Spring 11, Volume 14 Issue 2 by Touchstones Journal

Volume 14, Issue 2

Touchstones Volume 14, Issue 2 Spring 2011

Table of Contents 5

Advisor’s Foreward

6 Acknowledgements 7

Staff

PROSE

1 0 An Ache Like a Watermark Samantha Herzog 13

Still Life: Arranged Brenda Johnson

4:00 at Travis County Unit Candice Kellek

At the Heart of a Tomato Lauren Vael Matthews

Prose Second Place

Prose Third Place

2 3 Thunderlust Lauren Vael Matthews Touchstones Department of English/Literature LA 114 Utah Valley University 800 West University Parkway Orem, UT 84058 Touchstones is published twice a year during the fall and spring semesters. UVU students may submit work under the following categories: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, drama, and visual art. Turn submissions in to the English Department office (LA 114) and include the application form found at research.uvsc.edu/touchstones or the department office. All rights revert to artists upon publication.

2 5 A Character Sketch Darek Parcell Prose First Place 3 0 Needle in the Hay Andy Sherwin 3 3 Dry Clean Only Andy Sherwin 39 D R A M A 4 0 The Story Stone Wendy Gourley

5 9 P O E T RY 60 First Day Nadia Ashtawy 61

Fertility Goddess Emily Ballstaedt

6 4 The Longboat Richard Bohn 6 5 À l’un / To the un Annik Maryse Budge 66 Exchanges Anthony Christensen 68

Fillers and Additives Robert Foster

6 9 One Way Robert Foster

Poetry Third Place

7 0 Realization Shersta Chabot Gatica 7 2 Short Verses of February Nathan Hatton 75

Mother, He Asks Me (When He is Old Enough to Speak) Emma Hunt-Samudio

7 6 Home Economics Emma Hunt-Samudio

Poetry First Place

7 7 Tonight Brenda Johnson

Poetry Second Place

7 8 Matter Brenda Johnson 7 9 Transient Jeremy Raborn 81

From Wild Fractured Noise William Craig Snapp

83 A RT 8 4 Hesitant Kara Callan 8 6 Another Day Missed Adam Christensen 8 8 Repetition #2 Adam Christensen 9 0 Graffiti Lounge Andrew Guile

Art Third Place

9 2 Nightstand Andrew Guile 9 4 Oily Mess Andrew Guile 9 6 Spinach Ravioli Andrew Guile 9 8 Camel Phillip Jackson 1 0 0 Continuation Phillip Jackson 1 02 ESPN Zone Phillip Jackson 1 04 Going Against the Grain Phillip Jackson

Advisor’s Foreward

1 0 6 Morning Routine Larissa Norman

Art First Place Featured as Cover Art

1 0 8 The Blue Door Rachel Leavitt 1 1 0 Sunrise Alexis Mackay 1 1 2 Invisible Child Jeremy Palmer 1 1 4 Fruit Stand Nicole Archibald Spencer 116

Geometric Castle Geometric Pawn Geometric Rook Geometric Queen Nicole Archibald Spencer

Art Second Place (Geometric Castle)

1 1 8 Huish Rob Steffen 120

An Interview with Katharine Coles, Utah State Poet Laureate Heather Duncan and Emily Fairchild

1 40 Awards 1 4 4 Contributors

Early yesterday morning, Deb Thornton and I went birding. It had snowed a thick slush the night before, causing the crack of morning light to burn halo-like through the clouds. Our first sighting (besides the six wet Robins) was not actually sighted, but heard: “Orem-is-a-pretty-little-town” the Meadow Lark bubbled, and then we saw his lime-yellow underparts. It was going to be a good day. And it was. We keep a running list of the birds we see: American Kestrel, Redtailed Hawk, Sandhill Crane, Great Blue Heron, Redhead, Cinnamon Teal, Gadwall (to name a few). But we’re no bird bigots and cheered on the Seagulls and Starlings just the same. The late breakfast at Denny’s brought us mediocre coffee and good conversation. “What was your ‘bird of the day’?” I asked. “Not a bird, but a color,” Deb replied. “The red cap on the Sandhill Crane.” . . . Beauty is in the details. Rainer Maria Rilke tells us in Letter Four of his Letter to a Young Poet: If you trust in Nature, in what is simple in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will becomes easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness and knowledge. In this, our Spring issue of Touchstones, Utah Valley University students have seen the red cap of the Sandhill Crane, and expressed it in all its glory, variety, horror, and mystery. Like the birds, our students show us. See. Write. Read. Dr. Laura Hamblin Faculty Advisor Spring 2011

Acknowledgements Touchstones would like thank everyone who was involved in making the journal a success this semester. This list includes: Cody Thatcher and Andrew Guile from UVU’s Culinary Arts Institute who have been so great in working with us to plan our events, department chair Dr. Robert Cousins who has been there to answer even our most menial questions, Dr. Laura Hamblin who can make anything happen and whose creative writing expertise and advice was invaluable, Aaron Guile for his insight and dedication, Krista Landon for helping us in the office, Scott Hatch for the use of his office and computer, and KatharineColes for her gracious willingness to do the interview featured in this issue. Special thanks go to the Department of Theatrical Arts and its students for assisting us in our effort to get more drama submissions—we look forward to working with you again. We would also like to thank those who support the journal semester after semester, year after year—specifically everyone on the English and Art and Visual Communications Department faculties. Thank you for letting us visit your classes, for recommending and encouraging students to join our staff, for requiring students to submit to our publication, and for attending My Word. Those of us who have had the opportunity to work on the journal appreciate your support.

Staff Editor-in-Chief Meggie Woodfield Managing Editors Michael Brown Roarke Stone Prose Editor Ben Norell Assistant Prose Editor Lorna Marie Larson Prose Staff Austin Anderson Benjamin Bailey Karen Bates Emily Burdett Delia Elias Chantel Hall Jordan McAllister Teralyn Mitchell Megan Morris Logan Roe Jillian Rose Poetry Editor Dwight Tanner

Karen Bates Poetry Staff Emily Burdett Megan Christensen Meg Christensen Heather Duncan Dahne Davis Amelia England Delia Elias Emily Fairchild Amelia England Jace (Billy) Hodgson Linsay Ernst Tyson Steele Emily Fairchild Art Staff Laura Gilchrist Aaron Guile Aaron Guile Audrey Moore Chantel Hall Nicholas Moore Technical Editor Jace (Billy) Hodgson Brenda Johnson MarkieAnn Gardner Technical Staff Benjamin Killgore Rebecca Ames Lorna Marie Larson Liz Martinez Lorna Marie Larson Jordan McAllister Jared Magill Teralyn Mitchell Ben Norell Megan Morris Faculty Advisor Ben Norell Laura Hamblin Jillian Rose Readers Tyson Steele Austin Anderson Dwight Tanner Benjamin Bailey

Touchstones

An Ache Like a Watermark Samantha Herzog

I struggle with the tufted knob of this shrunken head of a refrigerator: I know all about his amateur voodoo. I have uttered curses in the form of these same stuttering, hesitant memories once before. The appliance throbs; it is suctioned to the wall, oddly sterile but alive, like the cold sweat caught in a dental hygienist’s hairline, quaking mechanically and sighing. I peel back its face, and cradled in the cavities of those chilled, pivoting teeth, his traps are everywhere: in this half-jar of his doubled-over mayonnaise, most of a bottle of cloistered ketchup, the shared mustard; those poor abandoned bastards! It seems that their awkward father, the boy I most recently leased my heart to, never used condiments. But in spite of the spite, I put them on because a sandwich needs a little something: even if that something is newly saturated with the stale smell of late love, or stumbles in clumps with the dust of this eviction notice. The dried up flesh of the familiar clung to all of our bored decorum there, but here I’m continually shaking off coats of newborn skin, and building up dream nests in every crevice. I collect 10

the naivety in each current of this current space, trap it for study, then shift to other humors. I may be their mother, but I still don’t know what makes them move, only that when they do, these childmoments become suddenly wise. And they’re telling me now that what I really need is some of that new-life stuff: just a thin layer (at first) to test its nutty subtleness. It lingers with a ghost-taste and a growing bite: intense with thickened senses, then seasoned with risky instruction. It’s the kind of thing you have to really chew to get to the center of, enduring and firm. So I fold each palm and keep busy with this crafting of the undisciplined student in me, but all I’ve learned so far is this: just to wait for the lesson, and then (when it hits!) turn and start up, aha! now isn’t that something else, love. . . ? to whoever’s close enough, then watch for the bullet-wounds. I’m braced with this bravado-trigger, and it makes me want to love, so once it’s drawn back, I do. It’s so invitingly terrible that I’ve sprung it on complete strangers: hijacking their best intentions, urging them to empty every pocket of their surface thoughts and to let me belly the rest, indefinitely. It’s inspired and unexpected: a virgin birth every time. The burden of being the miracle-mother is the beauty of this process. No one ever mentions the labor-pains, but they ache like a watermark, and a virgin knows them best, feels them most and, most of all, bellies them indefinitely. So I tipped over a bottle of liquor, forgot my bitterness in the cleanup, and found myself having an unusually intimate moment with usual linoleum of this semi-conventional half kitchen. I was all palms and knees on the floor, running nails down its back, and rolling broken and deceptively smooth shards along the bed of its hallowed hips. The ground’s single muscle held my weight tenderly, those small currents polishing the garbage glass until they became regal the way river rocks are. The electronic onlookers 11

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stood like passive alien gods, balanced on sleek tip-toes, static breath gathered, archiving each exotic moment in their records, calculating and never judging. . . and I can hear you next door: convulsing over there with that clumsy, good-natured crow croon, again. Your deadbolt squeals to a stop, and that’s where you begin. I never knew that I lived in such an overwhelming wilderness until I heard you and your ironic National Geographic soundtrack, an assortment of late-night shape-shifting beasts, and the steady, intended stillness of your morning’s running water. It’s all pooling at my door like learned love and lapping up each minute with its swarm of tongues. Wave after wave, armfuls of your human tumblings wash ashore, but I am home in them, because home is always moving, and all that I’ve learned is that movement moves into wisdom, and then I am a mother again.

Still Life: Arranged Brenda Johnson Prose Second Place

A boy lying on a bed in a small room. Clothes are heaped in piles, ignored. Plastic wrappers are scattered around—remnant of human weakness. Outside the curtained windows, one can hear children on their way to school. No one remembers that they haven’t seen the boy in days. Outside the curtained windows one can hear children on their way to school. Plastic wrappers are scattered around in a small room— remnant of human weakness. Clothes are heaped in piles, ignored. A boy lying on a bed. No one remembers that they haven’t seen the boy in days. No one remembers that they haven’t seen the boy in days. Outside the curtained windows in a small room, one can hear children on their way to school—remnant of human weakness. Plastic wrappers are scattered around. Clothes are heaped in piles, ignored. A boy lying on a bed. No one remembers the boy they haven’t seen in days. Outside a small room, one can hear children on their way to school. Plastic wrappers are scattered around the curtained windows. Clothes are heaped in piles. A boy lying on a bed, ignored—remnant of human weakness. 12

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4:00 at Travis County Unit Candice Kellek

There was something familiar about the man’s stare, the man in the last cement module on the bottom floor. He arrived eight days ago. The rumor was that he was taken down at the airport for assaulting a member of airport security, that his laugh was like a disturbing itch. It was described by the deputy as being like when an outsider shows up to a party, gets everyone’s attention, then tells an inappropriate joke and no one laughs—the silence displaces and permeates the room and no one knows exactly what to do with their hands. Synonymous with this laughter in the white-streaked airport was the tense embarrassment the guard felt when he discovered what he thought to be explosives, or at least a crazed man’s false reproduction of them. Instead, he began to pull cellular phones, one after another, out of the man’s pockets. There were thirty-seven cellular phones in all, stuffed into deep pockets of worn khaki carpenter pants and in the shirt pockets of his flannel. Apparently the man had a knack for petty theft, indeed, a talent for it. Several women had reported missing phones that day, hysterical mothers robbed of their electronic devices before he was taken down by attentive airport security. The thirty-seventh belonged to this man, 14

whose every move was now being monitored on the bottom level of the Travis County Unit. It’s been eight days now that he has been a part of the block. His name is Pete. After learning of his arrival, I tried to imagine him in the frenzied state described, as a self-dignified thief, writhing on the floor with pleasure. This was a variety of madness unknown to me, and he had no self-evident signs that would signal unease. Each day as he trudges past my booth where I’m stationed, a vessel apart from any activity on the floor, he relieves himself of a glare that passes through the safety of the thick glass. From within the glass that exposes me from the waist up on three of four sides, this stare, in its crude directness, confounds me, forcing me to relive a child-like state of penitence. Trapped in a nostalgic warp, I recollect the frown that would appear on my father’s face when I had done something wrong. Pete’s stare pulls shameful energy from me, and it sticks to the air in front of my face like a fog. Government jobs follow a hierarchical ranking system. Because I fall somewhere near the lowest rank, just above the new janitor with gauged ears, I miss out on the threads of information that are passed between guards and officers by casual circuitry. But upon the arrival of Pete, I’ve been lurking about the jail with sharp ears. I overheard that he has a psychological problem; I also found out that his dad and his brother will be here tomorrow to post bail to take him home with them—home being in the Midwest somewhere. While this came as a subtle relief, his release doesn’t seem soon enough; I feel like my conscience is on display, split open upon this man’s arrival, perpetuating a leak somewhere that has caused each glance in my direction to be suspect. I’ve had few hours of rest these past eight days thinking that maybe he’s a rowdy sociopath, although he has been on good behavior since he has arrived at the jail. While systematically reviewing each cell countless times a day, I get stuck staring at the monitor that relays Pete’s image. He is usually sitting quietly. Schizophrenia is characterized by a 15

