--

 @@@@@                                      @@@@@@
 @@@@@@  @@@@  @@@@@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@  @@  @@  @@@@@@ @@   @@  @@   @@
 @@  @@ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ @@  @@    @@   @@@  @@  @@  @@
 @@  @@ @@  @@ @@       @@   @@  @@  @@@@     @@   @@@  @@  @@ @@
 @@@@@@ @@  @@ @@@@     @@   @@  @@   @@      @@   @@ @ @@  @@@@
 @@@@@  @@  @@ @@@@     @@   @@@@@@   @@      @@   @@ @ @@  @@@@
 @@     @@  @@ @@       @@   @@@@@    @@      @@   @@  @@@  @@ @@
 @@     @@@@@@ @@@@@@   @@   @@  @@   @@    @@@@@@ @@  @@@  @@  @@
 @@      @@@@  @@@@@@   @@   @@   @@  @@    @@@@@@ @@   @@  @@   @@
                dedicated to the art of the written word


================================
POETRY INK 2.06 / ISSN 1091-0999
================================

 **Poetry Ink Electronic Literary Magazine**

 ~Dedicated to the Art of the Written Word~

 Volume 2, Number 6
 Issue 13 (October 1996)


 This file looks best viewed with a 9- or 10-point mono-spaced font. We
 recommend Monaco or Courier. If you are using a Macintosh, we highly
 recommend you use ProFont 2.0.

 This file is coded as setext, a special text coding which embeds
 section breaks and style codes in a non-obtrusive format. We recommend
 you view this file with either EasyView 2.6.2 for the Macintosh, EVWin
 1.6a for Windows, or se for Unix. However, this file can still be
 viewed with any word processor which can import text files.

 We hope you enjoy POETRY INK, and we urge you to encourage the poets
 and writers found in these pages by dropping them an eMail. All of the
 writers featured in POETRY INK invite comments and constructive
 criticism of their work, so support your local Internet Poet!

 We accept no advertising, but we will plug stuff we think is cool. If
 you are interested in having your chapbook, book, CD, magazine, or
 software reviewed, please either contact us via eMail, or send the
 item you wish reviewed via snail mail to the mailing address found in
 our Masthead.

 If you are interested in submitting work for possible inclusion in
 POETRY INK, please see the Submission Information and Guidelines at
 the end of this document.



Masthead
--------
 **Editor & Publisher**
 Matthew W. Schmeer <[email protected]>

 **Honorary Editor Emeritus**
 John A. Freemyer <[email protected]>

 **Senior Contributor**
 Wayne Brissette <[email protected]>

 **Literary Correspondents**
 Lawrence Revard <[email protected]>
 Phil Pearson <[email protected]>
 Shaun Armour <[email protected]>
 Rick Lupert <[email protected]>
 Calvin Xavier <address unknown>


 **Submissions and Other Contact Info**

 eMail:
 <[email protected]>

 anonymous FTP access:
 <ftp://ftp.etext.org/pub/Poetry/PoetryInk>
 <ftp://ftp.etext.org/pub/Zines/PoetryInk>

 snail mail:
 Matthew W. Schmeer, editor
 POETRY INK PRODUCTIONS
 6711-A Mitchell Avenue
 St. Louis, MO 63139-3647 U.S.A.



Legal Stuff
-----------
 POETRY INK is copyright (c) 1996 by POETRY INK PRODUCTIONS, a wholly
 owned subsidiary of the imagination of Matthew W. Schmeer. Individual
 works copyright (c) 1996 their original authors. POETRY INK is
 published electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this
 magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold (either by
 itself or as part of a collection) and the entire text of the issue
 remains intact. POETRY INK can be freely distributed, provided it is
 not modified in any way, shape, or form. Specifically:

 **You May**

* Upload POETRY INK to your local BBS and commercial online
 services, such as America-Online and CompuServe.
* Distribute POETRY INK to your local non-profit user group free of
 charge.
* Print out and share with your friends, family, classmates and
 coworkers.

 **You May Not**

* Distribute POETRY INK on CD-ROM without prior written consent
* Charge for access other than a reasonable redistribution fee (i.e.
 online connection time).
* Charge Shipping and Handling fees for any media POETRY INK is included
 upon.

 POETRY INK PRODUCTIONS retains first-time rights and the right to
 reprint this issue, either in printed or electronic format. All other
 rights to works appearing in POETRY INK written by authors other than
 Matthew W. Schmeer revert to said authors upon publication.

 POETRY INK is produced on an Apple Macintosh Color Classic running
 System Software 7.5.5. POETRY INK is initially uploaded to our
 subscribers, with further Internet distribution by our readers. We use
 Global Village Teleport Gold II Fax/Modems. POETRY INK is produced
 using Claris Emailer 1.1.v2, BareBones Software's freeware BBEdit Lite
 3.5.1, Robert Gottshall's and Rick Zaccone's freeware spellchecker
 Excalibur 2.3 & and M. Akif Eyler's freeware setext reader, EasyView
 2.6.2. We encourage others to support these fine hardware
 manufacturers and software programmers.



Subscription Info
-----------------
 It is now possible to have each issue of POETRY INK delivered to your
 eMail account upon publication. This service is now available to all
 readers regardless of computing platform.

 Each issue of POETRY INK will be sent to your eMail account upon its
 publication as an eMail file attachment. Most eMail clients and
 commercial online systems' proprietary software will automatically
 translate this file into text format; otherwise, you will need to
 procure a utility to translate the file you receive into a readable
 format. Please check with your Internet Service Provider to be sure
 that you can receive eMail file attachments before you subscribe.
 CompuServe and America Online do allow this functionality.

 If you wish to subscribe to POETRY INK, simply send an eMail message
 with the subject line "SUBSCRIBE POETRY INK: your real name" to
 <[email protected]>, where **your real name** is your actual name and
 not the name of your eMail account. It is not necessary to provide a
 message in the body of  your eMail. For example, the subject line of
 your message should look like this:

 SUBSCRIBE POETRY INK: John Q. Public

 You must follow this wording EXACTLY; otherwise our eMail macro will
 not be triggered and you will not be added to the subscription list.

 Sending a subscription request triggers an automatic reply, which you
 will receive within three days. This reply will confirm your
 subscription, and also provide you with information pertaining to the
 POETRY INK subscription service. It is very important for you to save
 the reply for future reference.

 Please note that you will not receive the latest issue of POETRY INK
 upon subscribing; however, you will receive the next scheduled issue -
 and all subsequent issues - upon their release.

 One final caveat: if you have submitted work for consideration and
 your work has been accepted, you were automatically assigned a
 subscription to POETRY INK, and therefore these instructions do not
 apply to you.



