Summer of Flash by Julia Goldberg

I am a greedy reader, a pleasure reader, a literary hedonist. I want my coffee strong and my novels long. I want to escape for days on end into story and character. Some of my favorite writers are those such as Kate Atkinson, Ellen Gilchrist or Richard Ford, whose works include recurrent characters whose stories continue over spans of years in short stories or novels. I normally eschew food metaphors but, in this case, devour would be the apt verb to describe my relationship to fiction. I do not want taste a morsel, no matter how exquisitely prepared; I want to ravage.

So at first glance, flash fiction, micros, compressions, suddens, whatever you want to call them, struck me as yet another blow against expansiveness. As a journalist, I would consider myself as having been on the front line of the “short, shorter, shortest” campaign of the last several years. Yes, the power of 140 characters to topple a dictatorship, gather followers or keep everyone updated on your mood is, indeed, impressive. But, you know, some of us still like to read!
I needed a quick and radical adjustment to my attitude during the Intermediate Fiction course I taught at Santa Fe Community College this spring, after Miriam Sagan asked if I would be interested in curating a collection of flash written by my students for the poetry posts on campus. I liked the idea of the project, but didn’t think I could appropriately inspire my students with a tirade against abbreviated thought.
So I plunged in and read a whole lot of flash: the classics, the award-winners and the very, very new.
As a reader, I do not anticipate a huge change in my habits (for instance, when I fly to Europe this summer, I don’t anticipate I’ll bring 80,000 pieces of flash fiction versus a few long books). But as a writer, and a teacher, I have come to see the value of the form and have abandoned my view of it as yet another trendy excuse to shorten my already shortened attention span.
The students in Intermediate Fiction divided into groups and chose various themes for their flash projects: drought, family loss and The Outsider. The extent to which all the pieces adhered to these themes varied from writer to writer, but the resulting group of 20 pieces, which will be on campus June 1-Aug. 26, show, I believe, the amazing versatility offered by the form. The pieces range from writing I might characterize as prose poetry to simply short fiction. They also show the challenge of instilling the various attributes of fiction writing (character, plot, story, for example) into such short works.

Here are the writers for Summer of Flash, and their works. You can find a map of the poetry posts here.

Installation 1, June 1-July 14: Benjamin Lucas Buck, Meg Tuite, Ana Terrazas, Sarah Velez, Alona Bonanno, Lisa Neal, Tina Matthews

Installation 2, July 15-Aug. 26: Meg Tuite, Ree Mobley, Ken McPherson, Pat Barnes, William White

Post by Julia Goldberg

Mindfulness by Terry Wilson–the Buddha, a wetsuit, and hypothermia

MINDFULNESS
 
“Try to stay in the present,” my therapist said to me. I’ve been in therapy for years; in fact, I’ve retired five therapists before this one. But my current therapist hasn’t given up on me yet. She and I had been discussing how, even if I wasn’t good at meditating, I could still practice using my workouts as a meditation.
 
“Swimming could work as a mindfulness exercise,” she said. “Just try to notice what’s happening as you swim. Slow down the movement of your arms, your legs; be aware of how they slip through the water and what color the water is and the sky.”
 
This sounded good since I earned my Pollywog badge when I was six, but I mostly don’t swim indoors because the chlorine is too hard on my skin and hair. Luckily, though, it was still summer and there are a few bodies of water around Santa Fe. That weekend, I talked my husband into going with me to Heron Lake, about a two hour drive north. Since it was the end of August I was hoping the water would not be too cold, but as we got closer to our destination— near the Rocky Mountains—the temperature was hovering in the 60’s.
 
I was determined to swim though; I’m a little anal about exercising every day. Once we arrived at the lake, I sat in the open car door with my feet on the ground and squeezed myself into my rubber wetsuit. My husband zipped up the back for me, and we walked on the rocks down to the water.
 
I got in slowly, but damn, it was COLD! I kicked my legs and splashed with my arms as hard as I could to warm up, but it still felt like I was in the icebox. I had asked my husband to time me so I could get a good workout. But then I wasn’t mindful of anything but how long I had been in.
 
