If Eartha Kitt Isn't Your Goddess & Idol, She Should Be

BY JOANNA C. VALENTE

Here's some appreciation to a strong, fierce powerful woman who wasn't afraid to be herself:

---

Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (The Operating System, 2017), Xenos (Agape Editions, 2016) and the editor of A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault (CCM, 2017). Joanna received a MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College, and is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, a managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine and CCM, as well as an instructor at Brooklyn Poets. Some of their writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Brooklyn Magazine, Prelude, Apogee, Spork, The Feminist Wire, BUST, and elsewhere. 

My Grandfather Was Insufferable

BY LAURA DELARATO

My grandfather was insufferable.

He was the kind of guy that would say he pocket-dialed you while you're at work…but he was clearly calling from the house phone. Like, the coil cord phone that only people born in the 30s would still have.

I am incredibly lucky to have my grandfather in my life for three decades. My mother and father were never very good at parenting. Even now, talking to either of them lacks warmth — as if I’m speaking to family friends who just so happen to have been at the hospital when I was born.

My grandfather inserted himself into my life the moment I opened my eyes for the first time; even naming me. I’m told my grandfather held me in his arms and called me Laura before anyone had a chance to ooh and ahh at how a child of 100 percent Italian descent could be born so pale.

Life with him was tough, though. Overly nervous. Dictative. Obsessed with protecting me from the world. Every little move was more than a move — it was a way I could die. My youngest brother Richie did die in a freak drowning accident. I was 5. He was 3. I was the last to see him before he walked out the front door.

I remember the entire day from the moment I heard a neighbor scream next door to my aunt stroking my hair while I tried to fall asleep. The only thing that breaks my heart now is that was the day my grandfather changed into an overwrought old man. You don’t lose a grandchild and walk away whole.

It began with habitual concerns involving routine seatbelt checks and eyeing the halls in case I caught a motive to run in the house. Then, it was the bellowing outbursts if he saw me stare at a piece of hard candy. “WHAT ARE YOU, STUPID? You. Can. Choke!” He’d follow me in his green van the entire seven-minute walk from his house to the 6 train as a teen; shouting: “YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE ME DO THIS?! YOU COULD DIE OUT HERE!” You know when you’re eating peanut butter and you flip the spoon concave to rest on your tongue? For some reason, it tastes so much better like that. He would get upset, even when I was an adult, if he saw me do that because I could potentially break my front teeth. Suffice to say, driving lessons weren’t an option, dating was an unmentionable, and wearing anything that wasn’t a turtleneck would grant me a very tiring lecture on looking like a nice girl.

College should have given me the room I needed from my grandfather. I went to school in lower Manhattan — just a 45-minute train ride away from him at the tippy-top of the Bronx. Far enough to where he couldn’t just pop over, but close enough to make sure I was reachable.

Within the first few weeks of my freshman year, I volunteered with my university to help paint classrooms at a local high school. I was standing there — paint-clad; trying curb my anxiety to make new friends — when I got a call from the RA saying that two police officers were at my dorm room trying to figure out my location. I already knew who had called them. Silly me for not alerting the coast guard of my coordinates. I laugh about it now but in the moment, I stood amongst my peers stunned and unable to breathe.  

RELATED: My Doppelgramma

This was an act of dependency. He’s doing this on purpose and he was doing this to me. I keep trying to justify these actions for him to make peace with being stripped of a lifetime of autonomy, but even in my thirties I still hold a grudge. My mother floated in the background while all this parenting was going on. My father was somewhere. No idea where. And I fought my hardest for liberation but never given the resources to properly make a break for it.

This is all such a conundrum. I lived with my mother in Virginia when I was a teen and he would do the 7-hour drive from the Bronx every week just to make sure I was doing okay — then made sure to fill the refrigerator with food before begrudgingly leaving at my mother’s request. He took me to every single soccer practice and school play rehearsal. He made it to every graduation and smiled at me from the auditorium as I walked across the stage. And he always told me that women could do anything a man could do. Despite this, his stress made me so anxious that a month after I moved into my first apartment, a friend looked at me and commented, "Your hair isn’t thinning anymore."

I would make a daily call at 8:45am to him every single day; except the weekends and holidays I spent there. He would never ask about my life. Just say statements at me like, "Lock the door." "Don’t be out late at night." "If you lived with us in the Bronx, you wouldn’t have to pay rent." There were days I skipped that call out of spite just to make him worry about me. When I finally picked up the phone from his incessant "pocket dialing," he would fearfully ask me questions about my life — as if I cut off some part of his nervous system for a few hours and never wanted to feel that ever again. Is it selfish to make your grandfather worry just to be heard?

Don’t misunderstand me in anyway. My grandfather was a great man. I have so many amazing memories of us going to Yankee Stadium, and Disney, and every family party where he would explain how he got to try out for the White Sox. I also have a lot of harsh memories. I lot of memories that cause me to visibly wince at the remembrance. He was so scared of the world that he’d rather me resent him then possibly be in pain from an experience.

I buried my grandfather recently. I gave the eulogy, walked right behind the coffin, and cried uncontrollably. I’ve never felt so alone while simultaneously so calm in my life. No more 8:45am phone calls. No more following me with the car. No more of the man I considered my dad.

