Bellerive, Issue 11: A Welcome Crisis

A Welcome Crisis

Bellerive 2010

Issue 11

Cover Art: Doom’s Day Warning

Antionette Dickens

Pierre Laclede Honors College

University of Missouri - St. Louis

Looking in a Spoon

Playing With Toys hard at work

The Hunter

Hephaestus Victorious

Blocked Perspective

You turn, so stern . . .

Passenger Car

Violet

Looking Glass

Bel-Nor gloop

One Hundred of Her Man vs. Metal

Vsetin

I Don’t Want This To Make Sense

Levity

Old Time Bike

Standard Procedure

On the West Side of Springfield, MO

Pink Rim, Blue Rim

love at first sight

Flamingo Nebula

The Power of Conservatism:

Masculinity in Dreiser’s Jennie Gerhardt

Staff Acknowledgements

Editing Committee

Bobby Meile, Consultant

Joe Harrington, Co-chair

Ena Selimovic, Co-chair

Charlie Diehl

Joyce Gates

Suzanne Matthews

Chelsey Maylee

Erika Stasiak

Amanda Weible

Art Committee

Grace Stone, Co-chair

Jared Thimes, Co-chair

Layout Committee

Dan Diecker, Consultant

Laura Kessler, Co-chair

Kelly Rohlf, Co-chair

Communications Committee

Kelly Nahrgang, Chair

Melissa Alper

Matt Plodzien

Erin Richey

Faculty Advisor

Geri Friedline

All members of the staff participated in the selection process.

Looking in a Spoon

When these clumsy feet hurl me down a flight of stairs and begin to bleed, you tell me they are beautiful.

When I spend my night with vodka and transform into an exceptional dancer and conversationalist, you share my morning on the bathroom floor.

When I lay on damp blades of grass to stargaze and delight in the scent of wild green onions, you silently observe my momentary tranquility.

When I wear a paper gown and strangers lackadaisically alter the course of my life, you make a list of things you wish you had said to me.

Playing With Toys

They lined up as messily as incult children deserving spankings. I noted the refined glare in the eye of one of the taller Cabbage Patch Kids. The eye contact left a sharp scent slashing at my olfactory chambers; it was like drowning in a cranberry bog. “Poppycock!” they shouted, doubting the sincerity of my klepto’s heart, as I whispered dialogue into their ears. Knowing no other course, I knelt to massage the stone bruise on the heel of one of the snot-nosed ones. Big afro on that one. No tender kiss on the cheek for me in reply. Nearly cold-cocked by his bashing forehead. Blood oozed from me then, and I thought, Unincorporated little creeps: no order, no soft flexibility of mind or toenails. It was caprice that led to this folly. Tepid cranberry bog. Soft drupes pulped between fingers until the tips drive hard against the stones within. The toy bin had somehow capsized during all this. Reinforcements. Transformers with their stolid visages walked forth blocky-stepped like zombies. A paper tern glided overhead, wings of eye-calming pastels flitting on the up-currents. They encircled and called my reign a kakistocracy. So it was a mutiny on land. One of the G.I. Joes granted me my terminal leave. A makimono with my verdict scrawled in inky kanji, Too old, too bitter to play with toys. Tears on my cheeks, blood on my tongue.

Joshua Rickly

The Hunter

Cassie Green was a good find. I had always wanted to see her naked, ever since the second grade, and I figured this was the closest I was ever going to get. I found the picture that looked like her in the back of the local underground newspaper, you know, near the personal connections space with the ads for strip clubs and porn shops and phone sex. She was looking into the camera as if the photographer had caught her by surprise, her hands covering her crotch and little stars superimposed over her nipples.

You can find all kind of great pictures if you know where to look. Pictures that look like one of your sister’s friends, or the receptionist at the doctor’s office, or the checkout girl at Dollar-Saver, or a friend’s girlfriend. If you’re lucky you can find them for free, but usually you have to buy a magazine and hope something good is inside. Some people want to see naked celebrities, or at least celebrity look-alikes. Not me. I want something real. One time my cousin Danny picked up this hitchhiker on his way to Tallahassee, and the guy looked just like Kevin Bacon. Don’t ask me why, but Danny used to love Kevin Bacon. Anyway, they get about ten miles down the road before Kevin Bacon pulls out a club, bashes Danny’s head in, and leaves him on the side of the road gurgling up bubbles of blood. He was in a coma for a month. It’s not healthy to be obsessed with stars like that. You’ll only end up getting your brains scrambled.

I sat next to Cassie in high school astronomy. Her skirt crept up her legs when she pushed her chair back and leaned toward the front of the classroom to see images of constellations and open clusters on the projection screen. While she gazed at the screen, I played peek-a-boo with the birthmark on her thigh. I always liked to think it looked kinda like Virgo.

Fifteen years later, I was jerking off to a picture I’d found that looked just like her.

I actually took Cassie out on a few dates in high school. Her parents were in the middle of a divorce and she hadn’t been coming to

school much—I guess they were more concerned over who got custody of their Chevy Nova than Cassie’s academic achievements. So, instead of seeing Cassie at school, I ran into her at the department store where she worked. Cassie was always behind the makeup counter. Her manager, in his infinite wisdom, must have sensed that because Cassie’s hair and makeup were always immaculate, this was the appropriate department for her.

One particular afternoon I ran into Cassie at her store. Earlier that day I had also tried a little self-improvement. I cropped my hair really short with a pair of clippers, but it was my first attempt so little wild strands I had missed stood up all over my scalp. The random hairs tickled me every time the wind blew. I nodded and smiled as she spoke, wondering whether she thought I was too stupid or too poor to get myself a proper haircut. I wasn’t sure if I should acknowledge the atrocity atop my head or avoid bringing any more attention to it than necessary. I had just decided to keep my mouth shut when Cassie ripped off a piece of paper from the register, scribbled her phone number on it, and suggested that I call her.

I fingered her on our first date, sitting in front of her parents’ trailer in my parents’ Taurus. It was weird, because we had went ice skating and, besides holding hands on the ice, we hadn’t really touched the whole time. It was like she decided that I was attractive the moment I pulled the car into her cul-de-sac. As my hand slid up her skirt I remember wondering, “Is this how I’m going to lose my virginity? In my parents’ car in the middle of a trailer park?” But, before I had the chance to work her hand down to my crotch, her door was open and she was halfway out of the car, explaining how her mom would call the police if she wasn’t home soon.

On the second date I took her to a movie. We kissed a few times in the theater and she let me play with her tits a little bit. I kept thinking that, following the natural progression, this time we would take it even further. We didn’t. At the end of the date she hopped out of the car and I walked her to her door. She gave me a short kiss goodnight and slipped through the doorway, clicking the door into place and leaving me alone on the doorstep, looking up at the moon.

Our last date was a picnic. After eating the lunch I’d packed for us, we walked through the park looking at the sculptures and making minimal body contact. She didn’t seem as interested in the sculptures as she was in the trees. She kept pointing at these giant trees and asking

how old I thought they were.

Pulling up to her house, I hoped she would invite me inside this time, but when we got to her porch she just pecked me on the cheek and left me on the doorstep. Again. It seems like a weird detail to remember, but I’m pretty sure I smelled piss escaping through the doorway.

A few months after our last date, Cassie called me out of nowhere and asked if we could get together that night. We agreed that she would come by my house after she got off work. It was after eleven o’clock when she snuck into my basement while my parents slept upstairs. I asked her how work was and she said okay. Then came the awkward silence.

So, we’re sitting on the couch staring at each other, but I can’t think of a thing to say. At least not anything interesting. I start talking and before I know it I’m talking about astronomy—asking about her favorite constellation and when the next eclipse will be. I’m telling her how interesting the stars are because they’re constant—well, as constant as anything else we have. We talk about all of the people who have ever looked up at the stars and worried about sick parents and vacations and missed chances, and even though they’re all dead the same stars still shine down on us.

Cassie tells me that her favorite constellation is the Big Dipper because she can always find it and it’s a natural compass. She talks about how, if you’re ever lost at sea, all you have to do is look at the front bucket of the Big Dipper and you can trace a line straight to Polaris, the North Star, and find your way home. I don’t have the heart to tell her that when she’s always finding the Dipper, she’s probably confusing a handful of different constellations. The Little Dipper, Pegasus, Hercules, they all can look like the Big Dipper. It’s easy to get mixed up if you don’t have enough experience. Also, I imagine Cassie will never be lost at sea. She’ll probably never even leave the state. I keep looking for a chance to make my move, but the moment never seems quite right. She doesn’t seem into it. But, I figure, she has to be interested. Why else would she have called and asked to come over? Either way, time keeps passing and we keep blabbering about the stars. The clock says one o’clock and then two o’clock, and we’re still discussing a subject that neither of us really knows much about. We fill the empty space, and the stars are the only thing we have in common.

I ask her if she wants to go outside and look up at the sky, but

she says it’s too cold and cloudy, that we won’t be able to see clearly. Eventually, the conversation fades and she starts drifting into sleep. I get a pillow and blanket and tuck her in on the couch, then watch her from the recliner until my eyelids are too heavy to watch any more. The next morning when I woke up, she was gone. I hadn’t seen her in years until I found this picture. This picture that looked just like her. At first it was amazing, the Holy Grail of lookalikes. Hell, I didn’t even know, maybe it was her. Maybe I could find more of these pictures. Maybe this was how she lived—teasing guys with something they could admire, but never have. Then I wondered, what if it really is her and they airbrushed out her birthmark? What if she’s trapped in this demeaning job? What if she likes it? What if she wants to talk or needs a place to sleep, but doesn’t know how to get a hold of me? Or maybe she just needs me to be there to cover her up.

I studied the photograph and got out my old yearbook to compare the pictures, but Cassie’s name was listed under “Not Pictured.” I searched through my memories of her—biting her lip during astronomy tests, drinking hot chocolate at the skating rink, laying on the couch and drooling on my pillow—trying to remember her face, but all I could see was the face from the nudie picture and Cassie’s Virgo birthmark.

I went outside to look at the stars. The Big Dipper ducked behind a cloud as I stepped onto the porch and I waited for it to reappear. But, when the shape of stars wandered back into view, I saw I’d been mistaken. The constellation I had seen wasn’t the Dipper. It was just Orion.

Hephaestus Victorious

And all the Gods left Hephaestus to the silence of chains, The wedding bed bowed under his heavy black buttocks as He thought out loud all Craft Is the application of force to an unwilling object. Smiths Force iron into unnatural shapes with hammers. Bowyers Soak limbs of ash and bend unintended shapes into them. Was marriage like this for mortals? Force Applied during heat or saturation? Hephaestus was thinking all Craft Is useless against time. His Armor Could not save Petroclus could not save Achilles and His snares pointless. Aphrodite Was gone. She would assuage Her guilt with a cadre of followers but her next moves Would be under Ares. Swords Are only swords after they cool. Swords, Helmets, bronze, shields, spears, iron, copper, bucklers, Breastplates, these things and not much else, Cool to a crafted shape.

Kelly Rohlf

You turn, so stern . . .

I yearn.

I yearn—for urn!

I yearn to earn the urn.

I burn with yearn to earn the urn.

Once I stop the burn and yearn to earn the urn—in goes the fern!

Passenger Car

Fine water pushed aside, fine brushstroke suicide

I am a painter, alive, breathing cheap mixed paints to life

I made the lines, you wrote them down

Five dollar words in empty fingers, five empty fingers often linger

Like a child to flame, I’m drawn, I touch, I burn enough

I made the time, you kept the time down And you choked a time or two, but you kept yourself to you

Fine food and drink arrived, finely forgot and ostracized

Five dollar fashioned lines—I could have spared the dime

I made the lies, you choked them down

As flavor uninspired finds its way in mouths so tired

Drunk on whines while wine would do so fine

I made the lies alive, you ate them with eager eyes And you broke a time or two, but you kept yourself to you

And if you hadn’t been so hungry, I wouldn’t have to choose

Joshua Mann

Looking Glass

As time blows in beat to very unnatural rhymes through hollow avenues flashing darkness clean, and within a flick and twist of woven, elder spine, see a madman forever whisper to his machine

Bel-Nor

When I was twenty those blue shutters were for sale

We stood outside—looking up Finally breathing out

Five years later, for sale again We stood outside—looking down Me breathing in, him breathing out

Those perfect blue shutters

I drag the two of you like chains

Like a pile of bricks

With blue shutters

Like tumors where my children should be

gloop

every sadness collects— broken promises, plastic-coated pink capsules, piles of them pried out and put in children, potential depleted in front of hours of programming, pumped full of satiating propaganda, parked vans pick up pretty girls, public schools provide poor daycare and no pedagogy, perpetual poverty pushes kids past puberty— trapped in this, people would say: “i am no longer needed; god is almost sure to win.”

One Hundred of Her

He loved her so much, he had her cloned ninety-nine times. That way, he could always be surrounded by the woman he loved. He kept her in a giant starcruiser in orbit over Yaitsuka Prime. He kept her naked, never tiring of her many sets of breasts, and soft buttocks. When by chance one of her asses would walk past, he would grab her hips, and pull it close, and kiss its soft bare skin. And most likely, pull her down onto his lap, and take her. When she napped, with her many bodies lying around the floor, he would swim in her, secretly—quietly as not to wake her, passing over her bodies, holding his breath and submerging in waves of beauty. Uncountable times each day, he would stop to feed her, tree-ripened fruits, sweet candy chocolates, and then kiss her lips, to share the tastes. Thousands of little tickles . . . moment-long touches, and hour-long embraces, kisses that lasted weeks, and his fingers always seemed to be in her hair, no matter where he went.

One day, he stood at one of the many large windows that looked out on to Yaitsuka Prime. The scent of her sex permeated his senses. Yaitsuka looked like a Tibetan sand-painting done in a sphere that, after it was finished, had been blown by a gust of wind; it was so full of rainbow colors and subtle textures. Feeling the draw of the planet’s beauty made him want to close all the windows on the ship. What would he do, if she wanted to leave him? He couldn’t resist her plea. She was such a remarkable woman, he thought, that surely, not even a hundred men should be enough to please her.

