Literary gazette by Stuart Communications

LITERARY GAZETTE P R O S E

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P O E M S

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P H O T O G R A P H Y

L ANGUAGE: Communication A RIVER REPORTER LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE

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THE RIVER REPORTER

BIOGRAPHIES

CONTENTS

REY BARRETO grew up in Manhattan. As a teenager he read the novel “My Side of the Mountain.” Ever since then he has dreamed of living in the Catskill Mountains. He moved to Jeffersonville in 2002. He enjoys writing about nature and photographing the beautiful scenery and wildlife of Sullivan County. NORMA KETZIS BERNSTOCK lives in Milford, PA. A member of the Upper Delaware Writers Collective, her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Connecticut River Review, Paterson Literary Review, “Pennsylvania Seasons,” and “Voices from Here.” She most recently won Honorable Mention in the 2013 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards. Her chapbook, “Don’t Write a Poem About Me After I’m Dead,” was published in 2011 by Big Table Publishing. MARYANN CAPPELLINO is a clinical social worker, Reiki practitioner and herbalist who lives in Brooklyn and Lake Huntington, NY. She loves to cook, tell stories, garden, dance and find any excuse to gather with family and friends around her kitchen table and celebrate with good food and fine Italian wines. She has three sons, three cats, and one husband. REBEKAH CRESHKOFF recently escaped from the corporate world after 30 years of hard labor in internal communications. She is currently recuperating along the banks of the Upper Delaware River in Callicoon, NY. JUNE DONOHUE has been writing a column every other Friday in the Sullivan County Democrat called “A Sense of Direction” for 10 years. She also had two small items published in The Front Porch. In addition, she enjoys participating in Yarnslinger events. SHEILA DUGAN mother of five, grandmother of five, lives and works in a big yellow house with a screened-in porch on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware with her two cats and roomfuls of books. MARY GREENE received her MFA in Poetry from Brooklyn College. She is founder and director of the Upper Delaware Writers Collective, now in its 21st year. Greene served for many years as an associate editor at The River Reporter. She is the author of three books of poetry and one book of interviews with women. PETER GREENE lives in Damascus, PA. Family is central to his creative life. He has been painting, printmaking, drawing and writing about family for 35 years. His last exhibit at the DVAA in 2012 was titled “Family Matters.” Each medium he explores expands his vocabulary in words and images, pushing him forward in his work and life. KATHLEEN GALVIN GRIMALDI’S poems have been published in literary journals in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, California and Pennsylvania. She is a member of the Upper Delaware Writers Collective and the American Academy of Poets. She had also taught poetry courses and memoir writing workshops at the TOALC Center at East Stroudsburg University. PEARL HOCHSTADT has a Ph.D. in English Literature, but chose an easy life of part-time teaching and a happy marriage over the demands of professional ambition.

Since 1958 she has summered in Tyler Hill, PA, first at a charming unpretentious resort, then buying a house nearby in 1975. MARION KASELLE is a writer, artist and Qi Gong therapist who lives with her dog, horses, cats and chickens on a hilltop farm in North Branch, NY. She is the author and photographer of “Touching Horses” (London, J. A. Allen & Co. Ltd., 1995), and the author of essays and poems that have appeared in various small publications. As an original member of Yarnslingers, she has been reading her stories at local venues for the past few years. PATRICIA KETT has had articles and poetry published in local newspapers and journals, along with four anthologies, including “The Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow,” 2012 and “Caduceus,” 2013. She’s a member of the Upper Delaware Writers Collective in Narrowsburg, NY and published her first chapbook in 2012, “No Need to Repeat Old Lives or Old Lies.” KAREN MORRIS is a licensed psychoanalyst in private practice in Honesdale, PA and New York City. Much of her poetry explores the area of language commonly shared between poems and dreaming. She runs a Social Dreaming Matrix and Dream-Work Group in her Honesdale office. MARCIA NEHEMIAH’S most recent book, “Crone Age,” features profiles of eight women octogenarians and explores the many reasons to celebrate the riches of aging. Her poems and essays have been published widely in literary journals, magazines and online. An awardwinning poet, she is a member of the Upper Delaware Writers Collective. Visit www.marcianehemiah.com. MAURA STONE is a critically acclaimed, awardwinning author most known for her breakthrough novel, “Five-Star FLEECING,” and her top comedy blog, http://kiss-keepitsimpleschmuck.blogspot.com. She has been interviewed on several radio shows including The Howard Stern Show, WJFF, WVOS and “The Catskill Review of Books.” Recently, she has branched out to television with upcoming guest spots. She lives in Bethel, NY. LESLIE RUTKIN has been a creative director in the publishing field, and is now a writer. Her first book, “Counting the Days: 366 Days in Prison,” was published in 2012. She is working on her second book. JEN R is a happily married homesteader, mother and grandmother. She enjoys cooking, gardening, raising animals, and of course reading and writing. She is originally from Bronx, NY and moved with her family to Sullivan County in pursuit of a simpler, more peaceful life. SARAH WILSON is an 18 year old who graduated from Honesdale High School this past June. She lives in Damascus, PA and works at The Heron restaurant. Although writing is just a hobby, she would love to someday make a living off it. She has been known to draw much inspiration from Snoop Dogg, as is reflected in her writing.

Niqb By Jen R.

