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‘Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets’ by Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin

poems for writing prompts for poets fox levin 2ndedIn the second edition of Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press, 2019), authors Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin provide 18 entertaining and motivating prompts that range from the light-hearted to the serious and challenging. Drawing on both traditional forms and contemporary experiments, the authors encourage the use of found text, song titles, facts, and quotations. They propose scenarios and invite a poetic response. They even show how to “translate” the text of a poem written in a language you can’t read! Each prompt is followed by suggestions for getting started and sample poems written in response. What distinguishes Poems for the Writing from other poetry-prompt collections is that most of the sample poems are by undergraduates, community workshop participants, and some working poets. The responses are fresh, energetic, and unexpected.

This is an excellent book for poets and for teachers of poetry. The authors, both poets and teachers themselves, have selected prompts that work well in the classroom—for poets at any level and just about any age. They encourage emotional orientations, helping the students to plumb their personal experiences—and with just enough structure to help students struggling to organize and articulate emotional responses. But all of this comes with a touch of levity. Like Fox and Levin’s own approach to teaching, the book is friendly, open, and eclectic. The results are a testament to the extent to which prompts can trigger new and imaginative insights and jog one out of a routine approach to the blank page. Prompts are entry points—doors and doorknobs, as the authors put it—to new rooms, new emotional and intellectual spaces. The results are likely to be both surprising and satisfying.

 

Review by Antonia Clark
Antonia Clark has taught poetry and fiction writing and is co-administrator of an online poetry forum, The Waters. She is the author of a poetry chapbook, Smoke and Mirrors, and a full-length poetry collection, Chameleon Moon (2014, 2019), and the forthcoming Dance Craze. Her poems and short stories have appeared in numerous print and electronic journals, including The Cortland Review, Eclectica, The Pedestal Magazine, and Rattle, and she has reviewed poetry collections for The Rumpus, Literary Bohemian, Wild Goose Poetry Review, and IthacaLit. Toni lives in Vermont, loves French picnics, and plays French café music on a sparkly purple accordion.

“B.K.” by Robert James Cross

fiction international i52 2019“B.K.” by Robert James Cross stands out in Issue 52 of Fiction International. Instead of straightforward text on the page, he utilizes other means: telegrams, “handwritten” and typed letters, an illustration, and official documentation.

The story unfolds in messages between Michael and Linda, siblings growing up without parents and left to rely on each other. Their letters take place from 1963 to 1967. In between the chatter about family, the two discuss their current historical events of John F. Kennedy’s death and the Vietnam War. Between this all, their love for each other brightly shines through.

The variety of means of communication makes the piece visually appealing and turns the idea of storytelling through letters on its head. Seeing these written or printed items given a physical form makes the piece feel more real and personal. Cross’s bio claims he is “under the influence of the unconventional,” and that definitely shows in this piece.

Cross isn’t the only one getting creative in this “Body” themed issue. Plenty of other writers push the limits of their craft, including Carol Guess & Aimee Parkinson in “Girl in Medical Trials1” Ivars Balkits in “Brain Talking to Brain,” and D.E. Steward in “CRISPR.” In Issue 52, Fiction International offers readers a group of talented writers unafraid to push boundaries.

 

Review by Katy Haas

 

“The Suit” by Julie Marie Wade

american literary review suit wadeThe Suit,” published in the Spring 2019 issue of American Literary Review, is an essay by Julie Marie Wade in which Wade questions, but never resolves, what it means for her to be born in a female body.

Much of the essay is set in scene and centered around a tight-fitting suit that Wade’s mother is committed to squeezing her husband—Wade’s father—into. When Wade’s image-obsessed mother is not home, her father splurges on James Bond films and hotdogs and explains to Wade that “every man wants to be James Bond,” even though he doesn’t believe he will ever be similar to the handsome agent.

Meanwhile, Wade’s mother encourages Wade to nominate her as “Most Inspirational Mother,” via a department store writing contest. Between scenes, Wade gives us drafts of her contest submission where she wrestles with representing her mother in “equal parts nice and true.” Wade tries to define her mother as a woman who “can see through who people appear to be and identify who they might be.” In these drafts, we understand that although Wade praises her mother, she also examines how her family relationships influence the way she approaches her own identity.

Through metaphor, shopping with her parents, and contest drafts, this coming-of-age essay is a story that explores gender identity in a home that explicitly encourages traditional roles.

 

Review by Alyssa Witbeck Alexander

“Saturn Devouring His Son” by William Walker

southern humanities review v52 n3 fall 2019In the Fall 2019 issue of Southern Humanities Review, William Walker concocts a suspenseful, haunting tale with “Saturn Devouring His Son.”

The short story brings readers out into the country where William and his mother live. The piece begins: “A car idled at the end of our driveway, and its lights were setting the living room curtains aflame. Somebody was out there walking around, but we could only make out the silhouettes stepping and out of the high beams near the pine trees.” The first pages continue with suspense as the two wonder if it’s William’s father outside watching them, the mother and son then learning how to shoot a gun in self-defense and surrounding themselves with familial support.

We’re momentarily lulled into putting our guards down as Tom Kaczynski comes into the picture, inserting himself as the new father figure to William and the new lover to his mom. William’s annoyance at his presence takes over the piece. Even as Tom takes measures to make the family safer, William’s dislike for Tom eclipses the worries of William’s dad.

However, the story reaches a brutal, explosive climax, shocking readers back into the state of tension from the beginning of the piece and we must watch as William tries to sort through his feelings in the days after tragedy strikes. Walker writes with clarity and detail, causing me to double check which genre I was reading several times. Was this fiction or nonfiction? At times I could believe either, a testament to Walker’s skill.

I recommend reading this story with several lights on, and only after you’ve double-checked the locks on your doors.

 

Review by Katy Haas

‘The Stillness of Certain Valleys’ by David Salner

stillness of certain valleys salnerDavid Salner‘s The Stillness of Certain Valleys is impressively sustained. I could quote memorable lines from every poem. “Beer for Breakfast” is a pitch-perfect opening poem, and the subsequent sequence “A Dream of Quitting Time” is very strong.  Then comes the agonizing “Goodbye to My Big Toe.” Salner writes with gritty authority about many kinds of work, including a stint as a cab driver in “Like Silver,” as well as in steel mills and coal mines. Now that world is in a state of collapse, hence “water drips from a tipple / to wild strawberries sprouting from rail beds” in the title poem. I admire the moving way he evokes the dignity of a working man in “Horse Trailer with Beans”:  “nothing / but the dirt under his nails / and who he is.” This first section concludes with the understated “Steel Lunch Pail.”