 “HOW much longer do I have before I’ve been in 40 minutes?” I kept asking him. I was aware of how numb my fingers and toes were becoming in the freezing lake.
 
I tried to swim toward the sun, but it was giving me a headache. I found a warm spot, but then I banged my knees on the rocks because that spot was only a foot deep. I again swam out where it was deeper, and I was shivering.
 
“HOW many more minutes?” I badgered Mark. I had promised myself that I’d swim three times a week, each swim being twenty minutes. Since this was a Saturday, and I’d only swum once that week, I had to swim two more times.
 
“I’m going back up to the car,” he said, being saner than I am.
 
“NO!” I yelled. “Don’t leave me here! I’m too cold!”
 
“Get out of there, then,” he said. “You’ve already been swimming for….” He looked at his watch. “Twenty three minutes.”
 
“That’s ALL?” I said. “I feel like I’ve been in here for weeks!” He began walking up to the car so he could get himself some food from our trip earlier to the Farmer’s Market. “How will I know when my time is up?”
 
“I’ll beep the horn,” he said. How I longed to be walking up that path again….up to the car…but I had to keep moving. If I stopped at all, I’d begin to shake. Shit. I need more bulging muscles on my arms and legs, I thought, then I’d be warmer.
 
Be mindful, I kept telling myself. Look at the sky! The water is so….aqua….and friggin’ freezing! Arghhhh! Beep the horn, damn it! I silently said to Mark. I watched him as I did every swim stroke I could think of. Backstroke, sidestroke, frog kick, modified breast stroke. My neck was hurting. Everything was hurting. Be mindful, I told myself again. But who wants to be mindful when you’re in pain?
Then I noticed he was walking towards the car…maybe to beep the horn so I could get out? No! All he’s doing is wandering around and munching on chips, that brat. Eating while I freeze to death! What if I drown? Sometimes people drown when they get too cold. Hypothermia! I’m sure I have hypothermia. I’ll probably still be swimming and I’ll go into cardiac arrest!
 
Finally he beeped the horn. I galloped out of the water shivering and shaking and was so cold that I couldn’t stand still long enough to get my sandals on. So I just ran like I was having a seizure, half falling down and not caring that I was running on dirt and rocks. I was utterly and completely un-mindful, which in the moment, seemed like the far better option. All I wanted was to get into the toasty car and rip off the wet suit (which hadn’t done its job) and get my warm clothes on.
 
When I finally did, I found a patch of sunlight through the trees before the sun went down, and I sat in it and then I faced the sun. Finally I was able to be mindful, mindful that I had stopped shaking and that mindfulness was not all it was cracked up to be. If the Buddha had ever gone swimming in a cold lake, he’d understand.

***
Terry Wilson teaches Eng. 120, Exploring Creative Writing at Santa Fe Community College, starting again, fall semester…..and any students who have questions can email her at tmwilson222@aol.com 

Star Midden at night on The Land

These images are from Leah Stravinsky’s glass installation, done on The Land/An Art Site itself–April, 2011

SIN FRONTERAS Submission Deadline is June 30, 2011

SIN FRONTERAS Submission Deadline is June 30, 2011.

Submit 4-5 poems or 1-2 short stories, essays, works of creative non-fiction (no longer than 10 pages), or very short play to Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders #16, c/o DAAC, P.O. Box 1721, Las Cruces, NM 88004. Manuscripts must be typed, with writer?s name and address on each work submitted. Although we publish primarily Southwestern writers, we do not necessarily prefer or require regional subject matter. Include a cover letter with very brief (2-3 sentences) biographical and publication information, your email address, and your phone number. Payment is one copy of the annual journal, which is perfect bound. Manuscripts will be recycled, not returned. A self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard must be included for notification. If you work is accepted, you will be asked to submit your final version electronically via email attachment.

Unfinished Hoarding by Carolyn Stripling

This piece was written in Terry Wilson’s class at Santa Fe Community College. Wilson says: The student writer is Carolyn Stripling and this was an exercise done in class where students wrote as if they were specific characters, describing what was in their purses or pockets….(I love the part about writers as hoarders of words!)