Multiple Choices By Marcia Nehemiah

Sentences By Karen Morris

Lastword: Perspectives By Marion Kaselle

Out of the Mouths of Babes By Kathleen Grimaldi

Misunderstandings By June Donohue

Unnecessary Words By Patricia Kett

Pop Poetry By Norma Ketzis Bernstock

Poetry Is By Sheila Dugan

Word By Mary Greene

The Words is Yes By Ramona Jan

How Real I Used to Be By Leslie Rutkin

Mother By Peter Greene

The Language of All Things By MaryAnn Cappellino

Mother Tongue, Mother Lode By Rebekah Creshkoff

Whispers on the Western Front By Sarah Wilson

The Language of the Seasons By Rey Barreto

The Potency of Words By Maura Stone

Translating the Fables of La Fontaine By Pearl Hochstadt

The Literary Gazette is published by The River Reporter/Stuart Communications, Inc. Entire contents ©2013 by Stuart Communications, Inc. Stuart Communications maintains an office at 93 Erie Ave., Narrowsburg, NY. Its mailing address is P.O. Box 150, Narrowsburg, NY 12764. Phone 845-252-7414. E-mail sales@riverreporter.com. Publication Date: September 12, 2013 Publisher Laurie Stuart

THE RIVER REPORTER

Managing Editor Jane Bollinger

Section Editor Isabel Braverman

General Manager Breann Cochran

Production Manager Amanda Reed

Sales Director Barbara Matos

Sales Associate Denise Yewchuck

Sales Associate Eileen Hennessy

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From the editor “The Phantom Tollbooth” is my favorite book, and has been for quite some time (enough so that I have two copies of it on my book shelf). Not only is it an adventure in the classic sense, it’s an adventure of the English language. Norton Juster’s plays on words are so entertaining, imaginative and astute that I am hooked to every word on the page. And I was always one to choose Dictionopolis over Digitopolis. This is why I was excited to edit the Literary Gazette this year and choose the theme of language. Every year The River Reporter publishes the Literary Gazette, which is filled with poems, short stories and essays. All of this content is submitted by writers, and this year it is my great pleasure to edit the Gazette and make the selections, after a successful run by Mary Greene. The theme this year is language. How do we communicate? How do people interpret our words? We speak every day, and we use language to connect with each other. It’s so simple, and yet it’s so important. For this theme, I asked the writers: how do you use language? There are other forms of communication besides words: body language, texting, emailing, movement, music and even miscommunication or silence. How can we understand each other? I hope you enjoy the poetry and prose within these pages, and each writer’s interpretation of the theme. You’ll also find the stunning photographic work of Ross Brinkerhoff. He is a very talented photographer. Currently he is doing an internship in Nevada and took landscape shots for the Gazette. I’m letting these photos speak for themselves. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. Isabel Braverman Section Editor

“I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.” — Jane Wagner

From the photographer ROSS BRINKERHOFF was born in Harris, NY and grew up in Galilee, PA. He received a degree in photojournalism from Ohio University in 2012, and in October of that year he attended the Eddie Adams Workshop in Jeffersonville, NY. This past summer he interned at the Reno Gazette Journal in Nevada, where the western landscapes inspired him to create the body of work featured here. He currently lives in Athens, OH, where he is finishing a degree in sociology and continues to pursue his career in photography.

“In this box are all the words I know…Most of them you will never need, some you will use constantly, but with them you may ask all the questions which have never been answered and answer all the questions which have never been asked. All the great books of the past and all the ones yet to come are made with these words. With them there is no obstacle you cannot overcome. All you must learn to do is to use them well and in the right places.” —Norton Juster, “The Phantom Tollbooth”

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THE RIVER REPORTER

Niqab

Multiple Choices

By JEN R.

By MARCIA NEHEMIAH

I did not know the girl behind the veil. I could barely see her eyes. Yet, I could feel her humiliation, her disgrace, her indignation. It stabbed at my heart to see her being treated as an outcast. These strangers treated her with contempt, simply because of her dress and her foreign tongue. A compulsion came over me. I needed to experience this persecution for myself so that I could better understand, so that I would never forget that an individual should be judged by their actions and values, not by their outward appearance. It didn’t take long for me to understand the scrutiny the girl endures on a daily basis. It began with a notice in my mailbox. The parcel needed to be picked up at the post office. The notice, however, gave no explanation as to why this was so. I assumed it was simply too large to fit in my mailbox. Upon arriving at the post office and presenting the notice, I was looked at, to put it mildly, curiously, by the clerk. It is, after all, a very small town. The kind you’d miss if you sneezed. The clerk handed me a slip and asked me to sign as he went to retrieve my parcel. He returned with a small, Mylar package, not much bigger than a legal-sized envelope. It would have easily fit in my mailbox. It was covered in Arabic writing and the postmark was from Egypt. I wondered right then if I had been put on a terrorist watch list, or at least whether Homeland Security had been notified. I got home and eagerly tore open the package. I thought the garment was just beautiful. It was an authentic Muslim niqab. After some fiddling in front of my bedroom mirror, I finally figured out the proper way to wear it. Gazing upon myself, I couldn’t help but think that if everyone walked around this way, humanity would be forced to use more meaningful criteria than looks, stereotypes, and religious preferences upon which to base their opinions. I went to my closet and selected a longsleeved, ankle-length black wool dress and modest black flat slides. I was ready to put my friends and neighbors to the test.

