Make it into Elderville and hop a bus further south without being bothered. Only local traffic allowed with the river high, and Eddie Blackhook you’ll know ain’t local, his trailer and butcher house being on the other side of Elderville, there in Perputrain County it is. Naw, hell, you didn’t figure on seeing no one.

Eddie’ll shrug, jerk his hand with the chew in it at you, like someone trying to coax a pony with a bucket of grain. For the first time, you’ll look him right in his eyes. A Hereford calf back on Canaan Crest Ranch was stillborn yesterday and Eddie Blackhook’s eyes will look like that animal’s.

Got that Important Things To Know List handy? Top of the list: Never take a ride from Eddie Blackhook. Just underneath that: Forget about that stillborn calf wet with its mama’s life all over it but with a cold dead stare in its eyes. Why? Because you don’t want to imagine being born dead.

Way I see it, to be living, you got to have one or two vices to remind you that you’re just human and no more. Your old man probably made sure you had a good bad one or two before you got out of Dodge like me.

When I was thirteen, I’d fallen ass over tea kettle from a little sorrel I was trying to break. I was all teared up, covered in mud and horse shit and cussing up a storm. Daddy figured I was old enough to work with him and ride and break horses since I was about eight or nine. He didn’t like that wetness in my eyes none at all when he saw it.

He was a hard sonofabitch, you see, with eyes the color of charred wood and a nose crooked from a hoof to his face when he was younger. I will tell you, though, his being so hard was no fault to him—his daddy was the same way from what he told.

Anyways, what matters here is when I fell, I fell good. I landed sideways on my ass, twisting myself something awful, and I knocked the goddamn wind out of me I did. I damn near reached up to wipe my eyes, but my daddy took the cigarette dangling from his mouth and held it filter out to me. “Don’t you let me see no crying from you, boy,” he said. “Have yourself a smoke and soothe those rattled little girl nerves you got.”

Now, hell, I’d smoked before and I’d liked it, and when he handed his cigarette toward me, I wiped my hands on my jeans and I took it. I finished his smoke and then broke that little bitch I was trying to break and then I smoked another cigarette with the old man, both of us sucking on our own, leaning against the corral, facing each other, me there inside and him out. Right then tobacco, all shapes, sizes, and

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flavors, came to be my first bad habit, and as you might be guessing, not my last.

We had us each another cigarette as we walked back to the house.

I could see my old lady watching from the window, and when she saw that smoke in my hand, she came running outside at us. “You little shit, you ain’t smokin’!” Her hands were flying in the air like a cat scratching at the wind and when she got to me, they kept flying, hitting me left and right, knocking my hat off to the dirt. Slapping and scratching me she was and moaning and sobbing. “I birthed you to grow into a fine, healthy young man, took care of you and taught you good. No, you ain’t smoking like that. You ain’t going to be like your damned old father.”

She was hitting me all the while and all the while that damned old father of mine was standing there smoking and laughing. “Hell, boy, she’s piss drunk. Don’t you let her hit you like that. Knock her on her ass.” So, I did.

About two days later, I left there in the night with a hundred in singles from the old lady’s tip jar above the stove. Lifted a carton of my old man’s smokes, too. Been on my own since, nearly four or five or six years now I guess it is. Kept moving south until I hit Canaan Crest.

You ain’t no angel, though, are you? I believe you must have a vice or two like myself. Because you’re human, ain’t you? And you’re alive.

Ain’t no shame in that. By no measure, though, I mean that you should go get yourself any closer to that truck and that bucket of grain Eddie Blackhook is wagging at you. Go on, now, you can do it. Because you know the difference between being alive and just being damn stupid.

Just shake your head and say, “Naw, thanks, Eddie.”

“Suit yourself,” Eddie’ll say to that and shrug and fold over his pouch of chew and toss it back on his dashboard. He’ll spit back out the window and rest his fat hand on the steering wheel, keeping his eyes on you the whole time. “Where you heading, anyway, son?” he’ll ask you because he’s aching to know. You can tell that by the way he’s rolling his wrist back and forth across the top of his steering wheel and how he’s poking his tobacco with his tongue, like his tongue is really his little fat finger poking you in the chest for an answer. You lock eyes with him because you might be a lot of things but you ain’t bullied.

Nobody pokes you with a stubby finger in your chest. But, you waver just a second because his eyes are the same as that stillborn lying in the field.

Milo’s wife, Addey, is something to look at and something to like the way a horse likes its cowboy. She can cook an elk stew or a batch of brownies that will make you feel like you’re king of the place. Always a cold beer there, too, for you and the boys after a day of wrestling with cattle for branding or vaccinating. She’s the kind of lady who ain’t afraid to brand a heifer now and again herself either. But

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F I C T I O N if all that don’t get you admiring her enough, like I says, she is just something to look at. Dark hair with a life of its own in the prairie wind (forget it when she tucks a piece of it behind that pretty ear of hers) and green eyes as green as the green along Crooked Shale River, about 150 different shades of green, too, like you see in all the trees and plants on the river’s banks. Her skin is white. Pale white like a china doll’s, full opposite of your tanned self. You see she comes in right about here because she happened to come out in the pickup yesterday when I found that calf with its mama standing beside it, licking it off like there were life in it, nudging it with its nose like it would help any. I’d been loping through on Sheri, a hell-raising appaloosa Milo trusts only me on. I was mending fence; I had my rifle with me too as we’d been having trouble with the coyotes again and Milo knows I’m the best tracker and shot he’s got under him. He’s been real respectful to me, nothing but respect he’s got for me. Like I said, he’s a good man.

I was standing there, looking down at the calf, that cow none too happy I was there but putting up with me just the same, real protective of her dead young she was. Addey pulled up and climbed out and walked over beside me. “What do we got?” she asked me. She startled me some when she spoke and I jumped a little like a spooked pony. She laughed. “Sorry about that. You cowboys are used to being alone,” she says and looked at me, right in my eyes, with me staring at the eyes of that dead animal. Goddamnit, her looking at me like that.

She had to go and put her hand on my shoulder, too.

We was quiet. Just the sound of that mama cow breathing hard.

Just the sound of its rough tongue running itself over its calf. Didn’t hear no birds or the rest of the herd milling about. Everything was quiet.

I stepped away just a little to the left as to get Addey’s hand off my shoulder. Then, I reached up and pulled my hat down over my face more and reached in my pocket for my smokes. I lit up and said, “I’ll throw it in the back of the truck. Can’t leave it out here.”

She was still quiet. I didn’t look at her. I dangled my cigarette in my mouth and picked up the calf and I walked it over to the truck— that mama cow bellering like she was dying herself while I was taking her baby.

Carlisle was in the cab. Hadn’t seen him till then. Addey must have had him out just driving around the ranch. Carlisle gets nervous about Oscar around this time of year—Addey thinks it does him good to take a ride. Carlisle waved at me and smiled.

I got the dead calf in my arms and my smoke in my mouth, but I lifted my hand to give as good a wave as I can and grin at him. You can’t help but grin to Carlisle when he’s smiling at you.

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But when I lifted that stillborn over the side of the truck, my eyes meet its eyes again, they was as dead as glass, and I turned away, dragging hard on my cigarette. I didn’t look back at Addey or Carlisle, just climbed on Sheri and loped off. Found those coyotes later that day, shot a couple of them between the eyes.

“Where you heading?” you should answer right back to Eddie.

“Well, up to Canaan. Got some meat business with Milo,” he’ll say and spit. That man can’t never spit without slopping juice on his face.

He’ll run his thumb under his lip and wipe the juice on his sweaty shirt. What’s a man like Milo doing business with someone like Eddie for? you’re asking. I know what you might be thinking, but the good always got to mix with the bad in this country. That’s just the way things is.

Hearing Milo’s name on the tongue of Eddie Blackhook, you’ll want to keep your eyes from looking at those dead eyes of Eddie’s.

You’ll want to hook your thumbs over your belt buckle and look over to the river.

Langyin County Fair is about the biggest doing you get. The whole goddamn county shuts down for it. It’s a big show, tractor pulls and bull riding and cutest baby contests and all. Biggest deal though is to bring your animals in. Nobody forgets whose horse or cow or pig takes first place. People talk about it for weeks after like the owner of the prize animal just gave birth to the second Christ. It is the end all be all in Langyin County. I never entered nothing, but Milo and Addey’s son, Carlisle, has. He’s a few years younger than me and a hell of a good boy. He may be a little soft between the ears, but he and me get along real fine. Some of the other boys like to give him a hard time when Milo isn’t around, but you wouldn’t put up with that shit either if you was me. I done some shoving now and again to remind them to knock it the hell off quick. Carlisle, I been showing him a little about horses and he’s been known to show me a thing or two about hogs.

Now, hogs are just about the dirtiest animals I come across and I ain’t too fond of them, but Carlisle loves them and he gets them to kind of grow on you. Oscar’s his prize hog. And when I say prize hog, I mean it. Wins at the fair every year. Would have won in a couple weeks at this year’s fair too. Carlisle doted on that hog like a boy does his puppy.

When I came back last night from taking care of the fences and killing those coyotes, it was after dark. I saw Addey on the front porch with Carlisle. They was sitting on the porch swing, the soft glow of the porch light shining on them. Carlisle was stretched out and had his head on Addey’s lap, a goddamn big smile on his face and his eyes wide, wide like silver dollars, and he was pointing at something. Addey was playing with his hair, smiling too. “Fireflies,” I heard her say.

They didn’t see me ride in, I didn’t want them to.

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F I C T I O N I swung Sheri back around the barn and rode the back forty for two or three more hours and then went to the bunkhouse. All the boys was asleep. I lay there real still for a while, but I knew what I was going to do. Trouble is I didn’t know why. I slipped out of my bunk before dawn and slit Oscar’s throat with my jackknife. Then I started walking.

Now you know I suppose. Eddie Blackhook ain’t the real sonofabitch here. I am. So, go right the hell ahead. Add that to your Important Things to Know List I got started for you. Get in that goddamn truck with Eddie, too, if you want. The things you know Eddie Blackhook to do are dirty, but they ain’t half as dirty as the things I done.

And he’s heading for Canaan Crest to boot. You got yourself a ride if you want it.

Louis J. Fagan is an Assistant Professor of English at FultonMontgomery Community College in Johnstown, New York. He is the author of two novels, New Boots and Angelo. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. He is currently at work on his forthcoming novel based loosely on "Slit."

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F I C T I O N

Bruce Holbert

Boorman

I

n tavern bathrooms and parking lots of the coulee, Sixties survivors in their own sixties and beyond still ignite joints with palsied hands careful of the occasional oxygen tank, while the young steal painkillers or cook methamphetamine to battle the tedium. Some denizens work for union scale at the dam or teach school or patch power lines with county utilities and manage to avoid addictions and multiple divorces and the general alcohol, blood and chaos less out of morality than another sort of boredom.

Boorman all his adult life appeared the latter. Perhaps he thought some reward in it, earthly or heavenly. No one knew because he was not a garrulous man.

Bruce Holbert An early summer morning, he perched on his porchstep and considered his ringed finger. A gouge remained in the gold. It matched a white scar where, years before, he had nearly lost finger and all on a chain-link fence. His second wife, Belle—his first left him over a fifth of vodka—smoked like she had a bet on it. Her affinity for cribbage and fishing made her easy company, but she possessed strong prejudices and meager patience and a limited intelligence. When lung disease began to consume her, visitors dwindled and family pressed their purposes then departed as quickly as manners permitted. With no other audience, she harangued Bormann until he turned the news up and feigned hearing loss.

When the home nurse and bottled oxygen proved inadequate, the hospital admitted her and there she expired.

Though the weather was warm and close, Boorman wore his customary blue jeans and plain t-shirt, whether the TV predicted snow or a hundred degrees. He examined his wristwatch; two minutes had passed. Across the street, the widow Naomi Reynolds, his wife’s partner for coffee and gossip, flipped the front window drapes then appeared on her stoop. Her Chihuahua yapped behind the door.

For the fourth time in as many days, Boorman directed them opposite the typical route. Up to then, they tackled the grade first, so after, the level street that followed turned respite and the last half mile of decline an airy gambol as if gravity had taken their part. That momentum buoyed them through pleasant, eventless

F I C T I O N days of television, heart medication and rotating sprinklers until evening, when Boorman navigated his 1977 Chevy pickup, with Naomi in the passenger seat, to the Senior Center. There, they dined on cafeteria suppers while dowdy women reminisced and men in knit slacks and pressed shirts buttoned to the neck dozed in plastic chairs.

