Waterwheel Review

Literature Without Labels

By

From the Editors | Issue #18

May 2022

From the Editors

Art is truth setting itself to work. —Martin Heidegger

editors suzanne smith, cheryl wilder, and claire guyton pose in fun hats and accessories

All art is one kind of truth or another, fashioned by the individual aiming for the universal. Jocelyn Winn in “Wishes” imagines what a dandelion might tell us about girlhood. In “My Friend Stacy Works in the Emergency Room” by Cortney Davis, a young Pavarotti blesses a pandemic nurse and her patients with his timeless voice. Among many other things, the answer to James Landwehr’s “What Is It?” is poetry wearing camouflage. All written art is one kind of truth or another—phantom images, scents, sounds, and textures fashioned by just-right combinations of words. Our final issue of this second season accomplishes what we always hope to do with our waterwheel; we and our authors move through the unknowable armed with the particular. Always turning and returning. Setting ourselves to work.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl 

Join Our Growing Community

We’re just getting started here at Waterwheel Review, and we couldn’t be happier. But we have big dreams. Right now we have two ways—in addition to being an author or maker—to be a part of our labor of love.

1. Sign up for our newsletter.

You’ll know when each issue goes live and learn news about WWR and our authors.

*We promise never to sell or share your information. We hate spam as much as you do. For more info, read our full Privacy Policy.

2. Support literature without labels.

All expenses are out of pocket. Any help goes to our submissions manager and media. We would LOVE to one day pay authors, hold contests, speak at conferences… (slow down, deep breath). Thank you for supporting literature and art!

Support WWR

By

Who made it? Issue #18

Who made it?

May 2022 | Issue # 18

With “My Friend Stacy Works in the Emergency Room” by Cortney Davis

“Che Gelida Manina” by Luciano Pavarotti.
Dissection illustration of the arrangement of the cardiac nerves. . . in mammalia”.
Dissection illustration from thesis on the “Arrangement of the cardiac nerves … in mammalia,” 1861, James Bell Pettigrew.
Colored wood engraving of female nurse holding a candle in a roon full of sick men in beds.
“Florence Nightingale. Coloured wood engraving, 1855.” by R. Burgess, Wellcome Library no. 7456i via Wikicommons.

With “What Is It?” by James Landwehr

“z.x^3 + 1i*z.x^2*z.y^2 – z.y^3 + c” by DmitiriiFractaler.
abstract painting with shades of yellow, pink, and orange, the top 2/3 in geometric pattern, the bottom 1/3 in grass-like pattern
SS-70, 2022, acrylic on paper, 11.5 x 8.25 in, by Sara Risley.
watercolor illustration, compact blots of dark blues, yellow, orange resembling hydrangeas fracted through a prism
Orange 3, “An essay on a New Theory of Colours and on Composition in General,” by Mary Gartside.

Acknowledgments

Photo of lion yawning by Clickit and photo of dandelion field by Silvae1 via Dreamstime. Photoshopped by Cheryl Wilder.

Photo of mother and child by Ivan Hafizov and photo of polaroid by Tuja66 via Dreamstime. Photoshopped by Cheryl Wilder.

Background photo of dandelion field by Customposterdesigns via Dreamstime.

By

Who made it? Issue # 17

Who made it?

April 2022 | Issue # 17

With “After Uncle Louie Got Me on Some Nights at the Daily News” by Joe Benevento

“Mr. Tambourine Man” by Bob Dylan.

With “A Brother Is” by Nancy Huggett

“Brother” by Kodaline.

With “Bird Say” by Jeff Schiff

“World’s Weirdest Bird Sounds – Part One” by Bird Kind.
The Tower of Babel, 1563, oil on panel, 44.88 x 61.02 in, by Pieter Brueghel the Elder.

Acknowledgments

Photo of men with rolls of newsprint from the series DOCUMERICA via Wikicommons.

Background photo of vintage punch clock by Brad Calkins via Dreamstime.

“Family record of [blank] / Chapman Bros. Lith. Chicago” via the Library of Congress.

Background image of sister and brother walking down path by Annie Spratt via Unsplash. Photoshopped by Cheryl Wilder.

Background photo of paper cranes by Rishabh Dharmani via Unsplash.

By

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