Unfinished Hoarding

My name is Gluttony Anne and I am a hoarder.

Can I show you what is inside my bag?

A pack of Camels, which I smoke to the filters and sometimes past, packets of Taco Bell sauce with those funny quips on one side, and a Packers sticker I bought from a vending machine at KFC when they were offering that breadless Double Down sandwich. My wallet is heavy with coins that I hoard from friends and off the ground because change to me is like free money, like little Armenian babies that do count in the end. I have stubs from movies, the opera, and the bank, records of art and its expense. There are cards from people I’ll never call and some who don’t call back. I’ve saved a match box some boy gave me and inside is a stick of cinnamon some other boy gave me and a piece of a clay fish I found in my back yard. Floating along the bottom are three lighters that don’t work but three stories attached to each I refuse to forget and a Palm Sunday cross, but I can’t throw that away because it is holy.

A little pink notebook is dotted with things I overhear or oversee every day, a hoarding of moments, phrases, scenes, postcards to literature I will never send. My writing is a kind of hoarding. The little sketches I make of the punch lines that happen all around me is just a hoarding of the creativity of the lives of others. I find these sketches crumpled up in all of my pockets.

I save every picture I’ve ever taken, blurry road signs, crooked friends, and sunsets that turn out green. I even have photos other people took that I find on the ground and try to solve. If I weren’t too self-conscious walking about this tiny town, I’d pick up every scrap from the ground, every piece of torn up letters, broken toys, obscured CDs. I would glue them together and make a monster that would only be good for burning.

I keep emails and voicemails and text messages because someday I will decipher them. I keep old dirty tee shirts left over from old dirty relationships because someday I will turn them into punk rock statements. I keep pairs of glasses with the lenses popped out because someday I will be Andy Warhol and Marcy from Peanuts again. In my room among piles of other stuff is a bag full of wine corks, a journal of the hours we’ve spent drinking wine on the porch, hours we can’t seem to remember because (and this is something I refuse to believe) they are trivial and drunk and should pass naturally into the past, lying quiet and peaceful as if nothing had happened, as if it really was just a night, just a porch, just another person.

I hoard free things with sick pleasure. I’m sure the Catholics call it stealing. I take everything others intend to donate: records, books, clothes, leftovers, cigarette stubs. I am the poor man’s enemy.

To hoard is first to collect and then to keep. My spirit animal is the hamster, with his little cheeks full of dust as if he were out to save the world. I feel I have a responsibility to everything I touch and if I turn my back on anything, I’ll forget everything that has touched me. Nothing ever disappears but everything gets destroyed eventually. But if I could prevent all those mini genocides of the future maybe I could validate the larger ones of the past. I could prepare myself and unsuspecting others for the second coming of the Turks or Jesus.

But Jesus won’t have me if I don’t repent and I hoard my sins which is just to say I’m terrified of confession. I am a self-proclaimed martyr, the worst kind of martyr, a miniature Simone Weil, a quarter Armenian, hungry in America. My only battles are self-inflicted clutter that I constantly plan to get rid of at future flea markets.

The End of the World That Didn’t Happen: Devon Miller-Duggan on the Rapture and Dry Ice

Write about anything, Miriam said. Talk about being a grandmother. So, instead, I figured that I’d write about The End Of The World that didn’t happen.

As much as I am irritated/frustrated by Evangelicals and their even weirder cousins The Rapturettes, I was having a hard time figuring out how to think about the whole 5/21/2011 thing, and not for religious reasons. Unless you’re a really serious biblical literalist, that stuff has no traction at all. I was trying to work out what the benefit was for the folks who were all packed up (or however it was they prepped) and ready to go, aside from the attitude so beautifully encapsulated in The Austin Lounge Lizards’ lyrics: “…Jesus loves me, but He can’t stand you!” I mean beyond that, because most of those folks already have that whole Eschatological Superiority thing going. And I really can’t figure it. Which brings me to my son-in-law-the-uber-geek’s response, which was to threaten to leave a pair of sneakers in the middle of the street that he’d filled with dry ice. Fortunately, or un- dry ice is hard to come by in northern Delaware. But I figure there’s a haiku in there somewhere.

