Suisun Valley Review #28 by Suisun Valley Review

SUISUNVALLEYREVIEW

Editors: Virginia Aguirre; Joyclyn Algar; Kate Alloway; Erik Blumst; Janette Dahn; Desiree Doane; James Fox; Lisa Gurlin; Arynn Haws; Kirk Jackson; Susan Kang; Evan Kincade; Lauren Lavin; Dom Locastro; Nick Parnell; Mike Pescosolido; Ryan Shaw; Ron Sierra; Misti Snow; Zhihang Tam; Kristin Watkins; Danielle Wong; Marnie Zaldivar. Assistant to the Advisor: Carmen Gutierrez. Advisor: Michael J. Wyly. Cover Art: Griffin Timothy Cover Concept/ Design: Lisa Gurlin. Book Design & Typography: Lisa Gurlin Printing: Graphics Department, Solano Community College. Binding: Inland Binding, Sacramento, CA. Guidelines: Rights revert to author on publication. Submissions are accepted from November to March of each year. Simultaneous submissions should be noted as such. Successful submissions in fiction typically do not exceed 3,000 words. Two complimentary copies of the magazine received upon publication. Authors are invited to release reading held at Solano College in May of each year. Visual art must be submitted electronically and be of sufficient file size for printing at 300 ppi.

SuisunValleyReview e Established in 1981. Suisun Valley Review (ISSN 1945-7340) is published annually every spring by Solano Community College, Fairfield, CA. SVR is edited by the students of English 58, a course in the contemporary literary magazine, which includes requesting and reviewing submissions, arranging contents and determining format. Please visit <www.solano.edu> for details on how to register. Suisun Valley Review, English Department, Solano Community College, 400 Suisun Valley Road, Fairfield, CA 94534. Email: suisunvalleyreview@gmail.com. <www.solano.edu>; <myspace.com/suisunvalleyreview>; <twitter.com/SVR_Editors>; <suisunvalleyreview.blogspot.com>. Also look for us on Facebook. ISSN 1945-7340 Print run: 500

Table of Contents

Poetry David Weinshilboum Griffin Timothy Leonore Wilson Leonore Wilson Larry Narron Dylan Amaro-McIntyre Dylan Amaro-McIntyre henry reneau, jr. Laura Carter Anhvu Buchanah Laura Carter Chelsea Chavez Zhihang Tam David Weinshilboum A.M. Stanley Mathias Nelson Mathias Nelson Carmen Gutierrez Richard Barnhart William Taylor Jr. Suzanne Bruce henry reneau, jr. Michael Ceraso A. Molotkov Tyler Bigney

Ode to Sleep Milky Landscape Lauds Blind Bird Spiral La Frontera, Nuestra Tierra (para el bueno y el malo) In Lakâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ech bitter margins Manifesto: She (Returning Thicket) Elephant Man Love Le Sable Persimmons Empty Tanqueray Bottle Unbridled Divorce Why He Needs Her Love Inamorata If Only Out of Spite Connection allotment Hustle Knowledge Whatever Lies Between the Big and Little Dipper

7 9 10 11 13 14

Suture Cat in a Bag

25 50

18 19 20 24 31 32 33 34 42 43 44 45 46 48 49 55 57 58 59

Short Fiction

Zhihang Tam Gene Hines Features

Quinton Duval Award in Creative Writing Carmen Gutierrez, Winner Salsa Nicholas Parnell Distorted Reflections Francisco Javier Zamora Childhood Paradigms, the Afghan Snowfinch, and the Green Berries

36 38 39

Dorine Jennette , Feature

60 61 62 63

Writing by Streetlight Complaint Father Daughter Night

at the Arena Dorine Jennette, Interview

Visual Arts Rita Okusako Lance Jayogue Lance Jayogue Richard Barnhart Marc Lancet Lisa Gurlin Rita Okusako

Mad Scienx Little White Flag Basking in the Light Science of Creep Vanished into Something Hallucination Et in Arcadia Ego

12 17 23 31 35 47 56

Editorial Statement Suisun Valley Review, a product of English 58, the Literary Magazine, was established in 1981 for the students of Solano Community College to learn the art of editing a literary journal while working together to create their own annual magazine. Now in its twenty-ninth year, student-editors continue to collaborate carefully to select its contents from new and established writers/artists from SCC and across the country, even around the world. In cooperation with its instructor/ advisor, the student-editors work to establish a de-centered classroom to enhance the literary experience while also empowering themselves in the creation of every aspect of the magazine, including the selection of overall design aesthetic and the narrative development of each issue. SVR works closely with the SCC Writers Series by inviting key authors as features. Each spring, all of the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; hard work and endless creative energy is repaid with a bound collection of prose and poetry, sold and kept as a testament to sleepless nights.

Special Note Concerning Editor Submissions: The annual production of SVR is facilitated by the Solano Community College course, English 58. The course description states that any persons interested in submitting creative work to the magazine for consideration may submit, including student editors. To maintain fairness and impartiality, all submissions are considered anonymously.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;2011 Editorial Staff

Suisun Valley Review is dedicated to Quinton Duval, Professor Emeritus, Solano Community College.

Ode to Sleep Sleep, once again you tempt me like a cunning friend. The cheerless meeting at work pulls at my eyelids, and I hear your milky voice urging me to join you. I can’t get angry at your devious ways; ours is not a simple involvement.

As a young man, I dismissed you, as if you were a naïve pig-tailed girl, not worthy of attention. Now I know the naïveté was mine, and more than ever, I yearn to brush my fingers against your soft braids.

David Weinshilboum

Of course, now that I am familied, your wonders are rarely available to me, yet, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve conjured another way for us to coalesce. I can behold your eminence when you mingle with my infant son; your nourishing presence smoothes his cheek and grows his thumbnail that trembles gently under your watch.

These waking moments satiate me and I am grateful for both your absence and presence.

David Weinshilboum

Milky Landscape

A shadow of a puppet dances in the fire light. That's something I like to think about other than milk the Earthly white oceans of milk at room temperature pale as my Irish skin, pale as my cyclops mind, leaves a smokescreen in my tea. Even the night is white. I was given two percent purring, murmuring in a high calorie smoothie slowly spoiling in the boxed tundra stale but creamy. I still consider it nothing to offer yet me and my mom stick to the formula and my connections are weak and her breasts will grow cancers. 9

I drink so much itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all I can purge.

Griffin Timothy

Lauds

For almost an hour the cowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s call like a swinging towel scours the canyon, as the toyon blood berries hide her calves stirring under the boughs like sated maggots, and the gray-haired mother arranging the meat and cheese with scrubbed and sour hands, finds her own breath becoming hoarse with longing. Force, lament, rope of heritage, maternal echo houses in the flesh and bone and breast, what the singingbirds and owls know like the hot clout of fox for in the beginning was the word that spewed out over the void, a woven fireball of sound, a hewn intimacy, spurn and turn and twist of helix planted in the unborn, brother to thought, holy, unholy ghost among the damp thistles and stones, this dark-voweled vision of insoluble love.