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They did not disappoint. Or rather they did, gravely. Some stared so hard it seemed that their eyes were piercing my very soul. Others just completely averted their eyes, seeming to know that upon eye contact they’d be unable to mask their disgust and hatred. I could read their thoughts, which were written all over their faces. “Who was this stranger anyway? What business did she have shopping amongst us good, patriotic Americans? They don’t even sell halal food here.” I purchased my merchandise and rushed home before they could organize a posse. In the days that followed, I overheard bits and pieces of the gossip and speculations of the locals. It was as though Yeti himself had been spotted. It was truly disheartening. After all, some of these same people had brought comfort, kind words, and casseroles into my home when my mom was dying. I was disappointed. The girl with the veil was no different than I, or any of the other townsfolk. She has dreams and feelings and beliefs and aspirations. She bleeds when cut just like you and I. But I was forever changed just by only briefly experiencing what she has no choice but to contend with. That, for me, was the sad part—that I could experience such prejudice by literally walking in her shoes. And it didn’t take a mile.

“When you have a million choices, you have no choice at all.” — Barry Schwartz, “The Paradox of Choice” choose one starkist chicken of the sea bumble bee albacore chunk white chunk lite in oil in water 3 oz 6 oz then choose one paper or plastic or reuseable then choose one of the 275,232 books published in this country this year after you navigate through 432 emails in your inbox not counting the spam then choose one of the one billion facebook users who should all be friends then click on one of the three hundred million photos they upload every month then choose one of the 234 million websites with all the information you need right now 6 Ways to Increase Your Happiness! 3 Ways to Forget! 7 steps to overcome the past! 5 best things to do for your relationship! 6 mustread rules to grill by! then choose one of the one billion YouTube videos posted today sort through it all like a pile of socks covering the continent then choose one of the 126 million blogs of outrage and minutia then choose one of the 4 billion Flickr Photos then choose one of the hundred must-have droid apps or the 43,000 Netflix movies then choose one white popcorn yellow popcorn organic microwave stovetop butter plain salt no salt brand name store brand then choose one of the thousand places to visit before you die then press 1 for English then press 1 for customer service 1 for the money 2 for the show 3 to get ready and 4 to go then stay your call is being answered your call is important or hang up and sit all day brookside watch pale fish scales star kissed by the sun that slants from a remote spot in the galaxy to this tiny planet filled with bees doing their waggle dance red flash of tanager deer rustle red oak larch the stillness of mountains

LITERARY GAZETTE 2013 • Page 5

Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees. — Marcel Proust

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THE RIVER REPORTER

Sentences

Out of the Mouths of Babes

By KAREN MORRIS

By KATHLEEN GRIMALDI

The word-seeds that seed our sleepless nights with consonants and vowels, left alone unsyntaxed

“There is no conclusion; the story blooms.” — from “The Last Sunday in October” by Jean LeBlanc

never hear the light of dayunfurl and stretch in banks of clouds

We are all storytellers—you, me, all of us. At least one story waits in us all, waiting to be born, to make it free into the world, somehow, and change things or people, just a little bit. Perhaps children are the ones who know this best. I know I learned this from a child a long time ago... Ian was a rambunctious four year old when I began taking him to and from pre-school to earn spending money while still in college. He was being raised by his dad, a red-haired, green-eyed Irishman who was completely devoted to this little dark-haired, deep olive-skinned fellow whom you can imagine always had questions to ask about his origins. And although it was his dad who was the usual recipient of his mental meanderings, once in a while it spilled over to me. “Tom-Tom,” he addressed me as soon as I walked in that day. He had named me this because my voice reminded him of a beating drum he remembered from his last life back in Africa, the land his absent mother had returned to soon after his birth. “But, Ian,” I had pointed out to him at the time, “you never lived in Africa.” “No, Tom-Tom, not this life-time. The one I lived before this one. It might even have been the one before that, I’m not sure. But I know it was Africa. I remember the elephants.” So like so many other inconsistencies, I had let it go. Tom-Tom my name remained. Now back to this day so etched into my memory. “I’m mad at Dad, you know,” Ian continued on. “I didn’t even talk to him this morning before he left for work.” “What happened little guy, I thought you and your dad were best buds?” “Well, it all happened last night. You know how Dad always tucks me in after he tells me a story and I’ve said my prayers?” “Yep. You’ve filled me in on those stories quite often. Especially the scary ones.” I poked him from behind to add emphasis. This time he seemed removed from my special effects. He went back to his story. “Well, last night I said to him: “Dad, it wasn’t always like this. I mean you telling me a story, then kissing me good-night.” “Yes, I’ve always done that, Ian. Even when you were still in the crib and sound asleep. I’ve always done that, ever since you were born.” “But I don’t mean this life, Dad. I mean the one before when I was the tribal chief and you were my little boy. Then I used to tuck you in and place a kiss on the top of your head. Don’t you remember? You know, Tom-Tom, he just got upset and told me to go to sleep, that it was getting late. I could tell he didn’t remember, and that memory is so special to me. Like we’re meant to take turns. Next time, my turn again to take care of him...” I’ve never forgotten the sincerity of his words nor the mysterious world he opened to me when I looked into his eyes. As if on cue, the phone rang and Ian ran to answer it. Before long, I heard him laugh at something his father must have said to him. Apparently all was forgotten about the night before. Not for me. Ian was my introduction into the world of Reincarnation. And what I saw in a four year old’s eyes that day has taken me all over the world and inspired me to write two books on the subject. How’s that for the power of a story - and from a four year old at that?

or along long streams before they disappear into sentences never spoken. I lie as silent as a snake and never speak another cloud, like St.Vincent-Millay’s candle burning both ends, stretch and dissolve into liquid wax, all inclinations from the depth’s images remain unlit. There is a hole in the wall of the city-scape where I can enter without pick-axe or hands, Anaconda gliding through the scene, born anew, offset between vertebrae. It has followed from my childhood home, the very same one I first came upon frozen beneath an ice age in our yard. It recycles itself, beginningless, along a ledge cut like a channel into the stone. Thoughts stream like LED’s in magnificent sentences, flow beyond all speed, never captured− then explosive and rampant along the road. I wake spell bound in second skin, in a surge of sheathing memory that snakes me end to end, so as not to remember what has always been— exhilarating silence in Anaconda.

