Suisun Valley Review, #29 by Suisun Valley Review

Suisun Valley Review

Editors: Tabitha Angier, Dana Ateyyat, Ashley Bendit, Janette Dahn, Cody Eisen, Jennifer Guttierrez, RenĂŠe Hamlin, Nina Jones, Dana Kerr, Evan Kincade, Caitlyn Lawrence, Dominic Locastro, Christina Logan, Ashley Mitchell, Caleb Morris, Clay Norris, Max Putney, Stephanie Sherman, Jared Shibuya, Misti Snow, Terilyn Steverson, Taryn Stine, Heather Thomas, Kristin Watkins, Alec Wiley, Dylan Youngers. Advisor: Michael J. Wyly. Assistant to the Advisor: RenĂŠe Hamlin Cover Art: Rita Okusako Cover Concept: Dana Ateyyat 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 4x6 at 300 ppi.

Established in 1981. Suisun Valley Review (ISSN 1989-7340) is published annually every spring by Solano Community College, Fairfield, CA. SVR is edited by the students of English 18, 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, 844 Suisun Valley Road, Fairfield, CA 94134. Email: suisunvalleyreview@gmail.com. <www.solano.edu>; <myspace.com/suisunvalleyreview>; <twitter.com/SVR_Editors>;

Table of Contents Poetry Jeffery C. Alfier Clay Norris Amy Ballard Rich Jeffery C. Alfier Eric Dickey Tyler Bigney Jeff Dupius Jerry Mathes Nicholas Cittadino Connie Gutowsky Nicholas Cittadino Noel Sloboda Carol Louise Moon Ashleigh Cowan Brandon Williams Laura Oliver Taryn Stine Ted Bernal Guevara John Lambremont, Sr. Tyler Bigney Rachel Pevsner Brandon Hood Clay Norris

Ode to Structural Metal Data Mining Ghosts in Berkeley Thursday at the Salvation Army Thrift Shop James by the Numbers Church Big City Lights Little Venus Home Visit ECHO MARRIES Painting Lessons Legacy Black Orchid Cockroaches According to the New York Times Coyote Cantos Blood Orange Across and Down A DALLIANCE Blackbird Secret Fish Heart Midnight on the Lake Late to the Tide

7 8 12 14 11 17 18 28 29 30 32 31 36 42 43 64 66 67 69 70 72 74 71

Short Fiction Ashley Mitchell Ashleigh Cowan Ashleigh Cowan

Did You Mean, “Pillar of Salt?” A World Gone Mad Blown Glass

9 19 38

Features Quinton Duval Award in Creative Writing Lisa Gurlin, Award Winner 19th cent. Arthur Jackson The Grandeur of Lilies

23 21 27

Clive Rosengren, Short Fiction

44 41 48

String Ball Interview

Patricia Killelea, Poetry Disintegration Escape Medicine The Small Threading Indraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Net Interview

12 13 14 16 17 18 19

Unworthy King Industrial Demise Cup Salting the Back of a Snail Long Exposure Collecting Crabcake

8 16 34 37 11 68 71

Visual Arts

Zachary Sweet Karen Wiley Zachary Sweet Zachary Sweet Lisa Jetonne Quintero Anna Reeser Lisa Gurlin

Editorial Statement: Suisun Valley Review, a product of English 98, 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 thirty-first 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 18. 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 submission are considered anonymously. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;2012 Editorial Staff

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

Jeffrey C. Alfier

Ode to Structural Metal I huddle against wind, a fresh Winston glowing, blueprints of some developer’s dream tucked under my arm. The earth below me groans under girders as if it doesn’t want its iron child to come home. I think of the first man I worked for; he said iron was born from collapsed stars, its atomic number 26 – same age I was, decades ago, apprentice in a fabricating shop. I’ve still not grown tired of machine-rattled mornings, nor the way this work has rusted my life, hour by hour, year by year.

I scan the crew that showed today, ask myself who could blame Ed or Marv for the sweet smell of weed that rises from 7 am coveralls, men at ease in the radiance of acetylene. What they weld will rise sure as foul breath over the ghostly shapes of rod busters working steel mesh into concrete, men who still laugh though they’re gray as extras in old movies, even as a foreman’s daughter tunes a radio to the news that somewhere in a world we’ll never know, another outpost is overrun, assuring someone’s last word is left unsaid.

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Today I keep a tag line from swaying while a derrick, towering above like a storm, hoists steel into framework where men align the world with spud wrenches and drift pins, wire fabric and rebar waiting for plumb lines to slow dance it all into place.

Clay Norris

Data Mining

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Plug in. Information resource centers encourage courtesy complacency in this mass market media enterprise. Tell us, what do you “Like”? Now commercial content enters effective. One button call text web over script codes insecure porn channels in what censors sinfully suggest plugging holes into. The wrong way streaming feeds cross paths of who you have been watching and who watches you. Only night owls who fly straight go unnoticed as they hoot, sharing songs copywrite carved in their hollow trees. These are the connections you’ve been hoping for but however hallowed be thy name thou shalt have eyes of bureaus upon you. Under mountains of paperwork and Senator seats lies precious data burning bright as coals and staining like ink printing the secrets of marketing mankind. Society is up in the Clouds while algorithms keyword common conspiracies.

Ashley Mitchell

Did You Mean, “Pillar of Salt”? “You sort of smell like shit.” With a solemn expression, I held up the plunger in my hand as if it was a token of war. “Ah.” My boss then turned on his heel, thumbing through the papers in his hand. “Yes. That'll do it.” That was the last straw. That's when I knew I had to kill Maebry. *** My office is located directly next to a bathroom. No one uses it due to its construction never fully finishing, and thus it was acceptable for me to be placed within nose-shot. And that would be fine, the location, except for the fact that last week, my company had pissed off an older Haitian woman. Any other day, I wouldn't have minded getting chewed out (as usual) about helping the technologically impaired, but that day I learned voodoo was real, and that it was possible to place a curse on a toilet through a phone line.

Everyone in my building now is convinced I have IBS so bad I'm constantly flooding a not-even-fully-constructed bathroom, keep leaving Febreze on my desk, and my wife is convinced I'm having a scat based affair. My life has turned into a B-Grade horror/comedy flick, and the only way I can fix it according to Google is a sacrifice. So that's where killing Maebry came into play. And I felt really bad stealing the local petting zoo's goat, but he was overdue anyway, let alone denied all masculinity with a name like Maebry. So, really, by offing the goat in the pentagram in the bathroom, I was giving him a noble death.

But I didn't expect this. When the light came back on, and the smoke had cleared after I followed all of the instructions I'd printed out, some little girl with skin blue like cobalt and ram horns where anyone else's ears would be was standing dead-eyed on the toilet lid. “...Who are you?” “Google,” she says with a look like I'm stupid. “You summoned me,

“As well as the name of the modern lili of problem solving.” We take a moment. Both of us—well, maybe just me, standing there awkwardly, in silence, while Maebry's leg twitches up in the air as his death rattle finally comes to a stop. “....Wait, what?”

“But Google is a search engine—”

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dickhead, you should know that. Who are you?”

Ashley Mitchell Her own square-pupiled eyes meet Maebry's, and she points and asks, “Is that goat for me?” “No, really. What?” “Lili of problem solving,” she repeats. “...Demons. Lilith. That shit. So do you always summon demons without previous knowledge?” “But why would you listen to me and lift the curse if you're a demon? I was just following what the internet told me.” “I like goats.” She shrugs. “Love them. I'll do a lot of things for a goat. Not all children of Lilith are assholes. Be glad you summoned me and not the lilu Webumdee.” “...Web... M...—Can you just lift the curse off this toilet?” She looks down to Maebry and rolls her shoulders again. “Eh.” “...'Eh'?” “You want me to just start repeating myself constantly? Maybe I can, maybe not.” “I just want everything to go back to how it was. Before everything in this office smelled like shit. And before my lunch break is ov—”

“Kay.” And then moments later, she's gone, and I'm left with nothing but the plunger and a squint at how bright the returning light is. Oh. Yeah. And the toilet's been replaced with a large quantity of salt.

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I sigh. “No, Google, that is not what I meant.”

Zachary Sweet

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Unworthy King

Amy Ballard Rich

Ghosts in Berkeley I walk up Telegraph Avenue with Mexican take-out, plastic bag swishing time, gently bumping my leg with each stride I take I grin at the neo-Punk-rock band having a starry-eyed moment on the shiny black portable stage Ghosts of old tunes wrap around bass, drums, and guitar, then unwind and float over the crowd Nearby is People's Park with spirits of little LSD tabs diving under my eager tongue, which then would finally lay quiet and enjoy the kaleidoscope, along with the rest of me Skateboarders careen in-between students chatting on cell phones, bending and swiveling their boards just in time to avoid crashing

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They rattle down the sidewalk oblivious to mobs of ghost rioters running from teargas clouds, their shouts still echoing in my ears At Telegraph and Haste the vacant lot that housed the red brick Berkeley Inn is teeming with phantoms that have scared off new construction for 21 years

Amy Ballard Rich

Behind the high black iron fence I make out spectral red brick steps and a ghost of the man shot and killed at the Inn's front desk in 1981 He winks at me as I walk by, and a thin voice wafts over, "You and that other hippie girl actually thought by hanging a crystal over these steps you could create a peaceful 'VIBE'?" As I stare at him, speechless, a shadowy arm links mine, and an Ohlone medicine woman rattles a blessing at the stairway specter She pulls me from the scene and we walk together up the noisy street, while she sings a soft, low song

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Without words she tells me I need to take her up Telegraph to the Hearst Museum so she can look through the glass case at her bones

Jeffery C. Alfier

Thursday at the Salvation Army Coffee mugs from garish resorts, or towns you’ve never heard of, and cups that boast the world’s greatest mother or grandfather. Fabric flowers are stacked next to a stand of neckties even Bozo wouldn’t dare, arrayed beneath prints from vanished hotel rooms. A poster for televisions says “TV tested good” – as if it was first put on sale for moral problems. But a sign above says the antenna’s not for sale.

