Aëla Labbé
you felt me, you left me—moaning open in a landslide. I harden like grease
and there’s glimmer. the saplings anxious for ripping, cleaved the way you
like it. let’s say: you’re the woodsman and I am a girl, slipping in a magician
box, my bra cups filling out—buttermilk, tiny bow in the middle. you wield
a saw, a tremor—sung like choirs, biting through.
Anders Eriksson
You're the dappled world, brilliant toxin. a choate reprieve. Hair, a triptych of flax and rippled sheaf at break of day. You bear your assiduousness cleanly, your sharpened jaw, your forehead, those enamel cliffs. A ruminant has strewed you thus, over the paper weirs, over the torn lip of the world, its heft of blood. sleet in-the-voice touch. My engrossment, a kitten in snow. beyond ode.
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After reading Nathaniel Kressen’s debut novel, "Concrete Fever" (2011, Second Skin Books), I was utterly entranced by his ability to skillfully weave together a compelling story. This is also why I was absolutely thrilled to find out Kressen’s second book “Dahlia Cassandra” was released this past June, also by Second Skin Books.
Read MoreHe drops by on an irregular nightly schedule. Magnificent body with a huge span of wings. It’s the wings that are a bitch. Not easy fucking a guy with wings. Hands have to be strategic. Forget rolling over, me on top—his wings are way too sensitive. The novelty gone, I think of moths, insects, creepy crawlers—sci-fi nightmares. Near climax, the wings will unfold and flap in orgasmic fury. The air disturbance is unbelievable—like fucking a helicopter. And he’s so airy. More light than substance. I like a body with substance. Some mass inside and around me. Not that he understands. And I’ve tried explaining. Then moving. Several times, around town, to a new town, new country, subterranean. He’s a master stalker, more bird than man, his homing instinct supernatural, natural to me.
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Silvia Bonilla is a goddess who uses her power to create mystical worlds on the page. Her book, An Animal Startled By The Mechanisms Of Life, (Deadly Chaps Press) is filled with lush, visceral poems that evoke the pleasures and terrors of childhood, and the painful process of growth. It opens on the mother and the family then moves into the feminine, into lust and redemption. Her poems illuminate the fears that make us whole, and expose our connection to the ravishing tortures of time. Her lines are short, potent and passionate; her vision is clear. So many brilliant emotions fill this book, it’s as if Bonilla is an Empath, tapping into our desires. In A Place Where Gods Are Born (one of my favorites) her heat and depth are so beautifully concentrated:
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"Baby, baby," my mom would say to me. "Don’t talk like that. I raised you better than that. If you’re going to sleep your way to the top, don’t sleep your way to the top of Carrabba’s Italian Grill in Beaumont, Texas. Think big picture. Ted Turner. Bill Gates. Never Donald Trump. You’ll never be that desperate."
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Art by Emma Dajska
BY BECCA SHAW GLASER
Up close, he wasn’t as cute. He was older and plumper, and anyway, it all just felt so weird. When I first saw his profile earlier in the day I thought, Ooh, he seems like someone who wants a relationship. I was absolutely specifically not looking for a hookup, but as soon as we started typing, it became clear that’s what he was up for. His place turned out to be a bank converted to a condo by the Dean of Architecture. Everything was huge and austere, almost entirely white, with cathedral ceilings. Perfect, I thought.
Oct 5, 6:41pm
How do you feel
driving to meet a stranger,
naked under your skirt
knowing that you may be
seduced and taken and
fucked.
Conveniently he’d forgotten that I’d told him I would be arriving hungry and could he please feed me. After I reminded him he tossed canned clams and hasty pasta together, smashing garlic cloves with the side of a silver chef’s knife. I hung awkwardly by the granite island.
He had wanted me to wear heels but I didn’t own any. Boots? Yeah, I had tall black boots. He’d asked me to wear something that showed cleavage, and no panties, so I did. While I waited on the hard-backed chair, legs firmly closed, he plied white wine. I said No thanks. I knew I was supposed to uncross my legs so he could get a glimpse, but I didn’t even want to take off my long black coat, keeping it tightly buttoned.
Oct 5, 6:41pm
Wet with anticipation?
When the food was ready we sat at one end of the stark maple table. Half-chewed worms poured from our mouths as we discussed the economy of desire, the poststructuralist concept of sexual exchange—really it’s a handshake, we agreed, a Marxist solidarity. He said In those days they used to think women so lusty the husbands made them wear metal plates when they were away to stop them from fucking half the village. And I hate it now—for men it’s like supposed to be a conquest and the woman’s supposed to be pushing away, keeping her number low. I was impressed by his awareness of gender and sexuality, but I still felt so timid that even sitting next to him on the couch felt scary. Our voices were tinny, floating around under the white cathedral ceilings and getting lost.
When he took off his clothes in the bedroom he was glazed in ginger fir, pale skin flecked with large pink freckles, each candied with a hair, long strands piercing out of his pubis, and I realized I was repulsed. How unfair and fucked up of me, I thought, to be so political in my preferences. He devoured my vulva, he was good at it, it’s a skill, I shut off the top of my head. Looked out the enormous arched window. Can anyone see?
Oct 5, 6:43pm
Nervous. Also,
I’m kind of lost.