Leonore Wilson

Blind Bird

He knows Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been ill, so what does he do, this son of mine but sweep me down the fragrant trail where the white laurel is bounteous, the sinewy oaks are shipwrecks of muscle, and the corkscrew water grooves the land, where he first knew the deniers of death sprouting from the marrow of rotting she-fox and cow; he shows me the republic of his boyhood laid out beneath the raised brow of the old weathered ranch house; here we scan the seeded pastures, mother and child, nearly sleep-walking now, and he asks me if I see the haphazard stones lying like requiems of night-fallen comets, and I do always believing the winter storms had yanked them tail-first from the hard shanks of mountains, but no blind bird I was, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m told he had hurled them there, he and his brothers, their eyes straight as gravesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; small-fisted lords, defending the bound fecundity of my womanly kingdom.

Leonore Wilson

Mad Scienx

Rita Okusako

Spiral all night long the infinite fingers of time & space are playing cat’s cradle with the telephone wires that asphyxiate the world. they’re picking up the slack of the masochists, bruising the throats of the cities, trying to help gravity save face. but the musicianship of the sphere wails out of key. the earth unravels like a baseball forgotten in the grass. i hear your voice coming over from the end of the line that is yours saying goodbye to me in morse code. over the wire i dispatch syllables charged with hope. what right do you have to question my faith in electricity? just humor me for a moment. try to imagine me puking mute serenades in the dead language of poetry. penniless, walking backward thru the jagged bazaars of your eyes where angels trade stars for the chance to look thru them. in the rain, by the side of the road: a used washing machine with a sign on it that says “take me”. on the horizon, the factories of forever exhaust the night with fire. pistons descend soundlessly, exhaling sad plumes of lust twirling heavenward. slow spiral staircases tightly hugging themselves, afraid to let go of their rails, to be straightened. the stretched pillar of nothing in the space inside the architect’s endless dome of dreams. the strained axis of travelers. vast maps in the hands of tourists spending their lives looking thru camcorders. the remote memory of feet in pink socks brushing over hardwood floors. the smoldering ghost of your footsteps forever orbiting my spine.

Larry Narron

La Frontera, Nuestra Tierra (para el bueno y el malo)

I. The way it looked then: A lakebed fertile A life spring of green And science Ever abundant In our rendering Abundant in the minds Of young Xicano poets: Remembering only The glory of Gold-en monarchies As if they too weren’t built On the backs of shrunken bellies And bodies bent under the weight Of a world that couldn’t sustain itself

Fertile in the eyes of foreigners: A suitable womb to be raped In the name of creation leaving Afterbirth bleeding off at the edges In pools of dead languages and people Forgotten in the violent coming of culture II. The way it looks now. Scrubland and sand A desert sponge Soaked heavy With all the things It bears witness to Each life crossing—a solitary drop Inching over shale and sand and folds Of the very earth opening up To an ever growing collection Of souls squeezed dry into the parse Memory of moisture

Dylan Amaro-McIntyre

III. Mouths agape of men lips burnt Women frozen in time who died of thirst In the shade of water barrels, marked “Peligro” “Danger,” this land’s testimony to its bloodthirsty Traditions IV. The dreams they chased To desert graves, vague In their minds only clearly defined By the experts and analysts Keeping them trapped Between a life not chosen And a life not wanted A wasteland too real between V. Skin hanging like flayed leather From bone bit raw by wind That is more sand than breath Taking last breaths That are more song than sand From soon to be hollows

the rotting shells of houses once churches only bone and framework now VI. A church. A handmade clay Stubborn against this corner Of time and Earth encroaching Four dead slabs and a beating heart Casting a hollow glow Like a rotting Jack-o-lantern These pockets of faith are as burning palms Keeping the last fires aflame Against the cold dead winter Of a world still recovering from its ruin

Dylan Amaro-McIntyre

VII. In the desert there are many names For the wind, each one an eye, Each a voice, some a whisper Carrying cries from last breath to Deaf ear The only way this Earth can Wring itself dry every night.

Dylan Amaro-McIntyre

Lance Jayogue

Little White Flag

In Lakâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ech

I am Smoke to flame. Flame to spark. Slow burning Since past lives Danced out of death Tendrils curling twisted As train yard hieroglyphs

I am the only song left The plumed quetzal plucked Flying into Northern horizons For the very first time I am grooves in desert stones That still remember rainfall I am the call of guerilla poetribes Chameleoning their way Through a concrete creationism Of past begotten privilege 18

Spray painting acrylic answers To questions society asks I am fireside chants and dance Pulsating heartbeat rhythms I am original sin The first taste of knowledge Severing mankind From a blissful future Of not knowing any better I am the Ceiba Tree on fire I am char. I am soot. I am splintered wood. I am memory Forgotten I am

Dylan Amaro-McIntyre

bitter margins

someone who’s already dead, incog-negro & swooping down silent. there are so many of us mesmerized by the sounds that mimic a post-racial gathering under twilight skies, betrayed by hope & patronizing our careen with “better than it used to be” as we distill into the shadow of echo & soundlessly floating; a last witness amidst the debris of dejection, mouths scarred shut by the bitter awfulness of living in the margins & blood coloring the air thickened by desperation, amassed; struggling from the hem into starlight. unfolding flame becoming grace set free & beating the air above a moonlit surge of sea— the farther shore a distant anguish of nearness— mirroring a silent desire, a phantom ache

of amputated dreams within the veil; a paranoia as intimate as sin after the silence of silence & too many tears through too many years

henry reneau, jr.

Manifesto: She (Returning Thicket)

The laterals make their noises in the thicket’s grasp. This is a difficulty to those who would know. Nature with its spun neurons and protons in a just-for-now lover (he’s civil). She slips the thicket into a narrow glass vase. She erases the thicket from herself. She catches the last of the pines in her dress. Art with its ferocious manifestos. They’re gems. She baubles her manifestos and leaves them in the thicket’s recording room. The air is so thick impossible to underestimate.

The air is the nervous letters of light. She is breaking in the bent leaves. The ruby numbers are tremulous. She leaving her father she who would like to know. She would like to understand the difference (it spreads). She slips the glass vase into her porous scalp. She makes the first cut. The recording room the book of letters the book of former baptisms and ferocity, the book of manifest. The night once entered is easy to overestimate. Nature with its atoms,

ruby light in the churches of her history, conceptual modulations, civilly starving, opening the poetry door to understand. The cars in the night all hollow and bent. Who, returning the thicket, takes it in. Who, giving birth to the thicket, births the scalp. Who, in the hollow car, opens the door of the self.

Laura Carter

The night once forgotten is difficult to memorize. There’s a book of letters. There’s a book of names. She slips each name into a slender syringe. The laterals of the air are hollow in the thicket’s grasp. Eros in the car motions her impending death. There’s a man circling a tree. There’s a man and a woman circling a tree. There’s night (sexed). She opens the door to the thicket. Nature is there with its atoms. She makes a change. Art is there and manifest. Her once-loved mirrors open to the recording room.