Man vs. Metal

Haley Gibbar

Vsetin

It began more than a year ago. The general stress was sickening. To a time of political and economic uncertainty was added an unusual apprehension of horrid, very real danger. Global and engrossing, it was a danger as can only be seen in the darkest dreams of the most deranged minds. Some wandered about, frail and sickly, muttering stories of rapture and revelation, while those still in their right minds pretended not to hear. A tremendous guilt filled the hearts of many the world over. The seasons shifted unnaturally, the length of days and nights fluctuated incomprehensibly, and the sky turned peculiar shades of brown. It seemed the very laws of nature were changing. The powers that once ruled the universe were being overthrown.

Then the Vsetin arrived. Its anatomy and behavior were unlike anything this planet had ever fostered. It seemed at times to have no definite location in time or space, though all were continually aware of its presence. In the realm of human understanding, the Vsetin was sentient. When it made itself observable and occupied physical space, it was cylindrical. Two stories tall and very thin, it moved like a python standing on its tail. It had no discernible eyes or mouth, and its color would change seemingly at random, from pale grays and whites to vibrant oranges and yellows to curious colors none had witnessed before. Though it couldn’t speak, it was able to communicate; its thoughts were understood intuitively. It was fascinated with human beings and the physical world we had grown accustomed to, and it spent its time meticulously examining our minds to learn all it could about the sciences. It seemed to enjoy giving exhibitions of power that proved there was much more to existence than humans could possibly comprehend. Matter could travel faster than light, transporting across time and space instantaneously, leaving copies of itself at arbitrary intervals; the universe could lose all color, appearing not as blackness, but as infinitely clear. Most who witnessed such exhibitions were overwhelmed, and many rational minds shattered. Where the Vsetin went, countless

disappeared; devoured into its recondite, incorporeal domain. Nights were horrendous, and the collective unconscious was invaded with images of impossible angles and dimensions and noises of such acrimony and intensity that many who experienced them were unable to comprehend sight or sound ever again. More prudent men wished sleep was unnecessary, that nights would no longer be filled with hideous shrieks, but that rest would come easily, as the dimly lit moon and scarcely shining stars glimmered weakly over dark waters and crumbling mountains.

I remember distinctly the day the Vsetin stopped in my city. It was unsettling to hear of its coming, but I was confident that my mind and spirit were strong enough to endure the most aberrant notions it could instill. My friends and relatives who had been in its immediate presence and kept their sanities told me to avoid interacting with it directly; that the visions it would elicit in my mind were beyond the most abhorrent imaginable; that a visit with the Vsetin meant risking all my rational sense and might leave me unable to grasp the concepts and ideas that had always been part of my nature. Still, I imagined myself confronting it openly, conquering it with sheer resolve. I would prove that the human mind was capable of understanding all things completely. The invader could not be as devastating as it seemed. It was on a warm winter night that it happened upon me. Standing on my doorstep I watched it slither slowly through my neighborhood, over the cracked and darkened road, and became gruesomely nauseated. Just setting my eyes upon it was enough to expel what courage was left in me. The air grew suddenly stifling, and breathing became a terrible effort. Gravity seemed to increase its intensity threefold as I stood petrified, praying it would pass by without noticing me. As it drew nearer to my house, it began to writhe violently. It veered sharply towards me and came to a halt in my front yard. Then I began to lose my sense of reality. The grass swirled around an invisible drain, and leaves turned to amorphic, gelatinous lumps. Odd metallic shapes, jutting in directions previously unknown to me, shot up out of the ground and grew to absurd heights. Blinding, deafening sparks exploded everywhere. The sky turned pitch dark, and shapeless gray shadows began to dance around the Vsetin. And I saw the world engulfed in a battle with blackness, against the omnipotent force out of total perfection. Spinning, whirling; enduring arduously, relying on absolute will. I couldn’t move or breathe; depth and size, pitch and volume, all things

which my mind and body had once needed to survive became irrelevant. I forgot where I was. I forgot my name. I lost my sense of time. A billion millennia could well have passed. Then it was over. The Vsetin vanished. Normalcy returned. I stood there, slowly recovering from what I thought was surely a nightmare. I could not recall specifically what I had just experienced, but somewhere in the depths of my subconscious lay the knowledge of unfathomable facets of reality. People united. They wanted to try and drive the Vsetin away. Nothing worked. One night, I attended a gathering at the town’s library which proved wholly ineffective and served only to harbor indiscriminate delirium. The inside was lit only by a few candles; nothing electric had worked for weeks. Among the two hundred gathered were professors, doctors, engineers—the most notably intelligent and respected men and women in the area. We were all of undeniable fortitude, as our sanities had prevailed even after witnessing firsthand the impossible impressions manifested by the Vsetin. There was no moon in the sky and the stars had all faded, leaving the landscape laden with total darkness and inhabited by untold horrors creeping amongst the ruins of our formerly familiar and comfortable world. The discussion had turned illtempered and irrelevant when all two hundred simultaneously began to suffer a desperate anxiety all knew could only be induced by a singular experience. The Vsetin appeared in front of us. Instantly and involuntarily we found ourselves in curious formations, lining up and following paths we seemed to know subconsciously, though we dared not try and think of them. Outside, I realized the sun had risen and was at midday height, but my surroundings were hardly familiar. There was no grass. Instead, the ground was covered with a light, bluish foamy substance. The sky was flashing sporadically from deep reds to a blinding silver. A hole opened in front of us, and we followed an odd-looking staircase down into a churning, spinning gray void. I began to hear maddening laughter mixed with loud, sharp bangs reverberating throughout endless space. Bits of what resembled snow precipitated down and evaporated before they hit the ground. We reached the bottom and entered the grayness. All I could do was allow myself to be swept about, watching as wispy, multi-colored figures swirled around my head. Those who were with me began to disappear. I felt myself slipping into unreality, struggling helplessly against the will of the unthinkably powerful Vsetin. I began to descend endlessly into utter hysteria, sound and fury

drowning the final fragments of my heart and soul. Undying and unlimited, encompassing absolutely both a single instant and infinity, occupying any and all orientations extemporaneously, it lies in no rational mind’s power to envisage it truly. The madness that now obscures all reasoning and understanding commands all consciousness. Devoid is the world of all thought, having been ravaged by the inescapable vagary of the Vsetin.

I Don’t Want This To Make Sense

Rabbits snoring in pajamas keep me awake. An elephant stepped on my harmonica. Zeus’ beard is drawn in stylized lightning bolts.

I don’t want this to make sense.

Rabbit noses twitch as the scent of carrot nears. The harmonica is unscathed but feels embarrassed. Ares hums to the steps of hosts marching the wrong way.

Can I repulse all that is sensical?

They were two-week-old puppies wrapped in warm little rabbit suits. Elephants don’t exist here. “What is an elephant?” They never existed here.

Gods are made out of plastic and can’t grow beyond three inches tall.

Steal away all these furry dreams. Tuck them away inside your pillow, So your head might be softly laid.

In this little momentary world, the word “trunk” has lost one of her definitions.

Men of old never postulated the existence of a graveyard where a whole species goes to die. The movie Dumbo was about a large-eared baby rattlesnake.

We genuflect down on marble floors, and we beg to little action figure gods.

They speak back to us, but they are too small to be heard. They empathize with us, but they are too meek to lend us aid.

I still don’t want this to make sense.

Levity

Empty house, empty heart

Taken by tornado on a Friday night

While quaking in a dinner party made mean by the sirens

By proxy the fire trucks sounded in absence of emergency response

We half-heartedly deemed it a worthy cause and Retired to the basement through our cellar door, Taking count of our cats: two black, one yellow

All just as aloof as us, still fiddling with cell phones and insecurities

As if a disaster could shake the pretense of our twenties

Lazy bones remained unbroken, empty hearts unfilled. The morning after the birds are jubilant and proud

The fake flowers still grounded on the corner

And I am growing to believe that my limbs would be better off Stricken from my body, which is useless and heavy, Waiting for some whirlwind to make for me

What I have not the whimsy to will into movement.

Old Time Bike

Lisa Brewer-Cusi

Standard Procedure

He apologizes for the tear in the green shirt and tells me he saved what he could. I don’t know what to do with a torn green shirt, what to do with a torn green shirt wet from the rain and the sweat and, I think, some tears, but I hold it tight in my hand and I look at him and my eyes don’t even begin to pierce his which seem to be hardened from years in the force, or perhaps his own life, which is likely more difficult than any job he’ll hold. His jacket swishes and I can hear a ringing in my mind that sounds like coins being dropped, dropped into a vase, waiting for the big moment when their passive amounts add up to something worthwhile. He tells me that he did everything he could, he tells me that the nurses and the doctors tried their best. He explains that medical science is not perfect, that life is not perfect, that tragedy is part of our time here, and he says it without emotion in his voice. His radio buzzes, unaware that I need some time to think, to understand. He doesn’t consider that I need years—ten years, twenty years, five hundred years—to understand what life will be like without a father and he tries his best to ignore the radio, but it is his job and he tells me that he’s sorry, very sorry, for the events of that rainy October morning, with the jogger, turned violently on his side against the pavement of an unfinished road, gravel crowded against the sides of his off-white sneakers and the color disappearing from a face of the newly deceased. He says he has to leave, has to go, and he bends as he exits, his back moving slightly, and I don’t know his name, but I know that he is a detective, and I try to call out to him, to ask him if he’s mistaken, but my mind stops me, knotting my stomach and placing a hand around my mouth that only I can see.

On the West Side of Springfield, MO

Cut out by surgical torches And flung down in a junkyard, Consigned to rust, An old mixer from the top Of a cement truck Lay wrapped in swaddling viney things.

If you could turn it like a phonograph, Stories might pour out, phantom Workers pulling handles, milking. A ghost may stop to light a smoke And tell you about the plans He and his crew gave life to With heavy matter.

But Springfield oozes south, now, Cuddling with its smaller and richer cousin, Leaving behind its old skin To dry and crack. It oxidizes a sort of History, ruddy stains on a wall older than my father Demark the necropolis. A huddle Of square skulls far behind the mixer Might have been shotgun houses, A cacophony of 2-inch steel pipe Prickles up from the jealous grasses. I Stand silent two, three long seconds. Then go, the whole weight of the place Grappling with my shoulders

But I don’t have time for benedictions. Springfield Is doing Kafka proud, and somewhere Among the fields and the thrown-away things, I have to find work.

Pink Rim, Blue Rim

Designer blind, thick rim eyes

Gaze this guise, map soft hide And hide the stare, be unaware

Horizon spine, sunset line

This fire sky, reason I write To paint one heart, one’s skin missed park

I wonder thunder Sour apple sweet

Desire in stone, ’tombed alone

Cool fire home for green grass grown Garden brain view, this looks like you

Walked wakes ashore, right through my core This torn lake’s shore, sand drown flower Tonight is bright and I want to sleep

Red apple sweet Sugar soft cheek

love at first sight

someday my prince will come picking blackberries on sunday with mother i will see him

descending with promises of joy and adoration

stepping down from a cloud to the ground

today my prince came i greeted him with a kiss and a smile his voice answered strangely like the lick of death hissing in my ear

Flamingo Nebula

Joshua Mann

The Power of Conservatism: Masculinity in Dreiser’s Jennie Gerhardt

ennie Gerhardt has been called one of Theodore Dreiser’s “strongest pieces of cultural criticism” (Eby 149). Throughout the novel Dreiser’s narrator laments the sacrifice of the individual will to social conventions: “Society, in the mass, lacks woefully in the matter of discrimination. Its one criterion is the opinions of others. Its one test, that of self-preservation . . . Only in rare instances, and with rare individuals, does there seem to be any guiding light from within” (87-8). Of course, Dreiser’s portrayal of Jennie sets her apart as one of these rare individuals: she is “goodness itself” (344), “free from the taint of selfishness,” and unmoved by “wealth, social standing, [and] personal force” (364). Jennie, however, is not without parallel. Her lover, Lester Kane, is a model of Emersonian self-reliance. A “centralized authority in himself,” he is “defiant” of the social conventions of upper-class America and deplores both marriage and religion (229-30). However, in the Gilded Age (1865–1901), the self-reliant man was a “dangerous threat to the orderly, well-managed progress of society” (Pugh 96-7). When Lester refuses to deny his “illicit passion” for Jennie, a mere servant girl, his upper-class friends and family shun him (Dreiser 279). He defies the social and familial pressure until his defiance jeopardizes his inheritance. The possible loss of his fortune produces in him a crisis of identity, demonstrating important subtleties in the construction of Gilded Age masculinity.