But Boorman’s only child, Lena, had combined households with Theodore Martin at the hill’s bottom. Theodore was a spindly construction man who worked only when required or to renew his unemployment. He left early to fish between jobs, though, and Lena slept late, which meant if he arrived early Boorman could enjoy Lena’s baby, Linus, alone, before Lena woke.

Inside mold and cat piss permeated the carpets and an unemptied diaper pail multiplied the stink. Boorman placed some eggs from an old Norge refrigerator to boil and then retrieved Linus from his crib.

The child didn’t require sentences; in fact, he appeared to prefer lists: oven, kettle, pan, dinner. He wasn’t yet capable of repetition, but sputtered and laughed and pointed his meaty hands this way and that, which entertained Boorman mightily. Boorman counted the child’s fingers and toes then offered him a joke about Mexicans. When the eggs boiled sufficiently and ham slice had fried, Boorman set them in a saucer where Lena could find them.

Boorman shouted, “Breakfast. In the refrigerator.”

He replaced Linus in the crib.

“I love breakfast,” Lena said, but Boorman had already exited for the return trip.

Naomi was Catholic and would not suffer a man and woman unmarried under the same roof. She turned waspish the last half mile and Boorman accelerated past her. Sweat striped his face and his cotton shirt clung to his chest and shoulders. He pondered north and south, the coulee itself lined fifty miles of horizon, basalt walls and shale spills sprinkled with low brush and scrub pine. Beneath lay manufactured reservoirs and canals and the desert the government had proposed to irrigate seventy years before, but the sun still crossed the cloudless sky east to west and the temperatures still climbed to a hundred and it appeared to Boorman a lot of work to make a hot room not much cooler.

He halted in front of Naomi’s house and waited. Automatic sprinklers hissed into the boxwoods that lined the concrete walk. Several minutes passed before she labored into the driveway. She squinted at him through the morning sunlight. “I will not be walking tomorrow,” she said.

“You have company?”

“No,” she replied. “Nor do I want any.”

“All right,” Boorman said.

“Belle hated you, you know,” Naomi told him.

“She hated everything in the end,” Boorman replied. “Especially breathing. I guess that’s why she quit.”

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“Before she got sick, I mean.”

“She tell you that, did she?”

“No, she asked me to look out for you afterwards.”

“Clear proof of her antipathy,” Boorman said.

The Chihuahua yipped and rammed his nose into the windowpane.

“Don’t you want to know why?”

“Why?” “Why she hated you.”

“I can’t think of anything I’d like to know less,” Boorman said.

“But I’m guessing you’re going to tell me.”

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry. That was cruel.”

Boorman watched her return to her cool house and the dog.

That afternoon, he planted the sprinkler in the back lot where he had constructed a fire pit from an ancient cistern. He had donated his wife’s clothes to a church rummage sale, and a week later returned with his own, then splurged on a cowboy hat and bolo tie with a hasp of buffalo bone. The furniture and drapes, however, pocked with burns and years out of fashion were beyond charity. Twilight, he twisted off the hose spigot then added the sofa to the pit outside and a half-gallon of diesel, then a match. The conflagration lit the whole neighborhood.

Half an hour passed until Lena crossed the dark lawn pushing her stroller. The light oranged her profile and Linus gazed at the flame wide-eyed.

“Have you gone around the bend?” she asked.

“I am sober and in control of my wits in every way, aside from the natural flaws flesh is heir to.”

“Is that Shakespeare?”

“My mother—your grandmother—was a schoolteacher,” he said.

“Do you think she would instruct others and not her own?”

“I’m surprised you remember is all.”

“I’m not an open book.”

“No, I don’t guess anyone would accuse you of that.”

“You see the flames from your place?”

Lena shook her head. “Naomi called.” Lena lifted Linus from the carriage. The child turned his head to continue studying the fire.

“That’s a good boy,” Boorman said.

“Would you have been more inclined toward me if I were a boy?”

Lena asked.

“Would I have taken you fishing? That’s what you mean. Well, I fish by myself mostly.”

“You fished with Belle.”

“She didn’t require me to untangle her line.”

“Likely someone taught her.”

“I wasn’t good at that.”

The baby cooed and Lena patted him.

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F I C T I O N “You can’t undo it,” Lena said. “Not with Linus, no matter how you dote on him.”

“What makes you think I want to?” Boorman replied.

“You don’t?” she asked, hurt.

“I don’t know,” he said.

The fire blazed and sweat itched Boorman’s scalp. He clawed at his hair and the stiffness and calluses of his fingers made him recall his father’s attempts at tenderness, the old man’s hand roughed his hair then hesitated a second time above his scalp like a confused bird contemplating an easier landing. Lena tucked the baby into his nest and maneuvered the stroller from the fire’s heat then twisted the spigot open and sprayed a mist over the fire from the hose end. The water appeared to vanish before it could wet the coals. Boorman added the ottoman to the flames. Sparks danced across the grass. He and Lena watched them ebb and die. Finally, Lena wheeled the stroller to the gate and unclasped the latch. She lifted Linus and told him to wave and when he did, Boorman returned the gesture.

“Your roommate,” Boorman hollered. “He take care of the baby?”

“He hardly notices Linus. He takes care of me, though.”

“I don’t want to hear about that.”

“How did I get so low?” Lena said. “You might ask yourself that.”

Gone, he quit considering her. Surrendering others was peaceful, and he was good at it. He often felt he’d lived backward and was less and less stitched to the present and its denizens, his slate wiped clean like Linus’, except erased rather than unwritten.

Boorman’s father died before Boorman’s teens leaving Boorman to tend his family cattle and plant and cut the hay and grain. Before long, contractors pouring the reservoir canals hired him to operate various machinery geared akin to tandem wheat rigs. He volunteered to crane concrete when the regular hand arrived drunk and handled the chore well enough the foreman two-checked the man. Three weeks later, though, Boorman turned careless and permitted the bucket to hook a Mexican on a screed. The force planted the man into the loose pour.

The crew fished him loose. One laborer shed his shirt to halt an artery’s red geyser. Another, pocked with blood, hunted a pulse in the man’s neck and counted to seven, then shifted his hands and searched again and again counted, then, with his free hand, opened the man’s eyes.

The man’s heart had lost its prime and the blood soon lost its urgency.

Someone snapped his fingers against the poor Mexican’s ears; another waved a hand over his eyes. Finally, after a time, they closed them.

Two others rolled him into a canvas sheet and hauled their grisly package to town and the hospital.

No article in the paper appeared concerning the incident. Neither the police nor coroner inquired past the foreman’s three sentence statement. The death was simply fact and the man’s absence, unremembered, a lack of the same. Boorman finished the day at the crane then returned to driving truck, where he thought nothing while hauling and depositing several tons of granite or basalt.

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Two months passed and Boorman transferred to the dam where he and a local townie ferried loaders. A month depositing slag into the reservoir riprap and the truck’s rear axle slid a foot down, followed by a trembling too elemental for anything beyond earth shifting. Boorman clasped the dash with both hands but the stone had fallen from beneath them into fifty feet of water and so did the rig.

Boorman threw his shoulder against the door as the rig dove, but the cab wedged against the shifting riprap. The water boiled with rock. One collapsed the windshield and broke Boorman’s arm, which seemed to add injury to insult until he recognized the opening was enough for escape. Boorman jerked the stunned townie co-pilot from beneath the dash and propelled him beyond the broken windshield, then followed.

They broke the water’s surface ten yards from the bank and after pressing ashore, weighed one another’s faculties. For several days following, Boorman thought he had squared himself with the universe, taking one from the living and adding another to it. He felt unencumbered, even more so than before the killing, as if he’d peeked into a god’s wisdom and found order in the nonsense.

In a cloudburst, three weeks later, however, the townie piled his Chevy into a telephone pole then staggered from the cab onto a downed line. Ten thousand volts blasted fist-sized holes through his boots and his heart cooked to a prune. His eyeballs appeared squeezed from a tube. From that point forward, Boorman’s life turned a long, straight stretch, absent hill or dale, and he a traveller who possessed neither the courage for redemption nor the conviction the wicked required to exit right or left. Children and marriages did not move him; love nor hatred altered his path, and, for this reason he knew, Belle hated him.

The flames cooled to coals and the drapes were ashes. A recliner remained along with an upholstered chair. On its seat lay his wife’s family bible open to Deuteronomy; the most ridiculous of books and that was saying something. Boorman added it to the blaze. For a moment the bible plates lived; facial expressions morphed from beatified to surprised to troubled to resigned. Women rocked babies and warriors shuddered with their weapon’s burden. Jesus himself blinked and pulled one arm down from his cross. The burning paper fluttered and the Messiah opened his mouth and sang a song conceived before all the hymns and dirges. Boorman added the recliner.

Hot air pushed over him until the wind shifted and he felt chilled and vulnerable as paper. Slack skin sagged beneath his elbow, gravity retrieving him, he thought, gazing into the fire.

Before midnight, he kinked the hose and replaced the sprayer with a sprinkler that he set to douse the embers. He had neglected dinner so an hour later set out on foot for the tavern, which was not far from Lena’s at the foot of the grade. Inside, a bell on the door clanked. Hal, the bartender, nearly as old as Boorman and closer to demise, rotated his unkempt head slowly. Boorman ordered a cheeseburger and

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F I C T I O N potato salad along with a beer and chose a booth where Hal delivered beer and a ketchup bottle. Boorman sipped from the beer. Beer lights reflected in the yellow liquid, their flickers twisted in the glass. Water ticked in its reservoir in the swamp cooler and its fan pressed damp air into the room. The television tuned to news whispered stock prices then jumped to a commercial for watches. Boorman heard himself breathing. He put his finger to his neck and found a pulse, then listened to it drum. He felt as if he were almost absent, not dead or alive, but between, and it resembled what he imagined peace was which turned out to be simply absence. When Hal delivered the silverware in preparation for his meal, Boorman seemed to be watching from behind a TV camera that peered over an actor’s shoulder who was hungry and smelled like smoke.

A shot of bourbon arrived. Boorman studied the amber liquid settle into a glassy pool. He’d nearly returned to his state of grace, when Theodore appeared opposite him. His daughter’s beau slicked his hair back; under was forehead and a narrow, sallow face. He smiled constantly which left him constantly suspicious. Boorman quaffed the shot then shuddered with the alcohol.

“Hank Williams,” he said.

“What’s that?” Theodore asked.

“Nothing,” Boorman said. He was more angry than he had been in years.

“I talk to myself too,” Theodore replied. His pupils were bbs.

“Cross tops?” Boorman asked.

Theodore appeared confused.

“I’ve known a bevy of long haulers,” Boorman said.

Theodore smiled. “They work me days, then swing, then back to days. A hole and I plug it. Rumor is a graveyard shift is assembling and that bucket will have a hole in it, too. Can’t quit and collect rocking chair and they won’t fire me.”

Boorman hooked some grocery store potato salad with his spoon.

“You don’t think much of me,” Theodore said.

“You don’t occupy any of my thoughts.”

“Your daughter and grandson, I treat them right. They don’t want for anything. Not really. Nothing they need anyway.”

Boorman slid the cigarette package to Theodore. The man examined the package.

“Didn’t you just lose a wife over these?”

Boorman nodded. “Others live till eighty-five, ninety and smoke like a diesel train. Maybe she had bad luck.”

Theodore tapped the package until a cigarette freed then lit it.

“Might be harmless to you and me.”

“Surgeon general says otherwise,” Boorman said. “But facts ruin an otherwise pleasant existence.” He eyed Theodore. He had never cared for him even before he and Lena kept company. The man could not still himself. It wasn’t the speed, nor energy, nor ambition. He was the kind who hoped to be present without being seen or remembered.

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“Seems the only escape is retirement or crime,” Boorman told him.

“Well, I’m too young for one.”

“Too tame for the other?”

Theodore chuckled. “I got some experience short cutting.”

“Didn’t know if you had it in you,” Boorman said. If he had committed crimes, they were minor, Boorman figured, and likely netted him little.

“Had what?”

“Vigor,” Boorman said.

“Ask your daughter about it.”