He told me his favorite was to be with female CEOS, older women who were used to being in charge, he loved when they became submissive with him, let themselves go. And he loved being the odd-male out with a male-female couple. He liked going to truck rest-stops and having his dick sucked by another dude, most straight-identifying, of course, or sucking other guys’ dicks through those glory holes. I loved hearing the stories. I loved thinking there are younger guys out there who get off on giving older women pleasure, because, I’m getting older. I wished for a world where I could feel safe being so sexually adventurous, not terrified of rape, disease, or being considered a slut.
Oct 5, 6:44pm
Oh. We don’t
have to do this,
you know.
He stuck his fist partly in, and I was opening on his cool white sheets under his white down comforter against his vanilla-stained Ikea headboard in his white marble flat but I didn’t want to suck his small pink dick or even kiss his lips which I felt bad about and thankfully he didn’t pressure me at all but I think it was pretty obvious and then when it was clear I couldn’t or wouldn’t cum, Want to watch me? he slid his hand over his penis moving silently until white spurted out. I tried to at least touch him a bit while he was touching himself but the truth is I didn’t really want to.
After the shirt got tucked back into the jeans, after the zipper on the black dress was zipped up again, my still-wet vulva bristling between my thighs, my curly hair tangled, my breasts pulsing with the sensation of stranger-touch, after I shut the door to his white world firmly with a thud behind me, the first thing I wanted to do was see my lover, the lover who can’t be in a real relationship, the lover who gave me permission to try to find one. Not even in my car yet, I dialed, and surprisingly he picked up, said Sure, come over—and it was almost like coming home, to his soft gorgeous body, the body I’m bonded to, he was stretched out on his tiny bed, books and clothes chaotically strewn everywhere, small piles of trash that for some reason he sweeps into a corner and then leaves for weeks, he was watching Baron Munchausen, being uncharacteristically silly. He knew where I’d been. It didn’t bother him. In fact he liked the look of the dress, too, the way it clung to my breasts, pushing them together. I dropped my black shoulder bag and pressed my mouth to his.
Becca Shaw Glaser is the co-editor and author of “Mindful Occupation: Rising Up Without Burning Out.” Her writing has also appeared in Mad in America, Black Clock, H.O.W., Two Serious Ladies, Birdfeast, The Laurel Review, Quaint, and Lemon Hound, among other publications.
Kylli Sparre
BY LORNA GIBB
Off the strip, a door opens and the ring, k-ching, jingle and tinny tinkling melodies sound a cacophony from the casino inside. There’s a glimpse of blank eyes staring at spinning fruit but scant evidence of the vacillating hope behind them. The door shuts again. On the tarmac a girl stands, then sits, then slumps. She wears shorts in blue, has track marks up her legs and arms. Her dyed red hair is cut close to the scalp and looks patchy. It’s warm but not hot, the ground is a pleasant temperature to sit on, not like it will be in a month or two when it will burn.
There’s no one about. It’s a dead time.
For a moment the windowless artificiality that merges all hours into one unending minute of waiting seems to have followed her outdoors from the casino. The car park is half full but no one arrives or leaves and to her, the quietness seems louder than the noise of slot machines and expectation. He’s still inside, her own hostage to fortune, following the turn of a card in the thick fug of nicotine smell and stale spilled beer. Her eyes close, she falls right over to one side, her head hits the ground and she passes into a dream of some drug’s making.
She sees a tree. It is a gnarled, contorted thing that reaches high above and its branches block out all but the smallest hints of sky. The fruit on this tree is odd, shaped in a way that is mindful of a human heart from some angles, but like a small bird, a sparrow or a finch perhaps, from others. It seems to her that there is no recurring season, no single passage of time when all the fruit is young or mature, or ready to fall, so from each branch hang several fruits all at different stages of their development, and at random intervals, one or more tumbles down. Yet they fall only briefly because it is at that point they become most like the birds they recall, and instead of hurtling down, after the briefest of seconds, they take wing and go upwards again, to whatever lies above the branches that obscure the view.
But in one of those slight fractions of a second between falling and flight, she dreams of a hand reaching out and catching one of the tiny embryonic things, not quite beating heart, not quite winged creature, and holding it there. It flutters in the gentlest of holds, trembles as it begins its transformation, for change it does.
The fingers of the hand cradle the strange being until it grows into a reflection of a child, perhaps of Claire herself, she thinks in the dream. But then, when it can be contained no more, it falls, keeps on falling down to a garden, in another place. She catches a sudden movement, a glint from the skin of a snake in a clearing that has suddenly materialised in the thick foliage. Claire is watching the snake when all her dreaming stops.
One Week Ago
She comes round from a state that is part stupor, part unconsciousness, to vomit. Sees a foot crush a cigarette butt just in front of her.
The man in a silver mustang pulls up, gets out, comes over, says ‘Hello Claire.’ She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and manages a smile. He takes her hand pulls her up. Claire leans towards him. ‘Brush your teeth first,’ he says. They get in the car, drive off.
Back on the strip, he tells her his luck has held all day. She tries to tell him of a strange dream she has had, a recurring dream about fruit and snakes. ‘Like the bible,’ he says, ‘wonder if it means I’ll be lucky again tomorrow.’ Her thoughts are filled with portents of foreboding that seem incompatible with his constant quest for omens of good fortune, but she says nothing, does not want to darken the mood that is now so light, but could so easily and quickly change to heavy black silence and her fearful watchfulness.
The noise inside the hotel casino is deafening. Bright pink walls and neon flamingos, but it’s a brief stop and he collects something while she waits in the car, then they go west to the Tropicana. It’s white and cool inside, and somehow quieter than the other hotels, without the cigarette smell that permeates every stool and curtain and green baize table top along the strip. This time she goes in too, he listlessly loses some money on slot machines as he passes, she begs him to put ten dollars in the machine with the pictures of kittens and he scores twenty back. He pats her affectionately on the rump, ‘Need to see about getting you a kitten one of these days.’