The second section begins with a boy learning to be an artist, which could be the poet himself or Winslow Homer: “He creases uniforms, / inks the hollow of a gully.  With purple shadows / he molds the blunt, half-buried stones.”  Then come a series of poems about major American figures: Whitman during the Civil War, Melville brooding on human pain, Frederick Douglass working at the dry docks in Fells Point.

The third section features poems about his grandparents and growing up, before returning to the world of work, which Salner always depicts with convincing precision. Near the end in “The Lakefront Closes at 8 PM,” the poet notices as he walks to the parking lot how the weeds have “white flowers.” It’s that impressive eye for telling detail that make the whole collection a compelling and convincing read. Salner has been there, done that. As Whitman once said, “I am the man. I was there.”

 

Review by William Heath
William Heath has published three books of poetry, The Walking Man, Night Moves in Ohio, and Leaving Seville; three novels, The Children Bob Moses Led, Blacksnake’s Path, and Devil Dancer; a work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest; and a collection of interviews, Conversations with Robert Stone


 

“Call of Duty” by Amy Long

diagram call of duty longIssue 19.4 of DIAGRAM gives us “Call of Duty,” a riveting essay that explores the juxtaposition of needing and wanting. In this piece, Amy Long shares her experience with the unintended effects caused by opioid addicts for those who truly need the medicine and the lengths she went to in order to find relief from her own pain. Through beautiful and sharp phrases such as “I’ve betrayed the one person who really trusts me,” “I don’t want to turn into that patient,” and “I don’t lose everything. I don’t lose anything,” we get a sense of the narrator’s pain and the mask that she puts on and lives with in order to keep the trust of the people who matter most to her.

As most essays in DIAGRAM, Long’s relies on form and structure to move deeper the fear of judgement and misunderstanding. The essay comprises words, printed and cut up, that have been scanned onto paper in unique designs. Glassine envelopes are replicated in the story as well, providing more words, thoughts, and stories that are kept safely at first, but eventually spill freely onto the page. Stories such as these cannot be contained. We see, too, that through the use of font size, italics, wisely placed words, and bolding, Long remains apprehensive about the revelation of such truths; she still struggles with making any sense out of them. Only by letting the story spill out of the glassine packet does she even begin to make sense of what has happened to her body, her health, and her future.

 

Review by Tyler Hurst

SHR Auburn Witness Poetry Prize Winners 2019

jake adam york blogReaders can find the 2019 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize winner and finalists in the Fall 2019 issue of Southern Humanities Review. The contest honors the late Jake Adam York [pictured], and the winner of the contest receives $1000 in addition to publication. This year’s contest was judged by Vievee Francis.

Winner
“Burning Churches” by Dante Di Stefano

Finalists
“Transubstantiation” by Jubi Arriola-Headley
“All-American Mexican” by Michael Torres
“A Different Alphabet” by Susan Cohen
“Near Miss” by Allison Adair

The Fall 2019 issue also features four pieces of fiction and two pieces of nonfiction, as well as work by five additional poets.

“The Business of Killing Tony” by Greg November

boulevard v35 n1 fall 2019Greg November opens the Fall 2019 issue of Boulevard with “The Business of Killing Tony.” After initially skimming the first sentences as I paged through the issue, I found it nearly physically impossible to stop reading: “Tony’s death—the first one, I’m talking—last a week. We had nothing to do with that one, Gwen and I, at least not directly.”

The story follows three siblings, the narrator Don, Gwen, and Tony, in the days and weeks following Tony’s death and subsequent resurrection and even more subsequent deaths. Prior to the death, their relationships are strained: Don is detached from the other two siblings as he separates from his wife and moves into a new condo; Tony, addicted to drugs and alcohol, orbits as the family black sheep; and Gwen halfheartedly takes on a motherly role as she attempts to organize an intervention for Tony (which is where he dies the first time) and get Don to participate. Tony comes back with a newfound clarity, death becoming the push he needed to finally sort himself out. But he has one problem: he wants to stay dead and can’t.

November’s characters are wry and detached, and the universe he’s created is lightened with dark humor. The siblings react to the news of Tony’s resurrection relatively level-headedly and are brought together by this new task of killing Tony again and again. There are moments November works in feeling, though he never careens into sappy sentimentality. The plot is inventive and interesting, readers not knowing quite what to expect out of a universe where a man can come back to life and make ties between the lands of the living and dead.

“The Business of Killing Tony” is a great opener for this issue of Boulevard and I look forward to checking out more work by November.

 

Review by Katy Haas

“Bought and Sold” by Renata Golden

true story i30In “Bought and Sold,” Issue 30 of True Story, author Renata Golden locates herself in the complicated history of the American West after inheriting two half-acre ranchettes outside of Deming, New Mexico.

Purchased in 1969 by her father, a man ready to leave the ordeals of the Chicago Police Force behind him, the land promised a “welcoming warmth.” Fifteen years after his death, Golden steps on ground that had been handed down to her as the American narrative of land leading to wealth and a better life. Instead, the barren landscape and hard crusted earth force her to confront “how primitive land could be.”

Though her father believed the winds of the West “carried a hint of hope instead of despair,” as Golden mines the history of her inheritance, she discovers the injustice, violence, and death inflicted on the natives and land grant owners who first called the land home.

Despite framing each scene of the essay with excerpts from historical documents, Golden writes, “I know that some voices have been lost to the winds that carry a palpable sense of grief. I do not know the truths of the past. I know only the stories told around campfires and corrals, in letters and ledger books, that have survived. Stories repeated became history.”

 

Review by Emily James

Nimrod International Journal – Awards Issue 2019

nimrod v63 n1 fall winter 2019The current issue of Nimrod International Journal is entirely made up of the winners, finalists, semi-finalists, and honorable mentions of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction and the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry.

Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction:
First Prize
“Capybara” by Jonathan Wei

Second Prize
“This Might Hurt Some” by John Tait

 

Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry:
First Prize
”Negligee and Hatchet: A Sonnet Crown” by Robert Thomas

Second Prize
“The Adorned Fathomless Dark Creation,” “Getting Out,” “Boys Beyond June,” and “Legend” by Matt W. Miller

 

The Fall/Winter 2019 issue features over thirty writers, a diverse selection of fiction and poetry. A full list of contributors, including a handful of excerpts, can be found at the Nimrod International Journal website.

Brilliant Flash Fiction FEED US Contest Winners

bff contest blog

Brilliant Flash Fiction recently announced the winners of the FEED US Writing Contest, held between June and September this year. Judge Kathy Fish selected three prize winners.

First Prize
“TALKING” by Shikhandin [pictured]

Second Prize
“Two Ostomates” by Alexis Wolfe

Third Prize
“Mother’s Milk” by Anastasia Kirchoff

Find the three winning stories, the shortlisted stories, and the longlist at the Brilliant Flash Fiction website. There you can also grab a copy of their first anthology: Hunger: The Best of Brilliant Flash Fiction, 2014-2019.

Big News from Ascent

acent blogLast week Concordia College’s Ascent shared a couple pieces of exciting news.

First: a special issue is on the way with twenty-five essays, twenty-one short stories, and a whopping eighty-one poems. This special issue is in celebration of their second piece of news: longtime editor W. Scott Olsen has announced his retirement from his position at the journal after twenty-three years at the helm.

Taking over in January 2020 will be Vincent Reusch, fiction writer and professor at Concordia College. We look forward to see what Reusch has in store for the literary magazine moving forward.

Learn more about the upcoming issue and the change in editors at Ascent’s website.

‘Speak, Memory’ by Vladimir Nabokov

speak memory nabokovAlthough published in 1951, any person serious about literature would do well to read or reread Nabokov’s captivating autobiography, if not for the rapture of his complicated life, then for the beauty of his syntactical architecture. A master of form devoted to meaning, Nabokov relays the truths of a man twice removed from his home country of Russia, once by revolution and again with the rise of the iron curtain. He renders through complex but clear sentence structure the pains of diaspora and the call to home which he can never truly answer. Within this beautiful prose he also provides insight into his master works Lolita, Despair, and The Gift. He dangles before the reader a maze of sentences each providing a decadent feast for those who value—above all—the meaning-making capacity of provoking syntax.

Even his first sentence tells the reader more about his lost home and life than many lesser writers could conjure in a length of chapters, “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” Although he plays at the duplicity of life and death, so does his opening sentence relay the pain of a man who can never truly return to the womb of his mother country nor escape its call through death. Nabokov rewards the keen reader. He displays the full power of a prose master and does so with all the beauty of a life richly lived.

For those readers who seek reward through art, no writer has ever provided as much in their autobiography as Vladimir Nabokov.

 

Review by Justyn Hardy

‘Relief by Execution: A Visit to Mauthausen’ by Gint Aras

relief by execution arasA haunting meditation on the legacy of racism, violence, and abuse, Relief by Execution: A Visit to Mauthausen by Gint Aras is a gut-kick of a memoir in which Aras contemplates the far-reaching tentacles of anger and hate from the normalized cruelty of a boy’s childhood to the genocide of World War II. After a prolonged bout of PTSD following a violent attack, Aras visits the Mauthausen concentration camp in Lithuania and reflects on its horrors, acknowledging that as a descendant of Lithuanians, there exists within himself “the energy of the victim and the perpetrator.” 

While depictions of the Holocaust remind us of the enduring human capacity for dehumanization and extreme cruelty, Aras’s essay is at its strongest when recounting the socially accepted racism of his Lithuanian-American community in Chicago. Jesse Jackson’s 1984 Presidential run provides a backdrop for Aras’s father’s racist diatribes; the community’s anti-Semitism is equally virulent and ingrained in their language. Aras writes: “The Lithuanian word for Jew is žydas. My family used this word to mean snot, and for a time I knew no other word. Mother would see me picking my nose and scold me, Netrauk žydų, or Stop pulling out Jews.” Aras draws the connections between the family’s denialism and scapegoating of Lithuanian Jews as Soviet collaborators with their refusal to see the physical and emotional abuse perpetrated against him by his tyrannical father. As an adult, Aras confronts his father in a harrowing scene, yet a cathartic reckoning remains elusive. 

Aras reflects on whether he is imposing “the personal on the collective,” but most readers will recognize how hate, in its various manifestations, informs the cultural assumptions we carry. Aras’s willingness to confront this legacy is a useful reminder that we all bear the responsibility to do the same.

 

Review by Chuck Augello
Chuck Augello is the author of The Inexplicable Grey Space We Call Love (Duck Lake Books – April 2020).  His work has appeared in One Story, Literary Hub, The Vestal Review, The Coachella Review, and other fine journals. He’s a contributor to Cease Cows and publishes The Daily Vonnegut, a website exploring the life and art of Kurt Vonnegut.

‘Sea Above, Sun Below’ by George Salis

sea above sun below salisSea Above, Sun Below by George Salis is a rich and masterful novel. It is a balanced reading experience, told from differing perspectives, chockablock with symbolism and allusion and wordplay.

The descriptions of people, the universe, and abstract concepts are always lyrical and moving. The characters, though isolated in their narrative spheres from other characters, all relate in symbolic ways, interacting like entangled particles.

This is a tale about skydiving, the brave divers through the sky, and the diverse revelations they encounter on land and in the arms of God, up in the air, floating like angels, hovering above the ball and chain of their earth, which to some is an Eden, and to others, an egg, flush with history, pregnant with myth.

It is also about childhood and escape, tragedy, and the infinite potential of the future, told in convincing voices with heart and love and joy. I was enchanted by the realistic characters, the effortless flow of the evocative language, the precise word choice, effective dialogue, and seamless storytelling. The novel works on multiple levels at once, guiding the reader through layers of meaning. It does not engage in handholding, nor is it like wandering a labyrinth. Reading it is like falling—which is a metaphor the novel makes ample use of—into a magical realm. The picture widens as you proceed, and the sky behind you is full of Halley’s comets, decaying gods, and past memories discarded like ballast.