Boorman’s finger ticked the heavy plate that held his meal. “You got a cape under that shirt?” he asked.

“No,” Theodore said.

“That’s too bad because unless you’re Superman or Batman, I’m going to divorce your head from your shoulders.”

“It’d be sinful for me to square off with an old man,” Theodore told him. “You ought consider a threat you don’t have juice enough to close on.”

“No threat. Just information.” Boorman glanced up. “A sensible person isn’t likely to act like that in a tavern with witnesses anyhow.”

Theodore waved for two more shots. Boorman continued to work on his burger. Theodore pulled the first glass empty. Boorman slid the other toward him. “Like you said, I’m old.”

Theodore stared into the whiskey. His eyes blinked. “You going to tell Lena?” he asked.

“That you’re drinking on a school night?”

Theodore lifted the second shot and twisted it between his thumb and forefinger. Bourbon rocked in the glass. “I think the sun rises and sets with her.”

“What’s that?”

“I love her.”

Outside, the night cooled the window glass. Boorman put his head to it.

“What were you meaning by that earlier?”

“I got seventy-one years of earlier,” Boorman said.

“Sounded like you were proposing something. You don’t want the trouble.”

“I’m not partial to filling in three different shifts either.”

Boorman sighed. “My neighbor across the street, she’s about my age,” he said. “Her spare bedroom there’s some diamonds inherited from way back. Not a lot, but colored. Canary and pink. Worth a year’s wages.”

“How’s someone find them?”

“When she showed me and the wife, they were in a box on the spare bedroom’s bed stand.”

“Dog?” “Little one is all.”

“What’s the split?”

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F I C T I O N “You look after Lena and Linus. That’s my portion.”

Boorman ordered the whiskeys this time and Theodore wolfed them down.

“Tell you what,” Boorman said. “You chew awhile, then decide whether to spit or swallow.”

Hal the bartender switched off the television to close. Boorman and Theodore ambled outside into the cool night. Their footsteps disturbed the quiet; smoke still cloaked the sky. At the fence lining the house, Theodore paused.

“You don’t want mixed up in this thing,” Boorman said.

Theodore nodded like he was talking to himself and Boorman left him to it and returned up the grade. In the broom cabinet inside his house was more liquor. He filled a wide glass with bourbon then added two ice cubes and proceeded to the porch. Ice clanked in the alcohol, then quieted, as he and the bourbon settled into an Adirondack chair.

Boorman left the porch lights dark. He studied the sky and starlight, but it appeared to him a mess rather than shapes a person could recognize. The Big Dipper, well, who could not see a ladle there, though Boorman wondered if the Neanderthals might have it a bent spear or water falling into a lake. Nights on the ranch, he had counted cattle and mused upon the same skies and how much more he might see if lanterns and electricity did not compete with the stars and planets’ reedy threads.

His head lightened, then settled into a determined, drunken place.

Naomi’s porchlamp floated in the smoke’s remains. Tomorrow he would sell Belle’s Ford sedan. In the ashtray, lipstick kissed the cigarette filters. He inventoried what else in the house he might unload to rid himself of her. He could construct another fire for letters, notes, grocery lists and old check stubs in her hand, envelopes that held her name, photos, a high school yearbook, recipes.

With a plan, his mood improved. He could swap the car for a four door that could haul Linus to Little League games and school concerts and he could cheer no matter how Linus performed and snap photographs at his high school then college graduation and successes beyond.

Three-thirty in the morning, he recognized awkward, drunken steps and a bent shadow beneath a distant streetlight. Theodore walked carefully toward the house Boorman had described. Half lit by a second streetlight, he gazed at the windows to guess the correct room. The house contained nothing more valuable than decent china as far as Boorman knew, but Theodore crossed the lawn for a window.

The hasp rattled and Boorman rose with the long abandoned two by four stowed beneath the steps as an equalizer. He crossed the street in stocking feet and swung it into the bottom of Theodore’s skull. Theodore dropped like a grain sack and his body shuddered on the grass.

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Boorman called the police from his house, and five minutes later a cruiser’s lights hurtled over the highway then turned for the hill, the whirring siren with it. Naomi silhouetted her doorway in a bathrobe.

A cop waved a flashlight over Theodore on the grass, who had not seized again and breathed, still unconscious.

One approached Boorman. “You that called?”

Boorman nodded. He said he’d heard something suspicious. The cop scribbled a note and returned to Naomi. Her head switched on her shoulders like a cat’s tail. “Thank you,” she said to Boorman. “Thank you.” She waited with the cops for an ambulance.

Boorman descended the hill once more. Inside his daughter’s house, Linus and Lena lay in bed. Her eyes blinked until she adjusted to the darkness, though the baby just opened his mouth and breathed deeper. Lena patted his hand. Boorman gazed at her fingers and knuckles and skin, fine and healthy over his, weathered and dotted with age. With the other hand, he parted Linus’ wispy hair.

“He’s gone?” Lena asked.

Boorman nodded.

Lena said. “It doesn’t matter. The lawn never got mowed anyway.”

---​ Of course, Boorman’s version didn’t hold water. Theodore revived a few hours later, concussed, but coherent. He recalled enough that, when combined with Hal the bartender’s statement, required the investigating officers to amend the police report substantially. A day after, two officers escorted Boorman from his house in cuffs while the neighbors watched.

The weekly paper would report he was a widowed septuagenarian, unbalanced, mourning for his wife. Boorman chose a trial rather than plea. In court, he refused counsel and offered no argument aside from a recounting of his story, which was not much different than what investigators had gathered on their own. After a time shuffling papers, the judge clacked his gavel on its block and Boorman rose in jailhouse orange to be judged.

Bruce Holbert’s fiction has appeared in the Iowa Review, Hotel Amerika, Other Voices, The Antioch Review, Crab Creek Review, and The Kirkus Review. His novels Lonesome Animals (2012 Spur Award Finalist) and The Hour of Lead (2014 Best Novels/Historical Novels, Kirkus Review) are published by Counterpoint Press.

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nv baker

A Bored and Repetitive Accounting of Childhood Issues

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emember the school day finishing. Remember me going home on a different bus than the one that took me to school, the one scooping me up in the azure washout of dawn, with blurry eyes and the hesitant sounds of birds. Remember the bus picking me up on the dirt road in front of my house is the Number 4 Bus. Remember me climbing into a different bus at the end of the school day. It is always a different bus at the end. It is the Number 9 Bus at the end. The Number 9 letting me out on a different dirt road altogether. I take the last step down, the sky’s a babysitter, and I blink.

Remember me getting to their house, playing in the rainfall ruts, the ones alongside the adobe-stuccoed walls, beneath the rough-cut eaves. Remember the mud walls having tiny indentations where the adobe mixture had dried around the stalks of straw. Remember our scratching fingers nervously pocking those impurities down to the octagon chicken-wire, talking over each other’s important issues. Remember in adolescence everything is still important.

Remember us sprinting circles around those walls, the house, our coarse hands clenching splintery boards, boards we had nailed together into the shapes of weaponry. Machine guns and swords, mostly. Trekking the fields, pulling those boards from nearby barns and running away when the neighbor children, prompted by angry parents, would red-ding our pale skin with projectiles from their pellet shooters. Volcanoes of trapped blood gathering beneath our husks. Everyone we knew had better shoes than us. Remember the neighbors watching. Remember we could feel it.

The window-eyes peeping at the guttersnipes bucolic. Their kids had real weapons, they didn’t need to pretend. Remember reusing our nails, the arteries of our toys, after we beat them back to form. Our hammers were sandstone rocks stippled with lichen.

All of us building little pyramids of slag when the stones crumbled, our hands chalky with the mica motes.

Remember Leaner coming out of the house and taking me and Bobo, the boys, on a walk down the dirt road. This is a daily adventure, a good clip to the Post Office. Remember Leaner wearing silky, long-sleeved shirts with squiggly prints dappling like surface tension. After the first hill, Leaner taking off her shirt and tying it around her naked breasts like I waist-tied my sweaters, but front ways, tanning her back. It was a backwards cape draped low on her cleavage. I learned how to tie the knot snugly because she didn’t have much dexterity when reaching between her shoulder blades.

Remember the occasional driver stopping to talk to Leaner, and Bobo and I getting bored and digging hand tunnels in the road’s ditch. There is a laughter from the guts of the vehicles that pitches out.

Remember at the P.O. Leaner buying kerosene in a plastic, reused milk-gallon from a stooping man with rime-sticky handlebars and tabac bottom teeth, top teeth gone except for the fangs. Remember the P.O. selling ammunition under the glass countertop and gunny sacks of oats along the back wall too. Remember then Post Offices also delivered survival. We take the kerosene jug outside, Bobo holding it with a

loose index, watching it glow like back-lit amber in the sunshine. Remember I was in charge of carrying the mail envelopes back. Sometimes I would recognize the people who stopped to talk to Leaner on the P.O. road when later they were also delivering her a cord or two of firewood.

Bobo and I putting on oversized leather gloves and helping the men toss the split wood into piles, standing on the rim of the truck beds, trying not to lose precarious balance when we picked up a log that was too heavy with green.

Remember getting back to Leaner’s house from the P.O., the girls, Bunsy, Tiny, Lewy, and Troll, fighting. Hearing shrieks a ways off.

Remember it is okay because ours is time otherworldly, where you don’t have to explain shiners at school to anyone. There is only the sniggering halo of peers as judgement for blackened eyes. Remember using each other’s real names in school, but at Leaner’s house everyone having Neverland names. Her too. Disrobing of our real names directly after our feet hit country earth.

Remember dinnertime, well before dark. Always beans. Remember the chunks in the beans. Remember eating around the chunks because chewing those pieces made fatcud and the cud wouldn’t get any smaller no matter how long you chewed. You eventually had to swallow everything. Just beans, although Leaner got the same food in the commodities boxes that my mother did.

Remember Leaner and my mother both siring heirs from hippy fathers. That meaning that the men were troubled and angry, not really around. Their ideas were too important to be around. Remember my mother working graveyard at the State Hospital, a town away, and Leaner the only one babysitting me for free. That’s what we’re remembering. But before I can remember, they tell me that my mother let Leaner nurse me some. Remember us kids sharing breasts well before we had a say so. My mom and Leaner knowing each other long enough. Lewey and I being around the same age.

Remember Leaner putting me in the car some days and driving us to Decky’s. A good twenty miles to town, just me and Leaner bumping along. Remember Leaner slipping me candy rolls—wax-wrapped, pastel colors—hard as plastic, gooing up if you kept them in your mouth for half the drive. Remember Leaner pocketing those bits from the bulkcandy section of the grocery. Showing me how to steal trivial nouns with a juvenile smile. Remember Leaner carrying a large purse and pilfering tissue rolls from the grocery store restroom, relocating those rolls to the outhouse.

Remember getting there and Decky, the butcher, loading Leaner’s rattling International with the weekly bones he gave away for dog chews.

The bones are a crayon white, veined with a bright, glassy red because they are frozen with bloodcrystals. Bones feeling cold to my touch as I help, stacking them into a pyramid on the blue tarp. Remember, later, helping Leaner scrape the bones, displacing the red sinews into the beanpot. That’s where the almost-useless parts of things go. Both of us knifing

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F I C T I O N over the large cutting-board that was worn down in crisscrosses at the center. Both of us singing, “Who Wrote the Book of Love.”

Remember the evening, Leaner giving each of us children a five-gallon bucket. The buckets were scruffy with gouged plastic and cracking brittle at the rims. Remember the edges pinching. Carrying those buckets by a handle of baling wire that was threaded into either side. Remember our task, walking the buckets downhill to the stream and transferring them back up to the house. Covering a hundred yards before handing them off to the person above you, like sepia firefighters. The wire digging pale lines into our palms.

Remember when it got dark, pouring-full and lighting kerosene lamps, carefully not spilling because Leaner would cry. She says, “Goddamn it,” crying in just two breaths, her jaw getting fat and her face very hard. Spilt kerosene will linger. Remember doing our homework by the wicks. In flickering dim, our heads resting on those books more than anything. The tops of the glass chimneys turning that lamp black.