THE RIVER REPORTER

Lastword: Perspectives By MARION KASELLE The horses stand at the gate. “Where have you been?” ask their eyes and ears. “I’ve been writing.” “What’s that?” “It’s my art of arranging words — the sounds you hear me think to express the ramblings of my mind — so many other humans may know them.” “Primitive!” they say with a twist of lips and narrowed eyes. “Humans aren’t horses,” I remind. “We’re a relatively new species, still trying to figure things out.” The thought “too much figuring” takes form within, as I catch my mare’s mischievous grin and glint of eye. [From the book “Touching Horses: Communication, Health and Healing through Acupressure,” by Marion Kaselle, J.A. Allen & Co. Ltd., London, 1995.]

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Misunderstandings Unnecessary Words

By JUNE DONOHUE

By PATRICIA KETT

When my grandson, John, was seven, he had a friend visiting who told him he was going to the libary later. John said “It’s not libary, it’s library.” Later, when my daughter wanted to know what flavor ice cream he wanted he said, “strawberry,” but then said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I mean strawbrary.”

Their hands touch across the white blanket, words unnecessary. The doctor says, “It’s best not to see him like this.” She says, “Mind your business.”

My son runs his own business and once had an office cat, which didn’t create a problem until he hired a computer operator who was allergic to cats. His secretary said, “We’ll have to keep him outside.” The office manager replied, “But how can he operate the computer from out there?”

The doctor adds, “He’s going to die soon,” as if she didn’t know. She holds the hands that held hers for sixty-eight years. His eyes open to hers.

After my friend bought a Grand Marquis, her little grandson came running up to her as she was unlocking her door and excitedly said, “Grandma, can I see your new key? Mommy said you bought a new Grandma key.”

She took him home without interference and unnecessary words.

A family I know was planning a trip to Disney World, but the four year old told his father he didn’t want to go. When asked why not, he said he heard that it was a place where dreams come true. “Isn’t that a good thing?” asked his dad. “No, what if I have a bad dream while there and it comes true?”

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Pop Poetry By NORMA KETZIS BERNSTOCK I Cross Walk Push button to cross Tappan Road People push my buttons Cross me Just try it!

II Money Machine Green light flashes, on off on off, Green light beckons Come on, come on come FEED ME, FEED ME Tease me, tease me COME ON! Card in Enter pin Transact Choose yes Press no Spits out NEXT!

ON . . .

Poetry Is By SHEILA DUGAN the unusual in the usual the nugget in the cliché the dot on the i the cross on the t the picture worth a thousand words the tree you can’t see for the forest the black sheep the little red hen the falling sky the peach pit the grain of mustard seed the twenty-fourth psalm the third line of the Rubaiyat the forty-eighth page of On The Road the nth degree the bottom line the last laugh the best of the best the constellation you can name the me in me the you in you the love in love the still in be still and know that I am the quiet between the words the so-o-o-o-o as you inhale the hm-m-m-m as you exhale the eye of the storm the storm the beat of your heart the whispering lips the whisp of a kiss the calm the rush the calm the rush

Word By MARY GREENE Far off grackle Cat bird screech Cat pressing through weeds Isn’t that word enough? Raven’s call Whip-poor-will Toad’s scrawl Isn’t that word enough? Green stems Of the onions in their Wild rows Cackle and bustle in the wind River rain Spiral green In a hurry To match The unswirling ribbon of eel And from the other world A blue wave Foaming surf

This is a music Too deep to hear

Even like this Even when you try

THE RIVER REPORTER

LITERARY GAZETTE 2013 • Page 9

The Word is Yes

How Real I Used to Be: A Journey with My Mother through the Strange World of Alzheimer’s

By RAMONA JAN Verbatim conversation:

“Mom, he just wants to know word,” Lucy stammered.

“Can you play the bongos?” I asked my daughter’s friend, Skye. He grunted in reply.

“Oh. What does he want to know about the word, word? I’m a writer. I could probably write a book on the word ‘word,’ but I don’t have the time right now. So what’s he trying to say?”

“I’m sorry, what was that? I just wanted to know if you can play the bongos.” He shrugged. “Is that a yes or no?” I asked. He smirked, shrugged and then grunted. Desperate to get around the words that weren’t happening, I placed a set of bongos in his hands and he instantly performed one of the most impressive solos I’d ever heard. When he stopped, he grumbled, “I really can’t play.” “I’ll take that as a yes,” I said, adding, “So let’s go.” But no one moved except me. “Where?” Skye asked. “To the Yarnslingers show,” I replied. (Yarnslingers is a local storytelling group of which I am the director and host). “I need someone to play the bongos while I sling yarn around the room. Get it? Yarnslingers!”

In 2003 my mother started to lose her memory. It was subtle at first. We would walk on Avenue U and she would fail to come up with the name of an acquaintance or two. Nothing alarming. After a while her shopping list started to look like an art project, with drawings of mushrooms and strawberries next to the words milk and bananas. Soon the drawings faded away. In the supermarket she would say to me, “I’m looking for those red things with a little green piece and they come all together.” Sometimes it was obvious what she wanted; other times we left without the crackers or the American cheese.

