“What do you do When it rains” Poetry

Ace Boggess “WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN IT RAINS?”

[question asked by Nadia Ibrashi]

My eyes scan nearby woods for does, sheltered, dry, resting in a patch of leaves, murky bodies lazing, necks stretching mouths toward a low branch & lone jade leaf. Smarter than me, they’ve found a comfy bed & breakfast in which to wait out the downpour. I stand under the storm, kissed by damp, tasting a wet cigarette. My smoke looks like mist off tarmac. Backs of my hands collect droplets as though I’ve been knuckling tears.

LeT In

By: Henry Hu

Stephan Barile ATWELL’S ISLAND

Tulare Lake, a vast shallow basin of freshwater surrounded by extensive tracts of swamps,

tule bulrush buffer against wind and water forces on the eastern shore.

The metallic glint of dragonfly comes out of stagnant waters, weed-choked pools,

to clear, long stretches of flowing water, blue heron, egrets, and Canadian geese fly.

Some Yokut tribelets of the first people inhabited this single location so long

they became joined with the place, the village of Chawlowin. Such were the Wowols

of Atwell’s Island. They crossed over to the mainland in reed boats,

great long tule rafts, pointed at each end, bound with willow wythes,

to collect firewood, and acorns. People of the marshes: Los Tulareños,

called ‘the standing people,’ invisible among alkali heath, cattail, and salt grass.

Wowols lived on clams, and fish, waterfowl, seeds, and tule roots.

When white men put cattle on the island, the water was low, and muddy.

There were wild hogs already, “Tule-splitters,” among the dry sedges. The natives

waited for the white man to burn them out to make way for the cattle.

The Indian village was razed and turned into a large cow-pen.

An Eagle ceremony for the wise chief, the majestic bird killed by the coyote,

was a mourning ceremony for receding waters cursed with grief and wailing.

Mocked by the clown, a hole through his nose, a bone stuck through it, who acted indecent

and nonsensical, wearing false hair. With a turtle-shell rattle,

a headdress of magpie plumes, with a beak attached to his forehead

like a long-billed bird: the loon.

Cattlemen and cavalry rounded up Lake People, drove them to the north shore: Santa Rosa Reservation,

forced them to live among mountain tribes of warring people they could barely tolerate.

Meanwhile Judge Atwell’s steamship, Mose Andross, belched smoke and plowed through choppy waters to snare fish

by the thousands, the same steelhead and catfish, Wowols speared one at a time.

Wendy BooydeGraaff SMALL SPACES

what prednisone does to my heart my hormones my relationships red

rings of rash shrinking back into my epidermis seeping into my blood

itch sinks pulses my spleen my lungs my leaky left ventricle where memory

has always resided hidden and known

those who peek inside recognize mirrors

before they zip me back together; otherwise leave me open, back away, deny same, same;

order me to zip myself back up, stuff the itch into the fissure where it belongs,

which is what I do on most days and didn’t need anyone telling me so

Doug Van Hooser TRIBUTARIES

Ah, my ego, broken like an old clay pot. Jagged pieces with sharp edges, shards of indifference. A humpty-dumpty case not worth a horse’s neigh. I wasn’t fragile, just fell the right/wrong way. The surface of self-respect concrete hard, unforgiving as a wave. The undertow of expectation an obelisk of naïve worship of achieve and attain. The mountain pass that switches back as you climb

but steers clear of the summit. Nothing is simple as apple pie. An apple tart failure filling unsweetened by the sugar of success. Acceptance a primordial dance

never learned.

There’s a constant ache that reminds me, all water flows to an ocean.

COnTrIBuTOrS

Jeffrey Alfier’s most recent book, The Shadow Field, was published by Louisiana Literature Journal & Press (2020). Journal credits include The Carolina Quarterly, Copper Nickel, Hotel Amerika, James Dickey Review, New York Quarterly, Penn Review, Southern Poetry Review, and Vassar Review. He is the founder and coeditor of Blue Horse Press and San Pedro River Review.

TobI alfIer is published nationally and internationally. Credits include War, Literature and the Arts, The American Journal of Poetry, KGB Bar Lit Mag, Cholla Needles, Galway Review, The Ogham Stone, Permafrost, Gargoyle, Arkansas Review, and others. She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com).

sTephen barIle is a Fresno, California native, educated in the public schools. He attended Fresno City College, Fresno Pacific Univeristy, and California State University, Fresno. He was a long-time member of the Fresno Poets’ Association. Mr.Barile taught writing at Madera Community College, and CSU Fresno. He lives in Fresno.

ace boggess is the author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021), I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So, and The Prisoners. His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.

Wendy BooydeGrAAff’s poems have been included in Not Very Quiet:The Anthology, Slant: A Journal of Poetry, MASKS Literary Magazine, Nymphs, and elsewhere. She is the author of Salad Pie (Chicago Review Press/Ripple Grove Press). Born and raised in Ontario, Canada, she now lives in Michigan, United States.

charlIe scalIa-bruce is a sophmore at The University of Maine Farmington hailing from Portland, Maine. He’s currently working to become a preschool teacher, but spends his free time reading and biking. From a young age he’s loved collaging and is very happy to have his work published in The Sandy River Review.

deborah doolITTle has lived in lots of different places. She lived six years in Virginia, but now calls North Carolina home. She has an MA in Women’s Studies and an MFA in creative writing and teaches at Coastal Carolina Community College. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she is the author of Floribunda (Main Street Rag) and three chapbooks: No Crazy Notions (Birch Brook Press), That Echo (Longleaf Press), and Bogbound (forthcoming from Orchard Street Press) Some of her poems have recently appeared (or will soon appear) in Comstock Review, Evening Street Review, Pinyon Review, Rattle, Ravensperch, Slant, The Stand, and in audio format on The Writer’s Almanac. She shares a home with her husband, four housecats, and a backyard full of birds.