But in truth she doesn’t want one, prefers these cute, saccharine photos, thinks that the smell of cat urine and faeces in her tiny room on days when the air condition is playing up would make her sick. But she says nothing. He stops at the high stakes Black Jack table and already she is beginning to worry. If he loses, he’ll lose a lot and she knows what that means. He does his usual ritual, a half muttered prayer to some entity that he somehow thinks watches over him, keeps him safe, brings him luck. This time, because he’s in a good mood, she asks him, ‘Carver, what’s that thing you say every time?’
‘Mum used to say I had a Guardian angel watching over me, told me not to worry when times were hard and I was a kid. I used to be irritated, but now I reckon there’s no harm in it. If someone’s listening, great, if they’re not, it’s not hurting anyone. Just hedging my bets, staying on the good side of the angels.’
‘It’s cute’. She means it too, likes this way he accepts the possibility of outside agent, she believes in something too, though she’s not sure what. The RC church on Cathedral Way is called Guardian Angels. It’s cool and comforting and once, a few weeks back, when she was coming down they let her sleep the night there. When half the congregation left mass the next day before Holy Communion the priest ended the service by saying, only those of you that stayed will have a chance to win tonight. And she smiled, at this, the most appropriate and local of blessings.
Carver holds his cards close, doesn’t let her see what he has, and loses, once, twice, five, six times in quick succession. She touches his arm gently and he shrugs her off, ‘Don’t, I need to concentrate,’ he says and she hears the low note of warning in his voice.
The women’s restroom smells of coconut and she perches a leg on the toilet seat in the white cubicle and reaches down to pull out her tampon. It’s soaked through with bright red blood, she drops it in the pan and pushes another in. It’s been the same for more than a month now, the cramps, the bleeds, sometimes vivid like this other times dark dried red, a period that comes more days each month than it should. While she washes her hands she looks in the mirror and checks her too pale face, the bruised under eyes, covers them with powder. But as she leaves, goes back into the steady din of slots, her head spins and she holds the door to balance herself.
One Month Ago
On the strip, Claire kicks and turns perfectly but then the sudden spasm in her abdomen catches her off balance as she goes into a stretch pose. The audience gasp when she falls, a collective intake of breath, this isn’t a subtle mistake, easily missed. Molly steps in front, picks up her routine so the other dancers who are meant to be echoing Claire’s steps a beat behind can take their places. Claire recovers but not as quickly as she should, she gets to face level with the sparkling waist band of Molly’s g-string, then with the clear tape fastenings for the angel wings. Head up, and step, pause, step, pause, extend.
Two interminable minutes to the end of the number. Claire has taken Molly’s place in the line so at least she’s not the centre of it all, but still she thinks the audience are watching to see if she messes up again, wonders if they’re thinking she’s not good enough to be there. Most days, these days, she doesn’t think so either.
Afterwards she thanks Molly and means it but Harry comes up immediately. Like her he’s Scottish, like her he swears a lot, something the Americans still haven’t got used to.
‘So what the fuck was that about?’
‘I got a cramp.’
‘Then take a fucking aspirin. Fuck knows where we’d be if we had a line up break every time one of your girls was on the rag. That’s the third time. One more and you’re back to the chorus.’
Once he’s gone, Molly says, ‘Long period, Claire, better get checked out.’
‘I know, I know.’ But thinks, ‘Butt out’, and of Harry, ‘trumped up public schoolboy prick.’
At the back of the hotel, Carver, dressed in a linen suit, hands her a small packet of powder.
‘Where the fuck were you yesterday?’ Claire pays him.
‘Detained. Literally. Bit impatient aren’t we?’
‘I’m fine. Just made a bit of a mistake. Stuff helps the cramps.’
‘That’s what they all say. Friday then. Must say I like those stage outfits of yours a lot better than that granny shit you’re wearing. Nice titties, shouldn’t hide them away.’
Claire doesn’t answer, just tucks her little packet in a pocket concealed by folds of cotton fabric.
Six Months Ago
Claire is asked to dance the lead and she doesn’t know whether to be pleased or terrified. Pleased she can write home to her family and say, hey, I’ve made it out here. After all those years of being the stupid girl, the one who wasn’t too good at reading or doing sums, the too tall, skinny girl who couldn’t get a snog, now look at me.
Terrified because she only overcomes her paralysing stage fright in the competitive camaraderie of the troupe. Molly on one side, Kate on the other, and she gets by, knowing they’re in it together.
It would be impossible to refuse anyway. The girls she takes comfort from are already bitching. They say Harry is British, so is she, that’s why she’s got the lead so quickly, she’s probably fucking him. She isn’t. But if she turns it down, they’ll say it’s posturing. The lead dancer is the girl they love to hate.
‘You’re a fantastic dancer,’ Harry says, ‘just remember to get yourself out there a bit more.’
She tells her boyfriend, Nick, one of those is he/isn’t he yet relationships because they’ve only been out three times. They’re at lunch in a Mexican place off the strip and next to a topless bar where the food is authentic and the waitresses look like they work shifts with the club next door.
He positively glows. ‘Wow babe, that’s going to be so cool. I’ll be there, in the front row.’
Claire ventures, ‘I’m scared.’