An understanding of Gilded Age masculinity is necessary to appreciate the social and familial reaction to Lester’s affair with Jennie. Gilded Age masculinity was not all that different from the constructions of masculinity during other periods. Like previous periods, it was chiefly concerned with power. The masculine man attained his power

through business, for, as one immigrant put it, “business is the very soul of an American” (qtd. in Pugh 34). He prospered in business through “ceaseless effort” (Rotundo 37), never veering from his “single-minded quest” (Bederman 177). The reward for his hard work was material possessions, which “provided the symbols of [his] success and prowess” (Pugh 27). Men like Rockefeller, Morgan, and Carnegie became cultural symbols and heroes because they corroborated current scientific thought, proving that “the fittest had survived” (Pugh 124). However, during the Gilded Age, the relationship to power and wealth changed. The risk-taking, self-made man of the Jacksonian era was no longer concerned with making his fortune, for he had already made it. Now he was concerned with keeping his fortune. A deeply entrenched conservatism set in, and there occurred a call for “modified individualism and the careful management of complicated social and economic systems” (Pugh 96). The power of these conservative systems is not lost on Dreiser: “Society was made by the most conservative, who were almost invariably the most powerful. Their conservatism was their power” (292). The men who now succeeded were those who were able to achieve a “dispassionate, machine-like efficiency” through “careful planning and calculated acquisition” (Pugh 97-8). During the Jacksonian era, established authority (e.g., John Quincy Adams, the United States Bank) was a thing to be defeated, but now the masculine man aspired to authority (Pugh 99). And any challenge to his authority was defeated through gendered language. “Hostility toward reform” was “evidence of manliness” (Pugh 102). Senator J.J. Ingalls of Kansas alluded to reformers as the “third sex,” describing them as “effeminate without being either masculine or feminine” (qtd. in Pugh 103-4). Within Jennie Gerhardt Dreiser offers Lester’s brother Robert as a model for Gilded Age masculinity. “An uninvited standard of conduct thrust upon [Lester],” Robert encourages the Kane family and the rest of society to compare the two (Dreiser 169). Even Lester cannot help noticing that “Robert [is] obviously beating [him] in the game of life” (186). While Lester is earning a mere five thousand dollars aside from interest in the family business, Robert is “unquestionably worth between three and four hundred thousand dollars” (186). Following the death of their father, it is Robert who forms the United Carriage and Wagon Manufacturers Association, a lucrative, well-managed trust. Robert’s success does not arise from superior intellect or ability. In fact, their father acknowledges Lester’s superior mind: “Lester might be the

bigger intellectually or sympathetically. Artistically and socially there was no comparison—but Robert got commercial results in a silent, effective way” (274). No, as Archibald recognizes, Robert’s success arises from his adherence to the conventional masculine belief in “serious attention and strenuous effort” (Bederman 171-2). While Lester is “drifting” in his relationship with Jennie, Robert is “working all the time” (Dreiser 273). He pays “strict attention to business,” is in “constant observance of the conventions of trade progress,” and is unwavering in his “chill, persistent chase of the almighty dollar” (16970). In short, Robert follows the nineteenth-century belief “that persevering industry [is] even more important than talent in determining how high a man could rise” (Rotundo 37). Their differing views on business also set the two bothers apart. When a clash concerning what to do with aging employees arises, Lester argues for a “humane” course of action: “This house has made money. It can afford to be decent . . . We could afford to get up a pension scheme” (Dreiser 170). Robert, on the other hand, is for “cleaning out the ‘dead wood’”: “This house is in the lead today, but there are other carriage companies. We can’t afford to take chances” (170). With his desire to eliminate the “dead wood,” Robert is invoking the social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer, which was popular among successful business men during the Gilded Age. The “barons of business” not only “saw themselves as the fittest among human beings in general” but also “as the fittest among men in particular” (Pugh 118). Lester, however, lacks “that ruthless, narrowminded insistence on his individual superiority which is the necessary element in almost every great business success” (Dreiser 305). Through his views concerning competition, Robert asserts both his hypermasculinity and his dominance over Lester. Lester’s illicit relationship with Jennie endangers his masculinity by depicting him as an “unrestrained individualist” who is unable to control his sexual desires (Pugh 96). After recognizing that Robert was “beating [him] in the game of life,” Lester realizes that his relationship with Jennie is the reason for his failure and decides to “assert his authority more”: “He would cut out idling—these numerous trips with Jennie had cost him considerable time” (Dreiser 186-7). Lester’s realization that this divergence of energy was costing him in the business world was a common belief in the Gilded Age: “Energy, sexual and otherwise, was too valuable to be spent carelessly” (Pugh 96). As one editorial in The Nation in 1870 put it, “a man is morally ruined, in the

eyes of the economist, when he runs about whoremongering, instead of working at his calling” (qtd. in Pugh 97). Physicians and leading businessmen even went so far as to advocate sperm retention as a means of conserving precious energy (Pugh 98). Sexuality itself was seen as effeminizing. In his book Traps for the Young, Anthony Comstock conveyed the dangers of sexuality by citing an article in the Saturday Review about the Ottoman Turks: One of the direct results of this sensuality is that the Turks have degenerated physically during the past two hundred years. That the conquerors of Constantinople were a hardy race of great physical strength there can be no doubt; that the great majority of modern Turks are of an effeminate type is equally certain; very many of them are persons of fine appearance, but they are physically weak, without elasticity, giving the impression of men who have lost their vitality. (161-2) In the eyes of society, Lester is in danger of becoming an effeminate idler and is, therefore, unworthy of any kind of authority. The relationship with Jennie also undermines Lester’s masculinity by aligning him with social reform, such as the free-love movement. It must be stated that Dreiser’s narration never explicitly aligns Lester with the free-love movement. However, Lester shares many of its views, and his actual allegiance is unimportant, anyway. What is important is that, in the eyes of society, he appears to be aligned with free love. Free love is “generally understood to mean opposition to marriage as an institution” (Braude 127). Adherers to it believed that “marriage, as it existed in society, was an irrational contract that limited the freedom of the male partner and made the female a virtual slave” (Spurlock 117). Marriage as an institution has no appeal for Lester: “Marriage itself was not an institution which he by any means was ready to justify. It was established. Yes, certainly. But what of it?” (Dreiser 126). He does not wish to “swallow the whole social code” or to “sign a pledge of abstinence” (129). For Lester marriage is simply too confining: “Today he saw the women from whom it was considered policy for him to choose a wife in a more rounded way. Some of them were blessed with beauty, it is true, but beauty, with all these social manacles attached, was no longer so inviting” (129). He is bored of conventional heiresses, with their “coquettish barrenness” (145). Thus, Lester turns toward Jennie, who is “not sophisticated, not self-seeking, not watched

over and set like a man-trap in the path of men” (146). There exists a “mystic something between them” (135). He is “instinctively, magnetically, and chemically drawn to her,” and she is “his natural affinity” (124). Interestingly enough Dreiser’s term “natural affinity” resembles free lover Andrew Jackson Davis’s term “innate affinities” (qtd. in Spurlock 96). As was mentioned above, reformers were seen as effeminate during the Gilded Age. In fact, the term free love “was more frequently an accusation leveled at others than a positive self-identification” (Braude 127). In the Gilded Age, with its entrenched conservatism and with the re-solidified significance of social institutions such as marriage, free love became an even dirtier term (Spurlock 230). In this light it is easy to see how even the mere appearance of connection with the freelove movement could damage Lester’s masculinity. Yet Lester’s relationship would have ramifications far beyond public appearance. As has been mentioned, well-managed social organizations were of the utmost importance for the masculine man of the Gilded Age, and he knew no more important social organization than the family. It was through the family that he was able to ensure his masculinity after death. He hoped to create a dynasty so that his power would be carried on by the men bearing his name. Dreiser’s narrator comments on this shift from the individual to the family: “The drift for ages has apparently been toward the development of the home idea and the perfection of the family group, and . . . it [is] . . . dominant and destructive to anything in opposition” (283). What became most important for the upper-class family was the preservation of the class structure. Since it was at the top of the class structure, the only direction it could move is down, so it became vitally important for the upper-class family to ensure that no one moved up into its class and that none of its members dropped to the class below. In short, the upper-class family had to secure its borders. The best way to accomplish this was to marry well and reproduce. In her book Imperiled Innocents, Nicola Beisel explains the importance of family in the Gilded Age: “The family played a vital role in class reproduction: it produced the next generation of class members and endowed children with cultural capital that would allow them to reproduce their parents’ class position” (103). In this light the incessant pleading of Lester’s friends and family that he marry becomes understandable. As the patriarch it is no surprise that Archibald Kane’s pleadings are the most forceful: The world expects it of a man in your position . . . It

makes for social solidity and prestige. You ought to pick a good woman and raise a family. Where will you be when you get to my time of life if you haven’t any children, any home? God ordained one system of pro cedure. If you don’t work it out that way, you’ll be sorry. (Dreiser 171)

Since Archibald realizes that class reproduction depends on all his children marrying well, he is begging Lester to empathize with him so Lester may see that even his masculinity depends on it. But Lester cannot just marry anyone. His wife must be of his class and of a spotless reputation because “her reputation, more than her husband’s, [will become] the reputation of the entire family” (Herman 239). The norms of upper-class society deem Jennie, a workingclass girl with an illegitimate child, to be an unsuitable match for Lester. When Lester’s relationship with Jennie becomes public, Robert pleads with him to leave her, citing the “family’s feelings and pride” (Dreiser 232). He also reminds Lester that Archibald is “the kind of man who sets more store by the honor of his family than most men” (232). Archibald begins to think that it might be prudent to leave the company solely in the hands of Robert, who is “safely settled with his wife and three children” (137). He recognizes that Robert is the safest choice because he has children to carry on both the company and the family dynasty. However, he does not completely forsake Lester. In an attempt to lure Lester away from Jennie, Archibald revises his will in a way that forces Lester to choose between Jennie and his inheritance. Lester’s choice reinforces notions of Gilded Age masculinity. The choice Lester has to make between Jennie and his inheritance produces in him a crisis of identity. Lester certainly does not want to leave Jennie, but he knows that, without his inheritance, he will be forced out of both the family business and his familiar society. That Lester’s identity is enveloped in the Kane Manufacturing Company is evident by the “moderate glow of satisfaction” he receives when he sees freight cars with the company name painted on their sides (Dreiser 168). During a return trip to the main factory, he thinks to himself about the purpose and prestige he receives from being a part of the company: “It was something to be a factor in an institution so stable, so distinguished, so honestly worth while. Everyone gladly recognized him as a personage because of this. He and his brother and his father were big men in consequence” (168). He even sees the company “as offering

a real chance for himself if he could get control of it” (186). For Lester losing the company meant losing his purpose, but more important, it meant losing his social standing. Following the scandal many of his “distinguished friends” began “to look askance, to doubt their senses and his judgment—to consider that he must have a weak streak in him somewhere after all” (280, emphasis added). The subtle assumption Lester’s friends are making is that his social fall is due to an unsteady masculinity. This assumption does not pass unnoticed. At the end of the three-year grace period, Lester is finally forced to make his decision, and his reasoning is decidedly gendered:

Why did he not want to marry [Jennie]? Was it this possible fortune of $800,000 or more that was keeping him balanced in such a way as not to permit of action? Was it the dread of the utter loss of his social relationship—which he was sacrificing by degrees anyhow?

He had to admit in all calmness that it was . . . He was used to another type of life after all. (Dreiser 299)

Lester leaves “the only woman [he] ever did love truly” (410) in an attempt to secure power and authority through “material advantage” (390). Once Lester receives his fortune, he experiences “a curious rejuvenation,” and “armed with authority,” he again begins to feel the “privilege of power” (367). He continues to add to his masculine prowess by marrying Letty Gerald, one of his old flames who is “possessed of millions” (361). She intentionally makes “him feel as if he own[s] her” (319). And even her nickname for Lester—“MisterMaster”—strokes his masculinity (370).

In the end Lester is no match for “the armed forces of convention” (Dreiser 368). His love for Jennie, along with his views on marriage, endangers both his masculinity and the reproduction of his class. He does not want to leave Jennie, but he can only defy social and familial pressure for so long. Lester has become accustomed to his upper-class way of life and the privileges that accompany it. His identity has been based upon his era’s conventional construction of masculinity, and as a result of that masculinity, he has an obligation to secure the borders of the upper class. When his masculinity is shaken, he reacts in typical Gilded Age fashion. He retrenches his position and finds power in conservatism.

Works Cited

Bederman, Gail. Manliness & Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995. Print.

Beisel, Nicola. Imperiled Innocents: Anthony Comstock and Family Reproduction in Victorian America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1997. Print.

Braude, Ann. Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women’s Rights in NineteenthCentury America. 2nd ed. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 2001. Print.

Comstock, Anthony. Traps for the Young. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1967. Print.

Dreiser, Theodore. Jennie Gerhardt. Ed. James L.W. West III. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1992. Print.

Eby, Claire Virginia. Dreiser and Veblen: Saboteurs of the Status Quo. Columbia, MO: U of Missouri P, 1998. Print.

Herman, Sondra R. “Loving Courtship or the Marriage Market?: The Ideal and its Critics 1871–1911.” American Quarterly 25.2 (1973): 235-252. JSTOR. Web. 30 Nov. 2009.

Pugh, David G. Sons of Liberty: The Masculine Mind in Nineteenth-Century America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983. Print.

Rotundo, E. Anthony. “Learning About Manhood: Gender Ideals and the Middle-class Family in Nineteenth Century America.” Manliness and Morality: Middle-class Masculinity in Britain and America 1800–1940. Ed. J.A. Mangan and James Walvin. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987. 35-51. Print.

Spurlock, John C. Free Love: Marriage and Middle Class Radicalism in America, 1825-1860. New York: New York UP, 1988. Print.

SHAME CLUB

saw a band by that name once they were into being loud turned their amplifiers up to twelve blew us all to the back of the room by the unmarked bathroom doors

I must have seen thirty shows there I drank a lot of beer there I used the ladies’ room every time I wasn’t alone I wouldn’t have done it if some other guy hadn’t done it first but then again maybe I was the only dumbass who never noticed that there were no urinals there were no mirrors either they closed the place down a while back and it’s been a long time but I couldn’t draw my own face from memory and if I did it wouldn’t be a flattering likeness

St. Joseph

I think in circles, overlapping circles Growing and distorting as ripples in a pond I wait for waves to build and wash me Muddy, green gunk got me good, tell What should I do?

I think of you, wholly solitary you Growing and distorting like vines on sidewalk chalk We talked in flashed speech, we did—you’re busy Murky green time got me good, heard What could you do?

I could catch pieces, broken pieces Growing and distorting, like shattered liquid glass I cut my finger and you drank me Muddled green lies got me good, spill What would you do?

You would erase me, try and destroy me Growing and distorting as a balloon at its end I did but half and you hate me Misty green eyes got me good, you Swear it was me that lied to you—

A Multipurpose Mammal

If I were a wizard, I would only need to know one spell: Puppy Storm!

On offense

crush your enemies beneath a mass of puppies

On defense

“Attack me, and you risk striking down this adorable puppy”

Hungry why wait, grab a puppy

Thirsty squeeeeze out that puppy juice

Need to put out a fire puppies, learn to stop, drop, and roll

Need to start a fire rub two puppies together Moves and it shouldn’t add puppies

Doesn’t move and it should remove puppies

Jellyfish

Louis M. Nahlik

YES, CHILD

You will meet the wild eyes of the walking dead and stand in the surf dumping ashes from a knifed plastic bag. A lady from Georgia will say the Lord’s Prayer; you will pretend to know the words so as not to piss her off.