From The Editor's Desktop
-------------------------
 There are a number of things on the Desktop this issue, so I guess I
 should start at the top of the pile and work my way down:

 1) We now have a registered ISSN (International Standard Serial
 Number). POETRY INK's ISSN is ISSN 1091-0999. For those of you
 wondering what an ISSN is, it is a specifically assigned serial
 number given to periodicals (or serials to you non-Americans) to keep
 track of what is being published in the world and where. An ISSN is
 similar to an ISBN (International Standard Book Number), in that it
 gives merchants, libraries, and independent catalogers a hierarchical
 numbering system to keep track of publications published on a periodic
 or "installment" basis. Of course, this is a "in a nutshell"
 explanation. For more info on ISSN numbers, see the United States
 Library of Congress's web page at <http//:www.loc.gov>.

 2) The reaction to switching over to the ASCII-format was better than
 expected. Nobody flinched and nobody cancelled their subscriptions.
 Thank you for sticking with us!

 3) At the suggestion of John Freemyer, our venerable Honorary Editor
 Emeritus, we have rearranged the order of things in this issue. John
 suggested that it was a bit intimidating to have all the columns and
 literary reviews all crammed in at the beginning of the issue, and I
 am afraid he was right. So, from here on out, our featured columnists
 will be interwoven between the poetry and fiction from our
 contributors.

 4) Many folks have asked about our policy of not issuing rejection
 letters for unaccepted submissions. Well, the reason we do not issue
 rejection letters is that I hate rejection letters. Rejection letters
 are cold and impersonal and they are never fun to see in your mail box
 or your in-box. And because we do not have time to personally reply to
 each and every submission, we don't issue rejection letters. Thus, if
 you don't hear from us within three days of sending your submission to
 via eMail, (two weeks if you submitted stuff via snail mail), then
 please assume your work was not submitted and feel free to submit it
 elsewhere. But please submit it to us first!

 5) Who is this Calvin Xavier fellow, and why doesn't he have an eMail
 address? And why is he so testy? Well, Calvin doesn't have a
 particular eMail address, as his dispatches are sent via Internet
 public access sites. According to what little biographical data Calvin
 has shared with me about himself, he is a mid-40ish fairly prolific
 poet and writer who was influential in the underground publishing
 movements in the late sixties and early seventies. He claims he has
 published over twenty volumes of his poetry and prose, and he also has
 had two plays performed off-off-off Broadway--so far off Broadway as
 to be in Newark. Other than this, all I really know about Calvin is
 that he travels around the Midwest writing and hustling pool and he
 has an interesting individualistic view of what it means to be a
 writer. And he wants to share that point of view with us.

 6) Yes, occasionally we make mistakes. Sometimes they are little ones,
 and other times they are big ones. So now we have a Corrections
 Department. It will always follow this little intro ditty, and
 hopefully it will always be very very brief.

 7) Is it me, or are there not enough women submitting stuff for
 publication? Get with the program, ladies, and send in some
 submissions!

 8) Anybody want to donate a fully-functional PowerPC Macintosh and a
 Macintosh-compatible laser printer to our cause? Anybody? Hello?
 Anyone?

 9) Now is a good time to send in your submission for the next issue,
 due out mid-December 1996. Hint hint wink wink nudge nudge.

 10) Until next issue, Spill the Ink and May the Muse be Kind!


 Matthew W. Schmeer, editor and chief poetry guru
 <[email protected]>



Corrections Department
----------------------
 In POETRY INK 2.05 (Issue 12), C.A. Clover's name was incorrectly
 identified as _C.A. Culver_ in attributing the work _The Wedding_. We
 apologize for this error, and wish C.A. Clover much success with further
 writing ventures. C.A. Clover can be reached at <[email protected]>.



Belles Lettres
--------------
 A place for reader comments, criticism, and other assorted feedback.
 Not too many letters with complaints, suggestions, etc. these days, so
 this section is devoid of any meaningful content besides this little
 explanation.



The Write Thing
---------------
 (This was forwarded to us by an unknown source and was uncredited; if
 anyone knows the originator of this piece, please contact us so that
 we may appropriately credit this piece and not get sued for copyright
 infringement.)


 **Shakespeare Insult Kit**

 Combine one word from each of the three columns below, prefaced with
 the word "Thou" to make a handy-dandy insult Shakespeare would be
 proud of:

   Column 1            Column 2            Column 3
   --------            --------            --------

   artless             base-court          apple-john
   bawdy               bat-fowling         baggage
   beslubbering        beef-witted         barnacle
   bootless            beetle-headed       bladder
   churlish            boil-brained        boar-pig
   cockered            clapper-clawed      bugbear
   clouted             clay-brained        bum-bailey
   craven              common-kissing      canker-blossom
   currish             crook-pated         clack-dish
   dankish             dismal-dreaming     clotpole
   dissembling         dizzy-eyed          coxcomb
   droning             doghearted          codpiece
   errant              dread-bolted        death-token
   fawning             earth-vexing        dewberry
   fobbing             elf-skinned         flap-dragon
   froward             fat-kidneyed        flax-wench
   frothy              fen-sucked          flirt-gill
   gleeking            flap-mouthed        foot-licker
   goatish             fly-bitten          fustilarian
   gorbellied          folly-fallen        giglet
   impertinent         fool-born           gudgeon
   infectious          full-gorged         haggard
   jarring             guts-griping        harpy
   loggerheaded        half-faced          hedge-pig
   lumpish             hasty-witted        horn-beast
   mammering           hedge-born          hugger-mugger
   mangled             hell-hated          joithead
   mewling             idle-headed         lewdster
   paunchy             ill-breeding        lout
   pribbling           ill-nurtured        maggot-pie
   puking              knotty-pated        malt-worm
   puny                milk-livered        mammet
   qualling            motley-minded       measle
   rank                onion-eyed          minnow
   reeky               plume-plucked       miscreant
   roguish             pottle-deep         moldwarp
   ruttish             pox-marked          mumble-news
   saucy               reeling-ripe        nut-hook
   spleeny             rough-hewn          pigeon-egg
   spongy              rude-growing        pignut
   surly               rump-fed            puttock
   tottering           shard-borne         pumpion
   unmuzzled           sheep-biting        ratsbane
   vain                spur-galled         scut
   venomed             swag-bellied        skainsmate
   villainous          tardy-gaited        strumpet
   warped              tickle-brained      varlot
   wayward             toad-spotted        vassal
   weedy               unchin-snouted      whey-face
   yeasty              weather-bitten      wagtail



 Got a good joke, a funny story or a bit of humor pertaining to the
 literary arts? Send it to POETRY INK with the subject line "SUBMIT
 WRITE THING".