‘What’s scary? You look so great they won’t notice if you’re out of step.’
‘I just am. Always have been. It’s easier when you’re in a troupe.’
‘You could always take something, just a little, to get the edge off that first night.’
Nick’s flat is just round the corner from the one she shares with Molly and Kate. After lunch, he invites her back, settles her on the sofa and kneels by the glass table. He takes out a square pack wrapped in cellophane from the pocket of his 501s. It’s no bigger than a fifty pence piece. The stuff inside reminds Claire of her baby sister’s talcum powder. He doesn’t line it up with a card like they do in films, instead he dampens his finger and makes a squiggle that looks like a snake then follows the shape expertly as he snorts.
‘My party piece,’ he says to her. ‘’You probably just want a straight line.’
He taps the pack on the surface and some more cocaine appears. With his American Express, he makes it into two tiny lines and hands Claire a straw. ‘Sniff quickly’ he says. But he’s too late with the advice and she sneezes. It smells funny, like a mix of cat pee and chlorine, chemical and organic. He laughs, and nods as she takes the second line much more quickly. ‘Like a pro,’ he says.
It tingles, makes her head feel like someone’s thrown on a switch in a good way, and soon it gets even better. Nick looks amazing, she realises that now, and his accent makes him sound like a movie star. He’s so at ease with his body but then she catches the reflection of her own legs in the mirror above the fireplace, stretched over the arm of the couch and thinks, God, I really do look good. It isn’t all costumes and lights; I’m a beautiful woman.
Nick leans over and they kiss, his hands move to her breasts and for the first time she lets him undress her. The intensity of her desire is newly felt and she responds, pulling his shirt off, unbuttoning his jeans, losing her inhibitions, the ones that would normally make her hesitant, worried that her body, so popular on stage, won’t hold up to the proximity of a lover. They leave the blinds pulled up and the blinking lights of early evening on the Fremont Street experience, look like stars, are wondrous to behold. She uses those words, ‘wondrous to behold’ and he laughs, full heartedly and she is delighted in that too, her ability to entertain with words, to be funny. He sucks her nipples, says, ‘I’ll think of this next time I see them up there on the stage’.
She thinks of being on stage and of the barely there costumes that made her nervous at first, but most nights now just seem uncomfortable, the too tight G-string that works its way up her bum, the rash she gets from the rough finish of the sequinned fabrics. Now she pictures herself looking like the neon lights outside, all glitter, illuminating the stage, the whole city, with her radiance. When she orgasms, it is sudden and unexpected and she shouts out her joyousness. He is delighted and when he ejaculates into her, calls out too, her name over and over, ‘Oh Claire, oh Claire,’ and then ‘my very own showgirl.’
The walls of the flat are brick painted white but Claire thinks they are snow, so cool they seem against her sex sweat. She licks the walls and their taste is better than the white chocolate soufflé she craves but can’t eat because her body is a temple. She says this out loud too, ‘My body is a temple.’ And again he laughs, says, ‘I’m going to start going to church regularly’.
‘I want to go out. Now. Look at how it is down there,’ Claire opens the window on the carnival of Fremont Street. She grabs his shirt and her own jeans and he dresses too. Four blocks have been covered in a canopy of lights. It is a carnival of fancy dress and loud rock music, all of Vegas but amplified, magnified, with blaring music in a constantly changing, plasma covered tent.
The sky is neon and from it Claire hears screaming. Looking up she sees people hurtling from the heights of the covered over street to the ground where Elvis look alikes, cowboys, clowns and girls who are mostly too short to be show girls wear spangled bikinis and feathers and mingle with the day trippers and holidaymakers.
‘Let’s fly,’ Nick says, and she tells him she already is flying, but he pulls her out of the canopied area to the entry point and they stand under the night sky. There’s a giant slot machine and she looks up, thinking, wow this is some hit, but in fact it’s real, just like the 37 foot tall models of showgirls, one dressed in a turquoise bikini that looks like the outfit for one of her numbers. She points, giggles, ‘It’s me!’
From the top of the monstrous mechanism there are zip lines that lead into the canopy of lights. People dangle from them on contraptions that look like a toddler’s safety harness and reins.
He stops at the ticket office and whispers to her, reading from a list of rules on the side window of the booth, ‘Do not go on the ride if you are under the influence of drugs or alcohol,’ then adds, ‘but it’s so much more fun that way.’ He hands over eighty dollars for two tickets and gets into the lift to take them up to the top of the canopy arch. They hold onto poles suspended from the wire while they are strapped in. He goes first. Claire follows easily, feels fearless, unbreakable sees the roof and all of the neon rush up towards her and thinks she will soar right through, hit the sky and keep ascending. The Four Queens and Golden Nugget Hotels fly past, and she is above them all, moving ever more rapidly towards a dazzling immensity of brightness.
She begins to descend far sooner than she wants to in a rush of air that blows through her hair rendering her free and fast. But still she believes she won’t stop, will keep going, will climb up again, somewhere into a white, shining light. But the ride ends, and she’s at the other end of Fremont Street, under the Golden Gate casino.
He’s there waiting when she lands, takes her back to his flat, just as the tiredness hits her, the utter exhaustion. And with the weariness comes the worry that he might not want her anymore. His phone rings and he ignores it and she feels sure he just doesn’t want to speak to whoever it is when she is there to overhear and says so. ‘You’re coming down,’ he says, ‘let’s go to bed.’ She walks through the living room and there’s a snake on the glass table. No, it’s gone; it’s the memory of an image, not a real one.