There will be holes in the wall where you ducked, and bruises where you didn’t.

Go, hear her cries as you rise into her, hock your fate to the shape of her smile, and the curve of her ass in the sheets. Believe every word. Watch her eyes scan your face like lasers read prices. They say this means love and that means you best not fuck up, son, for she is searching for the meaning and here is the one that you will give her:

Life piles failures deeper by the second, a millstone grinding you down to dust; you cannot win. Even the greatest men die in their backyards with their hands in their pockets. And you toss her away like you threw your cigarette in the wet grass, now go sit by the doors, ignore the signs, laugh and watch the world go by without you and disbelieve.

Empty

Here’s a fine idea: Hollow me, scoop my guts out jack-o-lantern style. Leave me here to sit with only a carved-in smile. I won’t feel a thing.

Honors at Midnight

Puck, in pseudo darkness, mumbles secrets she—who, from a window, questions souls, malignant cells, empty rooms, and if Puck knows other saviors— hears

Off the Wall Bridge

Dawn Duspiwa

Spoon Bending

Iscraped the prongs of my fork gently against the edges of the slightly yellowed dinner plate. Outside, the winter air contorted and deformed itself in order to fit silently under the thin back door. Although the remaining heat from the woodburning stove still lingered in the space surrounding me, I knew its comfort was fleeting. The rest of the four-room house would have been fully invaded by the cold. I wanted to ask her if we could light a fire, but my grandmother did not like to be disturbed during supper. It was one of her many rules that had never been fully verbalized but nonetheless floated about the house like constant visitors: no talking during meals, no leaving the house before chores are done, no asking how it was done. I looked away from the grazing movements of my fork to glance at her face. She brought a piece of barely cut fried steak to her lips. Although I was convinced it was too large, the steak quickly disappeared between her thin, plum-colored lips. As she chewed, the wrinkles that covered her cheeks and chin seemed to run back and forth across her ashen face. My grandmother was a large woman with calves that seemed larger than her thighs and strong, yet somehow small and delicate hands; she did not feel the cold like I did. As I sat there, the cold gradually entering through my fingers and toes, I could see small beads of sweat forming on her hairline, each sparkling in the yellow kitchen light. I never heard my grandmother mention the cold, although it was as much a part of our family as we were. I had never heard her teeth chatter or seen her pull her woolen sweater closer around her large frame as she hauled in firewood on a winter’s evening. I watched her carefully, outside in the heavy snow, and never even detected a single shiver. I was convinced from a young age that she considered shivering a sign of some undefined weakness. My grandmother swallowed loudly and met my eyes. Quickly, as if she had caught me in a private moment, I returned to tracing the outline of the plate. A soft knock—they were always soft—intervened in the silence. Neither of us moved or spoke, giving no indication that

we had heard anything at all. With deliberate leisure, my grandmother ate two more bites of mashed potatoes and dabbed at her threadlike mouth with a cloth napkin before rising, with some effort, from the table. The outside air was bitter and it was far past sunset, but that never stopped them from coming. They came at all hours, and she met them without question. I traced a strange shape on the plate with my fork, one I had never seen before and perhaps did not exist at all. I left the fading warmth of the kitchen and meal to follow my grandmother out into the darkness.

It had always been a strange thing for me, the spoon bending. And the strangeness had very little to do with the actual phenomenon my grandmother routinely performed in our small, dimly lit living room. It was more about how I actually felt about it. As a young child, I do not particularly recall that I had any sort of feelings directed toward the act. It was simply something that was part of my existence. Only when I was of school age did I realize that it was not ordinary—that my life was not ordinary. Other kids did not live with their grandmothers. And, even if they did, their grandmothers did not charge people to watch them manipulate metal using only their thoughts. People had different views of my grandmother and the work she did. Some called her a witch, others, an instrument of God. It did not really matter what they thought exactly. Granddaughter of a witch, granddaughter of a prophet—both held the same meaning—stay away. As a result, I had very few friends. I understood that I should be lonely and that I was perceived as such, but I never felt the loneliness. In fact, I preferred this lack of company. Even as a child, I can remember the queer sensation I felt as people crowded into our dark living room, shoving coins into my grandmother’s small hands. I would stand in the open doorway that connected the small living room to the even smaller kitchen, always making certain my entire body was firmly planted above the hardwood kitchen floor. I allowed only my head to hover over into the other room, just enough to where I could get a clear view of the events. I never missed a spoon bending, yet I had reasons why I wanted to. Those people, especially when they came in groups, made my fingers go numb. Completely numb, except for an unsure, vibrating sensation that would remain no matter how hard I shook my hands. If I inadvertently met the gaze of an onlooker, an overwhelming desire to shut my eyes tight and never open them surged through my body. The anxiety

was eroding, wearing me down so thin that I often had to lie down after the crowd shuffled out the door, quietly mumbling to one another. At school, the sensations only intensified. I often felt I was being crushed by some inexplicable pressure. Heavy stones pressed in from every angle, creating more and more weight on my fragile frame. Someday, I was certain I would explode or, better yet, just disappear.

One day, when I was fourteen years old, the pressure stopped. I felt relief, as if I had been spared some awful fate. I looked down at my feet. They were still planted firmly in the sallow, dead grass of the schoolyard. I inspected my hands and arms. They were still clad in the same wrinkled blue dress I had carelessly put on that morning. I had not exploded. I had not disappeared. I raised my head slowly to meet the gaze of Ben Watson. He stood not four feet away with perfectly combed hair and a pressed white shirt. The whiteness of his shirts fascinated me. I had never seen anything so white; it was almost painful. He held an unwavering smile as he took a step forward.

“Hello.”

“Hello.” I was shaken by the naturalness of my tone.

“You look nice today.” I suddenly became conscious of my appearance; my frizzy hair resisted being plaited into the tight braids that all the pretty girls wore, and my brown boots were caked in mud from months of neglect.

I do not remember if I gave any response before he started walking forward again. He walked in a straight line until I was sure he would press his body right up against mine. Right before I would have felt his touch, he sidestepped and headed into the school house without another word.

The next day he spoke to me again. In return, he received only short, broken responses. The people in my class had not changed much since I began school. A few had moved away, a few others moved in. Most of my classmates knew each other intimately. However, I was rarely spoken to unless it was to ask probing questions about my grandmother. They offered no other words, but everyone always looked at me. Some looked with fear, some with interest, even more with disdain, and even a few with pity. But Ben, he had never looked at me at all. I never thought too hard about his lack of interest. His family was well known in the community and fairly affluent. They owned the local drug store in town and were working on opening up others in nearby areas. His family was one of the few that had never come to see my grand-

mother. I figured they just denied the existence of people like us. I was unsure of what caused the change in him, but he seemed determined to prove that he not only knew I existed but also wanted to be a part of that existence. He would wait for me in the schoolyard each morning, sometimes giving me gifts: a piece of his mother’s homemade pumpkin bread, a wilted bluebell. In class, he would scribble on his blackboard with chalk until the entire thing was nearly as white as his shirts. He would lick his fingers and draw me pictures of flowers and sunsets on open fields. I would do the same. By the end of the day, our hands and clothes would be covered in a thick layer of chalk. Soon, he even began to walk me home, eagerly matching my long strides as they cut through the brisk air. I always felt my muscles contract as we approached the gravel and clay road that led to my house. I pressed my feet so hard against the rocks in the road that the shifting of the gravel sounded like strangling mice. He never asked to come inside. He never mentioned my grandmother and what she did or how she did it. For that I loved him. I knew it was love, because I began to feel the pressure and the vibrations again whenever he was around. They were not the same as before though. They were soft and beautiful, yet intense and unbearable. I felt the strange vibrations not just in my hands, but throughout my whole body, and the pressure seemed designed to hold me together; without it, I felt that I may come apart into pieces that would each dance around in different directions. I began to notice things too: the shape of his chest under his white shirt, broad shoulders and a narrow waist, like a perfect V. Also, the darkness of his hair, a nose that was slightly too long for his face, and deep-set eyes—deep-set eyes that I could look into and not experience the familiar, controlling urge to look away.

After our walks had become routine, he began to linger on the gravel drive for long moments before heading off towards town. On a particularly cold afternoon, I offered the invitation that had been stuck to the back of my throat for weeks.

“You can come inside, if you’d like.” My words had sounded more hesitant than I had intended. “I can make us some tea.”

His smile seemed as tentative as my words. “I’d like that.”

I made some fresh tea and was sure to add a second teaspoon of sugar since my grandmother always insisted I made it too bitter. I grabbed a clean cup out of the pantry and examined it, deciding to wash it again. We sat on the worn living room couch with our cups

steaming on the splintered coffee table. He had taken one drink and set it down so far from him I was afraid he would not be able to reach it later. But he never did take a second drink. I thought, perhaps, I should have added more sugar.

“Can I see it?”

“See what?” I asked, running my finger down the side of my warm cup. He looked at me as if I were mocking him somehow.

“The spoon.” He turned towards me and took the cup out of my hand, setting it next to his. I was certain I would not be able to reach it without getting off the couch. I studied his stern expression. His eyes were narrowed, and his nostrils flared gently at the end of his long nose.

“I’m not allowed to touch it.”

“Oh. Well, do you know where it is, at least?”

“No.” This was my automatic response. Many others had asked me that same question. I knew exactly where it was. It was kept in my grandmother’s golden oak dresser, in the bottom drawer hidden underneath her cotton and flannel nightgowns, wrapped in a tattered handkerchief the color of Sunday evening dishwater.

“Tell me how she does it. You’ve seen it so many times. You must know.” I saw a mixture of disappointment and anticipation sink into the lines of his face.

“I don’t know.” I pressed my lips together tightly. This was the truth.

“But you must—”

“I don’t know,” I said, more loudly, more firmly. I thought, underneath the strength of my assertion, my voice sounded a little sad. He grabbed my narrow chin with his chalk-covered fingers and began to pull my face close to his. I began to feel the old, awful pressure return. The rocks began to slowly press against my ribs just as his fingers pressed into my flesh. I pulled out of his grasp and abruptly stood up, unconsciously moving towards the kitchen. I thought I would have to find the courage to ask him to leave, but after a long moment, he stood up and walked out the front door. I heard the high pitch screeching of the gravel as he walked away.

I thought I should cry. That was what people did when someone they loved wronged them, but no tears came. I did not even want to cry. I just sat down on the couch, with its faded floral pattern surrounding my awkward body, and stared at the steam slowly rising out of

the matching ceramic mugs. The steam had long dissipated and the cups were cold to the touch by the time my grandmother came in from working outside. I felt her eyes attempting to gain access to mine, but I never looked up from the tea. She had never asked about the boy who walked me home from school and I, in turn, never told her. A strange choking sound escaped her throat and, in that moment, I thought that my grandmother felt that she did not understand me as well as she had always thought.

“You should be smarter than that.” Her voice was soft and gritty like grains of sand falling from her lips.

She followed up the harsh words by placing an unexpected hand on my bony shoulder. Then she shuffled into the kitchen on her thick calves and began heating water to boil potatoes for dinner. We never spoke of it again.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the disparity between the warm, well-lit kitchen and the intolerant darkness. The cold easily penetrated my undersized frame. I felt the recurring urge to shiver, but repressed it by standing more erect. The crowd was a small group of boys, only slightly older than me. Some faces I recognized, others I didn’t.

My grandmother nodded as her only greeting to their eager features.

Inside?” She asked in her sandpaper tongue.

“No, out here.” A reply found its way out of the shadows. It was impossible to identify the owner of the response.

She nodded again in acknowledgement and returned inside the house. The boys talked quietly among themselves. They made a point not to look at me, though I stood just inches from them. The front door creaked open on rusty hinges, and my grandmother emerged holding the spoon.

She held it as she always did, reverently and at arm’s length, with one hand cradling the metal dip, the other placed gently under the handle. She held it like this, still wrapped in its off-white shroud, for a long stretch of time, as if she expected the boys to fall to their knees and pray to it. She then gripped the handle tightly and removed the other from underneath the base. She held her now empty hand out into the darkness. Each boy placed a coin into her small, wanting palm. If we had been inside, in the tapered light of the living room, she would

have held each coin up to the lamp’s glow. But out here, where her old eyes were untruthful, she simply swirled the coins around in her fingers, feeling for their authenticity. After the coins disappeared from sight into her greasy apron pocket, she removed the cloth from the spoon. Her movements were calculated and slow: unfolding one half of the cloth, followed by the other. At this moment, although I could not see the faces of the boys distinctly, I was certain they fell with disappointment. It was, after all, just a spoon. They would then be asking themselves: well, what did I expect? That internal query might have made them feel foolish, but they all still knew the truth. No matter what they had been told, no matter what they had seen before, they were simply expecting something more. Without any introduction or warning, my grandmother gripped the spoon with her left hand—always her left hand—and held it at eye level. For what felt like hours, but could have only been a few brief moments, nothing happened. She did not move, her face remained passive, and her small wrinkled eyes fixed on something in the wooded distance. Then, at some undefined instant, her hold tightened on the handle—tighter and tighter until her already ashen skin became colorless with exertion. Her eyes narrowed and appeared grayer than their natural green hue. A small purplish vein normally deeply buried began to pulse gently against the aged flesh of her forehead. The boys reacted in a manner that I had come to easily predict. They became unmoving, unblinking—I was sure they even held their breath. It was as if they were waiting for that moment that they knew would change their lives forever. This went on until exactly the right second. My grandmother was an artist in this way. Just when the anticipation became excruciating, just when the boys thought they might scream or run off into the woods, the spoon began to move. The base would simply vibrate, so gently you were unsure whether it was actually moving or if you were only seeing it because the lack of action was becoming painful. Then it happened all at once. I had to admit, it was beautiful in a sense, almost poetic the way the metal twisted and folded silently back upon itself, the way the handle twisted round and round as if driven from some insane desire to be closer to the soft curve of the spoon. It reminded me of a worm writhing on the dry summer clay with the last remnants of life. It all occurred so quickly, that most people were unsure of what they saw. The townspeople all went home with their own versions of what happened, no two saw the same thing. Some said they saw a

great flash of light, and when their eyes recovered from the blinding assault, the spoon was bent. Others described a ghostly apparition dragging itself out of the frozen ground and twisting and contorting the metal in terrible ways. This lack of certainty is why they never stopped coming.