She slips one mirror into the center of her body. She (returning thicket) keeps tree and scalp, man and woman and lateral and air air for the road She keeps air for the recording room she keeps air for the sexed night and she keeps the night in her slender dress in her body This difficult thicket is given body by the vase in which she keeps any number of things: fresh Kleenex, manifestos, roses, concepts, air, night, breathing, and the Books of Compositions (One and Two). She returns the thicket. She keeps watch over trees. She strokes the man’s hair. Laura Carter

Laura Carter

Basking in the Light Lance Jayogue

Elephant Man

Once there was a man who looked every morning in the mirror and saw a reflection of an elephant. His eyes were soft gentle peanuts, his nose a long magnificent trunk. Tusks sprouted from the sides of his face. Always soft-spoken he hid his elephant face behind an old ball cap. He could feel the staring. Believed others were tossing apples his way. He wished for blindness, for people to have their eyes removed and placed into bowls like marbles. He spent hours staring in the mirror but could only see elephant, elephant, simply elephant. He longed for a cave, a warm mattress, anything to hide under until winter returned. When the weather was so cold you could see your breath and no one cared if you were an animal. When it was dark enough that the world walked with their hands instead of their eyes. 24

Anhvu Buchanah

Suture Zhihang Tam I think I cut my arm. Pain pulses where I supposedly cut it. This place I’m seeing feels familiar… and yet not; a place that looks perfect but feels so wrong. My vision clears and I'm in the bathroom of my old apartment that looks too white, like all the colors avoided just this area. Immaculate and clean, almost sterile, almost bleached- like a hospital, the way it burns my eyes and nostrils from being too white and too clean. I'm pretty sure I wasn't here a minute ago. I blink and catch a glint of a blade. Shining dully in what little light is there, flipping around as it falls. I look down at my arm; it looks whole and smooth even though I know it's not. Both my arms are supposed to be littered with

pale scars, crisscrossing and overlapping each other. I know this but my head feels too fuzzy to fully acknowledge it. What's going on here? Flashes of red dripping and a dimly lit room. I hear a sharp clatter and a sound of something shattering to bits. The image shifts and suddenly I'm staring at a face. A face as immaculate and clean as the bathroom I stand in. This is a face of someone who avoided the dangers of life and followed orders, and did

whatever was decided for him. Too clean, too clean. What stares back is someone I don’t recognize. Another flash and this time I see the room sideways. I feel like I'm falling. Short blond hair, clean shaven face, dark eyes that shine bright but dead. Oh, so dead. I realize belatedly that he's my reflection… Or what used to be my reflection. That face doesn't exist anymore. I haven't actually seen myself as of late, but I'm pretty sure I don't look like that anymore. So

listless, so lifeless. He looks back at me with a smile about to form on his face. A smile that everyone wears. A cigarette dangles in his almost smiling mouth as he tries straightening his black tie. Clean suit, clean face, white coat, ready to face the world. A faceless family now surrounds me. I think they're my family? The only thing I can relate to is their hair color, the same shade of straw as my own. They huddle around one another; the littlest one's shoulders shake with what sounds like sobbing. A sour feeling hits me in the chest, tightening, rising up to my throat, almost choking; I cringe. Angry voices shout noises of outrage that echo throughout the endlessly white room. For all their noise, I can't distinguish a single word they speak... and yet I know exactly what is being said. I remember this scene: I had told them I decided to just drop everything. School, job, friends- everything, because it didn't mean

anything to me, not like how it was supposed to. Everything I did that 26

was acceptable in society sucked the life out of me. It was agonizingly boring to have to follow the crowd and their rules. Too much effort involved in making someone else happy, not me. Too much wasted effort. I didn't need or want to be a part of it any longer. I don't need them pushing their ideals on me. I feel what is being said and I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care. All I can focus on is

the crying figure, the featureless child that hugs the legs of my mother while it looks at me. My breath hitches, stuck in my throat. Liquid leaks out of an orifice I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see as it runs down its skin. It should be unnerving to have this thing look at me; this thing that has no recognizable features. But all I can think about is that it shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be crying. Not over me. Never for me. More angry yelling and the group turns around leaving me behind. I dropped everything and they dropped me. A cold splash of water hits me in the face and I violently jolt out of my reverie. I find myself sprawled on the decaying yellow floor of Zhihang Tam

my current bathroom. Gritty and dark, with cracked walls and possibly other life forms crawling around; so unlike the bathroom I saw a moment ago. Arms splayed away from my body, palms up and blood running in rivulets down my left forearm, accumulating in a small puddle. How long have I been lying here? Thick white hands pick up a blade on the floor next to me. I look blearily at the worn black shoes crunching on the glass fragments from an empty whiskey bottle and tilt my head up at the man standing next to me. His clean face shuffles through different expressions, something which I don’t care to translate at the moment. His mouth moves but I can't hear the words. He grabs me by my uninjured but equally decimated arm with his meaty hand and hauls me up until I sit slouching on the toilet. I’m not what people would call a heavy weight or anything, but when was I ever light enough for people to heave up so easily? The warmth from where he grabbed me doesn’t leave as quickly

as his hand does. I must be really cold. It’s funny how I don’t feel much of anything right now. Except that the back of my neck feels wet. “—n't leave you alone even for five minutes! I can't believe you,” the hulking man continues to bluster through his spiel, scratching his head in annoyance. I place a hand to my neck, a sticky red leads up to another wound on my head. I guess I hit it along the way when I fell. “—five minutes and you're on the floor! Seriously? Couldn't you bleed

somewhere else that isn't growing as much mold? You idiot.” My disorientation is dissipating faster than last time at least. Last time I couldn’t hear him for another minute or so. A cockroach skitters across the floor and up the decaying wall as I briefly entertain the idea of starting a fight, just so he’d shut up. Then at least I’d have something to do. With an unbelievable amount of effort, I struggle to get up and mumble, “At least it wasn’t on the nice carpet this time.” I taste ash and alcohol on my tongue as I speak to him, briefly glancing at his round face. An image flies by, his face all bruised and bloody, covered in bandages and butterfly stitches, just as I Zhihang Tam

always remember him. I file it away on the to-do list to help him with that. He rolls his eyes upward in a why me gesture and holds a roll of bandages, shoving it in my face. “Sooner or later you're gonna mess up and off yourself on accident or something,” he grumbles, his tantrum simmering down. I feel myself grinning, slow and full of teeth, an awful grin that serves to rankle him even further. I snatch the roll away from him and wobble towards the dirty sink. My hands grasp at the brown and yellow porcelain to steady myself and look up at the grimy mirror. Choppy blond hair that clings to my scalp, sallow gaunt face, dark rings around dark eyes. No, that other face doesn't exist. Not anymore. The stout, dark-haired man—I guess I call him friend—gives me a once-over. When he deems that I won't be dying right there on the spot, he heads out the door after tucking the red-tipped scalpel in

his pocket. Ah, was that what I used this time? Could have sworn that I 28

used lucky Number Seven. Then again, looking back I suppose it does feel like bitchy Number Twelve. Water trickles out of the spout as I turn the knob. Blood flows down the drain as I clean the multiple slits that lay on top of the old scars. From the side, something off-white and rough assaults my head. A somewhat clean towel with various questionable stains; one dark

stain I recognize as last month's Chinese takeout. I chuckle lowly under my liquor-scented breath; it comes out as a breathy hiss, staticky and horrid sounding. The rasping, deep rumble reverberates through my chest. Taking the towel off my head, I dry off my wounds. I start to unravel the roll of bandages and wrap up my desecrated left arm with little difficulty. I had cut my forearm again. Never deep enough to kill but enough to feel alive. When I look back up at the mirror, the burly man pops his head in from the doorway, his thick eyebrows furrow, and he stares Zhihang Tam

warily at me. No doubt he was unnerved by the quietness while waiting for me out there. I give him another vicious, toothy grin. A loaded thank you, the only one I can remember how to give. “Dun worry 'bout me. 'M a doctor, I know wut 'm doin’.”

