The Talking Walls

THE TALKING WALLS

A ZINE BY ENGL 35: COMMUNITY LITERARY PRACTICES PITZER COLLEGE SPRING 2020 Cover Illustration by Elle Biesemeyer

THE TALKING WALLS NORA ALTAJAR ELLE BIESEMEYER ROSE BOWEN CARA EAGAN GREER GIBNEY EMMA LEVINE SKYE MITCHELL ASHA SIMON COREY SMITH NATASHA VHUGEN BRENT ARMENDINGER

CONTENTS A SPECULATIVE BOOKSHOP .................................................................................................................. 1 Welcome to The Talking Walls (Brent Armendinger) ................................................................. 2 What invites you in? (Elle Biesemeyer) ........................................................................................... 3 Who do we want to read? (Greer Gibney) ..................................................................................... 4 What will the arrangement of the books and store look like? (Nora Altajar) .......................... 5 Where can you find a zine? (Emma Levine) .................................................................................. 7 How can we help children to see that they belong? (Cara Eagan)............................................. 8 Where do we read? (Skye Mitchell) .................................................................................................. 9 Where can you contribute your opinions and feelings? (Asha Simon) ................................... 10 How do we fill this space? (Natasha Vhugen) ............................................................................. 11 What activities could be at the bookshop? (Rose Bowen) ........................................................ 12 What do the outside parts of the store look like? (Corey Smith) ............................................. 15 AUTHORS WE LOVE .............................................................................................................................. 16 Will Alexander (Nora Altajar) ......................................................................................................... 17 Elizabeth Cantwell (Rose Bowen) .................................................................................................. 18 Joshua Jennifer Espinoza (Corey Smith) ...................................................................................... 19 Genevieve Kaplan (Emma Levine) ................................................................................................ 20 Eloise Klein Healy (Skye Mitchell)................................................................................................. 21 Kenji C. Liu (Greer Gibney) ........................................................................................................... 22 Joseph Rios (Cara Eagan) ................................................................................................................ 23 Luis J. Rodriguez (Asha Simon) ..................................................................................................... 24 Yesika Salgado (Elle Biesemeyer) ................................................................................................... 25 Emerson Whitney (Natasha Vhugen)............................................................................................ 26 WORK BY THE TALKING WALLS COLLECTIVE ................................................................................. 27 Twisted Tree on Yale Ave (Nora Altajar)..................................................................................... 28 birth map (Nora Altajar) .................................................................................................................. 29 Vantablack (Elle Biesemeyer) .......................................................................................................... 30 Phoenix City (Rose Bowen) ............................................................................................................ 32 A Dandelion in Ontario (Cara Eagan) .......................................................................................... 35

The Lines In The Soil (Cara Eagan) .............................................................................................. 37 The Names of Streetgoers (Greer Gibney) .................................................................................. 39 Walking Sonnet (Emma Levine) .................................................................................................... 41 Advice for Falling Out of Love (Skye Mitchell) .......................................................................... 43 the garden (Skye Mitchell) ............................................................................................................... 44 Together in Isolation, Alone Inside Our Stories (Asha Simon) ............................................... 45 a green that used to be (Corey Smith) ........................................................................................... 46 notes from quarantine // sticky afternoons (Corey Smith) ...................................................... 47 i was born in a blue moon and an equinox (Natasha Vhugen) ................................................ 48 COLLABORATIONS AND INTERVENTIONS ......................................................................................... 50 Nora Altajar ........................................................................................................................................ 51 Brent Armendinger ........................................................................................................................... 52 Elle Biesemeyer .................................................................................................................................. 55 Rose Bowen ........................................................................................................................................ 56 Cara Eagan and Amy Fabrikant...................................................................................................... 59 Greer Gibney ..................................................................................................................................... 61 Emma Levine ..................................................................................................................................... 63 Skye Mitchell ...................................................................................................................................... 64 Asha Simon......................................................................................................................................... 65 Corey Smith and Isabella Waldron ................................................................................................ 66 Natasha Vhugen ................................................................................................................................ 67 Notes on Contributors ..................................................................................................................... 68

A SPECULATIVE BOOKSHOP

A Speculative Bookshop

WELCOME TO THE TALKING WALLS This is a speculative bookshop, meaning that it lives, like all books do, before and after they’re written, inside the mind. Originally, we were going to create a pop-up bookshop at CASA, a community-organizing space in the city of Ontario, California. Instead, we opened our doors in the future, on the other side of the coronavirus pandemic, after a long period in which many of us began to turn inward and understand that the “normal” ways of doing things were threatening our survival. We opened our doors in the possibility that emerged from that, in the renewed commitment to making sure that everyone is healthy, cared for, and assured their basic needs. We believe that creativity, like food and shelter and health care, is a basic need.

We believe that books are places where we recount not only the various truths of our experiences, but also where we can imagine other ways of being. The truths inside The Talking Walls are still being written. It’s up to all of us to write them.

Brent Armendinger

2

A Speculative Bookshop

WHAT INVITES YOU IN? Something like a hearth, it glows and pulses with warmth. It radiates from the core and pulls you in to shake your hand. You walk by on the other side of the street, feet dragging as the rain sinks you heavier into the concrete. The dry heat blushes against your cheek, and you find yourself falling to a new center of gravity. Your feet can’t take you anywhere but here, gust of hot wind sweeping you across 4 lanes of traffic during a miraculous moment of calm. Your briefcase fans open behind you, files and ballpoint pens blowing in cursive loops like smoke into the sky.

The bricks inhale and exhale, door fluttering with every contented sigh. The door looks exactly like the one from your childhood home where you knocked and shouted every Halloween.

Outside it smelled like cigarettes but here it smells only of crisp pages and uncracked spines, a craving so satisfied but not to sickness. Hands you can’t see or maybe they’re your own unwrap your scarf and wring out your coat, dripping rain onto your kitchen floor.

At first, it’s like looking up to see your own name in Marquis lights. Flashing gold and reflecting from mirrors, it calls out, says your name with a breath deep from the belly. No whispers here, only whole, happy hugs of lips around vowels. You blink again and then those letters spell out the name of your favorite author as a child, spaced tight and purposefully. Then you blink again and you were your own favorite author as a child. TONIGHT! You root around the shelves of a floating book cart and the books snuggle back up together when you’re finished, snoozing softly until someone who really, desperately needs the words comes along, their soul spilling out behind them as they, too, find their feet planted here. And one reaches to you, grabs your pinky with the smallest of grasps as you nearly pass it by, a book that reads you back, peers into your pages and maybe peeks at the ending. A book like a mood ring—you know what you are, what you need, but someone needed to say it to you.

Elle Biesemeyer

3

A Speculative Bookshop

WHO DO WE WANT TO READ? Building up a bookshop in my brain Where the shelves themselves, made of books, Stink up the room – a sweet, dusty stench Each page smells like a memory, a madeleine Where the shelves themselves, made of books, A house that holds an elevator pitch Stinking up the room – a sweet, dusty stench A bright idea on the tip of a swollen tongue A house that holds many an elevator pitch, An author and their sister and their son, Stinking up the room – a sweet, dusty stench Where ink of pen, paper and printer may meet An author and their sister and their son, Striking conversation through volumes and editions Where ink of pen, paper and printer may meet Poetry, prose, photo collapse into one.

In here, you read your friends, The ones you know or haven’t yet met You read the people you want to write about Or write to The questions you know or haven’t yet met The answers you need, or dispute You read the people you want to write for Or write against This is to say that there is no limit to the community you will find in here The authors may be friends, peers, lovers, complete archenemies And in that you can find a story that compels you to read more Or write yourself in.

Greer Gibney

4

A Speculative Bookshop

WHAT WILL THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE BOOKS AND STORE LOOK LIKE?

You will feel decaled edges and smell old books and candle wax Everyone is looking through a book There are flowers and dimly lit lamps, just light enough so you can read Would you like tea or coffee?

Today “The Star-Crossed Lovers” is playing The bookshelves are tall, wide, and wooden organized by genre You use the moving stool to reach for the section of San Bernardino poets Books recommended by store workers are open-faced, and books which highlight the current state of public affairs are at the front of the store Nora Altajar

5

A Speculative Bookshop

Would you like honey with your tea?

You sit on a fluffy chair and gaze at the artwork displayed on the walls You write about how you feel today in the store’s collaborative journal You walk around the perimeter of the store, and discover the children’s section where you look for a book for your cousin There are pages turning, and the smell of coffee brewing, light chatter taking place as a customer asks about the store’s calendar for events In the photo set included, I hoped to provide a sensory experience and perspective on how the store would feel and look. I imagine bookshelves will line the perimeter of the store, and there will be cozy lighting just light enough to read through pretty golden detailed lamps and hanging lights. There will be movable furniture to provide the space for open-mics, reading(s), discussions, and performances. The books will be organized by their genre, as in “Poetry,” and then will be organized alphabetically by author’s last name. “Fiction,” “Memoir,” “Cooking Books,” “Children’s Books” are all examples of sections.

The “Children’s Books” section will be arranged by types of children’s books, for instance there will be the goal and hope to have the same variety and diversity as the adult book section here. There will be notes throughout the store and by the bookshelves suggesting what store workers recommend to read, or what books highlight current events and global affairs at the moment. New releases by local authors will also be highlighted. There will be art and photo books, presented throughout the store that will be easy to flip through. The bookstore will provide a welcoming environment encapsulating a multitude of genres and welcoming for readers of all literacy levels. The arrangement of the books will help support and welcome that by displaying numerous types of books and genres, accessible to all.

Nora Altajar

6

A Speculative Bookshop

WHERE CAN YOU FIND A ZINE? Even if you don’t know much about zines, or what they do, or how they are made, that’s okay.

Because you can still look at them. Zines can be beautiful without reading them, that’s all part of the fun. You don’t even have to come inside of the bookshop if you don’t want to, because there will be zines in the window, hanging from the top of the sill and draping down. But if you do decide to come inside, there will also be zines hanging from the ceiling by a clothesline.

If you’re over 7 feet tall then you’ll have to duck. If you don’t duck you could get tangled in the clothesline and that would not be ideal. You’ll still be able to walk comfortably around the bookshop though because the zines won’t be hanging everywhere. And when you get tired of walking around, you can take a seat in a big comfy chair; maybe it will be red or blue. Next to the chair there will be two clotheslines hanging and in between them there will be a zine or three pinned, almost like they are floating. You can unpin them and flip through them but do be careful; it would be a shame if you got a papercut. If you bring your baby into the bookshop, you can set them on the ground so they can crawl around. The zines are high up enough off the floor so your baby won’t grab the zines and ruin them with their spit and throw up. If your baby cries and whines for a zine of their own, we do have some. They are made out of more durable paper and can withstand those grimy little fingers. If your baby is inspired by the zine, maybe one day they will create one of their own. And we can showcase it in the bookshop.