In the bedroom, fully clothed, they fall onto his bed and into drug induced dreaming.
One Year Ago
It’s the longest flight she’s ever been on. Eleven hours. The only other times she has been out of Scotland were the Blackpool trips when she was a kid and the holiday in Spain when her dad got his redundancy money. She’s watched Ocean’s Eleven three times and Leaving Las Vegas twice but still when she finds it on the plane’s classic film list, she puts it on again. Claire has a travel guide, Lonely Planet, and for the umpteenth time she looks at the photo of the hotel where she will be working.
Her flat address, shared with two other girls, is just off Fremont Street which sounds amazing, but overwhelming too. The world’s largest projection screen, five football pitches long makes a sky over blocks of hotels and casinos. She imagines a cocoon of strobes, mirrors and lights if the book’s description is anything to go by. She also wonders if she’ll be able to sleep or if the Queen and Jon Bon Jovi tribute bands will play all night through her apartment window.
She’s never been one for parties; there was never time; she’s had dance classes straight after school, five nights week and dance workshops all Saturday, for the past six years. It’s all so unreal, this flight, the life that awaits her, a dream of sorts, just not the one she started out with. Her true desire was a job in a ballet company but she was too tall, just two inches short of six foot, so instead she’s going to be a chorus girl, and not just anywhere but in the showgirl capital of the world.
The audition was easy, at least for her, after all those classes, and the guy who checked out her breasts seemed more like a medical person than anything else. She was sure he’d hate them, notice that one was slightly bigger than the other and send her home. He was very detached and professional, reassuring, but also engaged enough to show he was pleased with what he saw. He made her rub ice on her nipples and then praised the outcome, something in his business-like manner stopping her shyness, relaxing her somehow.
She knew she’d done well after the second set. There were ten shortlisted girls altogether, all after one place in the troupe, but only two of the others could pick up the steps as quickly as she could, and none except her after only one run through.
One Decade Ago
Claire’s mum is coming out of the Post Office when she hears the tinkling of a piano. It’s not the usual sound she expects round there, on the bad end of the High Street, where the old men and the junkies sit on the bench by the War memorial, so she does a double take and sees the door of the YMCA has been jammed open because of the unusually warm weather. Claire’s beat her to it, has already spotted the little girls through the windows at the side and is dragging her mum, who isn’t putting up much resistance, towards the concrete building.
‘Can I go, mum? Can I, can I?’
They go into the big hall with its parquet floor and wood panelling and see a dozen girls and two boys, all about Claire’s age, give or take a year or two. Claire’s mum thinks they look adorable. Some are in leotards and pink shoes, other are in shorts and T-shirt and barefoot. One girl is wearing a party dress and smiling broadly as she does her ‘step, point, step point’. Claire’s always been shy and this could be just the thing she needs to bring her out of her shell. Her mum watches the confident, grinning girl and imagines Claire just like her, doing her steps, beaming at an audience. A newly confident child, not one that’s too afraid and nervous to speak to visitors and hides behind the couch, but perhaps, instead, one who shows off a few of her ballet steps in the living room. There’s an elderly man sitting at a white desk with a tin full of cash and she goes over to him. He’s the dance teacher’s dad. The lessons cost very little so she hands over some money and Claire, so very unusual for Claire, who always hangs back, would usually wait to be asked, runs to the far side of the room where kids’ shoes and clothes and bags are piled against a wall and various parents sit on plastic seats looking on. Claire pulls open the Velcro strips to unfasten her shoes, very carefully takes off the socks with the angel wings at the ankle and places them neatly on top of a chair. Her mum sees the other mothers watching in envy at this display of innate neatness and feels proud.
By the time Claire stands in the second row and raises her arms to fifth position, copying the girls in front of her, she is already smiling and her mum settles in a seat between two other parents to watch. The pianist plays the opening bars of a waltz. The room smells of beeswax polish, flowery soap and hopefulness. Claire begins to dance.
Lorna Gibb has written two biographies – Lady Hester (Faber) and West's World (Pan Mac) and most recently a novel, A Ghost's Story (Granta), as well as published lots of short pieces. She's currently working on another book for Granta. She lectures part time in creative writing at Middlesex University, and she used to be a professional dancer (many, many years ago), hence the idea for this story. She lives in London with her husband and three cats.
By Beth Hoeckel via The Ardorous
BY SUSAN RUKEYSER
The night I found the chinchilla, I was on crutches, snooping around the newly-built mansions behind my aunt’s subdivision. I looked into empty rooms where nothing had happened yet. Life might still be pretty, inside and out.
It used to be thick Georgia forest back there, but they stripped it to clay, trucked in sod and saplings and built nine distinctive homes for no one. Flags on stakes heralded a Spring Open House, with pony rides and a petting zoo for the kids.
I figured that’s where the chinchilla came from.
He lay on a bricked driveway, wet from sprinklers. He looked like a tiny squirrel with huge ears. Fur twisted in dark curls. It took some doing, with leg casts, but I managed to pick him up. I tucked him into my messenger bag. Back in my aunt’s kitchen, I laid him on the counter. I tried to dry him with a towel, then my hairdryer. An internet search showed me what he should look like. Chinchillas were beloved for their beautiful, dense fur. Farmers raised a hundred for a single soft coat. Or they were sold as cuddly pets. Beneath the fur, he was a scrawny, pink-skinned rodent. You weren’t supposed to see that.
He wasn’t dead, but he was close.