Dirty crockpots line up like soup kitchen men who might hold for mere water the glasses etched in Taiwan with obsolete superheroes. A black guitar case leans against another. They could’ve hitchhiked in from somewhere, finally grown tired of their own music. As I survey the shop one last time, a woman asks if she can leave by the back exit, a Drew Barrymore movie poster in her arms.

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People departing the shop touch piano keys as they pass the Steger & Sons grand. They’re always those who could never play.

Eric Dickey

James by the Numbers I went shopping on your birthday, and somehow the things I bought, bread, milk, beer, I bought for you. The cashier’s name was James, too, but even weirder than that was the receipt: it told your life story. Your high-rolling bowling game of 271 was on it. Both BMWs were on it, too, the 321 and the 180 and the price you paid for a paint job you got on the cheap, 400. Ten and twenty-two, the month and day you died were there. The tape ended with, “Thank you, your cashier’s name is James.” The car trunk’s opened mouth swallowed you and my sadness.

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At home, I drank some coffee and ate a piece of toast, chewing silently. I held the receipt over a candle and watched the fire climb up it until the flame reached my fingers, and then I let go.

Karen Wiley

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Industrial Demise

Tyler Bigney

Church

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I woke up to the sun weeping into my eyes. A reminder that I still need to purchase curtains. Spent the night grinning at bartenders, pouring my beer into tall, frosted glasses. Their skinny fingers, white teeth, hearts full of bees. I wore my father’s snakeskin cowboy boots, danced with strangers, danced all night, danced the outline of a map of Moscow with bruised heels. Church, first thing, my hands clasped, praying for something good. The old people, all smiles, some for me, some for those over my shoulder. The old man next to me in the pew, bulging veins in his tendons threatening to burst into a sea of red. The Red Sea. How you can get lost in a thing like that. How it can carry you to the bottom of the world, without a sound, or a trace of you left anywhere. What if you never find what you’re looking for? Everyone stands, sings. The hymn book shaking in their hands, my hands, too, but differently. I feel safe here. My mouth moving with theirs. The notes of the organ, the ugly organ, reaching the roof, smudging the stained glass. All our voices breathing out. Our lungs working the way lungs are supposed to. In & out. Up & down. Our hearts – darting, my deluging grief, distanced from everything.

Jeff Dupius

Big City Lights My mattress is a steel grate, with a built-in steam bath. My blankets are free and carry news about Haiti, the economy, school shootings. Everyone I speak to gives me money or cigarettes.

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Song birds drop to the sidewalk around me like rice thrown at a wedding. I cradle a dying sparrow in blackened hands. Its wings flap in slow-motion. It, like me, confused these big city lights for stars.

Ashleigh Cowan

A World Gone Mad A day without a bombing is worth celebrating and I’m out with the lads down for a few pints, not to Cosgrove’s as they got sacked to shit last week, but to Kate Daly’s where you can still have a good chat with your mates and not worry so about being pushed around so. We’re all rowdy coming off a week of being pent up inside watching news waiting for the all clear to get back out on the streets. My family’s got the only working TV on our floor so we’ve had visitors in and out trying to get a glimpse of what they can’t see looking out their own windows. My mam eats it up, she gets so riled sitting there in front of the telly with a cigarette and an angry look, grumbling at the set with the other wives wondering when the fuck something was going to be done, there are children walking those streets, God bless, and don’t they know how dangerous it is for a child in these times? The other wives rock and mutter agreements and cross themselves like pious little biddies and I laugh but really I’m thinking how fucked up it is myself. When I was just a wee thing I thought that this was how the whole world lived, getting woken up to

bombs in the middle of the night, burnt out buildings with broken windows on every corner, kids on the other side of the street shouting at you, ones that you weren’t allowed to play with since they went to a different church than you did. The world must be a pretty fuckin’ miserable place. But now we’re big men, seventeen, not little babies anymore and I’m seeing that it’s just Belfast that’s gone to Hell and that’s a good cause to make it to mass every Sunday. So when the lads across the street shout taunts at us now we know well enough to shout back and usually we can’t get to school without there being a fight. Just got to be careful not to fight with the ones with guns.

They’re pretty hard to miss though, running down the streets in packs shouting and hollering like hooligans. I’ve got some pride but I’m no good to my mam if I’m shot dead in the chest, so when I hear those sorts of shouts I stay inside and keep my baby sister away from the windows. So we’re off to Kate Daly’s as it’s Thursday and there’s the canteen quiz. As usual none of us win the big cash prize but we have a few laughs

we were little punk shits who’d play truant from school and go kicking rocks into the harbor and the talk was nothing but titties, who’d seen ‘em and how big were they. Our talk’s grown up a bit now but Aiden still likes to boast when he’s had a few too many and we give him shit but we all know we’re just jealous. There’s a girl I’ve seen a fair few times on the walk to and from

under. There’s four of us lads and we’ve been mates since primary, back when

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calling out answers to the stupid questions and trying to drink each other

Ashleigh Cowan school. I know she lives near me but when I turn to go down the lane to my school she turns the other way and I know we’re from a different class of people so I don’t even bother with the hello. She probably has an older brother who’d come try and rough me up and might even knock his pretty sister around for carrying on talking to someone like me and I can’t have that on my head. When the quiz is done we stick around the pub and I order up another round of pints. Brian asks me if I’ve heard from my brother and it gives me a pain to tell him no, we’ve heard nothing. A full year and not so much as a phone call. Brian shakes his head and claps me on the shoulder, ‘salright mate, he’ll come home right soon enough. I shrug. The night before he left there was big fight in the living room where he’d stood up to my da and said that someone in this family had to do his bit for Ireland and it sure isn’t going to be you, you sorry excuse for a man. I could tell my da wanted to hit him but my mam was crying in the kitchen and I knew he didn’t want to make things worse. So they squared off to each other, my brother with his face all red and that white spit at the corners of his mouth and my da, who

after hearing that, lights a cigarette and tells him, go then, be a man. And so he did, and now my brother’s in the provisional IRA off somewhere doing his bit for Ireland. I know my mam watches the news because she hopes to see him, but if he’s dead, it’s not the six o’clock report that she’s gonna hear it from. I don’t want to get into a big political talk tonight so I say thanks and raise my glass to my brother Johnny, let’s hope he’s still breathing. They three laugh. We drain our glasses and head outside where Darren starts rolling up a spliff for us to share on the walk home. We’re leaning up against

the side of the pub while Brian and Aiden light cigarettes and stand in the street with their fists shoved in their pockets and their collars turned up against the wind. The only people out at this time are ones like us, red faced and sloppy, and armed officers patrolling up and down sidewalks reminding the lot of us to get home. A few blocks up I can see the bright floodlights set up at a checkpoint. We have to show papers, prove residency, a whole pain in

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the ass process that just says yes, I do live here, now please don’t shoot me ’cause I’m already unsteady on my feet and I just want to get home to the warm bed and the clean sheets. Darren’s being too loud, stumbling over his feet and talking in a cloud of smoke and I tell him to stop being a dolt and stamp that spliff out, I’m not looking for any trouble tonight. Aiden laughs, says these bastards’d just steal our stash and be done with it, no one gives a fuck anymore. I know it’s true. The Provisionals sell cheap smack on street

Ashleigh Cowan corners to buy more guns and everyone’s fucked up all the time, drink or pills or weed or something you can inject ’cause it’s the only way any of us can get through the day without thinking too much about how shitty this town is. The officers take too long looking at our papers. They hold eye contact until it makes me sweat and ask Brian to open his bag. C’mon, I say, we’re just trying to get home. Standard procedure, says the officer in a way that would give my mam cause to give him a good smack in the gob for the disrespect in his voice. We can’t say anything though as they have guns and we don’t and after the officer is quite sure of that, he lets us pass and we stagger on, parting ways at the next intersection with handshakes and claps on the back and promises to meet again tomorrow, just as we’ve always done. There’s no place here for lads like us. It’s not that we’re scared to fight. I want an Ireland united, too, but if every one of us did like my brother Johnny who saw the Provisionals on telly wearing black ski masks and clenching guns in their fists and thought that they had the answers, then who would be home on the weekdays to make sure mam gets dressed in the morning? We’ve all got problems and we’ve all known someone who’s died but at the end of the

day, we’re the ones sticking around to make sure that the family stays ok and that should count for something. After Johnny left, my mam wouldn’t leave the house for a week, so embarrassed and ashamed she was. Even now when people ask where he’s gotten off to she tells them that he went to America to look for work and the neighbors all pretend to be impressed, how ambitious, that Johnny is! They all know the truth though and I can see it in the way they look at me climbing up and down the stairs to my floor every day. Some of them wonder what’s become of our family since and by the scowls I can tell that others wonder

why I don’t do the same. If you don’t go off to fight you might as well not even call yourself Irish and it’s only a matter of time until I fuck off to the south where the Troubles aren’t so bad, or scrap it all and go to England or America where the only cause anyone would have to give me shit would be for the funny way I talk. We’ve talked about it plenty, the boys and I. Aiden’s got a cousin in New York and he’s sure he could put us up until we found work. I

shouldn’t be. I wish he worked closer to home, but there aren’t many jobs these days and he did what he had to do. I used to wait up for him when he went to work but since Johnny left home he’s been staying later and later, always calling to tell me that he had a few too many after work and there’s a couch he can sleep on, but to tell my mam that everything’s fine. I wonder

and my baby sister now crawling and getting her head into every place it

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know I couldn’t leave my mam, though, not with my da working in Dublin

