[1]
| LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Where elegance meets eloquence, you’ll find Lady Blue. Since the very conception of Lady Blue Publishing, this mantra permeated every idea, every creative process, and every end result. We sought to design a publication focused on the beauty of the English language in all of its unique and captivating variations. Our submitters latched onto our quest for elegance, sending us a magnificent portfolio of writing and artwork with representation and readership from around the globe. The product of these efforts is contained in the pages that follow, where you’ll find an alluring mix of poetry, prose, and photography that will charm and intrigue you all the same. Though we had no particular theme in mind when accepting submissions, we found that one central idea emerged to tie many of these pieces to one another: the search for identity in a prodigious world — one that is both dramatically altered by human existence and also remarkably untouched in many ways. Poems such as Vivian Tsai’s “Roots” and Aletha Irby’s “Poet at High Tide” explore the individual’s place in relation to a powerful natural world. The photography of Jenna Mock and William Crawford highlight the immense human influence we have on our surrounding environments. The pieces by Bibhu Padhi and Wendy Ellison combine elements of memory with striking reflections on nature and beauty. It is with equal parts honor and pride that we present to you the first edition of the Lady Blue Literary Arts Journal. We hope you find yourself as captivated by its diversity and enchanted by its elegance as we ourselves are. Much love,
Thank you, Claire Meler Founder, Editor-in-Chief
Heather Nonnemacher Creative Director Alaina Richardson Managing Editor
All images contained in this magazine belong to Lady Blue Publishing or submitters to Lady Blue Literary Arts Journal. All rights revert back to the artist(s) upon publication.
[2]
TABLE OF CONTENTS | 03
Letter from the Editor
04
Roots
05
Thrift
07
African Violets in a Kitchen Window
09
Poet at High Tide
10
Roses
12
Ode to Fourth North, Ninth East, Nephi
13
Fist of Winter
15
How Do You Speak Out
16
Turning Forty
18
Peony Before Rain
20
Homeward Bound
22
Touch
23
Another Name
24
Haiku
25
Austin
27
Interrogating a Predator
28
A Matter of Return
30
Featured Artist: Jenna Mock
[3]
Roots | Vivian Tsai this is the ground. you stand here atop the soil of dinosaurs, grains sown from the scattered remains of brine and Babel. you are no less than millions of earth-particles of flurried moments— pastel elephants crookedly strung on a mobile, blades of grass pressed flat by sprinkler showers, vanilla leaking against a criss-crossed cone. and when the floods come, reach up to catch the sadness and let it roll deep down to the underneath, where the chocolate-rich warmth of these roots will comfort, and hush, and heal. this is your ground. this is your starting point.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Vivian Tsai studies computer science and applied math at Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves as the editor-in-chief of Zeniada, an intercollegiate literary magazine. When she's not busy battling writer's block, she's probably reading, playing the piano, or doing puzzles with friends.
[4]
Thrift | Aletha Irby for my father outside the red river cafÊ this morning, wearing a tweed jacket and gray wool fedora, the ninety-two-year-old man with blotched fingers methodically scoops coins from his right pocket to deposit into the red metal newspaper dispenser, its creaking door finally delivering in exchange an austin-american statesman to read during breakfast, and i consider that having come into this world in 1958, this is no longer the planet of which i am a native, for it is now the post-digital-revolution year 2016, and i do not remember seeing anyone do that for twenty years. this man’s actions remind me of the toy banks, antique by the time my mother was born in 1922, the little girl of cast iron clanking when her spotted dog jumps through a hoop for the penny in her hand.
[5]
India Series, Jenna Mock |
[6]
African Violets in a Kitchen Window | Diann Hays velvet leaves soft like a foal’s nose one could fall inside the petals and live content like a lotus-eater within a dark mystery of spectral color deep and ancient in the kitchen window, the violets smile as my mother, neat in her waist apron, washes dishes in hot water, steam rising to lick their faces while Nat King Cole sings about love on the radio.