Featured Writer
---------------
Ben Judson <[email protected]>
1 poem and a brief essay


 _The Power Of The Modern Mind_

 I watch this:

 you follow the rhythm with
 your fingertips.
 flowers of evil must float in your head,
 like a mexican sculpture:
 diablos sitting under a flor.
 often people compromise their
 beauty for something more.

 the old poetman says,
 "beauty kills!" yet
 he has mercy, as old poetmen
 often do.

 revelations float up
 all around us, in the books
 of the learned, and
 in the movements of the
 sinful.

 i must exist, seeing all
 these things, i must be in the
 middle of them. i am thinking
 about them. yes,
 unless the thoughts float up
 around me, like they seem to do.



Featured Writer Essay
---------------------
 Ben Judson currently attends the University of the Incarnate Word in
 San Antonio, Texas. He has been writing poetry for about four years,
 growing increasingly dedicated to it over that time. He has tried -
 somewhat unsuccessfully - to publish a literary journal called
 "Scarcely Scholarly", which will soon die unless he gets some good
 submissions soon. He has previously been published in "The Sun Poetic
 Times", a literary journal in San Antonio, and in POETRY INK.

 You can get more information on "Scarcely Scholarly" by visiting the
 infrequently updated Eat Worms Publishing pages at:
 <http://www.texas.net/~kilgoret/front.html>.

 About _The Power Of The Modern Mind_, Ben writes:

 Modern man finds himself in a complex world: he swims in a sea of -
 more often than not - contradictory ideas. In this poem, I am watching
 myself follow a thread of these ideas. Baudelaire published a book of
 poetry called "Fleurs du Mal" ("Flowers of Evil"), which let evil fall
 into the realm of beauty; for this he is often considered the first
 modern poet. When in Mexico, I saw a sculpture of two devils (diablos
 in spanish) sitting under a flower (flor in spanish)--which struck me
 as a beautiful expression of evil in life. (Oscar Wilde said "There
 were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he
 could realize his concept of the beautiful," in "The Picture Of Dorian
 Gray".)

 Gregory Corso wrote a poem (entitled "The Whole Mess...Almost"), where
 he (Corso) kills off his ideals one by one: Truth, God, Love, Faith,
 Hope, Charity, but at the last minute he saves Beauty from the fate
 her siblings have followed. Descartes said, in "Discourse On Method",
 "I think, therefore I am." Neitchze didn't like this, claiming that
 thoughts could be strung up in front of you by some higher being: it
 is entirely possible that your thoughts do not originate within
 yourself.

 The way that this relates to beauty is that there is so little
 certain, perhaps not even existence, that pure beauty is often a
 fall-back. You can always come back to beauty: it is, in a way,
 certain. More so than taxes or death. Which is why you are reading
 this magazine.

 I have come full circle.

 My general philosophy is that certainty is a lie, and that the closer
 you come to complete uncertainty, the closer you come to
 enlightenment. Study for me is a way to achieve uncertainty--the more
 you learn, the less you know. As you gain knowledge your ideas slowly
 slip away--until you realize contradiction is inevitable and certainty
 is fiction. It's my way of following philosophical Taoism, although I
 don't consider myself a Taoist.

 That is what this poem is about.



Michelle Ernst
--------------
<[email protected]>
1 poem


 _Think About It_

 Creativity abounds in this chaotic spaghetti
 Choking insecurities, defiant compliance
 Throw them on the conveyor belt
 Life takes 8 minutes to pass through
 As a failure? Or does pain make you think
 That something worthwhile is being accomplished...

 Take this brain, so empty but absorbent
 Lazy, lulled to sleep by anticipated stress
 Coffee is a drug to cure this disease
 Struck with inspiration I leave this apathy
 I am powerfully laden with potential
 See this, and let me shine through
 Somewhere in books, somewhere in a greasy pan
 Maybe it's what will bring me my independence.

 I sleep in a cell of four pink walls,
 I stand for hours dreaming of redemption
 I say yes sir, and callously dismiss what I hear
 There are too many at the mercy of the mouth
 Let me cower here in the corner singing pointless songs
 I will awake with little sleep to fight for a dream
 To collapse under my own fatigue.

 You. Yes you with the face I am to adore.
 Aren't you my icon for hope?
 So I place you on your transparent pedestal
 And waste my time and money on a facade
 All in the name of hope.
 I am left to drown in my own failure
 But to cherish this limited token of relief
 Which in itself does nothing but
 Make me believe I am dependent.

 Oh twenty years of life,
 I have no right to complain.
 I have every right to complain.
 Heaven awaits me
 Hell awaits me
 Nothing at all awaits me
 Sudden death is on it's way.

 But yet tomorrow comes,
 And with it another sunny day
 How can I capitalize on this?
 I will better myself - intellectually
 Scheduling - I need discipline
 Think about it - there is the poor to save
 There is the blue and grey steel box
 Which is really a leash around my neck

 Dysfunctional family, ah I see...
 Shh don't say that, why don't you
 Think about it - you are so fortunate
 To never have been beaten by a belt
 To never have gone hungry in your life
 See heinous graphic crimes done to family members
 To never have lived.

 Invisible belts sting in suburbia
 Where the rules are law slowly
 Killing an adults belief in oneself
 Failure, dependence, here have a twenty
 You never worked for it, mommy give me money
 Swallow the pill, there is nothing else to do.
 Damn kids don't know how good they have it
 To have an obsessive father
 He works so hard, good little catholic.
 Then there is the tarnished knight righteous and bitter
 Joust me with your holy insults and foul mouth
 There is food on the table.

 This occupied house with a TV
 Turquoise and purple sleeveless
 With flabby thighes watching birds
 I see my own sloth mirrored in
 Trashy talk shows and my failure
 Is ground further into my spirit.

 No. No Family days. Sorry.
 What is a family? I think
 A mom, a dad, and two kids, smiling
 Pouring out of a minivan.
 I think affectatious snobs ignorant of
 The poor of the world, living in some two-story.
 Alone I am. I have no "family". I want no "family".
 These are people I live with. They feed me you see...
 Adults we all are. Four adults living together.

 Let me not diverge from the central meaning.
 If, in a playground nightmare
 You want to know the solutions to your problems,
 And wonder why it is I ponder so much
 These things caught in the dusty corners of my mind,
 I would tell you to just stop
 And think about it.



Misty Leigh McGuire
-------------------
<[email protected]>
1 poem


  _Giving Up..._

 I'm tired of giving up so easily,
 I'm tired of letting little things
 Get the best of me.
 I wanna keep on trying,
 I wanna shoot for the cloud with the
 Silver lining.
 I don't want to settle for less,
 I don't want to always be on the
 losing end.
 I want to be on top of the world where
 I can't be reached,
 I want to be high enough to lose this
 Losing streak.
 I'm tired of giving up so easily,
 It's time I quit letting things get the
 Best of me.