The boys begged for my grandmother to show them again, but she never performed twice for the same crowd—another rule. Enamored with mystery, they headed back down the gravel road towards town, murmuring quietly in the darkness. Inside, I sat on my cold bed and pulled the quilts tightly around my shoulders. I do not know why I still watched the spoon bending; perhaps because now it finally held some meaning for me. I still felt the numbness and the pressure, but they were different now. I noticed the faces of the people who came to watch, but I never met their gaze, for they no longer had eyes. I only watched my grandmother and the spoon. As the spoon bent, I felt neither reverence nor wonder. I only felt a hatred that grew stronger with every bend and twist of the metal, with every pulse of that hideous vein in her forehead. I closed my eyes and searched for a familiar feeling. I once had felt reverence and wonder. There had to be some vestige of those sentiments left, I thought. Yet, I found none. I lay back against the hard pillow. The hate and anger flowed through the room, mixing indistinguishably with the cold night’s air, until I fell asleep.

The dawn poured brightly through my bedroom window. The cold had dissipated some, but the detestation still remained. I could hear my grandmother’s calves brushing up against her flannel nightgown as she began breakfast. I imagined each evening when she would choose a nightgown out of her dresser drawer, she would slowly run a finger over the outline of the spoon, hidden underneath sheets of cloth. I quickly dressed in several layers, trying to make up with clothing what I lacked in body mass. Outside my room, I was surprised to see a small but steady fire burning in the hearth. I stood before the flames, hoping the heat would aid in melting the bitterness that had overtaken me.

A sharp, unusually bold rapping echoed through the tiny house. I could feel the disappointment of my empty stomach as my grandmother abandoned breakfast in response. Before I could open the door, the sharp rapping repeated itself. Outside, a crowd, larger than usual, stood before our pale green house. With little direction, the

townspeople crowded into the tiny living room, unsure whether to sit or stand. They waited in silence. I identified most of the crowd as regulars, people who frequented our house seeking something which they could not define. In the back, I saw two faces that seemed familiar, but distant, as if I knew them in another life.

My grandmother appeared holding the spoon and wearing a dress that looked meant for church. It was pale blue and adorned with shiny silver buttons that left a trail from the hem to the collar. Despite the dress’s former purpose, this was the only worshiping it was intended for now. My grandmother did not attend mass or other town functions. In fact, she rarely ventured into town at all. She understood her craft well enough to know that it was hard to create a sense of mystery and awe in people when you shared small talk at the store or sat together in Sunday service.

It went like it always did. The long moment of inaction passed, followed by the building of anticipation. The spoon bent and twisted to a point that made me feel a deep pain in my bones. Ignoring the pleas of the crowd to bend the spoon again, she took the contorted metal and returned it to its home in the bone-colored cloth.

A man stepped out from the back of the crowd. He was handsome, handsome in a way uncommon to the men of this town who worked hard for a living. He looked polished, wearing a dark, tailored suit. The most striking features of his attractive face were a long nose and deeply set eyes. Beside him, nearly as tall, was a boy that was soon to be a man, wearing a blindingly white shirt.

“Ma’am. I hate to bother you, but I was wondering if I could ask you a favor,” the older man said, taking another step to distinguish himself from the crowd.

“I never do it twice in a row. You can come back later today.” My grandmother began to leave, preparing to return the spoon to its place under nightgowns layered with the thick smell of wood and sweat.

“That’s not exactly what I was asking. Well, I mean it is, sort of,” he stumbled over the meaning. “My son here has become obsessed with the idea of your spoon bending for the last few years. We told him he could not come and see it, that it would give him false ideas. But that only made his fascination worsen.”

My grandmother turned to face the man in full, holding the warped spoon close to her chest.

“So, I told him we would go see you. To convince him it was all a hoax, a sleight of hand, if you will.”

“And, have I not shown you otherwise?” Her raspy voice was steady and confident.

“Yes, I’ll admit it was all very good. But I still have a favor to ask, for my son.” She gave no response to the man, but simply looked with a distant gaze focused on nothing I could identify.

The man reached in his suit pocket and fished around for a moment. “I want you to bend this spoon.” He held a spoon, which looked nearly identical to my grandmother’s, in the air. “It is a normal spoon, I assure you. It came from my own kitchen.” He passed the spoon around the crowd. Each person fingered it with a cautious touch.

“No, I only bend my own spoon. That’s how it works.” Her voice seemed more uneven than before.

“You can bend one spoon, but not another. Seems inconsistent to me.” Murmurs of consent spread through the crowd. This new idea easily sparked disbelief in the crowd, and the feeling seemed to be spreading quickly. My grandmother knew the implications of any doubt.

“No,” she spoke softly, “I can bend it.”

The man handed the spoon to my grandmother, a look of satisfaction tugging at the corners of his eyes. She inspected it slowly, feeling the handle, the base, every ridge and design etched into the metal. She raised the spoon to eye-level, holding the handle in her petite fingers. The moment of nothingness came and went, and her distant eyes came to a sharp focus. All her energy was directed on the spoon. The blood drained from her aged hands, the vein pulsed against her skin rhythmically. The anticipation built, higher and higher, until even I was on my toes, leaning in as if I were being pulled by an unstoppable force. Her eyes narrowed even further until they were merely slits, the gray color underneath no longer visible. The gentle pulsing of the purple vein became an incessant pounding. The bloodless quality of her hand seemed to spread, first throughout her entire arm, then through every inch of her flesh. There, on my toes, as I watched along with the waiting eyes of the crowd, I thought I could see her start to shiver.

To Drail Upon The Wild Green Seas

With your grey-bearded uncle to drail upon the wild green seas. The creaking of that old wooden mast swayed by the sovereign waves. From behind you, I rush past, clasping your hand to pull you along. Over the port to a warm rush of water before a pelecypod’s embrace. We died there of course. It was not without a hint of graceful line and flow however. Bubbles roiled around our eyes and painted pointillistic paintings of our hands.

We didn’t strangle there bitterly, did we? No.

Our wiggling toes played in the shelly sea floor. Remember the feel of the fluxing grains of sand? You kissed the tender snoot of a water horse. Locks of seaweed danced in our hair as we kicked our feet. Smiles abound with chittering dolphins in tow.

Did we even notice when our hands went numb? Or when our tongues became blue? We did not understand, what it meant, when our sight grew black as pitch.

Krista L. Liebrum

on the desk i found left behind a small red notebook i sat down it in front of me daring me, tempting me to peer so personally underneath its worn red hide

nervous sweat beginning to seep through the epidermal layer of

my leathery palm transferring my moisture to its skin

the act itself so invasive yet exhilarating knowing what’s inside finding beginnings of poems, fantastic phrases, sketches, and short story endings each detail so holy the marks so private but the deeper i get

the longer i read the more i feel— bliss

closing its cover resealing making it look like

i had never intruded i slowly slink away filled with the solemn guilt of using and trespassing of knowing but not understanding

Broken to Death

You touched a child as you touch a petal blooming into the first days of spring.

But this softness was not as though it were, it was harsh cruelty and her eyes have blinked a thousand times to shame the bliss of ignorance you showed her, a girl of seven years. Seven—a number written several times, even in the days the world was made. She stood silent then, with tears that would fill a well in some distant desert where waters sing songs of others hurt by brutal hands.

I will not sit, cry or hold out my hand to you. You are a dark pit that never shines in the brightest of lights, you can believe you will never get by with your lies, someone or something will be sure to hang you. Your neck broken, dangling from some angry ceiling you never knew awaited you.

I will not watch you from afar, I will not let you hurt my dear sisters.

For we will rise with arms strong, quick as pistols. Your heart laughs loudly at the pain of many women, but don’t think there is not some angry beast towering with both paws and claws to gnaw away at your stench-filled body.

Touch no more, as you awaken to the howling of wolves— however sweet your blood may taste is no fault but your own.

Violins

Louis M. Nahlik

Dendrophilia

There once was a boy who, though surrounded by people, felt alone. He was a vivid dreamer who fashioned tailored lives to his. He sometimes shared these adventures with others, or not—either was just fine. Not lonely but alone he was.

Then came the time when boys are meant to leave fantasy behind, but he could not. The boys around him were becoming men with a fondness for fair hair and fluttery eyes. He tried and tried and tried again, but no budding woman would weave into his mind’s tapestry, and he moved on.

It wasn’t much longer until the boy stumbled upon men that sought other men. At first he thought it odd—it is quite strange, after all—but he tried to keep an open mind. Yet though the murk of proscribed love had potency, he found his dreams of it unfit. He then drifted away from the world of man and found the crisp scent of forest. Taking off his shoes, he waded through winding wooded trails, admiring both the symmetry and chaos of nature under untidy boughs. He continued in the sun-flecked twilight until his toes felt the tickle of warm grass. Peering past the sudden radiance of the clearing’s sun, his eyes fell upon a glistening, golden tree. He was held in thrall.

It wasn’t the fact that it was simply made of gold that compelled him, as it might other men who only sought morose pleasure in the trading of things; it was the tree as a whole. The boy delighted in way the sun glinted on every leaf. He cherished the sweet metallic scent that hung languidly in the air around each veiny branch. And he was held in silent awe when, in the quiet of the night, the tree would whisper weighted words of forgotten times to the boy who loved it without question.

Now some would expect the tree to be troubled at being loved at by a human, but the tree was lonely and welcomed the company. When the tree would need pruning before winter, the boy would venerate the sheared ends with words wrapped in song. The boy searched for days through the forest for the sweetest spring and irrigated a trail in

the earth and stone right to its roots, for only the sweetest water would do for his love. However, the attentions that had initially seemed harmless began to worry the tree. The boy’s adoration was a planned and empty thing, a worship. And though the boy thought it love, it was but an empty shadow of the word.

“Why do you love me?” It asked one day. The boy could not answer.

“I’m just a tree.” It continued. “I am not so special. I am bound by the same laws as the trees around me. Look,” the tree said, taking a shimmering branch and lashing it against its trunk. “I bleed sap in the way that all trees do—I am no greater.” The tree smiled at the thoughts that moved across the face of the boy. “Taste it,” It offered. “Its sweetness is no greater than theirs.”

The boy stared wonderingly at the crystal liquid as it oozed out of the cut, and he felt the stirrings of lust in his heart. The tree saw it flash over the boy’s face, and tentatively held out its branch to his lips. The boy stared at the facets in the sap as they sparkled in his eyes, but with strength he didn’t think he had, backed away from the offer. He looked at the tree, confused and teary-eyed, shuddering against the weight of his desires, guilt wheedling at his mind. Never before had reality met his carefully manicured dreams so forcefully. Terrified by this, he fled back to the world of people.

Out of the forest, the gravity that held the world returned to the boy, binding his feet in awkward ways as he tried to make sense of the feelings growing inside him. He turned to music, and filled the undulating sound with his obsession; yet, though the words came out artfully, they rang hollow. Still he sang, pushing against the weight of his fear desperately—but fear cannot be removed with song. The boy fought a frantic battle, pulling with fluid grace all manner of sounds with which to bash against his prison. He fought until the fear devoured the last vestiges of his voice. The boy was devastated.

The boy pondered the tree’s beauty and sought to make himself equal through vanity. He tanned his skin with fervor amid false suns and creams, but he only managed a barely bronze luster. He posed and primped artfully, trying to catch the eye of anyone who would want him, but—as humans have much less patience than trees—they paid him little but passing glances. Again the boy was heart-sick. Despite the tree’s prior advances, he felt truly unworthy, and the rejection by his own species only served to compound upon old fears.

Seeking respite yet again, the boy spun about him the illusion of intellect and sought the masters of the white towers. He flitted from fancy to fancy, hiding from fear in the far-reaching recesses of his mind. He studied the biology of men and beasts and wondered at the intricacy that held the world in balance. He studied the minds of men and saw the aching dichotomy of the soul. He turned to languages that flew from the mouth like thrown daggers and then to poetry and the world of the written word. But, as the mind has always been fear’s realm, the boy struggled in vain against its coming. The balance of the world became a twisted thing. The boy saw the futile nature of progress, with the knowledge that forests must burn to exist. He saw man’s silly obsession with stamped paper and people prostituting pills as a product and not a cure. The words that had only just begun to flow freely stuck, yet again, in his throat, and his strangled truths came out as only whiny banalities.

He then sought peace in hibernation. Just outside of the forest he lay, weak and whimpering in a stuttering sleep that was utterly unhelpful. Thankfully his feet waited for him to drift down and deep into unawareness before leading the boy back to that familiar tickle of grass. And, beneath boughs frosted with moonlight, the boy finally found true rest.

The next morning the tree was startled but pleased at the boy’s return and took to weaving its branches through his hair until he awakened.

“My roots and leaves were wondering if you’d come back . . .”

The boy laughed and set to work, but found he was originally mistaken. The tree he once thought was simply golden was, in truth, a myriad of colors. Leaves varying from barley to bold brass. Silvery stomas suckling the air gave way to xylem and phloem piping champagne-tinted water from root to treetop. After hours of repairing his makeshift aqueduct and gentle pruning, the boy began to cry.

“I’m so sorry,” he sobbed into the tree’s sun-touched trunk. And the tree was silent, trailing tendrils gently along the boy’s back. He left them among its roots, those fears. His fear of silence, of inadequacy, of the world. He whittled them down until the final one escaped in the most delicate of whispers:

“I am not your likeness, dear tree. I can bear you no saplings, nor stand the test of ages at your side . . .”

“You do quite well for a human—and, having been spoiled by

your dexterous fingers for however long I’ve known you (trees and humans see time differently, you know), I would be satisfied with only that.”

The boy’s tears stopped at that, but still he was curious. “You’ve lived for so long. Surely there is some way I could become like you.”

