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Archives for March 2022

March 1, 2022 By Claire Guyton

Writer’s Notebook: “Alams for Cleaning Out the Painter’s House”

Writer’s Notebook: “Alams for Cleaning Out the Painter’s House”

Published May 2021, Issue #9

artist's studio with abstract apintings, paint palettes, masking tape, desk and chair
Mary Linnea Vaughan studio in Santa Rosa, CA, by artist.

All three publications in this issue have the look of verse, and the white space surrounding a piece makes more of an impression in that form, typically, than when text is formatted to look like prose. For that reason, and because Kristen Roach’s “Last Responder” draws much of its power from the way it utilizes its white space, we thought a lot about formatting, and the way the eye moves over text, as we put this issue together. All of which demands a word from Charlotte Friedman.

Charlotte published with us last May, a piece also in verse that used unusual text placement to great effect. I asked Charlotte for her thoughts about the way she approached the page when she wrote that piece:

“Alams for Cleaning Out the Painter’s House” was inspired by the discovery of Khaled Mattawa’s alams in Fugitive Atlas (Graywolf 2020). These brief poems, created and chanted by Bedouin poets of eastern Libya and western Egypt, seemed appropriate for the containment and amplification of the narrator’s grief as she cleans out the house of the painter, her father. Each alam may portray an image, a thought, a wish or a memory. As the narrator cleans, her mind leaps from the present to remembered images and experiences. The brevity of alams and their arrangement on the page leaves the reader free to wander in the poem, much as one’s eyes and mind do, when looking at a painting.”

Yes, it does leave the reader free to wander! I love this piece so much because it offers me three ways to read and understand it. On my first encounter, I read top to bottom down the left side, then top to bottom down the right. Immediately after that first reading, I took a second trip, this time reading left to right, each stanza at a time—the top left stanza, followed by the top right stanza, followed by the second-from-the-top left stanza, and so on. Right away I then read the piece a third time, starting with the top line to the left, followed by the top line to the right, followed by the second-from-the-top line to the left, and so on. Each reading was special and intriguing, and I couldn’t decide which way I liked it best. I still can’t.

Thank you, Charlotte, for letting us showcase your work. And congratulations for making the 2022 Best of the Net list of finalists with this piece!

—Claire Guyton

Filed Under: Writer's Notebook

March 1, 2022 By Claire Guyton

From the Editors | Issue #16

March 2022

From the Editors

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces,
I would still plant my apple tree. —Martin Luther

Kitten with black and white markings on face peering out from behind architecture books on a shelf.

Too often, these last two years, we’ve felt as though the world might, tomorrow, go to pieces. Issue #16 goes live as once again the world trembles. We offer you three, long, deep breaths. Three small, very different, impressionist journeys. Nate Maxson’s ekphrastic “Winter Solstice 2021” unwinds—marches in a column, in long retreat across the empty spaces—from a scene of a very different time, in a very different Russia. Joy Gaines-Friedler’s narrator in “We Will Not March Back” tells the story of a life moving through gunshot, trying to find a way back, wanting to spin free. The movement in Kristen Roach’s “Last Responder” comes from the reader’s eye over the page, through a collection of text tumbled through space and then settling on two final words. In which we read hope. Spring is coming.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl


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Filed Under: From the Editors

March 1, 2022 By Cheryl Wilder

Who made it? Issue #16

Who made it?

March 2022 | Issue #16

With “Winter Solstice 2021” by Nate Maxson

“Politik” by Coldplay.
Count Argutinsky crossing the Caucasian range, 1892, oil on canvas, 126 x 199 cm, by Franz Robaud.

With “We Will Not March Back” by Joy Gaines-Friedler

Duet, a short film  about ballet and women, featuring Yasmine Naghdi and Beatriz Stix-Brunell dancing a pas-de-deux.

With “Last Responder” by Kristen Roach

“Close-up of hands moving slowly to hold each other” by Beautiful Relaxation.

Acknowledgments

Illustration of multiple earths by geralt via Pixabay.

3D rendering of floating cement staircase by Antonio Solano via Bigstock.

Background photo of carnival ride by ElleJayeDee via Pixabay. Photoshopped by Cheryl Wilder.

Photo of white lotus by HaHa169 via Wikicommons. Photoshopped by Cheryl Wilder.

Background photo of flower decoration made from bullet metal by EM80 vis Pixabay.

Filed Under: Who made it?

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