Ashleigh Cowan whose couch he’s sleeping on. As I’m going inside I hear gunfire in the distance but it’s too far away to make my head hurt so I ignore it and carry on up the stairs. I ignore the part of my head that tells me to give a shit, too. It’s too much effort when it happens every day. The next morning I wake up with a stomachache. My sister is crying from her crib in the next room over and I’m slow to go and pick her up and start the cooing and rocking. She needs a bottle and I wonder idly if we have any milk left in the fridge or if I’ll have to walk down to the corner market. My mam is on the couch in her housecoat, smoking a cigarette and watching the news. She has a habit of chewing her lip when she’s nervous and when I look at her to say good morning I see that she’s bit through again and I wonder how long she’s been up. I’m in the kitchen bouncing Maggie up and down in my arms, whistling a little song to make her smile while I get her bottle together when I hear my mam shout from the living room and the panic in her voice is enough to make me start and nearly drop Maggie all together. Sean, she shrieks, Sean, come look! I rush into the living room and follow her finger to the TV screen where the news is showing scenes from the

shooting that happened the night prior. There are bodies lined up on the sidewalk and the camera is panning over as policemen stroll up and down, making notes in little booklets before pulling sheets over the victims’ heads. The last one in the row, mam says, look. Tell me it’s not, Sean. Her voice breaks, she is crying and that makes Maggie cry and I’m on my knees nose nearly pressed to the set trying to see, but I don’t have to try that hard because the way my head gets so dizzy all at once tells me that it is. I look back to her. ‘Tis, mam. It’s Johnny, I say, and she wails into a bunched up fistful of her robe. The image on the screen shakes and I’m staring into the

face of my dead brother, his eyes shut and his red hair shaved down to the scalp. I don’t know what to do with my mam moaning and my sister shrieking. I get da on the phone at work and ask that he comes home but he tells me he can’t and I don’t even bother telling him what’s happened. I can hear the bedroom door slam and it muffles the sound of mam’s crying but only by a little. I want to go and comfort her, but I don’t know how and I’ve

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got to feed the baby or no one else will. There’s no milk left in the fridge I say, to no one in particular. I look at Maggie who’s stopped crying and is sucking her thumb in wet, noisy slurps. Are you a hungry little love? I ask. Maggie laughs and blows a raspberry and I take her out down to the corner market to buy milk because there’s nothing else I can do.

Suisun Valley Review Presents

The Quinton Duval Award

stablished in 2009 to honor Quinton Duval, Professor Emeritus of English and Creative Writing and long-time 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.

Dorine Jennette

orine 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, the Journal, Puerto del Sol, the New Orleans Review, the Los Angeles Review, and the 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. She was the 2011 featured poet of SVR.

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Quinton Duval Award Winner

Lisa

isa Gurlin is currently a Graphic Design and Illustration major at Solano Community College. Beginning in 2008, her college art education has allowed her to explore a comprehensive array of art-making techniques that have led to richly creative ways of thinking. After taking Creative Writing in the Spring of 2010, as well as becoming a returning student of the SCC Literary Magazine course, Lisa began focusing directly on the relationship between visual and literary arts. In her work, it is the balance of these two disciplines that grants a unique portrayal of themes relating to the human condition—past, present, and future.

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On selecting “19th cent.” as the award winner, Dorine Jennette had the following to say: “Somehow, without leaving the immediate scene of the speaker’s body, the writer of ‘19th cent.’ manages to accommodate concepts that reside almost entirely outside of or beyond the speaker’s body. The writer conjures a mythic landscape, long intergenerational sweeps of time, the interconnectedness of living things— including the relationships between readers and writers as they meet on the page—and the split-second shift between awareness of imminence (as in, about to happen) and immanence (as in, the divinity that dwells in all things). While grounding the poem in one person’s mortal experience, the writer interacts with time on a geologic or astronomical scale. The writer achieves this via expressions of the relationships between the speaker’s body and the residents of a shared landscape: crows, desert birds, succulent plants. The boundaries between the speaker’s body and other living things become also the connecting points between the speaker and other living things, and these connection points charge the poem. Traveling through a wild tangle of physical and conceptual relationships, ‘19th cent.’ is a sensual and intellectual feast.”

Quinton Duval Award Winner - Lisa Gurlin

19th cent.

My feet blister on the unmarked road as ashen crows send static down to distant shadows. The cracked, golden earth tastes the tangled shapes warring alongside me like an over-dried tongue that knows every flavor but pale blue.

I offer mine and soon witness my thick, ancient blood-sweat, synthetic and pungent. As the desert birds land to feed, I offer my hand and experience Imminence as she becomes dense. The protective fence between us electrifies my core and our memories pour out across the plain and bubble like a range of succulent juices.

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Humans are not animals that move, but trees that settle as far as their branches take them. In a craze, they lay fruit and pray for rain while Vastness hungers at their acts of living as if they are livestock. Birds, who know and see from flocks above, build pens for them, human innovation having only regurgitated violent streams of distance and time.

Quinton Duval Award Honorable Mention

Arthur Jackson

rthur Jackson has been an SCC student since 2009 where he is a fine arts major. Arthur also has a deep interest in creative writing, particularly poetry.

On selecting “The Grandeur of Lilies” as this year’s only honorable mention, Dorine Jennette had the following to say:

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“This piece begins with the speaker’s childhood beliefs about closets--a surprisingly elegant opening move, because it allows the writer to gently pull the edges of daily life and dream life together until they overlap. Within this mental interstice, this creative pocket, this sheltering, rather than imprisoning, closet, the speaker, who has just turned eighteen, shapes an expressive masculinity for his adulthood. He sees color and spacious fields, blooms that hold their energy ‘Even after darkness beats the withered stems to dust.’ The speaker argues his case for creative freedom against repressive voices that wish to deny his vision. He defends himself against those who favor the ‘stillness of black glassy like the ocean / on a day when there is no wind, vacant like man.’ In place of this dead surface, the speaker articulates a dynamic, deep-rooted creativity for himself, alive with color, and his coming-of-age vision resonates with the reader long after the poem ends.”

Quinton Duval Award Honorable Mention - Arthur Jackson

The Grandeur of Lilies

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I never believed in the gothic tales of closets as a child. Rather I looked to white walls, painting them with my imagination, adorning the corners in gold leaf to rid them of what lies clandestine in their shadows. Even now, I find myself in open meadows of lilies. With their petals taking me by the hand, leading me to salvation, a place they whisper is only meant for me. This year I am 18, the age of man. But much too often men are dyslexic to color, confusing my fascination of it with insanity, forcing their beliefs on me. Bribing my conscious with needles lased with shadows - the same I dispelled as a child - so when they change the walls to black the lilies wither, imagination wilts to nothing but a memory kept secret by skeleton keys too heavy to even be embraced. The stillness of black glassy like the ocean on a day when there is no wind, vacant like man. When I mention the lilies man tells me they do not exist. How, then, can I feel petals on my cheek like the first rain of spring? Even after darkness beats the withered stems to dust.

Jerry Mathes

Little Venus Sophia’s cries stretch late into the black morning. She almost didn’t emerge alive into the light and air, cut and pulled from an underworld we all come from. Those masked and gowned people check her reflexes and responses before handing her to me. Trauma to start makes me wonder if her suffering is a talisman against trauma to come—slit eyed boys, broken bones, car wrecks, a torn prom dress. But charms, mojo bags, lucky shirts, or a tally of instant karma only keeps believers from troubled sleep, like the young woman on the Little Venus Fire. Trapped in an inferno, she deployed her shelter on the Grey Bull River. Surviving, her crewmates claimed she was a solid money bet until a season ending event, a hard rain or a smothering snow. In less than six weeks a helicopter she flew in, clipped a ridge-top tree exploding in a fuel and magnesium fire on a gravel road.

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When I fly, I try and feel myself in their long flight down the mountain, strapped and buckled, trapped inside the ship as it pitches and yaws, survival a flicker behind gritted teeth. But it’s the same when I try to imagine being drawn bloody and crying from a womb or, conjuring predictions, turning cards for the living and the soon to be dead—I draw a blank.

Nicholas Cittadino

Home Visit She abandoned her walker in her room to follow me, then stopped at the intersection of screaming, facility-white halls. My arms held more space as we hugged goodbye, she’d been slowly disappearing with the years. That’s where I left her, walking past rooms of the aged, those coughing or complaining, whose purple, television light and canned laughter leaked from door cracks. I stood waiting for the slowest two-floor elevator in New Jersey. With reluctance, I turned to see her pained hands still gripping the rail, she stood staring out from her blue-water eyes as if I were the show she’d tune in during that day.

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I thought to do a tap dance as I waited to amuse her. Or maybe by some wishful magic I could walk back to her, passing those doors between us and restoring ten years of life for each one I passed. To see her hair darken again, those flat breasts under her nightgown fill, the muscle tone come back into her arms. Have it all return— to when she would wash our laundry in a ringer, hang it outdoors to dry, stop my sister and I from playing rough with the dog in the house while stirring tomato sauce on the stove for dinner—so many of her days spent that way. The bell rang at last and the light lit above the elevator door. I quickly waved once more, then lowered my head, vanishing, as I crossed the cool metal threshold.