To this the tree had no answer, but instead sent tendrils to cradle the boy up into the heart of its branches and then rocked him asleep with the wind in the noon sun. The boy awoke again that night, a full moon lighting on his skin. He climbed down and walked, feet barely touching the ground, across the clearing where he folded his legs to ponder his love from a few yards away.

Clouds came and focused the moonlight into a beam that shot into the boy’s folded legs and settled at the base of his spine. There it brought the thought of nature, birth and death. The passion for life as it was, and not for what he made it, found the boy, and the moon moved up.

There its light tugged at the boy’s coccyx, his own intimate abode. He saw rejection was only the natural reciprocal of attraction and that both were necessary for either to exist. In his mind’s eye he saw the moon pulling at the waves and understood that true intimacy was to be embraced, not feared. Again the moon moved up.

It lighted upon the boy’s abdomen and his mind was assaulted by the misguided flames of obsession and gluttony. He saw that fire is impossible to control once out of hand, that the only hope is to struggle to snuff it out. So he tried to guide the fire’s fuel into a habitat where it would warm where needed, and he was successful. Once the flames set to the task of smothering jewels in their proper place, the moon moved on.

The light climbed into the boy’s heart, and he began to hear chimes and bells tinkling where none existed. He pondered a love beyond survival, intimacy, and hunger—a love for the world as a whole. He thought of the irrigation systems and pruning he did for the simple joy of doing, without any want for a return on the investment. It was in this place the fears he left at his love’s roots tried in vain to assail him. There the cold, impersonal nature of logical thought—fear’s realm— was worthless and, with nothing to fuel it, the fear finally passed. The moon continued.

The light pulled apart the boy’s lips, causing a song in harmony

with the nowhere bells and chimes to rise up out of his throat. (The golden tree still slept quite like a log, as trees often do.) There the boy thought of communication and truth—like the time he finally confessed his fear of inadequacy to his love. It was at the memory of the purity that moment gave him that the light moved up.

There the moon pierced the third eye, and the boy Saw. He was reminded again of rejection and attraction, of the dichotomy of man, and of burning forests that bring morels in the spring. He Saw that man and tree differ only in the shape their atoms take—and at this thought the moon was consumed by the clouds.

At this darkness, the boy was not afraid, but joyful. He stood up and pushed out his will and it was as though the moon was trapped inside his every dermal layer. He cut the darkness back and stood, pondering the endless possibilities of the universe—much more than thousand-fold. He pondered suckling stomas, phloem and xylem, treerings and time, phototropism and a fondness for mineral water until the earth swallowed up his feet. There his toes turned to fibrous tubules that sank down and out until they reached the gold tree’s roots and twined against them. He reached his hands up to the sky, and the clouds were swept away when his fingers burst into silver leaves and blue-hued blooms. His body turned to ashen bark, and his face folded and tucked under until the crown of his head became a swirling knot that seemed to swirl infinitely in itself.

The gold-tree woke the next morning and was shocked at its lover’s transformation.

“But who will tend our roots?” it said and brought a laugh tinged with tinkling bells from its neighbor.

The years passed into centuries and they troped to one another, branches growing against one another with the passion of ivy— pausing only to drop mithril seeds on the wind.

There’s a wheedle in my brain & a fox-red weave on the speckled street, Ole Four-Eyes got stuck in the heart, Surreptitiously overriding the sophistry, Which had nearly prevented me from escaping Through the tapestry that hung unawares, Heavy and stark against his Rolled-Eyes. And over the top of the well-tuned baby grand, Which was cued for competition.

Buzz, hum, swivel and drop Doodle on my hood wrinkle Ad fizzle out your poodle up-do Damn near a nation but not yet a creation More a pothole handle of piss But free to be just as low down as we please Not wiggling but squiggling.

Wrenched, whammed and woozy, My follicles forced back in to tickle my brain Simmering in the summertime heat Loosed from a year of pressure-cooking, Missing the grill of extra Independence Day mirth No worth been assigned, No homeworking forced on my unoccupied island tomb, Complete with an entrance-blocked womb, Where Sirens sit and relay the Something-something’s they’ve been whispered, Cursed with as punishment for Idealization. Beauty never asked for But never truly regretted Oh to be Somebody—wriggling and wishing.

Joshua Mann

Disappointing

Mist

The evening is thick with it. I suppose it heard a storm— Cold fronts leaving— And rose from warm dank dampness to greet it.

Some would argue the mist craves rain, Something like itself as litmus scales proscribe— But I doubt that’s true.

It seeks its opposite, I think, From warning thunderous roar. It wonders what the lightning feels And feels like.

The wide, wet haze creeps slowly— Edging close to the sound— And eddies when sees the spark The cavemen found.

What thrill the dark!

What joy the air!

The misty mind takes proper care, It does not rush, But thinks instead

The nature of the plasma’s bed.

It would rip through, It thinks—

Electricity boils each bead to bursting— The mist would be forever changed.

But now the sun is peeking, And cold clouds roll away.

The mist goes back to earthly bed, To wait for rain again.

a winding road to another road to another road

two bored, him preoccupied with driving a nice car, her elbow on the sill pouting, wishing shifting her feet on the floorboards pretending to walk

or that she is in charge of the accelerator touching her face he leans away just in case

Flying V

Lisa Brewer-Cusi

Dissent in the Soviet Bloc: Yugoslav Relations in the Cold War Era

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848; seventy-four years later, after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Union came into existence tentatively based on the theories of Marx with deviations provided by Lenin. The future consequences of this establishment would bring both positive and negative realities to the world. For one nation, Yugoslavia, these would be very personal realities. Despite the Western tendency to categorize communism as a single political bloc, the Yugoslavs and Soviets had many differences which were in stark contrast to the Western perception; the dissensions reflected in their diplomatic relations, theory interpretation, attitudes toward the West, and structures of their regimes mark their distinct means to a supposedly common end.

World War II rushed into Yugoslavia in April 1941. The Royal Yugoslav Government, by signing the Axis Tripartite Pact, had entered the War on the side of the Axis powers on 25 March 1941 (Hoffman and Neal 63); according to Kardelj, Tito’s second-in-command, two days later, on 27 March, the “fury of the masses of the people overthrew [the Royal Yugoslav Government]” (8). From this point until the close of the Second World War, Yugoslavia was locked in a civil war. On one side, a band of Royalist soldiers, the Četnici, attempted to rid their country of the German occupation forces. On the other, a movement of communist Partisan fighters worked to lift the Nazi shadow from their home. However, despite a common immediate goal, both sides also put great efforts into destroying each other.

The Četnici were originally hailed by the West as the real resistance force in Yugoslavia. In fact, despite the ideological congruency of the Partisans and the Soviet Union, Stalin placed his support behind the Royalist faction as well. This backing caused George Hoffman and Fred Neal, authors of Yugoslavia and the New Communism, to observe that the

“relations between the Partisans and the Soviet Union were strained almost from the beginning” (77). The strain was induced in part by Stalin’s mistrust of foreign communists (Hoffman and Neal 77), but more immediately because of Moscow’s failure to recognize the Partisans as the true resistance in Yugoslavia before the Western bourgeois powers had.

The reversal of the Western opinion of the Partisans was multifaceted. The primary cause was the Četnici’s half-hearted engagement of the Nazi forces. While the Partisans openly engaged the occupying army, the Četnici feared reprisals from the Nazis and limited their effort to small-scale sabotage and insignificant skirmishes (Hoffman and Neal 70-74). In light of this fact, the British began supplying material aid to the Partisans as well as the Četnici (75). Another blow came to the Četnici reputation when their commanding officer, Draža Mihailović, began fraternizing with the Germans in an effort to eliminate the Partisans (73). This, coupled with Mihailović’s refusal to commit to open engagement of the Germans at the Tehran Conference in 1943, led to Britain completely withdrawing military aid to the Četnici and placing full support behind the Partisans (75-76). Additionally, the foundation of Yugoslavia’s relations with Western powers began to blossom. By the close of the War, Stalin, too, had shifted his support from the Četnici to the Partisans. In fact, by the close of the War, the Partisan leadership was praising Stalin for “the decisive role played by the Soviet Union in the great liberation war” (Kardelj 10). This represents only a fragment of the overwhelming praise Yugoslavia would continue to shower upon the U.S.S.R. Josip Broz Tito led these efforts to glorify Stalin and the Soviet Union. The model of government established in Yugoslavia borrowed heavily from that of the Soviet Union as well.

Josip Broz Tito strove to accomplish communism in Yugoslavia through the means of Stalin. According to Hoffman and Neal, Yugoslavia was, in fact, a subject of pride for Moscow, being much further ahead of the satellite nations in achieving a Soviet-style socialist state (81). Furthermore, Jeronim Perović explains, “By and large, the Yugoslav Communists intended to build socialism according to the Stalinist model. Yugoslavia scrupulously followed the Soviet model in establishing its economic planning organs, judicial system, state bureaucracy, health care, and educational systems, and cultural and educational spheres” (37). Thus, Yugoslavia heeded every whim and fancy of

Moscow without hesitation, allowing for smooth diplomatic relations. In return, the Soviet Union provided its knowledge in both civilian and military matters. The Soviet Union dispatched advisors of both categories to Yugoslavia en masse to aid the Yugoslav government. However, this would later prove to be a root of the two nations’ deteriorating relations.

In a letter to Stalin dated 20 March 1948, Tito reveals the Soviet-Yugoslav split was initiated by the Soviet Union’s withdrawal of all the military advisors they had provided to Yugoslavia (Stalin and Tito 9). However, Stalin insisted the withdrawal was on account of an unfriendly attitude in Yugoslavia (Tito and Stalin 13). Contributing to this atmosphere of hostility was an “anti-Soviet” statement made a year prior by Milovan Dilas, a high-ranking Party member in Yugoslavia. Dilas allegedly said “the British Officers . . . were more civil than the Soviet [officers]” in referring to the Red Army’s behavior during its occupation of Belgrade (Hoffman and Neal 115). While the fact may be true, as Hoffman and Neal claim, that the Soviet forces in Belgrade, following the expulsion of the Germans, were guilty of “1,219 rapes, 329 attempted, 111 rapes with murder and 1,204 robberies with violence” (115), Stalin contested the statement was slanderous and justified causation for the extraction of Soviet military advisors (Stalin and Tito 13).

Furthermore, Stalin was irate because officers in the Yugoslav army contested the price at which the Soviet Union’s advice came. According to Tito, the Soviet advisors commanded a salary three to four times that of the Federal Ministers in Yugoslavia (Stalin and Tito 20). A more strenuous cost, however, was the belief that the Soviet advisors were in place to facilitate the domination of Yugoslavia by the Soviet Union. Stalin vehemently denied the allegation that the U.S.S.R. wished to “dominate Yugoslavia economically” in his letter to the Communist Party of Yugoslavia from 4 May 1948 (Stalin and Tito 36). However, in the same letter Stalin then threatened to completely eliminate trade and material assistance for Yugoslavia (37). Stalin’s attempt to coerce Yugoslavia through economic means constituted a serious threat for Tito; however, he stood firm in his position. While Stalin attempted to deny his position on economic development in Yugoslavia, the Soviet policy toward the Yugoslav economy paints a very different picture. As Hoffman and Neal point out, the Soviets attempted to circumvent Yugoslav plans for an armaments

industry, instead purposing the Yugoslav army simply acquire their arms from the Soviet Union (115). Furthermore, the U.S.S.R. convinced the Yugoslav government to enter into joint stock companies. Both the Justa and Juspad companies were formed with equal investments from each nation. However, the Soviet Union calculated the contributions made by Yugoslavia at 1938 rates, while calculating their own at 1947 rates (Hoffman and Neal 117); this caused the real investments to be skewed. In one instance from the Justa company, the U.S.S.R. calculated the total cost of an airport installed by the Yugoslav government to be a twentieth of the cost Yugoslavia had calculated (Hoffman and Neal 117). This led Vladimir Dedijer, the author of Tito’s official biography, to state “the fundamental matter on which the [Soviet-Yugoslav] conflict began [was that] the Soviet Union intended to subjugate Yugoslavia economically, to prevent Yugoslavia’s industrialization and to delay the further socialist development in our country” (qtd. in Hoffman and Neal 116-117).

More recently it has been revealed that a major point of contention in the Yugoslav-Soviet relationship was Tito’s policy toward expansion in the Balkans. Perović contends that “a key objective of Tito’s policy in the Balkans was to establish Yugoslavia as the regional hegemon” (42). This ran counter to the Soviet ideal of Bolshevik leadership for the entire communist bloc. The conflict of interest was prominently displayed in Albania, where the Yugoslavs had intended to manufacture a merger with Albania. The Soviet Union had on multiple occasions blessed the marriage of the two states; however, Stalin at the same time began to move for more direct contact with the Albanian government in order to prevent the final union (Perović 43-45). Despite Stalin’s efforts, the Albanians and Yugoslavs moved closer toward a merger through a secret document planning the marriage of the two nations’ armies. This, according to Perović, was a direct cause of the coming Cominform resolution, as Stalin was informed of it on the same day as the documents’ authoring (57).

On 28 June 1948, representatives from the various communist parties in Eastern Europe, as well as from Italy and France, met to discuss the perceived problems growing in Yugoslavia. Overall, the resolution published by the Cominform, or the Communist Information Bureau, was a near facsimile of the final correspondence from Stalin to Tito. It expressed the Soviet opinions that Yugoslavia had deviated from Marxism-Leninism, was bureaucratic, unfriendly toward the

U.S.S.R., had an inappropriate foreign policy, and was allowing capitalism to grow in its country (Stalin and Tito 61-70). Most drastically, though, it called on the people of Yugoslavia to either “compel their present leaders to recognize their mistakes openly and honestly and to rectify them” or “to replace them and to advance a new internationalist leadership of the Party” (70). This resolution was a direct challenge from Moscow to the authority of Tito. However, Yugoslavia still praised the U.S.S.R. without relent and pleaded for their acceptance in light of the resolution.