There are many brilliant moments of interstitial congruency, like the following quote: “With the advancement of technology, he knew the future, however distant, would reveal the reality of alchemy.”

Sea Above, Sun Below is literary alchemy. A magnificent novel.

 

Review by L.S. Popovich
L.S. Popovich is the author of Undertones and Echoes From Dust. They have always been a cat person (a person who like cats, not a cat human hybrid).

2019 Laux/Millar Poetry Prize Winner

laux millar prize blogIn the Fall 2019 issue of Raleigh Review, readers can find the winners and finalists of the 2019 Laux/Millar Poetry Prize, selected by Dorianne Laux & Joseph Millar. Readers can easily find these pieces in the current issue as they’re outlined in gradient blue (winner) and pink (finalists).

Winner
Iguana Iguana” by Caylin Capra-Thomas

Finalists:
“At the Bar” by Cameron McGill
“The Land in Both Our Names” by Suzanne Grove
“After Watching The Quiet Man” by Hannah Dow
“Sertraline” by Emily Nason

Submissions to the 2020 Laux/Millar Poetry Prize will reopen in April and run through May.​​

Two Poems by ko ko thett

tiger moth reviewThe Tiger Moth Review publishes art and literature that “engages with nature, culture, the environment, and ecology” from Singapore and beyond.

In Issue 2, ko ko thett drew me in by writing about one of my favorite animals: elephants. “Funeral of an elephant” speculates on what is needed to mourn the death of the creature: the amount of men needed to carry the casket, how the casket should be made, what traditions to apply to this funeral, whether or not it weighs more dead than alive. thett prompts readers to hold this death in as great esteem as a human’s. I feel this is especially relevant after recent reports of eleven elephants dying as they attempted to save one another at a waterfall in Thailand. With their actions, as in thett’s poem, we see the humanity in the lives of these creatures.

thett also dedicates a poem to “The Chindwin,” a river in Burma. thett humanizes the river, comparing it to a “soon-to-be single mother,” a dominatrix, a woman puking, pissing, bleeding. There are no gentle verses here, just the ripping force of a river tearing away the landscape and the humans who have wronged her.

In both pieces, thett makes readers consider the humanness of nature, a nice selection to usher in the rest of this issue of The Tiger Moth Review.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Glimmer Train Final Issue

glimmer train i106 fall 2019It’s never easy to say good-bye, but readers should still take the time to say their farewells to the fiction monolith Glimmer Train. The Fall 2019 issue is here, marking the end of an era for the literary magazine.

The final issue features stories by Stanley Delgado, Rachael Uwada Clifford, Marian Palaia, Douglas Kiklowicz, Erika Krouse, Victoria Alejandra Garayalde, Arthur Russell, Robin Halevy, Peter Parsons, Christa Romanosky, Sindya Bhanoo, Alex Stein, Karen Malley, Ed Allen, Emily Lackey, Ashley Alliano, Aleyna Rentz, Kevin Canty, and Arthur Klepchukov. Also in the final issue: interviews with Matthew Lansburgh and Danielle Lazarin.

Stop by the Glimmer Train website to give them a proper send-off. Grab a copy of the last two issues, check out story excerpts, and pick up copies of available back issues.

‘Book of Mutter’ by Kate Zambreno

book of mutter zambrenoExploring the complexities and absurdities of grief, Book of Mutter is a lyrical text that will leave readers returning to its textured fragments of memory and meditation again and again. And each time, those moments will reassemble into something new and incisive.

Kate Zambreno, whose previous book O Fallen Angel won the Undoing the Novel—First Book Contest, reflects on and interrogates her relationship with her dying mother in this 2017 publication. Her mother proved such an invasive force in her life that Zambreno couldn’t help but turn to writing as the only hope she had to “expel [her] from my body.” With some photographs, spent lipstick tubes, hoarded kitsch, and a gardening journal, Zambreno sorts through these “ruins” in search of both a connection to and deliverance from the long shadow of a troubled relationship.

Far from conclusive or definitive, Book of Mutter offers something tragically beautiful and genuinely vulnerable to the perennial struggle of grief. While every page is not filled by text, they are all complete with curious and inviting moments of anger, confusion, peace, and yes, absence.

 

Review by Mark Smeltzer

‘Inside the Animal: The Collected Red Riding Hood Papers’ by Shanan Ballam

inside animal ballamShanan Ballam’s newest book, Inside the Animal: The Collected Red Riding Hood Papers, published by Main Street Rag Publishing Company in 2019, pushes the persona poem to its most shimmering and starved limit. Blending her voice with the perspectives of a depraved wolf, a blossoming girl, and a wilting grandmother, Ballam continually smashes wide the familiar fairy tale and trades reader comfort for animalistic truth. What empathy can be had for the predator? Is there a love story folded into the sheets of Grandmother’s bed? Would Red Riding Hood slip into the wolf again? Continuing the work begun in her 2010 chapbook The Red Riding Hood Papers and furthered in her 2013 book Pretty Marrow, Ballam writes deeply into new velveteen layers of the aged cautionary tale.

Divided into six parts, the childhood world is rewritten for an adult understanding of intimacy and separation, ecstatic connection and pain. Through her passionate mastery of syntax and imagery, Ballam pulls readers deeper into a psychological landscape as sharp and mesmerizing as a kaleidoscope. The new Poet Laureate of Logan, Utah, as well as current faculty of Utah State University, Ballam writes with the bone-deep need to reclaim the story of monsters and naughty little girls into a truth more complicated and warm. Wholly driven and new, Ballam’s tangled reimagining of the condemning Red Riding Hood fable will mark up the mind.

 

Reviewed by Brittney Allen

2019 Raymond Carver Contest Winners

april sopkin blogThe Fall 2019 issue of Carve Magazine features the winners of the 2019 Raymond Carver Contest, guest-judged by Claire Fuller. These can be found online, as well as in the print issue. An interview with each writer can be found after their stories in the print edition.

First Place
“Private Lives” by April Sopkin

Second Place
“Gravity House” by Carolyn Bishop

Third Place
“The Enchanted Forest” by Brian Crawford

Editor’s Choice
“The Ghost Rider” by Erica Plouffe Lazure

The Raymond Carver Contest reopens for submissions in April. The Carve Magazine Prose & Poetry Contest is currently open until November 15.