There will be two sections, one labeled “Zines: made by babies for babies” and another one: “Zines: made by babies for adults.” Therefore everyone, big and small, can read a zine. If you find a zine that you love so much because it’s so beautiful, you might have found it on the wall in a frame. The bookshop keeps beautiful zines with beautiful art in a frame on the wall. Don’t worry, you don’t have to buy the frame if you don’t want to. And you don’t even have to buy the zine! Sometimes it's just nice to browse.

Emma Levine

7

A Speculative Bookshop

HOW CAN WE HELP CHILDREN TO SEE THAT THEY BELONG? I think that children’s books are incredibly important because they play a large role in their socialization. Growing up as a transgender child, the world felt so lonely at times, like there was no one in the world who understood the thoughts in my head. It was incredibly confusing that there was no dialogue or literature that was written that I connected to, because at the time the topic of transgender children was not widely discussed. When I think about our bookstore I want there to be sections of children's books that discuss identity and aim to connect with different uncovered facets of children's identities. I imagine the books to be ones banned from schools because they challenge traditional learning and they speak to kids in ways to help them understand themselves. Books that help kids understand gender and race and intersectionality. Books that talk about mental health and talk about the world in a realistic way as well as fantastical. I think a lot about a quote by Toni Morrison that says, “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." The reason I think about this a lot is because my mother and I had conversations about the fact that there was a lack of books about the trans experience when I was growing up and that is why she wrote a book about a trans kid for children. I want the books that were written out of feeling neglected in literature to be in the children's section of our bookstore. I envision our entire children's section to be filled with books that will hopefully make children feel a little less lonely in the world.

I want a multitude of colors, none of which are associated with gender in the shop. Lots of bean bags, fun rugs, maybe a loft style structure for kids to read on. I would also love to see a board where kids can write down their favorite books they have read so we can make the story interactive. In the future when this bookshop is alive, money will not be a concept and the books are borrowed and returned and people donate old books. Kids spend hours reading a book in the store and leave once they finish. When the bookshop is alive, the sun shines every day and the light shines through the big windows into the children's section. Kids move back and forth between the sun and under the loft to get some shade. The kids play in this section too, acting out the books they liked, using costume and accents to become their characters.

The children read and play all day long.

Cara Eagan

8

A Speculative Bookshop

WHERE DO WE READ? Walk through the doors and look left: a place for reading, a place for relaxation, a place for escape.

A place that screams coziness: string lights sparkle on the walls, worn rugs cover the mahogany floor, soft pillows, soft couches, and rocking chairs beg you to come snuggle up with a book.

A place filled with warmth, in a variety of forms: lamps emit a soft orange glow, the room is colored with the hues of the earth, and a fireplace nestles, waiting, in the corner – in case it ever gets cold in Southern California.

A place for connection: a mix of chairs and couches, where people are encouraged to sit next to each other, strike up a conversation with a stranger. moveable partitions mold the room, to provide different spaces for activities. portraits hang on the walls accompanied by bios and book recommendations to encourage discovery, conversation, community, between patrons and employees alike.

A place for all: where a little free library offers books for anyone/everyone. where everyone’s labor is recognized and the sharing of writing is encouraged. where bookmarks are ample so no one will ever lose their page. and where moments are no longer measured by the capacity for productivity contained within them.

Skye Mitchell

9

A Speculative Bookshop

WHERE CAN YOU CONTRIBUTE YOUR OPINIONS AND FEELINGS? A station where you (a reader, passerby, regular, volunteer, staff member, curious cow) can contribute your feelings/thoughts on any piece you have read either inside or outside of The Talking Walls. A sort of collective reading journal welcomes you to share how certain books make you feel or what stuck with you and continues to permeate your thoughts; maybe a specific sentence or scene that affects your approach to cooking or friendships or family or technology.

Physically, it has calm and quiet vibes. Less of an area for socializing or talking and more of an area for reflection, aloneness, solace. Yet also a space for solidarity through reading what past reviewers have written and sharing how those reviews resonate with you. A safe space for feelings and collectively, yet individually, experiencing and discussing books.

A large spiral bound notebook sits on a spacious wooden desk with candles and a dried bouquet of flowers and a pulley-chain lamp. A squishy rolly chair welcomes you to bring over your book (maybe one you are reading; maybe one you are about to begin; maybe one you have just finished) and write about it. Feel free to venture away from the content of the stories and into how the author's words made you feel, what you were led into thinking about in your own life. Did these stories resonate or did you feel distant from them? Did you feel the book in your bones or was it a bore? Let those feelings and opinions leave your body and join the collective imagination on the page of the notebook in front of you.

This is a collective reading journal that reflects how you felt on that day. The ghost of your thoughts as you shared that day leaks into the next sharer's reflection and so on. Until we have together finished a notebook – what an accomplishment! – and begun another. Each finished notebook sits in a stack to be consumed by whomever sits in the squishy chair that day.

Together, we write and share and create reviews of books we love and hate while staying in touch with ourselves and sharing that too, when we choose to.

Asha Simon

10

A Speculative Bookshop

HOW DO WE FILL THIS SPACE? With light: lots of it. We need the light you bring into this space, in whatever form you choose to bring it. You can play with light: give us movies, photographs, new ways of looking. Bring light by bearing witness to what you interact with. Show us your truth.

With sound: lots of it. Bring noise however you want: snapping, clapping, singing, yelling. We want to hear what you have to say. We want to hear from every voice, especially if you are not usually heard. You can read your words, sing your words, play your words. Same with your feelings, your desires and dreams. They can come in any form.

With care: lots of it. What do you want from words? What stories do you want to tell? Which ones do you need to hear? Tell us your answers and we will help you make it happen. We can present you with walls and chairs and tables and air to breathe. We will even provide some snacks if you ask nicely. You can do whatever you like with this space.

With community: lots of it. This is a place to collaborate. You can bring your family with you or you can find them when you walk through the doors. Ideas will come in the door with you, and they will walk out bigger and brighter.

How do we fill this space? That’s up to each and every person who walks through the door.

Natasha Vhugen

11

A Speculative Bookshop

WHAT ACTIVITIES COULD BE AT THE BOOKSHOP? The world is your ecosystem. It grows and lives within you. The events of the bookshop could take on a life of their own. It all depends on the voices that fill and thrive within the space.

This bookstore could start as a small garden and grow into a rainforest. I hope to have everyone who attends to speak their minds about what they would want to do at the bookshop.

Different genres to cover every month of the year. You could participate by joining in and reading a book from the genre of the month and join in a monthly event discussing books read.

Here is an example of a year’s worth of genres at the speculative bookshop: January: Romance February: Historical books which we could tie in black history month events at the store.

March could be self-help/growth books.

April: Humor May: Fantasy June: Mythology of any culture July: Utopia/dystopia August: Crime/mystery September: Literary Classics October: Horror November: Non-fiction December: Adventure Reading hour could be fun, whimsical, and imaginative. They could be held once a day for different ages. These beautiful moments could be shared by participants drawing pictures of what they read, talking about their thoughts of the reading. Kids gather around the librarian/author/volunteer/parent as they read stories of fantastical lands, detailed by imaginative pictures, aloud. Adults huddled in groups collectively analyze the symbolism found in the color yellow woven throughout The Great Gatsby to themselves. Or it could be a time where people help younger people read. Adults specializing in education for youths with learning disabilities could help children and young adults learn to adapt to reading with dyslexia. The ability to read is the gateway to everything. A rewards program could be set up to award kids wherein they would earn points based on the amount of books they read. The kids could earn prizes or donated books upon accomplishing a certain amount of points (books read).

Rose Bowen

12

A Speculative Bookshop Scavenger hunt – finding books with a certain theme within the shop. This could be a weekend event where we could pick a theme or certain word and have people scour the store in search for books containing the word of the week. On February 1-2, 2020, we carefully selected the word “last.” Children, preteens, teenagers, and adults searched through our shop bringing books like The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Last Song, and The Last Goodbye.

Book themed parties are the basil of the operation, the nourishment of the soul – dress up. I think people of all ages, especially children, would love the chance to dress up outside of Halloween. More so if it is their favorite book character. Children flood the book store in handmade pigeon costumes from the beloved book, The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog! Adults coolly eat hotdogs as children excitedly share their favorite pigeon-based book. Jazz music dances onto the streets outside of the bookstore as adults dress in historically accurate flapper costume and 20’s attire for the celebration of Stories from the Jazz Age. Re-create your favorite book art/any type of craft. This could be a chance to recreate a scene (or book cover art) through art or theatre. This could be held once a week with different types of art media in mind. So one month could cover paint, drawing, poetry, and building/construction of some sort.

Workshops could be held on how to access free pdf/audiobook formatted books onlineshowing kids that there is always access (like Libby and Overdrive).

Story sharing (or book clubs) could be our white chrysanthemums, bringing us knowledge through truth- meeting where readers come together and talk about their favorite books and why? Trying to entice people to read new and interesting things. This week we read Children of Blood by Tomi Adeyemi and we looked at a new perspective while gaining an understanding for African culture.

Author events. Everyone loves meeting the author and hearing their take on their own pieces or listening to them read a part of their work. It might help children see that being an author is an attainable future. We have Ransom Riggs coming in to talk about his bestselling hit, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. You are encouraged to create your own power or dress up as one of the characters for this event.

You could gather every so often to showcase new books. This would help people become interested in things that they do not generally look for.

Ultimately, I would love a bookshop where this is a dialogue and community, some level of openness and level of change, so that people can be comfortable and excited to be in this space. Starting from staff ideas and recommendations, we grew into a beloved bookstore known around the world. Our customers can recommend authors to visit, themes of the week, Rose Bowen

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A Speculative Bookshop and what to read next in our book clubs! We grew from a tiny shop into an establishment of literature. We livestream our events online and hold book readings by authors via Zoom during the Covid-19 epidemic.

Rose Bowen

14

A Speculative Bookshop

WHAT DO THE OUTSIDE PARTS OF THE STORE LOOK LIKE? As you exit to the back of the store, you find yourself in a large fenced-in area. It is almost always perfect weather here (whatever that may mean to you). There are chairs and tables scattered throughout the yard and a large fruit tree in the left corner. There is a slight breeze that meanders through the back area every once and awhile, brushing against cheeks and passing through elevated arm hairs. Wildflowers sprout through cracks in cement and heavily populate the areas below the fence.

