Winter 2016: Poetry
Canning Factory Road
by Elizabeth Stoessl
How many U. S. roads with that name might show up in some universal gazetteer if such a thing existed? There was a Canning Factory Road in her hometown, but it wasn’t called that until long after the factory closed and the last of the owner-family dynasty had died, long after the last of the canned peas and corn and beets and applesauce were loaded on trains or trucked away. The site stood desolate for years until it became a weekend stage for flea markets and craftsmen’s stalls. She couldn’t walk through those booths of silver earrings and quilted tea cozies without summoning the smell of rotting corn, the stickiness of it smeared in her hair and eyelashes, the squish of it inside her yellow rubber gloves, and the hazard of the sharp knives she wielded to slice out worms from the ears while foremen watched to make sure she didn’t miss too many squirming worms or chop away too much viable corn-flesh. Most of all she recalled assembly-line ennui, relieved by silent recitations of the only poetry she could remember from high school, lines force-fed by teachers to whom she was suddenly grateful for their compulsory assignments of Edgar Guest and Ella Wheeler Wilcox and James Whitcomb Riley. When she discovered how she could subvert her boredom by overlaying the deafening thumps and crashes of the belts and steamers with the internal beat and rhythm of those lines, she wanted more. She went home at night to her abandoned books and found daffodils and tigers and soldiers with their legs shot off. She memorized them and brought them to work, inside her head, her personal poet-ghosts in the machines. They rescued her. |
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Celebrating nature, home and the cycles of life – twenty poets light the winter night. |
Six stories use magic to explore loss, grief and healing. |
With imagery of flora and fauna, four artists animate the winter landscape. |
Five young women dig deep to each speak their individual truth . |
From emerging to established writers – meet the women behind our eighth issue’s voices and visions. |
LETTER FROM THE MANAGING EDITOR
POETRY Northwest Equinox by Kris Demien Gradations of Gray by Wendy Thompson With Gladness by Sara Graves Home by Leora Marialicia González For a Grade School Classmate by Joan Maiers Canning Factory Road by Elizabeth Stoessl To Make a Prairie by Carolyn Martin At Home by Suzy Harris Family Disagreement by Tricia Knoll The Bullfrogs by Katherine Boyer Cows by Rebecca Jamieson Lesson by Stacey Vallas Stardust by Erin Iwata Perspective by Carolyn Martin Lacrosse Season by Elizabeth Harlan-Ferlo The Tangled Path by Suzanne LaGrande Matched Set by Tanya Jarvik False Bus Stop by Elizabeth Harlan-Ferlo Last Visit by Erin Iwata October Walk with My Mother by Ann Sinclair First Rothko Exercise by Elizabeth McLagan Fractions by Susan Blackaby Tea by Melineh Yemenidjian Return by Stacey Vallas PROSE Scarab Man by Cynthia McGean Planetary Influences by Alida Thacher Bone of the Past by Burky Achilles Teachings: A Buddhist Ghost Story by Ann Sihler Wrangler by Desiree Wright A Nicaraguan Spring by Pamela Russell Bejerano FEATURED ART Into the Wonder by Annamieka Hopps Davidson Deep Blue Meditation by Annamieka Hopps Davidson Weave Me Into the Sea by Annamieka Hopps Davidson Crassula 2 by Alison Foshee Crassula 5 by Alison Foshee Crassula 6 by Alison Foshee Warm Autumn by Tamar Hammer Girl with Conch by Tamar Hammer With Her Dog by Tamar Hammer YOUNG VOICES Love Beyond Loss by Isabel Lickey Submerged by Raimy Khalife Hamdan Which Way? by Alli Rodenbaugh To Autumn by Sara Barkouli The Storm by Elie Doubleday CONTRIBUTORS |