[7]
Bushkill Series, Jenna Mock |
[8]
Poet at High Tide | Aletha Irby am i the silver moon tonight, choreographing and matchmaking a sparkling seaspray, the spuming blues of imminent nuptials, our oceanic language offering himself effusively to the nubile cursives of our most volcanic archipelago, their courtship sprawling rhythmically, an argentine tango below the milky way, all wedding planners and in-laws temporarily at bay.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Aletha Irby is a poet who lives and works in Austin, Texas. Her poems have been published in Big Allis, Shot Glass Journal, Epiphany Magazine, and The Texas Poetry Calendar (published by Dos Gatos Press). She has work forthcoming in Dos Gatos Press’ Anthology Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems and is working on an epic and searching for a publisher for two poetry manuscripts.
[9]
Roses | Zana Allen They fall to the floor one petal after another, never hesitating to embrace their everlasting death. Roses have an eternal beauty that their very essence tends to express. How can a being surrounded by a prison of spears grow so fearlessly? Lucky them though, because they never see it coming -- their death, that is. And when Doomsday comes, they quickly arrive on my doorstep at 5pm every Thursday in various hues, sometimes with complimentary beauties whose names can’t compare. What’s a lily when you can have a rose? I can smell their arrival meeting me at the door every evening, grabbing ahold of my senses with their silk hands. The aroma of these flowers is incomparable. Their sweet smell fills the air with every breath I inhale. But it’s been seven days, and now they have fallen terrifically to their death, holding luminous colors, and instead of silk they feel like Egyptian cotton. I stare at the plate across the room, waiting. Dinner has been done for over an hour, and normally I wash the dishes before his arrival, but the anticipation I could no longer withstand. It felt like the first time you invite a guy over, and you throw on your Sunday’s best to impress him. The shrimp gumbo fills the air, and with the crawfish steaming in the crockpot, I have almost fallen victim to the cry of my appetite. There’s no greater smell than Cajun seafood; it’s a New Orleans favorite, and with my family beignet recipe he will be lost in euphoria -- whenever he arrives. The sun is on the verge of setting, and those roses normally arrive at 5 PM. My home is in immaculate shape, stripped from a West Elm catalogue, and I know he loves surprises so I grabbed him his favorite cheesecake down from Decatur Street. I want him to enjoy it, especially today because he forgot to come last time I purchased it. No problem though, he came eventually -- well, three days later -- and he brought roses. He always brings roses when he comes, and on the days he cannot, they’re on my doorstep with a beautiful apology note. He says sorry a lot, and I value that in him; it’s very thoughtful of a man. The live jazz band fills the air with their eclectic sound. I begin to fantasize about our wedding and how the sax will guide me down the altar with every note. I swear, he reminds me of the saxophone, you know. His voice is as smooth as dark maple with skin to match. He keeps his hair low, and he’s always dressed in suit attire. He’s a dream my mom treasured, God rest her soul. My mother valued a black man that had his shit together, more than having her own life in order.
[10]
Roses | Zana Allen I don’t know much about him though, besides those wondrous roses he never fails to deliver. They’re making a pool on the floor now, reminding me of how he used to spread them all over his luxurious French Quarter condo. A girl like me had no business enjoying such luxuries anyhow. So as I sit and stare at their everlasting death, the petals fall with grace, fearlessly. They reflect our entire relationship -- well, our situationship. Time passes quickly, and so does the life of those roses, but even on their deathbed they lie there in beauty. In mid thought I hear a rapping on the door, and I’ve conditioned myself to the sound because I run to the door in pure excitement, ready to forgive him, to heal him, to kiss him. I am flushed with overwhelming adrenaline, and I begin to scatter like roaches when lights come on. I sweep the dead roses in a visible pile so that he can see his neglect, so that he can easily fix it this time. I realize that I make it easier for him, his wrong doing that is. He’s worth it. With each step the sweat under my arms thickens, and my hands begin to shake, and I finally make it to the door. As I grab the knob, the sound of the band disappears, time becomes nonexistent, and the troubles of our short lived relationship drift to hiding, and all I can feel is the sensation of relief. And as the door opens, and the muggy Louisiana air hits my face, I see that it was only the screen door being knocked open and close from the summer air.