The chairs are big and comfortable, making it so that you could spend hours reading or talking while immersed in one. They are all different colors. On certain days after school, you can hear kids piling into the back of the store claiming their chairs - I get the blue one! I call yellow!

Some chairs have tables perched next to them, allowing others to pile books and computers to their liking. It is a space for people to do work, read, or just enjoy being outside. In the corner of the backspace there lies a hopscotch court drawn on with faded chalk and some soccer balls. At different points in the day, the backspace is filled with people searching for community through books and shared spaces. At night, the backspace transforms into a space for sharing work. The tops of the fences are lined with lights, beautifully illuminating the faces of everyone there.

In the front of the store, you will walk by three different roaming carts. One for kids, one for adults, and one full of books for those in college (textbooks). The carts are always fully stocked with a variety of books, selected by employees, that appeal to a wide variety of customers.

Today, A Bad Case of Stripes sits atop the kids cart on full display. The carts are made of a lightcolored, sanded, wood. Painted designs of local plants cover all four shelves, top to bottom.

In addition, there are a couple of chairs placed outside the store for people to use as they check out the cart books. On a sunny day (which most are), the chairs are full of passersby finding new books to take home. You are drawn in by their presence and feel compelled to stop in.

You ask what kind of books are available and who runs the bookstore, eagerly looking around at all the stacks. Something bright and sturdy catches your eye. The book exchange project.

This is an opportunity for community members to share books with one another. In order to take a book from this shelf, you must bring one of your own. This allows for further variety in the literature offered. Today, you watch someone put A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid on the shelf and slowly pick through all the other books before settling on Where the Crawdads Sing

by Delia Owens, sliding it into their backpack before heading down the sidewalk, humming as they go.

Corey Smith

15

AUTHORS WE LOVE

A SELECTION OF WRITERS FROM LOS ANGELES AND THE INLAND EMPIRE

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Authors We Love

WILL ALEXANDER Will Alexander was born in Los Angeles and has remained a lifetime resident of the city. He takes the form of multiple arts and areas of thought, including but not limited to poetry and visual art. He earned his BA in philosophy and creative writing from the University of California-Los Angeles in 1972. Alexander was the recipient of a Whiting Fellowship for Poetry in 2001 and a California Arts Council Fellowship in 2002. He has taught at multiple colleges and universities, as well as worked different jobs and with nonprofit organizations.

He works in multiple genres, and is interested in writing about the African diaspora as well as experimenting with the multi-dimensional aspects of poetry through surrealist explorations.

As a multi-media artist, his artwork has served as the cover art for books he has written.

A poem that may serve as an example for Alexander’s work is “Inside the Ghost Volcano,” published by The Poetry Foundation. Many of his poems consider scientific terms or concepts such as this one, and I find the relationship between such tensions and the dynamic nature of his poems interesting for this reason. This poem serves as an example for Alexander’s sophisticated poetic language, incorporating physics, astronomy, and his impressive lexicon that is highly appraised when discussing Alexander’s work. “Inside the Ghost Volcano” is an excerpt from his book, Above the Human Nerve Domain. The lines “as one listens to fire / in dense eruptional gullet” represent to me the quality of Alexander’s work, signifying a duality of bending language involving a cerebral vocabulary. Similarly, he writes, “the sun no longer quantified / by strange calendrical posses,” demonstrating his connections with space and elements of nature through mathematical terminology, making mathematics understandable through poetic language in my view. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47003/inside-the-ghost-volcano

Will Alexander, by Nora Altajar

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Authors We Love

ELIZABETH CANTWELL Elizabeth Cantwell is a poet and teacher living in Claremont, California. She teaches Humanities at The Webb Schools. Elizabeth obtained a B.A. from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. Her poetry has been published in various literary journals in addition to a chapbook and two full length books.

Her first book of poems is Nights I Let The Tiger Get You, and her second book, All the Emergency-Type Structures, was the regional winner of the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk Prize.

The poem that I selected is “It’s This Again,” published in HOBART. This poem initially stood out to me because of the untraditional form and the very first line.

The words she uses are intentional and create this direct stressed rhythm that attracts readers.

I enjoy the form, the spacing and emphasis between certain words, and the lack of punctation within this piece. I feel that Cantwell is creating this continual flow of the poem like the movement of a stream. This flow creates a very natural feel to the poem.

There is this level of intimacy the author expresses with the usage of “you.” It gives the reader a sense that we are a part of this journey and that the author would love the companionship of “you.”

I love the line where she says, “rotting tangerines.” To me it is such a striking image and really pulls me more into the scene that she is describing.

Ultimately, the author does a wonderful job of creating this intense passionate love within this poem. https://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/five-poems--7

Elizabeth Cantwell, by Rose Bowen

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Authors We Love

JOSHUA JENNIFER ESPINOZA Joshua Jennifer Espinoza is a trans woman poet from Riverside, California. Her work has been featured in Denver Quarterly, American Poetry Review, Poem-a-Day, Lambda Literary, PEN America, The Offing and elsewhere. She is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at UC Riverside. Espinoza’s first book Alive / It Hurts / I Love It was released by Big Lucks in 2014 and her second book, There Should Be Flowers was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016. Espinoza’s work is driven by experience, and, as she says, “emotions are weird and often illegible to me, so I use my writing to respond to experiences and help make sense of what I’m feeling about them” (The Offing). Many of Espinoza’s poems center on her experience as a trans woman in a society that continues to erase trans voices. There Should Be Flowers is an inquisition into the relationship between body and mind and the ways in which “the line of separation between the trans body and the world that names it is constantly confused and blurred” (The Offing). Espinoza’s book is an ode to self-preservation and resistance woven into beautiful poems and imagery. There Should Be Flowers examines how society creates and simultaneously erases bodies.

There Should Be Flowers has sat on my bedside table for months, filled with little underlines and stars scribbled onto the pages. I have read this book a couple times and continue to find new lines that intrigue and mystify me. Espinoza’s poems are beautifully simple and profound. Her casual tone and candid descriptions draws the reader in. Her poems implicate the reader by inviting them into her intimate reality. I love the ways in which Espinoza captures complicated relationships to the body and difficult emotions.

I really like Espinoza’s poem called “It Is Important to Be Something” from 2015. I especially enjoy the line, “I give you my skull to do with whatever you please. You grow flowers from my head and trim them too short”. Espinoza’s work conveys deep beauty while illuminating struggles with claiming and living in one’s body. I am in awe of Espinoza’s ability to simply, yet elegantly write about and interrogate ideas of the body.

Poem https://poets.org/poem/it-important-be-something Offing Interview https://theoffingmag.com/offsite/guest-editor-profile-joshua-jenniferespinoza/

Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, by Corey Smith

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Authors We Love

GENEVIEVE KAPLAN Genevieve Kaplan is a poet, an editor, and scholar. Kaplan is originally from the Bay Area but got her MFA at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and now lives in Southern California. She is the founding editor of Toad Press International Chapbook Series. Toad Press International Chapbook Series focuses on translations for prose and poetry. Her first book of poetry is called In the Ice House and there are strong themes of nature imagery within her poems. The poems differ in length; one titled “The Landscape” is only eight lines long and another called “Part of this Season” is 19 lines long. Her poems are somewhat conversational as she includes “I” and “you” and “we,” which I believe helps engage the reader; at least it does for me personally.

I would like to respond specifically to her poem titled “If they want to feed, it is theirs” because I appreciate the merging of the narrator and birds and moths. The focus on little and seemingly insignificant creatures in relation to humans creates a humbling dynamic. Here is the link to a few of her poem in Terrain: A Journal of the Built and Natural Environments. The lines “if the moths get into it, everyone eats/ the morning coming, its clouds/ (the one bird bigger than the morning)./ but the smoke settles in and we’re breathing/ the birds and I, and the house” insist on this sort of sameness that humans have with birds or moths. Breathing the same air, one being eats means other beings can. Kaplan builds off very plain ideas and gives them a lot of weight with her use of breaks between lines, parentheses and punctuation. This imagery of a home being a home for the narrator, the birds, and the moth might not necessarily be how people want to think of their home yet in reality that is the case. The observations that are made are miniscule ones that are magnified, specifically, the door threshold and the hustle and bustle that takes place there, for every creature. https://www.terrain.org/poetry/27/kaplan.htm

Genevieve Kaplan, by Emma Levine

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Authors We Love

ELOISE KLEIN HEALY Eloise Klein Healy was born in El Paso, TX in 1943 and grew up in rural Iowa. She directed the women's studies program at Cal State Northridge, the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman’s Building in Los Angeles, and was a founding chair of the MFA program in creative writing at Antioch University in Culver City, where she received the inaugural Horace Mann award. In 2012, Healy was named the first Poet Laureate of Los Angeles. Healy, who is a lesbian, often explores the themes of sexuality, community, and the California landscape through her work. She’s published five books of poetry and three chapbooks; her book, Passing, was a finalist for the 2003 Lambda Literary Award, which honors work by LGBTQ writers, as well as the Audre Lorde Lesbian Poetry Prize. Her other awards include the Grand Prize winner of the Los Angeles Poetry Festival Competition, grants from the California Arts Council and the City of Los Angeles, and six Pushcart Prize nominations. She also founded Arktoi Books, which specializes in work by lesbian writers and is an imprint of the small, Pasadena-based publisher, Red Hen Press.

Her poem “Asking About You,” from Passing, was published on the Poetry Foundation’s website.

I was immediately drawn to Healy’s poem “Asking About You.” I love the experimental form – there are no lines or stanzas, so even calling it a “poem” feels strange. It’s brief, direct, and feels like she’s simply writing down her thoughts as she experiences them. But this is what makes it so perfect, because it really captures the feeling of being in love and wanting to get to know someone in their entirety. The opening line gets straight to the point, and is deeply conversational in tone: “Instead of having sex all the time I like to hold you and not get into some involved discussion of what life means.” There’s an energy to this poem that strikes me as so intimate and personal, like it’s come straight from Healy’s mind, and yet the emotions contained within are so universal.