Zhihang Tam

Science of Creep Richard Barnhart

Love

I spent one day in feminine clothes wearing slender atoms like gems in a liquefied necklace. The thoughts we have that avoid glass escape into the thoughts we have of glass. There are those Ecclesiastes muddlers. At first blush the system seems whole, doubtful. I granted myself a new republic once. It was in love with just itself. The old house was muddled with insecurity. There was a boy in the temple with Coke bottle glasses. There was a philosopher pointing at a giant oak. “Look at the stones riveted to their fists; listen to the voices of the stones!” There was a new apocalypse being written in blood. Some called it private logic; some called it the mind’s have. Where holding is not having: the greatest love I’ve ever known. If I take myself to some other country I’ll come back. 31

Laura Carter

Le sable

It was cherry blossom pits honey lantern lit in salt and sable le sable is everywhere in my heart in evening between the tents, it grits, in their voices, it whispers, catching ink this ink, staining my toes and sable, le sable spilling into the ocean. I could find its darkness. But the moon will cast cherry blossom pits, drowning petals slipping inside the ocean amidst the salt and sable.

Chelsea Chavez

Persimmons

Yellow orange, tiny speckles of brown the flecks of youth on a deer dusts of pollen on a bee Large teardrop shapes with more angles than allowed Hard, crunchy, the light hits the pieces harshly

I know it's not ripe enough when the colorless juice hits my tongue It's not sweet enough

Zhihang Tam

Empty Tanqueray Bottle

To whom do you owe such an unexpected and sublime resting place? Look at you! Reclining in the tall morning grass, intermittently shaded by the lilac branches above, the dusty residue of the road can’t touch you.

Let’s be honest; the likes of you almost never make it to these parts! your destiny rests in a landfill, shattered remnants of a posh dinner party where tipsy hosts couldn’t be bothered with recycling. That’s your natural habitat, you silly green bottle!

I must admit, my green nature nearly picked you up, ferried you to the blue bin, a gateway to oblivion. But our journey can wait; let’s lean back like drunken corpses and let the blades of grass scratch our backs.

David Weinshilboum

Vanished into Something Marc Lancet

Quinton Duval Award In Creative Writing

Established in 2009 to honor Quinton Duval, Professor Emeritus of English and Creative Writing and longtime faculty advisor to Suisun Valley Review, the Quinton Duval Award in Creative Writing recognizes excellence in the creative work of current students at Solano Community College. Submissions are first juried by the creative writing faculty, and finalists are forwarded to a guest judge who determines the winner and any honorable mentions.

The winning author has his/her name added to a memorial plaque located in the Solano College Library. In addition, the winner is awarded a monetary sum and will see his/her winning piece published in that yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s issue of Suisun Valley Review. Any honorable mentions may also be published. Submissions are also considered independently for publication in the forthcoming issue of Suisun Valley Review by the current editorial staff.

Guest Judge, Bob Stanley 2009-2011 poet laureate of Sacramento, Stanley has written poetry and volunteered in poetry organizations for over three decades. President of the Sacramento Poetry Center, Stanley has led workshops and readings all over Northern California. In 2009 he edited Sometimes in the Open, an anthology of poems by sixty-five poets laureate from around the state. Widely published in journals, his poetry has won numerous awards, including the California Focus on Writers prize in 2006. His first chapbook, Walt Whitman Orders a Cheeseburger, was released by Rattlesnake Press in Photograph by Ken Rabiroff . 2009. Bob Stanley was featured on October 9, 2009 as a visiting author for the on-going Solano Community College Writers Series. He read from his

chapbook, Walt Whitman Orders a Cheeseburger, after which he engaged the audience in a candid discussion of his craft, influences and the role of the poet in the contemporary landscape. On Salsa, Bob Stanley explains: “I love this short poem because it’s so compact – the poem engages the reader’s senses right from the beginning. The poet is praising food, but provides us with both pain (“a heaving gasp”) and pleasure (“sing/the hum in a mist/of a just-cut lemon”). The line breaks surprise the reader, in another phrase that walks the edge between pleasure and pain: “I wipe the tears in a grin/across my face.” It’s sensual, but not all sweet. In the end, the “singe” on the tongue leads right into the final call of praise. The language is fresh as salsa itself, made “from scratch,” with just the right amount of heat.”

The 2011 Quinton Duval Award Winner, Carmen Gutierrez 37 Carmen has attended Solano Community College since 2007 and is a 2010 past editor of Suisun Valley Review. She began writing poetry in her early twenties after a break up of a relationship where poetry and language became her rebound. This love between her and language grew exponentially and essentially became the basis of her desire to educate herself. Carmen appreciates poetry that attempts to juxtapose cruel nature with sublime desire which is how “Salsa” was born. Carmen will be moving on to University of California at Berkeley in the fall of 2011 to continue her studies in English.

QD Award Winner, 2011 Carmen Gutierrez

Salsa

and every once in a while I make salsa from scratch: tomato-seared chiles in foil on the stove, coughing sting up in a heaving gasp, cut onion, and halves of garlic to ward the ills as I wipe the tears in a grin across my face, and sing the hum in a mist of a just-cut lemon; and I singe my tongue and lick my lips in praise of all chile growers for miles.

QD Honorable Mention Nicholas Parnell Distorted Reflections

What used to provide such ornate shelter to lost ladies journaling sweet nothings to past-time lovers now scratches leaving unhealed scars against the guarded grey sky.

What used to lend a firm arm up for innocent boys climbing towards play-time laughter and away from furious fathers raising rough hands against smooth cheeks now creaks and sways just as beaten children on the altar of a drunken society.

What used to furnish artistic insight to dreaming artists fantasizing of a far away future now tears at the fabric of withering art hanging lopsided on lonely widowed walls.

QD Honorable Mention Francisco Javier Zamora Childhood Paradigms, the Afghan Snowfinch, and the Green Berries I saw the most sublime Snowfinch this morning, nestled on a barren patch of dirt. She was draped in ochre with darling black eyes and bemusing feathers. She chirped vivaciously begging to be held. I reached down and her feathers lightly caressed my hands. I inspected her. I let her go. 40

I saw the most marvelous Snowfinch this afternoon perched on the leafless branches of an olive tree. Our eyes entwined as she began to sing hymns amiable melodic hymns, such lovely lingering little notes他

I saw the same enchanting Snowfinch this evening, she placed a green berry in front of me and from it embers erupted and the fiendish flames gnawed across the landscape; and the earth emitted egregious streams of black smoke the ash invaded the sky; the sunlight withered away until there was nothing, absolutely nothing spared.

I see the most angelic Snowfinch when I close my eyes. She lingers lifelessly in lugubriousness Why little Snowfinch; why must you play with the green berries.

Francisco Javier Zamora

Unbridled

My sister still has her childhood pale red hair long, straight, far past shoulder length side parted it frames her oval face quite well as she smiles to me from the driveway beside her bearded tall boyfriend who wears black jeans, plays guitar, sings metal rock. His new Harley Night Vibe glints deep moonlight in the sun, a muscular streamlined beast whose back is wide and long. Meteorite bright light ripples off its night sky sides my sister's hair trails flame fingers into sunlight as she floats without wedding band, without children, arms wound around one waist they've embraced for nineteen years, only waist she has ever held this near.