After what happened in New York, my aunt invited me to Georgia, to live in her house until it sold. She didn’t know me well, her Yankee niece. But she understood the need for escape.
She’d just moved to Orlando with her new boyfriend. She said I could keep tabs on her good-for-nothing realtor. Keep the nosy HOA off her back. They didn’t like vacant homes. They worried their houses looked shabby, compared to those nine new mansions. They planted more crape myrtles at the entrance.
“People like crape myrtles, I guess,” said my aunt. “But every winter they’re hacked back. The branches are blunt as fists. When they finally bloom again, I can’t look. Ornamental trees, where there used to be wilderness,” she scoffed.
I didn’t mind the crape myrtles, but then I only saw them at night. My aunt told me her neighbors turned in early. I’d have the sidewalks to myself after dark. She’d heard from my mother, how people stared.
I’m big. Tall, but more than that: I’m hefty. Large. Thick limbs, dense trunk. Not a pruned ornamental, but a tree that crowds out the neighboring flora.
When people stare, they seem angry.
The New York detective said my size probably wasn’t a factor in the balcony collapse. Balconies should be locked, even on the lower floors, in a building full of NYU undergrads.
Thankfully I’d been alone.
Awnings broke my fall. No one on the street was dead, but some were close.
In my hospital bed, I burned with pain the narcotics couldn’t reach. Humiliation squeezed my heart until I gasped. My pulse looped.
The chinchilla wasn’t interested in the lettuce I ripped up for him or the carrots I diced. He wouldn’t rouse himself to sip water from the dish. He was utterly still, at peace or in shock.
Next door, Mr. Patel went out back for a cigarette. His smoke hung in the thick, humid air. When he was done, he flicked the cigarette away from his azaleas, into brush. I watched until the ember went dark.
Fire scares me. I imagine air sucked from my lungs, flesh melted to bone, my body reduced to weightless ash. I want that so much it scares me.
Before NYU, there was a doctor who wouldn’t help. He said my hormones were normal. No pituitary tumor. My weight was okay, for my height, which appeared to be levelling off.
“Your weight doesn’t qualify you for bariatric surgery,” he said. “And, Gerry, you are not a giant. Leg shortening is very rare. Extreme. You don’t want surgery. You’re just a big girl.”
“Worst kind of girl you can be.”
“Fashion models are tall,” he said too brightly. He gave me a kind, reproachful look, like my father did sometimes. Then he stood to leave. That also reminded me of Dad.
Hours later, the chinchilla hadn’t moved. His fur was still damp. I found the number of an emergency vet.
“Lethargy, diarrhea, cloudy eyes,” she repeated. “There’s only one thing I can do for him. But it won’t be long. Keep him home.”
I told the detective I went out on the balcony for some air. In the common area by the elevator, I shoved aside a couch that blocked access to doors that were locked, but things break easily in my big hands.
It was Friday afternoon, classes done. My roommate and a cute Hellenic Studies major sat on her bed and licked ice-cream. I left, wishing I had a cone, too, but I won’t eat in public.
I imagined my roommate’s sticky hands on that boy. Skin meeting skin: it was easy for some people.
I imagined it was easy.
I wanted to leave a hole as big as me. Free up the space I’d taken, more than my share.
If only that surgeon had cut me down to size.
By dawn, the chinchilla was dead. I tucked him back into my messenger bag, made my way on crutches to those empty mansions. One of the never-used backyards had a young magnolia tree, the base circled by stones. I brushed away leaves like leather scraps, pulled back a corner of sod and dug a hole. I whispered a eulogy: He was more than his fur. He was forgotten, but I’ll remember.
Then I put one of the stones in my bag and hobbled to the glass patio doors. Inside were rooms full of lies. I threw the rock, hard as I could. Sometimes you need to hear something splinter.
Later, back inside my aunt’s house, I watched Mr. Patel toss another cigarette. This one also failed to catch.
Susan Rukeyser is the Reviews Editor for Necessary Fiction, a Copy Editor for Newfound, and Managing Editor of the Twitter-zine escarp. She is the author of Not on Fire, Only Dying.
Aela Labbe
Jacklyn Janeksela is a poet among other things. she is a self-taught artist. her art/poetry can be found @ felled limbs, The Tower Journal, Oddball Magazine, The Nervous Breakdown, Berfrois, e-ratio Poetry Journal, All in Your Head, Thirteen Myna Birds, & Barrelhouse. her poetry can be found elsewhere, but in lesser known places or tucked away-hidden. for their music in [the velblouds], she and her husband were in Armenia for an artist residency; their work surrounding the band was on display at the Modern Museum of Art in Yerevan. her artwork @ femalefilet, her blog for women about women, is her baby. next summer she will be in Finland for an artist residency, among other things, for a project based her deceased, schizophrenic grandmother. More artwork can be found here.
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BY LISA MARIE BASILE
I spoke with Clare Smith Marash, the Founder and Director of Amp Lit Fest, which is co-produced by Lamprophonic and Summer on the Hudson. If you're free June 11, it's worth heading to the festival, which has a really great lineup, with panels. (See bottom of the post for more).
AmpLit Fest is, as their site says, "a free, daylong festival that brings authors of all backgrounds, styles, and levels of recognition to center stage. With readings, workshops, panels, and a community market, AmpLit Fest makes one of life’s most solitary acts — writing — a public celebration."
1. I love the idea of this festival – promoting new, fresh voices and emerging writers. So necessary. Literary scenes can, at times, feel repetitive and cliquey, so was it important to start from a place of celebrating other voices, new voices, diverse voices?