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missing link somewhere between the real and unreal, but I’m sure that Pete is the most lucid inmate here. Each day I arrive at work and plant myself in front of a formation of black and white screens. Not much happens in a day. I monitor the inmates and observe their activity from inside my encased booth. I press buttons to let guards in and out. I am paid to watch time pass. If there were an outburst, a tantrum on the floor, I’m trained to sit still. If the whole cellblock were to flood into the corridor like a pack of stray dogs in revolt, I am supposed to sit still and not panic. While guards are trained to handle unexpected chaos and the crying fits of men in abandon, I am to sit, as an audience would, and wait for authorization to leave my station. I bring in copies of outdated newspapers and pretend to work on the crossword, browse YouTube, and watch romantic comedies during the night shift. I refuse to face myself. My plastic name tag has “Rex” scratched across it in white lettering. This job was conveniently offered to me because my friend Dave got a promotion. Dave goes to night school and plans to become a nurse. I took this job because it was within easy reach and because I hate those jobs that make you go through a drawn-out week of orientation and get-to-know-you games. I prefer to work alone. I’m certified, qualified to watch, and I’m certain that Pete sees more through his calm stare that pierces my bubble than my ex-girlfriend did after dating me for three slow years. When she finally left, the reason she gave me was that it wasn’t going anywhere. She felt bored and needlessly contained, and she was tired of my static existence. Now my routine involves sitting outside her apartment, where she lives with three homosexual men. My shift is four days a week, Monday–Thursday. I skip the weekends. I like routine. She says her new life is exciting and asks me to quit calling her. We’ve been broken up for 4 months now, but I can’t help but feel the need to monitor her. As I watch from the street or corner of the room, I believe that, like the inmates, she will go by without noticing 16

Touchstones

my gaze. They go out to bars, make bets, and drive dangerously. After being at my job for six months, and single for two, the jail offered me the opportunity to take the same education courses that are available to the inmates. I declined. If I wanted to finish my degree, I’d go to night school with Dave. It was humiliating to picture myself, in my own small glass infrastructure, filling out the same packets that were available to the men in orange one-piece jumpsuits. At 4:00 each day, inmates are permitted an hour to do what they like. Most of the men gather around the television screen in the recreation room; some spend the hour gathered outside in smoke rings and inner prison gossip; others hit the gym or have visitors. This is a busy hour for me, calling for careful observation of the inmates’ leisure. On the way to dinner at 5:00, they pass me on the ground floor of the facility. At the same time I eat dinner from the cafeteria inside my glass cell. Pete’s dad and older brother are supposed to arrive today. If they come after 8:00 this evening, they will have to wait until the following morning for Pete to be released. Jail policy. If they come before 4:00, I will miss Pete on his way to recreation hour—the last inmate in the long line of dingy, orange jumpsuits to pass my booth and expose me. I’ll never know for sure how he is capable of de-centering my still stupor; I only hope that I never visit the Midwest city where he might be roaming. There, he would at least be good at two things—two things I’m sure of: stealing electronics from unsuspecting women and lurking around my soul beyond the boundaries of space and time. Pete knows that we’re on the same plane. The impression, present in his demeanor and affected through a stark gaze, links us as twin characters with one minor difference— I’m allowed to go home at the end of every day. I’m allowed to date women, take night classes, and fill my DVR with Cheers episodes or reruns of CSI: Miami. He knows that while he is taking in every 17

Prose

precious breath of free air, I am resenting that same air, perhaps wishing I had an excuse to be locked up here on the bottom floor in orange—lost in blank submission. Pete’s dad and brother didn’t show up that day. They came on the ninth day instead due to conflicting schedules. Looking frightened like a child with nightmares, I dutifully watched Pete pass my station when he was summoned. His stare represented the apex of our union. While he was leaving free, I silently agreed to stay at my post and continue to watch. Later I was told that he didn’t go home with his dad and his brother. Instead he wanted to stay nearby.

At the Heart of a Tomato Lauren Vael Matthews Prose Third Place

According to mythology, it was an apple that seduced Eve, luring her from her paradise; it was a pomegranate that ensnared Persephone, fating her to her captor; and it was the bribe of a golden apple that won Helen, obliterating a nation and dividing the gods. These fruits— physical metaphors of gifts or bribes, a trap or a poison—have come to embody the symbols of seduction, fertility, separation, and marriage. A pear split between lovers heralds separation; a pomegranate represents fertility; an apple signifies wisdom, joy, and evil. For my Grandma, a tomato symbolizes love. If tomatoes could have a capital city, it would be in Lindon, Utah, and Grandma would be their queen. She would reign over them with a trowel-scepter and a green thumb. She has a passion (a passion!) for gardening tomatoes and roses. While she grows the roses zealously (there are over two hundred different species of roses in her yard—not just bushes, mind you—but species!), she grows them more for her sake, for her love of their perfumed silk. The tomatoes, however, she grows for those she loves. 18

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She starts early. She pores over endless seed catalogs, carefully ordering her selections. Once the seeds arrive, she sprinkles them into collective trays of rich soil. Carefully, she arranges the trays under the beryl-hues of fluorescent grow lights. Under the nourishing rays, radiant green appears against the dark soil. Then Grandma tenderly separates frail spider-web roots and transfers the piddling shoots into individual Styrofoam cups. Grandma records their varieties on the cups’ bottoms with a wobbly Sharpie and places them in stained cardboard trays, angling them to catch the skeletal winter light. Early spring finds them greening up her deck during daylight hours; a lovely contrast to the still-dormant lawn and the only verdant hue in all of the two acres, aside from the evergreens. While there is still danger from frost, she bundles them inside every evening, lining them row upon row, tray upon tray upon tray. Leisurely, the velvet leaves blossom with lemon-yellow petals pointed like stars. In the back of Grandma’s dining room, there is a table, fulllength (twelve cousins can fit around it with elbow-room to spare), laden with the plants. You have to duck around them, beneath them, over them, to cross to the toy chests and the plastic tea sets. It’s a small room, the dining room, cramped with blocks and crayons and toddlers—hands sticky from melted ice cream are as common there as the budding tomato plants. There, the plants trail across faded sheets of Sunday funnies, draping from corner to corner and dangling over the rim. They grow and grow and grow. When you sit at the walnut piano, their vines brush against your neck; when you reach for the patio door, their leaves tickle your skin. When spring not only arrives, but finally homesteads, Grandma lines the plants outside on her deck a final time. Here they will remain to “harden” to the weather. She then distributes them to her expectant sons and daughters, grandkids, neighbors. She gifts them to old university colleagues, aged friends, and her son’s business associates. Each plant comes with careful instructions for its growth, 20

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fertilization, watering, and protection. Eventually, everyone will get their own tray of Styrofoam cups. Once the family, friends, and even random strangers are taken care of, Grandma brings her wheelbarrow, full of plants, to her backyard plot. After a spring rain, the soil is perfect for planting— warm and squishy, its dark scent rich and musky. Grandma meticulously plants them in rows straight enough for army approval. She swathes them in brown paper grocery bags until mid-summer when the tomatoes stretch against brown walls. Finally, she moves them to bulky wire tomato cages to “keep away those horrid deer.” Over the summer, Grandma keeps a garbage can under the sink just for her “special-formula compost;” her own creation. Because she is a product of the Depression, she saves things most of us throw away. She then mixes the organic material she’s accumulated with a special blend of fertilizer, silt, soil, and grass; for this she keeps piles of grass-clippings behind the barn. She tends the moldering shavings— broken eggshells peeking through the rinds of squashes and the slimy skins of cucumbers—with the same care she gives living, growing things, turning it regularly with a shovel until it becomes the “riches” added to her soil. All this, combined with a touch of that green thumb, and the swollen tomatoes are ripe by the time for harvest. There are tomatoes of different kinds and sizes: big, fat ones; robust ones; and sweet, little ones. They range from brilliant orange to pink to ruby red. On the vine they look almost too bloated— pregnant and engorged with succulent juice. They look like if you pressed against their soft skin, they would bruise and burst and bleed. But soon there are crates of Brandywine and Romano. There is the breadth of Beefsteak and the roundness of sweet Cherry tomatoes. Some she will gift, but some she will save for herself (and for her family). Their fate is to become hearty relishes, sauces, and stews. 21

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What is left over will be eaten with salt and pepper and drenched in a thick homemade ranch dressing. With fall comes the colors of canning. Over hot stovetops, the tomatoes are boiled, stewed, sliced, diced, and juiced. She prepares the tomatoes, slipping them from their sacs of skin. Naked and pulpy, they look like bloody eyeballs until you slice each through the center, cross-sectioning it. Then, it looks like a seeded heart. Around the yellow stem you can see the individual chambers and spongy cavities. That’s how I like to think of it. The tomatoes are the physical, savory heart that Grandma gifts away.

Thunderlust Lauren Vael Matthews

With a clatter, wind propels trash from the gutters, buffeting discolored Styrofoam cups and mustard-stained napkins into the air. Gusts batter them to and fro, up and down, tossing and releasing, rebirth and destruction—shredding, scratching, and staining. All are victims to the whims of the elements. He can sympathize—the arctic wind hammers his side and leeches warmth from the cavity of his chest, deep beneath his thin layers of cotton. He halts his bike and glances up at the gathering clouds, bruised the darkest at their heart, unfolding across the heavens like a lotus blossom. His grandfather told him once about a mysterious rarity, a blessing, that when lightning—the Finger of God Himself—splits the total horizon, rending it into two pieces of sky, God will grant a wish, a prayer—the desire of your heart. He draws out his tarnished cross from beneath his shirt and presses his chapped lips against its iron angles. Fat drops of rain throb against his face, slip down the bridge of his nose, and plunge down his open collar. For one brief moment, he allows every filament, every tendon, and every muscle in his being feel the overpowering, almost devastatingly consuming, hope in his heart. 22

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The force of the prayer is a thin current under his veins, stretching out to his toes and little fingers. Along his arms, gooseflesh stands in eager attention, puckered more from excitement than from cold. The wind suddenly surges and clenches at his shirttails. His bicycle wobbles on the gravel road and lurches to the left. Struggling against the wind to right himself, he pedals his bicycle deeper and deeper into the storm, praying to glimpse its heart, to taste its current. The strain on his handlebars slowly increases as he fights to keep himself from blowing over.

A Character Sketch Darek Parcell Prose First Place

Closer, closer, he chants to himself through chattering teeth, searching the heavens for the elusive Finger of God. Almost there! Bright-eyed, he marvels as barbed lightning ripples overhead, hacking welts into a bruised-purple sky. Its fierce whiteness drowns out the moon. After the whiteness fades from the clouds, it still lingers in his mind’s eye—a dazzling neon-white. All around him, the sky boils, bubbling with angry thunderclaps. They burst in quick procession, like ruptured sores, drowning out his giddy shouts. Then, energy surges through the air. The spider-leg hairs on his arms start to rise, bidden by the invisible current. This is it. Make a wish. Eyes wide open, wonder-laughter blossoming inside, he holds his breath. Directly above him blinding whiteness flashes in a great, jagged, bowed bolt that arches across the expanse of the sky, cleaving it in two—a toothed, feral smile. He, triumphantly, grins back.

“I don’t want to believe that anything is real. The word branded on the name tag attached to my shirt—language, empty language; clothing, cloth, woven threads—in the possessive. Shapes and colors: light interpreted by rods and cones—all molecules, atoms, quarks. How can any thing be possessed? How can this shirt be mine when all is figurative speech, fabricated symbolism, fanciful sentences? Nothing is real, nothing of value.”

***

The author set down his pen and sighed. He cracked his knuckles, rubbed his temples, massaged the joints of his hands, and sighed. He tried again.