I found the final line especially captivating: “What I want most is to have been a girl with you and played on the opposite team so I could have liked you and competed against you at the same time.” What a beautiful way to capture the feeling of wanting to know someone so deeply, so personally, at all stages of their life – and this resonates especially for queer people, I think, because so often what feels like our purest, most “authentic” childhood selves are robbed from us, and we can only begin to experience what that means as we reach adulthood. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52854/asking-about-you

Eloise Klein Healy, by Skye Mitchell

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Authors We Love

KENJI C. LIU Kenji C. Liu is the author of two poetry collections, Monsters I Have Been (Alice James Books, 2019) as well as Map of An Onion (Inlandia Institute, 2016), which was the winner of the Hillary Gravendyk Poetry Prize in 2015. In the former book, Liu uses an invented method he calls “frankenpo” (the full title is Frankenstein Poetry) to sort of "remix" already existing texts. In doing so, he uses the invented relationship between older texts and more present ones to comment on the intersections within toxic masculinity, marginalization and violence (Poets and Writers, 2019). Liu's other work can be found amidst the pages of American Poetry Review, Anomaly, The Feminist Wire, Gulf Coast, Split This Rock’s poem of the week series, several anthologies, and two chapbooks, Craters: A Field Guide (2017) and You Left Without Your Shoes (2009). Poet and librettist Douglas Kearney has described Liu's work as follows: "Liu’s collection “shows where the bodies have been buried, and that many won’t stay dead. No doubt, this book is alive as hell.” A Kundiman fellow, Liu is a resident of occupied Tongva land, in Los Angeles. One note is that some of his favorite poets that he thinks deserve widespread recognition are many of those that we have been reading: Sesshu Foster and Angela Peñaredondo among others.

“Deconstruction: onion” was published in the journal ACTION YES. Personification of inanimate objects always resonates with me, and this read like a heartbroken note of love and compassion for an onion, likening it to a person – who yes, has layers (which always seems to be the bit about them) – but has walls put up, secrets, stories, sadness. The onion makes one's eyes water with pain as they cut deeper into it, and Liu speaks to sensory details that something like this evokes: the infrastructure of tears being the literal and figurative, touching every layer before peeling back. Slowly but surely peeling through each layer until there is no distance. It is intimate and romantic and longing. And then, it is still simply an onion. http://actionyes.org/2015/10/kenji-c-liu/

Kenji Liu, by Greer Gibney

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Authors We Love

JOSEPH RIOS Joseph Rios is a writer from Clovis, California. Rios is a Macondo fellow and graduated from U.C. Berkley. He published a book of poems in 2017 titled Shadowboxing: Poems & Impersonations which was awarded with an American Book Award. This book is about a young Chicano boy growing up in California as he becomes a poet in the farmlands of Central California. Rios has also written a poem which is published on The Academy of American Poets’ website titled “Dear Buffalo, Dear Zeta or To a Few of My Dead or Nearly Dead Tíos.”

This piece, so beautifully written and vulnerable, explores the relationship of loving and respecting someone who can sometimes stand behind hurtful beliefs. Rios writes on this website, “This poem explores that relationship and tip toes the line between condemnation and praise.”

I found his words incredibly moving as I imagine this is a relatable relationship to any young person breaking out of the social norms they were raised with. Rios is exploring his relationship with older men in his life who can be misogynistic or racist, yet he still finds the love in his heart for these people. In this poem he asks, “Tío, mi tío, when you wet the bed,/ is it still my tía's job to change the sheets?” which shows the gendered dynamics between family members that he has noticed. As I continue to grow in my own life, challenging the way I was socialized and allowing my beliefs to evolve, I continue to struggle with the relationships I have with elders in my life who hold on tightly to outdated language and beliefs.

The relationship is complicated and can be unsettling, but ultimately there is love there for them along with criticism. Rios is my eyes, finds a way to combine both. https://poets.org/poem/dear-buffalo-dear-zeta-or-few-my-dead-or-nearly-dead-tios

Joseph Rios, by Cara Eagan

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Authors We Love

LUIS J. RODRIGUEZ Luis J. Rodriguez is a San Fernando Valley-based author, activist, poet, essayist, healer, community & urban peace activist, and youth & arts activist. He was previously the poet laureate of Los Angeles from 2014-2016. As a native Xicanx writer, he discusses race, culture, ethnicity and how these forces interact within the U.S. in his works. In the preface of his new book, From Our Land to Our Land, Rodriguez wrote “Like millions of Americans, I’m demanding a new vision, a qualitatively different direction, for this country. One for the shared well-being of everyone. One with beauty, healing, poetry, imagination, and truth.” His works, although varying in genre, all strive towards this vision. Thirty years ago, he founded Tia Chucha Press, which publishes mostly poetry, and he also co-founded Tia Chucha’s Cultural Center & Bookstore.

This poem, entitled “Watts Bleeds,” is a great example of Rodriguez’s work because it shows his unique ability to synthesize history and horror with beauty and hope. He discusses his personal emotional response to violence and death in Watts while fostering a hope for the freedom of the people who live there. He describes the pain and suffering in the neighborhood causing a “hemorrhage” in the city of L.A. This poem personifies the area of Watts as a person or animal that can bleed, offering a visualization for the poverty and violence there. Towards the end of the poem, he refers to Watts as a “trampled flower” to communicate hope and resilient beauty that he wants to rise up again. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147105/watts-bleeds

Luis J. Rodriguez, by Asha Simon

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Authors We Love

YESIKA SALGADO Yesika Salgado is fat, fly, & brown. The Salvadoran poet writes not only from Los Angeles but with a fierce love for the city and for love itself. She has authored three books in three years through Not a Cult: Corazón, her debut, Tesoro, and Hermosa. In a sort of trilogy, each book moves builds a different pillar in the story of Salgado herself. Corazon writes of love that is both deep, romantic, and heartbreaking but also of self. Salgado writes of the women in her life in Tesoro, knitting together their stories of strength, trauma, and perseverance.

Hermosa is the tender tale of homecoming—Salgado picks up the pieces left by her previous works and rebuilds in celebration. Salgado writes plainly about the intricacies of being herself, tethering her readers to raw, nostalgic images of life and love in LA. “Tesoro,” the namesake poem of her second book, is about love and loss of a country, of a language, of being in the middle and how Salgado settled there. If you listen closely, you may be able to hear me scream and applaud from the audience. “Tesoro” is written in both English and Spanish with no offered translation, a demonstration of Salgado’s own position.

Something I appreciate about Salgado’s work is the simultaneity of poetry and prose that makes her work so accessible. Her words are both internal and exposed, allowing the images themselves to bring power to the work. Sometimes it seems as if there are few ways to talk about fatness creatively, but the line, “and the airplanes with tiny seats,” opens up so many possibilities to her readers, among them myself, a self-described poetry-hater until I met Salgado’s work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gf30QVmPwM

Yesika Salgado, by Elle Biesemeyer

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Authors We Love

EMERSON WHITNEY Emerson Whitney (they/them/theirs) is a poet, journalist, and teacher. They are based in LA, but currently teach in the BFA creative writing program, a low-residency program at Goddard College in Washington State. Whitney is also a gender studies postdoctoral fellow at USC, and they have taught at LA City College in the past. They have contributed to Huffpost, as well as many magazines, such as CA Conrad’s Jupiter 88, Troubling the Line: Anthology of Trans and Genderqueer Poetry, Work Magazine, Bombay Gin, and more. Their two book-length publications, Heaven and Ghost Box, were critically acclaimed, and Heaven received praise from Kirkus Reviews, The Seattle Times, Literary Hub, and many others. The book, written in prose, grapples with issues of womanhood and gender, childhood, and finding home within a body.

I read Whitney's poem “Hari Hari,” published in a 2015 issue of Drunken Boat. The first thing about the poem that really struck me was Whitney's use of questions: it feels as if, as the reader, I am being engaged in a conversation. “Hari Hari” brings together questions of ritual, religion, gender, and sexuality to create what feels like a personal interrogation of self: the narrator of the poem is looking inward and trying to answer the questions "what am I doing here? Why do I want what I want?" Whitney even uses the second person, asking "Have you watched Latcho Drom?" early in the poem, making the reader more intimately involved with the piece.

The piece is written in paragraphs that place it somewhere between poetry and prose, adding to the conversational feeling. At times, it felt like it could be a monologue. It moves between two different threads, the first being very abstract lines of questioning seemingly intended to lead the reader on a journey of their own selfhood and identity while the narrator does the same. I was asked to face my own conceptions of things like "intersection" and "convergence," thinking about what my own "root systems" might be.

The second thread the poem follows is far more concrete, utilizing the story of a physical journey the narrator undertook as they walked through New York City and grappled with religion and ancestry while also eating and engaging in sex and romance. The narrator moves away from the mind and spirit - from identifying with the Hari Krishnas and the practices that come with being one - while they move towards these more physical actions of the body. When questions of the body are brought up, Whitney uses far more colors, sounds, and sights in the poem, grounding the reader in the physical world.

Hari Hari leaves readers with more questions than answers, and plenty to think about in regards to our own spiritualities and body-mind relationships. It is an exploration of self that goes beyond the self as an individual, conceptualizing it more as a collective, reminding us that it is the answers to the same questions that make up our inner foundations. http://d7.drunkenboat.com/db22/romani/emerson-whitney Emerson Whitney, by Natasha Vhugen

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WORK BY THE TALKING WALLS COLLECTIVE

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective

TWISTED TREE ON YALE AVE curling, slow roots move and today i am not sorry and this tree is just a bath where leaves swim in day-old rainwater and maybe the sun will dry today i am wishing i could be as independent as growing trees, (dirt and rain and light is their family though) sometimes a plant will get so shocked after being indoors, that it will die from the sunlight suddenly and i wonder if i might relate someday and the tree is much the same but it looks different under new clouds, and there is a wrapper in the water bark is snakeskin-and solace is the mark of hands where the sign of a human makes the world feel tall again (even in silence)

Nora Altajar

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective BIRTH MAP

1. smell the cow shit and bathe

2.

3.

4.

5.

in bricks and cold this is not where your parents belong snow will always be unfamiliar the midwest is too calm palm leaves drip sticky heat on your newly freckled cheeks sand will always graze your feet lanai screens are like large cages (create a path which leaves the south) arrive at the scene of broken buildings the place your parents belong wind carries jasmine flowers car horns and the chew of a distant language desert brain promises philodendron health mountains still grow even when they seem complete never return where you’re unwanted lick the hope of an antler crown and build a compass of words to bridges and skinny rivers creeks move with ascension wherever you move earth remains a magnet

Nora Altajar

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective

VANTABLACK it’s a sphere, like the heavens, just like the greeks said it would be and every address is an angel number and we just add another digit when we run out.

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888 that’s mine. everything dead is vantablack, the black so deep it swallows all the light with one inky gulp, no reflection of silver smile. like the black at the center of a glass bottle of heavy cream, sun trapped in the thick of the fat. or how your mouth is completely dark when you stop talking and learn to listen or maybe just have nothing more to say. the black that asshole put a patent on. every step on concrete or soft ground like launching into a void even though the big scary face in the sky is all swollen and bright. every day a still, noiseless night, the cooing of the mourning dove at dusk a distant memory. but if you really feel like dying one day, you don’t need a metaphor for a deep black pit. you can just burrow into the soil.

