the Anthologist vol. 78 issue. 1 fall 2013
the Anthologist
the Anthologist “The Anthologist” is a literary and arts magazine that has served in preserving and inspiring Rutgers’ creativity for nearly a century, publishing high-quality art and writing. For copyright terms and more information visit: antho.rutgers@gmail.com RUSA Allocations Board, paid for by student fees.
2
Fall 2013 Volume 78
Index volume 78. issue 1. fall 2013
Staff Officers Jasmeet Bawa / Editor-in-Chief Deniz Tanguz / Managing Editor Philip S. Wythe / Copy Editor Elisabet Paredes / Public Relations Officer
Editors Jennifer Comerford Tiffany Lu / Social Media Coordinator Chelsea Pineda Peter J. Rosa / Graphic Designer Matt Talyor / Social Media Coordinator Christina Vogt Allie Williams
Advisor Professor Brad Evans
3
Fall 2013 Volume 78
Content 10
Rescue Nomin Ujiyediin Life on Mars Interrupted Philip S. Wythe Past Few Years Michelle Moncayo The Finch Michael Masterton Mama Nina Narang Untitled Raka Chaki The Siren Song, the Orphic Matthew Theriault Modern Mary Kyle Malinosky Untitled Shireen Hamza At the Late Night Hotel Kyle Malinosky Garlic Toast Michael Masterton Scapegrace Bryan Ezawa
11 12 13 14 17 18 19 22 24 26 27
5
Fall 2013 Volume 78
Trigger Content Untitled Tatiana Ades June Revisited Caitlyn Gilvary Operation Iraqi Freedom Hadiya Abdelrahman Extraction Nomin Ujiyedin
31 34 35 39
7
the Anthologist
8
Fall 2013 Volume 78
Letter from the Editor-in-Chief “Create” and “curate” exist as twin sisters on the tongue; their essences entangle amidst the production of their meaning. In curating there is creation- the sum is greater than the wholeand in order to create, it is necessary to curate the fractions that are amplified through construction or reduction. I find joy in the meanings, sounds, origins, and deliverance of wordseven when they are left unspoken. I hear how they are bent or molded into rhymes, how strings of words delicately placed or misplaced weave together symphonies. For the past three months in the Writers House, every Tuesday, I shared this joy with my staff and editors. We carefully went over submissions, picked at their purposes, the vehicles in which they were delivered and fashioned them together the book you are now holding. The anthologists are not only proud to bring you a volume of voices, (minimal in their staccato or ambitious in their flowing) but also proud to introduce a new tradition to the decades of our history: trigger warnings. Here at The Anthologist we are eager to listen to craft and where this craft is headed. Works of art with content that might provoke visceral or potentially negative emotional reactions have been positioned at the end of the publication. As those who have joined our meetings know, The Anthologist prioritizes a comfortable and safe environment for anyone seeking to enjoy our university’s diverse and talented voices. We hope you find the same sense of comfort as you revel in this anthology. Happy reading, Jasmeet Bawa Editor-in-Chief
9
the Anthologist
Rescue
Nomin Ujiyediin I don’t know how to write a poem in the second person. I can’t speak to myself, for myself, like that. I don’t have that capacity for self-reflection, self-condemnation, self-definition, self-love. It would require knowing what I need to hear and I have never known what is good for me, only what I want. I do what I can to placate that hunger, that bottomless maw. I read, I drink, I walk. Sometimes I fuck. More rarely still, I write. I do what I can with my indigent words, those flimsy trifles, Point them outwards, elsewhere, never in. If I knew how to save my self from myself Perhaps I would weave a net with my own words, a few well-chosen pronouns, cast it into my own mouth, and haul my self, pale and pruny, gasping, slick with half-digested thoughts, out of the darkness. But I never know what to say, where to begin. I’ve swallowed my self whole, and I don’t know how to get out. I’ve never known what I’m starving for, only that I want.