***

Each time he was sent into the sewer, Brian remembered how much he hated his job. He pulled up his shirt to cover his nose, but his name tag cut his cheek. 25

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“How did that cut my cheek? The tag wasn’t anywhere near it.” The author rubbed his eyes and re-read the words on the paper. “I didn’t write that.” Brian stared off of the page. The author stared at the last sentence. “What the hell is going on?” he asked the empty room. “You’re the author,” Brian said. The two contemplated their perspectives of the same leaf. “I didn’t write any of that,” the author repeated. The page declared that Brian replied, “And yet, there it is.” The author flipped through the rest of his notebook. “Blank,” he murmured. After a pause, he said, “You can hear me?” “I know what you ‘verbalized,’ if that’s what you’re asking,” Brian stated. “Verbalized?” “To push air past the trachea and through the vocal chords; teeth, tongue, and lips in altering formations: fricatives, bilabials—formless thought codified into sounds, understood only in the context of language and only within the bounds of culture.” “You know a lot about language,” the author noted. “That’s impressive.” “Language is as vital to the world as automobiles, television, and pornography.” “Pornography?” “Well, the internet and sex.” “Sex?” “Sex.” “Sex.” “Sex!” “Mmm . . . sex.” The author nodded. “Your definition of the world is contingent on the existence of these things. If any of them fell out of time, your world would be fundamentally altered. If people no longer used language, your reality would disappear.” “That’s interesting. Thanks for sharing your opinion with me.” 26

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“You’re being sarcastic.” “I’m not! Your opinion is worth a lot!” “A lot of what? My preferences are as far from any real value as the most vulgar lie. Whatever my language propagates is valid only as far as your ink can be said to be black.” “I’m using a blue pen.” “You also sent me into the sewer. Where are we now?” The author looked over the last couple pages. He had lost himself in the dialog and had not noticed a shift in setting. “The sewer?” Brian shifted his weight. “I was waiting for you to tell me. You have the pen.” “But you’re still in the sewer, aren’t you? You seem to be fine telling me all about yourself, and that makes my job a lot easier. Just keep telling me about you. Start with where you are.” “How blind you are!” Brian screamed. “You are the artist.” “I am the author.” “You are the Artist and can create whatever realities you can conceive of!” The Author contemplated the empty lines of the page on his desk. “I’m afraid my imagination is very limited; I can’t conceive of anything entirely new. My mind is confined to the same shadows of discovery I have swum in my entire life. Even if you were my own son, created out of nowhere, almost, I imagine you would still look something like me. Men were not meant to create new things—I must leave that to nature.” “But you did create me,” Brian said. “Why do you have a pen if you cannot create?” “I can record metaphors, but those are not truth.” “What is truth?” “Even my most creative works have only stretched the borders of reality. It’s impossible for humans to break out—not without a piece of transcendental wisdom to push them.” “Where will you find such wisdom?” 27

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The author sighed: “I don’t know.” The two contemplated their perspective of the same leaf. “You created me,” said Brian. “I guess so.” “Do something to prove it to yourself, to the world.” “What could I do?” the author asked himself. “Got it. I’ll change your name.” “What will you change it to?” “Brian.” “Brian? But that’s so boring,” Brian stated. “It’s done. I’ve changed all the instances of your name on these pages to Brian.” “So you have. I can’t remember a time I wasn’t called Brian.” “Do you still regret your name?” “No. Although I know you have recently changed it, it has always been a part of my truth.” “But I could have named you anything.” “You could have, but my truth has always been Brian.” “So you say.” At that moment, the author noticed the light in his room. It was not from a candle, nor an electric lamp, or even an oil lamp; the light shone through a small window. The sun hung low over the horizon, though it was not yet dusk. The author noticed the sun, and the light penetrated more than his windowpanes. The ticking of his clock ceased. He felt the light inside him burning down old walls and illuminating the crevices of his heart; the light granted him clarity like the sun bursting from behind dense clouds. He saw beauty and recognized truth. The author was filled with an enervating sense of levity. He longed to join the grasses and leaves in their carefree wafting in the wind. Outside it was blue and green and yellow—a brilliant contrast to the gray-white of his room. He could imagine the image vividly: he would climb through his window, confidently if not gracefully, perhaps tumbling as he reached the ground. He would rise 28

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at his own speed, walk along the path at his own pace, breathe in the peace inherent in the fresh air. But first, he would finish his sketch. “What is happening?” Brian asked. “I can see now for myself where we are. I don’t need to ask anymore.” “Then where are we?” The author smiled. “I could have named you Rhodora.” “Like the flower?” “Like the poem. For ‘the self-same Power that brought me here brought you.’” Brian smiled. “It has value for me,” he said. It has value for me, the author wrote, and closed his notebook.

Touchstones

Needle in the Hay Andy Sherwin

fourteen-year-old boys look at the fourteen-year-old girl who had grown breasts before their own voices had lowered from mezzosoprano. A strange blend of lust and jealousy. But she couldn’t guess what they could possibly be jealous of. Her boldness at going out in public unaccompanied? Her refusal to apply more than a few swipes of mascara to the face that she thought was pretty enough, thank you? She never could tell. Women, with few exceptions, always made eye contact. They’d look her up (hair), down (shoes), and inbetween (figure). Tonight was a ponytail, black suede flats, and an extra five pounds she had been trying to exorcise for months, although her mom told her she was already too thin. Somehow, this combination of a simply-maintained hair style, sensible footwear, and a slender figure made women crinkle their foreheads and squint just enough for her to get blurry.

She liked coffee because it tasted like it had been somewhere. Water appeared in nature, soda came from factories, and tea didn’t have a strong enough flavor. But coffee tasted like burnt toast and a whispered bedtime story. Coffee grounds were thrown away. Coffee was steaming wreckage. Coffee had an aftermath. So nearly every night, she’d come to the same cafe and sit on the same corner stool and sip the same dark roast under the same track lighting. The heat from the halogen bulbs made her feel like she was on stage. Like someone was looking at her. Like she had a halo. She’d lift her cup to her lips and let it whisper her its secrets and they’d trickle down her throat in drops.

“Always make eye contact with people,” her mom had told her. “It shows you’re actually seeing them.” But these people, these comers and goers and passersby that haunted this cafe like a parade, they just affixed their eyes to hers for just long enough to know that they wanted to look away and continue on. She was tired of just being looked at. She wanted to be seen.

Whenever someone would walk in, she’d peek up from whatever art book she was thumbing through and test them to see if they’d make eye contact.

Just as she had decided she’d had enough, a guy she pegged at about 25 years old, just about her age, opened the cafe’s glass door and stepped inside, brown boots smacking finished hardwood like a metronome. He had a noon-the-next-day shadow on his face and approached the barista’s counter, sliding strong-looking hands into back pockets. He ordered, paid, tipped, and said something that made the cashier laugh. Clomp clomp clomp as he walked to a table.

Men often did, but only for a split second, and if their eyes lingered, it was usually an unpleasant experience, the way that

Her peripherals saw him crossing his right leg over his left knee and slumping down in his chair like he was about to take an

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afternoon nap. His hands drummed on his elevated calf and she was impressed with his rhythm. Pat pat pat pat pat pat. She could feel his eyes graze over her and, to her own surprise, she looked up to match him. Without stopping the drumming, he smiled. They regarded each other for a few moments, but their mutual viewing was broken by the cashier, who stepped out from behind the counter to hand-deliver a tall cup and a warm cookie that she loudly told him is “on the house.” He thanked her politely, rose to his feet, and said goodbye. He begins his walk to the exit, but his steps are lighter and less percussive. His approach sent her embarrassed eyes down to the book she was still pretending (and failing) to read, and she hoped he’d just tread past her because she doesn’t think she can handle being looked at that closely by someone with eyes like that and big boots and coffee to go and oh no he slowed down as he gets near her and what the hell is he going to say. “Excuse me,” he said, pointing a straight finger at her feet. “I like your shoes.” He smiled again and showed a single dimple just outside of the left corner of his mouth. “Have a good day.” He walked out. She could feel the soles of her feet heating up. Her toes were blushing.

Dry Clean Only Andy Sherwin

She loved the spring because she loved the growth. She loved the way that the trees and other flora would reintroduce themselves to the world. Things were hidden during winter. Snow made plain things barren and big things desolate. Desert became tundra and blacktop became black ice, lingering silently above the roads and sidewalks and bike paths and hiking trails she so desperately needed to remind her that some things were alive. She would have to endure the winter to get through to the spring, though: four months of impending sleet and snow clouds hovering in blue skies made gray. But four months was hardly that long. She could handle it. November had Thanksgiving, and that would be fine. Her family was all coming to town. Grandma said it was going to be her last one before bowing out to her Heavenly reward, but Grandma said that every year and seventy-nine wasn’t really that old, all things considered. She’d be able to make that huckleberry pie with the garden-grown crop that her aunt Amy was going to bring from the

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small farm they had just annexed in rural Washington. Darren and the rest of her cousins would bring their puppy—she could never remember its name, just the feeling of its fur beneath her bite-riddled fingernails—and everyone would feel nice. December had Christmas, which would be nearly a repeat of Thanksgiving, but on a smaller scale. John was bringing his new girlfriend home for the first time, and everyone would be distracted with how pretty and smart and unlike the rest of John’s girlfriends she was. Like the last four years, Dad would make everyone tell their favorite stories about Mom and they’d all stare wistfully into the snapcrackle-popping fireplace and pretend to be longingly recollecting in their minds, when they were really just avoiding eye contact with each other. But they’d have a nice goodbye at the airport, John would start crying like he always did, and she and Dad would drive home in silence. January would be the new year. Fresh start. Clean slate. Enough resolutions to bleach the last year away. She’d start working out again, go out more often, make new friends, get to church every Sunday (or at least every other Sunday, since burnout is, like, a documented phenomenon) and things would slow down. She’d take her time cleaning the house from the Christmas festivities, and Dad would eventually start to retreat into the recesses of his brain again. Which was better than his other methods, all things considered. The utilitarian in her commended the resourcefulness that propelled him to action, even if it was primarily that of holding back. She knew how hard things had been for him. But February would be hard. And not just because it was the last hoorah of winter and, accordingly, the toughest. No, that was when she was due. She had already found all of the maternity clothes that she wanted, dreading her future belly bulge with a fear reserved for prison time. And February would be the peak of that. She wouldn’t really be 34

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able to work out much after all, would she? And where would an eightand-a-half-months pregnant single girl go out, anyway? Most of her friends had left her behind—she understood why, but it didn’t make it sting any less—and she had certainly started a prenatal diet, which would be into full swing by Halloween, let alone Valentine’s Day. She didn’t know how Dad would deal with that. Quietly, probably. And given her due date (February 17th), he’d probably have more on his mind. He would most likely ask her not to say anything to the family—they had been through so much and this might really bother some of them—so she’d keep it mostly to herself, but she couldn’t imagine that he’d be anything but helpful and supportive. Holding hair back during morning sickness-induced, hands-andknees-and-porcelain throw up, driving her to Lamaze class and waiting patiently outside (he’d probably draw the line at coming in with her), and taking her to the hospital when her close little family was about to add another. Everything of Mom’s had gone straight to Dad, and she figured that, as the sole living female in the immediate family, she was entitled to her wardrobe. But despite Mom’s dresses, coats, and even the three pairs of cowboy boots she found hiding behind a shoe rack of bland pumps, the only thing she decided to take out of the closet was that cashmere sweater that she always remembered her wearing on cold days. The one that looked terminally ironed and pressed, like it used oxygen as a professional-grade steam cleaner. Its blue complemented the green of her eyes and the gold of her hair and even after all this time, it still smelled like her. No matter how many times she wore it, no matter how often she cried to sleep in it, no matter how many times the nice woman at the dry-cleaning place told her to keep it in mothballs, it always smelled like Mom. She stretched the material over her head and inserted her arms into sleeves like stuffing in a turkey. It fit like a prayer and she put 35

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a small hand onto the stomach that, like the trees that’d just be beginning to blossom in the next eight months or so, would be growing soon. You’re growing in there, aren’t you, she thought, slender fingers drifting across the cloudy blue sweater reaching just above her waist. Maybe I’ll name you “Petal.”

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(Movement and music stops. COR in yellow and LUX in red step forward.)

The Story Stone An excerpt from a longer piece Wendy Gourley

STORYTELLER (CONT’D): - two boys of different tribes met. (SOLIDI with COR steps up to LUX, all other actors exit.) SOLIDI: Lux, this is Cor. Now that you are old enough to conduct some of my business in the marketplace, I thought you could use a servant to help you. LUX (Disgusted): But he is Pastio!

SCENE 1 It is dark. VIBRATION of Tibetan prayer bowl begins as light comes up on STORYTELLER. STORYTELLER: There once was a land that lived in the hearts of two tribes. Each had dwelled in the land for thousands of years till no one knew which had been the first to possess it. (MUSICIANS begin chant. Actors dance/move to narration, some with bright banners. Red for Nava and Yellow for Pastio.) STORYTELLER (CONT’D): But possess the land they did, first one tribe then the other - fighting and claiming the inheritance for their own. It was rumored by some that the two tribes had originally come from the same birthright - that the two were actually one - but there were few who believed it, for when they looked at the other, they could not see themselves. And so it went through the years - battles, retaliations, oppression and revenge - back and forth until one day 40

SOLIDI: Of course he is Pastio. Did you expect a Nava servant? (to COR) I will stand for no Pastio laziness or thievery. Do you understand? (COR nods. LUX pushes COR to the ground.) LUX: Speak when addressed by a Nava! SOLIDI: Lux, the boy has not spoken since his family was killed in the Reclamation; they were among the resisters, but I have been assured that he is bright and strong. LUX (protesting): But Father SOLIDI: Enough! We are behind in our orders already! (SOLIDI hands a large bundle to LUX.) SOLIDI (CONT’D): Deliver this to Master Fullo in the marketplace. Here are the directions. He is expecting it before he opens. Do not dawdle and be alert. 41

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(SOLIDI exits and LUX dumps the entire bundle on COR.) LUX: We’ll see how strong you are. Keep up or you’ll be sorry! (LUX starts off at a quick pace. They walk as music begins.) STORYTELLER: In the grey early-morning light the two boys made their way to the marketplace.