I jump off a skyscraper headfirst after climbing seventy stories of matte vantablack spiral staircase but I dive through the storm drain and see women swimming in the sewers and a pile of all my toenail clippings from my entire life and the bus stop where I first got kissed. and then I emerge head to the sky on the other side, feet planted on the sidewalk of my black front yard with a tall white fence, manhole cover crushed like a fortune cookie from my arrival, at my zenith some other big fat perfect spherical body, dripping silver. no buzzing l.e.d., just the shatter of a crystal chandelier. there are never more things dead than alive the law of conservation of life or maybe like newton’s third law: for every action, there is too a synchronous reaction both equal and opposite. out in the suburbs, still Elle Biesemeyer

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective black, my uncle shoots himself in the bathroom while his kids are at school and a weed sprouts to life in my black back yard, prickly along one grain but soft like a puppy the other, between the tiny wild strawberry bushes where I hid my treasures and the potatoes, purple from the stain of the black black earth. my brother says did you know you can’t eat poppyseed muffins before a drug test? the poppies too are a little purple like when I wash white tees in with blood red panties and bloom a rose. “that’s why mine came up positive” brother keeps digging potatoes with a bright blue shovel.

I tug the weed out but miss the roots.

Elle Biesemeyer

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective

PHOENIX CITY Pastel Burning Skies.

Open hearts singing through the night.

Their sad songs lull the moon to bed.

She is just a willing guest.

Her light is unneeded.

These souls roam vessels of pure light. surrounding the planet like fireflies.

The wind smells of salted caramel, Gently kissing lips as they walk by.

Time is just the past.

The people here ingest air and sweat the present.

Rain purifies the earth with rose water every witching hour.

The cycle cleanses sore hearts And minds.

The people step out of their skinsBursting sinews before sunrise.

When the sun peaks they stand like gods just outlines of themselves.

Their hollow parts whistle as they walk.

They have no hands or mouths.

They do not bury fists into soft bodies, and every harsh word has been flown off to space, a dazzling firework display.

The birds see no evil.

They are blind But their songs echo heavenly notes.

The dogs and cats spark scholarly conversations.

They sit with their monocles and petticoats Rose Bowen

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective judging

people who glide by.

The insects are the foundations to it They diligently workCreating Earth’s rotation.

Their movement never ceases. in silence you can hear their labored breath.

all.

All guns have turned to ash. their nutrients fuel a colorful garden, Oranges breed with blushing reds.

Melancholy Blues dance with violent purples.

Flowers tower like skyscrapers, Rustling in the windtheir leaves spell love in Morse code before sunset.

A wonderous flower memoriam for the fallen.

Soft bodies unknown to violence.

Pain a concept told before bed.

There are no streetlights.

People drive with prayers tucked underneath their belts.

Pedestrians walk with their eyes closed.

They carry tomorrow’s hope upon their chest.

The pastel burning skies. always present always looming.

Gravity decides to take a break Unknown to when they might fall Rose Bowen

4 times a day.

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective or They are phoenixes Always striving to reach

when they will rise. in waiting. the sun,

They live with their heads tilted upwards.

Bathing in pastel burning skies.

Gravity will always decide to falter here.

Rose Bowen

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective

A DANDELION IN ONTARIO I used to sit in my backyard at 85 Mayflower and pluck all the dandelions out of the ground, making wish after wish, covering myself in flower dust and returning to my house filled with hope. My mother told me that when I was on a baseball team, I used to sit in the outfield and play with the dandelions, swaying them around me, dancing with the flying petals. I used to spin around over and over again, until the world became nothing but a stream of colors. I would spin and imagine that when I stopped everything around me would look different. I wanted to believe I could create a new world. Now, one decade later, the world does look different, with a smog following me where I go, dulling my entire vision. In my world today dandelions no longer have magic. They just grow in between sidewalks and blow away with the wind.

The colors here are not the colors from home. Home is green, entangled with brown and blues and all the natural colors of the world. Those colors are the ones that Jake and I hiked through in the backyard and the colors we soaked our bodies in the stream down the road. They are the colors that clung to our white t's and bruised knees. The colors of my childhood are not the ones I see anymore. Now the colors are grey and white. The colors that paint the air black and stain broken fences along the roads of Ontario. Every day I encounter a little bit less color. I am beginning to accept that one day there will be a world with none at all. Because even when it's all gone I will remember my colors. My greens are the memories of Jake and I, playing hide and seek through the miles of forest outside our doorstep. The sticky summer days when we would build dams in the stream and dunk our heads in the murky water. Green to me is the sweat tugging at our hair and sliding down our faces, waiting for the drops to reach our upper lips just so we could taste the saltiness of the sweat. Green is holding onto hope that one day we can return to our stream and the world we created in the backyard, and pretend, just for a moment to be kids again. I know that when colors begin to evaporate the last place to hold any green will be the water and mud of 85 Mayflower.

If you want to achieve independence you must bathe in loneliness, day in and day out. Most days it feels as if loneliness is the only person I know. She greets me at home and lures me into my bed. She feeds me soup with a spoon and rubs my back when I cannot sleep. I am still learning how to not need my mother as a twenty-one year old and the only way I know how, is to lean into the safety of my new caregiver, loneliness. As she and I walk together, down the shaded roads of Ontario, we find a message engraved into the sidewalk. “I love you JULIA!� I begin to feel a bit less lonely knowing at some point in time someone stood in this exact spot and confessed their love. I am reminded that love is a place and a person and a color for me, and that loneliness is only a state of being and a way to process. Love is Chicago and New York City, emulating yellow and gold. I know that my love is not on this walk with me but writes me

Cara Eagan

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective postcards on the weekends and dreams about me in the night. Being in love is knowing that colors still can shine in the shade.

If I close my eyes hard enough I can still feel my fingers tracing the walls of my childhood closet. I can smell the dust sitting on my temple clothing and hear the sounds of my house.

The surface of my skin dances lightly on the walls, following the crevices and cracks that look like spider webs in the daytime. I used to hide from the world in my closet, creating my own universe and fantasies as my fingers would trace the walls in the pitch black. The broken sidewalk of Ontario looks how the walls of my closet felt. One crack leading 5 different directions, creating patterns. I have only begun to realize that I no longer have a place to hide or allow my mind to roam and picture a different life for myself.

Imagine how sad it must be for the flowers that bloom in the sidewalks of Ontario. Imagine growing under a block of cement, wishing to sprout through fresh dirt and feel sunlight for the first time, breathe air and begin to survive. Imagine being a flower that is one of the lucky few that blooms in between a crack in the sidewalk, only to see that the air is not clear but a soft shade of gray and the sun isn't warm but burns and the wind does not make sounds only the cars brushing through it does. Imagine being a flower in a crack in the sidewalks in Ontario, slowly suffocating, waiting for death to step on you.

Cara Eagan

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective

THE LINES IN THE SOIL The sky yearns for love. I hear it in the way she cries for water and moans when her face lights up in flashes of heat, shining light amidst a sea of grey. She craves a mother's touch too, when she wakes up in the middle of the night with a stuffy nose and a fever, or the moments when anxiety builds in the throat and cuts off the breath. The sky is just like us, needy and wounded.

The sky holds a multitude of stories and lives that no longer linger on earth's breath. I like to imagine her holding my nana, wrapping clouds around her back and intertwining with her hands when she gets afraid of thunder. I picture the sky running her hands through my nana's hair and waiting for the goosebumps to form on her forearms. I imagine them dancing together, holding both hands and spinning each other around as fast as they can.

The sky smiles at children who imprint their hands on murals and plant seeds in the earth, and wait for days, weeks, months, to see how powerful it can be to give life to something. There are times when I know the sun only shines so children don't forget how good sunshine feels when it simmers on the surface of their skin. She shines to see the way kids’ smiles are uncontrollable when they bathe in the light. There are days when I feel so jealous of children, because I want to forget that we are no longer the future but the end, and that the sound of trains, cars, planes running through homes is not natural but cultivated. I wish to forget that soon the sun will forget what a smile looks like.

The sky looks different for the people who live in prisons. Whose lives are lived in cages, and bunk beds behind windows with bars, and locks to bathrooms and who spend hours wondering when it will all just be over. Because I know that even on days when the sun heats the earth to the perfect temperature, it always hits differently for the men who are lined up for hours outside and searched with dogs. I know that light doesn't shine the same for the workers in warehouses throughout the Inland Empire. The sky is like a picture on a wall for them, with a tiny hole in the roof of the warehouse, taunting them, laughing at their existence, yelling at them to work faster. I wonder what the air tastes like there. I wonder if the sun shines through blackout windows.

The sky knows how to forgive the people who have hurt, or destroyed, or killed. Not only does she forgive, but she heals the ones she lifts from the dirt and brings to the world above the clouds. She heals the one who forgot how to put food in her mouth. The one who I worked with on Monday nights, Tuesday mornings and Thursday afternoons, and then never Cara Eagan

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective after her heart fell asleep in the middle of the night. The one who never learned how to be a mother. The one who forgot who her family was, and who she was, and who she loved, and eventually, how to breathe. The one who lives behind bars, and regrets it all every day. The one who turned to god after he did what he did. The one who lay around his apartment waiting for death to slide under the door and kiss his lips. The one who knew no mercy for 16 years.

The sky sings songs in Palestine, weaving stories of resilience and hope into the air. The wind blows to tear down the gates and the walls and the imaginary lines that are drawn in the soil to prevent people from being able to hold hands. I know that the sky loves harder in places where land is not stolen and houses are not built on dead bodies. I wish the sky would stop illuminating light where people with guns stand on the imaginary lines of division and shoot when they get restless. I wish the sky did not exist in Israel.

The sky is going to cry tomorrow. She is scheduled to weep for days, to make up for the weeks that turned into months where she could not bring herself to allow the tears to escape. Her tears want to touch the people who live in prisons and the people who pack Amazon packages and the children who paint murals and my nanas grave. Her tears want to give Palestine clean drinking water and coat their wounds with protection. Her tears hope to touch the planted seeds in community gardens and show the people who touch the world how powerful it is to give something life. Her tears wish to have the men in green and yellow put their guns down and leave the lines in the soil. Her tears are a warning, and a message of love, and a letter of vulnerability. Her tears cannot be forgotten. Because once we do, the lines reform and the buildings rebuild, and everything goes right back to the way it was.

Cara Eagan

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective

THE NAMES OF STREETGOERS He wears a mask stitched from a tri-coloré bandana – it inflates outward every time he heaves a breath, sprinting down a glove-littered sidewalk. His feet barely touch the ground. We have never met and may never meet again, but the first name that pops into my head when I see him is Solomon. It might not be his real name, but it is his character. Peaceful, quick. Running at a rhythm, one that I cannot keep up with.