Remember someone catching their arm skin on those kerosene chimneys, usually when leaning across the table to get a pencil or crayon. The top of the chimney was molten. Bunsy would catch the rim the most, usually about the inner forearm, us rushing to get the lard out of the Styrofoam ice chest to rub on the burn. Remember the smell like burning hair, but meaty too. Garnering crescent notches in our skin. Leaner calling them, “Shiva’s fingernails.”

Remember Leaner clapping her hands above our heads, cutting us out of our homework individually. Pages humid and sticking to our faces. Leaner transferring pots of water from the Majestic wood stove that had that emberblown woodmaw on the side. The small, circular feed trough she keeps in the corner of the kitchen. Remember, one child at a time, sitting naked in that trough. As near to paradise as I will ever be, Leaner pouring that hot water streaming down my gooseflesh. Remember the gathering water below never staying warm. Leaner smiling down at us and humming, her high, apple-French cheekbones squelching her hearth-burnished eyes. Swaddling us in towels, teeth chattering, we stood by the Majestic to dry.

Remember us after our baths making the bed. There was a stack of five threadbare mattresses that we would leave leaning up against the wall each morning. Remember butting them up in the center of the room and sleeping like an ensconced litter at night, nipping at each other and yelping through the darkness until Leaner got mad. There are so many blankets. The bed feeling like a fort. Remember our fort. Remember me always getting to sleep in the choice-spot beside Leaner. Her red hair smelling like jasmine and patchouli.

Remember just after school that day, Lewey and I having a marvelous fight. Lewey is a month younger than me and had suckled on my own mother’s breast at some point. Remember the two of us in the first grade, the other children referring to Lewey as my sister or cousin, me saying otherwise. Lewey is gangly and pelting at me with rocks, her arms seeming these long pale flicks, hurling with aim and velocity. Jagged pebbles

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the thresh of me. Me chasing her and tackling her. Remember feeling the heat of my own panting breath, me whispering the warmth into her neck, into her ear. At the time she was recovering from a fit of windy giggles. I stop her: “If you don’t fucking quit, I will tell everyone-everyone at school how you take a bath. How’d you like that? How’d that be, huh?”

Remember never seeing a person so affected. Lewey not crying, so much as her eyes filling with water and the water never going anywhere.

Beautiful blue pools. Lewey shoving me off and running down the hill to the house.

Remember, later, Bobo and I playing with old toy cars, racing them off the porch with makeshift ramps. They were small cars, the length on my finger. Many were missing tires and only had the naked pin that functioned as an axle.

Remember Leaner coming out, screaming: “I heard what you said, I heard what you said. Don’t you dare talk about us that way. There is nothing here to be ashamed of. We live a proud, good life. A good life. You learn that. A real life. You too. You’re a big part of this, Mister.”

Remember Leaner dragging me by the arm to the wood pile where the long dirt driveway made its loop. One winter her International got stuck, spinning tires and mud, sinking to the undercarriage, staying the whole season. Remember the axe sticking out of the chopping block, making that strange sundial with the light and the handle. The piece of the haft closest to the blade chewed from the times that Bobo and I missed at what we were chopping.

Remember Leaner punching me in the face with a closed hand. And when I was down her kicking at me with her rubber-bottomed L.L. Bean boots. The boots were never tied, the fake white-fur edges always flaring out around her sweatpants. She never wore the sweatpants and boots when we went to the P.O., only shorts and bare feet with her pewter toe rings for that walk.

Remember I didn’t run. Remember I didn’t try. Remember me furling into a ball. Remember it seeming to last a long time. It wasn’t a long time.

Remember hurting especially when her toe thumped my spine. Remember I could see Lewey some of the time and then after when all Leaner’s children were looking at me cry in my pile. Remember Lewey looking terrified, but not for me and not of her mother. It was something else, I think, that was far ahead in the coniferous hills surrounding our rural Mora valley.

nv baker has work appearing or forthcoming in J Journal, The Fourth River, Fence, The Crab Creek Review, Juked, Weber—The Contemporary West, The Roanoke Review, and other publications.

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F I C T I O N

Jenny Irizary

Icebox Canyon

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nder a single dangling lightbulb, my sunken-eyed, hollow-cheeked reflection in a 100-year-old bathroom mirror was unnerving. As soon as storms knocked out the electricity and we resorted to flickering oil lamps (flashlight batteries were “despicably expensive” in my dad’s words), looking in that mirror was like inviting Bloody Mary, the Candy Man, and la Llorona to watch you pee. Whenever I bathed in the rust-scored porcelain tub (which my dad bought from a farmer who’d used it as a horse trough), I expected to see gelatinous eyes sloshing loose from the face of my dad’s childhood neighbor, who got sucked into a hole while swimming in the river. “Those sisters were inseparable, until one had to kick the other down to reach the surface herself,” he always told me.

Even in the spring, not much sun penetrated what vacationers called “the redwood canopy” to alleviate the shadows clinging to broken lead paned windows hanging on our cabin wall “for decoration.” And since the living room’s primary source of light was a woodstove, I took to avoiding reflective surfaces and squinted instead at moth corpses suspended between the ribs of a cage holding a cloth bird with real feathers (again, for “decoration”). Their wings and legs cracked into a cheese cloth of bodies and web excretions, and the cage swayed in a draft from the old chimney hole (the favorite entry point for bats drunk on stale beer pooling in neighbors’ trash cans). This was neither comforting nor hygienic. Eventually, I looked away from the mirror, the bathwater, and the perpetual cobwebs, determined to discover what was behind a boarded-up door in the bathroom wall, somewhere that might at least be cleaner.

When I asked where it led, my dad ducked into a doorway curtained with scrap fabric in my parents’ bedroom. “It’s a closet where we store things we don’t always use. It used to connect the two rooms.” He reappeared, dusting off a thrift store Basque beret with a name I couldn’t read embroidered on the inside. This didn’t explain why the room constantly emitted groans that only I seemed to hear

(marginally less disturbing than the creaking footsteps that followed me up the stairs to the deck). My dad laughed that it was probably a prior owner who drowned in the river, my mom conjectured that it was a biker gang queen that had lived in the cabin after that. My friend Karen accused me of stealing her “ghost friends” by offering them my house to haunt instead of the VW Bug where their “ghost parents” had abandoned them as the floodwaters rose.

To prove that I wasn’t winning over ghosts with the luxuries of my cabin (elevated above flood levels), I offered to help Karen find her missing friends. First, we checked the car. Chewing tobacco congealed on the floor, and flies floated belly-up in a bottle’s last drops of Jack Daniels on the driver’s seat, but there were no playful undead eightyear-olds. We waited for her mom to leave with homemade quilts to sell to tourists, and then climbed into a creek, over a dam of branches deposited by the last storm, to the river at the base of the bridge by which flood levels were measured. There were no spirits, just teenagers competing over who could jump the twenty feet the river had fallen in the last few weeks without landing on jagged rocks. I compulsively scrubbed teacup shards I’d collected along the creek bed, imitating the techniques I’d seen disaster relief workers apply to friends’ dishes. Karen’s other mom returned, smelling like that femme she was seeing on the side, and I was relieved that she didn’t beat us like Karen told me she beat that woman.

Later, Karen realized that communing with a dead girl named Fiona by Ouija board could distract classmates from screaming, “You’ll be gay like your dyke moms!” Instead, they grew obsessed with interrogating the bitter ghost about her untimely demise. First, she claimed that her boyfriend hammer-crushed her skull in the hallway where our classroom now stood. Then she reported being murdered with a different weapon nearly every spirit board session. Fiona insinuated that she had gotten her revenge on her boyfriend when someone suggested she “Get over it” and a boy Karen liked repeated what his father told his mother before taking her to the hospital, “You just like to make men get angry.”

Some kids still whispered the gatherings were “gay,” and I almost participated, envisioning gatherings like the goddess fairs full of beautiful women with luxurious armpit hair at which Karen’s mom sold quilts. But my neighbor Brittany and I were always kept in at recess for not running “fast enough” during the morning mile, and through the classroom window I saw no prayer circles “reclaiming” (in my mom’s words “appropriating”) Isis, Diana, Freya, or Kali. Séance attendance petered out after Fiona refused to explain how she had died “at school” in our classroom’s present-day location when her self-reported death date implied attendance at the school in its former location, before it burned down. Some followers suspected that the fire was Fiona’s revenge, although our teacher, a town history enthusiast,

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F I C T I O N disputed this theory. Classmates resumed their gay-bashing of a heterosexual, conveniently diverting them from noticing my sketches of Catherine Zeta-Jones topless, from calling Brittany “fat” and my hair an “ugly frizzy afro” (odd to me since my hair was nowhere near as curly as my dad’s was when he didn’t weigh it down with petroleum jelly).

When our teacher assigned us to enter a national history competition, Brittany and I interviewed old timers about their ghost stories.

Relatives split between Germany’s occupied zones, fired at just as fervently by border guards on both sides trying to reach one another.

Brittany wanted to ask Alex about moving from postwar Europe to San Francisco and working as a street sweeper when people didn’t like hearing a German accent. So when we saw him gossiping on the porch railing of the corner store, Brittany waved to him and he waved back. I’d never seen him in short sleeves before. We decided not to ask him what Germany was like during the war. “Maybe we could talk to my mom’s friend, Olga,” I suggested, leaving out that Olga was also my mom’s client, that I’d met her on a post-mudslide home visit when I was seven. “She never lived in Germany, but she could tell you about living under Stalin at the time of the Yalta Conference.”

Olga had urged me to sit on the only kitchen chair with a cushion and handed me a pink flowered teacup with a gold rim. She opened a cabinet. “I suppose I’m out of tea.” I insisted I wasn’t thirsty. “But I haven’t met a child yet who didn’t like something sweet.” Her back stiffened lower and lower as she opened one empty cabinet after another, finding the carton of C&H granulated white sugar empty as she shook it over my teacup. “My son hasn’t had a chance to go grocery shopping.” I’d never been doted on like that, and it almost made me feel like I had a grandmother. “How could you reject her hospitality like that,” my mom seethed on the drive home.

But none of that had anything to do with Brittany’s research into World War II and the Cold War, so I didn’t mention it and said what I thought she wanted to hear. “Olga and her husband trudged through Siberia and made it to the United States, and then he drowned standing in the river. My mom said the ocean tide came in while he was fishing and filled his wading boots so he couldn’t move. Just stood there as the water rose. She still asks his advice, not through a Ouija board like Karen talks to Fiona; she has this altar with candles in her living room. He’s the one who convinced her to let relief workers clean their house after the flood. But he didn’t want it elevated.” I regretted my words immediately; Brittany’s house had flooded even after it was elevated. She and I got all the way to a state-level competition narrating and acting out the death of Peter Fuchs, a teenager shot while trying to cross from East to West Berlin, but we didn’t walk to the corner store together as often after that.

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I still tried to play up what we had in common. During our junior high makeover sessions, I lamented not pulling off the neon glitter blue eye shadow that Brittany’s mom wore, knowing that everyone teased Brittany for “looking older” than her mom. When I brought treasure sacks (black garbage bags) full of pop star princess gowns (hand-medowns from my dad’s coworkers) to sleepovers, the petite torn lacy slips and knee-worn leggings fit me more often than Brittany. The too-tight clothes emphasized her curves, and she looked beautiful, but when I told her that, her mom raised her eyebrows at me. So I started saying that I wanted breasts like hers, when more accurately I wanted to touch breasts like hers, and Brittany joked that she had more than enough to go around. She was sick of neighborhood boys staring at her chest, cornering her, and grabbing at her while asking how to get with her skinnier friends. After hearing some of our neighbors describe their abortions and miscarriages in the girls’ room, I wasn’t eager to let boys touch me, either. Brittany’s mom sucked her teeth when I said this and sighed out her cigarette smoke.

I wanted to move out of the constant mildew, the threat of falling trees crushing us as we slept, the weeks of canned green beans when water blocked the road out of the canyon. Years of my dad working 12-hour days plus overtime climbing telephone poles paid off when he replaced the bathroom’s redwood boards with cream walls and the boarded up closet with a shower. I had the fanciest bathroom in the whole canyon. Relaxing in the luxury of bathing like the wealthy, I stepped out of my first shower to look directly into two brown eyes in a long-jawed face whiter than the wall’s barely dried paint. Those eyes glared through strands of black hair as I screamed. The apparition’s skin was smooth and absent of meth scars, liver spots, and nicotine jerkying, ruling out most neighbors (deceased or alive and astro-projecting). Before I could come to any further preteen insights, I heard my mother knocking frantically. “Can I come in or will it violate your bodily integrity?” If I mentioned that the phantom face looked a bit like my brothers if they were paler, with a hint of my grandfather’s scowls in photos taken after he left Puerto Rico to cut sugarcane in Hawaii, my mom might start seeing Boricua undead everywhere, all the while accusing me of profiling my own relatives. So I told her to come in and described the encounter as euphemistically as possible. His hair was black, if you know what I mean. “Sounds like a malevolent spirit, but I wouldn’t worry about it,” she assured me.