The As Of Yet Untitled Column By Rick Lupert
--------------------------------------------
by Rick Lupert <[email protected]>


 **Writing in Paris**

 _Man Of The World_

 As I watch all the beautiful women walk by
 in the coffee house
 As I regard their asses
 and compare them to the great archive of asses
 I have stored in my brain
 As they ignore me with the practiced skill
 that so many women use on me
 I can't help but think about next month in Paris
 There it will be French Beautiful Women walking by me
 There it will be the first international contribution
 to my ass archives
 There, women will ignore me In French
 My trip to Paris will make me a man of the world



 Get on the plane; go to Paris; it won't explode; you'll get there in
 one piece; Henry Miller wrote there; you can write there; there will
 be French women everywhere; if you're lucky, some of them will be
 naked...and it all turned out true...except that the plane DID
 explode.

 Okay. The plane did NOT explode.

 But the rest is true. Henry Miller did write there. I almost stayed in
 Hotel d'Esmeralda where he and Anais Nin would meet during their
 on-again, off-again affairs with writing and each others' genitals.
 It's located in the INFAMOUS left bank home of the Sorbonne and other
 things which I will now list. How about the Latin Quarter with it's
 alleys packed with restauranteurs standing outside of their
 establishments shouting the hard sell to get you to choose their
 eatery.

 "We have French food" they would shout as you passed by the assortment
 of Mediterranean and Italian themed joints which crowded the place. I
 should hope they had French food...I didn't come to Paris to get a
 Falafel, after all.

 I didn't stay at the Hotel d'Esmeralda because it was too expensive. I
 am a poet. Money isn't a part of my lifestyle.

 Also in the Left Bank is Shakespeare and Company Bookstore. It's
 across the Seine from Notre Dame and if there was no traffic you could
 run out the door of the store and jump in the river in probably less
 than ten seconds. There were two reasons why I didn't do this. One is
 that it was colder than it ever gets here in Los Angeles and I was
 sure I would freeze my nipples off in the water. The other reason is
 because there was traffic.

 Shakespeare and Company is run by George Whitman. According to "Let's
 Go Paris", George is allegedly the great-grandson of Walt Whitman.
 According to me this may or may not be true, but George looks like
 he's 138 years old and could possibly be Walt Whitman himself. It is
 an English bookstore which has rooms upstairs that play host to anyone
 who comes to town and meets all of the following three criteria: 1)
 You are looking for a place to crash for free in Paris while you write
 there, 2) You are willing to work a few hours a day in the bookstore,
 and 3) George Whitman feels like letting you stay there.

 I didn't stay at Shakespeare and Company because I wanted to be a
 tourist during the day. I didn't want to work in the bookstore. I did
 however meet the poet Mo Reager who just happened to be standing by
 the cash register. Mo wore a beret and was thus the only other person
 in Paris besides myself wearing a beret. Naturally Mo reminded me of
 Henry Miller. This was because he was the first poet who I met there
 and because he kind of looked like the guy who played Miller in the
 film "Henry and June".

 Mo caused the person who I was travelling with upon her decision to
 leave early to remark that one of the reasons she was leaving the trip
 early was that she wasn't meeting any English speaking people who she
 could relate to. Her exact quote was

 "The only Americans I've met in Paris are Americans and that's no
 good."

 I left copies of "Caffeine" magazine at the store. "Caffeine" is a
 national publication of poetry, art and fiction which is based in Los
 Angeles and was heavily supported by the pre-post-partum Charles
 Bukowski. "Caffeine" had published several of my poems and I thought
 it was the least I could do to bring some copies of their mags to
 Paris. When I left Shakespeare and Company the cash register operator
 du jour was handing the copies out to every customer. I felt this was
 good and bad for reasons I will not go into now. I encourage you to
 make some up, though.

 In Paris I would be a tourist during the day and a writer at night.
 It's not that I wasn't a writer during the day...but I didn't put on
 my special writing boxer shorts until about 7:30 p.m. The evening
 would always start with a meal. The food in Paris is enough reason to
 go there, and could inspire volumes of work which would be so vast
 that they would make the complete works of Shakespeare look like a
 pamphlet. I realize this is absurd hyperbole and I don't expect anyone
 to believe it. Especially anyone who has not eaten the food of Paris.

 And so at night I wrote. I covered all of the traditional ground
 covered in my work. This could be translated as "I wrote about the
 asses of women and my penis and the incessant quest to merge the two."

 Of course this would be an only partially accurate translation and you
 should not believe it either. I don't think I've been as intensely
 prolific as I was during this two week period. So much so that I
 decided that my first collection of poems (after four years of SERIOUS
 writing and six filled journals) would be all the poetry I wrote in
 Paris. It includes such classic poem titles as "It Turns Out That The
 Eiffel Tower Is Really Fucking Big", "The Good And Bad Ramifications
 of Early Morning Trash Collection In Paris", and "Bitch 2."  I feel
 that these titles alone are enough to make anyone wish to contact me
 to find out just how they could get a copy of my book. My book comes
 with a cassette. My book is called "Paris: It's The Cheese".

 My book is not for small children. My book has gotten me into trouble.
 My book is one of the few independently published books which has
 broken even. MY BOOK IS THE ONLY BOOK I'VE EVER SEEN WHICH COMES WITH
 A FREE ZIPLOCK BAG!! Goddamyoushouldcheckthisbookout.



 _Good And Bad Ramifications of Early Morning_
 _Trash Collection In Paris_

 They collect the trash early every morning in Paris
 which is good because it keeps the city clean
 and bad because it wakes me up every morning
 which is good because I don't oversleep
 and bad because I get tired during the day
 which is good because I'll sleep at night
 and bad because I like to be up at night
 which is good
 and bad
 for different reasons
 which is good because I didn't take up space listing the reasons
 and bad because you might wonder what they are
 which is good because it adds a poetic mystery to this piece
 and bad because maybe you don't like mysteries
 and would rather shoot Agatha Christie in the head if you had the chance
 and that would have various ramifications
 some of which would be good
 and some of which would be bad
 and would regardless
 have very little to do with
 how often and early they collect the trash in Paris
 and who it wakes up
 and why that is good and bad
 etcetera
 ipso-facto
 blah blah blah
 a la mode
 vive La France
 I will not flick anyone's boogar off the Eiffel Tower
 as you can well imagine.



 In Paris it wasn't hard to find evidence of dead writers. In
 Pere-Lachaise cemetery one can gaze upon the final resting places of
 Moliere and Oscar Wilde, as well as George Seurat the painter, and Jim
 Morrison the rock star. Everyone goes to Pere-Lachaise to see Jim
 Morrison's grave. There is a guard standing by it so I wasn't able to
 scoop up some dirt to bring to my roommate who would have been into
 that sort of thing. My roommate has a human bone collection. I'll give
 you his e-mail address if you'd like to ask him about it.