[11]
Ode to Fourth North, Ninth East, Nephi | Wendy Ellison With dignity, an asbestos sided house stands away from the rest, a brilliant, storybook window, and shutters I paint cerulean. Ample life surrounds us in the midst of an aged dynasty. The home’s eternal luxury, mature pines and maples, forge a descriptive dot-to-dot around and all through our acre’s perimeter, entertainment for a neighborhood squirrel. Grass grows its emerald velvet threads, multiple glistening strands, springing from single follicles, their glorious reincarnations, massaging knobby clumps against tender feet and elderly, alike.
Summer evenings see this century old homestead light up its waterworks spectacle. A sweltering evening sun subdivides the west, glows straight down Fourth North. It gleams through arching— Rain Bird shushing— sprinkler spray topping our children’s heads. We soak ourselves in fragrance of wet earth, fresh cut grass, and twisted wild-plum blossoms. Amongst glittering droplet splashes, shifting shards of daylight, and daring shouts of glee, can even Windsor Castle’s court carry such splendor?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Wendy M. Ellison took her time and finally earned a Bachelor's of Science in English from Utah Valley University in April 2016. After a staggering 30 years, she was able to accomplish this dream after receiving a full-time job at UVU in 2012 as an administrative support for the Technology Management Department where she currently happily employed. Prior to her recent accomplishment, Wendy spent her days raising five children. Creating a place of safekeeping for all the moments and memories in her grasp has driven Wendy to remain introspective.
[12]
Fist of Winter | Claudia Mundell Tall pines shudder like sobbing children; Summer’s once green ferns sag in defeat, Amber and limp like untightened guitar strings. Crow caws and street sounds are muffled; Pavement dressed in snow pack waits For the slap of plow’s steel blades. Front porches all boast a shovel or two, Standing stiff with military attention Like sentries waiting for duty. Squirrels prance, denting crusty drifts As they head for home nests, Knobs of leaves knuckled to bare limbs. Winter’s grip continues to hold February days in her fist.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Claudia M. Mundell loved words as soon as she met them. She was writing poetry by fourth grade and never stopped putting her thoughts to paper since. She earned her English degree and teaching certification at Pittsburg State University in Kansas but spent most of her married life in Missouri. Claudia was a substitute and night school teacher at Hazelwood High School and a language arts teacher with Carthage, Missouri schools. She is the mother of two sons. Her work has appeared in numerous other publications, including MidRivers Review, Rosebud, and Gold Old Days, to name a few. Her other hobbies include knitting, reading, collecting Blue Willow dishes, and drinking good tea.
[13]
India Series, Jenna Mock |
[14]
How do you speak out | Sutapa Chaudhuri when no love is left in your mouth? When your tongue, thick with a lonely desire, searches through the empty cavity— the hard roof impervious, the soft uvula, a dull blue, frozen solid with the chill of a loveless existence. Down the empty tunnels the voice box echoes a terrifying nothingness; and the vocal chords ring, speechless and white, in a tiresome, static resonance. Short of oxygen, the lungs choke; the throat gulps in air, desperate to speak out once. Breathless, the pharynx tries, in a last futile bid, to save itself from extinction. How do you speak out when made-up lips sport a ready, lipstick love, happiness on show
[15]
Turning Forty | Bibhu Padhi I imagine a blue deeper than the sky, despairing the Bay of Bengal’s nightly activity. A child’s slim voice rises through the sea’s midnight slush, echoing from the distance of years, and then is lost. What distance of time comes in between the hour of the first cry and this early morning speechlessness? I hear a door turning for the final time in a room of its own, and then another, the darkness deepening into a blind mass of loss. My three-year old son wakes up with a dim cry for what he knows not yet, while his mother is inventing a new language of consolation.