10
Fall 2013 Volume 78
Life on Mars Interrupted Philip S. Wythe
You’re driving down the highway on a cold Winter afternoon. On any other day, the wind would be howling against your seat in the back passenger’s side; but, today, a slither of light shines from the grey skies above. Staring at the side window, you remember now: you’re with your friends on that extended daytrip. It’s really outdone its welcome. You were suppose to be back home by 3, but they insisted - “no, no, stay out till 5.” So it’s late afternoon now, and you’re riding down that stretch of highway on Route 26. As you catch the dark blue vans and sedans buzz by, your mind feels more preoccupied with the next stop than the next song. That is, until you pick up a track coming in from the radio. With a whiz and a sputter, the DJ whispers that he’s playing a backwall hit. An old one, he eeks from the radio, for the Hunky Dory fans out there. As you turn your neck towards the sky, poetry starts to fill the car. You can hear the refrain begin. A whirl rises inside from the pit of your chest, and a smile glides from the tip of your face. You realize it now - yes, that’s it! That song - it was always really your favorite, wasn’t it? Don’t you remember? It was always the one song, that really described You hear a click, and the music stops. “I don’t like this song,” your friend says. “And besides, it’s my turn to pick the music.”
And static rumbles from the car instead.
11
the Anthologist
The Past Few Years Michelle Moncayo
Hearing the creak of drawers makes me feel the cold underside of spoons your water-stained wooden drawers sputtering spoons, moons of silver inscribed with your initials; under the glow of alzheimer’s mirror before your bones brittled like coral reefs, you harvested spoonsspoons you thought they’d steal when you left in the late afternoon spoons tucked into your front pocket in restaurants at dinner; lined up like north stars, they were something familiar the names of your grandchildren you forgot, but not the spoons. yet this is how I remember you: your handwriting watermarked into the spoons I use like the faint stain of pomegranate seeds not the way you lingered with your nameless grandchildren inviting them to sit and watch the birds - no it’s your back hunched in devotional deed at night writing on spoons: lined up like north stars I tuck your last letter in my pocket: your initials glowing prayer beads.
12
Fall 2013 Volume 78
The Finch
Michael Masterton Swollen beak, and restless wings, The Finch lands on cobbled things, With sun south, and claws shown north, Standing shadows piercing forth, Un-paralyzed, never still, Courage vacant, terror mills. Golden flares marked him divine, Some knew it a silver line. Yet, most followed, showing grace, Relationships, poison laced. His persona made public, A slow decline, reaching sick. He sat stout on his branch, clutched, Cold, shaking, in winters rough. A vandal in his own flock, The others talk, kept in lock. His heart covered black, Sept through feathers, changing fact. Turned into a stunted crow, Now lined in terrific row, His call gleamed, and gave him too. A Finch remained all in lieu. Still shunned for hours he flew, Launched into brick ocean, blue.
13
the Anthologist
Mama
Nina Narang In a prelude to your existence, God came and told your mother not to fear your arrival. Because you were just like Him and her and you would need love because kids are mean and life is tough. You made it, lady, because your mother was a God fearing woman and she loved Him too. So when you arrived, she said, “My baby, I am hardly ready for you, a child myself, but if God says that you are like me and I like Him, I guess it’ll just be You and me, kid.” And then you were alive, like He said you’d be. Bawling with tears dripping down your chubby cheeks – you didn’t get past that birth trauma business until you were eight years old. Your mother told me that on the day you were born, she knew that was the beginning of Chapter Two in her life because Chapter One certainly, certainly had no more room left for you. Like thunder, she would recall your cries, years later, when the dread of the memories
14
Fall 2013 Volume 78
had faded away like your mother’s youth Her black, thick hair changed and it was like with you, little you, she didn’t even know what to do anymore. When the tired came to mama’s bed, you the child tried to hide and seek somewhere far from the fact that she the mother would never be young again despite the fact that she the mother tried time and again poetry, youth, rebellion, youth, life and youth these were the chants that your mama had breathed and you had repeated, the child who was born in the image of Him. You, baby you knew your phone number on good days and the sky was blue but for sometimes and in the night and If Chapter Two started with poetry and youth and the hallowed fountain of it bathed in the waters of words that rhymed and memory that would not slip, you the child, slipped and raced home on muddy slide-y paths proud that your memory would not have skidded knees and out of breath, asthma acting up, you raced home. She was lying down and you marched up to her but only gently called for her eyes, they draw to you.
