The Meadow – 2010

The Meadow is an annual published at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada with an editorial staff of faculty, an awards program, and a predilection for personal story and narrative-driven writing. The work of two veteran and gifted writers, Adrian C. Louis and Mark Terrill, and accomplished photographer Dana Oldfather, is accompanied by much student writing, including poems, personal essays, and artwork.

The Meadow is an annual published at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada with an editorial staff of faculty, an awards program, and a predilection for personal story and narrative-driven writing. The work of two veteran and gifted writers, Adrian C. Louis and Mark Terrill, and accomplished photographer Dana Oldfather, is accompanied by much student writing, including poems, personal essays, and artwork.

Standouts for me are the Louis poem and the first place award winning student poem and student essay (I applaud the judges for their fine choices). “Black Out” by Louis is like much of his work: astute, acerbic, and powerful:

I could layer lie upon lie & say
that in this instant I smell beans
& ham hocks, hear her laughter,
hear clinking glasses & rez dogs
courting a quaint red moon,
but I don’t. I hear nothing –
nothing in this American nowhere.

First place poetry award winner Doug Schmierer contributes a moving poem, “Bird Peddling” (“I make birds for a living. / They fly from my fingertips / And say the things I can’t / To any wrongdoing person.”). Prize winning nonfiction writer Kirsten Kinnear contributes a coming of age story, “Seasons,” in a voice that is wise, unsentimental, and controlled.

The issue also features an interview with fiction writer and memoirist Jillian Lauren and artwork by five artists, including striking close-up detail photographs by student John Knott, also one of the journal’s award winners
[www.tmcc.edu/meadow]