Diode Poetry Journal – Volume 12 Number 2

diode v12 n2 2019Volume 12 Number 2 of Diode Poetry Journal shows the variety of sources poets draw inspiration from, whether it’s musical artists, medical documentation, or other poets.

Lip Manegio draws from one of my longtime favorite musical artists—Death Cab for Cutie—in “you tell me about your childhood memories of death cab for cutie, and i imagine every future and past we will ever get to live through.” Using Death Cab song titles as a way to jump into each stanza and light, beautiful language, they create a new song for themselves and the person the poem is addressed to.

Charlie Clark turns to “I am the beast I worship,” a line from the song “Beware” by Death Grips as he conjures his own beast, one that “speaks vulgar French,” “his whole demeanor muscle-thick and pissed.” The piece reads like a slow burn, a fiery anthem.

“[Infect this page]” by Hadara Bar-Nadav is an erasure poem made from the drug information for the antibiotic Ceftriaxone. Bar-Nadav creates art through the dissection of medical text and examines both sickness and art, urging the reader to action, to “Infect,” “Inject,” and “Kill / your   need to / question / this / garbage      art.”

Both of John Allen Taylor’s poems draw inspiration from other poets. “The boy thinks of after,” is written after Laurie Lamon, and “Dear Friend,” is written after and for Brionne Janae. Not only were his poems enjoyable to read, but they also open a door to introduce readers to other poets they may not be familiar with.

The latest issue of Diode shows the many ways writers draw inspiration from the media they consume and offers its own inspiration to readers.

 

Review by Katy Haas

“Study in Self-Defense: Lubbock, Texas” by Leslie Jill Patterson

study in self defense lubbock texas pattersonFrom the introduction to the final sentence, Leslie Jill Patterson’s flash essay,Study in Self-Defense: Lubbock, Texas,” published in the September 2019 issue of Brevity (Issue 62), kept me on the edge of my seat. A perfect read for this October, Patterson tells the story of the tense moments that follow her dog’s ferocious reaction to something, or someone, outside her house at one in the morning—an event that gives her “a lesson in self-defense.”

Patterson sets the scene by painting a sense of isolation: a woman living alone, lurking shadows, the man she is afraid might come after her. She then fully engages the reader’s fight or flight response through dark strokes of impending danger, her dog’s protective instincts engaged. From the moment of her dog’s jolt from a sound sleep to an adrenaline punched awakening, the reader finds themselves breathless as her “lesson” unfolds.

Patterson’s essay brings the scene to life with detailed imagery and an all too relatable reaction to terror. You can hear the furious barking of the dog as he “pinball[s]” from room to room, see the woman hiding as if to play “peek-a-boo,” and feel afraid even to look up from your own screen, your “covers,” and catch that terrifying glimpse. A thrill to read.

 

Review by Kelsie Peterson

‘Inheritance’ by Dani Shapiro

inheritance shapiroA psychoanalytic spin on the “unthought known” stream of one woman’s stumble upon the narrative of self, reflective of intuitive synchronicity, Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love bursts the bubbles of vintage notions of the perfect family, or at least the façade of what the perfect family should have been.

In this memoir, Shapiro takes readers on a rocky ride through her personal genealogic discoveries; specifically, finding out after five decades that the man she knew as her father was not her biological father. Shapiro elaborates on how he was the only father she ever knew, and they shared an unbreakable bond until his passing when she was in her twenties. She tenderly recalls how he taught her about his Jewish heritage, which makes up a major part of the fabric of her self-narrative surrounding her paternity. She encounters rough waters throughout her quest, yet love remains the “unknown thought” she never gave up on.

Continue reading “‘Inheritance’ by Dani Shapiro”

“Dear Family and Friends” by William J. Doan

dear family friends doanAccording to William J. Doan’s visual narrative “Dear Family and Friends,” in Issue 27 of Cleaver Magazine, “17 million adults had a major depressive episode last year.” Despite affecting so many people, it can be hard to articulate the experience, and even harder for the people around them to understand, especially when the sufferer is wearing a mask of “normality,” a mask of laughter and smiles. As Doan says, “Sharing what it’s like to live with anxiety and depression is a lot like undressing in front of strangers. It’s AWKWARD.” But after a while, masking began to feel like lying to Doan, and “Dear Family and Friends” is an attempt at breaking that silence and “coming out” to those around him.

By using visual means of communication, Doan offers a more concrete way of explaining and understanding the feelings of depression and anxiety. His images are grayscale, with smudges of cool colors creeping into some panels. Scribbles and dots of ink show how it feels to be filled with anxiety, to have your brain feel weighed down and blotted with dark ink.

“I’ve barely reached the heart of the matter in this brief letter,” he says of his eighteen panels, “But it’s a start.” Not only is this piece a start for Doan, but it’s a good way to start difficult conversations with our own friends and family as we remove our masks.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Debut YA novel – Unpregnant

Unpregnant book coverUnpregnant Offers a Radical Normalization of Abortion and Reproductive Health. Currently, we’re in a terrifying moment in history for reproductive health in America, which makes abortion no laughing matter—and that’s exactly why Unpregnant, the debut YA novel by Jenni Hendricks and Ted Caplan, is such a breath of fresh air. Unpregnant tells the tale of an overachieving 17-year-old named Veronica Clarke who discovers that she is pregnant a month before her high-school graduation. Seeing her college education (she’s been accepted to Brown University) and future slipping away, she enlists her former best friend—and current school outcast—Bailey Butler to drive her to an abortion clinic that doesn’t require a parental signature. The only catch? The clinic is more than 900 miles away… Read full review at BitchMedia here.

 

Runestone Journal – Volume 5

runestone journal v5The works in the latest issue of Runestone Journal, which publishes writing by undergraduates, is splashed with color.

In nonfiction, Eli Rallo harnesses the power that a change in color brought to her as an eleven-year-old struggling with anxiety. A touching piece on family, “Color the Walls,” plays back moment from her past when her hardworking, serious father allowed his children to paint the walls red and green for Christmas, a gesture of pure silliness that gave her stillness during a difficult time.