“Ugh, mom! she spurted, “Like do you really mean it?” “Mean what?” I asked. The two of them exchanged glances. Skye smirked, shrugged and grunted and then suddenly agreed to play the bongos but Lucy took them right out of his hands declaring, “You really don’t want to do this.”

Millie raged against the loss of her memory until she no longer knew the names of the foods in her refrigerator, until she no longer knew what the TV remote was, or could tell the difference between eyeliner and nail polish, between chicken and dirt. Until she no longer knew the names, or recognized her children, her grandson, even her dead husband. She went through all the stages: confusion over why she couldn’t remember things; anger; then white-hot anger; then, when the disease took over more of her brain, a softening, a sigh, as she sank into uneasy resignation and disconnect.

“On yes he does!” I said reaching for the bongos. However, Lucy had already lifted them high above my head. “Lucy,” I said patiently, “Skye said ‘word.’” “Yeah, I know,” she giggled as she persisted in holding the bongos just out of my reach. “Well, he said he’d play the bongos for sixty seconds, right? Isn’t that what word means?”

Skye murmured something that ended in the word “plans.”

“No, Mom,” She explained, “‘Word’ means do you really mean it?”

“Plans? What kind of plans?” I asked.

“Mean what?” I asked.

Skye smirked, shrugged and then grunted.

“Mean it’s only for sixty seconds?” she clarified.

“Look,” I implored, “I only need you to play for sixty seconds and when I’m done slinging the yarn, you can leave.”

“Oh, so ‘word’ is another word for promise? As in do I promise that it will only take sixty seconds?”

Skye said something that began with a “w.”

By then, I was pretty frustrated, but it was hard to tell exactly what I was most upset about: a) That “word” alone without “of honor” as in “word of honor” might make it into the Thesaurus as a synonym for promise; b) I was way behind on my teenaged lexicon; c) Lucy was much taller than me; or, d) All of the above. I was just about to give up when Lucy gleefully announced, “I’ll play the bongos for you!”

“I’m sorry. Did you say weird?” I ventured but Skye fell silent. Turning slightly gray, I turned to my daughter, Lucy, for help, “What’s he saying?”

By LESLIE RUTKIN

I ceased to exist to her beyond the very present. She couldn’t tell me where I was born or how old I was. She couldn’t remember the schools I went to, including my elementary school down the block. She couldn’t tell me where we took our family vacations, the street I lived on after I married, my husband’s name. After my sister and I moved her to an Alzheimer’s home, in 2007, Mom said to me, “I think to myself how real I used to be.” And that is the truth of it for me; she used to be a gregarious chatterbox; she used to be obsessive/compulsive; she used to be a great friend to dozens of women; she used to be the best mother she could muster; she used to be an amazing grandmother. She ended up living in a tiny world, with only a miniscule door opened to the outside, without a care, without a notion about world strife, or relatives who she thought wronged her in the past—all her cares gone forever. I would visit her and then go home and write. I would cry as I wrote because she would never read these words; she would not remember what a word was or a book or a piece of art. She lived in a world of simple language which she repeated over and over again: “I love you, I love you, I love you.” “Who are you?” “How is your house?” “Do you have children?” “Wonderful.”

She looked at me and giggled. I looked her straight in the eye and said, “Oh really? Word?” “OK, we really got to get moving now,” I explained, “So just tell me, Lucy, what’s he saying?” She giggled again. “Please save the laughter for when I’m on stage,” I pleaded, adding, “I can’t throw yarn around the room without a bongo player. That would be crazy! So are you in or out?” There was a long pause and then Lucy chimed, “He’s saying ‘word’!” “Word?” I questioned, “I don’t get it because the word I’m looking for is simply, yes!”

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“Oh God, Mom!” she retorted. For a long moment, Lucy and I fiercely gazed at each other while Skye studied his shoes. The air was dead. Then Lucy launched into a passionate bongo performance. I wanted to say yes, but what came out of my mouth instead was: a) Tonight there will be no literal yarn slinging; b) Or bongo playing; c) Thank you very much and d) Be home by eleven o’clock. I gently pried the bongos from Lucy’s grasp and, happily, we all went our separate ways. Much later on I would discover that I was practically the only person on earth who was unaware of the meaning of “word.”

As I watched the slow erosion of my mother’s brain, of her cognitive ability, of her independence, I learned to let go my expectations. She would never learn a new word, she would never be able to verbally communicate with me ever again. In time she “spoke” to me with a wiggle of her eyebrows or a grimace or a smile, or a look in her eyes that told me she was really my mom. She couldn’t utter a sound, but she spoke volumes.

