Winter 2016: Young Voices
Introduction
“I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.”
― Edgar Allan Poe
It is amazing to have your heart crack open from the intensity of truth. It is a beauty so raw that no matter how hard you try there is no looking away. A variety of truths comes to the surface from the truly interesting Young Voices that have been captured in this issue. Through these five young women, inspiration has transformed into words; words so full of meaning they evoke our senses and allow an immense range of emotions to emerge. Each of our writers has surrendered to their deeper feelings and crafted on the page a story that connects us to their utterly unique kind of truth.
In “Love Beyond Loss,” we follow along as a young girl’s belief in love is shaken by death and eventually, through ritual, restored. With a mastery of imagery, the prose piece “Submerged,” sets us down in another country and wills us to look at someone who on the surface is different than us, yet when we look closer there is something deeper. The poem, “Which Way?” asks us to choose, darkness or light. And begs the question, Why do we choose to be in this world of the light when sometimes it is so hard to bear. “To Autumn” plays with the season’s beguiling ways, all the while reminding us that time passes by. In the poem “The Storm,” we are thrown directly into an uproar of the natural world. We cower under the immense power and with the writer watch its indulgence.
These truths are large, but inspiration doesn’t ask your age, or how long you have been writing, it only asks, Are you willing to dig deep to capture the essence of an idea and lay it on the page for others to absorb? Thankfully, Isabel, Raimy, Alli, Sara, and Elie, all have answered a resounding “Yes!”
My heart has been touched by the Young Voices from Portland’s Grant, Roosevelt, and Oregon Episcopal High Schools. Their deep understanding of life has changed me, and I am deeply grateful.
Sara Bednark
Young Voices Editor
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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. |
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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 |