Definitely. The mission of Lamprophonic is to encourage a robust, diverse, and supportive literary community, so those objectives were always in our minds.
2. Is the focus on emerging writers answering to a larger issue in the NYC literary arena?
Lamprophonic’s flagship program is a reading series for emerging writers. I won’t claim it started anywhere too lofty - I was in graduate school when I started the series, getting my MFA while working as a bartender. The bar wanted to drum up business during a slow summer, so I suggested I bring some friends in for a reading, those friends being my classmates, who were emerging writers. Pretty quickly, though, I saw real value in protecting that space. There are many reading series in the city, but most - to my knowledge - have a hierarchical structure.
There’s an established headliner. I thought about how hard it was to get up there and read your work in front of strangers, but also how important it was. I wanted to encourage that impulse to share at every stage of a writer’s career.
By keeping the series wholly emerging writers, we can celebrate the artist-in-process and not make any kind of judgment on what it means to be successful or known, what that line is between emerging and emerged. We can avoid the hierarchy and create a space for newer writers to make connections outside of institutions, which I think also fosters a more inclusive community.
Anyway, that’s a really long way of saying that the emerging writer community is kind of Lamprophonic’s home base and we felt no reason to disregard that in AmpLit, though the festival has afforded us the opportunity to present people who we adore but would not necessarily consider themselves “emerging” and get those two parties side-by-side in a way that feels less tiered, to me, than wide-reaching. We’ll also be holding writing workshops, so we’ll be encouraging soon-to-be emerging writers to join the fun, too!
(See a list of performers here).
3. I love the idea of having a community market. What's that about?
For all we were able to do in this first run of the festival, there was so much more we wanted to do. There are so many literary-driven organizations in New York who do great work and if we had the time and resources, we’d be partnering with all of them. That’s rather unrealistic, though, so the community market was our way of extending our reach, offering a space for these great entities to share their efforts with our audiences, even if we couldn’t present them or formally partner with them at the festival.
4. You are also offering a panel on diversity. This is such a necessary area of focus, and one that has been neglected for some time by many bigger institutions. Can you talk a little more about that – as well as prepping for and choosing what panels you are offering?
Again, if only we could do more! From the start, I felt it was really important to have a discussion about diversity in the literary field — because how could you not? It’s real, serious problem in the industry and, particularly if we were going to set out to amplify new and fresh voices in the field, we must acknowledge how many voices have been systemically muted and the work being done to change that.
As for our other panel, YA Grows Up: A Genre For All, that came out of my desire to reach audiences who maybe don’t consider themselves “literary.” Because what does that mean, really, to be literary? YA seems to be this across-the-divide genre that engages people who don't consider themselves big readers as well as the passionate literati. It’s a fantastically popular genre and has now churned out repeated blockbusters, too. It got me thinking about how categories so often end up having all these additional implicit messages. 'Young Adult’ signals a lot for people, but not necessary does it signal an intended audience. So then I wanted to talk about the categorization’s use and usefulness in the market, and therefore talk about the business of books. Because it is a business, as well as an art.
5. You have so many major literary sponsors! What do you think this says about the state of literary arts in NY?
Enthusiasm! I was totally stoked to put this festival together and yet, for whatever reason, remained completely surprised that other people were just as jazzed. Anyone who supported the festival in anyway - from donating books to being represented by an author or staff member, we asked if they wanted to be acknowledged on the website and almost everyone said yes. Not to promote themselves, but to say this was something they were behind, to say they were happy to be there. Which I think is amazing.
Throughout this whole process, we’ve gotten so few ‘no’s; it’s rather incredible. Or biggest hurdle was competing with wedding season (we had several people who wanted to participate but were out to town for a wedding on the 11th). It just shows you how much this community is built on passion. We all just want to talk about this stuff all the time and are so happy when a forum appears in which to do it!
6. What do you want the community – writers and listeners alike – to take away from the fest?
Many things big and small. I want people to have fun. I want them to learn something. I want them to feel inspired. But if I had to choose one overarching thing, I think I want, at the end of the day, for literature to feeling more inviting to everyone. Everyone has a story to tell, and maybe we’ll get a few more people encouraged to try, or get a few more people to spend a bit more time with a book in their very busy lives, or get people to think about what influences their reading choices and change it up. We’re here to remind everyone just how much a good story can offer us.
Clare Smith Marash is the winner of the Avery Hopwood Award in Short Fiction and numerous fellowships, Clare received her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Columbia University. Clare currently freelances as a writer and editor. She has written about topics ranging from particle physics to political music, and has taught at the high school and university level. You can learn more about her writing and work by perusing claresmithmarash.com
BY CHARLOTTE COOK
YouTube has an active community of vloggers, artists and personalities for almost everything or occasion – makeup, music, gaming and even colouring. Of course, it’s only fair that books have their own respective corner in the YouTube world, and these are some of the lovely ladies making some of the best bookish content out there.
Jean Menzies from Bookish Thoughts
PhD Classics student, book reviewer and all-round literary princess. Jean is crazy clever, but down to Earth and reads a huge variety of books from classics to contemporary fiction and graphic novels. If you like “banging your feminist drum”, then you should definitely check out her Feminist Orchestra book club!
Watch her if you’re interested in classical fiction and feminism – or if you just enjoy a delightful Scottish accent.
If you have a problem with anyone who identifies themselves as LGBTQ+ etc. then please, there is an unsubscribe button on my channel page that I encourage you to click.