In fiction, Whitley Carpenter captures colors in “Memories of Green,” with narrator Pell taking care of Ella, an older relative whose memories come in and out of focus as dementia starts to set in. From the blue veins beneath her skin to the green surrounding the farmhouse, Whitley’s details stand as a strong backbone to the characters’ struggles. In the same section, Renata Erickson creatively imagines a world where color is something that can be physically taken from its source in “The Color Crisis,” the narrator learning where they belong in this new type of environment and how they’ll contribute to it.

There is no shortage of color in the poetry section, however. Damaris Castillo’s “The Passing of Marigolds” brings us “a golden road to home.” Cole Chang’s “In the late Afternoon” brings a summer day in the wetlands to life in hues of brown and green, purple and gold. In “An Evening at Inch Strand Beach Just Outside Dingle, Ireland,” Emilee Kinney describes a sunset, the “Deep pink” and the “sunlit-stained shores.” Mariah Rose turns “flamingo-pink,” sunburnt in “NOLA,” then describes “Muddied water the color of chocolate milk” in “Sedona, AZ.”

Carve out some time to check out Volume 5 of Runestone Journal. It will be sure to give your day the pop of color it needs.

 

Review by Katy Haas

‘How to Tell If You Are Human: Diagram Poems’ by Jessy Randall

how to tell if you are human randallDo you ever find yourself feeling out of sorts, unable to tell if you’re still human? Jessy Randall has considered this feeling and helps readers handle it with an instructional manual of sorts in How to Tell If You Are Human: Diagram Poems, part of the Pleaides Press Visual Poetry Series.

Repurposing graphs and images to create visual poems, Randall’s works are minimal in style as they capture the complexity of human emotions. Although most of poems are just one sentence or phrase long, they manage to make connections with readers, leaving space to insert themselves as the speaker, to figure out whether or not they’re human.

 

Review by Katy Haas

“Mrs. Sorry” by Gabriela Garcia

zyzzyva n116 2019Gabriela Garcia’s “Mrs. Sorry” can be found in the latest issue of ZYZZYVA. Focusing on class and gender, the short story is narrated by a young woman working at a cosmetics counter. At work, she helps rich women (and one in particular who comes to be known as the titular character) pick out skincare products. At home, she feels herself slipping away from herself and her boyfriend, who begins offering her the Roxicodone pills he’s been stealing from his work at a pharmacy.

As the story progresses, we see Mrs. Sorry’s husband, a man who gaslights her in front of and with debatably inadvertent help from the narrator. While Mrs. Sorry and the narrator are leading entirely different lives, they’re both women who are being manipulated by the men they trust most, the difference in their social and economic classes keeping her from speaking out on Mrs. Sorry’s behalf. “Nothing cracks in my presence,” the narrator thinks at one point as she considers her weaknesses and the futility with which she handles both her home and work life.

Eventually she finds the strength and the weight to make cracks, the ending a defiant fist in the air. Just long enough to create tension, Garcia masters her narrator’s voice in four short, satisfying pages.

 

Review by Katy Haas

‘Prey’ by Jeanann Verlee

prey verleeJeanann Verlee digs into the culture of violence against women in Prey. Published last August, the collection of poems is broken into five parts. The speaker details her own story of an abusive ex-husband and the horrors he put her through, as well as a broader focus: “The New Crucible” speaks on the ways men have used religion to justify their violence against women, and multiple pieces called “His Version” are made of quotes from men like Brock Turner and the men involved in the Steubenville rape trial. The latter set of poems are presented without comment, without words from Verlee, speaking volumes on their own. Verlee writes with unflinching honesty, recording a history of violence that leaves one breathless and bent defensively over the pages.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Fictive Dream Revisits

revisitsPublishing short (500-2500-word) fiction that “gives an insight into the human condition,” the online Fictive Dream featured a summer series called “Revisits.” Each Revisit is a selection of three previously published stories that have a similar theme: Love, Abuse, Growing Up, Grief, Rivalry, Magic Realism, Friendship, Missing, Sex, and War. Editor Laura Black curated the series and introduces each issue. A great way to sample the Fictive Dreams back catalog as well as a conveniently curated collection for the classroom.

Beautiful Things at River Teeth

river teethBeautiful Things is a weekly column  of “very brief nonfiction that find beauty in the everyday” published on the River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative website. Edited by Michelle Webster-Hein and Sarah M. Wells, the inspiration for the column was Michelle Webseter-Hein’s essay, “Beautiful Things,” published in River Teeth 15.1 and appearing in a series of excerpts on the website.

Contributors to Beautiful Things include Stacy Boe Miller, Andrea Marcusa, Dina Relles, Kelly Morse, Carolee Bennett, Christopher Bundy, Andrea Fisk Rotterman, Pamela Rothbard, Steven Harvey, Allen M. Price, Nikki Hardin, Emily James, and many more.

Writers are invited to contribute flash, nonfiction of 250 or less to be considered for publication. Readers are welcome to comment on the stories using Disqus.

Georgia Review’s New Editor

Dr. Gerald Maa has been named the new Editor-in-Chief of The Georgia Review as Stephen Corey steps down with this last issue, Fall 2019.

maaMaa, along with Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis, founded the Asian American Literary Review in 2009 and has been serving as editor-in-chief. In his introduction to Georgia Review readers Maa writes, “A print periodical—dare I say here—is capable of cultivating communities in ways that no other medium can. To open up a journal—break a spine, perhaps—to carry a volume, or run your fingers over your name printed on a page is very special. But to congregate around a print journal is also special in its own right.”

The Fall 2019 issue is Corey’s final as editor, and in it, he offers what Maa calls “a valedictory essay that should not be missed.” Indeed. Reading it, I unexpectedly found myself overwhelmed with emotion. Corey marvels as he remembers first accepting the job as editor, looking back now having “published polished and mature work by writers not yet born – and I don’t mean born as writers, I mean born – when I started working at GR both excites and spooks me.” Likewise, the end of such a great era for GR readers does not go unnoticed nor lightly in our hearts.

As Corey refrains in his final farewell: “Good literary-magazine editing is an intimate act.”