“Neighbors think the house has been cursed since that guy who lived here drowned,” my dad winked when I told him. “I forget their name; it’s at the tip of my tongue. Something Hispanic.” I wanted to ask why he didn’t call our last name “Hispanic,” when it was BasquePuerto-Rican, but I knew he didn’t like to talk about that. Whatever his name was, that man’s grandkids knocked at our door to collect a coat rack before we moved out of Icebox Canyon. Their grandfather used

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F I C T I O N to watch TV in the screened in porch my dad had enclosed to create bedrooms, and the architectural changes I relished disrupted their nostalgia. The boarded-up closet door was dismembered, the closet reconstructed into a modern shower space, with no room for old, unpleasant stories. The tub, wash basin sink, and antique mirror were gone; nothing besides the loom and the ‘30s gas stove remained to remind buyers that the house was built in 1945.

Everyone was sharing ghost stories at Brittany’s house when I admitted aloud that the ghost had the dark hair and brown eyes I hadn’t inherited. “Your hair is red-blonde like mine, probably from the same part of Ireland,” Brittany’s mom smiled. I assured her that the side of my family resembling the ghost wasn’t Irish. “The curls come from my dad. He says that when he first tried to buy our house, the owner didn’t trust him to pay for it because he had an afro. The guy was only willing to sell to him after a contractor went into the real estate office, where the corner store is now by the bridge, and vouched for him.” She left the room to crack open a beer. Brittany leaned close to my ear. “My mom doesn’t like how you look at her when she drinks.”

I did stare; my parents were the only adults I knew who didn’t drink, and I wanted to learn how to emulate this sign of normalcy. My parents’ sobriety cast suspicion on them whenever people found out that they weren’t in recovery. “She’s worried that you’ll say something to your mom, ‘cause she’s a social worker.” If the next flood did worse damage to Brittany’s house, it would be hard for her family to stay in a “dry” shelter if her parents weren’t in fact “dry.” Most shelters regulated this through frequent urine testing, so it confused me that Brittany’s mom was worried about my mom snitching on her penchant for Budweiser. “My dad just doesn’t like the taste of alcohol.

And my mom doesn’t like it because her cousins’ dad would always get drunk and beat their mom. My grandma would wake my mom up in the middle of the night to drive over and pick up the kids.”

Brittany’s mom walked into the room in time to hear me tell Shirley’s story.

“Another of my mom’s cousins married her high school sweetheart. The second he got in the door from work at night, he threw his socks. If Shirley didn’t fetch them fast enough, he’d beat her, and it just got worse when he came back from Vietnam. She finally left when he started beating their kids. She stayed with his family in Oregon until the divorce went through, and then she came back to California and eventually started dating the most educated guy in the whole town. When her ex showed up at a Christmas party and gave their son a Bible with a note in it for her, she thought he wanted to make amends. But the note said, ‘I’m going to kill you,’ so her family called the police, who were all her ex’s drinking buddies and didn’t believe that he was a ‘bad guy.’ A few minutes after they left, Shirley’s ex-husband came back and opened fire on the room. She was

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the only one who didn’t duck. It was ruled a ‘crime of passion’ by an all-white jury because the man she was dating was black and Shirley was white.” I wasn’t invited to sleepovers after I told that story, and we moved out of Icebox Canyon soon after that.

Twelve years later, I drive past a trailer park along the Russian River where kids from the old neighborhood have kids of their own now, and I try to imagine the big band stand and swing dance floor that used to be there, that church ladies reminisced about when I was a kid. Considering how many reported lynching victims in Northern California from 1850-1947 were listed as “mestizo,” “Mexican,” “Half-Breed,” and “Indian,” I have a feeling that the “Hispanic” guy who owned our old cabin wouldn’t have been welcome at those dances. And as much as I thought those women were my grandmothers, they probably wouldn’t have wanted me there, either. Halfway to my parents’ house, I notice that the family who built a replica Confederate fort along a West Coast river hasn’t changed their ragged pro-enslavement flag for at least twenty years. A red and yellow circus cage still trails a covered wagon replica inside the upright sharpened log fence. They obviously think someone belongs behind those bars. Although Brittany’s mom had a criminal record herself, she believed that whites shot by police were wronged by the system, but anyone of color killed over similar charges must have been “fighting an officer.” So when Brittany and I swapped family ghost stories, I didn’t tell her about my dad’s second cousin getting shot by police for “prowling” in his own neighborhood, because I’d already heard her say things like that before. I just convinced myself that they didn’t apply to my family.

A submerged moss breeze irritates my nose through the passenger window. Beyond the guardrails rusting since the ‘70s, trees fall away to the river below, an imagined drop that swallows the air in my lungs and tickles behind my knees. As a child, the voice that told me to count only in even numbers also told me to jump right about here. The new asphalt curves downhill and flares at a redwood board burned with the name of my old street, “Icebox Canyon,” thus called because summers were so cold that early 20th century tourists didn’t need iceboxes to keep food fresh, or so one story goes.

The old cabin is painted a forest green now, rather than the charcoal shade it always was when I lived there. The rainbow curtains my mom sewed aren’t visible through my bedroom window anymore, and I wonder if my old floor still has pink flowered tile, if the rest of the house is still the bare polished wood that felt smooth but gave me splinters. No cars are parked out front, but a man stands on the deck facing the road, gripping the railing with his torso’s weight slouched on the balls of his hands. Catching me staring, he heaves his shoulders up, brushing his long, black hair past his cheekbones. He rolls those lovely brown eyes of his, walks to the side of the deck facing

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F I C T I O N the hillside, climbs over the railings, stumbles down the hill, and walks towards the river. He only looks back for a moment before he walks in, the only person I met as a kid whose death I didn’t automatically anticipate, seeing as it had already happened. At least he didn’t care that I left the neighborhood; I was one less person living in his house, and besides, he never liked the bathroom remodeling choices.

I speed back the way I came, slowing down at the corner store, wanting to see Brittany and glad she isn’t there, walking the street where we used to buy candy and exaggerate ghost stories. Where she collapsed. If she had lived closer to town, maybe the fire department would have reached her in time, but she lived ten miles out like I used to, and the hour of CPR came too late to wake her up. If we hadn’t moved out of Icebox Canyon, we would have walked to see Brittany’s parents after she died instead of driving to their house.

“Neighbors keep bringing photos of her.” My friend’s mom looked at me through running mascara, gesturing at a mantel collage spanning the eighteen years of Brittany’s life next to a U.S. flag. “She wanted to get out of here, to be an interior designer.” As we backed out the door, my mom and I promised to attend the memorial service.

Our old neighbors eulogized Brittany for being a mentor to their kids, and I remembered her telling me that that was because their parents asked her to babysit during their weeklong binges. She was the one who was going to make it out of the neighborhood, but they were grateful that she hadn’t left just yet; their kids still needed a parent sometimes. They hinted that she was one of the few who didn’t use, but the rumors persisted that her mom had given her coke so she could lose weight like the children of winery millionaires, rather than the meth that most of the adults around us were on. I didn’t stand up to say anything, knowing that I’d rarely invited her to the house I moved to after leaving Icebox Canyon. She was one of the few friends who didn’t recoil like salted slugs and shriek, “But you’re white as fuck” when I told stories about my dad’s ghosts, not just my mom’s. Brittany advocated for the Gay-Straight Alliance when the administration tried to shut it down, claiming that our support group was a “sex club.” She didn’t think people should “have a good sense of humor” about being called “dykes,” “faggots,” “beaners,” and “niggers,” whether or not her parents used those words. People left photos and candles on the street where she died for most of that summer after we graduated high school, but I kept the photo she gave me during the Berlin Wall project rather than taking it to that makeshift altar and facing the neighbors I’d moved away from.

Sometimes I can’t wait to die and go back to Icebox Canyon. Brittany, Fiona, and I will play dress-up, performing a play that isn’t pre-scripted by adult trauma. Olga won’t be a pity spectacle of Cold

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War Diaspora, a surrogate grandmother afterthought in a “broader” story. Alex won’t be the concentration camp survivor who “made it” as a street sweeper in an American city opening its arms to refugees, even after so many people fleeing were turned back towards gas showers (never mind that I’m here because the U.S. invaded an island and prefers white-passing immigrants). The living won’t force Fiona to relive being murdered. The bathroom ghost will get his “Hispanic” name back out of the anonymity of imperfect memory, and I’ll finally be able to distinguish him from my family members, but he’ll happen to know my grandfather and tell me more about him than my dad ever will. (All us spics know each other, right?) I’ll finally be unafraid to look at that braided wooden mirror. But I’m sick of grasping for time that I lost with the living by grave-robbing their stories. So I hope that instead, Karen walks through a creek just after it floods and finds my ghost at the river. Maybe she can interpret my stories by scrambling all the narrative details with a Ouija board like we used to as kids, hoping we’d never have to be the ones in the ghost stories.

Jenny Irizary grew up along Northern California's Russian River, where she learned to fend off bats drunk on trash can beer, snap in even numbers because she couldn't stop yearly floods, and be too white to be Puerto Rican and too Puerto Rican to be white. She holds a B.A. in ethnic studies and an M.A. in literature from Mills College. Her work has been published in Label Me Latin, Drunk Monkeys, Duende, Snapping Twig, The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Toasted Cheese, and other journals.

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Dallas Crow

Tempted by Grayling

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confess that I am an occasional consumer of trout porn. When it’s a chilly mid-winter of the soul and calendar, and I feel like I have touched neither my rod nor the sleek body of a trout for years and it feels like it may be years again before I can do either of them, I console myself by reading about trout and looking at pictures of those beautiful fish.

It is not the same as being there myself, but it does restore the soul a bit. One can dream of future trout and start planning trips. And the pictures and the stories make those seem like worthwhile—even glorious—ways to spend one’s limited time and money.

The problem with trout porn is that everything is so perfect and clean and successful. The hatch is always on. The fish are always large, hungry, and plentiful. Difficulties are few, often comical, and always overcome. Like the ideal offered by any pornography—whether your guilty pleasure is traditional porn, food porn, real estate porn, or in my case, piscatorial porn—it can make real life feel incredibly unsatisfying, the lay practitioner an incompetent idiot.

Today, I left the beautiful mountain town of Stanley, Idaho (population 63), and its chilly mornings, gravel streets, log buildings, and sun-blessed afternoons, with mixed feelings. I love Stanley, but I only get there every few

years at best, so leaving is always a bit poignant, but I had a promising destination in mind. Plus, the Stanley area was dealing with wildfires nearby, and a number of places I had hoped to fish were off limits.

I woke to blue skies and crossed my fingers that as I headed north, I might find that the places that had been closed would now be open. No dice on that front, but again I wasn’t too concerned. The Salmon River, which flows past Stanley, continues right next to the road for nearly 100 miles. I knew there would be opportunities to pull over and fish later. While driving, I was often torn at those wide spots: should I stop here (I still had the day remaining on my out-of-state license) or should I push on to Montana and the storied rivers there that fill my books and magazines with tales and pictures that often seem like unattainable dreams at home in the city in Minnesota?

As I slowed down and agonized at nearly every wide spot in the road, the trip seemed to take forever. When I would get out of the car to scout out a spot, it would too often look like the Salmon that had mostly foiled me before, an undifferentiated wide, fast surface. I didn’t see the riffles I knew to look for from smaller rivers. I just didn’t know how to fish this kind of water, and mostly I decided to press on to the glories I would find in Montana.

The few casts I made were uninspired (I didn’t even put on waders), and the wind was so strong I could barely get the hopper my friend had tied for me out there. It looked good to me as it floated downstream, its artificial limbs twitching in the current, but no trout deigned to rise to it.