Connie Gutowsky

ECHO MARRIES Echo marries Narcissus while playing Cassandra, his mistress, in the No. 1 television series The Politician. Photographed for People, she stands, risen pink hands on her hips, head cocked, in front of their Malibu mansion.

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In the interview, she tells of her hopes that everyone is as lucky as she is, enjoying their family & friends— exploring hobbies, & traveling the planet. “Just back from Greece, I donned my peach bikini, took a quick dip in our Olympic pool, afterwards served my husband black tea & bread with honey, for a late breakfast in our matching blue cover ups. We’re like twins.

Connie Gutowsky

I adore his good looks, he loves that I do, & he adores mine, too.” Asked about the next episode, Echo says, “This week the drama conjures dreams. Nightmares, really. Burglars at the door. Cassandra lets them in without much thought and Hermes makes a cameo.”

Invited to tell how she & Narcissus made their come back, Echo tosses her sun streaked tresses, whispers, “Sometimes even the gods will listen; [laughter]

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we bargained with them for an encore, agreed to suffer rapture, to fall in perfect love & wed on the set— We promised to bring the constellations down to earth.”

Nicholas Cittadino

Painting Lessons A good painter always carries a rag, my grandfather’s maxim as I brushed cautious strokes trimming his lemon-yellow dining-room cabinets. From how to keep the can’s edge clean by driving a small nail through the top rim, to the final clean up at his garage sink washing and drying brushes, there was a lesson to learn at every step: take your time, don’t apply too thinly, watch for drips, stir the can often, lay a drop cloth, angle the brush when cutting an edge. All the while, the Mets played ball on his transistor radio, providing a natural green carpet on every sanded surface.

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Later at fifteen, my friend’s mother talked us into jobs with a guy she’d met at the local tavern. Big Al ran the kiddie rides on the Long Branch Pier. We removed the thick canvas tarps that survived a salty-sea winter to unveil enormous electric motors. Carrying over a five-gallon drum of paint (Shea Stadium orange), Al threw brushes at us then headed off for a quick morning tonic in the 24-hour bar at pier’s end. My friend on one motor, I another— my grandfather’s voice played over the crashing Atlantic waves, the long, cold cries of gull’s scurrying for food, and the smell of creosote and saltwater on the pre-season boardwalk. With the new coat of paint just half complete, Big Al returned to grab the brush into his crusty-red claw. I watched him sink it deep into the can, well beyond the forbidden bristle point, before gangster-slapping paint over much of the motor. Long strings and spiraled globs of orange flying directionless,

Nicholas Cittadino

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he covered the dark asphalt floor like he was Jackson Pollack. —Time is of the essence, kid. This ain’t the god-damn Mona Lisa. While he lessoned me, I took the rag I’d found to hang like a badge from my hip pocket and furtively tucked it up under my jacket.

Zachary Sweet

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Cup

Noel Sloboda

Legacy All of us grandchildren followed paintings around the house. Granddaddy and Nana had long ago stopped buying, only rearranged a collection assembled years before. Still, they never quit squabbling about what should go where. Crumbling impasto landscapes once hung above the living room couch lost choice position to fruit-filled still-lifesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;later relegated to the loft where we slept. Once the lights dimmed, our little voices hummed, guessing at rules for the grownup game that made pictures move. After Nana suddenly died during a July heat wave, the walls stopped swirling. Dropped off with Granddaddy for long weekends that fall, we stalked one another

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in dusky backrooms, picking at gilt frames, scrawling our names across dusty canvases.

Carol Louise Moon

Black Orchid

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She recalled to me the night her father died upstairs in the old two-story house, and how three men came to take his body and dropped it midway in the stairwell, and how she always resented the memoryâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; the clumsiness of the men; resented her own ears for having heard the thud.

Zachary Sweet

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Salting the Back of a Snail

Ashleigh Cowan

Blown Glass They are in the car, driving towards his childhood home where his mother and father patiently wait. A doula for most of her life, Jacob's mother has been promised the birth of her first grandchild. His wife is pregnant for the fourth time and they are both certain that this time they will deliver on that promise. Margot has made it to the eighth month. She is quiet, her head resting on the passenger side window, leaving a greasy stain on the glass. Neither has spoken in an hour. There is the fear that if either one breathes too loudly, the baby will come and it will be too soon. They have never made it this far before and the unfamiliar territory they now find themselves in extends out like a tightrope stretched between two mountains. They are balanced in the middle and afraid to look down. The first miscarriage came when their skin was still tanned from the honeymoon and they were enough in love to still find strolling around the house naked on weekends arousing and novel. When they found out she was

pregnant, they both skipped work for the day and fucked lazily and joyfully into the afternoon, laughing into each other's bare chests. She made it eight weeks before the baby decided to leave. She had been cooking dinner. He had been sitting at the counter, chewing on a pen cap and grading papers. He looked up just as the trickle of blood running down her leg reached her ankle and puddled down on the kitchen floor. He caught her just before she fell. It is beginning to snow, and he flicks on the windshield wipers, scowling slightly. "Do you think we'll make it before the storm gets going?" she asks,

rolling her head languidly to look at him. She is so very tired, not used to the hugeness of her body. The seatbelt is straining across her belly. "Dunno yet. We still have a few hours. I'll stop soon so we can get you some food and figure out where this storm is heading." She murmurs agreement and turns back to the window to stare at the trees seeding past the car.

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She wanted so badly to be a mother, so she refused to be daunted by losing the first baby. They tried again shortly after and again rejoiced when she conceived. He was amazed by her resiliency, the way she carried herself with such pride, falling so seamlessly back into the role of mother-to-be. They shopped for tiny clothes together, strolling hand in hand through shops, holding little jumpers up and trying to picture what parts of each other the baby would have. His sharp chin, her green eyes. The first miscarriage was

Ashleigh Cowan buried like a bad dream and they were not prepared to let it sully their giddy preparations. Nine weeks she lasted. She cried harder, slept for days, would not speak. For that week after the second baby left, he called out sick to work and spent hours standing in the hall outside their bedroom, waiting for her to call for him. He did not know what help he could be. They pull into a rest stop and climb out, stretching cat-like to bring the blood rushing back into their legs. The drive from Santa Cruz to Portland is a long one, but it will be worth it for both to see Margot give birth in the bed that Jacob himself was born in. "You should probably eat something," he says, placing his hand on the small of her back and guiding her into the gas station. She bites her lip, looking skeptically at the aisles of brightly colored and packaged foods. "I know I should, but my appetite is shot." "C'mon," he chides, rubbing her back, "You didn't eat breakfast. At least have a banana or something." "Can I have coffee?" she asks. Jacob glares at her teasingly. "Soon enough, darling." She smiles and reaches up on tiptoe to kiss

him on the cheek, then ambles slowly off to find a toilet while he steps in line to pay for the cheap and bruised gas station fruit. In the bathroom, she stands in front of the mirror, splashes water on her pale and puffy face, tries to remain calm. There is a twinge deep inside her belly and she is afraid to think of what it might mean. I'm hungry. I'm tired. It's eight months and a twinge is completely normal. She smiles quietly and rubs the bump, shushing the baby. Soon enough, darling. Just wait a few more weeks. A year into their marriage and they stopped trying. Jacob worked longer hours, staying late in his office on campus where he taught

comparative literature. His students benefitted from lectures planned and reworked countless times over. Margot focused entirely on her design work, mapping out her days with rulers on gridlines. They would go weeks only seeing each other at night, and even then they slept to face the wall, their backs barely touching. There were nights when he was restless and he would sit up in their room, watching her chest rise and fall in tight and nervous

touch her, afraid that she would shatter like a glass bowl heated and blown too thin. He came home from work one evening to find her sitting by the garden in the backyard. She was crying. She was pregnant again. "I can't do this," she sniffed, wiping a hand over her eyes.

crossed over her stomach, every muscle tight and trembling. He was afraid to

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twitches. Even in sleep she was tense, laying on her side with her arms

Ashleigh Cowan "We have to try." "I don't know what I'll do if I lose another one." She reached out and ripped a petal from one of her flowers, rolled it between her fingers until they were stained red. "I've done everything right. I don't know what else to do." Jacob crouched behind her, balancing on the balls of his feet, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. Her body felt deflated, and he wanted so badly to reach down inside of her and reignite her want for movement. This smaller, stiller version of his wife was a strange and unfamiliar thing. "We'll be ok, darling. I'll make it right, I promise." "You can't make anything right." She shrugged him off and stalked back into the house A month later, he woke up to bedsheets soaked in blood. He shook Margot awake with stinging eyes and his heart trapped like a caged bird in his throat. She looked down groggily and moaned, then rolled over and vomited off the side of the bed. The snow is getting worse and Margot is beginning to panic. The car has slowed to a crawl and Jacob is hunched white-knuckled over the steering

wheel. In the next lane over, they hear the sudden squeal of brakes and a crunch of metal as two cars collide, unable to stop from sliding on the ice. "Holy shit," he curses, readjusting his grip on the wheel and slowing even further. "This is too dangerous. We need to get off the road." She quiets him with a sharp hiss. "No, just keep going. We're almost there, we have to make it." Jacob glances over at his wife. Her seat is reclined and she is breathing slow and laboriously, her eyes screwed shut and watering. "Wait, wait…what's wrong? We should really pull over."

"Just drive, for fuck's sake. Please. You have to get me home." "Margot, talk to me. What's wrong?" He wants so badly to grab her hand, but he cannot take his focus off the road. Snow falls in great, angry clumps and on the roof of the car comes the tinny crack of hailstones. Margot whimpers. "I think…God damn it…I'm contracting."