 _Parisian Mecca_

 Today I was asked in two different languages
 where Jim Morrison's grave was
 As I had the only paisley shirts in all of Paris
 It was clear that I was the expert in such matters



 Victor Hugo's house is in Paris. I went to it. He wasn't home. He
 hasn't been home for quite some time. I left him a note.

 Baudelaire kept apartments on Ile St-Louis. Ile St-Louis is the Island
 that is NOT the island that Notre Dame is on. You can't miss it if you
 go there. It's the OTHER island. It's a good island to visit
 especially if you want to stand outside of Baudelaire's old place. One
 of the guide books I had suggested that Baudelaire kept snakes up in
 the apartment. I saw no evidence of this from outside, but as I
 mentioned earlier, it was cold in Paris. It was so cold that my tongue
 stuck to the Eiffel Tower when I went up to lick it. The overall moral
 of this essay is to never lick the Eiffel Tower no matter what the
 weather is like.



 Excerpt from _I'm The Poet In Paris_

 I'm the poet in Paris
 I invented this town
 I invented this continent
 I invented the French language
 I invented cheese
 and I invented that little piece of fabric
 which sticks up in the middle of berets.
 This was the single most important invention
 in the history of the world
 since Pangea.



About the Columnist
*******************
 Rick Lupert lives and writes in Los Angeles except when he writes
 elsewhere. Like in Paris for example. He has also written in
 Pittsburgh, but that was just the airport. He has written in other
 airports as well. He has hosted a weekly open reading at a coffee
 house in Los Angeles for two-and-a-half years and has had poems
 published in POETRY INK, "Caffeine Magazine", "51%", "Blue Satellite",
 and "The Los Angeles Times". He is the author of "Paris: It's The
 Cheese". Rick Lupert is a short, vegetarian, guitar playing Jew who
 recently suffered the loss of two of four of his goldfish. Send no
 flowers. Money only.



Dave Delaney
------------
<[email protected]>
1 poem, 1 short fiction


 _grey guilt_

 I lay on my back looking up at the ceiling
 the dirty used ashtray sat on my chest
 representing my heart
 the ashes being dumped into it
 until the end
 the hot embers at the filter
 pressed into it
 In her bed it was similar
 only one clean heart left
 untainted
 mine
 she would reach over and grab it
 flick her guilt
 her grey guilt
 and the hot heater pressed firmly into it
 against it
 it would burn
 out
 she would light another
 to finish the job
 the worst case of heartburn I've ever had.



 _We Meet Again_

 Cheers my good man! He raised the beer in the air. He hadn't felt this
 good in years, he was with his best friend, who he hadn't taken the
 time to see lately.

 With you I feel my best. I feel that I can conquer the world, man.
 Seeing him again brought out his pent up happiness, earlier he was a
 miserable waste. He felt good about himself again.

 I thought I was shit lately and that I would never amount to anything.
 That's what my dad always told me. "Wilbur, you're never gonna amount
 to anything!". Ha! I showed him. It's too bad he's dead though, it
 would have been nice to rub it in a little. You know, I'm starting to
 get drunk and I couldn't give two shits about it. Wilbur gave him a
 good look in the eyes, smiled, and took another hit from his bottle.

 With Marla gone, I feel so free now. I didn't think I would, but I do.
 He laughed. She really fucked me up you know, but we are men, we move
 on to bigger and better things. This is what we do, we don't need no
 women to screw around with our heads, and fuck around on us when we
 are looking the other way. He sighed, his throat had become dry.

 Wilbur swallowed and frowned to his friend. I just can't believe she
 really fucked around on me, things were so good for so long...then
 just like that! He punched the wall, then inspected his knuckles for
 any damage.

 I've known you for thirty-five years now, I've gotta admit that we
 weren't always good friends. In fact there was that time that I tried
 to kill you...fuck, what was I thinking then, eh? Well it's you and me
 now pal. Through thick and thin, I know you ain't leaving anytime
 soon. He chuckled to himself.

 Wilbur finished the last of his beer and put his bottle down on the
 counter. He gave his friend one last good look, walked to the door and
 switched off the light. Once out of the bathroom Wilbur strolled back
 to his table. He ordered another beer, picked up his book and
 continued reading to himself.



Richard Epstein
---------------
<[email protected]>
3 poems


 _Surprise, Surprise_

 They say that at the house right down the street,
 the one looks much like ours, they ran a brothel.
 Actually, a whorehouse is what they say,
 a word that people like, when they can manage
 to poke it somehow into the conversation.

 I haven't pictured anyone who lived there,
 although I've tried, no woman who might be
 the siren of our cul-de-sac.  The cops
 led two kids and a chocolate lab away.
 I hadn't seen a one of them before.

 At my house we were busy with the closets--
 you take this, no I want that--mementos
 of incidents we couldn't quite remember,
 except of you, young in your wedding dress.



 _All That Extra Light_

 Our house is beginning to sag.
 I recall when they planted the tree,
 a skinny stick at the curb.
 Now it is all worn out,
 almost unable to make
 new leaves out of itself.
 Lately it doesn't know
 what to do with the light.
 The gutters are flaking away.
 They can't make the water go
 down and around and out;
 instead it piddles through,
 rotting the leaves beneath,
 rotting the leaves inside.
 The wrens are singing early
 today. They seem to know,
 right where the roof is bowed,
 above and outside the house,
 what to do with the light.



 _Air Waves_

 Is your radio on?
 I send you a message
 from my study. Hello,
 are you still the one there?

 Yes, I guess you're the one,
 there though preoccupied
 this hour with other
 programs--children, perhaps,
 or a Sunday breakfast,
 the want ads and coupons,

 or your own fitful sleep,
 a long, hard social night
 of it, glass and husband
 in hand. Now I see him,
 still in bed, that one hand
 proprietarily
 cupped on your exposed flank.

 That's all from here. I send
 no message after all.
 Greetings, perhaps. We speak
 two languages with a
 lost but common root.



Notes From the Workshop Gulag
-----------------------------
by Lawrence Revard <[email protected]>


 **John Ashbery Wows 'Em**

 Unsteady on his brown Rockport walking shoes, John Ashbery staggered
 to the car. He is a stocky man of medium height with gray hair
 peppered with black. He wore a white oxford, black Dockers, and thin
 blue dress socks. Why did I take note of all the details? Pale cheeks,
 red, aquiline nose... Here is one lucky old man: a famous, wealthy,
 respected poet. Mark Doty and company ferried the drunken poet away
 from the small party that convened after his mid-September reading in
 Iowa City.