Only minutes after I tossed my rod in the back of the car, committed now to maximizing my Montana hours, the sky which had been that clear dry blue you only find in arid climates was suddenly and completely hazed over with smoke. I could no longer see up the valley, nor could I see the rock formations rising on both sides of me. As I drove north, the smoke only grew in density. It was almost a solid, immoveable. In the town of Salmon, I stopped to buy groceries and gas, and when I asked the girl at the checkout where the fires were, she said, “Everywhere.”

When I asked her if I would be able to get to Montana, she said I better hurry.

They were evacuating the towns north of there.

I decided to skip lunch, grabbed an apple and banana to take with me, and started driving north for the border, hoping to make Montana before they closed the highway. Even before I got out of Salmon, there were signs warning drivers to slow down for fire vehicles on the road. A few miles up

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the road an electronic highway sign announced “NO STOPPING / EVAC IN PROCESS.” It made for a spooky drive. There was almost no traffic, limited vision, no daylight. It felt like the whole world might be covered with smoke, that one might not be able to outdrive it. The towns and houses along the way were empty. The only real signs of life were the National Guards and their Humvees stationed every so often on the side of the road.

As I pressed on, desperately wanting to get to Montana and not to be turned back, I felt pangs of guilt and perspective. The previous day while fishing around Stanley, I had felt like I was fiddling while Rome burned.

I was no Nero, but the firefighting presence was prominent. There was a large encampment on the flats outside of town; there were firefighters in the bakery in the morning; small talk around town was of the fire; merchants had put up handmade signs thanking the firefighters. The encampment north of Salmon was far larger than the one west of Stanley, and while the smoky air around Stanley made the Sawtooths a bit less vivid through the hazy scrim, and I felt more parched after fishing than I might on a normal day, here the smoke was a fact, not an intimation. It was more present than the mountains or the river. It had taken over.

I consoled myself that even if I weren’t fishing I couldn’t really do anything to help. There were professionals from all over the country; a schoolteacher from the Midwest with no training in fire suppression wasn’t going to do an ounce of good. But here I was worried about whether I would make it to the promised land of Montana today or have to backtrack and detour hundreds of winding miles out of the way when the residents of

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E S S A Y these sudden ghost towns stood to lose everything they owned. My concerns were petty, but they were mine, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I crested Chief Joseph Pass (7,264 ft.) and made the right hand turn onto Hwy 43 in Montana.

Though the sky was not instantly clearer, the mood did seem to shift.

Only a few miles into Montana there were forest service campsites with civilians present. There was a pretty little creek making its way through the meadow that offered a brief temptation, but I was saving myself for the Big Hole River. I was heading in to a few days in the trout paradise of southwestern Montana, the rivers of legend, and the Big Hole was at the top of my list. It might not be as famous as some of the others—the Madison, the Gallatin, the Yellowstone, for example (and that’s only a partial list)—but it had something none of them had: grayling.

When it comes to fish, I’m not that into size. Stories and pictures of lunkers, beasts, and hogs don’t do much for me. Those big-bellied things seem like aberrations, perversions, fetishes—they don’t even look like real fish to me. I like my trout delicate, exotic. I’m drawn to pale parr markings along the lateral line. While not technically a trout, the grayling, with its magnificent dorsal

fin, affinity for cold northern waters, and near absence from the contiguous 48 states, make it a special fish in my book. To see one in the wild for a moment would make my entire trip. If I caught one grayling and saw it spread its fan of a dorsal fin just briefly, I could get skunked the rest of the way, and I wouldn’t mind at all.

And the truth is because I am not really a very skilled angler, I didn’t actually expect to see a grayling. I’m selftaught, and I have an extremely limited amount of knowledge and ability. But I was prepared. I had done my homework.

I had the right flies in my box. I would fish for trout with them, and if I caught a grayling—fantastic!—but I would be happy to fish a beautiful river in a beautiful setting, and if I caught a few small trout, I would consider it a very good day.

Well, the long and short of it was that was not to happen. It wouldn’t even come close to happening. Just as I had passed up numerous opportunities to fish the Salmon River earlier, I drove for miles along the Big Hole without stopping. Though the Big Hole is a renowned trout river, grayling are present only in the very upper reaches of it. I had jotted down directions and tips I had cobbled together from various sources as I dreamed and plotted my adventure, but

There was a pretty little creek making its way through the meadow that offered a brief temptation, but I was saving myself for the Big Hole River.

I was heading in to a few days in the trout paradise of southwestern Montana, the rivers of legend, and the Big Hole was at the top of my list. It might not be as famous as some of the others—the Madison, the Gallatin, the Yellowstone, for example (and that’s only a partial list)—but it had something none of them had: grayling.

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I wasn’t convinced the directions were precise enough to get me to the river, so I stopped in the nearest whisper of a town to clarify what I needed to do to find my destination.

It was a smart move. The small gravel road I was directed to lacked a sign of any kind. It was a ten to twelve mile drive down a road so rough it would give washboards a bad name, and rattling over every inch of it I was wondering whether I had interpreted the directions correctly and was actually on the right road. My understanding was that I would be driving alongside the river for quite a while, and though I crossed over a small river—a creek, really—at some point, the road didn’t really seem to be following it. When I did parallel water for a bit, it was all fenced off, and once I got beyond the marked land, the water and road seemed to have drifted apart again. I nosed along, no water in sight or earshot, wondering as always if I was even on the right road.

The road was narrow enough that when a pick-up approached from the other direction, we both had to pull over, and one of us had to stop for the other to pass. Perfect. I got them—all dressed in camouflage—to stop, and asked if I was on the road to the Big Hole. They looked mystified and confirmed that it ran right alongside me, and I had just crossed it over the bridge a little ways back. Once they

had passed out of sight, I got myself turned around and headed back to “the bridge.”

The only thing there was a culvert with a trickle passing through it. There was nothing even remotely bridge-like: no arch, no girders, no railing. I’m used to things being bigger and grander out West than where I live in the Midwest, but it seemed like you would have to be delusional to refer to this as a bridge.

There were no other roads here, and nothing approaching a bridge beyond this structure, so I got out to investigate.

The setting was beautiful, green and glade-like, with a lovely little stream trickling through and around a path of boulders. The ground was soft and mossy, an exception to the miles and miles of arid West surrounding it. It had its own microclimate, a perfect place for a date with a picnic lunch, but there wasn’t enough water to fish. You couldn’t even honestly call it pocket water. I did dangle an elk-hair caddis in a few of the almost pools, but I did so sheepishly, hoping no one would see me. There was nothing to do but drive some more, another day that didn’t measure up to my dreams.

Tomorrow I’ll try to console myself on the Beaverhead (a nymphing river, not my forte), but tonight, as I lie on my bed in the Motel 6 in Dillon, the day’s smoke is still in my nose and mouth. It smells like disappointment and tastes like failure.

Dallas Crow teaches at Breck School in Golden Valley, Minnesota. He is the author of a poetry chapbook, Small, Imperfect Paradise (Parallel Press).

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Bernard Quetchenbach

The Man by the Fire Piute Creek

By Gary Snyder One granite ridge A tree, would be enough Or even a rock, a small creek, A bark shred in a pool.

Hill beyond hill, folded and twisted Tough trees crammed In thin stone fractures A huge moon on it all, is too much.

The mind wanders. A million Summers, night air still and the rocks Warm. Sky over endless mountains.

All the junk that goes with being human Drops away, hard rock wavers Even the heavy present seems to fail This bubble of a heart.

Words and books Like a small creek off a high ledge Gone in the dry air.

A clear, attentive mind Has no meaning but that Which sees is truly seen.

No one loves rock, yet we are here.

Night chills. A flick In the moonlight Slips into Juniper shadow: Back there unseen Cold proud eyes Of Cougar or Coyote Watch me rise and go.

Timothy Meinberg

A

man sits by a small fire, his face obscured by a brimmed hat. Behind him brush, then forest, or desert. Mountains, or at least “One granite ridge.” The sound of flowing water, “a small creek.” And, despite the firelight, over his head “Sky over endless mountains,” with “A huge moon on it all.”

The man is reading something— aloud—from a tattered book or a handwritten notebook. Eventually, he closes the book and puts it in his shirt pocket.

No matter, he continues from memory.

The man is Gary Snyder. Or Richard Shelton, William Stafford, Galway Kinnell, W. S. Merwin, John Haines.

But not really. More like my imagination of them. This was how I envisioned the life of the nature or wilderness poet when I was an undergraduate in the late seventies. And one thing I knew—I wanted that life, or at least to be close to it.

I was younger then, and didn’t know a lot of what I know now. I didn’t know some of the obvious shortcomings of that romantic concept of the poet’s life. The man, for example, is always a man, and almost certainly white. But the point is that, as an undergrad at Brockport State College in upstate New York, I knew that man by the fire long before I knew the contradictions and complexities—real life or literary—he embodied.

Right out of high school, I enrolled in SUNY-Brockport because it was close and affordable, and college was pretty much what people in my suburban neighborhood did after high school if they didn’t want to work for Kodak.

I stayed for three and a half years, experimented with a string of majors— political science, geology, geography— but never completed one. Rarely even completed a semester, if truth be told.

I’d play cards in the student union, and

by November or March I would hardly remember what classes I was enrolled in. Which is one reason I at least try not to be judgmental with my ne’er-dowell students.

So I took a year off, working at a tool and die in Rochester, and somewhere along the way I decided that there was one thing I could do and enjoyed doing. I’d be a writer. So I returned to Brockport as an English major, and almost immediately, as luck had it, was introduced to that guy by the fire. And from that moment, my life was pointed toward—well, here, that is, the life I’m living now as a professor of, most importantly in my own mind, environmental writing and literature.

So, while I won’t say that any one work

by Gary Snyder and his contemporaries “changed my life,” it is fair to say that something I saw in what they wrote and how I imagined they lived pointed to where I am today.

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That was decades ago. And my own students? They don’t seem to care much about the poetry of Gary Snyder, W. S. Merwin, William Stafford. They don’t quite get free verse, for one thing—the occasional rappers admire Longfellow, for God’s sake. Moreover, most of them don’t see any essential link between poetry and the natural world. Sometimes it seems as if they don’t see the natural world itself except in term of stock phrases: chirping birds, beautiful blue lakes. The man by the fire would strike them as hopelessly dated and “kumbayah-ish.” Even the book—low tech and without a light source—is a bit quaint. And I see their point, of course.

That guy by the fire, whoever he was, whatever else he may have been, was a creature of the world I grew up in, where nature meant world, simple as that, immutable and solid at the core.

That core has been slipping away like the icy heart of Greenland, and, as much as I hate to admit it, the man by the fire has something to do with that loss. Not that he wanted it. In fact, most of those people I named—Merwin, Snyder, Shelton—have done all they could to prevent it. But it may be that the idea of nature as the great out there to our in here precluded other, ultimately more useful, perspectives. Bill McKibben discovered long ago that climate change threatens our sense of nature’s independence, but that’s only the most ominous element of the ubiquitous human web.

Who can now see the existence of a bigger place beyond the firelight, beyond our own flickering shadows?

For Snyder at “Piute Creek,” “Words and books / Like a small creek off a high ledge” disappear when confronted with nature in the raw. This, of course, was a good thing. As poets, we touched, albeit momentarily, something far grander and more complete than anything we could say about it. Nature

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The man by the fire, and those of us who wanted to be the man by the fire, maintained a belief in that quasi-shamanistic principle that a walk in the trackless woods, or the remote beach, or the desert, or even the pastoral countryside brought us into a contact more profoundly resonant than, say, a walk in a city, as interesting and engrossing as the latter could be. was, as in “Piute Creek,” the source from which the poet could “rise and go,” presumably reborn. On the cosmic level, of course, that’s still the case. The universe is still, well, universal. But here on Earth, as Robert Hass concludes in his introduction to The Ecopoetry Anthology, “the wild as some electric alternative to the city, or as some imagined freedom from constraint outside our civilized lives, is over” (lxii).

Snyder concludes “Piute Creek” with a gesture to the eternal verities he evokes earlier. His speaker walks away, a temporary presence to the “Cold proud eyes / Of cougar or coyote.” But among the casualties of the high-carbon age may very well be those eyes—okay, probably not the coyote’s—and the belief that the verities nature poets might aspire to are in fact grander than the gesture of aspiring. In short, it may turn out that the “Words and books” outlast the “Cold proud eyes.” Snyder’s poem does its share of navel gazing (“that / Which sees is truly seen”), but that process owes its meaning and worth to its context. Of course, we’ve known since, say, 1851, that projecting our meanings onto nature can be delusional, its consequences written in the whirlpool that consumes the Pequod.