In the park, a person holds a phone up at eye level, speaking into it with the trust and warmth of a longtime friend. They’re showing off the sunset on the skyline, and if I walk close enough, I can hear the muffled “oohs” and “aahs” coming from within. I think I hear someone call them Jen, and I bet they have a nice family somewhere like Saratoga Springs.

The two Marthas are the women I see every evening. They power stroll down Bond Street in matching vests and yoga pants, sharing gossip through their N95s. Whose wedding got cancelled? Whose daughter left her husband right smack in the middle of quarantine? Who actually has..you know...the virus?! Passing these two is like playing a live game of Pacman. Left, Right, Back, Sidestep Right, Circle, Left.

It is easy to spot the people who fear being outdoors though they desperately yearn for it. The Simons of Brooklyn, let's call them. Simons are straight shooters, with compulsive habits. No matter who they are, you can see it in their clenched foreheads, furrowed brows, eyes on the path. Months before this they had prepared, never touching a subway pole and sidestepping any common sneeze. Now it is not an evening walk without light speed movement, a breath of relief when they make it across the street.

There are the Jeanettes, who smile kindly as they step aside and tell you to “be safe”, as they let you pass by. Even with a mask on, the smile is visible in their eyes. I would like to be a Jeanette. Jeanette is a name that invites a hug and a warm fireplace feeling.

When it’s a totally grey day, Jeanettes of the city offer a little white light.

I feel like I am every single one of these people. I’m a Simon each time I return home and wipe down every door handle I see. I try to be Jeanette to the woman who delivers Greer Gibney

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective my mail each afternoon. Jen with my family, sending photographs and playlists and pierogi recipes. I swear to god I’ve tried not to be a Martha. I just do not have the stamina to keep up with Solomon. I am only Greer. One name who emulates many.

And I wonder what they call me behind closed doors, muffled under hardshell face coverings and sanitized whispers.

Greer Gibney

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective

WALKING SONNET The air is cold, like white and blue, but the building walls radiate the warmth of their red and yellow hues.

Above Dr. Rio’s Dental office, an American flag flutters, has that flag been there forever or has it been acquired it in the past four years?

A lonely beer can stands in a parking space, contained by white lines. The smell of beer burrows into my nose. Cigarette butts inhabit the cement, they wonder why they’ve been left behind and where they went wrong.

The Mailman whips around the street corner, there should to be a cartoonish trail of envelopes streaming out the back of the cart, considering his speed Four traffic cones assemble on the sidewalk. One is dirtier than its peers. Would it be better to know the trials and tribulations of the road? Or would it be better to be kept pristine?

The sun beats down on only one side of the street, lighting up pieces of broken glass. From the parallel sidewalk it would look like diamonds.

In the middle of the intersection, the carcass of a pizza box lies, forgotten. Funny, how something once so precious becomes so disposable without its insides.

The road boasts a “Closed Ahead” sign, yet a few lucky cars are still allowed to enter. The air smells dry with exhaust and chokes my throat with dust.

Looking to the left, a metal wire fence slants downwards, the mountains peak through. The metal is much more intimating with a looming rock overhead.

A hole in the stucco wall politely beckons me to put my arm in; there might be something in there. But instead, the textured wall pokes at my chapped skin and it hurts. The only crime here is false advertising.

A loveseat rests against the auto shop wall. Perhaps it used to have a home in a house but now it’s for everyone.

Pressed into the nook where the building wall meets the sidewalk, a muffin has been ravaged apart. The top half of the pastry separated from its inferior counterpart.

Emma Levine

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective A manhole reads “empty” as opposed to “there’s a man in here.”

In the distance a billboard “Rich’s Jewelry and Loan” attempts to convince me that Rich isn’t keeping the jewelry all for himself.

Emma Levine

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective

ADVICE FOR FALLING OUT OF LOVE 1. Quick: cleave the bone from the marrow and suck.

2. Wash down strawberries with sweet wine until you’re sugar-coated and heaving.

3. Trace the outlines, but ignore the postscript. a. P.S. The heart is a bundle of cloves. b. P.S. You are a geranium. i. An apocryphal solvent. ii. A dis/ab/solution. iii. P.S. You’re still here?

4. The heart is a barter of cards.

5. You can cradle the dove. a. You will still feel the shudder of its empty nest against your collarbones.

6. Peel back the plaster until you’re speaking in tongues.

7. Substitute fresco for memory. a. Remember to w[h]et every pigment. i. Is the echo of an echo an echo or the echo’s echo?

8. Reach in the dark, reach again, reach a. (again) i. ((again)) 9. The heart is a bottle of coal.

10. Lick fire and spit ashes until the gums are charred and warm.

11. Wake up rested, a. and alone.

12. Go searching and find yourself sitting on the rooftop, in the passenger seat. a. How long have you been mis/placed? b. The home is a battle of cache.

13. You can look away. a. You can close your eyes.

14. Dawdle, a. b. c. momentarily.

15. Remember how it always comes back to this, the black river and the moon and the other side of night. a. Bite your cheek. i. Lie.

Skye Mitchell

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective THE GARDEN

freshly saturated and i am in the garden grabbing weeds at their roots and pulling up caterpillars instead golden and slumbering beneath my fingernails i move through the air like a promise which is soft wet and tender weather is unbearable in its generosity find that i’m fighting tooth and tongue against the woodgrain when the bird calls and it’s 4pm and the sky is a mass of clear blue above the humming freeways and the sun falls on green palm fronds meandering and caressing each leafy spine the houses on the hill blink yellow light rippling perhaps laughing at the hungry city turning below while i am in the garden always reaching inside the loamy earth for what will never be known

Skye Mitchell

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective

TOGETHER IN ISOLATION, ALONE INSIDE OUR STORIES An author’s portrait leans into a timid sketch of a typewriter, crooked frames line the crowded, fading walls, guarding over my father as he edits, lurched over a manuscript, chasing a lonely, privileged world where literature comes before profit.

Crooked frames line the crowded, fading walls just where my first and sweetest crush hung them five years ago, chasing a lonely, romanticized world where chivalry comes before sexan apology for the gin and condoms my dad found under my bed.

Just where firstly friend secondly father spends his early mornings and late nights, amongst wars amongst lovers amongst time-travel.

A sanctuary for those who crave stories distant from their own, my brother, a self-diagnosed binge-reader, furrows deeper.

Amongst tricksters amongst blood amongst mystery, we may meet who we resent, who we want to feed, or who we can’t stop thinking of. my brother, a self-diagnosed binge reader, can’t ever sleep.

Together in isolation, alone inside our stories: we read.

We may meet who we used to know, who we fear, or who we want to be.

My brother’s eternal search for himself inside Vonnegut’s cynical satire… together in isolation, alone inside our stories. We read to feel voices besides our own tickle and tease our fixed realities.

Asha Simon

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective

A GREEN THAT USED TO BE

The smells of soil make me miss my mom a feeling rare and sticky Nostalgia oozes out from below, covering my feet, and then my legs, to my heart Pulsing through my veins Leaves push each other with every small gust of wind Tiny petals of planes overhead peeking out from behind giants Tall, elegant sunflowers tower over them I think of another time in life Of my hands, callused, in thick gray gloves Of my mother’s humming Her baskets full of vegetables placed delicately on the kitchen counter in late afternoons Days spent outside, sweat dripping off my nose Pulling weeds to the rhythm of voices in the distance These days I feel disconnected from the land From the hours in which I read to the sheep huddled around my knees Or moments perched on branches 20 feet high, looking down at the acres of green below me I yearn for the land and the soil underneath my fingernails Today I drive by dozens of warehouses I wonder about those who long for the acres of green that used to be here For the lines of citrus, a sweet breeze carried by the Santa Ana winds Now filled in with cement, the acres are gray and motionless A breeze carries dust and old memories – the sweetness trapped in a truck Dead parts in green plants Wind hitting the leaves Still growing, even with the excess weight She clips them

Corey Smith

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective NOTES FROM QUARANTINE // STICKY AFTERNOONS

In my backyard, afternoons feel long and still Delicate branches reach out to hold hands over the poorly painted fence as I sit on the warm cracked cement slab I think about the many things I am now learning to love Like the stickiness of fresh peeled oranges on my fingers Or that with every gust of wind, I am hit with the familiar scent of its blossoms I am learning to love early mornings in which silence meanders through our house The unphased hummingbirds brushing each flower outside my window And the kissing trees overhead along College Avenue I spend days watching the shadows move from one side to another The trees, elongated and poised, put on a show I wish to touch every leaf and pick every fruit until I have a giant pile So tall that when it falls it covers the ground so that I can no longer stand I worry about the day that I must gather all my things and leave That without the familiar scent of oranges oozing through my window I will be lost That without the soft eyes of those who share these walls I will feel like a part of me is missing The echoes through my walls will take on a new form 400 miles away This morning I sat with these worries and held my hands tight So tight that I forgot to notice the bird on my armchair Slowly twisting to get a good look at me I hope I don’t forget to love the stillness I now know so well Or the warmth of the sun on my cheeks once I depart In this backyard, I sit for hours watching the trees sway and listening to the fence creak I study every inch so that when I am gone, I can close my eyes and come back To the dancing shadows along the discolored fence and the symphony of birds overhead And to the many afternoons spent quietly observing this place I call home

Corey Smith

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective I WAS BORN IN A BLUE MOON AND AN EQUINOX

and this is where they spat me out: from gray and vast to whatever the opposite of water is. here, i can smell the phantom salt i always craved from the freshwater lake i call home. body as city: i built walls the day i learned how. but that doesn’t mean my heart doesn’t jump at the idea of running through golden rolling hills. i can love the wide open. i say COWS as i drive by them and press my face to the window just like everyone else. the plight of an only child: my family dragged me with them. age nine we sold the house and moved to where we couldn’t help but dump sweat from our pores the streets smelled like dung and hot trash. our apartment looked out over a lawn more fire ants than grass elementary school forced to move due to security threats. that was the first year i was aware i had a body, that perilous and visceral thing. object of all my focus. did anyone look up the night i was flung into living? the moon must have been magnificent dripping in luxurious fatness. to get such fullness once again so rare, so lovely and large summer slipping towards autumn the earth hanging at its zenith for one last breath of warmth. i opened and cried at the loss.