MASTER FULLO: Watch it! What’s your name? (No answer.) LUX: He doesn’t speak. He’s probably too dumb to even know his own name. MASTER FULLO: Well, what can one expect from a Pastio? Let’s see what you’ve brought me.

(LUX Calls to COR who is struggling under the heavy load.) (FULLO takes the bundle from COR and opens it.) LUX: Come on! You’ve got to keep up or we won’t make it to the marketplace before it opens!

MASTER FULLO (CONT’D): Ah, this is fine! Your father’s weavers are the best in the village. Here is the payment.

(COR stumbles.) (FULLO hands LUX a pouch.) LUX (CONT’D): Just my luck, a servant who’s as clumsy as he is stupid! (MASTER FULLO enters pushing his merchant cart. The STORYTELLER forms the marketplace around them. Music ends. LUX is consulting the map.) LUX (CONT’D): I think that’s him there. (to Fullo) Good day, are you Master Fullo?

MASTER FULLO (CONT’D): Wait and have a bite of breakfast before you go. (FULLO pulls up a block for LUX and hands him some food. FULLO completely ignores COR.) MASTER FULLO (CONT’D) (harshly): Abicio! Come! (ABICIO enters dressed in yellow.)

MASTER FULLO: Yes and a good day to you. You must be Master Lux! Your father said you would come and here you are, just in time. Such a boy would make any father proud, even Master Solidi! LUX: Thank you, Master Fullo. (to COR) You! Bring the cloth! (COR bumps the great weight into MASTER FULLO.) 42

MASTER FULLO (CONT’D): Here, take this cloth. (ABICIO picks up the bundle, but before he exits he gives COR a crust of bread. COR sits on the ground before devouring the crust.) MASTER FULLO (CONT’D) (to ABICIO): Off with you! 43

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(The light is growing brighter. A Nava customer enters and comes to the cart. FULLO helps her while ABICIO reenters with some merchandise, which he arranges on the cart. The sound of VIBRATION starts and the two boys instantly look up to see where the sound is coming from. The others do not hear it.) STORYTELLER: And just as the sun’s first blush touched the sky, the two boys heard a strange sound - no, more than heard - it was something that passed through them like a wave. LUX: Master Fullo, what’s that strange sound? MASTER FULLO: Sound? I think you must still be asleep. I don’t hear anything. (FULLO goes back to his business. LUX looks at COR.) LUX: You hear it, don’t you? (COR looks noncommittal, but then gently motions towards the edge of the marketplace.) STORYTELLER: The sound seemed to be coming from a tent on the edge of the marketplace.

LUX: Huh? MASTER FULLO: She’s crazy, son, as crazy as they come! (LUX begins to cross towards the tent, FULLO stops him. VIBRATION and LIGHT stop.) MASTER FULLO (CONT’D): I’m serious, Lux! Have nothing to do with that doddering old fool! Now take your money and get home to your father! Abicio! Move the cart up to the corner. We’ll find better business there. Now! (FULLO and ABICIO cross upstage with the cart. A customer approaches them. Lights dim on them and they quietly go about their business. The sound of VIBRATION returns and begins to grow along with the sound of chanting. LUX crosses to the tent and opens it. FABULA sits inside with a glowing disk about the size of her palm. Tent rotates around to show the inside of the tent.) FABULA: Enter, Stone Reader. (LUX enters the tent.) LUX (confused): I’m Lux, son of Solidi. I’m not a . . . Stone Reader.

(STORYTELLER creates the tent.) FABULA: Did you follow the sound? Did you see the light? STORYTELLER (CONT’D): And a light seemed to glow from within. LUX: Yes. LUX: Master Fullo, what’s that tent over there? FABULA: Then you are a Stone Reader. Would you like to hold it? MASTER FULLO: The blue one at the end of the lane? That’s where old Fabula lives. Don’t mess with her; she’s daft as the day is long.

LUX: What is it?

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FABULA: Come and see. (Lux is cautious, but curious. He sits down, FABULA lays the stone into his hands and the light and sound instantly stop.) LUX: What happened? FABULA: That’s strange; I’ve never seen that before. LUX: Maybe it’s broken. FABULA (laughs): Broken? Can you break the sun? Can you break the sky? (She gets a thought.) Tell me, did anyone else hear the Stone’s call? LUX: Just my servant. FABULA: Well, we must invite him in.

(FABULA pulls back the flap of the tent, revealing COR standing outside.) FABULA (CONT’D): Come in, come in!

(FABULA waits for a reply from LUX - none.) FABULA (CONT’D): Are you willing to work together? (LUX nods his head and puts out his hand. COR nods tentatively.) FABULA (CONT’D): Normally, I hold it in my palms like this. (FABULA demonstrates; her palms together, outstretched in front.) FABULA (CONT’D): But as there are two, I would try this. (FABULA sits LUX across from COR and they put out their right palms, one beside the other. She lays the stone in the cradle of their palms. The disk increases in light and sound. Lights up on STORYTELLER and the action of story and down on everything else. Music and movement/dance are used throughout. The boys and FABULA should be incorporated into acting out each story.) STORYTELLER: There once was a king with a terrible problem.

(The moment COR steps into the tent the Stone begins to softly glow and vibrate again.) FABULA (CONT’D): Ah, two Stone Readers - very rare. The story journey will be very powerful with two. Now sit next to each other and put out your hands.

(KING enters and paces.) STORYTELLER (CONT’D): His prime minister had unexpectedly died and he found himself in a very sticky situation. His power depended on two of his friends - chiefs who had great armies at their commands.

LUX: I’m not doing anything with a dirty Pastio! (Two CHIEFS step forward.) FABULA: The Stone has called to both of you. It will take the two of you to read it.

STORYTELLER (CONT’D): Each chief was loyal to the king and came to his aid whenever it was needed, but now there 47

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was a problem. Each chief had a son and each wanted their son to be named the new prime minister of the land. The first chief ’s son was a mighty soldier. . . .

VIDIA (to audience): We shall see.

(LUX steps into story as SOLDIER.)

KING: I wish to remind you, it is the custom to cut off the head of all those who fail the king in their duties. So what is your plan to solve this dilemma?

STORYTELLER (CONT’D): The second chief’s son was a great scholar. . . (COR steps into the story as SCHOLAR.) STORYTELLER (CONT’D): If the king chose the scholar, he might incur the wrath of the first chief. Or, if he chose the soldier, the second chief might be angered. How could he appease one and not offend the other? KING: Send for Vidia the clever! STORYTELLER: You see, the king’s own advisors and wise men had already failed to solve the puzzling situation - for which they had paid with their heads, as was the custom. So in his desperation, the king called for Vidia, a clever, but loony old woman who lived in the woods.

STORYTELLER: The King explained the situation to her, and then said:

VIDIA: We shall see. STORYTELLER: The next day, Vidia called everyone to the palace. She said to the two young men: VIDIA: You both will be given a test. The one who successfully completes the test will be the next prime minister. Your test is to climb to the top of Mount Timor and return before sunset tomorrow. The way is very treacherous.

(VIDIA looks at SCHOLAR.)

VIDIA (CONT’D): It is a difficult climb and will require much strength. (VIDIA looks at SOLDIER.)

(FABULA enters the story as VIDIA, who is often muttering to herself.) STORYTELLER (CONT’D): Most people avoid Vidia, for she looked as if she was in the middle of the most amusing conversation and they didn’t want to interrupt. But every once in a while, when someone had a problem so great and so troubling, they would send for her. She had a knack for finding solutions in the least likely of places. But still the king wondered if even Vidia could solve such a riddle.

VIDIA (CONT’D): It is a difficult path to follow and will require much cunning. (VIDIA hands them both a pack.) VIDIA (CONT’D): In these packs you will find all you need for your journey. Which of you will return? We shall see. (All exit but the KING and VIDIA.)

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KING: I admit this may work, but what if the chiefs are still not satisfied with the outcome? VIDIA: Why not choose both sons? Each has vital skills that the other lacks. The scholar could make the laws and the soldier could command the army. Together they would make the perfect prime minister. KING: What? They have been pitted against each other all their lives. They would never work together! VIDIA: We shall see, for they will never complete their test without working together. One pack has the food, the other the fuel. One pack has the tent, the other the blankets. They must learn to work together or they will not survive. KING: That may work for the test, but once they are back in court there is nothing that can force them to work together! VIDIA: We shall see. STORYTELLER: The next day at sunset the two sons dragged themselves before the king. It had been a rough journey, but they had survived by working together. KING (to VIDIA): Now what do we do? They have both completed the test successfully.

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CHIEF #2: My son has never failed at anything in his life! VIDIA: And do you agree that according to custom, the king should put them to death if they fail? (They nervously agree. VIDIA steps up to the SOLDIER.) VIDIA (CONT’D): In the name of the king, I appoint you prime minister over the laws of the land. You are to keep the records and oversee the clerks, judges and diplomats. SOLDIER: Me? But I don’t know about any of those things! I’m a soldier! I should be in charge ofVIDIA (Indicating the Scholar): This young man understands such matters. Perhaps he could help you as he did on the mountain. SCHOLAR: Never! We worked together only to save our lives! Why should I help him now? VIDIA: Because you will need his help in order to run the army! In the name of the king, I appoint you prime minister over the military. You are to protect the kingdom, train generals and plan strategies for battle. (All the sons and fathers start to protest.)

VIDIA (to KING): We shall see. (to sons) Step forward as I name the new prime minister. (to fathers) As fathers, would you feel bad if your sons failed to do a good job?

VIDIA (CONT’D): If you do not work together as you did on the mountain, you will be put to Death; it is the custom, you know.

CHIEF #1: Fail? My son will make a wonderful prime minister!

CHIEF #1: But your majesty! How will this ever succeed?!

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(The king smiles at VIDIA, pleased with the turn of events.) KING: We shall see. (Lights go down on actors/dancers.) STORYTELLER: And from that day on, the young men learned to work together, and as the years went by the kingdom knew nothing but safety and peace. And so it was and so it shall be. (As story ends, lights down on STORYTELLER and up on FABULA’s tent. The boys drop the stone as LUX backs away from it.)

LUX: What exactly is that thing anyway? FABULA: It’s the Story Stone. LUX: Did I hear the story or see it? COR: Or w-were we in it? FABULA: That is difficult to say. Like you, I am merely a Stone Reader. I experience the stories exactly the same as you and . . . I can never quite tell. LUX: What’s all this business about being a Stone Reader? I don’t know what you are talking about! My father’s in charge of the village guard. He can drive you and your crazy talk out of this town.

LUX: Wha??! What is that thing? (COR forgets himself and blurts out - slightly stuttering.) COR: What happened? LUX: Hey wait, a minute! You can talk! (From this point on, whenever COR speaks until the very end, he should be faltering and/or soft-spoken.) COR: I n-never said I couldn’t talk. (LUX starts to advance on COR.) LUX: Why, you deceitful, little FABULA: Stop! Remember the Stone will only work if you work together. 52

FABULA: I have done nothing. You have come to me, uninvited, and are welcome to leave if you wish. (She waits, but LUX is loath to go.) LUX: What does it mean to be a Stone Reader? FABULA: To be a Stone Reader is a precious gift, but it comes with a price. A Stone Reader is a bit like being a prophet - few, if any, exist - and those that remain are mostly ignored or. . . (Looking at LUX) run out of town. It is not a path to be taken lightly. Though you will have each other; that ought to ease the way. (Both boys look unsure.) COR: Are there other stones? 53

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FABULA: There are, but I have no idea how many or where they might be. LUX: Why could no one else hear the sound? Are we chosen or something? FABULA: We always think we’re the chosen ones, don’t we? But the truth is the Stone doesn’t choose anyone. The call goes out to all; it’s just that very few choose to listen. Look out at the marketplace. Tell me, what do you see and hear? (The boys peer out; lights come up on FULLER’s cart. ABICIO noisily drops something, FULLER yells at him and a couple of customers are arguing.) MASTER FULLO: Look what you have done, you worthless Pastio! Clean this up! ABICIO: Yes, Master Fullo. LUX: Movement and bustle.