 Ashbery's first book was a printing of eight hundred copies that took
 eight years to sell out. He made note of this when I asked him at the
 morning Q&A before his reading. But he made few other points. Unasked
 questions were: "Why does your poetry lack any logic or sense?" or
 "When you returned from Paris in '66, didn't you have a great deal of
 help stepping on the right rungs in your climb toward poetdom?" or
 "Just how did you obtain that MacArthur 'Genius' award years ago?"
 Jorie Graham interfered at the Q&A and soft-pedalled questions to
 Ashbery. The writers who appeared at the Q&A sat in tense silence
 straining to hear Ashbery's soft, muddle responses to the soft,
 muddled questions

 "I was in France on a Fulbright when my first book came out..."
 Ashbery recalled. "I was having great difficulty writing so I would
 use writing exercises...collages, cut-ups...as Ginsberg and Burroughs
 were doing at the time. Some of them were not successful at all."

 Really? Unsuccessful writing exercises? But what were you doing in
 Paris? Weren't you a publicist? Weren't you specializing in publicity
 and self-promotion? Eight hundred copies...unsuccessful
 struggling...pshaw!

 "I wonder if you can comment on how your audience has changed since
 you returned from Paris in '66?" I asked.

 "I started out without an audience..."

 Ashbery has been putting out book after book since the sixties. His
 third, _Rivers and Mountains_, was successful. He has had an audience
 since that time.

 "I met an editor who was very enthusiastic...I was reviewed in the New
 York Times..."

 Harold Bloom and Helen Vendler helped to set up Ashbery's work as an
 example of deconstruction at work in poetry in the '70's.

 "I was taking poetry apart to see how it worked...but my intention was
 always to put it back together...I'm still trying to put the pieces
 back together, but I still revert back to the dislocation and
 juxtaposition and choppiness...Postmodern is what I'm called, but I
 don't know what it means."

 The choppiness is his signature, not a feature Ashbery avoids. It
 gives him his punch--his ability to surprise and entertain an
 audience. It also makes his work available for certain varieties of
 critical interpretation.

 When asked what poets he read, Ashbery commented that he had been
 reading James Tate and Keats. Keats?

 "What is it about Keats that you find moving," one student asks.

 "His language is so luscious, it is like eating a big bowl of fruit,"
 Ashbery replies. Or is it that Keats is currently the high example of
 genius with Helen Vendler and Jorie Graham? Perhaps not, but certainly
 none of us is surprised that Keats is a favorite.

 "If poetry has a responsibility, what is it?" asks another student.

 "Nothing more than to give pleasure to somebody...I don't think that
 poetry has any responsibility. It is enough that it is poetry."

 Bravo! Another flourish for the public, John!

 At his reading, John Ashbery was the victim a weeping, simpering
 psychopath in the front row. The disturbed man, clearly out of his
 head, made much audible commentary in praise of Ashbery. Ashbery did
 not hear the man, but the audience was perturbed. A poem beginning
 with "The patient has escaped...!" then drew spontaneous laughter and
 applause. The audience supposed this was Ashbery's dry commentary on
 his peculiar fan in the front row. As it turned out, Ashbery chose the
 poem by accident and intended no commentary at all.

 "I appreciate miscommunication as a form of its own," Ashbery said
 during the Q&A.

 So do we all, but many prefer skill to luck.



 (Special thanks to Gillian Kiley for contributing to this is article.)



About the Columnist
*******************
 Lawrence Revard is a graduate student at the University of Iowa's
 Writer's Workshop for Poetry. He welcomes comments regarding his
 writings for POETRY INK. He can be reached at the eMail address at the
 beginning of this column. (Okay, you lazy bum, here it is:
 <[email protected]>)



Darren Lauzon
-------------
<[email protected]>
2 poems


 _Passing the Bowel Line_

 Once I arrogantly believed that lying here like this
 on hot sand with the oily and darkened heliocentric
 required a sleight of consciousness equal to lobotomy,
 needed the 'heil' salute to heat and sex and potential
 for sex, needed the rhetoric of fumbling surf.

 Now I am burning and meditating on Burroughs
 and the potential for melanoma and what burrows
 beneath my coccyx in the sand, what god it supposes
 me to be, and I notice your breathing is now joined
 to the rhythm of my own.

 First I'm aware that you sleep; then I'm aware that
 you dream, that your unconscious has taken its turn
 at free speech, and I can tell that the video presentation
 is pretty slick, yet some part of you heckles from the floor;
 sweetheart you mumble so sweetly in your sleep.

 I have much more to give if your soul wrings harder
 from me the remaining, most complex chains.
 I could so easily interrupt this nightmare
 by grabbing some part of you, clutching tightly to avoid
 passing as waste into the sea.



 _I Will_

 I will bleed
 so that your blood may feed your own tissue.

 Without breathing I will mount
 the back steps tiptoing

 push the screen door slowly
 so not to make it squeak.

 I will damn myself
 should another floorboard crack.

 I will learn to slow
 my heartbeat to a whisper,

 so not to disturb your dreams;
 the night water will be still as glass.

 I will stare at the sun
 unblinking

 absorb the light
 so that your eyes do not squint and strain.

 I will climb to the roof without a ladder
 sit there, knees scraped, hands bleeding

 waiting for the sun to move.
 One day you will escape

 through the chimney behind my back
 like smoke.



Matthew W. Schmeer
------------------
<[email protected]>
3 poems


 _making karen happy_

 last night my wonderful wife
 beautiful wife
 touched my shoulder
 and asked me to write
 a poem for her.
 "make it a happy poem,"
 she asked.
 "promise me it will
 not be negative, or
 dwell on death
 or the unknown,
 or sex, like your
 other poems."

 this is more difficult
 than i had thought.
 happy poems are difficult.
 but i agreed to write
 her a happy poem.
 afterall, she is my wife
 and i love her, so
 how could i refuse?

 this is the poem
 i write for my wife:

 every day is a word.
 it is a quiet word,
 a word between
 lovers or birds or
 children at play and
 you know the word
 is good.

 every day is a word
 which is on the tongue
 hiding behind the other
 words which are spoken
 throughout the day.

 the word is when
 we drove home
 along the great
 river road,
 winding our way
 through the towns
 marked "Population: 24" or less;
 the towns with only
 six buildings shrugging
 against the blacktopped strip and
 the fields of wheat, corn, and soy
 stretching between the bluffs
 and the rivers churning
 toward each other.

 each day is that day
 and the word of
 that day;
 i think my wife
 speaks truth.
 it is the simple
 things which write
 the best poems.