And since Wallace Stevens that there are gestures grander than their results.

But the man by the fire, and those of us who wanted to be the man by the fire, maintained a belief in that quasishamanistic principle that a walk in the

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trackless woods, or the remote beach, or the desert, or even the pastoral countryside brought us into a contact more profoundly resonant than, say, a walk in a city, as interesting and engrossing as the latter could be. I believed that in my twenties without reservation. But, I fear, my students can’t.

And perhaps that’s okay, in the long run. Maybe the city, or at least the family ranch, gives us a better sense of nature as involvement, as something from which we cannot “rise and go.”

We are it, and it, after all, is us. We cannot visit nature, or, more exactly, every step we take is such a visit, even in a suburban shopping mall. In one sense, Maple Street is as much nature as a forest of maples. Well, yes, but—.

Wilderness may, as it turns out, be a less helpful concept than home—Wendell Berry always thought so. Snyder’s “way to the back country” in his poem “Journeys” may lead in the end to a place where the distinction between back country and front country, or space and place, may be irrelevant.

And even that might be okay. At least it seems necessary that we rethink our relationship to nature in that relationship’s best as well as its worst forms.

And to me it seems like the guy by the fire may have been that old Romantic sense in its last best moment on Earth.

Aldo Leopold famously held that when one tinkers with nature, it’s best to keep all of the pieces intact in places—wild places—so that we can see

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where the tinkering started. I suspect that the next decades will see considerable tinkering not only with natural systems but with our way of thinking about—of being part of—those systems.

Let’s hope that poetry, which has been so long so central to the way in which we know, feel, and intuit our place in nature, has a place in that refiguring.

As the last generation of low-carbonworld poets, maybe the generation of Gary Snyder will provide an important starting point.

Leopold also wrote that he was glad not to have grown up in a time “without a blank spot on the map”(158). But that’s where we are now, inexorably embedded in “the Anthropocene.”

There will no doubt be grandeur there as well; nature’s ultimate character is

as close as it’s always really been, in our hands, our thoughts. The man by the fire is the fire maker, after all, and, even as he communed with the natural world, he was, in my image of him, reading. At any rate, I know that I will have to look back on something like “Piute Creek” to hold any refiguring of my role in nature in place. We need the cold proud eyes of something looking back, a sense of presence we’ve lived with from our beginnings in one form or another. It’s not surprising that our students might see the man by the fire’s faults more easily than I did. Hopefully, though, they will understand the need to imagine their words and books disappearing into something grander than themselves, of which they are yet a part.

Works Cited Hass, Robert. “American Ecopoetry: An Introduction.” The Ecopoetry Anthology, edited by Ann Fisher-Wirth and Laura-Gray Street, Trinity University Press, 2013, pp. xli-lxv.

Leopold, Aldo. “The Green Lagoons.” A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River. Ballantine, 1966, pp. 150-8.

Snyder, Gary. “Journeys.” Mountains and Rivers Without End. Counterpoint, 1996, pp. 52-6.

--- . “Piute Creek.” No Nature: New and Selected Poems. Pantheon, 1992, p. 6.

Bernard Quetchenbach is Professor of English at Montana State University Billings. In 2017, he edited The Bunch Grass Motel: The Poems of Randall Gloege (University of Montana Press) and had work appear in Thinking Continental (University of Nebraska Press). His most recent book, Accidental Gravity, was published by Oregon State University Press (2017).

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Leslie Van Gelder

The Memory of Rain

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n May of 2013, as part of a field trip at a Rock Art conference, I visited a pueblo that is not normally open to the public. We were met early in the day and driven out from Albuquerque along the long straight New Mexico highways where, from the distance of a bus window, there was a sameness to the landscape that I knew was part of the great desert illusion. The desert is all about paying attention to the particular and not succumbing to the European explorer myth that these lands are “empty” because they are not full of soft-leaved forests and sheep-filled grasslands.

The desert, by its very nature, invites one to look closer, but in looking close to remember, with often painful reminders, that almost everything has spikes to keep you just far enough away. I taught high school for many years. The emotional landscape of many of my teenager students was much the same.

At the edge of the Pueblo we met Peter, who would be our guide for the day. As tribal leader in country regularly used by film crews, he was comfortable fielding all manner of questions that might make someone less familiar with Anglo idiocy wince.

I sensed he had heard it all before and that there was no level of ignorance that he hadn’t already encountered.

Yet, he was still generous enough to

Leslie Van Gelder

invite us all to a meal at his family’s home after a hike out to see some of the rock art on their tribal lands.

“You’ll like my daughter’s corn soup.

Best in the land.”

We turned off the main highway and onto a gravel road that wound through red rock outcrops before finally stopping at the edge of a walking track. The track, some in fine sand, some in stone, took us through the low scrub and pinion pine up to a plateau with a clear view of the mesas in the distance.

“Look here,” he gestured as he spoke. Below us the grey rocks were

alive with frogs and snakes pecked into their smooth faces. Pecking and carving stone are not easy things to do. Modern graffiti artists have the luxury of speed found in a paint can or a permanent marker, but opportunistic artists of the past would have had a commitment to time to create art in the stone landscapes of the world.

We asked Peter how old the turtles, frogs, snakes, and lightning bolts might be, and he said only that they were “from the old ones.” From the slow weathering of stone in a land of little rain, the time from which they came did not matter so much as that they were still here. His people were famous for resisting the Spanish, led by their charismatic leader, Popé, who staved off the Spanish in the early 1600s, only to have the pueblo brutally decimated in an act of revenge a decade later. That his people are still here, four hundred years later, is indeed testament to their capacity to endure.

Beneath the rock shelf where the rock art spread like a picnic blanket, he gestured to a shelter and encouraged those agile enough to go down and sit in the space. Protected from above, in a tiny stone room, we were able to look out on the whole valley while remaining unseen from above. “The perfect place to see what is coming, don’t you think?” he said when he took my hand to help me over the last stones.

“We know where to sit when we really want to see.”

I wondered if I knew where to sit when I really wanted to see. When in life are the rugged hills that will someday need crossing be so clearly visible from so far off?

“Now, would you like to see some recent rock art?” he asked. With a broad smile he gestured us back to

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the sandy path and out to the dusty bus where we drove further into the country to the edge of a dry arroyo.

We followed him up to a bluff where it appeared that stones had been moved to create something of a water flow. On a ninety-degree day it was difficult to imagine this arroyo filled with water. Peter told us that this part of New Mexico averaged 10 inches of rain per year. By contrast, Milford Sound, just over the mountains from me in New Zealand, can have 10 inches of rain in a day and has 270 inches of rain per year. Peter said that this spot had once been home to a natural spring and that his people had hoped that they could coax it to flow again by removing some of the stones that had blocked its path. A few years earlier a group of men had gathered— older men with sinewy muscles who remembered the spring flowing when they were young, and young men with muscle but no memory of flowing water—all came together to try to tease the spring to flow through the valley again. Though they had tried, the water had not yet returned. “It’s what we don’t see with our eyes that matters,” Peter said in response to someone asking if he was disappointed by the outcome. “The spring knows we’ve tried on its behalf and that we know that water is precious. It was good for us to do this together. That mattered, too. It is enough. We’ll wait now.”

Peter took us higher onto the slope and showed us a rock panel that appeared to have been recently carved.

At the older site, the stone frogs and lizards had become universally weathered over time. Here, this stone was still white in spots where Peter’s sharp stone had met its hard canvas and left behind the flecked debris that would, in centuries of weathering

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to come, come to look like the other decorated stone as Peter, too, would simply become one of “the old ones” to another generation of his people.

He gestured toward the stone to explain the pictograms. “This tells the story of our efforts to help free the stream. It’s mostly about our coming together. Here we are, and then here are the animals who are around us”— he pointed towards a stylized mountain goat and an elk—“and this one,” he smiled, “this one will probably mess with you archaeologists in the future, but to me it’s symbolic of the free play of flowing water.” His thick brown finger pointed to the outline of a dolphin, who would no doubt confound future archaeologists as much as Lascaux’s unicorn has. I loved his sense of humor.

Peter paused for a moment and then encouraged everyone to look at the ground and at the stones at their feet. “Any of you see anything that might have once been a dinosaur?”

With the eyes of a generalist, all I saw were stones that looked like they were simply remnants of the long slow erosion of the red stone hills around us by those ten inches of annual rain.

Peter stooped down and cupped a smooth red stone into his hand and held it up. “Gastroliths,” he said with a smile. “That’s not what my people call them, but that’s what they are. Stones inside the stomachs of dinosaurs, like the way chickens have stones in their

gizzards. Same thing. Our people have always recognized them as special. We use them for polishing pottery so that it shines.”

The crowd of archaeologists crouched down to the ground scanning for gizzard stones. In hand they were softer, smoothed, with the feeling of soapstone instead of sandstone about them. Were it not for Peter’s explanation, they would have remained just rocks at our feet, but now that we knew their provenance and knew that some had been inside a dinosaur, they became more special to us as they went from being rocks to something precious and rare. I have no doubt that a few ended up in people’s pockets to sit on shelves in other places in the world. Though the dinosaurs had long come and gone, their bones scattered to the winds, these stones worn away inside their Precambrian bellies had endured almost unchanged to return in a new role as polishing stones in the hands of potters from a different time who had not known what had made them softer but had nonetheless noticed the strength of their differentness.

While many were now on their knees searching the rock beds in front of them, Peter called us back to his panel, as something had occurred to him that he still needed to share.

“You see these?”

He gestured to tiny marks in the whiteness of the stone.

Though the dinosaurs had long come and gone, their bones scattered to the winds, these stones worn away inside their Precambrian bellies had endured almost unchanged to return in a new role as polishing stones in the hands of potters from a different time who had not known what had made them softer but had nonetheless noticed the strength of their differentness.

“These are the most important things on this panel.”

Like the gastroliths, we would have neglected them for not having eyes with the right sort of vision for reading this landscape. We didn’t know what it was we were seeing captured in those tiny marks on the stone.

“The first time I worked on this panel, I was out here all alone. I was workin’ away at this and didn’t look up for a long time. Just when I finished it, it started to rain, and these marks here”—with a fingernail he showed us the more weathered marks that looked like exclamation points fallen from the sky—“they’re now here as part of the picture. They’re the memory of the rain.”

“Last week, I came out to touch up those stones, knowing you all would be coming this week.” I liked the thought that not only had he and his family probably cleaned the house, but they had also freshened up the rock art for their guests. Peter’s voice slowed, and he shook his head to himself as if he couldn’t quite believe this either.

“And just as I finished, again, on a day like today, just for a few moments, it began to rain.”

He gestured to other marks on the panel, wider ones as if small stones had fallen from the sky onto the panel and had left their mark in its face.

“In time, the rain marks will wear away, but you know, to me, they’re the

only thing that really matters. Trying to bring the spring back to life”—he gestured with a catch in his throat to the hills around us—“they noticed, and they brought the rain.”

I like to think that, for one moment, his dolphin leapt for joy in the spray of water in its lone ocean of desert stone.

Does what really matters in life leave a visible mark in the world?

After my husband Kevin died, a few people asked me “what I missed most,” as if there were a hierarchy of missing where Kevin’s capacity for punning could be placed against his aversion to doing dishes or putting laundry away. The answer I often gave was that I missed a very small piece of geography that, like Peter’s dinosaurs, was now gone from this world forever.

Simply, I missed that soft spot just below his shoulder where I had often rested my head.

It left no residue in the world.

There is no evidence to say that this sacred landscape ever existed, or that I once found myself so completely at home there as to be able to sleep and dream. Yet like Peter’s raindrops, I know it was once what mattered in my world.

Though it left nothing on the outside of me, it is still there within, having etched those deep marks on my heart, like the memory of rain.

Leslie Van Gelder, Ph.D. (Union Institute and University), is an archaeologist, writer, and educator living in New Zealand. Her work on prehistoric finger flutings has been featured in Archaeology, Current Archaeology, and Science News. Her essays focusing on the role of intimacy in human relationships in the past and present have recently appeared in Irish Pages, Earthlines, the Bellevue Literary Review, and in a TEDx talk in Queenstown, NZ. For more information on Leslie, visit her website: www.leslievangelder.com.