15
the Anthologist
She looked, of course, because you knew, even then that maybe mama wouldn’t be there forever so it was important that you focused really, really hard to remember that haiku. “Mama”, you said, “The cold winds blow strong But with you there is no wind Just your mama smile” and then, your mama smiled because He was right. Thus ended Chapter Two.
16
Fall 2013 Volume 78
Raka Chaki Mountains between us Close, as our hearts’ valleys speak. Rivers of love flow.
17
the Anthologist
The Siren Song, the Orphic Hymn Matthew Theriault
As were the souls of seafarers by sirens’ songs ensnared By music most melodious, such men met unprepared Their maker, every inhibition having been impaired, So too this verse receive. As from the depths of Tartarus where Hades housed the dead By Orpheus’ symphony Eurydice was led, Elysium forsaking for his lyre’s call instead, So to these verses cleave. Hear throughout this harmony my harking to your heart, Refined in rhyme and rhythm by the cunning of my art, That I a longing languishment may so in you impart When you these words perceive.
18
Fall 2013 Volume 78
Modern Mary Kyle Malinosky
Bark unwrapped the trees Leaving white wood, Freeing racy luster To shimmer in the mist‌ It was blinding And healing I became lost Lost in the flames Breathing in Continents of air, And out, And in, Breathing out, And in, It was rhythmic And forgotten The white eyes came Again I had the eyes Again I knew them I searched for Faces and fruits There in the black warmth, But, but I knew them Beating rhythm I knew those eyes They have gazed at Me before From a distance or Around a corner, Slightly over my shoulder Still drifting
19
the Anthologist
Farther away Away from my home, My conscious, My body, My self, All I knew was The beating, And those eyes, The beating, And those eyes, The breaths longer, Out and in Longer out and in My neck stretched And turned Searching for a place To release Pour out childhood Burst in liberation Cry havoc And let slip The dogs of love In the mirror Of water I saw those Eyes Were Mine, God’s Or both
20
Fall 2013 Volume 78
21
the Anthologist
Shireen Hamza i think the moon a fierce lover the ocean slips away - it never learned how to stay but the pull of the moon stirs it from its deepest depths and it returns is anyone as patient as the sea? every month awaiting the full moon - the white of its waves’ fingertips seeking refuge at the edges of a crescent moon smile waiting as only a lover can every month mourning as only a lover can
22
Fall 2013 Volume 78
23
the Anthologist
At The Late Night Hotel Kyle Malinosky
Hot blood flows Underneath my lips Underneath your cup Warming your coffee It collects and pools And smells of Nature Your musk saunters Sexually and slowly Down the hall Invades Lingers on the palette Makes my fingers spread The glasses on the table Fog Light slips through The crack below the door Vapors from outside Stalk in from slits In the blinds Without thought I rose Creeping out of My sheets
24
Fall 2013 Volume 78
Stepping softly Over to the wall My mouth open And my head tilted To listen I jerked Bound for the door It opened on command And there you stood At the next door down Jumbling through keys Sipping coffee You smiled and said “The coffee’s hot Just how I like it”, And your door closed Behind you I went back to bed There was a push Against my skin And I knew At that exact moment Somewhere in the universe
25
the Anthologist
Garlic Toast: Michael Masterton
I had already ordered, but hardly hungry, You drank bourbon with him, And extra dry gin? Her food had arrived, penne vodka of all things, A waiter served my plate, My appetite chagrin. The waiter then left, our thoughts hung, clouding our drinks, My eyes turned rapiers, Her armor never chinked. Then we sat there, in silence, as she ate her food, Her chewing gait slowed, As I worsened the mood. Her lips told the story of grave mistakes she’d made, As she slouched and looked down, I had left her in trade. I imagined her eyes glancing after I’d left, My car keys- my wallet, And my sober thoughts rest. My walk home alone seemed like it had taken weeks, Through melancholic leavesThe epiphany reeked RememberingAlways take two cars to dinner.