Following Yugoslavia’s expulsion from the Cominform and the international community of communists, Yugoslavia found itself in a position to benefit from Western aid. Three weeks following the Yugoslav ejection, an agreement was reached between the United States and Yugoslav governments; Yugoslavia settled American debts accrued during the nationalization of U.S. land in Yugoslavia. For this the United States released a sum of 47 million dollars in gold that had been entrusted to it by the ousted Royalist government (Hoffman and Neal 147-148). Furthermore, Great Britain opened a trade agreement with Yugoslavia a few months later, and the United States allowed Yugoslavia to purchase a steel mill from them (148). Thus, the United States opened the door for Yugoslavia to industrialize, a notion the U.S.S.R. had tried to prevent. After another year, the United States even officially declared itself to be in support of the Tito government. Still, despite the new ground found between Yugoslavia and the United States, Americans remained cautious of the communist state. In a consultation with the House Un-American Activities Committee, Alex Dragnich debated the sincerity of the Soviet-Yugoslav split: “Obviously, there are some differences of opinion, but there is no question of Tito’s allegiance to communism” (House of Representatives 6).

Dargnich also argued that even in the face of military intervention in Yugoslavia, Tito remained loyal to the Soviet Union (114). In fact, Dargnich explicitly stated “I don’t think we can expect Yugoslavia to move away from the Soviet orbit” (9). This could have been a critical blow to U.S.-Yugoslav relations.

However, the United States, in similar fashion to their response in Greece following the Second World War, adopted a policy to prevent Yugoslavia from slipping back into Soviet grasp. The United States viewed their support of Yugoslavia as an embarrassment to Moscow (Dargnich 10). For this reason, the United States continued to provide

needed support to Yugoslavia during their excommunication from the Cominform.

Eventually, the departure from Soviet influence began to bring about internal changes in Yugoslavia as well. Neal notes that “when positive ideas did appear, they centered around the idea of decentralization as means toward a more democratic type of socialism” (89). The basis of decentralization for the Yugoslav Communist Party was to be found in publicity. Following the Sixth Congress, a variety of statutes were adopted limiting the ability of federal officials to hold local offices, making all Party meetings public, and giving local Party chapters more control of their members (Neal 92-93). Furthermore, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia became the League of Communists for added appeal.

Following these changes, the League of Communists also revived a relatively unknown concept in communist regimes: the “withering away of the state” (Neal 95). According to Neal, Tito actually believed the process was in effect in Yugoslavia (95). Through this, the League attempted to distance itself from the Soviet Union Communist Party.

Still, Yugoslavia had no intentions of giving up the communist goal. Tito wanted to move toward neutrality and thus establish the Third Bloc. Following the benefits of American aid to recuperate from economic losses, Yugoslavia entered into the Balkan Pact with Greece and Turkey, both NATO nations (Hoffman and Neal 422). This move, according to Hoffman and Neal, also facilitated renewed relations with Moscow on account of the threat the Soviet Union perceived from this pact (422). The U.S.S.R. lifted an economic blockade that had been in place since the Cominform decision and began to open trade relations once again. While the West was repulsed by this renewal of SovietYugoslav relations, Tito assured his Western patrons of his good intentions. Tito clearly stated, “We cannot improve our relations with [the Soviet Union] at the expense and to the detriment of our relations with the Western countries” (qtd. in Hoffman and Neal 424). Thus, Yugoslavia gave its best efforts to maintaining neutrality and the Third Bloc.

However, despite Tito’s great efforts, Yugoslavia could not stay gold forever. As the Cold War drudged on, Tito’s health eventually deteriorated; he succumbed to cancer in 1980. Following Tito’s death, Yugoslavia was left without a leader. While many presidents filled the

position, none could provide the unity and strength Yugoslavia had experienced during the Tito era. Between 1988 and 1989, Yugoslavia’s economy began to tumble with inflation rates hitting 1000 percent (“Chronology of Events” 60). Additionally, with Tito gone, the glue holding the republics of Yugoslavia together began to dissolve. New constitutions were adopted, wagering claims of self-determination. On account of these claims, internal struggle became inevitable. The first blow to Yugoslavia came from Slovenia. Hudson states this secession was relatively bloodless (Hudson 89). However, this was not to be the case with Croatia, the home of Yugoslavia’s national hero Tito. The secession of Croatia from Yugoslavia in 1991 marked the beginning of the bloody end to Yugoslavia. From this point onward, the dissolution of Yugoslavia would be saturated with ethnic violence. The response from the West was marked by policies instigating civil war and ethnic nationalism (Hudson 91). The violence bled through a decade and could even be witnessed in the 2008 declaration of Kosovo’s independence. While peaceful resolutions are being sought by Serbia, ethnic violence still exists.

Yugoslavia has come a long way since World War II. The region is now broken into multiple independent nation-states and continues to dissolve. The leadership found in Tito was a rarity to behold, especially in an era riddled with fear. By the leadership of Tito, Yugoslavia was able to overcome the opposition it found in its own camp, the Soviet Bloc. From hostility to semi-friendly relations with the West, Tito maintained a clever balance between bourgeois aid and communist support. Additionally, Tito managed to forge a new path toward the Marxist ideal, although it has never been fully realized by any nation. Yugoslavia represented an astounding paradox for Western onlookers; it represented both the ideal, loyal Soviet satellite and the Trumanic hope for the dissolution of the communist bloc. Truly, Yugoslavia was a nation unto itself, with an outstanding leader, in an extraordinary era.

Works Cited

“Chronology of Events in the Former Yugoslavia.” Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine 59.5 (2007): 60-62. EBSCOhost. Web.

Dragnich, Alex N. “How Different is Tito’s Communism?” The American Political Science Review 51.1 (1957): 112-114. JSTOR. Web.

Hoffman, George W. and Fred Warner Neal. Yugoslavia and the New Communism. NewYork: Twentieth Century Fund, 1962. Print.

House of Representatives. International Communism in Yugoslavia the Myth of ‘Titoism.’ 1958. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1958. Print.

Hudson, Kate. Breaking the South Slav Dream: The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia. London: Pluto Press, 2003. Print.

Kardelj, Edvard. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the Struggle for New Yugoslavia for People’s Authority and for Socialism, 1948. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1980. Print.

Neal, Fred Warner. “The Communist Party in Yugoslavia.” The American Political Science Review 51.1 (1957): 88-111. JSTOR. Web.

Perović, Jeronim. “The Tito-Stalin Split.” Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. 2 (2007): 32-63. Project MUSE. Web.

Stalin, Joseph and Josip Broz Tito. “Correspondences between Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin”, The Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1980. Print.

Architectural Collage

Louis M. Nahlik

Ibrahim Daranijo

D Sense

He felt ghost limbs, and the fathomless feeling of shear force Severing his abilities clear from his intentions. He felt the staying power, The after-sting of a secret lynching.

And it was said: Let there be no rest for the handicapped, Only planks of commiseration

From the students of “Empathy not Sympathy,” The former leaving them immersed in problems not their own— Grief sewn on like a limb reattached.

He said: “Keep your head out of the guillotine and only give yourself When you can be preserved like a pickle, A briny reminder for eternity if need be.”

Final Words

Silence blossoms like magnolias

The pink in the white

The innocence in the sin

Silence opens like magnolias

In a room with no doors

Water Can

Krista L. Liebrum

Biographies and Editors’ Notes

Samantha Abrams is a twenty-year-old sophomore, who studied Political Science for two years before giving in and studying English and Creative Writing. She has lived in Miami, Chicago, Baltimore, St. Louis, and now Iowa (to study Creative Writing), but she really has no idea where she wants to end up. She is fairly certain she’d like to teach at the college level, but she isn’t sure who will willingly offer her a job. In the meantime, she will continue worshiping Dave Eggers, watching baseball, and eating popcorn—a food that she would live off of if possible.

Eric AuBuchon graduated from UM-St. Louis in December 2010 with a B.A. in English. To the great dismay of his friends and family, Eric still has no definite career plans, though the degree in English could have told you as much. He prefers to write in the early morning over several steaming cups of coffee, but procrastination usually forces him to write well into the wee hours of the night. During his time at UM-St. Louis, he has found that his best ideas come to him while working on bad ones. It certainly isn’t an efficient way to write, but with no shortage of bad ideas, he has guaranteed himself a generous source of inspiration.

Lisa Brewer-Cusi is an undergraduate at UM-St. Louis. She is attaining a B.A. in Liberal Studies with a minor in Studio Art and will graduate cum laude in the summer of 2011. Her interests include art history, theater, children’s books, and painting—including oil on canvas, water color, murals, children’s furniture, and occasionally the dog when she gets in the way. Lisa attributes her inspiration to her heavenly Father from whom her artistic gifts were given and are sustained. She is also a dedicated wife and mother of two beautiful children. Her ambitions include illustrating and publishing the children’s books she has written.

Christy Callahan holds a Bachelor of Social Work degree from UMSt. Louis and was recently accepted into the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. She lives in Kirkwood with her husband, and when she is not attending school, she works as a social worker at a local health clinic. Her poetry involves both narrative and lyrical elements, often rich in haunting imagery. She is delighted to be writing and looks forward to a long career as a poet.

Fanita Carrawell started at UM- St. Louis as an undergraduate student in August 2004. Her major is Spanish, and she hopes to have a career as a teacher and interpreter. She began writing poetry at the age of five and has continued to write off and on. She still writes at age 32 and hopes to publish her own poetry book. Many of her poems are about her life as a child, life in general, or about her relationships with her family. Two of her inspirations are Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. She also enjoys writing songs and singing.

Justin Courtney is a junior at UM-St. Louis majoring in History and Anthropology. He received his Associate of Arts from St. Louis Community College in December of 2009. Justin was married to Brittany Flowers on June 5, 2010.

Kimberly Cowan, an Honors College graduate, spends her days trying to convince seventeen-year-old students that Fitzgerald, Keats, and Cummings are worth reading for reasons beyond passing a test. By night she is, as her students believe, a ninja. After spending the last ten years on and off UM-St. Louis’s campus, it is no surprise that some of her poems are a product of that long-term relationship with an area of St. Louis that has watched her grow from a lovesick, transcendentalismobsessed English major into a lovesick, transcendentalism-obsessed English post-graduate. While not all of her poems revolve around place, her St. Louis–inspired pieces reveal a certain attachment and attention to the area that helped shape her education.

Ibrahim Daranijo is an undergraduate student and a reserve soldier in the U.S. Army. He was born in Virginia, but he spent most of his adult life in Nigeria while his parents were liaisons with the U.S. State Department. Currently, he is pursuing a double major in Communications and Media Studies, with a double minor in Anthropology and Information Systems. Ibrahim loves to travel and has been to four continents and over thirteen countries. His photography reflects his philosophy on foreign travel, in which he embraces the cultures of the countries he visits, always being observant and experiencing the lives of the indigenous people in a personal way.

Antionette Dickens is a UM-St. Louis and Honors College graduate with a B.S. in Media Studies and an emphasis in Advertising. She also holds Advertising, Writing, and Honors certificates. Currently, she is a graduate student seeking an M.A. in Communications and a Graduate Certificate in Non-Profit Management and Leadership. She is currently working on Artfessionals Children Book Series, a non-profit magazine for young and aspiring designers that focuses on art, entrepreneurship, and leadership. In her personal life, Antionette is engaged and the mother of twin boys. She enjoys traveling, Asian culture, International Dance, graphic arts, writing, illustration, and spending time with family.

Charlie Diehl is a senior in the Pierre Laclede Honors College. He is an English Major pursuing his Women’s and Gender Studies certificate as well as a Creative Writing certificate. He plans to graduate in May of 2011 and then attend graduate school for his M.F.A. Charlie is looking into Creative Writing programs at UM-St. Louis and Washington University but will also apply to the University of Iowa’s famous Writer’s Workshop, because he knows he will kick himself the rest of his life if he doesn’t at least apply.

Dawn Duspiwa is an undergraduate currently attending UM-St. Louis. She plans to finish her general education requirements for the nursing program, followed by two years of clinicals. After graduating from UMSt. Louis with a B.S. in Nursing, she hopes to become a delivery nurse. The roots of Dawn’s photography are found in a photography class she took in high school. She has continued to enjoy this newfound hobby ever since. Her photography is inspired by the world around her, and she believes there is always something beautiful to photograph. She is a photographer, student, daughter, sister, girlfriend, and friend.

Haley Gibbar graduated from UM-St. Louis in 2010 with a Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art with an emphasis in General Fine Art, a minor in Art History, and a certificate from the Pierre Laclede Honors College. She completed the College Interior Design Program at St. Louis Community College in 2008 and has completed internships with Gallery 210 and Spellman Brady & Company. Haley says the purpose of her art is to “serve as a focal point in an interior setting and address the struggle between nature and mankind and explore the idea of a world

where the two can reside side by side.” In her work, she uses contrasting elements “to create tension” and color “as a peacemaker.” According to Haley, “analogous hues unite the canvas and represent the beautiful attraction that man has to nature” and provide a “reason why we should live at peace with it, instead of battle against it.”

Daniel Hasemann aspires to become a cosmonaut and explore a universe as envisioned by American science fiction writers from the ’60s. The true motivation behind seeking such employment is not the aforementioned, but rather that it would allow him to wear his hair exactly like Valentina Tereshkova's while being completely exempt from any open criticism of his chosen hairstyle. His hobbies include musing over strange subject matter that might well cause sunflower-shaped confetti to burst from his neurons—and yet, he also must ponder those strange notions that cause the mind to reel, the fever to culminate, shadows to move of their own accord, even to move against the dreams of their masters, and leave him a husk of pale skin lying like a fuzzy bathrobe thrown down on the floor after a warm shower, with a black butterfly drawn over a broken mouth that cannot tell what his entire being burns to say.

Adam S. Hill is currently an undergraduate majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics. He is also an alumnus, having received a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from UM-St. Louis in 2008. His ideal job would be to study artificial intelligence and create a machine capable of thinking on par with humans—though he would settle for being a software engineer. Adam decided to try writing short horror stories after reading a collection of works by H.P. Lovecraft. He was fascinated by the worlds Lovecraft created and began creating his own inconceivable worlds and creatures. Besides reading about and trying to create unfathomable horrors, Adam also enjoys playing video games, gambling, and running.