May Swenson Eats Some Celery

As I get older, I think back on some amazing poets I had the honor to meet, and I realize that while I often loved these folks as people I was oddly oblivious to their fame and influence. For example, when I was twenty five and spending an autumn at MacDowell, I was there with May Swenson.
There was also a small group of young very avant-garde composers in residence. We had almost nightly soirees in the library–a writer would read, a visual artist would show slides, and a composer would play. The music was often minimalist, electronic, and a la John Cage.
May Swenson was then in middle age. Raised a Mormon, she was also one of the first lesbian poets in the United States who didn’t hide her identity. She reminded me of a nuthatch–tanned, small, she had a sturdy birdlike quality. And it turned out, a sense of humor. Because she was busy recording her own avant-garde composition. It was basically of May Swenson eating lunch. She’d intro the theme–chewing on celery–and then record it. She played the whole piece for me and the composers and we found it hysterically funny.
It was only until some other poets–more ambitious and savy than me–arrived and began to network her that I realized May was a prominent poet. I like her poetry then and I like it now. It can be surprisingly emotional violent, but it has integrity. However, what I really liked best was her.

***
The Woods at Night by May Swenson

The binocular owl,
fastened to a limb
like a lantern
all night long,

sees where all
the other birds sleep:
towhee under leaves,
titmouse deep

in a twighouse,
sapsucker gripped
to a knothole lip,
redwing in the reeds,

swallow in the willow,
flicker in the oak –
but cannot see poor
whippoorwill

under the hill
in deadbrush nest,
who’s awake, too –
with stricken eye

flayed by the moon
her brindled breast
repeats, repeats, repeats its plea
for cruelty.

Where is Botoxia, Bronxistan, and Blahniks? Maira Kalman at the Jewish Museum

I was recently at the Jewish Museum in NYC. I particularly wanted to see the Maira Kalman exhibit. She is primarily an illustrator, and did a charming version of ELEMENTS OF STYLE.

This show also had some odd but intriguing installation elements-ladders, shoes, buckets, even some old onion rings. Of particular interest to me were the embroidered samplers with snippets of poetry–sort of post modern aphorisms.

My sister and I got hysterical in front of the map of NYC with places like Botoxia on it. Here from Wikipedia is a list of the places:
The map itself is drawn by Rick Meyerowitz