A.M. Stanley

Divorce

Darkness is laid out on my brother’s couch, eyes wide to the ceiling, listening to the house’s guts. Children are asleep upstairs. Their fists beat the walls in dreamy anger. I am alone downstairs. The toilet chuffs and gargles, chuffs and gargles—I turn to it and imagine a ghost plunging its invisible shit—a real hell that I stop by jittering the handle. What they call dead noise. Silence brings peace, but that’s a lie. The red, dirty panties of my brother’s wife are lying on the floor in the shape of smiling lips. They are excited, too much so, belonging to a woman during divorce. They are caked like a white-topped tongue, hard with pleasure. Something has been happening, says the smell of beluga caviar and the computer full of bearded men. The walls moan and scratch with what they’ve seen, paintings of nude women clawing floors, the wife’s abstract lust. I look and think and I feel it growing all around me as the red-eyed guinea pig watches, licking its paws and stroking its fur before the children wake to school. 43

Mathias Nelson

Why He Needs Her

I've often wondered what my brother's hands must feel like upon his wife's breasts, the sandpaper texture from distributing soda cases twelve packs, eighteen packs, twenty-four packs and the ultimate thirty-two the papercuts of his fingers circling her nipples and leaving a round streak of blood. I think about this now while touching myself with my soft hands, hands that feel like a womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, and suddenly understand why he needs her.

Mathias Nelson

Love

Surrounded by dirt clods of semen, this eclectic compost of silly matter where atoms argue over fickle sex, becomes an impure bolus swallowed unknowinglyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; crawling and biting like fire, macabre mercury sinks low and processes.

Carmen Gutierrez

Inamorata down the street running, screaming, bloody rabbit fur draped over her shoulders knife brandished, teeth wielding face painted in mock massacre as she charged towards me, otherwise completely naked save for the look of howling mania she wore in her eyes that meant to devour me from the inside out

Richard Barnhart

Hallucination Lisa Gurlin

If Only Out of Spite The afternoon holds us like a prison. You dust off death's tired arguments and once more I'm thrust in the roll of life's pale apologist. You know my case by heart and will not be dazzled by my rhetoric. All I can do is offer up my eyes in the chance you'll take them and steal a glimpse of the frail beauty I sometimes see in the midst of the horror. And maybe it's nothing but that doesn't mean it isn't beautiful, doesn't mean it isn't reason enough to struggle through another dreamless day, another stupid hour, if only out of spite, because death thinks it's already won, and so what if it has? Take my hand and we'll go so deep into the fucking dark there'll be nothing to do but sing.

William Taylor, Jr.

Connection

The birds begin to chant their lively sounds as yellow peeks of dewy dusted light awaken me. My thoughts like wind whirl 'round an empty space. Your absence calls, invites my dreams to stay, to play and be a part of passionate memories, hug our love and soothe the sting that festers in my heart. A soldier's choice determines duties of the khaki uniform you wear with pride. Deadly conflict far away. Dread lurks near as I wait so drained, I cannot divide the daunting distance and the flagrant fear. The phone rings loud, disrobes the silent air. I plead the birds to sing my cloudless prayer.

Suzanne Bruce

Cat in a Bag Gene Hines I've kept a job now for five years. And I sleep okay, most of the time. Things have been much better; at least they were. “Ronnie!” “What is it?” “A dead cat!” That's how it started, again; the last time was about seven years ago. Seven years ago, I stopped the car in the middle of traffic on the St. Pete Bridge. In my head, the bridge funneled down into a dark hole, the road squeezing and tightening until everything turned black. June yelled, and I came out of it. I pulled back into our lane and stopped up against a concrete pillar. June screamed again; I guess she thought I was going to hit the pillar or go over the edge into Tampa Bay.

After that, June found me crying in the walk-in bedroom clos50

et, with the door closed. I could smell dirt and the piss-smell of unwashed people in the dark. I heard them breathing. There were other things too. It's no use going through all of them. We once went nearly four months without touching each other. June said she couldn’t take it much longer. I went to the VA and joined a support group. It helped. Sometimes

we went out, nine of us in this group, and drank a few beers. They knew. There was nothing that needed explaining. They gave me some medication and that helped too. I was sure I was out of it, and nothing crazy was going to happen again. I promised June that. So now, I've kept this job for five years. I can even drive across the St. Pete Bridge if I have to. And things kept going that way until the dead cat, until June called me from downstairs. “Ronnie!” June was standing in the backdoor, half in and half out when I got downstairs. I stepped around her, to see through the open door.

There was indeed a dead cat. “I'll take care of it,” I said. “Now!” she said. “I will,” I said. “I will.” I went out on the porch and looked at the cat. A fat wad of black fur tipped and streaked in white. A big green fly buzzed around, from one end of the cat to the other, like it was a buffet line. “Get rid of it,” June said, from the kitchen. “I'm working on it. Get me a trash bag, a big one,” I said. The cat and I waited. It was mid-morning and when I looked up, I saw black lines, etched lines, across the sun's yellow circle. I closed my eyes and turned away, the black lines moving inside my eyelids; the shapes of men shimmering like a mirage in the sun's heat. Men I hadn’t seen in seven years. . .

SuisunValleyRevi e 51 “Not me,” Higginson said. “Me, neither. Throw a grenade,” I said. “I've had enough of this shit. My future children would never forgive me for crawling into that hole and getting my ass killed.” “I'll do it, besides I'm the smallest,” Butch Warren said. “You're crazy, man,” I said. Butch went into the hole. It was barely big enough for him. He crawled in on his belly, holding a pistol and a flashlight in front of him. Higginson and I held him by his belt. Soon there was nothing sticking out of the hole but his wiggling legs. I couldn't stop thinking about a big erection, something I hadn't had in a while, stuck halfway into a vagina. I tried not to laugh. “You think this is funny, man?” Higginson said.

“Yeah, I think it's funny as shit,” I said. Then Butch fired the pistol. He emptied it, one shot after another; muffled whumps down in the hole. We pulled on Butch's belt as Gene Hines

hard as we could. We heard a bigger whump and the hole collapsed, burying Butch's head and shoulders. “Jesus!” Higginson said.

SuisunValleyRevi e June brought out a garbage bag, dropped it over the dead cat, and went back into the house without saying a word. The green fly buzzed out from under the bag. I looked at the pile of black plastic at my feet, then I looked up and saw June's pale face watching me from the kitchen window. I picked up the trash bag. I couldn't find the opening. I went round and round the bag, each edge in its turn, looking for the way in.

SuisunValleyRevi e 52

There was blood mixed with the dirt and rocks we cleared away from Butch Warren's head and shoulders. Other stuff too, bone fragments and soft lumps of tissue. I rode with Butch Warren's body back to Phu Bai. The guys from the chopper put him in a body bag. He lay on the floor of the Huey, his body shifting and shaking a little with the vibrations. I imagined he was alive and moving. I imagined he would pop out of the bag, grin and say something like, “Jeez, that was a real mother-fucker, wasn't it?” He shifted and wiggled with the vibrations of the helicopter but he didn't come out of the bag.

SuisunValleyRevi e I heard the buzz of the fly again. The cat's eyes were open, watching, like June, to see what I would do. I picked up the cat's ass-end by the tail but then let it drop. There was no quickness in it; none of the lightness of flowing blood and elastic muscle that make the touch of a Gene Hines

thing feel alive. The cat's ass-end fell like a lump onto the porch. June turned away from the kitchen window. I went into the house and got a beer. I sat down on the couch. “Taking a break,” I said. “Please get rid of that thing,” June said.