(FABULA gestures towards her heart.) FABULA (CONT’D): I have been waiting to pass on the Stone, but no one has listened for a very long time. If you choose to accept it, I can meet my journey’s end in peace. LUX: You’re crazy if you think I’ll have anything to do with this. (He begins to leave.) COR: I accept. (LUX stops in his tracks.) FABULA (looking at LUX): And you? (LUX struggles. He is intensely curious and doesn’t want his servant to have something he doesn’t have. He sits back down.)

COR: Noise.

LUX: Okay.

FABULA: Busyness and noise. That’s the world in a nutshell. No one knows how to listen.

FABULA: Put your hands on the Stone.

LUX: So we listened. Now what? What do you want from us old woman? How much are you selling the stone for? FABULA: The Stone is not for sale. But if you accept the call of the Stone Reader, it’s yours for the taking. LUX: That’s it? What do you get out of this? 54

FABULA: Merely to finish my journey. I no longer need the Stone. I have the stories here.

(She holds up the stone and they each place their right hand on it.) FABULA (CONT’D): Do you accept the call of the Stone Reader, to be still and to listen? (The boys nod.) FABULA (CONT’D): Will you take the stories in and let them shape the wisdom that is growing inside of you? 55

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(They agree.) FABULA (CONT’D): You must never use the stories or the Stone for your own gain. You must never force or steal the stories. (They agree.) FABULA (CONT’D): Will you share the stories with those who cannot hear the call? (Affirmation.)

LUX: I’ll take that! COR: Hey! LUX: That is some trick that old crone played, and I am going to figure out how she did it. COR: It’s n-not a trick! LUX: Well, if it’s not, something this powerful is better off in Nava hands. Your mind is better suited for tending sheep. Now come on, we’re late getting home.

FABULA (CONT’D): You are now Stone Readers. The Stone is yours. (The boys exit as the tent disappears.) (The boys stand. COR is holding the Stone.) FABULA (CONT’D): May your journey be one of power and light.

STORYTELLER: And thus the first shaky steps of the journey were taken. . . .

LUX: We just leave? (FABULA nods.) COR: Can we come back and ask questions? FABULA: It is time for me to move on, but I will be there in the stories. Stone Readers form an unbroken chain that reaches back to before the beginning of time and will continue long after you are gone. The Stone will teach you everything you need to know. (As the boys exit the tent, the tent rotates around to the outside. The boys walk a few paces in silence, thinking. Then LUX grabs the Stone from COR.)

First Day

Fertility Goddess

Nadia Ashtawy

Emily Ballstaedt

To stand and cling her leg, stare at the floor and almost look a four-hour diversion in the face. I look at the color-coded tables, and the students attempt to mix purple, red, and blue wax together on the page. The first chance to meet others was missed. A-E-I-O-U, I knew. I sat on the steps nodding, waiting to run to legs like windows and doors.

morning in the bedroom, an unfamiliar film of sweaty damp sticks to my skin stomach an unsick dictator the second pink line draws a deep breath despite fatigue i blink tears from my eyes i smile

hand rests on round melon skin, now showing pink-purple-brown stripes and soft fingertip ridges i feel the inner fluttermotion, slow stroke tickles our first shared affection 61

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III

swelling: water belly cantaloupe breasts full with nectar a fetus with a heel size of my thumbprint presses it incessantly into my right rib sharp and hard the weight i carry makes it impossible to roll over in bed attempts at weightlessness taunt relief hypnosis by candlelight in the bathtub a warm liquid cascade down a floating half-sphere island creates bellyshudder pleasure

melon muscles harden and retract sliding apart like blue satin ribbon melon muscles harden and retract sliding apart like blue satin ribbon

crowning: long black hair on a half-sphere island intensity peaking pushing pressure pleasure release release relief deep breath tears fatigue and euphoria of exhaustion

baby in arms my hand on wet melon skinâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; our first shared affection

deep breath wet eyes fatigue and surrender melon muscles harden and retract sliding apart like blue satin ribbon pressure pleasure

The Longboat

À l’u n / To the un

Richard Bohn

Annik Maryse Budge

Silent specter sliding, Riding black water roads Through chill ghostbreath and dead night.

l’un ou l’autre reveillée dans la nuit me glissant

un or the other awake in the night creeping

Hunting.

il me dégoutte des cauchemars d’automne des feuilles qui s’insinue sans plein bruit

he drips me nightmares of autumn of leaves that seep without full rumor

écris son intimate t’éspère à jamais

write sound intimacy waits for you til never

Sentinel standing slumped, slumbering. Unwary. Swaddled in soft fur and Comfortable delusions. Watch-fire burned to a corpse, Easy prey. Patience. Wood scaled serpent slips Soundless through rippled whispering glass, Past sleeping sentry, Soon to strike at the gentle belly of Home.

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lights and air, opened air

Exchanges Anthony Christensen

I am far and

intensely here

where sky holds

stretched over railing free to sky, rock monoliths and humming street lights I, a peak in held time; drawn heat

as smoke released to mingle;

birdgirl moves close behind, embraces exchanges heat rests her cheek on my shoulder and sighs with countless beings,

Fillers and Additives Robert Foster

One Way Robert Foster Poetry Third Place

Spent that second summer on the nod, catch-phrased and cavalcaded, brimming with a brief and aberrant bravado, a dog-tagged derelict, conscientious deserter. Laying low among these Latter Days, blue-collared poppy peddler, Beehive bootlegger, forager of forbidden fruits. Fisticuffs and furtive glances, failsafe romance, sex on the sly. Unfamiliar eyeteeth etched into my tongue-tied Ticonderoga, butane and baking soda, imbalanced by the Beats.

You dress me down, a feeble patch of pale, the weight of hips and hearts, the start of what will run a swath of guilt and grief beneath what skin encloses, posing as serene is said to, folding roughly, seams unstrung. Yet there are lives still left to you, discrete, replete, and without end. Your varicose violence speaks of God as living well beyond His means, and who can blame Him. Still, our eyes are made to seek the light, so clothed in darkness we undress, and search the silhouetted walls for signs.

Labored through the Wasatch winter, merlot mornings and acid-free afternoons, a bent-backed Bukowski dog-eared and dozing on the nightstand, a secondhand copy I copped on a whim and wound up wishing I had paid something for.

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Theologic shaping shifting Faltering even the bold

Realization Shersta Chabot Gatica

Private parts deprived defenses Exposed, unfolded into view Biddable the wretched creatureMortified the puppet muse

Coursing fire sparks, exploding Bursting bubbled rationale Peaceful shadows torn asunder Glaring, naked, into hell Crushing sorrow, self-inflicted Now unable to deny Staring at unshouldrâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d burden Draped in worldliness And lies Horrified consideration Taking up the weighty task Tossed aside in glad abandon Quieting the nightmares past Tendrâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;est love so rude awakened Forcing mortal flesh to mold

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Short Verses of February

Big blue ball the world to daughter from father

Time still moving impossible. Wheels stopped spinning

Nathan Hatton

Sleeping Beauty with moth-eaten sheets is the mountaintops

Four-legged majesty: mane to one side teeth tugging the earth

Dead, twisted branches home for a hawk

All of the Universe is leaking through the speakers

Quick congestion to ghost town campus walkways

Intimate moment soundtrack: off-beat purrs

Lone, blue John unoccupied

Scars, metal, and orange make-up roadwork

Pink washout gilded hearts vomit

The Devil is playful in a toddler

Eyes follow waltzing breath in the morning

Sudden explosion in the air a flock of birds

Man walking dog leading

In the middle of the road the street lampâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s glow keeps me safe

Silo remains solo

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Rain trembles then puts on a show on the windscreen

With Play-Doh and molds I am a child again

20 Clever intellect nonsense with a friend

Emma Hunt-Samudio

Gravity pulls everything down including eyelids

Sun burns blue sky into sunset

23 Blue light from yellow sun on the mountains

Snowflake splatters synchronized to music

Stained curtains draw the Moon shines

26 Crowd mentality and idiot children Wal-Mart wasteland

Mother, He Asks Me (When He is Old Enough to Speak)

Ripples on water rebirth

Fire fingers pricking the air

do you remember when I was an ant? I crawled into the bathtub and you killed me with poison. He is still all pale hair and paper fingernails. I watch the architectural shadow of his top lip move with each clumsy syllable. And he watches mine: Yes sweetie, I remember. I skimmed your seed-bead body off the surface of the water with a Mason jar and planted you one knuckle deep in ashes outside my door.

Home Economics

Tonight

Emma Hunt-Samudio

Brenda Johnson

Poetry First Place

Poetry Second Place

Do you think we grow on trees? I ask him. But his ears are neatly hemmed shut with a coarse white twine, his lips whip-stitched to one another, and he is busy, busy sewing the ends of his fingers to his palms. The child is afflicted; and if he had heard me he would have answered, Where art thou? Where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place? The thread is dark-streaked in crimson; it rasps as he tugs it through the skin.

I want to lay stretched beneath the heavy moon. I want to sip, soak until my fingertips fold and I’m dripping tarnished silver and I leave footprints that glow.

Matter Brenda Johnson

I have a list of what I would change if I could remake this body. As if I could revise the shape of my waist the taper of my calves the unseen bones of my wrists. When I was fourteen they called me monster-- the boys with stepladder voices and downy mouths. Monster. The word measured my mass against the value of flat bellies and coltish legs and by some trick of physics made me less. 78

Transient Jeremy Raborn

No one stopped, or even offered a second glance. He expected none. You can’t do that these days or you may end up in your own trunk. I saw him in western Arizona tumbleweed outskirts of Quartzsite on the highway to Blythe— miles from everywhere. He had nothing but a backpack and ten-thousand miles on his wind-carved face. I watched him in the rear-view, and grew silent as I thought of all the interstates on the soles of his shoes. I imagined what he carried— few changes of clothes some useless baubles 79

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containing meaning only for him, pictures of friends or relatives forgotten or outlived in back-alleys and boarding houses, and maybe a letter never delivered. I saw this man, transient prophet, traveling Buddha, disconnected from life, unordinary and abhorred, thrown-away, and daring enough to survive.

From Wild Fractured Noise William Craig Snapp

From wild fractured noiseâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; a sweeping din of clatter and crashâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;slight sounds shift their syncopated frame and align to lyrical form.

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Hesitant Kara Callan

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Another Day Missed Adam Christensen

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Repetition #2 Adam Christensen

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Graffiti Lounge Andrew Guile Art Third Place

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Nightstand Andrew Guile

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Oily Mess Andrew Guile

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Spinach Ravioli Andrew Guile

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Camel Phillip Jackson

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Continuation Phillip Jackson

100

101

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ESPN Zone Phillip Jackson

102

103

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Going Against the Grain Phillip Jackson

104

105

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Morning Routine Larissa Norman Art First Place Featured as Cover Art

106

107

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The Blue Door Rachel Leavitt

108

109

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Sunrise Alexis Mackay

110

111

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Invisible Child Jeremy Palmer

112

113

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Fruit Stand Nicole Archibald Spencer

114

115

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Geometric Castle Geometric Pawn Geometric Rook Geometric Queen Nicole Archibald Spencer

Art Second Place (Geometric Castle)

116

117

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Huish Rob Steffen

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An Interview with Katharine Coles, Utah State Poet Laureate Heather Duncan and Emily Fairchild

Katharine Coles was named to a five-year term as Utah Poet Laureate in 2006 by Governor John Huntsman, Jr. She is the author of two novels, Fire Season and The Measurable World and four collections of poems, Fault, The Golden Years of the Fourth Dimension, A History of the Garden and The One Right Touch. Her newest collection of poems, Flight, will be published in 2013. Her poems, stories and essays have appeared in a number of journals such as The Paris Review, The New Republic, The Kenyon Review and Poetry. She teaches creative writing and literature as part of the faculty of the English Department at the University of Utah. She also co-directs the Utah Symposium of Science and Literature with Fred Adler and serves as Director of the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago.