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"Are you sure?" He tries to keep his voice from shaking. "I think so." "Jesus, Margot! How long? Why didn't you say anything?" "Since we stopped for gas. I thought…" Another wave of pain cuts her off mid sentence and she moans, a sound guttural and animalistic. "I thought it would pass but it's just getting worse." "Ok. Ok. Let's get you home." He forces a smile and affords a

Ashleigh Cowan sidelong glance at his wife. "Don't worry. I'll make it right." No sooner after he says this, a car in the next lane over swerves to avoid a suitcase discarded on the highway. It spins out of control, the tires unable to find traction on the slick asphalt, and slams into the side of the couple's station wagon. Margot cries out, clutches her stomach. Jacob pumps the brakes, but the little car slides haphazardly off the road, breaking through the guardrail and plunging down a snow-covered embankment. For a moment, they are suspended, bracing themselves for impact. Margot lets out a high-pitched whine, doubled over with pain and fear. The car slides for days, gathering speed, and finally slams into the base of a tree. The hood of the car crumples like aluminum, the air bags explode and the top branches of the tree release a deluge of snow, burying them completely. The car is still and dark and quiet. When Margot comes to, she cannot tell if it is night or day. She tries to open the door, but the snow is banked up against the side of the car, trapping her inside. Jacob is unmoving and there is a gash on his temple, but the blood trailing down the side of his face is dry and crusted over. She tries

again to open the door, jerking the handle in a frantic and building panic. "Jacobâ&#x20AC;Ś.Jacob, wake up." She shakes him vigorously. He does not respond. "Pleaseâ&#x20AC;Ś" She fumbles in her purse for her cellphone to call his mother, but there is no signal. In the cold darkness, she slumps back in her seat and weeps helplessly, beats her fists against her husband's body, begs for him to answer her. His chest rises and falls in defiant gasps. Trapped there, Margot knows no other option but to wait. Her dizzy head and aching body urge her back towards sleep. She unbuckles her seatbelt and lays down awkwardly across the bench seat, resting her head in

Jacob's lap and pulling his limp arm to drape over her chest. Somewhere deep

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in her belly, the baby stirs. She sobs into her husband's hand and waits.

Ashleigh Cowan

Cockroaches

we gather in the backyard, in a graveyard of glass where soft carrots poke their withered tufts through the packed piles of thawing dirt and discarded cigarette butts. a collection they keep. talk in circles around a deep dug hole about who they've fucked and how bad they felt about it. may as well be picking lice from their heads, these orphaned children with dicks like divining rods leading them to water. they bend and stick their mouths to the ground suck suck suck but all that comes

is mud. mud and grime between teeth and gums. on this night the rain arrives finally finally with thunder so loud it shakes the house shakes bones under skin. they open their mouths to wash the grime from their lips but the drops catch ash on the air leave dirty streaks down acne scarred cheeks and they are filthy still. scatter like cockroaches, burrow down under rocks, and laugh.

with the motherless gone thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only now me the woman you the man unfit caretakers both middle split and shameful in our own rights

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thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only now a room of smoke and warm whiskey in a stone cup passed back and forth between us. we look out to the backyard, to the graveyard of glass, to the collections they keep, and between sips and sighs promise somehow to be different.

Brandon Williams

According to the New York Times

Perhaps I’m giving bees my own desires, transmuting into them a need for escape that has nothing to do with their leaving. It’s always possible they left because of unfair labor practices, or they might have gotten competitive offers with better dental from some habitable planet in the Sombrero Galaxy – yes, that is a real galaxy – or I suppose the Christians could be right, and this is the beginning of the Rapture. I was eating crepes and drinking green tea sweetened with honey as I read, and then, I worried only about my daily tea, as if the fragile ecosystem had nothing better to do than please my palate.

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The bees have gone away. Now, there are twenty-five percent less. I think they left on a Wednesday, when we all were too busy humping – it is Hump Day, after all – to stop and smell the dandelions that hadn’t yet wilted. They’ve gone some place exotic, some place where they can sip mai-tais on beach chairs and complain about the rigors of bee-life.

Clive Rosengren

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r. Rosengren has been an actor for the better part of the past forty years, eighteen of them pounding the same streets as private eye Eddie Collins does in Murder Unscripted. Movie credits include Ed Wood, Soapdish, and Bugsy. Among his television credits are “Seinfeld” and “Cheers,” where he played the only person to throw Sam Malone out of his own bar. He currently lives in Ashland, Oregon, amidst an extensive movie and crime fiction library. Murder Unscripted is his debut novel.

Featured Writer - Clive Rosengren

String Ball It had grown to the size of a small beach ball since I’d seen it last. The strands of string were of different thicknesses and lengths. Pieces of ribbon were tied to the string at various intervals. He’d glued small scraps of paper to the ends of each ribbon. When the ball started to engulf a particular ribbon, he would simply tie another piece to it and make another tag. With all the ribbons protruding from the sphere, it resembled an unruly haircut. The globe of string occupied a corner of the downstairs coat closet, as it had ever since I could remember. A three-legged stool sat next to it. I pulled on the light cord and sat down. Dad ran a newsstand across from the courthouse for thirty-five years. I think he started collecting string from the very beginning. He’d cut the binding from the newspapers and magazines and fill his pockets. The strands went into a kitchen drawer and eventually found their way into the string ball. All through our childhood my sister Emily and I had marveled at how slowly but surely the thing grew. Births, deaths, anniversaries and any

other noteworthy event had warranted a ribbon and tag on the sphere. I rolled the ball between my legs and examined a few ribbons. Emily’s birthday. My parents’ wedding. Dad’s discharge from the Army. The day I graduated from high school. They were all there. Suddenly I wondered if he’d added the latest occurrence. I shifted the ball until I found the end of the string. There it was: a strand of blue ribbon and a pale yellow scrap of paper. I leaned forward to look at the precise printing on the tag. “Eleanor Morrison. Died January 22, 2012.” My mother’s name and the date only a week ago. Tears welled up in my eyes as I ran my thumb and forefinger over the note.

I heard the creak of a floorboard behind me and turned to see my father. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his rumpled corduroys. The sadness of the last few days was etched on his face. They’d been married for forty-five years; her death had not been easy for him. “I see you’ve got the string ball up to date,” I said. “Yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck and sighed. “Don’t know

“Lot of foolishness, if you ask me. Not to mention a lot of string.” He gestured a wave of dismissal with his right hand and walked off to the living room. I pushed the ball back into the corner, rose and pulled on the light cord. Dad sat in his recliner, feet up. A talk show blared from the TV. In

“Why? There’s a lot of history here, Dad.”

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why. I’m going to get rid of that damn fool thing.”

Clive Rosengren - Featured Writer the corner behind the chair stood a plant, its leaves wilting from lack of water. She had never neglected her plants. “You want a beer?” I said. “You having one?” I nodded. “Yeah, okay. No glass. Just the bottle.” I returned from the kitchen and placed a bottle of beer on a coaster that sat on a TV tray next to his chair. I’d filled a small pitcher and watered the plant. I sank into the sofa and we watched the television set for a moment or two. A magazine rack sat next to me. I pulled a couple out and saw they were Redbook and Better Homes and Gardens. Magazines my mother had subscribed to. “Have you canceled these?” I said, holding them up for him to see. “Nah, I ain’t got around to it.” “I’ll take them along. Betty can do it.” “Okay.” We sipped on our beers and watched a talk show host interviewing twin sisters who had been separated at birth. Why Dad found this interesting was beyond me. He probably just wanted the set on for the noise.

“Trash day tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll roll that dang ball out to the curb.” “Why don’t you just keep it?” “Your sister ain’t gonna want that thing taking up space.” “Dad, Emily and Jeff work every day. It’s not going to be in the way.” My sister and her husband were in foreclosure on their house and were moving into Dad’s place. After some persuasion, he had agreed to come with me and stay in the guest cottage behind our house. Betty and the kids were looking forward to having Grandpa coming to live with them.

“Or we can put it in the back of the SUV and take it with us.” “You ain’t got room for it either.” “We’ll make room. There’s a whole life there, Dad. A round scrapbook.” “Nah, time to quit with it.” He raised his beer bottle and sipped. “Your Mom’s gone. Doesn’t seem like there’s much point to it now.”

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I wanted to try and persuade him otherwise, but I knew once he’d made up his mind it was a done deal. We finished our beers in silence and went out for dinner at a chicken shack he and my mother had liked. Afterward we watched a little more television and I went up to bed. An hour later I heard movement downstairs and looked out the window to see him rolling the string ball to the curb. He pushed it next to the garbage bin, leaned on it for a moment, his head down, and then walked back inside.

Featured Writer - Clive Rosengren The next morning I fried us some eggs as he took my keys and carried his bags to the SUV. During breakfast we heard the rumble of the garbage truck in front of the house. He washed the dishes while I packed and set my suitcase on the front stoop. The string ball was gone. Dad took a last look around, closed the door and locked it. He picked up a shopping bag and we walked to the car. I opened the tailgate. Sitting next to one of his bags was the string ball. I looked at him and he shrugged his shoulders. “Wasn’t sure the garbage truck would take it.” “You lifted that thing by yourself?” “Bill Waxman came by walking his dog.” I grinned and clapped him on the back. He reached down and pulled a small paper sack from the shopping bag. “Give this to your kids.” I opened it. Inside were spools of ribbon, glue, scraps of paper and a snarl of string. “I’ll help them get started.” He picked up his shopping bag and crawled into the SUV. I shut the

tailgate and we drove off. We sat a red light by the freeway, lost in our own thoughts. It changed to green and we moved through the intersection. The ball shifted around in the back. “You better tie that thing down or something.” “It’ll be fine, Dad.” He looked over his shoulder and then faced forward. “Yeah, I s’pose so,” he said as I accelerated and headed up the

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entrance ramp.