 _mouse_

 this morning the cat
 brought us a mouse.
 it was a simple gift,
 the only gift
 a cat knows how to give
 to those he loves.
 the mouse was dead,
 and it had not
 died quickly; it
 was not mangled by
 claws or by jaw,
 but played out,
 tired, or
 possibly scared
 to death.

 my wife did not
 see the mouse at first;
 it was too dark.
 but the cat sat beside
 his gift and waited
 for us to notice.
 he did not follow my wife
 to the kitchen to be fed,
 but merely sat there,
 waiting, wanting
 to give us this
 pure simple gift.

 my wife woke me with
 a startling shake of the bed.
 "methinks there's a mouse,"
 she said in jest, but
 i know she does not
 take vermin lightly.
 she did not know
 this is the cat's way.

 i found an empty box
 which once held
 vanilla wafers,
 and with a ballpoint pen,
 i rolled the dead mouse
 into the box, and took the
 box outside to the trash.

 in silence, the cat
 watched what i did
 and then he went to
 his pillows and his
 eyes began to slide
 towards sleep.

 he is a good cat
 and I stroked him
 and I told him
 he was good,
 for cats need
 encouragement.



 _wife_

 the woman sleeping in the
 upstairs bedroom is
 not his wife. she is
 sleeping with the
 covers pulled close to
 her chest, the dusky
 haze of the sun coating
 her in oranges and reds
 and yellows not
 found in bottles
 of hair coloring,
 tubes of mascara,
 or compacts of rouge.

 his wife is on the
 downtown train
 coming home.
 she does not know
 the woman is
 sleeping
 in their bed.

 he does not know
 his wife is coming
 home and he is
 drinking a pepsi,
 watching the
 television, and
 he is sitting
 in his boxer shorts,
 the leather chair
 sticking to his thighs.

 the woman in the upstairs
 room stirs her womb and
 the woman on the train
 feels the movements.



World Wide Words
----------------
by Phil Pearson <[email protected]>


 **Maximum Culture + Maximum Student Collaboration = Teaching Success**

 Within the last few years I have taught, more than any other, the
 basic college composition courses often tagged Composition I-II. The
 students in my classes have reflected the various races and
 ethnicities that make up Tulsa's neighborhoods: I have had students
 from countries such as Saudi Arabia, South Korea, China, Mexico,
 Pakistan, and Brazil. I have taught American Indian, Hispanic, Black,
 and International Students who speak one language at home and English
 at work and school, so I feel I have an ever-growing appreciation and
 deepening understanding of the cultural and ethnic diversity of
 students.

 Sadly though, in America nowadays we have The Great Writing Doctor
 Tradition: take your words into the aseptic, acultural
 class-waiting-room for a grammar checkup, a teacherly tongue-depressor
 inspection. Dispense the correct use of a coordinating conjunction and
 explain parallelism and send them on their merry way.

 Yet teaching writing, learning to write, is not a Marcus Welby
 two-pill prescription. Our pedagogy must more full address the less
 acculturated of our society in our public institutions.

 So how can less acculturated students best learn to write in a
 community college setting?

 First, I believe in recognizing the importance of pluralism in
 community discourse. The marginalization of an English Department from
 a community setting, especially Composition, has far-reaching
 ramifications for academic student writing. If feasible, I strongly
 support the Writing-Across-the-Curriculum Movement.

 Second, I believe in privileging writing over, yes, teaching. We must
 divest ourselves of the bank model of writing instruction as teacher
 depositure; instead, we should invest ourselves in a labor model of
 writing instruction more slanted towards student production. The focus
 ought to be on the student's ideas, the student's questions, the
 student's words, the student's writing, the student's cultural
 experiences.

 Third, I believe in teaching writing as a recursive process, writing
 as critical thinking, writing as the student's resources, and writing
 as revision for graded evaluation.

 The perfect textbook, I believe, needs to offer a teacher a
 combination of writing instruction approaches, ranging from a
 literature approach (exposing students to classic texts; analyzing
 works) to a peer workshop approach (buddy writing; small-group
 projects; medium-group hypertexts; cross-peer evaluation and scoring),
 from an individualized writing lab approach (Roger Garrison-like
 workshops) to a text-based rhetoric approach (major/minor rhetorical
 strategies, studying prose models of composition; discourse modes; the
 Toulmin model of argument�claim, warrant, and support), or, if
 warranted, from a basic skills approach (grammar and usage) to a
 service course approach (e.g., techniques for writing research
 papers). In addition, the perfect textbook should allow for classroom
 interaction that can vary from brief introductory lectures to
 large-group, simultaneous small-group, or buddy-system activities, as
 well as student-led or teacher-guided discussions of writing.

 The sum of the parts of teaching writing is only as good as the
 writing textbook parts you start with.

 Finally, I am also a firm believer in process conferences and
 semester-end portfolio evaluation, having found both to be extremely
 successful, especially the ongoing student conferences.

 A recent professional experience of mine that I found highly
 enlightening involved empowering my students with more direct control
 over their discussion groups in class. I decided I would restructure
 my classroom environment, and I attempted to establish an atmosphere
 of openness, cultural and ethnic respect, and safety in the class. At
 first, I had numerous qualms as to giving my students such free rein,
 but soon I began to hear and see them acknowledging the importance of
 their connections to each other, responsibly appreciating another's
 culture, and defending and voicing the notion of America as a great
 melting pot. With most discussions, I struggled and forced myself to
 remain quiet and forgo the tendency to pop into the discussions and
 pepper them with words such as "pluralism," "academic discourse,"
 "acculturation," or "political correctness." The discussions did lag
 and falter at times, but not for lack of student collaboration or
 interest. I would watch them go out the door at the end of class, a
 conversation of ideas now going, a new cultural dialogue divested of
 any overt academic pedagogy that I had not seen before.

 All too often we teachers�I plead guilty here�with our Daly-Miller
 Writing Apprehension Test, our Myer-Briggs Personality Type Indicator,
 our well-intentioned Socratic Method, our having gleaned the latest
 "Exercise Exchange" for possible teaching tips, are confronted with a
 serious teacher-to-student cultural lag as we look out over rows of
 we-are-not-worthy faces on that very first day. At times part P.T.
 Barnum and part Peter Pan, pitching a fantastic "writingese," an
 "educationese," with a coy, welcome-wagon spiel, we over-sell and
 over-teach the fine art of writing.

 Weeks down the line, after too many bean-counting sentences, too many
 low calorie-ideas, too many writing-to-go essays, everything and the
 classroom textbook goes out the window. Ascending up from our highly
 mythologized student grading-hell (good riddance!), now
 student-proofed, now teacher-by-fire ready, we regroup. A
 next-semester-win-them-over mindset takes hold, and, with one's
 top-performance ideals still intact, John Q. Student and the Perfect
 Composition Chase begins anew.

 In the end, we as progressive writing teachers must learn that
 students are quite capable of assuming the mantle of responsibility
 for their own acculturation. We must give them that collaborative
 empowerment. Already suffering from a tenuous sense of responsibility,
 ownership, and authority in their writing, students ought to be
 challenged with many kinds of cultural and ethnic connections. The art
 of teaching writing should create social filaments that network
 students' thinking to a writing community of others.