Heather Duncan: The first full book of your poetry that I read is The Golden Years of the Fourth Dimension. I was delighted by the range of ideas you explore. You talk about string theory and religion and you quote Albert and Mileva Einstein’s letters, all in the same book. You obviously have a great sense of curiosity and that seems to be reflected in 120

all of your work. What are your thoughts on the value of curiosity as it relates to writing and how do you suggest writers cultivate and make use of their sense of curiosity? Katharine Coles: I guess I think that curiosity is essential to any creative endeavor at all, and I think of science absolutely as belonging to the creative endeavors in the same way that people think of painting or dance or whatever. It seems essential to me for anyone who wants to operate at the top of their game, in any field. I was going to say in any intellectual endeavor, but I would go beyond that and say any field at all. If you want to be pushing boundaries you have to be curious about what’s on the other side of the boundary that you can’t see. Otherwise, you’re never even going to get to the boundary, much less push beyond it. My husband is a scientist. He and I always say that we have a lot more in common than not in the way we approach our work and the kind of work that we do. We absolutely have nothing to do with the sort of stereotypes about what scientists are like: rigid and pocket protector and all of that kind of stuff as opposed to what writers are like: flaky, vague, that kind of thing. There may be some level, among technicians in either of these fields, in which these stereotypes may inhere a little bit, but anyone who is working at or near the top of their creative fields has to have absolute discipline and curiosity, courage and the willingness, when it’s time, to let go and move out into the unknown. At the same time, one must have the ability to fly into the unknown, which is, I think, what we think about with the artist that implies a kind of looseness or freedom or indiscipline. I think that to do good work in anything, you have to have both of those things. And with both of those, you absolutely have to have the curiosity that will allow you to move past what you already know and to take the risks you need to take in order to do something new or different for yourself and, you hope, ultimately for other people as well. How do you cultivate that curiosity? I think that is a really interesting question and it may be that different people have different ways and 121

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that may in some way be the difference between a scientist and an artist —in that we have different methodologies and means for achieving that movement through the boundaries, for pursuing curiosity or even for the kinds of things that we might pursue with our curiosities. For students I would say, don’t ever assume that you’re not interested in something until you have taken a close look. I would also say, be very conscious about what your habits and usual pathways are and remember—maybe it should go on the calendar “today I’m going to do this”—but remember on a regular basis to make a choice that’s different from the choices that you usually make. So, I just got back from Antarctica. Some people were really surprised that a small person, et cetera, et cetera, would go off and do that. I have discovered that there are two kinds of people in this world. There are the people who, when I tell them that I’m going to Antarctica, will say “Oh my gosh, that’s so great! Can I go with you? I’ve always wanted to go there!” And the other is the person who says “What? Are you out of your mind?” And it’s interesting because, as far as Antarctica goes, I am the first kind of person and my husband is actually the second kind of person. But he’s very adventurous in other ways and he pursues his curiosity in other ways that have very little to do with going to remote and dangerous places where you don’t have your own bed and all of that kind of stuff. I don’t think that anybody pursues everything with curiosity and with passion. But, to go back to what I first said, don’t assume until you’ve looked at something that it’s not worth pursuing for you. And, too, don’t forget to pursue those things that you imagine you’d like to. Don’t end up being the person who, at 80, suddenly realizes “I always wanted to go to Antarctica and now I probably can’t. I’m ill or not fit enough or whatever.” So the other thing I would say is, if you think you’re interested in doing something that you’ve never done before, then do it sooner instead of later. Do it now. I really wish I had gone to Europe for a year as an exchange student. I didn’t really realize that was open to me as an option, so I guess I wish I’d been more curious at that point about finding out what might be 122

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available, because you reach a certain age and probably that’s not going to happen. It becomes harder and harder and harder with every year. Emily Fairchild: We have seen that you’ve done a lot of traveling. We wondered if, because you had an idea that you went traveling or if you went traveling to go discover ideas? KC: It’s some of both. I’ve actually been really lucky in the amount and kind of funded travel that I’ve been able to take. Usually to get funded to travel you have to have an idea in advance of what you’re going to do. Sometimes you think that you would like to go somewhere and so you generate your idea based on where you want to go. That desire might be based on a romantic idea or it might be based on an intuition. Then, as you formulate the idea of what kind of work you want to do, you might refine your idea of exactly where it is that you want to go. So, Antarctica. I had to write a grant application to the National Science Foundation to be evaluated not only by artists but also by scientists. Which, by the way, is a nightmare. The NSF grant proposal process is a nightmare to navigate, so you have to be really serious in order to do it. I started with an idea: “I really want to go to Antarctica.” I’d just always sensed that that would be a really good thing for me to do for a number of different reasons. Then you start to think “How do I convince other people that they should send me?” So you’re asking simultaneously: “What kind of project do I want to do?” and then “How can I frame that project in a way that I think will be interesting to this specific audience?” There’s an interesting interplay there for me between drive and desire, on the one hand, and an already developing sense of the audience for the work on the other hand. For the Antarctica work, more than any other, I think I’ve had scientists in mind as people I’m not only talking about but that I’m talking to, in some ways, in the work that I’m doing with that. So there’s this sort of bootstrap process by which you’re imagining a place, you’re imagining a work, you have to pitch the idea. It’s agonizing 123

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developing the pitch and you really wish that you didn’t have to do it and it feels really artificial in some ways. You think, if I were really honest, what I would do is say I’m gonna go to Antarctica and I’m gonna stand in some places and if I’m lucky I’m gonna write some poems afterwards. In a way you think, if I were really honest that’s what I would do. But actually, I’ve found over the years that there’s a real value in refining a little bit more precisely your ideas in advance about what you’re going to do while you’re there, understanding of course that it’s never going to be what you expected it to be. The final product is not ever something that you can really predict. If you can then you shouldn’t bother because it’s probably not going to have been worth doing. The NSF process was so long that I had written a proposal almost two years before I actually went to Antarctica. It was six months before I went that they really started the orientations and they brought us to Denver and I had to give a presentation on what I was going to do. It was like a year and a half later and I went back and reread the proposal which I only vaguely, vaguely remembered. I was reading it on the plane and I got really excited and I thought “Oh, really, is that what I’m going to do?” Another project that I had to write a proposal for: I said I was going to go to the sites of important and/or bizarre scientific events in Europe and write poems about that. There were poems in The Golden Years and also the last book Fault that came out of that project. And that just comes out of an interest in science and history, a desire to go to certain places, and a curiosity about going more deeply into the history and into the science. Last spring I was in Rome, Venice (I know, it’s a rough life.), Naples and Istanbul for another project that I’m doing. It’s about trade and exploration and images, etc. That was really very much about, again, an intuition from previous travels, that there’s really something that happens when people from different countries actually engage with each other economically that is ultimately reflected in the transaction in the arts and in the imagery. 124

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In those cases, I single-mindedly pursued a way to go to those places as a writer and do the work. Sometimes I go places because I’m invited to do a reading or a presentation and if the place is at all interesting, I try to do it. And then my husband, as a scientist, travels quite a lot and does a lot of international travel and I’m very fortunate because he doesn’t like to go without me. We were in Hong Kong last week and I actually ended up doing some stuff there, but the original reason for the trip was his work. HD: You’ve kind of already answered this, but one of my favorite quotes from Einstein is when he said that “All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.” In your collaborating what have been your impressions of the dividing lines between disciplines. Are they useful? Are they limiting? A little bit of both? KC: That’s an interesting question and it seems to me that they must be useful in some ways, maybe mostly institutionally, or they wouldn’t have developed. These lines were much, much less clear obviously in the Renaissance, even much less clear, say, up through Victorian times. It was really around the late nineteenth century that these lines, these boundaries, started being felt as boundaries instead of something else. And it was really with the rise of the twentieth century style university and what we now call the silo-ing of the university that really has people in the same building with each other who have no comprehension of each other’s work or what the other is doing. It’s interesting to me right now that there’s actually a concerted push in universities, certainly in my university, to try to break down some of these boundaries. I do the Science and Literature Symposium. The founding idea of the symposium is that not only people whose work has really obvious things to say about each other like biologists and physicians or mathematicians and physicists; not only should they be talking to each other but artists and physicists and writers and theologians—all of these people should be talking to each other. When I called Antonio Damasio, who is the wonderful neuroscientist who came out for one symposium 125

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where Jorie Graham was the poet, when I called and asked him to do this he said “Poets are exactly the people I should be talking to about my work,” and I thought “Yes! He’s my guy!’ What I think happened through the twentieth century is that disciplines literally got smaller and smaller and smaller. People were narrowing and narrowing and narrowing and I think it finally got to the point where they realized that what they were looking at was so small that it actually no longer had any meaning that they could articulate to a larger world, or usefulness. That’s when people started to try to have more conversations again across disciplines. It must have been useful for a while and then it became un-useful or inhibiting and sometime later people noticed that it was inhibiting. This may just be part of our normal pattern of going too far in one direction before we come back in the other direction. That’s really one of my interests, how different disciplines talk to each other. The poem in Fault about Kepler is as much about the visual arts and what happened in the visual arts when we moved away from an earth-centered universe to a heliocentric universe as it is about Kepler’s work. So, I’m really interested, and my assumption tends to be that at any given moment whatever is the zeitgeist is the zeitgeist across a number of different disciplines and I’m really interested in looking at how that operates at any particular time. EF: I imagine that influences the way you research as well. KC: Yes. EF: I was able to read your novel, Fire Season. I noticed in the acknowledgements that for at least ten years you’d been doing research, about fires in particular. I wondered how much time you devote to research for your novels and is that different from how you research for poetry? KC: I think it can be different in that the poetry research is more kind of grazing; where I might be traveling in Hong Kong and I’m looking 126

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at temples, and then I’m here and I’m reading some stuff I haven’t read before on linguistics or something like that and then suddenly something starts to buzz back here [at the back of her head] that tells me that there’s a relationship between those two. In a way the poem is about figuring out what the relationship is between those things that my intuition is telling me are related for the purposes of a particular poem. So, that’s not necessarily going on while writing a poem and thinking “You know what I really need to do to finish this poem is go look at temples” in the way that if you’re writing a novel that has forest fire fighters in it you might at some point think “I need to really sit down and talk to some of my friends who have done this.” And then eventually you will probably say “You know, I actually really need to go out on some fires, so let’s figure out how to make that happen.” EF: Did you actually go to some fires? KC: I did. Fortunately for me the Leamington Complex fire, which was like 300,000 acres out near Eureka, was happening just as I was thinking I needed to go out on a fire. Bless their hearts, the people at Catalyst Magazine made me a press pass. I got dressed in fire clothes and loaded up and taken out onto the line, which was just great. EF: There’s some very poetic writing in it too. It was very lovely. KC: Thanks. Thanks very much. HD: I’d like to talk about your Bite-Size Poetry project. KC: Oh boy! HD: I’ve enjoyed that. I think that having a one-minute poem every month from a Utah poet is just a great way to provide exposure for poetry. KC: I hope so. 127

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HD: I love getting it in my email and seeing it pop up all over the Internet. KC: And I hear about it more than anything I’ve ever done, probably. Total strangers. I’ll get introduced and they’ll say “Oh, are you the one that did that bite-size poem project?” I just love that because my idea was: everybody has a minute. Poetry is so scary to people. Somehow they imagine that if they sit down and try to read poetry they’ll never come out on the other end, but everybody has a minute. HD: I think of poetry and writing in general as a kind of conversation. How do you think the Bite-Size Poetry project has affected that conversation here in Utah? KC: That’s really interesting. I actually hope and I believe because of the things that people have said to me that it actually has brought to poetry more people who would not have thought of themselves as people who like poetry or are interested in poetry. It has made a number of people say, “Ah! Maybe I am interested in poetry.” And for a bunch of those poems KUER did some short interviews with me about the poems where we would just talk about them. I heard from a lot of people that they really liked that. Those would be maybe three to five minutes, those discussions. But it turns out that people who’ve had one minute for a poem—and especially because poetry can be mystifying, though of course not always in a bad way—so you’ve heard the poem and you’re sitting and thinking, “Huh.” You’re trying to figure out how to go about making something of this. Then, to have a conversation between two intelligent, but not overly intellectualizing people, about the poem and about what’s really striking in it or very interesting about it, I think for a lot of people that was just really useful and it demystifies the poem. Part of what gets said very often is, “Well, poems are supposed to be mysterious,” but here are some ways to think about how to put a poem together. So, it demystifies not the poem so much as the process of encountering a poem, and kind of reminds people that there’s not only 128

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one right way to think about a poem, that there’s not going to be a quiz, that the point of poetry is really pleasure. The conversation is really about the pleasures of a poem, where they are to be found. What I heard from a lot of people was that they just started to feel a little bit more comfortable with the idea of being around a poem. You can eat the poem and the poem won’t eat you. EF: I also came across the collaboration of the Fair Use Poetry Guidelines. That’s fairly recent isn’t it? KC: Yeah, that’s brand new. EF: So, I came across that and I was just wondering what you hope to see happen with that, if it’s too new to see results yet. Or can you tell us more about that? KC: I think we’re already actually seeing some results from it. I think it’s part of a growing awareness that, although as a poet I’m a believer in copyright and ownership, maybe the recognition of ownership had kind of over-balanced the corollary part in our copyright law, the idea that ownership isn’t absolute and that you have to have mechanisms by which new works can be created. What that recognizes is that every work is in conversation with other works and comes out of previous works. I think that what I became aware of and what a lot of people are becoming aware of is that certain kinds of expression, really important kinds of expression, are actually being stifled because ownership rights are being asserted so much more strongly than rights to fair use. This was just our attempt on behalf of the poetry community to come out with some sort of statement of what the values of the poetry community actually are in relationship to ownership issues and in relation to fair use issues. It’s obvious that all poets have ownership interests in their work. What’s not so obvious is that all poets very much have interests in keeping the fair use doctrine strong and lively in poetic 129