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LITERARY GAZETTE 2013 • Page 11

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Mother

The Language of All Things

By PETER GREENE

By MARYANN CAPPELLINO

Have you seen your brother lately? A question rising out of a mind confused so clearly came the message Have you seen your brother lately? So focused these words in the midst of her confusion her loss of all things present Have you seen your brother lately? Her purpose in life more visible as she disappeared inside her memories Tortured by an inability to reconcile inner and outer worlds, yet always the shepherd worried about her flock from that muddled mind like a soldiers battle cry Have you seen your brother lately? Making sure her life’s not in vain evidence of effort grasping for a comfort as past becomes present! Have you seen your brother lately? Not a question a statement of purpose! This mothers life a mother mother

Impatient for the day to begin I emerge from my dark bedroom and head outside To hurry it along I clutch the old pilled sweater firmly against the early day The edges of my nightgown wipe the dew from the grey green grass I stand rooted The morning greets me A pine scented soft breeze washes away yesterday As it glides gently through the family of trees That have been here since long before me Tall and friendly, watchful Their voice An orchestra of leaves fluttering and swaying performing nature’s sweet melodies A relentless chorus of large crows, caw magnificently emerging from their nighttime perches, black and iridescent Noisily taking flight Free They rise up into the new day stirring up the sky circling and dancing Is it for me? My soul dances and smiles and sings out in concert, with grace Speaking one language Welcoming the morning Grateful for its greeting And for what is to follow In all its possibilities and promise

Have you seen my brother lately?

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845-252-3338 LITERARY GAZETTE 2013 • Page 13

Mother Tongue, Mother Lode By REBEKAH CRESHKOFF Whenever I asked my mother how to spell a word, she would invariably tell me to look it up — a strategy that instilled in me a lifelong love of language. I also owe a debt to Mad Libs. “What’s an adjective?” I demanded whenever my sisters and I played the fill-in-the-blanks word game, which required familiarity with the parts of speech. I had a firm grasp of nouns and verbs, but adjectives were still beyond me. My eldest sister couldn’t be bothered with explaining, or maybe my mind boggled at a word that modifies a noun. In any event, she’d simply say, “Just name a color.” And so a suitor’s letter to his paramour’s father would begin, “I am in love with your GREEN daughter,” and close with “I promise to make her PURPLE .” But Mad Libs never had players come up with prepositions, which perhaps explains the sorry state in which we find them today. I first noticed it in the corporate world, where my boss would say things like, “Let’s gather employee feedback around diversity.” “Whatever happened to about?” I grumbled to myself. But the plague quickly spread, and using “around” instead of “about” became endemic throughout the company. A promotion to editor further heightened my sensitivity. The hapless writers in my bailiwick constantly struggled with prepositions — although perhaps “were blissfully ignorant” would be a more accurate description, since “struggling” implies consciousness of one’s predicament. (It’s not just corporate hacks who don’t know when to use which preposition. Every day, I encounter errors in such reputable news outlets as NPR and The New York Times—even The River Reporter.) I also exhorted my writing team to use short Anglo-Saxon words instead of Latinate ones ending in -tion. Such words tend to be polysyllabic — a fact I first registered, if unconsciously, in fourth grade. We were supposed to go home and ask our parents to teach us 10 new words ending in -ation. Naturally, by the time my parents got home from work, I’d long since forgotten the assignment. The next day, when our teacher asked us to write down the new words we’d learned, my initial response was panic. Then I pondered and came up with 10 words that had the requisite ending — utterly mortified that Mrs. Haycock would think I hadn’t already known the word “transportation.” Now I wonder what my parents would have come up with if I’d remembered to ask. Would they have played it straight, or would they have had fun with the assignment? I’m sure my father, who loved to hold forth at the dinner table, would have taught me communication — and then, in a flash of insight, might have described what he was doing as pontification.

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Ever one to enjoy playful banter with the opposite sex, would he have taught me flirtation or titillation? No doubt my mother would have supplied aggravation. Other word endings have provided me with countless hours of entertainment. I am on an endless quest for trios of homophones — words that sound the same, but are spelled differently. It all began with the talk my husband gives to potential tai chi students. “The chi in ‘tai chi’ is not the same as the chi meaning ‘energy’ or ‘life force’,” he intones. “It’s like where, wear and ware.” We learned about where and wear in Mrs. Haycock’s class. But nobody actually says ware; we always use it in the plural. So for years I’ve been on the lookout for better examples of three-word homophones — a harmless and engaging occupation that has deepened my respect for our rich crazy quilt of a language. One of my best early finds was rain, rein and reign. That was soon followed by pour, poor and pore (my mother always cringed whenever she came across pouring over a book). This approach relies heavily on dumb luck: you have to just happen to notice that we have three words that are spelled differently, but pronounced the same way. Over time, my technique became more systematic. Now, when a word catches my attention, I mentally run through the alphabet to find all the different ways its ending can be pronounced. Take -ough. Right at the very beginning of the alphabet, it is sounded three different ways: bough, cough and dough. Amazing, right? Continuing on, you find rough and through — five different sounds from one four-letter combo. Next you mine each pronunciation for homophones: bough, bow [v.]; dough, doe; rough, ruff; through, threw; and tough, tuff. Alas, no trios, but the exploration is fascinating in and of itself. It also sheds light on why my employer’s former CFO used to talk about a truff in the business cycle — and why my husband insists on calling the town that is home to Vassar puff-KEEP-see. But a more haphazard approach can also yield gems. One of my all-time favorite finds is peek, peak and pique (and recently I was in quite a pique when I read a book set in the Rockies that confused the first two). Another copyediting error highlighted a homophone pair that let me locate a trio. My jaw dropped when I spotted idol, idle and idyll. Pity the poor adults who learn English as a second language. How can they possibly hope to master all the inconsistent spellings and pronunciations our language throws at them? It was hard enough for me, a native speaker, when we were studying homophones. I asked how you could tell whether the speaker meant where or wear. And Mrs. Haycock simply replied, “Context.” A fine Middle English word.