SuisunValleyRevi e “Was he Catholic?” That's what the chaplain at the morgue in Phu Bai asked me. The guys from the helicopter laid Butch Warren at the end of a line of bags. There were eight of them, all lined up together, like a squad. A spec four was hosing them down, washing the clumps of dirt and blood away. “What fucking difference does it make?” I said.

“Take it easy, son. I was just asking,” the chaplain said. 53

“All those bags look the same to me,” I said. The eight of them, the lumps of their heads all lined up together —“Sorry, man,” the spec four said, the stream from the hose sounding like rain falling on the bags.

SuisunValleyRevi e “I can't.” I was still sitting on the couch, the beer bottle between my legs. June didn't hear me. “I can't,” I said again. “Can't what?” June said. I didn't say anything and June looked at me, her eyes moving over my face like she was looking for something to show her that it wasn't starting again. “Not now,” she said. I hit June once. It was after we went to a party at the home of one of June's old high-school boyfriends. He put his arm around her and I pushed him away. When we got home, I slapped her. After that, I went

Gene Hines

to the VA. “Not now,” June whispered, like a prayer.

SuisunValleyRevi e June's been at her mother's in Sarasota since Monday. She said she would come back when I called and told her I'd gotten rid of the dead cat. “Put it in the bag, Ronnie. You have to,” she said. “I will, I will,” I said. “I'm working on it. . .” I promised her that.

Gene Hines

allotment 1. existing within the accepted belief that tragedy only happens to someone else—held at arm’s length by a sense of invulnerability —is a rabid denial refuting a lot of confinement that is tailor-made & eventual, a clarion blast of warning from a lumbering freight train, bitchin’ & moanin’ in annoying screeches of metal on metal & grinding a polished patina of acceptance onto the derailment of life; a lot that is monotonous with one . . . is the loneliest number & repetition like over & over again, like amen! hallelujah! & speaking in tongues ‘bout praise jesus! that shades a life the cloned-gray apathy of the herd with its original sin that throbs with regret-filled remorse. 2.

blindness & mistake by denial seamed into tapestries of behavior déjà vu & nostalgic good old days & acceptance of what you’ll never accomplish, in the time you have left,

a lot of plans spun in youth that slip like hourglass sand through grasping fingers, like mercury dreams; too little, too late we realize the real trouble we’re in: sorrow & life & time, 3. allotment: we only get what we give is what we deserve, that we end up with; 4. a lot of camouflage taken on at middle age, that others recognize when we look in the mirror & only see ourselves that we want to see— misery is my name—apart from the entanglement of introspection; a lot of imprisonment within invisibility, incarcerated behind fugitive memories concealed in plain sight—when muscles moved faster than thought & sex was the only agenda—a loaded sidearm wrapped in oilcloth, each bullet a penis anticipating discharge.

henry reneau, jr.

Et in Arcadia Ego Rita Okusako

Hustle

The movement is divinity hustling, in the sky, on the tele, in the shrapnel burdened flesh; in the broken eyes that were pointless for the seeing and the hemoglobin tinting endless battlefields.

The pockets are for picking And the smiles are for fixing; Blindness is expected.

â&#x20AC;?Self-interest, self-interestâ&#x20AC;? is the chant, as the old calloused feet of God goes shuffling by, dancing atop the heads of the faithless and the faithful alike.

All the millions camp beneath their torn canvases on the ever changing sidelines, battered with the sound of the war drums beating.

This skin grows thinner and thinner every year, pierced by the smirking of the deities and the demi-gods of the hustling world;

All those that know better than thou.

Michael Ceraso

Knowledge

when Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m old Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll sit on the porch of my house listening to birds if I have a house if it has a porch if birds last that long if I live to be old

all of my life behind me how strange to know everything in advance

A. Molotkov

Whatever Lies Between the Big and Little Dipper

Life’s too short for long walks, bird watching, and memorizing whatever galaxy hangs between the big and little dipper. I prefer to lay on my hammock sipping from a can of Guinness and watching the neighbour’s barn burn down. Watching firefighters scramble to put it out. I lay like that until dusk turns into blackness. The fire long burned out. The firefighters gone home to housewives and ham dinners. I turn to my side. The stars peek out— one by one. But I don’t look up.

Tyler Bigney

Dorine Jennette Featured Writer

Dorine Jennette is the author of Urchin to Follow (The National Poetry Review Press, 2010). Her poetry and prose have appeared in journals such as Verse Daily, Journal, Puerto del Sol, New Orleans Review, Los Angeles Review, and Georgia Review. Originally from Seattle, she earned her MFA at New Mexico State University, her PhD at the University of Georgia, and now lives in Suisun City, California.

Writing by Streetlight

Close to the neighbor’s dog, at the axis of grass and smoke,

in the graph of what’s spoke, a hinged ear folds the breeze. Time to

squeeze song from mosquitoes. The scuffs termites accept. Frogs, bereft.

This grist is the gist of night’s warp and weft. Whisper of paint

chips to porch planks, flanked by pollen, dust: rust of tongue and groove.

Dorine Jennette

Complaint

Smudge on the blade, bulge in the wound. I tell you true, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re pus.

Bunched where the needle

will puncture your sack. Sweet rot, fermenting in easeful

defeat, you lean into this ductile hide and replicate your stink. In your keeping,

speech softens until flanks concede, give way to the great swelling.

Dorine Jennette

Father-Daughter Night at the Arena

He's delighted with the turnout, counting cars through the tent's untied flap. Had I known we were selling ticketsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but certain formalities command our attention: here comes one to slick our brows with Vaseline. Micwarped vowels reverb. When the weapon choices are displayed, I ditch my clipboard like a date wearing a bad sweater. I approach the tray. I could beat you with a thistle, you oversize child, though my training specialized in ukulele. I choose a sharpened stick. We hoist with song the hive of accusations. May the klieg lights befuddle you, old-timer. May my grip on my piccolo be sound. Damn anthem. As we jog into the ring, late spectators head for their seats, picking through sawdust with first drinks in hand. He tries for high-fives, pushing air at the ones he can't reach. Some grin and make gun gestures, pointers and thumbs. Some adjust their skirts.

I warm up with a trial lunge, but he refuses to go to his corner, complains I am insufficiently roused by a joke about dogs and breasts. Waving to 63 the referee, he claims I've stashed an illegal artichoke, that I'm hiding my meat in my heart. A man in an oversize watch covers the mic with his hand. My opponent's fans resort to chanting tautologies. He reclines, and with nail clippers he begins to groom the ropes around the ring. Understanding drops to my gut the way a frozen toad rolls down a gutter pipe. Not only have I neglected

to invite my fans, but most of my training won't be any help at all.