Suisun Valley Review Presents an Interview with

live Rosengren, a former Hollywood actor and firsttime novelist, visited Solano Community College on March 27, 2012. He read from his debut novel Murder Unscripted, a lively homage to film noir and classic murder mysteries. After the reading Mr. Rosengren responded to questions from the audience and discussed his future work.

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SVR: When you fi nd inspiration, how do you draw on it when you sit down to write? Do you have any particular writing protagonist, Eddie Collins, lives habits or rituals? and works in Hollywood, so therefore the Hollywood CR: I try to form pictures in my environment is central to his head, particularly depiction. geographically. I generally go to iTunes and play some classical I try to form pictures in music so I don't have to be my head, particularly distracted by lyrics. It's an geographically . . . It's an almost cinematic approachâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; almost cinematic seeing the location in my head. SVR: How have your experiences in Hollywood and your connections with that lifestyle given you direction in your writing? CR: My experience and background in Hollywood influence me greatly. My

approachâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;seeing the location in my head. SVR: What are som e of your favorite noir films and books? Do you consciously try to emulate any of them, or do you intentionally go in another direction?

Interview - Clive Rosengren

SVR: The narrator in your novel, Murder Unscripted , has a very unique voice. Can you speak to the origin of that voice and/or the development of your protagonist? CR: The voice for Eddie Collins is one I've inexplicably just heard in my head. The cynicism he displays comes from the frustrations of the business he's in.

SVR: In your reading at SCC, you revealed that you are currently working on a sequel to Murder Unscripted. Could you comment on how this process of writing a second novel is different for you?

CR: With Murder Unscrip ted , I had a screenplay to use as my outline, my "Bible," as it were. With the second Eddie Collins story, I don't. I have a SVR: How would you com pare basic idea, key plot elements and the process of writing a novel to an idea as to how to end the the process of writing a story, but the plot, as far as beat screenplay? Do you prefer writing to beat, has continued to evolve one over the other? Did you learn as the characters dictate. anything writing a novel that could help you write a screenplay SVR: How did you k now that in the future? your short story, "String Ball," was finished, or at least ready to

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When it comes to writing dialogue and action scenes, the lessons learned from screenwriting apply: be specific, be succinct.

CR: The two formats, strangely enough, complement each other. Writing a screenplay forces you to be extremely wordspecific. Brevity is the key. When it comes to novel writing, of course, you're given license to expand and be less brief. However, when it comes to writing dialogue and action scenes, the lessons learned from screenwriting apply: be specific, be succinct. Writing screenplays is a very collaborative effort, to a fault sometimes. However, working on a novel is more satisfying because what you set down on the page or the screen is yoursâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;until an editor enters the scene, of course.

CR: My all-time favorite movie is Chinatown. Other favorite noir films are Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard. The novels of Raymond Chandler rank high on my list of favorites. I don't think I consciously try to emulate them, but of course they are certainly ones to aspire to.

Clive Rosengren - Interview be published? Could you speak to the process of writing this story? Are there key differences to your approach to the writing of a short story than a novel? CR: "String Ball" centers around a basic image, the ball that contains snippets of previous events. I didn't feel that the story had to reveal a lot of backstory, other than what is alluded to by the image of the ball of string. Unlike a novel, the story had to center on a specific time, and the use of the ball opens up for the reader what has gone before and possibly what will transpire from the end of the story.

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SVR: Were there any doubts you had to overcome with this piece? In writing genre fiction, do you feel that you are bound to certain images or ideas? Did you have any difficulties in trying to tell the story that you wanted to tell while still trying to give your

I think human behavior can be depicted in any class of writing.

readers an exciting story? CR: I'm still struggling with the discipline of writing short stories. The condensation of time and events is a device that continues to challenge me. I don't think writing genre fiction ties you to any specific images or ideas. I think human behavior can be depicted in any class of writing. Good writing is, after all, good writing, regardless of whether or not it's "literary" or "genre." I had difficulty in trying to illustrate a capsule of time that this son and father experience in their focus on the ball of string.

Lisa Jetonne Quintero

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Long Exposure

Patricia Killelea

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atricia Killelea is the author of the poetry collection, Other Suns, which is available from Swan Scythe Press (2011). She is currently a doctoral student in the Native American Studies department at the University of California at Davis, where her research focuses on contemporary American Indian poetry, particularly experimental and avant-garde indigenous poetics. She holds a Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in English and Creative Writing, also from UC Davis. Originally from the Bay Area, California, her poems have appeared in such journals as Gigantic, Poetry Now, The Tule Review, Suisun Valley Review, and others. She has taught the Introduction to Native American Literature course at UC Davis since Fall '09, and she is also revising her second manuscript, tentatively titled Counterglow. You can visit her website at www.patriciakillelea.com for poems, upcoming readings, and conference presentations. She is a former student of Solano Community College.

Featured Writer - Patricia Killelea

Disintegration I. I put my tongue to the rusted shed to know it by taste. II. Riding the train west again, I point with my eyes to rusted places, heaps in the field surfaces changed drop by drop. I know corrosion nowâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;

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the cold lips of things that cannot move, but speak:

Patricia Killelea - Featured Writer

Escape One Cabbage White. One Spicebush Swallowtail. Two Monarchs. One Magnificent Green— Purchased for 10 cents at Mission Solano Thrift Center, the butterfly display case houses five pinned-down beauties gone crumbled. One Monarch’s wing lingers cellular, near-translucent; its colors dull at container’s bottom. Nearby, the Cabbage White poses flawless, absolute save for its stillness.

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Who favored each being, carefully pierced abdomens into place? Whose hands glued down dried marigolds at the base, placed a branch upright just right so the dead would have something to perch on? That these hues were not meant to be kept, that these limbs will never revisit wind— that’s too evident.

Featured Writer - Patricia Killelea

I lean my finger to the glass, leave a print, and pull away, and the Swallowtailâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s left

wing unhinges. I can think of no softer way of ending than this.

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Death touches us and we belong to someone else. In seconds, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve quaked all wings to a powder.

Patricia Killelea - Featured Writer

Medicine Tunneled through

Tunneled through by a voice Made up of other voices

All of us speaking Live Live

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Beautifully

say

Featured Writer - Patricia Killelea

The Small Somewhere there are smallish hooves approaching where waters meet reed; perhaps even asters weave beside the ripples, beside the hooves. I have thoughts of creatures. The thoughts bring me such comfort, and I begin to love my image of all the smallish beings. They do not gather for meâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; they gather for what life needs. A bit of shelter, a bit of blood. My idea of all the smallish things is my bit of tender shame.

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I will not stay here much longer.

Patricia Killelea - Featured Writer

Threading Indraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Net for Michael Harris No answer for your questions, just a burning city

beneath our pupils, the hum of white petals as we spiral by.

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This is the way the universe listens in as it brushes up against usâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Suisun Valley Review Presents an Interview with

n April 24, 2012, Patricia Killelea visited Solano Community College to read from her newly published book of poems, Other Suns. As a former student, she provided valuable insight on the subject of poetry and its process to those attending. During her visit, creative writing students were given the opportunity to ask questions and learn about the world of published writing in a unique and thought-provoking environment.

section of my book Other Suns because he was, essentially, my first mentor. He was incredibly supportive of my work and of students’ efforts in general, and his classes comprise my first experiences with the workshop format. My early engagement with workshops prepared me for further studies at UC Davis, so I PK: I took creative writing for suppose in a way Duval and my three semesters while I was at time at SCC gave me the SCC from 2001-2004. Quinton opportunity to “toughen my Duval remains a core influence skin” when it came to productive in my choice to pursue poetry in criticism. Also, his emphasis on a serious way. I’m sad that he’s the revision process helped me moved on to the next world, and de-romanticize the writing in the end I listed Duval’s name process right away—writing is a in the Acknowledgements lot of work. Revising poems is

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SVR: You previously attended Solano Community College, where Creative Writing was one of your pursuits. In what specific ways did your time at SCC, and Creative Writing teacher Quinton Duval in particular, influence your writing or help you grow as a writer?

Patricia Killelea - Interview still like pulling teeth for me.

I never consciously choose the tone of my poems—that’s not up to me, but rather up to the language.

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SVR: Would you say th at Native American studies has changed your writing, and, if so, what influence has it had? Are there any Native American stories that you are particularly drawn to and that you draw inspiration from? PK: Yes, it’s changed my writing, especially since studying for a PhD gives me much less time to write! The main thing it’s done is that it’s forced me to seek out amazing contemporary Native American poets who simply don’t get enough attention in the Western academy, poets like Sherwin Bitsui, Layli Longsoldier, Orlando White, and many others. Contemporary Native poetry doesn’t get enough attention for a number of problematic reasons, but I honestly think that the most engaging poetry being published right now is by poets coming out of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. SVR: What poets or authors have had a direct impact on your writing?