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

prism international

Quite simply, I can’t stop looking at this cover image for the summer 2019 issue of Prism International. From the series “Other Other” by mixed media artist Gio Swaby.

sonder review

Given the events of the past week, this cover image on the Summer 2019 issue of The Sonder Review pretty much sums up how my head feels. Richard Vyse is the artist of “Torn Night.”

glassworks

“Frozen Flowers 3” by Nicoletta Poungias is featured on the Spring 2019 cover of Glassworks, a publication of the Master of Arts in Writing at Rowan University, located in Glassboro – go figure – New Jersey.

Heron Tree Found in the Public Domain

heron treeBetween October 2016 and February 2017, Heron Tree online poetry journal published a series of works “constructed from materials in the public domain in the United States.” Editors Chris Campolo and Rebecca Resinski then compiled these into a PDF ebook, Found in the Public Domain, that is free to download.

Contributors include Melissa Frederick, Wendy DeGroat, Karen L. George, Howie Good, Tamiko Nimura, Winston Plowes, Deborah Purdy, M. A. Scott, Margo Taft Stever, Carey Voss, and Sarah Ann Winn. The booklet includes a section of notes from each contributor on their source(s) and process.

Heron Tree publishes poems individually on their website and collects them into volumes and special issues. All content is available for readers online. The publications is open for submissions for volume seven through December 1, 2019.

2019 William Van Dyke Short Story Prize Winners

The Fall 2019 issue of Ruminate features the winning entries for the publication’s annual William Van Dyke Short Story Prize. The final judge for 2019 was Tyrese Coleman.

First Place
“DrownTown” by Joshua Gray

Second Place
“Parkside” by Kate Bradley

Honorable Mention
“Standard Uniform” by  Shelley Linso

Read more about each author in addition to the judge’s comments about their works here.

The 2020 William Van Dyke Short Story Prize, awarding $1500 to the winner, is open until February 15, 2020.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

sequestrum 20

Alex “Queen of Double Eyes” Garant is the featured artist for issue 20 of Sequestrum: Journal of Literature and Art. Unique to Sequestrum is their mission “to be an affordable, sustainable home to quality literature. Rather than charge a set sticker price per issue, we offer a unique, pay-what-you-can subscription format.”

seneca review spring 2019

The Spring 2019 issue of Seneca Review features cover art by Edie Fake, whose “paintings start as self-portraits, and from there, they make a break for it, referencing elements of the trans and non-binary body through pattern, color and architectural metaphor.”

haydens ferry review

“Intersectionality Of My Sadness & Beauty” a 2017 acrylic and aerosol on wood by Jeff Slim is featured on the Spring/Summer 2019 issue cover of Hayden’s Ferry Review, themed “Magic.”

September 2019 Award-Winning Books

september 2019 award winnersTake some time to check out award-winning books published this September.

Refugia by Kyce Bello brought home the inaugural Interim 2018 Test Site Poetry Series Winner. Bello’s debut poetry collection, a dedication to resilience, offers a bright and hopeful voice in the current conversation about climate change.

Winner of the 2018 Autumn House Poetry Prize, debut collection Cage of Lit Glass by Charles Kell engages themes of death, incarceration, and family—a tense and insightful read.

Al Ortolani’s Hansel and Gretel Get the Word on the Street, Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner, was shipped out to subscribers of Rattle literary magazine earlier in the month. The chapbook’s poems represent connections to others, sometimes dark, sometimes light, often quirky.

Sharon Olds selected Vantage by Taneum Bambrick as the winner of the 2019 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Award. A fictional account of Bambrick’s experience working as the only woman on a six-person garbage crew around the reservoirs of two dams, the poems document the violence she witnessed toward the people and the environment along the Columbia River.

Under a Warm Green Linden Broadsides

narcissus posterIn addition to publishing poetry, interviews, and reviews twice a year online as well as chapbooks, Under a Warm Green Linden accompanies each issue with a selection of beautiful, affordable, high-quality print broadsides signed by the authors. The adjectives to describe these broadsides are my own; I have sought them out for purchase with every new issue – so I can attest to their production value! Add to that, Under a Warm Green Linden donates a portion of all proceeds from sales to the Arbor Day Foundation and the National Forest Foundation – both with specific reforestation efforts. To date. Under a Warm Green Linden supporters have helped plant 300 trees. A win all around!

Pictured: “Narcissus on the Hunt” by Jennifer Bullis

3Elements Review Themed Writing Prompts

Looking to spark your motivation for writing? Try the latest prompt from 3Elements Review: Carriage, Pinwheel, Scour.

3elements reviewEach quarter, 3Elements Review presents three elements, and all three must be used in the story or poem in order to be considered for publication. 

The editors expand on this guideline, “Your story or poem doesn’t have to be about the three elements or even revolve around them; simply use your imagination to create whatever you want. You can use any form of the words/elements for the given submission period. For example, if the elements are: Flash, Whimsy, and Seizure; we would accept the usage of Flashed, Whimsical, and Seizures.”

3Elements also accepts artwork and photography based on at least one of the elements – “but creating something that represents all three elements will really impress us.”

The deadline for this quarter is November 30, 2019.

Rattle Tribute to African Poets

rattleThe Fall 2019 issue of Rattle Tribute to African Poets features seventeen poems “representative of the urgency and excitement that makes the poetry coming out of the continent feel so vital.”

Authors whose work make up this tribute include O-Jeremiah Agbaakin, Ifeoluwa Ayandele, Kwame Dawes, Jonathan Endurance, Zaid Gamieldien, Rasaq Malik Gbolahan, Pamilerin Jacob, Temidayo Jacob, Labeja Kodua, Akachi Obijiaku, Anointing Obuh, Chisom Okafor, Ukamaka Olisakwe, Chidinma Opaigbeogu, Olajide Salawu, and Charika Swanepoel.

There is also an interview with Kwame Dawes by Editor Timothy Green.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

west marin review

There’s something both innocent and haunting about this image, Binary Traces Young Girl  by Lia Cook, on the 2019 cover of West Marin Review.

water stone review

“Bodies Worth Defending” is the theme of Water~Stone Review Volume 21, and is clearly expressed in this cover photograph by Kwon Healin.

calyx

“Solo #4” by Leah Kosh is featured on the Winter/Spring 2019 cover of Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, which has been running uninterrupted since its inception in 1976. 

