Literature Without Labels
Background photo of window by Marina1408 from Bigstock.
Photo of woman by Natasha_S from Bigstock.
Background photo of open door by AkintevS from Bigstock.
Background photo of lighthouse by maxime raynal from Flickr.
The work of this issue is so beautiful, so weirdly wonderful in its different shapes and voices. No pressure, dear December authors—Liam Strong, Nancy Jorgensen, Shannon Bowring—but for me, your work, woven together, comes with a prescription for 2021.
This year has been so steeped in crisis, it’s hard for many of us to consider what came just before. I was already avoiding backward looks before 2020 dawned, and was so thankful, as we counted off those final days of 2019, to see the new year.
In early August 2019, my father had the stroke that killed him two weeks later. Six weeks after that, my mother died in particularly painful and distressing circumstances. The rest of the year was a blur.
By February 2020, I was beginning to feel a little like myself. Pushing through my days became less difficult, my head began to lift. Then… well. All the events that have inspired the habit of a head shake accompanied by the muttered “2020” began to unfold.
My 2019 strategy was to keep my fogged head down and push through, whispering, “This, too, shall pass.” It worked well enough while life, arranged around my confusion of grief, more or less conformed to experience. But here we are, nearing the end of an extraordinary year leading to the next extraordinary year, and I have no idea exactly what’s going to pass, what the passing will look like, and how long it will take.
No lowered head, no closed eyes. No whispering.
I’m doing two things this month to say a firm goodbye to 2020 and walk with intention and strength into whatever the next year holds: Taking stock and making joy.
I’m moved in our December publications by the stories of how we’re made by family and place, by intergenerational connection and disconnection, by deeply personal gain and loss. The events of 2020 and especially the pandemic have inspired reflection on exactly these things, and I am so grateful, given my 2019, for reminders of others’ stories, for every dose of empathy that pulls me back to community. So much the better when the art of the delivery brings joy.
I’m transported by this issue into the lives—real or imagined, the meaning is as deeply felt—very like me or completely unlike me; so close I can feel their breath or presented in whole image, like a painting that shows me something different depending on my sightline. And the art. Dense and chaotic (Strong’s “oil spill”), ordered and lightly spaced (Jorgensen’s “A Thing of Beauty”), strung along the page like birdsong (Bowring’s “Avian Elegies”).
This work, laced together with companion pieces ranging from the gifts of nature, to a beloved master like Patti Smith, and the generous artists Maggie Lach and Deb Farrell, helps me both take clear-eyed stock of loss—personal and communal—and remember what it is to make joy. And share it.
Claire Guyton
Photo of boat in water by SimonBratt from Bigstock.
Background photo of feathers by Evie Shaffer from Pexels.
Background photo of mulberries by Thirdman from Pexels.
“Mouth of the Cuyahoga River” courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HAER OHIO,18-CLEV,17-8, via Wikimedia Commons.
Background photo of Petoskey stones by Debchristiansen, via Wikimedia Commons.
I wanted my co-editors to weigh in. “Which one is the creepiest?” I texted. Answer: THE BUNNY.
Presenting our publications with companion pieces—a photo, song, video, whatever supports and expands appreciation for our authors’ work—has been part of our vision for Waterwheel Review from the start. And next to discovering remarkable work in our submissions queue, finding and making these companion pieces is my favorite part of the job.
Sometimes we land on the right piece in collaboration with the author; other times the perfect song or video or image presents itself with a simple Google search. I have paired writing with creations by a friend, a son, and, in the December 2020 issue, my sister Deb. Occasionally a piece emerges from the oddments of personal experience. In the case of Creepy Bunny, deeply personal. And deeply odd.
W.A. Schwartz’s “Wish” shook me up. It’s all of 91 words, but it feels bigger than its small size. One sweet little scene in 91 words. A sweet scene that turns strange and then, by the end, sickens me. That particular combination of sweet and sick… I knew exactly where to look for a companion piece.
After our mother died, my sisters and I faced the herculean task of her house, built by our newlywed parents in the early 1970s. I say herculean because Mom kept everything she touched, especially after our father died in 1983. Much of the stuff was relatively easy to assess, categorize, and dispatch—give to loved ones, sell at auction, donate, trash. Some, we divvied up during long, boozy negotiations. The leftovers, out of grief and exhaustion, we stored for future reckoning.
That time arrived with the pandemic. In March, I started sorting. And all the determined, head-down plodding through the leftover bits and pieces of my childhood home led to Creepy Bunny. In a nod to Catherine Schmitt’s “The Family Dollar,” also in our November issue, and to offer a proper sense of Bunny’s provenance, a list of a handful of the items I sorted:
~Advertisement for a crocheted Victorian-era tablecloth.
~Empty paper bag from Vality Department Store.
~Canceled check paid to my nursery school in 1981.
~Pamphlet: “Your Mysterious Cat.”
~Article: “New cookie recipes feature raisins for chewy goodness.”
~Lined paper marked by a single long-division problem.
~Show times for the Old Country Cloggers.
~A Dear Abby column that states, “Only divorced women are addressed as ‘Mrs.’ followed by their first names. A widow keeps her husband’s name until she remarries.”
And: Amazing Magical Jell-O Desserts.
Flipping through the Jell-O recipe book, I saw creepy. And sickly sweet. Ill-advised recipes, bizarre photos, clown-like expressions, persistent calls for corn syrup… I got a disturbed feeling from that recipe book. It slants what should be sweet treats into here’s-candy-get-into-my-van nightmares. And that’s exactly the feeling I get when I read “Wish.”
I chose the three worst recipes and snapped photos for my co-editors. Check out the honorable mentions “Funny Lemon Freeze” and “Jellied Joker.” For creepy, Bunny stands above. Marshmallow rabbit head impaled by toothpick whiskers. Torn purple gumdrops for vacant eyes and a red blob for the mouth. Mired in a glass of green pudding and set against a pattern of… Santas riding motorbikes? “Bunny,” texted Claire, “is creepy as fuck.” Cheryl added, “The toothpicks make it look like it’s been stabbed through the face.”
A good companion piece both supports the publication it appears with, and interacts in some small way with the issue’s other two publications and their companion pieces. For me, Creepy Bunny’s connection to “Family Dollar” is this: If I wanted to make Bunny Mousse, a dollar store would be the quickest, cheapest way to pick up the ingredients. And this picture of a comically awful dessert meant to be fun for kids fits the nod to tilted, murky, half-remembered disappointments and confusions of childhood in Mary Warren Foulk’s “Corralling”—another sweet little scene that ends in something sour.
My mother has been gone for five years. I’ve reduced the leftovers to seven or eight bins, which still test my attention and energy. Now at least one of those bits gets a new life. Because my mother just reached across time and space to give me this small gift, her note stuck to the front: “I found this cookbook among mine. It was a gift to you when you turned 5. I’m sure you will want it.” As it happens, I do.
Suzanne Farrell Smith