Natasha Vhugen

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Work by the Talking Walls Collective last March, i started to run away, and wound up halfway across the world i spent four months subsisting on cappuccinos and persimmons, heat and burn of sugar and juice sluicing down my coldly cracked face. i turned seventeen for the fifth year in a row. body like the dregs of rotting fruit left on the pit, thrown out and ignored. it was raining again. that’s what they don’t tell you about picking your soul up and bringing it with you: it is so hard to always be split between homes. now, i know i can’t kill what i carry with me no matter how far i drift from the water and green i was born into. to live with this resilience of body and weakness of mind is exhausting. to answer how i got here is to understand that i never meant to.

Natasha Vhugen

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COLLABORATIONS AND INTERVENTIONS

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Collaborations and Interventions

NORA ALTAJAR “window” i draw squares and hope they lead somewhere i stare until the lines become a landscape hopscotch on graph paper (dizzy from sitting on the sill) i trace the vast terrain and at once i am rigid eleven grand for a funeral home with windows the undertaker’s sleight of hand makes wishing wells of aquariums i flip the coin and ask for salmon For this poem, I originally set out with intentions to begin an email thread in which the poem would be sent off, and return back to me eventually, having no control over picking who writes the lines and having contributors only refer to the line above theirs. However, due to a lack of response and delayed timing I ended up reaching out to people via text message. I just gave them the line before theirs, and continued that process until it reached what I felt like was a sufficient ending point. I rearranged the poem a bit considering some responses I got included two lines because the person did not want to choose, which is where the parenthesis come in. I also got some people saying “it’s yours now go for it,” letting me know I could choose a line out of a couple they offered, which felt supportive of this idea for a collaborative poem and encouraged the process for me. It was apparent more people were likely to respond sooner via text rather than email. I enjoyed this concept for a collaborative poem and felt it was an efficient approach to achieving collaborative poetry. I ended up with a poem written collectively by my loved ones, close friends from different parts of my life, making this poem especially significant to me.

Nora Altajar

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Collaborations and Interventions

BRENT ARMENDINGER “A Page that Is Also A Window” In this time of quarantine, I’ve been thinking of what it means to be connected to others, especially strangers, even when we are physically distant. I’ve been thinking about the work of language, the other proximities that words allow. Every word has inside it the trace of another person’s breath, sound rising in the throat, fingers moving across a keyboard, a pen perched above a page.

Describing the Frontera Sign Poetry Project, Heriberto Yépez writes, “I wanted a text written not over a neutral space but a text that had to be read with the city and other texts as its (literal) background. A text on a surface that lets the context be part of the poetic space.

A page that is also a window.”

I put a line of poetry in the window of my apartment on a small dead-end street in the neighborhood of Highland Park in Los Angeles.

Brent Armendinger

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Collaborations and Interventions I wanted to make an offering of poetic solidarity to my neighbors, to passersby, to mail carriers and delivery workers. I decided to turn this into a collaborative project, Quarantine Window Poems, by creating an Instagram account that invites others to do the same and reposts their work. I’m interested in the idea of poetry that’s anchored in multiple specific locations and how we might bring those spaces together in the act of reading. Here are some initial contributions to the project:

Kelly Quinn: Truism by Jenny Holzer

Brent Armendinger

Sara Mumolo: Poem by Bāsho

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Collaborations and Interventions

Libby Smith: Quote by Kahlil Gibran

Brent Armendinger

Moira P. Armstrong

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Collaborations and Interventions

ELLE BIESEMEYER For this public intervention, I adopted the exquisite corpse form and ended up with a threeway collaborative poem with two close friends who had never met. This was a very intimate way of introducing them, but afterwards they each expressed how close and comfortable they felt with one another because of the exercise. The collaborative document method also allowed us to watch how each other’s brains worked and disallowed brooding over what our own brains produced. We ended up with a sort of somber love poem, which was unexpected for all of us.

The original prompt: Imagine life and/or the world post-pandemic. What do they look like?

Where is the heartbeat of our society? Are things different? What is the new normal?

The directions: -pick a participant order (i.e. youngest-oldest) -write the prompt in a collaborative document (google doc) -give everyone 10-15 minutes to brainstorm the prompt -free write each line in the collaborative document, immediately notifying the next person by text -- each line should build on the previous in terms of tone/length/subject -repeat as many times as needed And here is the poem with minor edits but exactly as written in terms of line breaks: soft arms wrap round melting, melding two round bodies together, flesh stretching from fingertips, curling around new words hand-ripped pages shoved into gaping mouths devouring gentleness with voracious hunger, as if I chewed up my own name staining my gums black blue purple green yellow fizzy crimson ballpoint pen bleeding from incisors my bite cuts clean through but my gums are very tender, pink and swollen like a teething baby; and my tongue squeezes the vowels of your name painfully like mother’s love, closed and tight and then easing open, Joni Mitchell through my neighbor’s window the cooing of a mourning dove at dusk soft butter brown sugar sunrise kiss stretching a tight morning back long and slow I nestle my heart back in its place and gulp the weight of day Elle Biesemeyer

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Collaborations and Interventions

ROSE BOWEN Guarded Hearts Reborn Collaboration with Denise Guerrero A Fractured crystal heart lies beneath frozen lake water.

Silver tongues/ and stone skin statued in the garden.

Her armor/ was never meant to be pierced.

Above, the sky is an open wound/ spilling out The holy dark/ and all its stars.

She sheds the broken armor/ blossoming in the cold/ wash of blue moonlight./ she thinks This feels like /being reborn. This feels like/ Leaving Eden.

She mistook her light for holy fire.

Her skin weathered/ but soft like a flower petal.

Nature is Chaos Collaboration with Kenneth Bowen Trolls roaming within Tallgrass Under the moonlight.

The lily pads Watch with intensity, A dream is about to Be born.

Trees sway back And forth with the slow breath of A sleeping giant.

The stars shine as Earth trembles.

Rose Bowen

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Collaborations and Interventions

Today, hope will be born through chaos.

The hope of the many.

The chaos of time clashing against them.

Dirt and clay Hold their dreams buried safe to root And grow for years.

Yesterday's dreams turn to the reality of now to be changed and shifted to the hungers of tomorrow. Fire and ash lead to fertile land that brings forth new possibilities for life.

Marigold Hearts Collaboration with Alyssa Young For a momentan infinity between two lovers became their future Skies of blue and fields of marigolds In moments of sincerity, certainty warmed the palms of their hands Comets rained above but the air was electric.

The sky and the stars bore witness to the beginning of a new hope.

Golden strings hang there, glistening like the sun.

Innocent laughs that never catch Planted firm in love Weathering storms don't hurt anymore Their scarred cracked heart beaten from past loves acts as a chandelier, Their light glows outside of them.

Beaming for all to see.

Rose Bowen

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Collaborations and Interventions

Gabriel doesn’t dare remove his eyes from this love, a sacred moment becomes their religion, a pure faith that won't weigh their souls down.

Her words would be their scripture. her arms a holy book.

A love illuminated by a field of marigold.

Their love is not a rebellion but pure and soft.

They exist with the stars’ envy.

Body Collaboration with Kenneth Bowen Do your bones crack so loud that it sounds like tectonic plates shifting?

Bones turning to dust become your sleep medication before bed.

Sleep to dream to achieve the peace that eludes the waking.

Dust to clay, clay to life, like making way to rubble.

Does your brain work in shifts?

Your mind working harddependent on how many circles lie under your eyes.

Does your heart work at all times?

Beating bleeding bursting at all times giving, gifting going the extra mileHow well do you body?

Rose Bowen

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Collaborations and Interventions

CARA EAGAN AND AMY FABRIKANT To have compassion for a mother Whose tears stuck to the throat like hardened honey Whose words stuck to the skin, like hairs piped through the surface Is to allow her to emerge in the mind, as a beacon of light, a touch so tender it hurts To mend the broken cells To have wonder for a child Whose whispers lined the mind, like powdered sugar on Mexican wedding cookies Like Nestlé Quik chocolate clumped at the bottom of a milk glass, to saturate, to dig deeper inside the cliff Lifting a shovel so heavy it bleeds To break open every doorway To hold my mother as if she is still a child As if she still flinches when sounds erupt in the dark and wishes she could crawl into her own Mother’s heart Her breath evens out, calming her mind, under the covers, whispers tingle the lower back Holding my mother’s heart until the beat settles Like waves after a storm To release my child as if she is an adult As if she might step out, fly above Whips of language that land Like the crash of cymbals in her heart Shaky and sweaty, her breath quickens Her tears spring from sealed crevices Long-time closed with blood from her scratches Holding my child’s heart in prayer, that My palms form a salve like water on cracked earth We relish in the way yellow paints the skin and purples on the tongue There is a piece of string that stems from one laugh to the next, linking every laugh we share A stain on the surface that stings when you scrub There is a fullness to our being that is strained when a mile isn't singular And the sounds of whispers are unfamiliar, creaking in the dark frightens again Just imagine the feeling of cotton weaving in and out of your hair And the smell that lingers on the sheets that kiss wounds and ease the pain Cara Eagan and Amy Fabrikant

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Collaborations and Interventions Just imagine a world where miles don’t exist, only the singular Just a mile away

Cara Eagan and Amy Fabrikant

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Collaborations and Interventions

GREER GIBNEY The below poem is the result of the collaboration between myself and five other friends from various walks of my life. I asked them each the same four questions (which I will leave below the poem). I took their raw, untouched responses and mixed in my own. I played with where each line was meant to go: what flowed together?

What didn’t need to be included? After a few tries I came to the following piece. What strikes me about this is that each person who answered these questions came at them from different angles and worldviews. They all are affected by the current events of the world in different ways. But yet reading this, I feel as though I am reading one voice (or two at most), and that the thoughts of my collaborators in many ways reflect my own. This exercise made me feel a warmth and closeness to friends who are physically so distant from me.

Afraid of being alone. If I don’t have someone to talk to I feel like going a bit insane.

Afraid of living alone in the midst of a natural disaster, Afraid of just floating through life, never doing anything noteworthy, Afraid of being a narcissist, Afraid that I’ve given up before I’ve even begun, Afraid of being undesirable…is that too deep?

I desire running shoes (not that I’d be able to use them, hah.)

I desire some sort of escape from where I am, a warm hug and a soft serve ice cream cone.

To feel loved in that type of way. To love back in that type of way.

To have a dance floor make out – in a crowd of strangers.

To take a walk, go shopping.

To feel at peace with my loneliness, for my hangover to go away.

I have been fixating on a memory that I wish to recreate (or maybe just want the feelings of that night) I have worn through the soles of the only shoes I have with me, and I have the urge to take up Running.

The sense that things have changed so drastically but some deep parts haven’t.

A sense of safety and comfort, joy Making Shrinky Dinks with my friend on a rainy night (you can put this type of paper in the oven and it turns into these) We’d talk about how wild everything is right now and what we think everyone else should be doing about it.