Jen Campbell
Booktube pretty much begins and ends with Jen Campbell, most likely because she’s so well-read and lovable. Jen is a published author and poet, with great taste in fiction and poetry of all kinds. She has a series of children’s books currently in the making which are no doubt going to be amazing. Plus, her dog, Lola, is so adorable.
Watch her if you’re a fan of magical realism, fairy-tale retellings and a good old cup of tea.
Hello, I'm Jen - I'm the author of the Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops series, The Bookshop Book and The Hungry Ghost Festival. Click 'Show More' for more info on the books mentioned in this video -- International Women's Day: http://www.internationalwomensday.com/ -- unrecorded memories of the forest by Jen Campbell You know, sir, there are bones in my body that are yet to have names.
Mercedes Mills from Mercy’s Bookish Musings
Mercy is the certified queen of book hauls. If there were ever such a thing as retail jealousy, Mercy’s channel would embody it. She’s always chirpy and friendly, but her reviews are straight-talking and on point. If I’m ever thinking of which book I should buy next, her channel is my first stop!
Watch her if you want some awesome reviews and mouth-watering hauls.
Lauren's review of My Brillian Friend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRUmNQRn9Xs Follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/MercysMusings Follow me on Goodreads at: http://tiny.cc/xnyaay
The popularity of Young Adult fiction has blown up over the past few years, and if you jumped on the YA bandwagon then India’s channel is definitely one for you. She’s super bubbly and keeps her videos short and snappy. If you’re looking for a YA recommendation, then definitely check out her monthly wrap-ups where she chats about the books she read that month. She’s also re-reading the Harry Potter series (for a bonus side order of nostalgia!)
Watch her if you’re a fan of Young Adult fiction and want to relive some Hogwarts memories.
Idk why I'm whispering lol. Let me know if you plan on re-reading the Harry Potter series, too!! :D Follow me on the socials! Blog: http://www.indiahillwrites.com Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/IndiaHillWrites Tumblr: http://booksandbighair.tumblr.com Instagram: http://Instagram.com/BooksandBigHair Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/booksandbighair Snapchat: BooksandBigHair
Lauren Whitehead from Reads and Daydreams
Lauren is just a beacon of bookish joy, with a lovely smile and infectious laugh. Of course, no badass lady booktuber is complete without a good dose of literary love and Lauren has plenty of it. Her “Page to Screen” series is also a great way to get a double-whammy book and movie recommendation.
Watch her if you’re a fan of a good classic book analysis with some movie adaptations thrown in – oh, and if you need to smile!
A discussion and comparison of the different film adaptations of Wuthering Heights! Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Page to Screen playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSrEV86D66JZ-kQ6zZ9smb6sJuWTIeT3e Twitter: https://twitter.com/LaurenWhitehead Instagram: http://instagram.com/laureneeni/ Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/readsanddaydreams
Sophie Carlon
On the other side of the Earth is the lovely Sophie Carlon, an Australian booktuber with a great sense of humour. She makes book hauls, reviews and tags with a smattering of vlogs which are always welcome as she has such a kick-ass personality (and a snake, to boot!). Possibly the most underrated booktuber out there!
Watch her for some seriously funny reviews and an occasional shot of a serpent (her name is Abbey).
I got more books. Anyone surprised? No, neither am I. PREORDER MY BOOK! : https://sophiecarlon.bigcartel.com BUSINESS EMAIL: sophie.a.carlon @ gmail.com (no spam please and thank you x) TUMBLR: http://sophiecarlon.tumblr.com INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/sophie.carlon/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/Sophie_Carlon
Who are your favorites? Leave them in a comment below.
Charlotte Cook is a journalist, poet and strident shark defender. Having just graduated from University with a BA in Philosophy, you will most likely spot her writing about feminism, sex and culture - all whilst accompanied by a cup of tea and a heap of books. You can find her on Twitter @charlotte__cook, or peruse her blog: www.charl-cook.blogspot.co.uk
A note on the submission: Word count: 600-2000. Essays and features preferred. Open to the right poetry. We can't wait to read your work. We're looking for the beautiful and haunted. Essays around the women who inspired you, the deaths that will never make sense, and the poisonous world of glamour and fame. To submit, see here.
I was introduced to read a week ago at the Bowery Poetry Club…Cafe? Are they just BOWERY POETRY now? The particulars I’m not very familiar with because, surprisingly, it was my first time there, ever, in my 10 years in New York scribbling down the sideline chatter on the subway in the margins of my books, finding an acute little poem that comes from both the conversation and the words the conversation is transcribed next to. My introduction is prefaced withThis won’t make sense to anyone but me and she goes on to introduce me with two lines of poetry to which I respond at the mic, What do you mean? That totally makes sense. It’s always about me.
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BY ALAINA LEARY
As a disabled woman, these kinds of stories and perspectives are so important to me. I grew up thinking my existence was a burden - literally - and that I'd never be employed, that I had a higher chance of homelessness, that I couldn't make it, especially since I'm not only disabled, but also queer and middle class. I want these stories to be told. My parents were/are both mentally ill and disabled too. My mom couldn't drive, was visually impaired and stopped being able to work around the time I was born. But beyond my own family, I didn't know anyone who was disabled or ill. I didn't know it was a thing you could be and still be okay. That's why representation is so important and why I want to help publish some of those voices.
Editors Joanna C. Valente & Alaina Leary will be editing this special issue, so please submit your stories and artwork to them by August 1.