Before he died, he stared off at the hospital wall and began muttering through the Yankees game playing on the overhead television. "I’m proud of you." He said he was proud that I was independent and refused to fear the world as much as he tried to keep me to himself. He looked at me with total trust, as if the whole thing was an incredibly tragic test I had to pass.

I keep forgetting that he’s gone. I still have my timed routine each morning so that I can call him exactly at 8:45am. I’ve done it a few times but mostly I stare at the phone at 8:44am remembering that this is not part of the cycle anymore. I can’t forget his fretfulness and the way he’d hover in his chair; waiting for a crisis to strike. But — everything is silent now and there is no one to worry about me anymore. I’d give anything for him to call me even if it was just to talk at me; even if it was just a lecture — just to feel worthy of his worry one last time.

---

Laura Delarato is a New York writer, artist, and video creator specializing in body image, fitness, sexual health, travel, and personal essays. Her work has appeared in Refinery29, London Glossy Magazine, Kong Magazine, Luna Luna Magazine, Seventeen, Details, XOJane, Martha Stewart Living, and Martha Stewart Weddings. She is also a staunch body positive activist — beautifully committed to furthering the female cause.

The Luna Luna August 2017 Flash Contest: Winners

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

I started the Luna Luna monthly flash contest for two reasons: one unselfish—and one selfish. First, I wanted to create a recurring 'contest' where a theme would be announced on-spec, without any notice, on the first day of each month. Why? To bolster creativity and spontaneous response. To create a sense of a goal we could all work toward together (creative work!) and to, well, create a sense of community. Because whenever I've entered a contest—whether I won or didn't—it was always nice to see who did win, and to read their work. I hope this contest can be something you look forward to monthly, a little light in the dark, a little something strange and fun you can do at the beginning of each month. And because the contest runs at the beginning of each month, it's like a little birth, or a little ritual of creative welcoming. 

(That said, there is no monetary prize, and no print publication—but Luna Luna will publish your work digitally, pair it beautifully with art, design it, and promote the hell out of it on social).

The second reason was more selfish: I wanted to read your work—lots of it, and quickly. I wanted to just drown in idea and voice and variety, and I wanted to move through my own feelings about the topic (death) by exploring your approach to it. It was so worth it. Thank you all for submitting.

160 of you submitted. I narrowed the finalists down to about 15, and from there I picked three. It was difficult, and I am truly honored to have read all of your work. I loved each and every poem for different reasons. The poems I picked I chose because they were carefully and thoughtfully constructed, the language was startling and surprising, and the treatment of 'death' was unique. All of the poems lingered on my spirit—their shapes, their voices, their pain, their craft, their music. I did NOT pick poems based on the poet or their bio (which I do not read or care for with the slightest). I picked the poem itself. 

With no further ado, the winners are below. The poems will be live within the day, and will be widely shared on social media. Stay tuned for the next contest, which will be revealed on September 1 across our social media and on this website.

— Cornelia Barber
Cornelia Barber is a New York writer. In her duel writing and healing work she investigates lineage, intimacy, race and the psychic and physical ecologies of people, plants, places and animals. Her work can be found in Prelude, The Felt, Berfrois, Fanzine, The Poetry Project Newsletter, Entropy, Weird Sister and more. She is an editor at Queen Mobs Teahouse and currently works on her late father, author and political theorist, Benjamin Barber's archive.

— Erin Marie Hall
Erin Hall is a poet and visual artist from South Bend, IN. She earned a BA in English at Indiana University. Her work, which explores sexuality, mental illness, the body, and the apocalyptic, has appeared or is forthcoming in Unlost Journal, After the Pause, Rust + Moth, and your nightmares.

— Freke Räihä 
Born in 1978. Educated as a baker. Debut in print 2001. Studied five years at two of the most prestigious creative writing-schools in Sweden: Skurups Folkhögskolas Skrivarlinje and Författarskolan at Lund University. And a course in Comparative Literature Fantasy at Växjö University where I wrote a paper on The alienation of the Hero/Villain: Uppsats om utanförskapet hos hjälten/skurken. Also, amongst other things, former literary curator at Tidningen Kulturen and lector at Telegrafstationen. In 2012-2014 I studied ways of publishing at Malmö University and the publishing business at Lunds University where I wrote essays about literary criticism and the dominant currents in Publishing education. 2016-2017 I attended the Skurups Skrivarpedagoglinje which made me a better teacher of poetry. I normally teach poetry on a freelance basis. 2016 was also the year I debuted as a news journalist and I have written articles for Kristianstadsbladetsince then. Since 2017 I am also a student in creative writing at Konstfack. 

Stay tuned for the poems!

---

Lisa Marie Basile is an editor, writer and poet living in NYC. She is the founding editor-in-chief of Luna Luna Magazine and the author of APOCRYPHAL (Noctuary Press, 2014), as well as a few chapbooks: Andalucia (Poetry Society of New York), War/Lock(Hyacinth Girl Press), and Triste (Dancing Girl Press). Her book NYMPHOLEPSY (co-authored with poet Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein), was a finalist in the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards. Her poetry and other work can be or will be seen in PANK, Spork, The Atlas Review, Tarpaulin Sky, he Tin House blog, The Huffington Post, The Rumpus, Rogue Agent, Moonsick Magazine, Best American Poetry, Spoon River Poetry Review, PEN American Center and the Ampersand Review, among others.