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culture because without it we can’t actually really do our work. Just as important, without it, for example, scholars can’t really do their work. This baloney that publishers have been trying to assert about being able to quote only two lines of poetry in a book of scholarship before you have to start paying by the line, which I think critics and poets have long assumed was the law, is just a business practice. It’s actually not the law. And what’s more, the fair use doctrine carves out a new special, privileged place for scholars if this were ever litigated. But the problem with fair use is it has to be litigated case by case. There is not a law that says “at so many lines,” right? But basically what it says is, well, “as much as is necessary”, and whatever you use you must be using it to make a transformative work. My favorite example, which is not from scholarship—do you know Kenny Goldsmith’s poems? He’s a sort of experimental, avant-garde poet—for one of his books, what he did was he took a copy of an entire daily New York Times and he simply retyped it, slapped it between the pages of a book, and published it. He did not get sued. And there are probably two reasons for that: one, it was a poem, so what does the New York Times care, right? In another way, somebody at the New York Times probably thought, “We don’t want to litigate this. It might actually be fair use.” It’s really interesting as a piece of conceptual art. And poets, all over the country, intuitively realized, absolutely that’s a transformative use of the New York Times, absolutely that should be fair use. But then, when you come down to, ‘Well, he used the whole thing! Isn’t that too much?” Well he had to use the whole thing, right? It’s the only way. So anyway, for me intellectually the project was really a lot more interesting than I expected it to be. I wanted to, you know, do good in the world, all that kind of stuff, but it’s actually kind of a fascinating, geeky subject. So I really enjoyed, very much, doing the work. I think it is having an effect already. Even just the conversation before the document came out was having an effect. I would talk to publishers and 130

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they would say, “You know, really, limiting use is always a mistake.” But they were sort of locked in to this whole system of practices. I think we will see results soon. EF: And that will help authors have exposure for their poetry and work. . . . KC: I think so, too. I actually think it is really stupid for writers just to sit on their poems and not let them out in the hopes that they’re going to make money on them down the line. I think, if the work is out there, you’re a lot more likely to make money down the line than if you’re hanging on to it. EF: We will obviously be using this interview in UVU’s literary journal and we can’t help but ask, in behalf of all the creative writers, about some of your writing processes. The revision process can be quite an ordeal, especially for full-length novels, but for poetry, what is the revision process like for you? And when do you know that a poem is “complete”? KC: Paul Valery said, “A poem is never finished, merely abandoned.” There was someone else who said, “A poem is finished when you’re putting commas back in that you just took out.” I think those are two ways of saying the same thing, which is: a poem is finished when it’s as good as you can make it, when you can’t make any other changes. When you—at that moment, maybe not the very specific moment, but in that period of your history as a writer—when you can’t make any more changes that will improve the poem. Now, how do you know when that’s happened? I guess that’s a good question. But I will say that, even though I still routinely keep drafts along the way, I used to do it because I had the young poet’s fear that I was going to ruin the poem and have to go back to an earlier draft. Guess what? I’ve never gone back to an earlier draft, ever. Does that mean you shouldn’t keep them? No. Of course you should keep them. Partly because, now I use them in my teaching, to say, “Look how bad that first draft was! And then I made this mistake, and then I made this mistake and this mistake . . . ” So that’s why I do it, to 131

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sort of document the process and where things go. The process, I think, changes over the years. There was a period in my life as a poet when I became aware that the poem, for me, usually never moved into its important last phase until I had lopped off the top third of the poem, which just meant I had a lot of throat clearing I needed to do before I ever really got to the poem. Of course it wasn’t very long after that that I stopped needing to do that, because once you become aware of a bad habit, then you can internalize a lot more and do that work sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, but do it in your head before you ever sit down. So, even though I don’t always start my poems in exactly the right place, whatever the cutting and pasting and moving around process might entail, it’s almost never anymore just about getting rid of a whole bunch of extra stuff that happened right up top. I think for me right now a lot more of the process is more efficient than it used to be, in that I’m much better at recognizing in my head before I ever sit down when I’ve got something worth working on, a line or a series of lines to work around or expand. And it might expand down the page, or outward, upward and down, and that varies from place to place. Just in terms of the intuition that there’s something that’s worth working on, for me that’s always about a conjunction of language that has a sound to it, a confident sound that’s starting to formulate in my head. That is happening along with, over here, some images, maybe some ideas I’m trying to work out, beginning to feel there’s a little solar system of things spinning around that is a combination of a number of these things. Then usually what happens is you get that thread of language, where you think, “If I pull on this, if I start with this phrase or this sentence, and keep pulling, something is going to happen that’s going to help me bind all these things together.” I think a lot more happens in my head now and, as I said, some of it consciously, some of it unconsciously. The longer you’ve lived your life as somebody who engages in a particular intellectual or artistic process, 132

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the more that just becomes part of your life, and what you do and who you are. I hardly ever have to think anymore, “Oh, I haven’t written a poem in a while, I’d better sit down and write a poem.” It’s just much more an organic part of my life. So, you know, there are notebooks in my bathroom and by my bed that have lines and phrases, in my purse, in my car, because I’m always grabbing and grabbing something. So I have notes everywhere and then sometimes if I do think I haven’t had much time and I really do just want to sit down and do something, I’ve got so many places to go, because I’ve been working all along. So I might look at one set of notes and think, “Nah, not today,” or, “Oh, this one’s interesting.” EF: So in your opinion, when writers say they need to get “in the zone,” do you have a process to do that, or is it more like what you just explained, having ideas at all times? Or do you have to sit down and get in the zone somehow, and how do you do that? KC: I guess I try to live my life in such a way that I’m only a half step out of the zone at any given moment. Travel is absolutely part of being in the zone for me. That’s partly about dislocation and estrangement, things I think are very productive for art and especially for writers; but I also think it’s expanding what your sense of the zone is. When I was commuting back and forth from Chicago for the past two years, when I took the job I thought, “Two years . . . I’m probably not going to write a lot of poems during that time.” It was maybe the most productive two years I’ve ever had, partly because one thing I figured out is that an airplane is a really great place to write poems. An airplane is also a kind of dislocating, how weirdly private it is. The phone doesn’t ring. You don’t get email. There aren’t any of those distractions there. Two and a half years ago if you said that to me I would have said, “Are you out of your mind? It can’t be done, it’s totally impossible.” So let’s just say I’m not precious about my zones, but for a poet, maybe I’m just enormously practical about figuring that out. I’m a runner— and also, now that my dog is sixteen, I’m a slow walker—and I find that for me, exercise is a really productive zone. I think there’s something about setting your body in motion that lets the mind kind of spin. 133

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So I guess the advice I would give is, well yeah, you probably have to be in the zone, but if you can live your life so that, you know, if you’re not actually in a faculty meeting and the zone tugs on your sleeve you can just step right over and be there, then you’re probably going to write more poems. And maybe better ones, too. I think there’s also, for me, something kind of precious about thinking that art is unrelated to or outside of ordinary life or who we are as human beings. I don’t think I’ve ever consciously articulated that to myself before, and I think that I have been a person in the past who was kind of precious about the source and place of art in a way that I’m not so much anymore. That might just be a practical matter. If you’re going to write poems, you can’t afford to think that you can only do it under one circumstance. HD: The most common advice I hear from experienced writers to young writers is to read widely and to write consistently. What other advice would you give to writers, in addition to that? KC: I would say: travel, challenge yourself, dislocate yourself, take yourself out of what is familiar. I think another really common piece of advice for writers is to write what you know. Maybe. I think I would rather tell writers to write not from what they know but into what they’re going to know next, which makes it a little bit more of an adventure, a little bit less about self-expression and a little bit more about a kind of exploration where the reader can be brought along with the writer in an engaged way. I would say keep moving, don’t sit still. Absolutely, once you think you know what kind of poem you write, try to write a different kind. The last thing you want to do is get stuck. It’s just not that interesting to keep writing one kind of thing. This is something actually that’s very tempting at a certain point for young writers. We talk about finding “the voice” which I actually think is another inaccuracy. I think we assemble our voices. It’s more useful to think about voice as a kind of assembly because if you think you find your voice then you think that once you’ve found it, there you are. Whereas, if you think that you assemble your voice, you can understand that the voice is also a moving target and that you can 134

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keep expanding it, making it more various, making it more interesting all the time. So, keep moving. Don’t settle. The minute you think you know what you sound like, expand. HD: What have been some of your greatest challenges as a writer? KC: I think that for everybody, maybe (though I should only speak for myself), one of the great challenges is continuing. Everybody has periods when they’re really dissatisfied with what they’re writing and other kinds of periods where they might think that they’re writing okay but nobody wants to publish the work. Everybody goes through these times. So I think that for all writers the biggest challenge is to weather those times when you’re not feeling entirely confident about the project either because you don’t think you know what you’re doing or because you’re not happy with what you’re doing or because the world doesn’t seem to know or seem to be happy with what you’re doing. I think that those can be very lonely seeming times and that it can be very, very difficult to keep up your confidence that you’re going to be able to get through. I was actually talking to one of my PhD students last night. She said, “I just hate everything I write right now. I just don’t feel like I know what I’m doing.” I told her that when I was in college my best friend sent me a card that had an R. Steiner drawing of a staircase in profile and there was a dog also in profile with his head right up against the riser of one of the steps. You can see he’s just pushing and pushing and pushing and if all he did was relax a little and look up he would see “Oh, right, I just have to hop up there.” The caption was: “Dog face-to-face with the next step.” That’s the way I think that certain periods of your life feel, usually, I think, when you’ve written through a vein that may have been very exciting and productive and you’re kind of casting around trying to figure out what’s next. You may even be doing very fruitful work, but because you can’t see it very well or because it doesn’t feel the same way as the old work feels, you just don’t have that confidence and you feel stuck. That’s hard. It’s hard and I think everybody goes through that and 135

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for some people it makes them stop writing. I’m not one of those people who stops writing, but this might be why I write in every genre that there is. If you’re stuck over here you can always try something else. I think it’s very frustrating and there’s nothing that makes you feel more useless as a writer, even if you’re writing, to feel that you’re not actually producing anything that’s worth the attention of an audience or even worth your own attention. I think that’s probably the most difficult. HD: I want to talk about something I think you’re very good at. KC: Oh boy! (Laughs) HD: I really liked your book A History of the Garden. I thought it was a very personal, intimate book and yet you made it very universal and accessible for me. I’m wondering what some of your techniques are for taking a very personal experience and translating that into writing that creates an emotional experience for a reader. KC: I think this is what you always, always hope that you’re doing. But you never know whether you have succeeded until somebody says, “That happened for me!” It’s really interesting because my very first book The One Right Touch was very much in the first person, confessional vein, which is just what was being done in the eighties in this country. Everybody was basically writing lyric narratives about moments in their childhoods. Finishing that book was, in a way, kind of a problem for me because I had a happy childhood and I knew I’d pretty much used it up. And I thought, “Does that mean I’m never going to write another poem? What’s really going to happen there?” It was really interesting to me, when I turned to the more scientific material which begins in A History of the Garden. There’s a gesture toward it at the end of The One Right Touch but really it begins to crack open in A History of the Garden. I think of Garden, Dimensions and Fault as kind of a three book sequence that is working that vein. And I was very interested when, now that 136

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I wasn’t necessarily talking quite so autobiographically in a really direct way, people started to say, “This is such intimate work.” It’s interesting to me because a lot of that work seems to me to be less about biographical detail than about enacting a kind of thinking on the page. It’s that book that really made me begin to think of thinking as a passionate activity and one that was worthy of enacting in a poem. I started to think about language in a different kind of way. I moved very much from the intense, imagistic lyric to a much looser, more meditative, vocalized kind of style, the style of a voice ruminating or talking. I had no idea that readers would experience that as being more intimate than this other thing that really felt in ways more intimate, in the way that it’s more self-revelatory about things that had happened to me. So, was that a conscious thing that I was doing in terms of the audience? That’s the kind of “chicken or egg” question that is actually really hard to answer. It felt as if that was a way of enacting my mind on the page that was much more authentic and much more mine. In a sense, I guess you could say it was an act of selfishness to do that. I felt as if I was finally engaging my own interests in language. I’d finally sort of brushed off all the formal creative writing teachers sitting on my windowsill saying “You can’t do that. You can’t do that. You can’t do that.” And I’m going, “Yes I can. Yes I can. Yes I can.” At the time, to me, it was a very scary move to do that. It wasn’t really a way that people writing in the dominant mode were writing or thinking about their poems. But, I was kind of bored with the way that people were thinking about poems. I guess what you always sense is that if you’re bored with it, the reader will be bored with it. If you are enacting something out of passion and excitement then you hope that the reader is going to come along with that. EF: I have noticed, because I read that earlier novel and then I read some of your later poetry, that maybe your own writing influenced your writing.