Dorine Jeanette

Suisun Valley Review Presents an Interview with

Dorine Jennette SVR: How did your desire to become a writer develop? DJ: First, I distinguish the desire to write from the desire to become a writer. The one I have had all my conscious life. The other is still a sticky wicket for me. Write to me connotes time at the desk, time at the library, time rehearsing revisions to oneself while hiking, time scribbling notes while eavesdropping on other people's conversations, time trading feedback on new pieces with friends and colleagues. Become a writer, on the other hand, to me connotes having some kind of coherent writing career plan, probably one involving fabulous book release parties and gala events, and I'm just not a gala girl. There's an eleganceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or a pretensionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in become a writer that has always thwarted me. (Other writers may have other associations for these terms, but those are mine.) Elegance is not among my charms, and pretension, I'm afraid, ignites my gift for inappropriate remarks. So, mostly I'm ambling along with an armload of books, struggling to carve out some writing time, some book discussion time with the likeminded, trying to stay on top of responsibilities, wondering about the name of some bird, and accidentally spilling coffee on my neighbor's lap at the bus stop. Anyway, my desire to write is linked to my earliest memory, that of learning to read. I was looking at a children's book called Which Witch Is Which? in which (ha ha) a lot of the humor, mainly residing in the relationship between the text and the illustra64 tions, had to do with differentiating between two words that sound the same but look different: which and witch. This book had been read to me many times, so I was already familiar with the general look of both words and pictures. In a flash the links between the printed letters and the sounds leaped up and snapped into focus. I could read. (Someday maybe a child development specialist will tell me that it couldn't possibly have happened this way, but this is how I remember it.) It was magic. I was especially entranced by the sound chime with lack of eye rhyme (not that I used these terms then, obviously) in seeing and hearing which and witch side by side. I am obsessed with sound and music in both poetry and prose. It may be that my sound obsession has its origins in the first book I could read. Or it may be that my ear was oriented that way to begin with, and this orientation lead to me understanding Which Witch Is Which? before any of the other books being read to me at the time. Who knows? And, really, who cares? The point is that word-love is among my earliest experiences, and I hope will be among my last. SVR: How and where do you draw your inspirations? DJ: Being outside: hiking, kayaking, lollygagging. Reading poetry. Reading fiction. Reading articles and books along the lines of Ecology for English Majors and Physics for English Majors, such as Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, which I highly recommend. I don't think I understand it yet, but I recommend it anyway. Listening. Conversations. Eavesdropping on other people's conversations (bus, train, waiting room, grocery store, cafĂŠ). The visual arts. Movies. Book discussion groups: I belong to several. In one, we're reading the poetry anthology American Hybrid, ed. Cole Swenson and David St. John. In another, we've just discussed Anne Carson's Nox, and next we'll be reading C.D. Wright. I am a big believer in writing prompts. I try many writing prompts from

friends, teachers, and books on writing craft, and let the results surprise me. For example, my poem "What to Say," forthcoming in the journal Straylight, was inspired by an email from my friend Si창n Griffiths, who said she'd been experimenting with prompts such as starting a poem with the word wagon. I thought, wow, good one . . . and got started immediately. I am always amused when students respond to writing prompts as though prompts are some kind of kiddie exercise, because I know plenty of wellpublished writers who still give themselves assignments, trade assignments with writer friends, etc. Many writers hate prompts, of course. But serendipity lives where it lives, and sometimes it lives in assignments. SVR: Have you or do you ever feel the need to do anything to place yourself in an environment that allows you to write more freely? DJ: Yes! Waking and sleeping. SVR: What would some of these things be and which do you feel are the most effective in regards to your writing? DJ: The ideal circumstance for me is the one I'm in right now: morning, porch, coffee, birdsong. But one can wait a long time between ideal circumstances. I used to wait. But I have found that applying perfectionism to writing circumstances has the same effect as applying perfectionism to other things: they don't happen, or they happen at a glacial pace. So the very best writing advice for me comes from novelist Harry Crews: "Put your ass in the chair." After that, the rest takes care of itself. I know, I know, we've all been taught to feel very holy and worshipful in the presence of writer rituals like sharpening exactly five pencils or retreating to a cabin somewhere or Schiller and his goddamned drawer of apples. But you know what I've decided? Rituals are for the rich. The wealthy may have the leisure to waste writing time on rituals, but I don't. If you are 65 rich, enjoy your apples. As for me, I listen to Donald Hall, who says in Life Work: "Death is an inducement to get done what you can." The clock is ticking. If what I've got is a piece of scratch paper on my lap in a crowded lobby and ten minutes before a meeting, I take it. I know I won't get it back. SVR: What do you think is an absolute must when forming a poem? DJ: At first, freedom from paralyzing notions like absolute musts. To quote Shel Silverstein: "Anything can happen, child, anything can be." However, as the draft progresses, one needs the understanding that the poem can afford no flab. I like William Carlos Williams's formulation, "A poem is a machine made out of words." This reminds me that the poem has a job to do, for which it needs exactly the right number of parts, and no more. I think of the poem as an engine: if there's some extra chain or flywheel or something flapping around in there, the whole poem breaks down. Each part connects to every other part. Every syllable of the poem needs to be performing a specific task, and the poet needs to know what that task is. If the poet makes deliberate decisions, the reader will feel the rightness of the line. SVR: In your conversations with us, you have mentioned frequently your penchant for "hiding" drafts of poems from yourself as a part of your writing process. Can you comment more specifically on how this process works for you? Why is this element of your writing process so important? DJ: Well, I should have mentioned that it's easy to hide drafts from me, because I completely forget a draft exists if I'm not actively working on it. It's a little bit spooky, actually, how I can spend hours deeply engaged in a piece, then utterly forget the piece, the hours, the research and thinking and notes and everything else related to

that piece until I stumble across it again. If the page isn't physically in front of me, it doesn't exist. From a sanity perspective, I find this alarming. However, it's a handy tool for revising, because the best way to get a fresh perspective about a draft is to not look at it for a while: Carolyn Kizer said that the best tool of revision is a drawer. For many writers, keeping the draft in the drawer long enough is difficult-- they can't resist the temptation to keep fiddling. For me, distance from the draft is simple: I just file that page at the bottom of the pile or back of the binder, and then I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see it again for a few weeks or months while I'm working on the top of the pile. It's just a weird mental trick of not looking past the top of the pile. When I return to a piece after a time gap, it is strange to me, as in estranged from me, productively so: for a few minutes, I can read the piece as though it is someone else's. I can read the piece as an editor. I highly recommend working as an editor, even for a short period, to any writer, because it gives the ability to see one's own drafts from the editor's side of the desk. This gives wonderful clarity to the revision process, at least for a few minutes at a time, before the piece gets familiar again. Then back it goes to the bottom of the pile . . . SVR: Is there a single, most important piece of advice you would give to students interested in writing? DJ: Yes. Read! Then read as a writer. Ask: how does this work, why does this work, what other pieces in which literary/historical periods work like this, and what can I steal? And don't only study what you love. Never underestimate the value of hostility. There is much to be learned from articulating specifically and concretely why you detest a particular writing style, or what you find unsatisfying about some particular aesthetic. SVR: As both an editor and a writer, would you say that these careers were intentional,