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T S E W E ING TH

READ

read-ing [from ME reden, to explain, hence to read] – vt. 1 to get the meaning of; 2 to understand the nature, significance, or thinking of; 3 to interpret or understand; 4 to apply oneself to; study.

KILLING ENDANGERED PREDATORS In June 2017, a federal judge in Arizona ruled against the “McKittrick” policy, under which the government only prosecuted killers of animals on the Endangered Species Act’s (ESA) list of imperiled species when it could prove the killer knew the exact biological identity of the species being harmed.

“The end of the McKittrick Policy is a crucial victory for critically imperiled animals including Mexican wolves and grizzly bears,” said Bethany Cotton, WildlifeProgram Director for WildEarth Guardians. “Wildlife killers who are either profoundly careless or worse, who intentionally target protected animals, no longer have a get-out-of-jail-free card by claiming they did not know the identity of the animals they kill….”

“The Court’s ruling is a victory for endangered species across the country, but especially for those like the Mexican gray wolf, whose highest cause of mortality is illegal killing,” said Judy Calman, staff attorney for the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. “This decision is an affirmation of Congress’s intent that endangered species recovery should be the highest priority for federal agencies, and that people who harm listed species should be held accountable under the law.”

Source: “Court Throws out Feds’ Misguided Policy Limiting Prosecution of Killers of Endangered Wildlife.” The Wildlife News, 22 June 2017, http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2017/06/22/court-throws-out-feds-misguided-policy-limitingprosecution-of-killers-of-endangered-wildlife/.

HISTORY OF THE McKITTRICK RULE In 1995, fourteen gray wolves from Canada were released into Yellowstone National Park. A pair wandered out of the park into the forests near Red Lodge, Montana. Chad McKittrick killed one and was arrested after his friend confessed the killing to federal wildlife investigators. McKittrick claimed that he thought he was shooting a dog, but he was convicted of violating the Endangered Species Act. However, as Chris Clarke explained to KCET: Despite McKittrick’s defeat, though, the Justice Department issued a memorandum in 1999 that turned the wolf-killing defendant’s weakest argument into de facto policy of the federal government. Under what came to be called the McKittrick Rule, the DOJ ordered its staff not to allow cases to proceed against people accused of shooting endangered animals unless the government agency involved—whether the Park Service, USFWS, or someone else—could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew he or she was killing a member of a listed species. If a shooter claims he or she thought a wolf was a coyote when s/he shot it, the Justice Department would not allow prosecution.

In the eighteen years since, the McKittrick Rule has also come to be known as the “I thought it was a coyote” rule. It’s routinely invoked by shooters who kill wolves, a recent notable example being the untimely end of “Echo,” the first gray wolf to visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in more than 70 years. A Utah hunter shot Echo in 2014, then invoked the McKittrick Rule and thereby escaped prosecution.

Source: Clarke, Chris. “Court Scraps Endangered Species Killing Loophole.” KCET, https://www.kcet.org/shows/ earth-focus/court-scraps-endangered-species-killing-loophole. Accessed 23 June 2017.

COYOTES—NOT ENDANGERED The coyote has been in North America for more than a million years. It was a western animal exclusively until it began expanding its territory in the late 19th century.

A government agency called the Bureau of Biological Survey, which became the federal solution to the so-called predator question, began by focusing mostly on wolves, because that was the animal that the livestock industry wanted to eliminate. By the 1920s, they had managed pretty much to extirpate wolves in North America, so they turned to the coyote as “the archpredator of our time.”

A lab was created called the Eradication Methods Laboratory. It began working on various kinds of poisons, like strychnine, to wipe coyotes off the face of the continent. And, in 1931, they got Congress to pass a bill that gave them $10 million to do exactly that. What ensued was the most epic campaign of persecution against any animal in North American history. In a nine year period between 1947 and 1956, this agency killed approximately 6.5 million coyotes in the American West, using blanket poisoning, sometimes with as many as three to four million poison baits at one time….

One of the remarkable things about this campaign is that, at the time it was launched in 1931, there had been no scientific studies of coyotes. No one had any idea what they ate. The hate campaign directed at the animal just assumed it fed on all the classic game species: mule deer, pronghorns, bighorn sheep, livestock sheep and calves.

Source: Worrall, Simon. “How the Most Hated Animal in America Outwitted Us All.” National Geographic, 7 August 2016, https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/coyote-america-dan-flores-history-science/.

COYOTE HUNTING According to LiveOutdoors, the top five states for coyote hunting are Nevada, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming: Nevada is ridiculous when it comes to coyote hunting. The central portion of Nevada is great for coyotes and although there are tons of private ranches, many will let hunters pursue song dogs [i.e., coyotes] during the winter long after the big game hunting seasons have come to an end. I have hunted there and I have felt like I had entire counties to myself with coyotes running everywhere.

As a bonus, Nevada has the best quality western bobcats in the country and those little furballs fetch a hefty price at any fur markets.…

Colorado’s massive number of national forests make it a hard state to beat for coyote hunting.

With cold weather and higher altitudes, their coyotes are very prime and very hungry. Callers can find good success on animals that have never been hunted. Not having to spend large chunks of time asking for permission makes a big difference when it comes to enjoyable hunting trips, so the BLM and national forests are an invaluable asset.

Wyoming is a hunter’s paradise when it comes to coyotes. With wide open spaces and plenty of food and water, the Cowboy State offers 17.5 million public acres to hunt on. Night hunting is legal in Wyoming and there are plenty of reflective eyes to concentrate on as coyote populations are at good levels. There are plenty of bobcats and badgers as well.

Source: Dolbeare, Chad. “Top 5 States for Coyote Hunting.” LiveOutdoors, http://www.liveoutdoors.com/your-openseason-2/211933-top-5-states-for-coyote-hunting/.

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STATE-SPONSORED COYOTE HUNTING IN UTAH In 2012, the Utah legislature passed the Mule Deer Preservation Act. The law allocates a $50 bounty for every properly documented coyote kill. Between 2012 and 2015 the number of documented coyotes shot and trapped was 25,025.

A unique program created by the Utah Division of Wildlife provides a one-of-a-kind opportunity for coyote hunters to help increase Utah’s mule deer populations. An added benefit to the program is that successful hunters can also get paid handsomely for having fun in the field.

Sources: “Get Paid to Save Mule Deer.” Sportsmen for Fish & Wildlife, http://sfw.net/2016/03/10/gettin-paid-to-savemule-deer; Frazier, Colby. “Killing Fields: Utah Pays Hunters $500,000 a Year to Kill Coyotes.” Salt Lake City Weekly, 9 September 2015, https://www.cityweekly.net/utah/killing-fields/Content?oid=2976695.

THE UTAH YOUTH COYOTE HUNT The Utah Youth Coyote Hunt began in 2000. The first year there were 17 youth participants; the event now draws over 500.

The idea was to get youth involved in the great sport of hunting at an early age. Spending a quality day in the field with their parent, uncle, neighbor, or guardian creates better education and lasting memories.

Source: http://www.youthcoyotehunt.com/.

ANYONE CAN BECOME A COYOTE HUNTER OutdoorLife recently offered a “Crash Course in Coyote Hunting”: Whether you’re working on your hundredth coyote or dreaming about dropping your first, our complete guide shows you how to hunt down success this winter.

Source: Carpenter, Tom. “Coyote Nation: A Crash Course in Coyote Hunting. “Outdoor Life, 30 January 2017, https:// www.outdoorlife.com/coyote-nation-crash-course-in-coyote-hunting.

BREEDING DOCILE COYOTES IN COLORADO In Colorado, targeting and killing each year about ten of the most aggressive coyotes is intended to stabilize Denver’s population at between 500 to 1,000.

Coyotes colonizing cities have hit a new hurdle as wildlife managers deploy a precision lethal approach that targets the boldest and most aggressive animals—aiming ultimately to eliminate traits that may lead to conflicts with people.

This push favors docile coyotes—the kind that could coexist with dogwalkers on greenways—and is rooted in new federal research that compares cowering coyote behavior in rural habitat with extreme boldness among those in metro Denver.

The goal is to move beyond questionable strategies of exterminating multiple coyotes, wildlife managers say, and facilitate harmony with humans. Coyotes have their benefits, such as reducing rodents and feral cats, which snatch song birds. But the very same boldness and aggressiveness that enabled coyotes to rapidly colonize cities also is linked to problematic attacks on household pets and occasionally people.

Source: Finley, Bruce. “Bold, Aggressive Coyotes Targeted as Wildlife Managers Seek Peace with People.” The Denver Post, 27 May 2017, https://www.denverpost.com/2017/05/27/coyotes-wildlife-management-strategy/.

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Snowville

Grouse Creek

Tremonton

Logan Randolph Brigham City

Ogden Morgan

Farmington

Manila

Coalville Wendover

Salt Lake City Kamas

Tooele

Heber City

Vernal Roosevelt

Provo

Duchesne

Spanish Fork

Nephi Fairview

Price

Delta Scipio

Garrison

Castle Dale

Manti

Green River

Fillmore Fremont Junction

Richfield

Moab

Modena Milford

Loa Beaver

Parowan

Hanksville

Junction

Panguitch

Cedar City

Tropic

Boulder

Monticello

Blanding

Bluff St. George

Kanab

PROTECTING COYOTES Project Coyote is a national non-profit organization based in Northern California whose mission is to promote compassionate conservation and coexistence between people and wildlife through education, science, and advocacy. Visit http://www.projectcoyote.org/ for more information.

©Hains, Ogden, UT

ANNOUNCING the 2018 Dr. Sherwin W. Howard Poetry Award

to Rachel Jamison Webster

for “White Hawk” and other poems in the Fall 2017 issue The Dr. Sherwin W. Howard Award of $500 is presented annually to the author of the best poetry published in Weber during the previous year.

Funding for this award is generously provided by the Howard family.

Dr. Sherwin W. Howard (1936-2001) was former President of Deep Springs College, Dean of the College of Arts & Humanities at Weber State University, editor of Weber Studies, and an accomplished playwright and poet.

©Jon Williams

ANNOUNCING the 2018 Dr. Neila C. Seshachari Fiction Award

to Frank Scozarri

for “Lost to the Light” in the Fall 2017 issue The Dr. Neila C. Seshachari Award of $500 is presented annually to the author of the best fiction published in Weber during the previous year.

Funding for this award is generously provided by the Seshachari family.

Dr. Neila C. Seshachari (1934-2002) was a much respected advocate for the arts and humanities.

Professor of English at Weber State University for 29 years, committed teacher, accomplished scholar, critic, and fiction writer, Neila was editor of Weber Studies for 12 years.

Nonprofit Org U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT No. 151 OGDEN, UTAH

Weber State University 1395 Edvalson Street, Dept. 1405 Ogden, UT 84408-1405 www.weber.edu/weberjournal Return Service Requested

AN INTERNATIONAL, PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL SPOTLIGHTING PERSONAL NARRATIVE, COMMENTARY, FICTION, NONFICTION, AND POETRY THAT SPEAKS TO THE ENVIRONMENT AND CULTURE OF THE AMERICAN WEST AND BEYOND.

SPRING/SUMMER 2018—VOL. 34, NO2—U.S. $10 CONVERSATIONS Mali Subbiah with Azar Nafisi, Laura Stott & Tanner Lee with Matthew Olzmann, Scott Rogers & Sarah Vause with Lynda Barry, Dan Bedford with John Cook, and Sam Zeveloff with Dan Flores ESSAYS

John Cook, Dallas Crow, Bernard Quetchenbach, and Leslie Van Gelder POETRY Matthew Olzmann, Richard Robbins, Kate Kingston, Lois Marie Harrod, Maya Khosla, Linda Swanberg, Christopher Suda, Sarah Fawn Montgomery, Mercedes Lawry, Eric Paul Shaffer, Wm Lynn, Larsen Bowker, Nathan Whiting, Daniel J. Langton, Joel Long, Sheryl L. Nelms, Donna L. Emerson, and Virginia Thomas FICTION Louis J. Fagan, Bruce Holbert, nv baker, and Jenny Irizary https://www.facebook.com/weberjournal

ART Gerald Purdy

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