NEW YORKISTAN–The places depicted, with their explanations (according to the artists or to commentators), are as follows:
Al Quarantine 
Rikers Island, New York’s largest jail.[8]
Al Zheimers
Artsifarsis 
Situated in the theater district, this is a play on the term “artsy-fartsy”, as well as a reference to the Persian language, which is the official language of Iran.
Bad
Botoxia 
Botox
Bronxistan 
The Bronx
Blahniks 
The Upper East Side where “everyone can afford Manolo Blahnik shoes”[3][9]
Bulimikhs 
Bulimics
Central Parkistan 
This is Central Park in Manhattan.
Chadorstore 
Jersey City, home of a Muslim community where women wear a chador. Also a pun on The Door Store, a well-known New York furniture store.[10]
Coldturkeystan
E-Z Pashtuns 
E-ZPass, an electronic toll collection system, based in New Jersey.
Extra Stan
Fashtoonks  
From a Yiddish adjective meaning “stinking, smelly” describing the sometime aromas of the New Jersey industrial wastelands just beyond the Palisades along the Hudson River.
Fattushis
Feh and Ptooey 
Yiddish expressions of negativity (“feh!”, “ptooey!”) for a part of The Bronx that is considered dangerous.[10]
Flatbushtuns 
Flatbush, Brooklyn
Fuhgeddabouditstan 
This is in Brooklyn, where this place name sounds like the local pronunciation of the popular local expression “Forget about it.”
Gadzhooks
Gaymenistan 
The neighborhood of Chelsea, currently a very “gay” part of Manhattan.
Gribinez 
The Hudson River. “gribenes” (conventional Yiddish-English transliteration) is an Eastern European Jewish delicacy, “cracklings from rendered chicken fat”[11]
Halibutz 
Halibut
Harry Van Arsdale, Jr., Blvd. 
This is the actual name of the road depicted and is the only real name on the map. According to Meyerowitz, the reason is simply that the name is inherently funny: “The name never failed to make me laugh when I approached it.”[9]
Hiphopibad 
Hip hop with -bad nameplace ending. This overlaps roughly with Bedford-Stuyvesant, the most heavily African-American neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Irant and Irate 
A reference to ranting and being irate, as well as to Iran and Iraq.
Khaffeine 
… (Also note the jagged lines marking the territory, a reference to the effects of caffeine.)
(Conn.) Khakis 
Southwestern Connecticut, a wealthy area that could be considered a stronghold of WASP culture and the article of clothing often associated with them.
Khandibar 
A pun on candy bar and Kandahar.[9]
Khantstandit 
“Can’t stand it”
Kharkeez 
This is in southern Connecticut, with the translation being “car keys”, a reference to the many NY workers who commute to the city from Connecticut.
Khkhzks
Khouks
Khurz 
Curs and Kurds
Khlintunisia 
This is in Harlem, the “Khlintun” part being a reference to President Clinton’s office location in Harlem. Also, “Tunisia” is a primarily Islamic/Arab country in northern Africa.
Kvetchnya 
A pun on Chechnya and “kvetch”.[9]
Le Frakhis 
LeFrak City, a housing complex in Queens[10]
Lesbikhs
Liberaci 
Presumably referring to Morningside Heights, neighborhood of Columbia University, a primarily “liberal” institution.
Lowrentistan 
The former location of the World Trade Center.[12]
Lubavistan 
Named after the Lubavitch branch of Hasidic Jews, most of whom live in Brooklyn.[10]
Moolahs 
Wall Street and the financial district of Manhattan. “moolah” is a common slang term for money.[8]
Mooshuhadeen 
Combination of ‘mujahideen’ and ‘moo-shu’, referring respectively to the Arabic term for those involved in a struggle (“jihad”) and to Chinatown and ‘moo-shu’ dishes in Chinese-American cuisine.
Musaks
Mutterers
Notsobad 
The one area of The Bronx that is not considered dangerous to go to.[10]
Outer Perturbia
Pashmina 
A pashmina is a Kashmiri shawl often made of cashmere. This is in an affluent area of the city, where women can afford cashmere and may be drawn to the stylish use of pashminas.
Perturbia
Psychobabylon 
Psychobabble
Schmattahadeen 
shmatta is Yiddish for “rag”, also jocular for clothing in the fashion industry.
Shatoosh 
Shatoosh is a type of fine Kashmiri shawl made of antelope down hairs. It is located in the center of an affluent are of the city, where women can afford such a luxurious shawl.
Snit
Soporifiks
Spit
Stan 
This is Staten Island. It’s just plain “Stan” because of its nondescript nature.[10]
Taxistan 
This is the location of LaGuardia Airport in Queens, with its large contingent of taxis waiting for arriving passengers.[3]
The Potatoes 
These islands (2 are North Brother Island and South Brother Island) are shaped much like potatoes, at least in the drawing.
Trumpistan 
an “area of future development” [6], presumably by New York developer and Apprentice star Donald Trump.
Turban Sprawl 
urban sprawl
Upper Kvetchnya 
Kvetch is Yiddish for “complain”.
Veryverybad
Wretched Kurz
Yhanks 
This is the South Bronx, home of the New York Yankees and Yankee Stadium.
Youdontunderstandistan

Blog Hiatus

The semester is over! I’m taking a vacation. Miriam’s Well will be on break Tuesday May 17-Monday May 23. I will be posting comments and answering e-mail, just no blogging.
Here at almost a year and a half of the blog I’m taking stock. I welcome your thoughts, comments, and particularly your submissions. This summer I’ll be particularly interested in poetry and prose on the dual theme of Love & Death, in honor of the Tres Chicas book with me, Joan Logghe, and Renee Gregorio.
I am always looking for:
poets with new books out who would like to be interviewed
haiku
flash fiction
musings on the blog’s twin patron goddesses: Baba Yaga and Patti Smith

Thank you for reading!