26
Fall 2013 Volume 78
Scapegrace Bryan Ezawa
To the Wretched and the Outcasts To those who Fear and Cringe To the Scapegrace and the Sinner
Consume their hate and beg for seconds of this delectable dish, a feast of filth Break bread with your haters, hated! Smile at their scowl, scowl at their smile Kiss their hand and pick their pocket, O Disheveled Devil. Skip in the fields of fear pick the flower of flattery wrench the petals of pity cast the stem of sympathy behead the beauty Love your lacking beat your bliss hug your hatred kill your kindness Let them bellow judgment Put your heart on the scale And watch it tip Hear the scale ring Sinner Sinner Sinner Tip your hat and take a bow Don’t let them see How youthful that heart is on the scale ripe and heavy 27
Fall 2013 Volume 78
trigger warning*
The following pieces contain one or more mentions of: violence, rape, body mutilation, sexualized violence, drug use, abusive relationships
23 29
the Anthologist
Fall 2013 Volume 78
[TW: sexualized violence, body mutilation]
Untitled Tatiana Ades
The bible has it all wrong, Adam and Eve never made love in the garden, Never writhed as one in soft light, Under the canopy of leaves, Soft prints of bodies in the grass. When Eve craved sugar, She plucked the pomegranate from the tree She pressed her uncut fingernails into the flesh And pulled the two halves apart. Rubies fell, and the seeds took to the ground and stained her hands Pink. She picked each one, and crushed it Between her strong tongue and the roof of her mouth, (They didn’t want you to know that, that Eve had a strong tongue, a chisel will) as she plucked them and ate God shook the trees and the fruit began to fall fast and hard, Clonking Adam right in the head, as he watched Eve crumble to the ground. God, a disappointed father, Called on Death to punish his little girl, Said he couldn’t look at her stained hands, Her wet mouth. Death came with his cloak and his scythe and the Siblings lay in the dirt and
31
the Anthologist
Looked left, then right, at the ground between Eve and Adam, Littered with ruby seeds. “Stand,” he commanded, looking at the body of Eve, He walked to her, appraised the way her flesh wore over her bones, Felt the air flow in his cloak, fluid in the spaces between his bones. He looked for a place, First at the armpit, where oceans and hair pooled, “Too close to her eyes,” and told her to turn, her nude back faced him and his once was hand scraped down the nape of her neck, where her long hair often fell. He told her to turn once more, and watched the bridge between her thighs, Smooth and soft, And took his scythe and told her to lay. On her back, Death moved towards her and Eve stared at the sky, He carved out a place between her legs, a place where her pelvic bones crowned, Her screams, as blood poured onto the grass with the red fruit. He watched the flesh pucker like a flower to be plucked. He held the remaining flesh in his hands, He looked at Adam, he must’ve been hungry, For he had not eaten the pomegranate, And told him, 32
Fall 2013 Volume 78
“dinner.” Adam knew nothing of choice and ate the wet, tender flesh of his sister’s new wound, Adam fell into fetal in the grass as Eve’s insides moved into his stomach, Quenched his hunger. Eve’s terror was joined as a limb began growing below the base of Adam’s stomach, For the extra flesh wanted to return home, And thought the south state in the foreign body would be the perfect place. Death looked at the wreck of blood and fruit and flesh and through off his cloak To show his pearly frame in the dimming light, His cloak landed on Eve, and he said, “You wear that or the fruit you were so hungry for, he will come eat. You will bleed like the seeds you devoured, you will consume his seed, his seed will take into your caverns, it will grow in your wounds. He turned to Adam, “You will never watch passively as she sins, you will sin against her body, you will eat for her body, you will be cursed with a hunger that can never truly be satisfied, your kind will always try to return to her emptiness.” And death, as he lead them out of the garden, left the first two lovers in the world. 33
the Anthologist
[TW: drug use]
June Revisited Caitlyn Gilvary
You slip the needle into place. Your veins – the grooves of an old record. You are beautiful even with cigarette smoke skin. Even with ribs outside your body. Even with the heart of a hummingbird. I have had not one but three lovers who have admitted to masturbating to the thought of you. Our favorite song plays on the radio. You ask me to, so I undress your wounds with my tongue.