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Whispers on the Western Front By SARAH WILSON I have never been good with words they hang heavy on my tongue like clothing lines through tenement windows but my scars are excellent story tellers and I could talk to the crinkles around your eyes for centuries we kiss each other like amulets, use our bodies in place of prophets I’ve never been good at reading between the lines but I read your palms and came to the conclusion

The Language of the Seasons By REY BARRETO

that you are every word I could never find you tell me the freckles across my shoulder blades are like Braille and only the best people can decipher my story when our fingers intertwine, they speak so fluidly a little like Spanish, more so French, the kind of language that comes when two people run out of words for talking and have to resort to feeling instead

Summer came and she danced to the music of live bands at county fairs, and the Delaware River spoke to her of romance and childhood dreams, her youth melting like ice cream on a hot August day. Autumn came and its leaves spoke to her of all she had lost, things she had to let go of, they spoke of her past loves and friendships, so many lost in the wind, a few who returned with new beauty and color. Winter came and recited its poetry to her in its white language, and spoke to her of the cleansing and purifying of time, the loneliness of having lived a long life, the chilling breath of death so near, always so near, having only her memories and the wisdom of her years to keep her warm. Then Spring came and spoke to her of faith and hope, another chance to grow in new ways, and reminded her that aging is just living through the seasons, of itself not a bad thing, for rain must come, snow must come, change must come, but the tree that learns to bend in the cold wind, that learns to endure the loss of autumn’s leaves, that survives merciless summer’s scorching sun, the tree that learns to grow strong roots in the right soil, listens to all the seasons’ teachings and finds joy in the listening.

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LITERARY GAZETTE 2013 • Page 15

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The Potency of Words By MAURA STONE When I was involved in a cult they interrupted me constantly. “Enough with the story already. Just tell us in ten words what happened.” I should’ve known better. In my life, nothing’s ever straightforward. One story is a skein from another, equally vital and germane. From there, I weave an intricate design, a pattern of words to provide a scenario, background and rationale to what occurred, what may occur and the importance of whatever I have to convey. To reduce a situation to ten words makes as much sense as Albert Camus’ character in “L’Etranger” who stated, “Au cause du soleil.” Still, it took ten years to acknowledge I made a huge mistake. At the end, I was proud not to have been brainwashed. Okay, the cult threw me out. The Grand Poobah pulled me aside. “God knows we tried. You’re way too disruptive for us. Those one-liners of yours are a major distraction.” To understand how I got immersed in the land of Nanu Nanu, I need to address the phone call that changed my life. “You must take this seminar!” exclaimed my closest friend. “You wouldn’t believe what happened to me afterwards!” He then recounted a garbled story about going to a social function, meeting Russian delegates and concluding a million dollar deal over a handshake. He quit his job as an executive in a Fortune 10 company and overnight opened a consulting firm in Russia even though he lived in Canada. It was quite a bit to absorb in three minutes. In the midst of his narrative, a deviation from who he was as a level-headed exmilitary businessman, he paused to ask me this pivotal question: “Do you trust me with your life?” How could I say no? He was, after all, my closest friend. In candor, he grabbed my attention at the onset when I heard, “concluding a million dollar deal over a handshake.” “Hey, if this is all it takes to make a million dollars, I’m there,” I said. Days later I entered a large room with a hundred other puzzled people. They, as well, were bamboozled through loved ones to take a seminar without having any idea what it was about. All I knew was my friend exhibited an excitement and zest he hadn’t had for a long time. Also, my curiosity was piqued as to what could’ve caused him to do something as farfetched as leave his long-term stellar career for some nebulous business venture. Let’s not forget about that million dollar handshake. A man walked up to the podium. After getting our undivided attention, he cited the following quote:

Page 18 • LITERARY GAZETTE 2013

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” I was hooked. From an early age, my mother insisted I speak French with her. My grandparents insisted on speaking Yiddish to instill a cultural identity. This linguistic tug of war defined my formative years and ignited a love of language. By the time I achieved fluency in reeling off parts of a chicken’s body in Yiddish (even though I didn’t know the corresponding parts of the human body in English), my tutelage came to an abrupt end due to my grandparents’ untimely deaths. Around this time my father took center stage. Dad was a man of taste and distinction who taught me to treasure and love the English language. Each year he escorted me to the local public library. “Feel free to ask the kind librarian whatever you want,” he instructed, planting me at her desk before he sped off. I was diversion while he stole the latest edition of the Merriam Webster dictionary. He needed to replace the beaten up, dog-eared and scotch-taped one he stole the previous year. For Dad was Master of The New York Times crossword puzzles and the Merriam Webster dictionary his bible. “Done!” he crowed in joy each morning. “Less than five minutes! And in ink!” My brother and I egged him on with a stopwatch. “Dad, we want to time you!” That was when he was in his glory, sweating bullets, pressing deeply with his pen under the curious and demonic eyes of his offspring. Daily, Dad thumbed through the dictionary pages to select words to augment our minds through vocabulary. Which didn’t help a seven year old in the school bus. I learned that calling a classmate ‘poo-poo head’ didn’t inspire a fight. However, tossing a ‘genetic anomaly, a throwback’ or, even worse, ‘schmeggegah’ brought out fists, fueled from my tonal quality more so than the words’ underlying meanings. I can only blame my father, who primed me to fall headfirst into this cult, which defined itself through languaging. At the initial seminar as well as the subsequent ones I took over ten years I became versatile in the mechanics of molding words to do my bidding. I crafted a future in the future, not a way to relive the past. All it required was words. Bit by bit, though, I understood their true potency. I witnessed experts at disembowelment and manipulation who harmed and maligned people without their awareness, simply to enroll them into additional courses at the cult. The last few years I made a stand against evil, beleaguering cultists, pointing out their hypocrisy, their self-serving and what I liked to call, “the pea pod mentality.” My mother asked me, “Why bother? It’s no longer any fun for you. The only thing you’re getting is annoyed. Is it really worth it?” Twelve years after barring me from the cult, the Grand Poobah himself invited me to take one last course. In shock, I sat in disbelief listening to gobbledygook, a doublespeak of doubletalk. It made me wonder what captivated me in the first place to spend ten years of my life and oodles of money taking courses that were essentially meaningless. It may have something to do with that million dollar handshake.