66 or were they simply something that came about via circumstances? Is there anything that you find interesting about this pairing of passions? DJ: Given that my writing life revolves around poetry--rather than journalism, commercial fiction, public relations copy, etc.--my writing life and my income-earning life are separate. I do write and publish prose--book reviews, interviews, essays, etc.-but I am mostly publishing pieces about poetry in poetry-loving publications, which is aesthetically and economically different than writing book reviews for, say, People magazine. (I am not trashing those reviews, by the way--I read People at the gym sometimes. I'm just pointing out that People is a very different market than the places I publish.) My writing life overlaps with my income-earning life as an editor and teacher, but remains distinct. The benefit of this split is that I never have to wonder if I could be saving more for retirement by writing differently. Poetry will never pay me a cent no matter what I do! Therefore, I am free to please myself as an artist, and market forces be damned. This is a significant freedom: I know literary fiction writers who lose sleep wondering whether they'd be able to send their kids to better schools if they started writing potboilers. So, I do not take this liberty lightly. On the other hand, I will probably always spend most of each day on my brain's B-side, doing something other than writing. This is a source of great sadness for me and many other writers. The perpetual quest is more time. The experiment is to find some way of arranging day job activities, family responsibilities, etc., that feeds the creative life. Editing and teaching feed my writing life in different ways. It's an ongoing experiment. It's a deliberate and strategic experiment--I would not say I have made my choices randomly--but neither would I say that I know what I'm doing. I am making this up as I go. Since I am by nature a planner, making it up as I go is painful for me. I'd love to have more stability in my life. What we're seeing now is a large number of writer-scholars who trained for tenure-track academic positions just as the job market for such positions was collapsing. We were deluded, and now we have to

improvise. I'm not enjoying it, and neither are most writers I know, but maybe in ten years we'll look back and recognize these years as a period of great innovation in writers' lives, a time of reinvention and reinvigoration of how to support oneself and make a literary life. SVR: What things in your life, such as other books, movies and music (people), would you say affects or changes what you write? Do you feel that these influences are helpful? DJ: I always have a notebook with me, and I am taking notes throughout the day, so I suppose there's nothing in my life that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t affect my writing. As for what is helpful vs. unhelpful, I'm not sure how to answer that one. I try to put myself in helpful circumstances: adequate sleep, exercise, and nutrition; the company of smart, creative people; solitude and quiet; fresh air; access to art. But then sometimes I get a great draft out of a miserable week. Pressure can be unpleasant, but surprisingly productive. I hear other writers say the same. Strategize as we can, there's an irreducible element of mystery in the creative process. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Contributors’ Notes Dylan Amaro-McIntyre is a student at San Francisco State University. Richard Barnhart is mindlessly cavorting amid the gap-toothed madness of the functional illiterati. Tyler Bigney was born in 1984. He lives, and writes in Nova Scotia, Canada, and sometimes Russia and sometimes the Middle East. He is currently at work on a novel.

Suzanne Bruce was born and raised in Oklahoma and holds a B.S. in Education from the University of Tulsa. She did graduate work at Wichita State University. She participates with poetry groups in Benicia, Napa, Fairfield and St. Helena. Besides her solo poetry, Suzanne also does ekphratic work with artist Janet Manalo. They have published a book with 22 of their collaborative works titled, Voices Beyond the Canvas (June 2007). More information is available at her website < www.ekphrasticexpressions.com >.

Anhvu Buchanan’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in 580 Split, Boston Literary Magazine, Columbia Poetry Review, Cream City Review, Denver Syntax, Gulf Stream Magazine, La Fovea, Parthenon West Review, The Minnesota Review, William and Mary Review, word for/ word, and ZYZZYVA. In 2006, he was the inaugural recipient of the Steger Award, Virginia Tech’s undergraduate poetry award. He received a MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University where he served as the poetry editor of Fourteen Hills Literary Magazine. He currently curates the Living Room Reading Series and teach writing for WritersCorps in San Francisco. Laura Carter is a 2007 M.F.A. graduate of Georgia State University. She lives in Atlanta, and has published poems in storySouth, Coconut, Memorious, and many other places. She has work forthcoming in Hambone. Michael Ceraso was born in the Ivory Coast to an Italian father from Milano and an Irish American mother from Brooklyn. Raised in Queens, New York, he currently works at CUNY Queens College. He is working on new material so that, as Billy Collins once observed about his own maturation as a poet, he can shed any ”late juvenilia” of style. His poetry has been published in Third Wednesday, The Refined Savage Poetry Review and is forthcoming in the Spring 2011 edition of Utopia Parkway, a Queens College CUNY Literary Journal. Chelsea Chavez has lived in California for most all her life, although her heart belongs nowhere, bound to the earth and the only true joy of traveling. She is just a person, just a girl that always wanted to be a

wolf. Lisa Gurlin is currently a Graphic Design & Illustration major studying at Solano Community College. Her passions include examining the connection between literary and visual art, taking advantage of exciting new learning opportunities, as well as networking with other unique artists all over the globe. Her artistic endeavors are casually recorded and can be viewed at < kuroikii.deviantart.com >. Gene Hines is a legal services attorney representing victims of domestic violence and claimants for unemployment benefits. He has published short fiction in various journals. Lance Jayogue is attending Solano Community College, majoring in Graphic Design & Illustration. His hobbies are drawing and eating and he is very open-minded. His goal is to freelance as an illustrator. Marc Lancet lives in Davis, CA with his wife Annette and his daughter Evan. He is the author of Japanese Wood-fired Ceramics with Masakazu Kusakabe of Miharu, Japan. Lancetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work is in the permanent collection of The Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Center of Shigaraki, Japan; The International Ceramic Center, Skaelskor, Denmark; and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. He is a professor of three-dimensional art Solano Community College. Larry Narron fancies himself the junior college version of Billy Madison. His poetry, fiction, and journalism has appeared in The Rogue Voice, HopeDance, Tellus, Bravura, La Paraula, and Da Ruckus. Recently a professional body painter featured his poetry in art shows in Orange County and Los Angeles. If he doesn't fail statistics, he will finally transfer to the University of California this Fall.

Mathias Nelson has publications forthcoming in Rattle and The New York Tyrant. His first poetry chapbook, They May Try to Kill Me for This, is available and he is currently assembling his first full-length collection with NYQ Books. More info is available at: < http://www.nyqpoets.net/ poet/mathiasnelson >. Rita Okusako typically spends a few months on each finished piece; she never feels like sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in any rush, and enjoys the lengthy process from step one. View other works of hers at < SensibleRita.Blogspot.com > and < DuderManor.com >.

henry 7. reneau, jr. has been published in various journals and anthologies, among them, Tryst Magazine; Nameless Magazine; The Chaffey Review; Blue Moon Literary & Art Review; Pachuco Children Hurl Stones; BlazeVOX 2KX; FOLLY Magazine; TheView From Here; The

Ophidian; and hardpan: a journal of poetry. He has also self- published a chapbook entitled 13hirteen Levels of Resistance. His favorite things are Rottweilers, books of relevance to reality, his ”fixie” bike, and Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk. Zhihang Tam is a student at SCC majoring in art who dabbles in short story writing as well as poetry. While she finds more comfort in using the pencil for pictures, she now knows that words allow her to see a different picture. William Taylor’s poems and stories have appeared widely in the small press and his latest book of poetry is The Hunger Season (Sunnyoutside, 2009). An Age of Monsters, his first collection of fiction, is due out in Oct. 2011 from Epic Rites Press. Griffin Timothy is a local artist living, working, and going to school in Solano County. David Weinshilboum currently teaches English and creative writing at Cosumnes River College. He also serves on the editorial board of the school’s literary journal, The Cosumnes River Journal. His fictional work has appeared in The Walrus, Mills College’s literary journal. He lives in Davis, California with his wife and two sons. 70

Special thanks to Philip Andreini, Bruce Clark, Dyana Fuller, Jowel C. Laguerre, Marge Trolinder and the creative writing faculty of Solano Community College for their continued support and efforts for the Suisun Valley Review.

Suisun Valley Review English Department Solano Community College 4000 Suisun Valley Road Fairfield, CA 94535 suisunvalleyreview@gmail.com