34
Fall 2013 Volume 78
[TW: violence, rape]
Operation Iraqi freedom. Hadiya Abdelrahman
Have you ever seen a mother’s eyes just told of a body found shaped in the way her sleeping son’s body curls when his nightmares get too bad? Her eyes falling like Baghdad’s grace and Fallujah’s dignity? Operation Iraqi freedom. The hips of an Iraqi refugee’s body: they sway on the borders of her country for men who never wanted to hear about her stories of homeland and how the bread never tasted as good as the local baker’s, who always gives her an extra piece ‘for her beautiful Iraqi eyes’. Her body sways to the war drums. She once wrote poetry, rich as the Euphrates, deep as the Babylonian history. She was the daughter of a sultan, the beauty of a setting sun on Kurdistan’s Mountains. She was history in a dilapidated building, at the edges of no man’s land, marketing territories of broken memories, broken homelands, and Damned souls. Abeer Al Janabi was fourteen when
35
the Anthologist
she saw her family burned in fires of Liberation, of better tomorrows. Her eyes reflected a silenced humanity, Her screams never made it to 50-second sound bites for us to digest from the comfort of our living rooms. Her body was raped. Fourteen years old, fourteen years too short. Have you ever wondered if she looked in the mirror and asked if she was beautiful? Was the curve of her eyes like her mothers? Would her smile make boys turn their heads? Have you ever wondered if she hummed along to songs on the radio as she helped her mother in the kitchen? Her little body, warm with the heat of her family’s flesh, slowly caving into itself. Paradise lost. Paradise found. Close your eyes, abeer. Close your eyes. There now. There. Shhhh. Mama is waiting for you, Baba is waiting for you. Heaven has a place for you where all the boys will break their necks just to look at the flowers growing down your
36
Fall 2013 Volume 78
spine. They’ve broken you open, but all I see is light. Rest now, rest. the operation is almost over, is almost over, rest. Baba, six year old Hadeel, are waiting for you. Operation Iraqi freedom. Meanwhile, they march on Washington, in beautiful conference rooms in Paris, London, New York sipping on champagne and telling me to tell them ways they can help these women. “How do we save them from the men Who want to destroy their womanhood?” I see the massacres in their eyes. I see wailing mothers asking “why me?” I see their slender wrists and polished hands and wonder how can they ever understand? Iraq bled. Iraq, where women could have taught this whole world how to live, bled. Iraq bled and they want her to stop wearing Black. “How can we help? We can start a project and fund women to come study here, see how they can learn from the West: let them experience freedom.”
37
the Anthologist
An Iraqi mother kisses her son for the last time. Rubs her hands over his cheeks. Apple of her eye. Syria’s borders huddle in women with blackened eyes and cheap red lipstick. Babylonian goddesses at your demand, broken bodies for the night. I wonder if Abeer Al Janabi would’ve wanted to study in America. I wonder if she knew that her burned body was a holy temple for broken women, for silenced women, was a holy temple where we come rest our lonely souls when the world is silent about our pain. I wonder if they ever talk about her in their conferences. Clanking forks and knives over stories of how to save women from men who are already dead.
38
Fall 2013 Volume 78
[TW: abusive relationships]
Extraction Nomin Ujiyediin
The first man to get under my skin in a year. The only one who could return my blows With the requisite fervor— Steady as a heartbeat Sure as a hammer. I could only hold him under for so long. Lured by the promise of elsewheres He clawed his way out Gasping for air Something sweet Something unbroken. And now As I pull the nails from my body I look for something to plug the holes.
39
the Anthologist
Fall 2013 Volume 78
theantho.com theanthologist.tumblr.com @theanthologist1 facebook.com/rutgers.anthologist
the Anthologist
the Anthologist Join the tradition. Submit to antho.rutgers@gmail.com
42