We would eat spaghetti carbonara – with vanilla iced coffee!

We’d make caprese salad sandwiches that also have pulled pork (ideally panini pressed)

Greer Gibney

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Collaborations and Interventions On the roof, somewhere nice outside, on the side porch – with fresh squeezed OJ, of course! Sharing time experiences and food together, and just liking each other a lot (non romantic or romantically) When I’m old, I want them to be in my bridge group on Tuesday nights. How does bridge work? I guess I feel like giggling a little. I know all their mannerisms still. When I get a text I can hear them saying it.

I feel tingly warm in my chest, I am glad they are in my life and I am sad when they leave.

Questions: What are you afraid of?

What do you want/desire most, today?

Think of a person or people that you love (romantically or not). What do you think/feel when you think of them?

If we were making lunch together on any given day, what would that look like?

Greer Gibney

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Collaborations and Interventions

EMMA LEVINE This poem was created through text messages with an old friend. The prompt was “Hunger in Isolation” and we interpreted it as a body beginning to eat itself from the lack of movement.

No need to visit the pantry for the tenth time today, just watch yourself nibble on a toe. It’s a bit gross but I think it portrays the frustration (or aggravation) that can occur in a time of solitude and also, there’s a little bit of humor.

Hunger feasts on blood and bone Little movement makes for a great meal Chew chew crunch swallow Ouch my bones, they hurt Ouch my belly, it’s full What else to eats But meats Yum Yum in my tum The pain is worth the prize

Emma Levine

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Collaborations and Interventions

SKYE MITCHELL

I posted on my Instagram story asking for people to send me a word, any word. I didn't say it would be for a poem, because I didn't want people to feel beholden to using "poetic language."

They had 24 hours to respond, and I was expecting to do this a few different times, because I didn't think I'd get a lot of words on the first try. But I did! I had 30 people send words, and it was fun to see how much variation there was in the word choices. I ended up using about half of the words – the ones I used are bolded in the poem.

I found that it was tricky to figure out how to make something cohesive from all the different pieces, but I really enjoyed this method of public intervention because it gave me words to work with that I would never have thought of using on my own. For example, I had to look up what incarnadine, senescence, and succor meant. I'm planning on continuing this method of creating poetry by asking for more words – perhaps on Facebook or Twitter the next time – and adding on to this poem until it feels complete.

Here’s the poem-in-progress, which is called "Peace" Cheeks flush hot with crimson blooms An incarnadine garnish atop supple flesh Morning’s milk, a hearty dew Rhubarb jam and soft green light New life fashioned as if from clay Each warm breath euphoric succor Amazement’s whisper scaffolds the day And love is aging without senescence

Skye Mitchell

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Collaborations and Interventions

ASHA SIMON This week, I did a collaborative poem with my brother, Miles. We sat in my room and passed a notebook back and forth. It ended up being way more intense and personal than I expected.

Things had been pretty tense in our house this week, so I think our writing reflected this. I think that he felt comfortable breaching some boundaries he usually draws regarding his privacy and mental health, which I found overwhelming but also very intimate for us. As many are, he is the type to feel more comfortable sharing and communicating through his creative energy (rather than verbally) and this process allowed us to tap into that. We created together while touching on topics that are usually very difficult for him to speak about. Although it may not make much sense to other readers, it is very personal and beautiful to me.

The way in which a “you� unfolds as subject, scapegoat Is projecting blame a way of loving yourself or of devouring your poor victim?

Even as one sees thirty persons First, Second, Third, foreign

Perspectives

Make sure to eat enough food to feed them all. eat or Def-eat, more like They can breathe through mecounter-clockwise toes that set your own clock For you, it is the end inevitably, for them it is the take.

Will they take you from me? Can we cut a deal?

Asha Simon

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Collaborations and Interventions

COREY SMITH AND ISABELLA WALDRON What I Wish You Had Known On day 41 of solitude, I think of you. I think of what I want you to know.

What I wish you had known. That which you will never ask.

I’ll tell you anyway.

I want to be needed, to be very necessary to someone else’s being, so much so that They think of me when they read a book and take notes in case I ever read it.

I want you to catch me with the coarse layers of my skin peeled back stretched out far enough to see a glimpse of pearly brittle bones.

To pare down the thick pith that spreads in my chest with every new lie.

I want to be waifishly-thin and speak loudly and have a biting sense of humor that makes people take me seriously even though I am so beautifully waifish. Like Keira Knightley with the voice of a tyrant. A benevolent and comical tyrant.

I want the beauty that is kept in hushed tones on navy couches in un-air-conditioned rooms.

To be sitting next to you there, on that couch marred by cat piss, just us, with two bowls of ice cream and America’s Got Talent on TV and our legs sprawled over each other haywire on the wicker chest because it’s been hotter than hell this September.

Rather, you only see an instance, a gaze (averted) and a laugh arising from my tired chest unable to form the right words. I yearn for my legs to give out, so that finally you will have to pull me up into yourself and ask me “What do you want?”

Corey Smith and Isabella Waldron

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Collaborations and Interventions

NATASHA VHUGEN

In exploring the states of mind we are in during this strange time of quarantine, I used the prompt "still" and sent it off to my friend who lives in a different state, who then sent it to someone of a different generation. After that, I lost track of it, as I have no way of personally knowing any of the people that the second person could have passed it on to. The poem is still sitting at five lines so far; perhaps the fifth contributor has not passed it on yet. However, I'm excited at the prospect of it ricocheting around a completely different circle of people and watching it take on a life of its own. I think in this state of isolation we find ourselves, it’s especially exciting to find new, creative ways to make connections. Here is what it consists of so far: still the roar of the world goes nowhere now It echoes across freeways and up these empty blooming hills disconsolate, tender in the rain.

Awash in misery and wonder.

Still i am arrested by the smell of the rose

Natasha Vhugen

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Nora Altajar is a sophomore at Pitzer College planning to major in philosophy. She ultimately seeks to pursue writing and art, hoping to emphaize a connection with writing and community, particularly in the Middle East region. She was born in Yankton, South Dakota and raised in Sarasota, Florida.

Elle Biesemeyer is a rising senior at Scripps College from Portland, Oregon. Her quarantine routine consists of writing, music, and clay. She is a collaborator in organizing for prison abolition, justice for survivors of sexual assault, and fat liberation. Despite her writing & rhetoric major, she has always been, put lightly, disinclined to the discipline of poetry. But during the pandemic, she has begun to turn to poetry as a new kind of shelter.

Rose Bowen has been writing poetry since she was 16. She is currently pursuing an English degree with a focus on creative writing at Pitzer College. Her love of poetry and all other arts pushes her to help others find something that they are passionate about. She finds beauty in nature and the written word, which comes alive within her writing. Her keen observation of the human condition is equal parts whimsy, melancholy, and wonder. Check out Rose’s poetry podcast Muse poetry and look out for her poem “Mermaid Thoughts” in the next Scripps Literary Journal.

Cara Eagan is a senior at Pitzer college pursuing a bachelor’s degree in sociology. Although sociology is her major, she wishes one day to be a writer. Cara has always been pulled by memoir/ creative nonfiction, and as of this semester she has enjoyed exploring poetry. Her summer plans include attempting to collaborate with her mother on a short piece or book on their experiences through Cara’s childhood. Writing a novel has been Cara’s dream since she was a child. Growing up as a young transgender child Cara felt isolated through many points of her early life. She wants to write this book with her mother to help children struggling with their gender identity and parents with their child’s journey. Cara plans on making her way back to New York City to live with her family after she graduates.

Greer Gibney is a student of literature and writing at Pitzer College in Claremont, California.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Gibney has found immense joy and passion for reading and writing fictional stories as a way to both immerse herself in the world she grew up in, and escape to others. More recently, Gibney has discovered an interest and strength in writing creative non-fiction and poetry. Over the course of the past semester, Gibney has written numerous short pieces that play with rhythm and dialogue. She has a newfound talent for writing as though she is having a conversation with the reader, and this she looks forward to honing and working on. She has the utmost love and respect for her peers in Community Literary Practices, and admires the work they have done together over the past few months.

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She is currently quarantining at home with her mother and pets, which will surely provide her with plenty of writing material in the coming weeks.

Emma Levine is an English major at Pitzer College. She has been writing since she was young but originally thought she wanted to be a biology major. Levine took one college chemistry class her first semester and decided it would be better for everyone if she stuck with writing.

Levine has dabbled in some poetry but mostly focuses on prose and specifically creative personal essays. She has not published any novels but when she was nine years old she submitted a story about an old man to Stone Soup Magazine. It was never featured. Levine resides in the Bay Area with her trusty beagle, Collin, and hopes to continue living there post grad. She doesn’t quite know what she wants to be when she grows up but she would like to continue with her writing and hopefully, one day, be published in a literary magazine.

Skye Mitchell is a senior at Pomona College majoring in Media Studies and minoring in English. Her full name is actually Schuyler, but she shortened it to Skye when she got to college because she thought it sounded cooler. Skye grew up in a sleepy suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina and spent the early years of her life in the arid foothills of the Cuyamacas outside of San Diego. As a result, her two favorite things are the lush green hills of the Appalachian Mountains and the wide, sweeping plains of any desert landscape. She’s currently learning to love living in Los Angeles, though she has no idea what she’s going to do or where she’s going to be in just a few short months.

Asha Simon is a senior at Pitzer College, studying contemporary U.S. history. Born and raised in New York, reading is her favorite past time. Previously intimidated by creative writing, she only recently discovered writing as a form of self-expression and self-care. She hopes to continue to write collaboratively with peers and family in the future.

Corey Smith is a senior at Scripps College. Corey is a politics major with a concentration in race in American institutions. Originally from San Francisco, she plans to return postgraduation to spend the summer hanging out with her dogs and doing art. Corey has always loved creative non-fiction and memoirs but only recently developed a love for poetry.

Although Corey does not want to pursue writing professionally, she plans to continue to develop her poetry and writing skills in hopes of one day creating something extravagant.

Natasha Vhugen (she/her/hers) is a student at Scripps College majoring in English and Creative Writing and minoring in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is from Seattle, but has spent stints of time living in Switzerland, India, and Amsterdam. She’s an only child and complains about it a lot, and can make really good chocolate chip cookies.

Brent Armendinger was born in the small town of Warsaw, NY, and studied at Bard College and the University of Michigan. Brent is a poet and the author of two books: Street Gloss (The 69

Operating System, 2019) and The Ghost in Us Was Multiplying (Noemi Press, 2015). He has been teaching creative writing at Pitzer College since 2008 and feels incredibly grateful to do this work. Brent lives in Los Angeles and loves deciduous trees.

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