auTumn Koors folTz (she/her) is a lesbian poet based outside Baltimore, Maryland and currently studying at the University of Maine at Farmington. She was the Fall 2021 Alice James Books Director’s Chair Fellow. Her work can be found in superfroot magazine and the lickety~split, among others. Her moon is most certainly in Capricorn. You can find her on Twitter @autumn_kf.

summer hammond grew up in rural east Iowa on a gravel lane in the cornfield sea. She was homeschooled through high school, earning her college degree online while long-haul trucking with her husband, Aly. Summer went on to teach 9th grade Reading in Austin, TX, and in 2019, she earned her MFA in Fiction from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington–a dream come true. Her fiction and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Broad River Review, The Texas Review, and StoryQuarterly. She is a 2021 Rash Award in Fiction finalist, Missouri Review Miller Audio Prize Finalist, and second-runner up for StoryQuarterly’s Ninth Annual Fiction Prize. Summer and Aly currently live in Wilmington by the sea.

KriKor n. der HoHAnnesiAn’s poems have appeared in over 250 literary journals including The South Carolina Review, Atlanta Review, Louisiana Literature, Connecticut Review, Comstock Review and Natural Bridge. He is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, author of two chapbooks, Ghosts and Whispers (Finishing Line Press, 2010) and Refuge in the Shadows (Cervena Barva Press, 2013) as well as a full-length book, First Generation (Dos Madres Press, 2020).Ghosts and Whispers was a finalist for the Mass Book awards poetry category in 2011. First Generation was selected as a “must read” by Mass Book Awards in 2021.

Karly JacKlIn is a poet and Ohioan currently pursuing a BFA from the University of Maine at Farmington, where she lives and works with her girlfriend. She is afflicted nightly with strange dreams, and her most recent work can be found across the web in Alma, Not Deer, and Atlas and Alice.

XIaoly lI is a poet and photographer who lives in Massachusetts. She is a 2022 recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Grant in Poetry. Prior to writing poetry, she published stories in a selection of Chinese newspapers. Her photography, which has been shown and sold in galleries in Boston, often accompanies her poems. Her poetry has recently appeared in Spillway, American Journal of Poetry, PANK, Atlanta Review, Chautauqua, Rhino, Cold Mountain Review, J Journal and elsewhere; She has been nominated for Best of the Net twice, Best New Poets, and a Pushcart Prize. Xiaoly received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and her Masters in computer science and engineering from Tsinghua University in China.

sImon perchIK is an attorney whose poetry has appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, The New Yorker and elsewhere.

JAn scHmidt’s work has been published in many journals including The Alaska Quarterly Reveiw, Cream City Review, and Kansas Quarterly. Her work also has been nominated for the Pushcart Press Prize. Two volumes of poetry were published by Edwin Mellen Press (We Speak in Tongues, 1991; She had this memory, 2000) and another, Foraging for Light recently was published by Fishing Line Press (2019).

nIK shulTz is a senior creative writing BFA student at the University of Maine Farmington. They are also pursuing minors in art and women and gender studies. They have had work published in the Ripple’s zine and the UMF Honors Journal, and are a previous of editor for The River. They are currently the VP of UMF’s Writers’ Guild, and a teaching assistant for Intro to Creative Writing.

dave snyder received his MFA from the University of Kansas, where he won the Brosseau Art Prize. He curently teaches Mathematics at Lewiston High School in Lewiston, Maine. You can find his work in About Place Journal, Neon Literary Magazine, and elsewhere.

WIllIam snyder has published poems in California Quarterly, Atlanta Review, Poet Lore, and Southern Humanities Review among others. He was the co-winner of the 2001 Grolier Poetry Prize, winner of the 2002 Kinloch Rivers Chapbook competition; The CONSEQUENCE Prize in Poetry, 2013; the 2015 Claire Keyes Poetry Prize; Tulip Tree Publishing Stories That Need to be Told, 2019 Merit Prize for Humor; and Encricle Publications 2019 Chapbook Contest. He is just retired from teaching writing and literature at Concordia College, Moorhead, MN.

ben sToll is a member of the University of Maine at Farmington’s graduating class of 2022. He will have his bachelors in Secondary Education (English) and a minor in creative writing. Sometimes, he has dreams where his teeth fall out.

calI Turner is originally from Willimantic, Maine. She is an undergraduate student at The University of Maine at Farmington. She is currently double majoring in English and creative writing. You can always find Cali outside, whether she’s hiking or curled up with a book in a hammock.

douG VAn Hooser’s poetry has appeared in Roanoke Review, The Courtship of Winds, After Hours, Wild Roof Journal, and Poetry Quarterly, among other publications. His fiction can be found in Red Earth Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Bending Genres Journal. Doug’s plays have received readings at Chicago Dramatist Theatre and Three Cat Productions. More at ougvanhooser.com

Isabelle King

is a junior at UMF, double majoring in secondary education and English with a concentration in poetry. When she is not writing, she is creating art, photography, and reading. She can be found outside in all seasons, but especially in the rain.

Spencer Arnold

is a senior creative writing and English double major at UMF.

He currently balances time beween Sigma Tau Delta, writing poetry, and being an RA.

On his off time, Spencer is known for being a gigantic nerd who plays D&D.

Contributors

Jeffrey Alfier Tobi Alfier Stephen Barile Ace Boggess Wendy BooydeGraaff Charlie Scalia-Bruce Deborah Doolittle Autumn Koors Foltz Summer Hammond Krikor N. Der Hohannesian Henry Hu Karly Jacklin Xiaoly Li Simon Perchik Jan Schmidt Dave Snyder Nik Shultz William Snyder Ben Stoll Cali Turner