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KC: You’re the first interviewer who has ever had that perception. (Laughs) EF: Really? I don’t know. I made that connection in my mind. I don’t know if you’d rather answer which other writers have influenced your work. . . . KC: You know, we’re all influenced all the time by what we read. My poems, especially after the first book, tend to be festooned with epigraphs. I’ve had critics complain about that. In a way, that’s partly because I want to acknowledge that influence. Not only do I want to put an idea or direction in the mind of the reader, that’s absolutely one thing that I want to do. “By the way, we’re talking physics here in case you were wondering.” But also, I want to acknowledge the influence of that particular text that I was reading and to help the reader understand this is heavily inflected, this is heavily the influence. I have a lot of poetic influences: Bishop and Dickinson, Stevens of course, all of the ones that you would expect me to say. I have a lot of influences from outside poetry. Beautiful science writing just makes me swoon and absolutely influences me. As far as the self-influence goes I would actually go back to the gap between my first and second books of poems. What happened in that gap was that I wrote my first novel. I knew at the end of my first book that I didn’t want to do that anymore, but I didn’t know how to do what it was I thought I wanted to do next. It required a kind of vocal flexibility, et cetera, that was not something I had come out of my education with. I thought, well, I don’t know what to do so maybe I’ll write a novel. Then, as I was finishing that novel I was out in the garden and I heard a line I’d been reading. I was doing physical activity, I’d been thinking, and I heard a line and I thought “Oh my God, that’s a poem. That’s a poem.” I’d been in prose for so long that I wasn’t ever sure that I would hear that voice again. This was A History of the Garden. I went into a very intense period of writing poems. That book was written fairly quickly. The voice, I think, in that book—the difference in voice between the first book and 138

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the second book I think is huge and it’s because of what I learned from writing the novel. I now think the purpose of that novel, which I think is actually not a very good novel, as having been to teach myself what I needed to know in order to go into those next three books. It’s funny, I have never thought of that in relation to Fire Season so maybe I’ll have to, but with the first novel it’s totally clear to me that that is exactly what was going on. I’d written short stories before then, I’d published some short stories, but short stories are really much more like poems—or they can be, certainly mine are. They weren’t doing the trick. I was just writing very dense, very lyrical short stories. With the novel, there’s other stuff you just have to do, and fortunately I was able to take that stuff back to the poems. HD: We have one last question for you. You’ve been Poet Laureate in Utah for about five years now. KC: Almost five years. I’m almost done. HD: I’m wondering, is there one question you wish that someone would ask you? What would be your answer? KC: That’s a really good question. Probably the question that people don’t ask, because they think there isn’t an answer for it, is “What is poetry for?” It’s the kind of question that even though people don’t ask it, I go around answering it all the time. (Laughs) So, I could say that I wish people would ask certain questions, but as you’ve probably noticed I talk about what I want to talk about no matter what. (Laughs) The answer to that question is: It’s for pleasure and let’s not forget it. That’s all it’s for.

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Awards

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Judge: Margy Layton

First Place: “A Character Sketch” by Darek Parcell The author pulls off a challenging premise on at least two levels. The tangible dialogue between an author and his fictional character is intriguing and written simply, not overworked (“I didn’t write any of that,” the author repeated. The page declared that Brian replied, “And yet, there it is.”). The piece as a whole effectively captures that intangible concept of reality only existing as language shapes it. Language geeks like us talk about that idea all the time, but illustrating it with a surreal, slightly dystopian (“The Sewer?”) story is more fun.

Second Place: “Still Life: Arranged” by Brenda Johnson I love the way the words and the images they create are woven together like a visual art. I was drawn to read through this piece again and again, each time discovering new layers of poignant clarity laid down with so few strokes of a pen.

Third Place: “At the Heart of a Tomato” by Lauren Vael Matthews A wonderful counterbalance of the strong feminine, positive energy of the grandmother’s passion for growing tomatoes, spreading the seeds and sharing the fruits of her labor of love. The piece elicited a rich earthiness that makes me yearn to grow tomatoes even though, in reality, gardening makes me grumpy.

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Judge: Dennis Clark

First Place: “Home Economics” by Emma Hunt-Samudio This poem opens with a quirk on a question that is itself a comedic staple of parental exasperation—but it quickly dashes that hint of humor with the disquieting image of ears “hemmed shut with a coarse white twine,” an image of mutilation horribly developed as a suite of surrealistic images of self-mutilation. To that opening question the parent supplies the child’s answer. It comes in the form of a question, asked and expanded. That the answer takes the form of incremental repetition typical of Hebrew poetry underlines a desperate self-control. That its substance comes from a prisoner’s anguish—one of Joseph Smith’s letters, written after four months’ imprisonment in Liberty Jail, later canonized—adds to the desperation. The poem’s final image, of that thread only “dark-streaked in crimson” leads to a further question: shouldn’t there be more blood? Which of course raises the question: What in hell is going on here? Is this boy autistic? We know “the child is afflicted,” but his parent is helpless to prevent his withdrawal, his selfabsorption, his rejection. The irony of the title only becomes apparent in the further questions it raises, because there is an economics at work here in the exchange of questions, in the traffic of love, invoked by that first question: “Do you think we grow on trees?” Second Place: “Tonight” by Brenda Johnson “Tonight” seems a simple romantic image, almost slight in its whimsy. But every word in this poem matters. The apparently simple desire to lie down in moonlight is subverted by the sexual connotations of the verb “lay,” by the tension of the adverb “stretched,” and by the weight of that moon. The image of bathing in moonlight “until my fingertips fold” (as they would in a tub full of warm water) makes this moon-bathing disturbingly more literal than sunbathing, and leads to the unsettling image of one “dripping tarnished silver” as if it were

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mercury, but not nearly so shiny. And the idea of leaving “footprints that glow,” especially after a second or third reading, seems more to come out of a horror flick than a moonlit romp. Is this lunacy? Such an encounter with the moon is wildly romantic, and, in its details, terribly frightening as an image of emotional isolation. In that context the title can’t help but reflect that of Stephen Sondheim’s lyric “Tonight, tonight, won’t be just any night.” Any poem borrows language from its entire culture and re-shapes it; this poem uses its words economically and well.

Third Place: “One Way” by Robert Foster Clever wordplay is one way to enliven a poem. It makes this poem. The opening clause with its reprimand is undercut by the unexpected appearance of a “feeble patch of pale,” almost as if “down” were a noun, which literalized the image. This off-balancing continues with the “swath of guilt and grief ” which could result, on one side and the other, from the dressing-down. But as the poem folds and unfolds, another form of dressing down, i.e. informally, specific to an occasion, comes into play: “so clothed in darkness we undress,” all defenses down, dropped with the clothes. The tension first heralded in the image of a reprimand unfolds in an apparent disagreement —“varicose violence”—over God “living well beyond his means,” two clever word-plays that limn a clash of ideas, resolved in the ambivalent last line where both agonists “search the silhouetted walls for signs,” which leads one way only—back to the title. Dennis Clark should have been locked up long ago, but since, by some bureaucratic oversight, he was allowed to mate and reproduce, the cat is out of the bag and the toothpaste is out of the tube and the cat is playing with the toothpaste so . . . be careful what you put on your toothbrush tonight. By way of prophylaxis, Mr Clark is publishing “Rough Stone, Rolling Waters”, a multi-part indiscretion, under a pseudonym, online, in ProvoOremWord; if you meet him in the street, pretend you do not see him and he will gratefully pass you by in anonymity. Whatever you do, don’t encourage him. One is enough.

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Judge: Melissa Hempel Including visual arts in the Touchstones publication represents another way of crafting stories. Readers can apply their own thoughts and experiences to the poems, prose, and images in just the same way—supplying the internal narrative or image needed for the respective form of art. The exceptional selections in this year’s top spots present viewers with the greatest possibilities to chronicle the personal account surrounding each piece. All three works flaunt a certain duality, begging viewers to explore the unseen tiers which created the piece.

First Place: “Morning Routine” by Larissa Norman This portrait strikes you as you try to piece together the scene. The daily reality of brushing your teeth brings visions of essential monotony, waking and participating in society. However, with a backdrop found in art history and the strong lines surrounding her body, this image refuses to accept the act as routine, but assumes a renewed perspective of how people see themselves.

Second Place: “Geometric Castle” by Nicole Archibald Spencer Here, the force found in objects is replaced by fragility as these discarded materials become a work of art. Screws generally strengthen, but here seem to weaken the structure as they fight to grip their surroundings. Is the piece being pushed together or pulled apart? In both material and concept, the forgotten utilitarian elements transform into a classical façade.

Third Place: “Graffiti Lounge” by Andrew Guile What do you focus on when you see this photograph? The view brings thoughts of a tourist wanting to remember a new experience, while the customers may be regulars at a local restaurant. This disparity is reflected in the graffiti covered walls. Holding countless signatures and messages, individuality is lost as the image is captured in black and white. Melissa Hempel received an MA in museum studies from San Francisco State University and a BA in the history of art and visual culture from UC Santa Cruz. Working in Bay Area organizations before coming to the Woodbury Art Museum, Melissa focuses on the interpretive potential of art and sees museums as a community center. 143

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CONTRIBUTORS Nadia Ashtawy is an English major in her senior year. She has worked on publications like Crescat Scientia and the UVU Review. Emily Ballstaedt has been published in the literary journal Ancient Paths. She is a senior in the communication program at UVU. Richard Bohn is an English major at UVU and has had work published in Warp and Weave. Annik Maryse Budge is a Price-is-Right-million-dollar-showcase. She works to support her language habit and is the John Wayne of data entry. She loves her supportive super-bat-bafriend and continues to hope that somewhere out there is someone who will pay her to write. Her fingers are getting very cramped from crossing! Kara Callan is a senior in the UVU Art program. She has a deep appreciation for art—both creating and observing. She expects to graduate in spring 2012 with a BFA in drawing and painting and with a minor in creative writing. Adam Christensen is a student at UVU. He will be receiving his BFA in painting this year. He has previously been published in Touchstones. Anthony Christensen is an English major who enjoys rearrangement. Robert Foster has been previously published in Touchstones. He is currently working toward a degree in English with emphasis in creative writing at UVU.

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Shersta Chabot Gatica is a senior in UVU’s English Literature program. Between classes, she works at a local publishing company and juggles the hectic schedules of her three rambunctious children. Wendy Gourley is a senior in the theatre department. Her emphasis is playwriting. Her script “The Story Stone” was just announced as a semi-finalist at the National Bonderman Symposium for 2011. Andrew Guile is a student-chef currently enrolled in the UVU Culinary Arts program. This is his last semester at UVU and he will be attending the Culinary Institute of America focusing on bakery and pastry arts. Nathan Hatton has been experimenting with poetry for nearly eight years. He has never been published in any other compilation and is currently an undergraduate studying Secondary English Education. He will keep writing. Samantha Herzog has been previously published in Touchstones. She has a love of poetry and science fiction and likes to use elements of both in her writing. Emma Hunt-Samudio is too shy to give much information. Phillip Jackson is an illustration student at UVU. He has shown work at the Woodbury Art Gallery, Springville Art Museum, and has art currently hanging in Repartee Gallery. Brenda Johnson holds a BA in English from BYU and is attending creative writing classes at UVU with the hopes of polishing up her rusty skills. She does not remember a time in her life when she wasn’t in love with language.

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Candice Keller is a senior at UVU. She is currently working toward a degree in English with an emphasis in creative writing. Rachel Leavitt is a biology and English literature student at UVU. She hopes to make it into medical school within the next few years. She would love to visit Africa again and is happy to say that the photograph in this issue was taken in Sipi Falls, Uganda. Alexis Mackay is a junior at UVU studying art and visual communications. She hopes to graduate spring 2012 with a BS in AVC. Her favorite mediums are lino block, oils, inks, and digital. She has been published in a previous issue of Touchstones and also on a postcard. Lauren Vael Matthews is currently studying English with an emphasis in creative writing at UVU. She has been voted ‘Most Desirable Person to Be Stuck in an Elevator With’ due to her ability to retell every movie she’s ever seen, including voicing all of the characters. Larissa Norman is a student at UVU working on her BFA in illustration. She previously received her AAS from UVU’s Multimedia program. Larissa’s fine work also graces this current issue of Touchstones. Jeremy Palmer is a junior at UVU who is working toward a BFA in graphic design. He likes all types of printmaking, but has a deep passion for screen printing. He also loves digital media and recently found a new enjoyment in web design.

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Jeremy Raborn is a continuing student at UVU in the junior year of his English degree. His loves include cooking, cars, his girlfriend, and her dogs. Andy Sherwin is in the process of applying to graduate school, where he will be studying theology and creative writing. He worships comedian Louis C.K., author Elmore Leonard, and musician Greg Dulli. William Craig Snapp is a current student of UVU studying creative writing. He was previously published in the fall 2006 edition of Touchstones. My name is Nicole Archibald Spencer and I am a student-athlete here at UVU. I am studying visual arts and am working toward my BFA. Currently, I am in my senior year in both academics and athletics and have achieved and received many awards due to my accomplishments here, which include: Academic-Athlete of the month in November 2010, Offensive MVP in the Great West Conference in Women’s Soccer during the 2010 season, curetting the Identity Show, and most recently achieved two consecutive 4.0 semesters. Rob Steffen: A filmmaker, photographer, participant. And now, graduate.

Darek Parcell is a senior at Utah Valley University working on a bachelor’s degree in English literature. He enjoys linguistics, philosophy, and blue bubble gum ice cream.

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