[16]
Turning Forty | Bibhu Padhi
The kiss I received from my elder child a while ago is keenly felt on my cheek, creasing, a remembrance of lips still moist with a love that seems to spread, minute by minute, over the days and nights waiting to come. I wonder if there is time yet to retrieve the loss of a lifetime, an infant’s quick eyes that once absorbed all time, a child’s suddenly remote, all-forgetful smiles. Today, it is only a matter of waiting through time, a routine habit of watching the housesparrows build their own homes, ignoring my presence, in spite of the window’s grilled supremacy, the night’s blind pride. They wouldn’t know that there is somebody here who does not quite know how to take care of his years this day.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Bibhu Padhi has published numerous books of poetry, and his individual poems have appeared in magazines such as Contemporary Review, The Antigonish Review, Indian Literature, and many more throughout the English-speaking world. His poetry has also been included in several anthologies and university- and school-level textbooks, two of the more recent of which being 60 Indian Poets (Penguin) and The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry (HarperCollins).
[17]
Peony Before Rain | Diann Hays cotton curtains billow like round cheeks on a pouting child the peony once wild now in a water glass lolls, august languorous, one petal floats to the floor the smell of rain strides inside.
[18]
Clutter in Deep Shadow, William Crawford |
[19]
Homeward Bound | Sutapa Chaudhuri You speak of return. And amidst the blaring loudspeakers and garbled announcements of arrivals and departures, the nagging cries of hawkers and hungry children, I tell you— Too eager perhaps To part with a secret, The low count of oxygen in my blood or the number of hydrocortisones that help me breathe in life. Oblivious, You talk of left homes And future homecomings— Your heart homeward bound Even in return.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Dr. Sutapa Chaudhuri is an Assistant Professor of English at the Dr. Kanailal Bhattacharyya College in Howrah, India and a Guest Lecturer in the Post Graduate Department of English at the University of Calcutta. A poet, academic and translator, Dr. Chaudhuri has two collections of poetry— Broken Rhapsodies (2011) and Touching Nadir (2014). My Lord, My Well-Beloved (2014) is a collection of her translations of Rabindranath Tagore’s songs.
[20]
India Series, Jenna Mock |
[21]
Touch | Bibhu Padhi For Kunmun & Milmun From the first day, things appeared quite themselves, untouched by hand, eye, or the sun’s superior light. I remember how, yesterday, noontime, each thing had to take part in a life that distinguished nothing, loving each as its own. The oleander tree carried a mark of grandmother’s fingers. Wild banyan leaves, whose roots worked in the darkness of lime and brick toward a crack in the walls. The yellow-ochre flowers waiting to be plucked and gathered for Shiva’s poison-green neck. The blood-red hibiscus that belonged to Kali’s feet. The chill of November settling on rooftops, seeping into the warmth of sleep. The house left far behind by its inmates, now soaking in the cold. Pigeons. Housesparrows. Cats. Each looking for the right touch, the compassionate finger. A wind from the south crosses my lips and fingers. Each thing trembles, falls still. My four-year old child ambles up to me, dreaming. A touch of kinship. It feels nice on the skin.
[22]
Another Name | Bibhu Padhi The day opens, a little delayed by a reluctant sun, to the haze of the night’s half-hour. The sound of distant bells and cymbals seep into every wakefulness and sleep, in a dizzy beating rhythm of ecstasy and worship, spreading over the entire sky-blue and skin-brown territory. The chants of ancient mantras rise to the clear heights and return in a breezy sequence of vowels and silences. The deep bell of St. Joseph's must be all about the air now, far from here, beyond the ear’s curiosity, near my child’s Protestant school, and dispersing among the treble sounds of recitation from the sacred Q’uran. Here the winter air trembles— a vibration of the heart that the heart alone understands in all its cloistered aloneness and misery. How does one start his day even as the earth draws everything to itself in an unfathomable act of gravitation? As if all that we touch and hear, each possible urge towards friendship were fastened to our crumpled skin and decrepit minds, latched onto a song that travelled across churches, temples and mosques, ignoring every recognizable savior, prophet and god?