CLT Contemporary Chinese Poetry

chinese literature todayContemporary Chinese Poetry is the special focus of the latest issue of Chinese Literature Today (v8 n1), with several works by each poet. The featured authors and the translators include:

Wang Jiaxin, translated by Diana Shi and George O’Connell
Che Qianzi, translated by Yang Liping and Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas
Li Dewu, translated by Jenny Chen and Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas
Hu Jiujiu, translated by Matt Turner and Haiying Weng
Mi Jialu, translated by Lucas Klein, Michael Day, Matt Turner, and Haiying Weng
Huang Chunming, translated by Tze-lan Sang
Chen Li, translated by Elaine Wong

The publication also includes a feature section on Newman Prize Laureate Xi Xi, with the 2019 Newman Prize Nomination, the 2019 Newman Prize Acceptance Speech, new poems translated by Jennifer Feeley, excerpts from several works, reprints, and an analytical essay of Xi Xi’s fiction by Wei Yang Menkus.

‘The Chain’ by Adrian McKinty

chain mckintyYou are now part of The Chain.

Adrian McKinty, originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, now a New Yorker, is an award-winning crime novelist who has written a stunning work of twisted psychology, domination, and contest of wills. The plan in The Chain seems foolproof, insidious as it is. A child is kidnapped, the parent gets a phone call, and a ransom demand is made. The parent is told to select another child and kidnap the target in order to get his or her child returned. A two-step process. The horrifying aspect of the demand is that the parent gets 24 hours to pay the ransom and kidnap the next child. No such thing as planning, considering, discussing, contemplating, rationalizing, justifying.  The Chain makes an action demand, and the demand for fast action and tangible results. Or the kidnapped child is no more. The Chain has no tolerance for mistakes, for police involvement, for extensions of time to pay the ransom, for attempts to outwit. The entire process will be completed in 24 hours, or else.

Continue reading “‘The Chain’ by Adrian McKinty”

‘One Day on the Gold Line’ by Carla Rachel Sameth

one day on gold line samethCarla Rachel Sameth’s One Day on the Gold Line offers a gut-wrenching account of Sameth’s life from young adulthood through middle-age, spinning around maternal desire and loss, and probing the critical distinctions between an imaginary motherhood and the lived reality of mothering her son through young-adulthood. Structured through a series of twenty-nine short chapters that refuse easy chronology, the book is both thematically and formally interested in questions of time and identity.

Beginning with the essay “The Burning Boat,” the book charts Sameth’s insatiable desire to build a family, whether partnered or solo, and the obstacles that stand in her way. Conception comes easily to Sameth; carrying to term does not.  Only after undergoing experimental treatments for recurrent miscarriage does she give birth to her son, Raphael.  Significantly, Sameth chooses not to offer a developed account of gestation—the ground that most mother memoirs traverse; rather, there’s a temporal gap between the chapters that explore maternal desire and those that present difficulties of mothering, both single and as lesbian co-parent to her stepdaughter.  In this way, the book provocatively explores what it means to create and sustain family outside heterosexual marriage.

Rooted in the physical and social landscapes of California, the last third of the book takes up the difficulties that Sameth experiences as adolescent Raphael undergoes treatment for drug use.  Critically, the book offers addiction as a figure through which to understand all human desire. Sameth writes: “In my case, I desperately sought self-value; I thought that I could fix the hole by creating a family to love and nurture.” Writing against fantasies of ideal motherhood, Sameth’s book presents a brutally honest and much-needed account of family-building and parenting in the twenty-first century.

 

Review by Robin Silbergleid
Robin Silbergleid is a poet and nonfiction writer.  Her most recent publication is In the Cubiculum Nocturnum (Dancing Girl Press, 2019).  She currently directs the Creative Writing Program and teaches at Michigan State University.  You can also find her online at @rsilbergleid and robinsilbergleid.com.

Understorey Offers Editing for Submissions

understorey magazineUnderstorey Magazine is an online publication of Canadian literature and visual art inviting “compelling, original stories and art by Canadian writers and artists who identify as women or non-binary.”

For Issue 17 themed Nature: Writing on a World under Threat, the editors are offering free editing services for submissions. In an effort to “inspire new and emerging writers, as well as support established writers,” the editors are offering to “send our thoughts on what already works and what can be improved.” Not all works will be published, but with this effort, Understorey hopes to help women writers “polish” their writing and “find a place to share it with the world.”

A very generous offer indeed! Submission deadline is September 30.

2019 Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize Winners

The Sept/Oct 2019 issue of Kenyon Review features the 2019 Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers winner and runners up, along with an introduction by Richie Hofmann. Each work can also be found on the Kenyon Review website along with an audio recording by the poet.

kenyon review young writersFirst Prize
Jay Martin: “November Picnic with Louise

Runners Up
Martha Schaffer: “Stars
Stephanie Chang: “Post Meridiem

The Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers is open to high school sophomores and juniors. The winner receives a full scholarship to the Kenyon Review Young Writers workshop in addition to publication with two runners up.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

poetry sept

Armando Veve is the cover artist featured on the September 2019 issue of POETRY magazine. Poetry + tote bag lovers = you can get this same design on a tote bag with your subscription or renewal to POETRY

creative nonfiction

It’s actually the tag lines on the cover of Creative Nonfiction #71 that landed it here: “Let’s talk about SEX: 5 tips for better sex (writing); Make it last : the art of the long sentence; The eroticism of essaying.”

gettysburg review

Catherine Mackey is the featured artists, both on the cover (Alcatraz Sink No. 1, oil and mixed media on wood panel), and with a full-color portfolio inside the Spring 2019 issue of The Gettysburg Review.

 

2019 Witness Literary Award Winners

This spring, Witness, published by the Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, announced the winners of its inaugural Literary Awards in Fiction and Poetry.

sophia stidPoetry Winner
Judge Hanif Abdurraqib
“Apophatic Ghazal” by Sophia Stid [pictured]

Poetry Runner-up
“lump” by Renia White

Fiction Winner
Judge Lesley Nneka Arimah
“The Nine-Tailed Fox Explains” by Jane Pek

Fiction Runner-up
“The Kristian Vang Fan Club” by 
John Tait

For more information on the winning entries as well as a full list of finalists, click here. Winning entries can be read in the Spring 2019 issue.

Submissions for the 2020 contest are open until October 1, as well as general submissions on the theme “Magic.”