Jessica Jeanis is an undergraduate Biology major at UM-St. Louis. Although science is her educational focus, writing has always been her passion. She began to write short stories in elementary school, many of them about unusual, fantastical subjects. In high school, she devoted most of her energy towards scientific writing, and her creative work lessened. However, the Honors College renewed her interest in both

short fiction and poetry. After graduating from UM-St. Louis, she will be attending optometry school, but she does not plan to forget her interest in creative endeavors again.

Fardin Karamkhani is a native of Kurdistan in western Iran. He is the third generation in his family to build traditional Kurdish instruments. He performs on his own stringed instruments such as saz and setar, as well as percussion instruments such as zarb and daf. Now a resident of St. Louis, Fardin has lived and performed in Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, and most recently Southern California. Studying music at a very young age, he learned many traditional Kurdish songs from his mother. Later he learned from his father how to make the instruments he was playing. Since then he has also invented a variety of new instruments and learned to build American folk instruments. Fardin is also a composer of original music in various Middle Eastern styles.

David Kearns is a man of absolutely no authority on anything. In point of fact, he will graduate from UM-St. Louis by the skin of his teeth with a major comprising a scant two minors—one in Psychology and one in Honors—and a Writing Certificate, hoping desperately to pander his tired anecdotes to any and all interested. He only knows that if you’re reading this you are awesome. Not simply because you are a complex being with the remarkable ability to hold thoughts foreign to your own, but because you choose to. Incredibly awesome.

Krista L. Liebrum is currently an undergraduate at UM-St. Louis, where she is majoring in Social Work. She plans to obtain a minor in Psychology and a certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies. She is a member of Alpha Xi Delta, where she currently holds two offices, and has participated as her younger sister’s “room sister.” She enjoys volunteering, photography, writing poetry—she even won an award for Best Poetic Imagery in 2008. Krista began to view life through the camera lens when her mother gave her a camera. Her inspiration came from her creative writing and advanced English teacher, Mr. Craig Jasper, as well as one of her best friends, Cassandra Pastorfield. She loves taking one fleeting moment and making it eternal.

Thomas Manion is an undergraduate at UM-St. Louis. He is a Liberal Studies major with History and English as his areas of focus. He wishes

to work in a field that values creativity over machine-like efficiency. He likes to stay up late, drink whiskey, and write. Thomas also enjoys cooking. He places great value on his privacy and finds himself to be woefully boring.

Joshua Mann is a senior at UM-St. Louis pursuing a degree in Physics Engineering. He plans to embark on an engineering design career after graduation, ideally in medical instrumentation. In his free time, Joshua spends long periods of time painting delicate individual shapes and designs in his intricate, large pieces. His artwork appears to be intense collages or puzzles of bright and bold abstractions that could be described as moving or living. In addition, Joshua enjoys mountain biking, playing the piano, and adventuring outdoors.

Bobby Meile is a Master’s student in Biology at UM-St. Louis. This year, his sixth being published in Bellerive, he claims to have found the perfect location to hide out during the zombie uprising, the vampire apocalypse, or the werewolf-communist revolution. “Now, if you happened to guess ‘Moon Base,’ then congratulations: you’re an idiot. Werewolves love the moon, and Dracula’s already got a moon base—do you really want to tango with Dracula and his moon laser? No, sit down, listen—Sun Base. Build a base on the sun. What are vampires going to do, turn to dust at you? Werewolves are only scary in the moonlight, and hey, what beats moonlight? Bam—sunlight! And zombies? Zombies are too stupid to know you’re even gone. It’s perfect. Sun Base. Think about it.”

Scott Morgan, a student in UM-St. Louis’s M.F.A.Creative Writing program, hopes to become a published poet and graduate-level creative writing teacher. His poems draw on personal experience and from his time living in Springfield, MO. He lives with his two teenage children and his wife, who is a graduate student at Webster University studying to have more market value than her husband. Scott’s goal is to “someday be mentioned in an anthology as being a cheap knockoff of James Wright.”

Louis M. Nahlik graduated from UM-St. Louis in 2010 with a degree in Liberal Studies and an emphasis in Studio Art and Art History. His aspirations are to go on to graduate school in either art history or paint-

ing, and “who knows from there.” His interests outside of school are all music and art related. He loves going to concerts, lectures, and museums. Most of all, he loves reading. Louis tries to focus on color and composition in his work, and much of it derives from pictures that he has taken.

Ashley Pereira is currently a junior at UM-St. Louis, majoring in English. After obtaining her B.A., she plans to earn her M.A. in Literature and ultimately teach high-school English. In addition to writing, she is also a lover of good books, good recipes, good films, good music, good cameras, and good company. Ashley is honored to be chosen for this year’s Bellerive, and as a former staff member would like to profusely thank this year’s members for keeping the arts at UM-St. Louis alive by all the hard work they’ve put into this edition.

Joshua Rickly is a Mechanical Engineering student at UM-St. Louis. Having transferred from Florida a year ago, Joshua has come to love the hot city nights in St. Louis. He is a motorcycle mechanic with an eye for detail and a love for all things mechanical. Joshua can appreciate the beauty of the machines he has made a career out of understanding, and he loves to share his fascination about them. His favorite subjects are old-school choppers and hand-built hotrods. Nature photography comes in a close third on his list. You may see him scooting around on his old Harley Sportster, wishing it was a bit warmer.

Kelly Rohlf, an undergraduate at UM-St. Louis, is pursuing her Bachelor of Arts in English. She loves all things creative and enjoys writing, drawing, collage, and photography. Her other interests include hiking, going to the theater, and spending time with her family and friends. Being outdoors draws out her creativity. She likes to explore and relishes variety. She finds it difficult to remain in one discipline of arts and often finds herself dabbling in any form that happens to best express the moment.

Randal Stevens is a student in the College of Education pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Special Education.

Rob Tedrick began his college career at Kent State University, but before even arriving for his first day, he applied at the last moment to Lin-

denwood University and switched his major to History Education. After one year, he transferred to St. Charles Community College and then finally transferred to UM-St. Louis for English Education. He typically spends his time writing music and lyrics in a small abandoned graveyard he found in the woods near his home in Wentzville, Missouri. After graduating, he hopes to teach at a smaller high school at the junior and senior level.

Josh Whitt is an undergraduate at UM-St. Louis in the Department of English, with a concentration in creative writing. He is an author of short fiction and poetry (which he used to call “lyrics” when he thought he would be a rock star). His work has been published on the web and in print. Someday he may succeed in gathering together enough contiguous attention to finish a novel. By day, Josh is a software developer for a local logistics firm, but he plans to go on to graduate school at the most prestigious M.F.A. program that will accept him and be teaching writing at the college level by age 40.

Rebecca Wilson is an undergraduate nursing major, graduating in May of 2011. After graduating, she plans to work for Barnes-Jewish for a year to complete the terms of its tuition assistance program and gain some experience. After that, she intends to finally leave St. Louis and perhaps work with a traveling nursing program. She likes to ride bikes, make art, keep chickens, soak up the sun, and explore anything and everything that catches her fancy. Eventually, she would like to work abroad, return to school to become a nurse practitioner, and work in public health. She hopes by then health care won’t be in such a sorry state and that she won’t have to overturn the whole monstrous system.

Last year, we celebrated our milestone Issue 10 and acknowledged all those who had shared a vision and nurtured a tradition. With Issue 11, we celebrate both tradition and continuity, and we recognize that we are officially on our way to the next milestone. A Welcome Crisis is the first issue of a new decade and the first time my name will appear solo with the words “Faculty Advisor.” But there is nothing solo about the preparation for the seminar, the process in the seminar, or the product that comes from both. So as usual, many thanks are in order for the special persons who contributed to the creation and presentation of the book.

My thank yous begin with Nancy Gleason, who infected me seven issues ago with her love and enthusiasm for Bellerive, and who has provided training, mentoring, partnership, and trust ever since.

The next thank you goes to all the submitters who shared their creative works. The seminar and the book would not be possible without their creative gems. I hope that they will share their talents again during our Spring 2011 submissions period.

Finally, a big thank you to this year’s staff for surviving the challenges of an extensive selections process and managing the demands of a stressful production process with dedication, humor, grace, and a willingness to challenge as well as cheer each other toward success. And special thanks to Bobby Meile and Dan Diecker, our much-appreciated consultants (i.e., past Bellerive staffers-turned-volunteers) for sharing their time, talents, experience, and advice.

I hope you enjoy A Welcome Crisis. The book captures and exudes an intriguing creative tension, teases the imagination with hints of ambiguity and irony, and invites both reader engagement and response. I have thoroughly enjoyed participating in the creation of the book and sharing in the growth of the team that produced it.

Geri Friedline Faculty Advisor

Grace Stone and Jared Thimes Art Committee Chairs

The Art Committee would like to personally thank each artist for taking the time and making the effort to submit his or her work to Bellerive. Unfortunately, we were not entrusted with their contact information and would probably be perceived as creepers if we did seek each person out. Instead, we will take the easier, more traditional, more socially acceptable route to express our gratitude and simply say: Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who submitted art this year.

Before embarking on the Art Committee journey, we held a flash drive of 99 pieces of art and felt utterly overwhelmed by the idea of sifting through it to find the ones worth publishing. But it turned out not to be a job of sifting at all. There was no dirt, grit, or sand—just gems and precious metals. True, some were more polished than others, but each piece of art provoked both thought and joy. The final decisions were tough, but we’re thrilled with the outcome. Thank you to all who contributed to Issue 11. We hope you enjoy the finished product that is A Welcome Crisis.

Kelly Nahrgang Communications Committee Chair

The staff members of Bellerive are entrusted with a tremendous responsibility when they take their places at the round table in Villa 155. Students are immediately thrust into the creative and intellectual process of producing a book, resulting in a tremendous hands-on learning experience. Bellerive staffers spend hours upon hours reading through the numerous poetry and prose submissions, evaluating artwork, and discussing and debating the merits of various pieces. Once the difficult selection process is complete, the Communications Committee has the distinct pleasure of delivering congratulatory messages to those whose work was accepted for inclusion in Bellerive. The work of the committee then continues with collecting biographical information, writing or editing biographies for each writer and artist, as well as preparing for and publicizing the book’s launch. We are very proud of the end product and all of the work that went into this publication. We are proud of our staff, proud of our committees, proud of the many writers and artists

who shared their talent with us, and we are grateful for the leadership of our fearless Faculty Advisor, Geri Friedline.

To all of contributors, as well as the staff of the 2011 edition of Bellerive: Congratulations on a job well done!

Joe Harrington and Ena Selimovic Editing Committee Co-Chairs

Bellerive has a long history of producing top-shelf material, dating as far back as Issue 10 (when Ena and Joe first joined the staff), and this year is no exception. Of course, our list of accomplishments would be (even) light(er) if not for collaboration. (We are forced to say this as cochairs: see “diplomacy” or “Faculty Advisor.”) And so, we would like to thank our fellow editors: unfortunately, you can’t always do what you want in life. So, we will take this opportunity to thank ourselves. Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Ena. We trid realy hard to, catch all nistakes.

But seriously, thanks to everyone on the Editing Committee who made this issue of Bellerive possible (Ena and Joe). Although this will be Ena’s last contribution to Bellerive as a staff member, Joe hopes to include his name in the next issue—so you can rest assured that there will be at least one more to come. Joe’s involvement might not extend much further than breaking into the Bellerive office one night and including his name, but he feels this basically merits the designation of “staff member.” (This is, after all, what Bobby has been doing for years; nobody has yet thought to ask why.)

The Editing Committee has demonstrated tireless efforts to bring you this book, and you had better appreciate it; do you know how hard it is to drive without tires? Suzanne, Amanda, Joyce, Erika, Chelsey, Charlie, Bobby, thank you for making this semester one to remember. We love you all. Try to guess who’s our favorite.

Laura Kessler and Kelly Rohlf Layout Committee Co-Chairs

First and foremost, we would like to thank Geri Friedline and the staff of Bellerive, because without Geri’s leadership and the collaborative work of the staff, we would not have an eleventh edition. We came to the task with a bit of fear and trepidation, as our experience was very minimal. We found working together as co-chairs provided the support that we both needed. We would be remiss if we did not express our appreciation to past Layout Committee members whose contributions to past issues gave us a great legacy to draw upon. Their efforts made our task much easier.

The input of the class gave us fresh inspiration, and we hope everyone will enjoy the format but, most of all, the great content contributed by those brave enough to submit their works to the scrutiny of this emerging group of literary and art critics.

Staff Photograph

Top to Bottom-Left to Right: Geri Friedline, Laura Kessler,Charlie Diehl, Erin Richey,Chelsey Maylee, Matt Plodzien, Bobby Meile, Jared Thimes, Kelly Nahrgang, Joyce Gates, Amanda Weible, Ena Selimovic, Melissa Alper, Suzanne Matthews, Joe Harrington, Grace Stone, Erika Stasiak, and Kelly Rohlf

Pierre Laclede Excellence in Writing Contest

2009–2010 Winners

1000–level Honors Class

Brianna Clampitt

“Thoreau vs. Hobbes: The Reckoning”

Honors 1201: Cultural Traditions II, taught by Dan Gerth

2000–level Honors Class

Jennifer Woodford

“The Seven Deadly Dwarves”

Honors 2010: Fairy Tales and Folklore, taught by Dan Gerth

3000–level Honors Class

Eric AuBuchon

“The Power of Conservatism: Masculinity in Dreiser’s Jennie Gerhardt”*

Honors 3010: Ghost Stories and 19th Century, taught by Kathleen Nigro

4000–level Fiction

Sharon Pruitt

“A Bright and Beautiful Boy”

Honors 2020: Creative Writing, taught by Maud Kelly

* This piece is featured earlier in this book.

Thank you for reading this year’s edition of Bellerive.

Interested in becoming part of Submit your work!

Submission boxes and forms are located in the Millenium Student Center, English Department Office, and just inside the door to the Provincial House on South Campus. Not on campus that often, or are the boxes out of your way? For additional information or to submit electronically:

friedlineg@umsl.edu or

bellerivesubmit@umsl.edu

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