Month: November 2018
Footwear
by Bruce Robinson
… and the poor for a pair of shoes.
— Amos 2:6
that first perceptible
aperture on a sock,
the quiet depredation
of the heel, the way
a toe begins to break
instigation of a rift,
or swift elaboration
of plunder in a sole:
and were you in my shoes
oh, you’d feel it too.
Work by Bruce Robinson has appeared in Poetry Australia, Fiction, Pleiades, Mobius, Fourth River/Tributaries, Cleaver, and Pangyrus, and is forthcoming in Blueline and the Beautiful Cadaver “Dreamers” anthology. A lifelong fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers, a slightly less than lifelong devotee of whippets, Charles Trenet, and Marcel Pagnol, he’s now more likely to be found watching Gojira with his granddaughter. Or watching his granddaughter with Gojira.
What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Footwear”? “Footwear,” as near as I can tell, sprang fully grown from…somewhere…at the beginning of the year. The only real edit I can detect – and because so much of my drafting is done, and consequently erased, on computer, there’s a real limit to what I can detect – is the addition (substitution) at some point of the word “plunder.” And I have no idea why I have the epigram; it’s not as though I’m reading Amos on a regular basis, although in preparing these notes I discovered that I also have a draft of a rondelet which plays with an interesting concept in Amos. Dunno. But without question, there must be in this foggy genesis story some recognition of my long history of wearing socks until they’re practically shredded, of wearing shoes well beyond Adlai Stevenson’s comfort level. And yet I want to say, in my defense – is it defense or is it self-incrimination – that I take some pride in my stash of finely shaded (and mostly intact) socks and natty, if off-the-shelf, shoes. Yes, there’s something of the Midas complex here, and I’m at some pains to trot out some decent footwear every now and then. I’m happy I did not retain “Footwear” in some lower left-hand drawer. by Dan Crawley It was Mindy’s turn to keep an eye on her little brother while her parents and sisters wandered from one western arts and crafts store to another, and she was not happy. Mindy yelled at her little brother to get moving from the back end of one store that reeked of leather and burlap and mildew. She wanted to go try on moccasins with her sisters. But he wouldn’t budge from his spot below the many shelves displaying Kachina dolls high over his head. Their faces of strange looking animals or otherworldly beings, their colorful wardrobe, and a few in some kind of frozen dance, kept her little brother absorbed. She pulled on his arms and attempted to shove him off his feet. If he did stir out of place, he immediately bounced back to the same spot. Mindy told her little brother how much she hated him as she strolled backwards. She glanced at him one more time from the open door of the store and wished he’d disappear once and for all and waved so long forever, sucker. She passed a few storefronts, looking for her sisters. But when Mindy saw her parents trying on cowboy hats through a large window, she panicked. They hadn’t seen her, alone, she kept telling herself, and ran back to her little brother. But he was no longer in his spot under the dolls. Mindy quickly searched the whole place, calling out his name. Then she stood in the middle of the store and slowly turned around and around. It really happened. Her little brother really disappeared. When she found her sisters, she told them the greatest thing ever just happened. Her sisters, though, were too busy trying on moccasins and didn’t care much. So Mindy sat on the woven rug, shoving her bare feet into different slippers of soft leather until she felt tapping on the top of her head. She told her mom towering above that no one was messing with her little brother. Her mom told her eleven-year-old girls should know better. She told her mom he was stuck in the same place she’d left him, looking at the same things, like always. Mindy tried acting nonchalant as she led her mom back to where her little brother vanished, preparing herself for the worst. And when they entered the store, Mindy couldn’t believe it. There he was back in his spot, gawking up at the dolls. After her mom scolded her and left, Mindy stood by her little brother. She placed her hands on the back and top of his head, a gentle cradle. She told him she wasn’t going to hurt him. He didn’t have to be afraid of her. But she wanted him to know that her powers were just getting started. Dan Crawley’s stories have appeared in a number of journals, including Wigleaf, New Flash Fiction Review, New World Writing, Jellyfish Review, CHEAP POP, and North American Review. He is a recipient of an Arizona Commission on the Arts creative writing fellowship. Along with teaching creative writing workshops and literature courses, he is a fiction reader for Little Patuxent Review. What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Powers”? “Powers” is part of a linked collection of flash fiction, following a family on an endless vacation. I wanted to write a flash with only one of the sisters and the brother alone and figured I’d place them in a setting where tourists would go (I pictured shops in Sedona, AZ). This little flash was a different writing experience for me. Usually I think through a story and have an idea of where I’m going, possible resolutions, when I start writing the first few drafts. I had no idea where “Powers” would take me. All I had was a conflict: the sister wants to go with her sisters instead of watching her brother, and he doesn’t want to move from his spot, staring at the dolls in a store. Everything else was a surprise as I wrote it. The magic, the ending lines. I read a final draft to my dad (someone who is not very interested in fiction) and after the last lines, all he said was, “Ha. Nice.” I knew I had something then. by Connor McDonald A Sailor Moon sticker And a cigarette between A story that disappears Connor McDonald writes from Salem, Oregon. He received a BA in Philosophy at Willamette University and is now pursuing a law degree as part of Willamette Law. His haiku have been published in Britain, Ireland, Canada, and America. What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Sketch 1”? Sketch 1 was written on a TOPS Docket Gold Writing Pad during a carpool home. No edits, just an attempt at intuition following Ed White’s suggestion to Kerouac that he sketch the streets with words. by Laton Carter There is movement at the periphery of your vision. It might be madness. (The mad be madness. You can catch it. Or after you’ve snuffed its life. Protect multiply. Bodies disappear. Reappear. Delicate fragrant skin. Dispose of it. (But that is not an invitation, any sweet surface in which no movement at all.) The drowned Laton Carter’s Leaving (University of Chicago) received the Oregon Book Award. Previous work has appeared in Brooklyn Review, The Citron Review, Narrative, The St. Ann’s Review, and Western Humanities Review. What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Fruit Fly”? This poem is part of a series I’m working on where insects either speak or are spoken about. The fruit fly, as I started obsessing about it, seems itself a compressed form of obsession: it swirls around and dive-bombs a sugar source until it’s either ready to reproduce or until — say, with a glass of wine — it drowns in its own objective. This behavior, which seems like a kind of madness, induces its own madness — just when you think you’ve extinguished it by a clap of your hands, your palms open to nothing, and the thing is already flying around again. The poem, as a result, took on its own uncertain behavior — who was drowning? The fly (doing its job) or the speaker (trying to negate the job)?Powers
Sketch 1
on the back of a black
Suzuki
her ringed fingers
down the roadFruit Fly
cannot be fully dispensed with.) Or it might not
you haven’t. The movement reappears
the ripened skin from it. Bodies
how to catch a body.) Lay out overnight
to drown. (Drowning movement becomes
see no bodies. No one has ever been talking.
Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.
Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.
Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.
Submissions
Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again March 15, 2023. Submit here.
Upcoming
09/09 • Rae Gourmand
09/16 • Chiwenite Onyekwelu
09/23 • TBD
09/30 • TBD