Gail Rieke
Shugaku in Reflection

Interview with Yves Lucero

INTERVIEW

1. What is you personal/aesthetic relationship to the poetic line? That is, how do you understand it, use it, etc.

2. Do you find a relationship between words and writing and the human body? Or between your writing and your body?

3. Is there anything you dislike about being a poet?

Yves–I’ll add a 4th question to my usual 3

4. Your new book has an unusual look–it includes drafts, drawings, handwriting. What inspired this unique approach?
 
1. Wow, that’s a wide and deep question. From my understanding of it, the line can contain the history and elements of poetry: meter, stresses, types, metaphors…etc. Whenever I come across works that adhere to strict codes (like a trochaic octameter) you get a sense that the style was written for memory’s sake (mnemonic in nature to facilitate transmission) and you can see how Rap has continued that tradition — “street sonnets”? You get a sense that poetry wanted to be music but didn’t have the money or connections to get into Ivy League.
     The line is the space between craft and reportage.
     The line can be a monofilament cast from my mental fly-rod into a river of words. What will I catch today? A shoe? A beer can? A worn tire? I’m actually trying to hook your ear!
     The line seems to be endless when spoken, but circumscribed on the page. I guess the line to me has more topography — like a Climax Shape that is everywhere around us: earthquakes, relationships, structures of movies…I like how Laurence Gonzales described it: “Drama has the same shape as an emotional response, because it must elicit one to be effective: Inciting Event » Rising Action » Climax » Resolution”.
     Of course, is anything really resolved?
 
2. Well yeah! I’m always trying to use words to get into bodies. I’ve had an unusual experience recently. I’ve been going to GCCC to exercise and I find myself composing on the rowing machine, while doing sit-ups or lifting weights. I’ve had to bring a small pad and pen so as not to lose the idea because there is nothing worse than a lost idea! I think Descartes hinted about the Poetry/Body problem (an erroneous dichotomy by the way!) in his little known work titled: “Je Workout, Donc Je Suis”.
     I think “La Guitarra” (pg. 64) comes close to the relationship between words and body.
La Guitarra
(excerpts)
 
…and like a child – my head upon your breast –
I listen for an ancient heartbeat…
 
…the spine that guides a gliding hand,
extrapolating  the drama
from the crafty minds of fingers…
 
…Your belly echoes the primal atom
where wave and particle are irrevocable…
 
　
3. I guess my dislike is that I have no choice. It’s like coming to terms with my androgenic alopecia… my sciatica…It’s a part of my anatomy that cannot be excised. I think Cristopher Hitchens said it best when he said “Writing is not what I do, it’s who I am.”
 
4. The idea of the book came from an event. I had just finished another poem and was placing it in a plastic bin where I keep creative endeavors. I started to rummage through and I found this 25 year process of creativity. It was a ride to experience all the versions of myself, and how I changed and didn’t change! Then I thought about evolution and Richard Dawkins’ book “The Ancestor’s Tale”, and the book emerged from these converging threads. It’s quite remarkable how the mind organizes and parses. Et voila!
     The Preface expounds on this a little more.
 
And look!  You get a Bio and a New Poem (First Draft) written in aforementioned gym this morning…all in one!
 
When We Were Scientists
　
　
When we were kid chemists
We mixed uric acid in
Chlorinated pools,
Put Pop Rocks in cat’s
Mouths, meows of crackle,
fizz and foam.
 
When we were kid physicists
We launched water balloons
In sublime parabolic arcs
Onto passing windshields
Or unsuspecting bodies…
The joy of fluid dynamics.
 
When we were kid experts
In demoliton and anatomy
We took rocks to bullets,
Stunned ourselves dumb.
Match to fuse to marvel
At body parts of lizards.
 
Never an exact science…
when we were scientists.
 
(May 9th, 2011)

***

 
Please send check or money order ($23.00 – $20.00 for book/$3.00 for shipping):
 
Yves C. Lucero
4128 Monte Carlo
Santa Fe, NM, 87507
 
or contact me at: yvesC5@hotmail.com