Lynx Eye – Spring 2004

To be lynx-eyed is to possess very keen sight, an attribute this magazine’s contributors bring to their considerations of (a sometimes remarkably disguised) human nature.

To be lynx-eyed is to possess very keen sight, an attribute this magazine’s contributors bring to their considerations of (a sometimes remarkably disguised) human nature. In addition to poetry and prose, you’ll find here one writer’s print debut (Rick Stroud’s much rowdier than its title “Death Ship”), black and white line drawings, and the winning entries from the annual “Captivating Beginnings” short story contest. Wendy Breuer’s engaging poems “School Nights” (about the common I’ve-never-been-to-this-class-before-and-now-I-have-to-take-the-test anxiety dream: “you can leave school, / but you never really get out”) and “At the Oakland DMV” (the universal, bureaucratic back-to-the-end-of-the-line-with-you daymare) remind us that, though the world may seem (hey! you there!) personally inhospitable at times, the fact that it seems that way to all of us means we’re not alone. Darrel Dionne’s “Cotton” is a moving tribute to his mother, “who grew up during the Dust Bowl and traveled the Steinbeck trail as an itinerant farm worker”: “These fibers clutched in the talons of cotton bowls / Made my mother’s hands bleed.” Michael P. Greenstein’s lively, evocative ink drawings (on the cover and within) encourage you to make up your own story. And Jana Gardner’s “The Swan Wing,” featuring a character whose birth defect is a fully feathered wing, gently reminds us that being who we really are (that most difficult but inescapable of tasks) is better than being normal any day. With a preference for magical realism and rollicking plotlines, Lynx Eye has a keen eye for the essence of life, in whatever strange getup it may present itself. [Lynx Eye, c/o Scribblefest Literary Group] – AS