PK: The most immediate names that come to mind are Paul Celan, Joy Harjo, Dorothea Lasky, W.S. Merwin, Joe Wenderoth, Linda Hogan, Henri Michaux, Sylvia Plath, and Jim Morrison. I first encountered Harjo’s work at the Fairfield public library when I was in high school, and I remember feeling this huge sense of awakening and possibility. The distilled, haunted quality of Celan’s voice and structures markedly changed the way I approached poetics. Morrison’s work continues to inspire me, particularly in terms of my interest in valuing rhythm and sound more so than accessibility of content. SVR: Your work is som ber and subtle at times, which lends to its readability. Is this an extension of your personality, or do you consciously choose the tone of your poems? How much of yourself and your own experiences do you put in to any given poem? PK: I never consciously choose the tone of my poems—that’s not up to me, but rather up to the language. I know that might sound mysterious or even pretentious, but my best poems come to me when I am in a vulnerable, open space. They arrive in the flicker of an image or a sound, or an encounter with something in the world of the

Interview - Patricia Killelea

PK: I’ve been working on a manuscript titled Counterglow since 2008. I’ve been lucky enough to have a lot of external support for that project, both from former creative writing instructors and my academic department. My most recent work is spare and imagistic, hardly lyric. I’m hoping to complete Counterglow by the time I’m done with my dissertation (2014, or so the plan goes), but we’ll see. The question as to what I’d like to “achieve” through my poetry is a good one because it’s difficult to respond to. While my scholarship works toward contributing to the fight for social justice, my poetry can’t quite be summed up so easily. I started writing poetry for myself a long time ago in order to reclaim dignity through the power of the word, but now I

Strangers come up to me after poetry readings to tell me how much they appreciated a particular poem and it fills me with a sense of purpose. ideally from a shared gratitude for survival. SVR: You are now a featured poet in a literary magazine that you once contributed work to for consideration. What are your insights on the contribution aspect of becoming a published poet? What can you tell us about your previous experiences with SVR in particular? PK: I didn’t realize until this question that SVR was the first venue in which I was published. Looking back, some of those first poems I had accepted in SVR (2003) were pretty bad! I guess you have to write a lot of bad poems in order to write even one

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SVR: What can you tell us about your future work? Do you have any specific goals that you would like to achieve with your writing?

realize I’ve written things that have taken on lives of their own. Strangers come up to me after poetry readings to tell me how much they appreciated a particular poem and it fills me with a sense of purpose. If I have any hope for my future work, it’s that it touches someone and facilitates an honest, human connection, even if it’s from a mutual acknowledgement of despair or longing, but more

living or the dead that leaves me no other choice but to speak or be spoken through. Wenderoth refers to this as the “seizure state.” Yes— my personality, identity and my experiences inform my work since positionality is key. I don’t buy into the argument that a poem or the writing of a poem can be encountered without consideration of context.

Patricia Killelea - Interview good one, or so they say. I used to go to readings at Solano and I

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We live in a unique, sacred place and like any good land it must be acknowledged and interacted with through song. always wanted to be an SVR editor but I was just too shy. Publication represents a number of things for me, the first of which being a form of validation. Still, becoming a published poet is always a politicized process— it could be argued that who gets published and who doesn’t says more about the tastes and needs of publishers than it does the quality of work. I’m really encouraged by the endurance of small presses, and with ‘zines, blogs, and other technology it’s much easier to get your poetry out there to an audience than in years past. In terms of my own experiences of becoming a published poet, someone believed in me, and that someone was poet and graceful spirit Sandra McPherson. I kept working on Other Suns (it had no title then) and then one day she told me that she wanted to publish it as a collection through Swan Scythe Press, a press which she founded many years ago and is now under the care of poet and editor James DenBoer. In terms of contribution, I feel like

my book fills in a critical gap: there are so few poems (at least to my knowledge) that honor the Suisun marshlands and the way it shapes so many of our lives and beings. We live in a unique, sacred place and like any good land it must be acknowledged and interacted with through song. SVR: What are the challenges of getting individual poems published versus publishing an entire collection of poems? Do you prefer one publication type over another? How do you decide which pieces are better for standalone publication in literary magazines and which ones are better for your own book? PK: In terms of publishing in individual journals, I’ve been published in several but not nearly enough. Submitting poems to journals is, in many ways, a demoralizing process. Acceptance can sometimes depend on who you know or an editor’s own aesthetic preferences or even their mood that day. I keep all of my rejection slips—they’re my humble reality checks, my slushpile monuments. I have quite a collection of them, just like any other serious poet. They make great bookmarks. I used to send poems out a few times a year, but now I’ve decided to just focus on my second collection. I like thinking of the shape of a collection, the way the poems

Interview - Patricia Killelea

worries about the quality of their work? PK: Keep writing and revising and sending your work out there. It’s not an easy process but if your heart’s in it you’ll find a way. Remember, too, that becoming published is not the point of writing poems—it’s about quality not quantity. The next important step to take is to read. I cannot stress enough the importance of reading poetry from a wide range of styles, topics, time periods, cultures, and translated from other

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Carry a journal. Affirm your dignity often. Listen.

languages. Watch YouTube videos of poets reading their work and remember to go by the ear as much as the eye because poetry comes from the body, not just the page. Revision is an essential step in the writing process, so after you write something let it sit for a while and come back to after the honeymoon period is over, that way you can see it for what it really is. In terms of doubts and worries, I can honestly say that they never go away for me, but one thing I’ve learned is the power of acceptance: my poems don’t make everyone happy, nor should they. What a boring poetry scene it would be if everyone liked everyone’s poems. Find other poets to share your work with and reciprocate feedback—it doesn’t matter if they write in a different style, so long as they give a damn about language in a real way. Start a writing group. Carry a journal. Affirm your dignity often. Listen.

speak toward and away from each other. Publishing in journals is really cool, though, since your work appears alongside others’, taking part in a community in a dynamic way. When I do submit individual poems for publication, I choose them based on whether or not they might contribute to the larger conversations going on in that particular journal or magazine. SVR: As a young poet, wh at advice would you give to poets, writers, and artists who are only beginning to find their voice and consider submitting their work for publication? What would you say is the best way for someone to overcome their doubts and

Laura Oliver

Coyote Cantos I. Coyote, you caught me alone tonight, your cries encircle the yard. The calico paces, claws ticking on the hardwood. I switch off the lights, stand at the window’s center shuddering with the eucalyptus. My vertical figure–a canine pupil, the window–a moonlit iris. I strain to see you, but only tremors in waist-high weeds. Pups nip at your jowls. You disgorge down eager throats. On the move again, ghosts passing through this town.

II. Mid-high ridge in the Topa Topas— sun has just set, pink haze over citrus ranches. Two groups of coyotes call across the valley, brief pauses as they await the others’ reply.

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One band travels; yips circle and twist, formless, hidden by dusk only sound, what do they say— coordinates of mountain lions, open hen house doors?

Laura Oliver

III. Ano Nuevo beach, this one’s brave sees the bipedal ones led by the familiar tour guide, lopes back through pickleweed to surfgrass—not now, but soon. When they’re past the dunes, up the windy path, Now! Young elephant seal flattened by a bull, its carcass sunleathered— a feast for this coyote hunger-driven into day. Smartphone cameras catch the sight.

IV. In the fastlane, my headlights illuminate a crumpled, canine figure. How many passed, thinking a small dog struck? But no, motionless, lies ochre-furred coyote. I want to believe the tale I tell my students, that coyote, seeking the sun, falls to earth, shatters like pottery, then pulls himself together: bones, blood, fur and flesh,

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He shakes this one off, too, breathes again sharp, coastal air. Swift heart beat, paws padding on asphalt, laughs off this latest predicament, and as my taillights become distant stars, slips into roadside brush.

Taryn Stine

Blood Orange Hungry gaze finds the prey through plumed fletching. Freed from a cage built of fingers, faux wings stretch in a dance of death. The tip quivers through sliced heart strings and she weeps in silence and learns. Other children are taught the art of living, not surviving. Cage becomes comb, soothing strands of pitch as soft as down, quieting the vernal whisper of despair.

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He trembles with last life then stills. Exorbitant antlers crook his neck in an odd angle like blooms of a bone bouquet. Hollow, obsidian eyes glaze with lazy reflections of summer clouds as thick as cataracts. He's where winter will not find him. She imagines the hide is a rind peeling away to reveal the fragile, succulent flesh of a blood orange. Disemboweling seeds as sweet juices run in thin streams down creviced veins into the earth.

Ted Bernal Guevara

Across and Down

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Frame your memory so I could see it tomorrow. Your place in mine has gone off with the tide. Memory is not quite the warmth that was once on me. So gather the particles and weigh in; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not too dispersed. I will look up and fly the gossamer of you yesterday. Could you withstand the mind without the frame? See it against the sea. It will elevate with the sun. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll just diminish tomorrow.

Anna Reeser

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Collecting

John Lambremont, Sr.

A DALLIANCE

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A hungry hummingbird darts and hovers, Mesmerized by the harlot bloom; Aromas draw him slowly nearer, Red petal cup serene and seductive, Yellow pistils thrusting saucily. Lust overcomes the excited suitor, his Loving kiss met with an airy appraisal; In moments, he sets his course and is gone, to Share a sweet tale with his brothers.

Tyler Bigney

Blackbird

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The same day my best friend shot down a blackbird from the sky with a pellet gun, my father taught me how babies were made – a man and a woman lay in bed naked together. And I cried that night, because a week earlier, I had laid under a thin sheet with a girl, naked. Just talking. Not thinking bad thoughts, not thinking any thoughts. The warmth of our bodies inches apart, our breath lifting the sheet, then letting it collapse into our open mouths. The open mouth of the blackbird in the field under some maple, the heat. How he didn’t know what to do with it, or his guilt. I didn’t think I’d actually hit it. I thought I would miss. I didn’t know what say, so I bent down and dug a hole with my fingers, and when the earth became too tough to dig, I used a stick. Both of us bent over in the sun like that, our backs burning, our necks a ring of fire, our mouths open, singing, because we’d been to funerals and that’s what people do there. Amazing Grace, backed by a violin. When the hole was deep enough, we buried him in it, mixed flowers in the dirt, so he’d have something to look at – his dreams in color.