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Translating the Fables of La Fontaine: A Creative Linguistic Challenge By PEARL HOCHSTADT Everyone has an urge to be creative. It’s important, though, to recognize one’s proper medium. I’ve picked up paintbrushes, cameras and sketchpads. I’ve satisfied my brief obsession with quilting with the completion of one potholder. And I finally had to admit that my medium is words. But that still left one big question: What would I write about? Inspiration came only rarely. And I wasn’t sufficiently pleased with my occasional poetic effusions to write them down (a failure I still regret). Then, in 1998, the answer came to me. I had just attended my high school class’s 50th-year reunion — my first ever — and I recalled how in French class we had had to memorize the first few fables of the 17th-century poet Jean de La Fontaine. I could still recite them. Why not try to translate them, aiming to approximate not just their sense but also their meter and rhyme schemes? That would be a fun game. Better yet, since La Fontaine had published the fables in twelve separate books, if I committed myself to finishing one book a year I would have a project that would carry me to the age of eighty. And so I was launched. I kept to my schedule, only allowing myself extra time for Book XII because it was twice as long as the longest of the preceding books. Translation is a tricky business. The Italians have a proverb: “Tradurre e tradire”— translation is treason. And if the challenge to be faithful to the original text is already implicit in the fact that individual words in different languages are not always exact synonyms (indeed, there may not even be a one-word approximate synonym), the challenge becomes all the greater when one is also attempting to capture the sound effects of poetry—meter and rhyme. Compromise would always be necessary. And the wide range of possible compromises can be seen in the many excellent—and different— versions of Homer’s epics or Dante’s Divine Comedy. I knew that there were a few wellregarded translations of the Fables already out there, and I resolved not to look at them. Instead I would rely on my three years of high-school French, a bilingual dictionary and occasional help from some Francophone friends. From them I got supportive feedback and was further encouraged when some of my verses were published in Metamorphoses, an academic journal devoted to literary translation. I was also pleased to think that I was continuing a long tradition, because La Fontaine, although he had no interest in doing a close translation, had drawn much of his material from earlier literary sources, first Aesop’s fables, then more exotic fabulists like the Indian Pilpay, and eventually, in Book XII, some of the tales in Ovid’s “Metamorphoses.” In fact, some of the best illustrations of the difficulties inherent in literary translation can be found in Fable I of Book II, a poem whose subject just happens to be language. My title for this poem is “To the Overly Critical,” but the literal version would be “Against Those Who Have Difficult Tastes.” In it, La Fontaine addresses those readers who had complained about the language of Book I. To pacify them, he attempts a more high-flown style, only to be rebuffed: “These windy spoutings leave me out of breath,” say these critics. He tries again. This time:

In that case I knew which version to choose. But I still haven’t made up my mind about the last two lines of the poem. In one version I liked the first line better: “You fussy folk are doomed to discontent./You can’t be satisfied; at last that’s evident.” In another version I liked the second line better: “ You fussy folk know only groans and sighing./ You can’t be satisfied; there’s no use trying.” Which do you prefer? Occasionally, though, I was lucky enough to find a wording that was even better than the original French. My favorite example is “Cross my heart” as a rendering of “Sans mentir” (without lying) in the fable “The Crow and the Fox” (Book I, Fable II). The meter is a perfect match and the language is far more expressive. But my luck didn’t last for the rest of the poem. As anyone who also had to memorize it will recognize, the meter at the end departs widely from the original. Here is my translation in full: Perched on a treetop, behold Master Crow With his mouth crammed full of cheese. Lured by the scent, Master Fox sits below And sounds him with pleasantries. “Greetings. M’lord” is his studied homage. “Aren’t you the handsome fellow. A voice to match such splendid plumage Must be both sweet and mellow. Cross my heart, you’ve got to be The height of vocal glory Deserving of celebrity Throughout this territory.” It works: the crow just has to show How gorgeous he can sound. He shapes his mouth into an O. The cheese falls to the ground. Fox seizes it and smirks “Dear sir, Here’s valuable advice. To learn to distrust a flatterer A cheese is a trifling price.” Wracked with confusion, shame and pain, Crow views his sorry state And vows he’ll not be tricked again Just a bit too late. Eventually the project was completed and I was emboldened to send a sample of my work to the distinguished poet/translator Richard Wilbur. I couldn’t have been more thrilled when he responded that I “stand up very well to the competition.” But now I face the most daunting challenge of all: how to find the right publisher.

“Stop right there,” my critic howls. “I can’t accept these feeble rhymes Why you haven’t even matched your vowels. You’ll have to rework this some dozen times.” And this translation is itself a reworking. In my original version the second and fourth lines were “Are those the best rhymes you can muster?” and “You’ll have to start all over, Buster.” Livelier but too colloquial.

THE RIVER REPORTER

LITERARY GAZETTE 2013 • Page 19

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