[23]
Haiku | Diann Hays Orange quarters on a china plate—citrus half moons between toast and jam.
[24]
Austin | Aletha Irby for Tim Bigham during the Sochi Winter Olympics were my parents from russia, would the fire hydrants adorning our street corners remind me of my great-great-grandmother’s samovar from a samarkand like our own texas metropolis wealthy with artists and artisan markets? imagine austin as tamerlane’s transoxianan capital where we embroider and weave textiles and texts, architect what is coveted, awaken each morning, our lives spared so that we may reproduce, exulting in and exalting the beautiful, its exacting or beatific dawn.
[25]
Deliver Us, Jenna Mock |
[26]
Interrogating a Predator | Sutapa Chaudhuri The addiction is to the smell of blood— the warmth of the skin on the body, soft, succulent, waiting to be lived in. Or, is it just the taste of a different kind— the bare hint of a juicy meat that goads you on?
[27]
A Matter of Return | Bibhu Padhi I am going through a phase in life’s routine course, a period of change, when everything— all that was given to me and all that I made my own, without others’ knowledge, under the cover of pretense— is coming back, becomes its own, while this body is aware of each small step backwards, each appropriate act of return. All this while, I have been calling things my own—things that should have belonged elsewhere, celebrating love and humility. I think each small thing has a life of its own, fascinating in its singleness, suffering our ingratitude and neglect. Now, I’m bound to the mind’s sluggish response to possession and loss, not knowing whether I am fast losing my world or only coming round at last to what is really my own.
[28]
India Series, Jenna Mock |
[29]
Mock’s photographs never fail to leave us awestruck, both because of their masterful composition and because of how they feed our imagination. For this reason, we are proud to be publishing her work in our flagship edition. As this issue’s featured artist, Mock chatted with us about not only her successes as a photographer, but also her failures.
I find that almost everything compels me to take a shot. Photography definitely goes along with the idea of beauty being in the eye of the beholder.
How do you find compelling subjects for your photographs?
People are almost always interesting to photograph because you can’t help but wonder, what is their story? I think a lot of photography is luck – being in the right place at the right time.
[30]
Are there differences in the way that you photograph a human subject versus an inanimate subject or a subject in nature? Absolutely! Inanimate objects and scenery often give me time to set up a shot. I can move around and have time to decide how I want to frame the subject, and I can take multiple shots of the same thing for as long as necessary to get the desired effect. I generally only photograph humans while I’m on the streets and in a rush. I see an opportunity and only have a few seconds to make sure the subject is okay with a photo and to snap something I like.
Do you have any photographs you dislike? What do you dislike about them specifically? How are they different from the photos you're proud of? I dislike most of my photos. I think once you stare at your own work for too long, you grow numb to the beauty of it. It’s hard to pinpoint what I don’t like. You just see so many other photographers posting amazing things and it’s very easy to ask, “why can’t I do that?” and put yourself down. I am most proud of the photos that make me feel something. My photos from India and Iceland, for instance, pull me back to the exact place and time that I took them.
What's the biggest mistake that beginner photographers make? What advice would you give a new photographer to avoid these mistakes? So many beginners get caught up in getting the best gear. Don’t even worry about it! You can make some amazing images with the most basic of cameras. Also, I shot in JPEG for years before switching to RAW, and the difference has been monumental. JPEG images do not collect as much data and their quality is compromised when you edit them, so I would always recommend shooting RAW.
[31]
Endless thank-yous to all of our contributors.
[32]