Lisa Gurlin

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Crabcake

Rachel Pevsner

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Secret Fish Heart "Clam chowder in a breadbowl, for five please," we ask the hurried waitress who blows a bright bubble and snaps back her curly pink hair in a barrette. In its murky silverness, I can see, as if gazing through liquid, the contorted reflection of the underwater restaurant. Its theme twists in worn-out murals, dull fish chased by duller sharks, all peeling from their short time of sentience on the wall. From the high-backed chair where I sit, my wandering eyes see the waitress's feet drift away amidst a seaweed of chair legs and trousers: the restaurant is crowded with human tentacles, and my feet don't even touch the floor. In the loud hum, in the dangerous deep a voice calls out to me. A muted quality fills the room, a distortion of color and sound that holds me, captured, in the trance-like movements of a being underwater. Like ice cubes in a glass, I am frozen. There is a larger fish, standing two feet in front of me, and I am caught in the headlights that are his eyes. I remember this: my face pressed against the window to an ocean, where all I can see is the creature on the other side of the aquarium.

Rachel Pevsner

In the restaurant, the creature has a scruffy beard, a protruding belly, and wide blue irises. In the stillness that follows he smiles and speaks to me. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hello,â&#x20AC;? he says, sinister and frightening and sweet. Inside my little fish body, I recoil. In my human self, my feet aren't big enough to be useful as flippers and so I sit and I sit and I stare.

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In a moment or an hour he is distracted by a more colorful flash of pink scales and I am turning back to face the table and the relief of food being served on a platter with plenty of crayons and waters with ice. The steaming clam chowder burns my tongue and I don't really understand why but my secret fish heart thumps with curiosity.

Brandon Hood

Midnight on the Lake Cloudless night; Moon reflects in a perfect mirror, She rests on the motionless lake, The leaves, still silent on their branches. A single ripple in the water— White wings opened wide Cut through the air; Sailing through A sun soaked sky— Feathers ruffle, Her eyes, closed, dart Back and forth—

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Her bodiless sister beneath, From the tops of trees and Tips of mountains she glides, But sees them not; her sights Set ahead, onward She flies.

Clay Norris

Late to the Tide That kiss of salt on wet sand like blood on dry bones. Bones I wear for safety on the outside, brittle from the sun. I yearn for that break of waves rolling slow and thin across the beach, bringing plankton to sift around for. But todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sand is all dry and my new shell is too heavy.

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Every so often the moon plays a trick and yanks the tide out from under us when we least expect it. Us who swim only at the edges of earth and ocean. Perhaps we are fools for choosing a niche so sustainable and balanced. We laughed at those in the air struggling for water and those drenched gasping for air. I die dry, out of breath, and cursing clumsy galaxies.

Contributors’ Notes Jeffrey Alfier is a 2010 nominee for the UK’s Forward Prize for Poetry. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Emerson Review, New York Quarterly, and Red Wheelbarrow. His latest chapbook is The Gathering Light at San Cataldo (2012), and his first full-length book of poems, The Wolf Yearling, will be published in 2012 by Pecan Grove Press (US). He is founder and coeditor of San Pedro River Review.

Tyler Bigney was born in 1984. He lives, and writes in Nova Scotia, Canada. His writing has appeared in Pearl, Poetry New Zealand, Neon, The Meadow, and Third Wednesday, among others. Nicholas Cittadino is a counselor at Solano Community College and a graduate student at Eastern Kentucky University in their low-residency Creative Writing program. In his free time he enjoys spending time outdoors, playing guitar, and writing. Ashleigh Cowan is a mystery! Eric Dickey has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Oregon State University. He is a John Anson Kitredge Fund for Individual Artists grant recipient and a Vermont Studio Center Fellow. He co-edits Pacifica: Poetry International, formerly To Topos. He lives in Corvallis, Oregon. His poems have appeared in Rhino, talkingwriting.com, and blazevox.org. You can follow him at <twitter.com/MePoet>. Jeff Dupuis writes poetry and short fiction, and reviews nonfiction and how-to books. In his off hours, Jeff likes to train in the martial arts, or if nothing else, watch straight-to-DVD martial arts movies. Jeff Dupuis lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

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Ted Bernal Guevara is an avid Facebooker who “found his groove” last in the last year, concentrating on novel writing. In breaks, he lets poetry engulf his head. Lisa Gurlin is currently a Graphic Design and Illustration major at Solano Community College. Her passions include examining the connection between literary and visual art, taking advantage of exciting new learning opportunities, and networking with other artists the world over. Her artwork was published in the 2011 issue of Suisun Valley Review. Her artistic endeavors are casually recorded and can be viewed at <kuroikii.deviantart.com>.

Connie Gutowsky began studying poetry after retiring from the practice of law in 2002. She was a public defender and later in private practice. She has lived in Sacramento with her husband since 1967. They are the parents of three sons. Brandon Hood is a twenty-two year old currently studying English at Solano Community College. He is in a touring band, Built By Stereo; he plays bass and sings backing vocals. Arthur Jackson has been an SCC student since 2009 where he majors in Fine Arts, 2-D. Arthur also has a deep interest in creative writing, particularly poetry. John Lambremont, Sr. is a poet from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he lives with his wife and their Jack Russell terrier runt. John has a B.A. in Creative Writing and a J.D. from L.S.U. His poems have been published internationally by more than forty literary reviews and anthologies, including The Chaffey Review, Sugar House Review, A Hudson View (6449 Pushcart Prize nomination), Red River Review, and Taj Mahal Review. John has work forthcoming in The Louisiana Review and Words and Images. He enjoys adult baseball, modern jazz, and playing the guitar. Jerry D. Mathes II is a Jack Kent Cooke Scholar alum. He has published in numerous journals. His most recent poetry collection is The Journal West. He fights wildfire on a helicopter-rappel crew during the summer and taught the Southernmost Poetry Workshop in the World at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica during the 2009-2010 Austral summer season and 2011 -2012 Austral summer season where he worked in logistics. Caxton Press will release his memoir, Ahead of the Flaming Front, about his time fighting wildfire in 2013. He loves his two daughters very much. Ashley Mitchell is a student from Solano Community College.

Rita Okusako, in her free time, likes to work on her super -underground Sacramento-based t-shirt label, Sensible Apparel. Her work can be viewed at <Dudermanor.com>.

Clay Norris is a young writer, political activist, media personality, and liberal socialite fighting against delusions of austerity. He writes from inspiration of political and social issues, the environment, astrophysics, evolutionary biology, morbidity, and the sounds of words.

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Carol Louise Moon is a mystery!

Contributors’ Notes Laura Oliver’s poems have appeared in Black Zinnias, The Reed, The Red Wheelbarrow, The Burnside Review, Slipstream, Prosodia and others. She earned her MFA in Poetics and Writing from New College of California and teaches poetry and writing classes for youth throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Rachel Pevsner is a creative writing student at the University of California, Davis. Her writing has appeared in The Davis Poetry Anthology, The Yolo Crow, and Sphere Magazine, among others. In 6414, she was awarded the Gene Roddenberry Memorial Scholarship for the Aspiring Writer. She is currently the editor-in-chief of the Human Rights Journal at UC Davis, although she spends the majority of her free time counting the days until graduation. Lisa Jetonne Quintero is a native Californian and one of the identical twin granddaughters of JBL and Altec-Lansing founder James Bullough Lansing. Lisa studied conservation biology and chemistry at University of Nebraska, and later completed a veterinary technology college program; she worked with animals in zoos, wildlife centers, and veterinary hospitals for more than a decade before switching to the arts. Her interest in science and conservation remain key influences in her artwork. Lisa’s home and studio are in the Bay Area of northern California. Anna Reeser is a recent UC Berkeley graduate working as a graphic designer in Oakland. She writes and makes ink drawings and etchings, which she publishes on her website <www.annareeser.com>.

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Amy Ballard Rich's long strange journey through life is the inspiration for her work. Her mother was her first writing coach, her writing grew as she earned her BA in English at University of Oregon, and she recently rekindled her love of poetry through Berkeley City College's poetry program. Amy has several pieces published in literary journals and blogs, and a chapbook entitled Thump that is waiting to be published. Noel Sloboda is the author of the poetry collection _Shell Games_ as well as four chapbooks. He has also published a book about Gertrude Stein and Edith Wharton. Sloboda teaches at Penn State York and serves as dramaturg for the Harrisburg Shakespeare Company. Taryn Stine is a previously unpublished writer and a current student at Solano Community College. She formerly attended the University of Nevada, Reno, for a baccalaureate degree in Psychology.

Zachary Sweet grew up in Fairfield, California. He has been doing freelance illustration for 11 years. He recently published his third zine, â&#x20AC;&#x153;In The Cutsâ&#x20AC;? (2012). He is currently studying Media Arts and Animation at The Art Institute of San Francisco. Karen Wiley was born and raised in Fairfield, California after which she relocated to Eugene, Oregon as she found herself drawn to its vibrant art community. She has since returned to Fairfield, she currently finds herself drawn to seascapes and abstract.

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Brandon Williams is a graduate of the University of California, Riverside. He has been published in journals such as The Greensilk Journal, The Delinquent, The Centrifugal Eye, The Rattlesnake Review, Fewer Than 500, American Pressings, CommonLine, Milk Money, Words-Myth, ken*again, and Scawy Monstur. He' s a firm believer in down-home country music and is probably almost certainly a strict constitutionalist.

Special thanks to Bruce Clark, Jowel C. Laguerre, Jeff Lamb, 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 94131 suisunvalleyreview@gmail.com