 Teaching success = maximum culture + maximum student collaboration.



World Wide Words Book Review
----------------------------
"On the Black Hill" by Bruce Chatwin
Viking Penguin Books, 249 pages

 **Episodic Form, A Painter's Eye, and Critical Detail**

 On a first run-through of Bruce Chatwin's novel, "On the Black Hill,"
 the reader is quickly struck by how episodic the structure of the book
 is: 249 pages and 50 chapters, roughly about a chapter every five
 pages. The pace is quick, the plot multiple. In fact, this book cries
 out for the tag "traditional novel" to be given to it. We get multiple
 story lines. We get more characters than we really need from Chatwin,
 which is one of his few faults here. "On the Black Hill" resembles a
 good old-fashioned eighteenth century novel like "Tom Jones."

 Ironically, even though the book centers around what takes place on
 Black Hill, a peripatetic expansiveness exists that is delightfully
 refreshing. Chatwin moves the reader around, and travel becomes an
 important thematic element in this book in many ways. Characters are
 always in movement, always going places, by car, on foot, with
 bicycles. Chatwin as well possesses a painter's eye for description,
 and his use of critical detail to describe rooms or settings captures
 the Cezanne-like effect that Ernest Hemingway was striving for in his
 early short stories. A descriptive fussiness and baroque indulgence
 with detail intrudes at times though, which Hemingway would probably
 balk at, for Chatwin seemingly cannot set his scene and place until he
 has exhausted us with a rich evocation. He loves knick-knacks, and any
 scene-setting of a room is sure to include many little 'objets d'art'.

 Ways of seeing have everything to do with the means by which a
 novelist structures experience, and this reader keenly notes how
 Chatwin "sees" and structures the texture of his novel. Much of the
 book's narrative line takes up with Lewis and Benjamin Jones,
 identical twins, but, at the same time, the other story lines, the
 character portraits of eccentrics and grotesques occupies Chatwin's
 imagination. In some ways, Chatwin's characters remind you of the
 dramatic studies of familiar life done by William Hogarth. Chatwin's
 character portraits could be dead-ringer figures right out of a
 Hogarth painting. Unfortunately, what we get too much at times in
 Chatwin's limited characterization is just flat character portraits.

 The painterly eye mentioned earlier comes into play in many aspects of
 the book's overall makeup. Curiously, the first line of the book
 orients us to the visual, for Chatwin tells us that the farm where
 Lewis and Benjamin live is known as "The Vision." Much as the early
 Hemingway used different components of the landscape in such a way
 that each is distinct as the eye focuses on it separately, yet tends
 to blend into the next when the whole picture is viewed, Chatwin
 applies the technique of critical detail to create setting.
 Hemingway's attempt in "Big Two-Hearted River" to depict the
 countryside like a Cezanne painting best exhibits the technique of
 critical detail:


 The road ran on, dipping occasionally, but always climbing. Nick went
 on up.

 Finally the road after going parallel to the burnt hillside reached
 the top. Nick leaned back against a stump and slipped out of the pack
 harness. Ahead of him, as far as he could see, was the pine plain. The
 burned country stopped off at the left with the range of hills. On
 ahead islands of dark pine trees rose out of the plain. Far off to the
 left was the line of the river. Nick followed it with his eye and
 caught glints of the water in the sun.

 There was nothing but the pine plain ahead of him, until the far blue
 hills that marked the Lake Superior height of land. He could hardly
 see them, faint and far away in the heat-light over the plain. If he
 looked too steadily they were gone.

 But if he only half-looked they were there, the far off hills of the
 height of land. (180)


 Now, here is a scene of striking similarity described by Chatwin:


 Next morning, after foddering, he [Amos] took a stick and walked the
 nine miles to Bryn-Draenog Hill. On reaching the line of rocks that
 crown the summit, he sat down out of the wind and retied a bootlace.
 Overhead, puffy clouds were streaming out of Wales, their shadows
 plunging down the slopes of gorse and heather, slowing up as they
 moved across the fields of winter wheat.

 He felt light-headed, almost happy, as if his life, too, would begin
 afresh.

 To the east was the River Wye, a silver ribbon snaking through
 water-meadows, and the whole countryside dotted with white or
 red-brick farmhouses. A thatched roof made a little patch of yellow in
 a foam of apple- blossom, and there were gloomy stands of conifers
 that shrouded the homes of the gentry.

 A few hundred yards below, the sun caught the slate of Bryn-Draenog
 rectory and reflected back to the hill-top a parallelogram of open
 sky. Two buzzards were wheeling and falling in the blue air, and there
 were lambs and crows in a bright green field. (19)


 Again, all the components of the landscape are presented in such a
 fashion that each is distinct as the imagination's eye focuses on it
 separately, yet tends to blend into the next as the whole is taken in.
 No superdetailed description exists here, no photographic realism.
 Details have been critically selected and blended. Chatwin shows a
 keen painter's sense of proportion here. The composite we visually
 receive of Bryn-Draenog comes across to the mind's eye as a
 proportionate interplay of key subordinate parts, each distinct yet
 each fusing together into an overall Cezanne-like impression.

 Chatwin even uses the technique of critical detail to convey
 character:


 Lewis was tall and stringy, with shoulders set square and a steady
 long-limbed stride. Even at eighty he could walk over the hills all
 day, or wield an axe all day, and not get tired.

 He gave off a strong smell. His eyes�grey, dreamy and astigmatic�were
 set well back into the skull, and capped with thick round lenses in
 white metal frames. He bore the scar of a cycling accident on his nose
 and, ever since, its tip had curved downwards and turned purple in
 cold weather. (10)


 Here details have been critically selected and blended to round out a
 picture of Lewis for the reader. Much like working in a
 three-dimensional medium, Chatwin fashions his prose to create volume
 and relief, to writerly represent the face of a character.

 With the likes of such august figures as Edmund Wilson and Somerset
 Maugham bemoaning the downfall of the classical novel, its "decline
 and fall," its "passing," the doomsayers' cult has been reaping the
 message of its long overdue death left and right since the turn of
 this century. For nearly a hundred years now, the scope of the novel
 has been widening to include matters never dreamed of before by its
 progenitors and early practitioners such as DeFoe and Fielding:
 dissection of motive, in-depth exploration of psychological states,
 social criticism, economic theorizing, every conceivable variety of
 theme and crusade. All these variants have greatly enriched the novel,
 but they have also steadily and unfortunately diminished the element
 of narrative, of pure story, sometimes diminishing this important
 element to the point of destroying it. Fortunately, for us, Bruce
 Chatwin offers up to the reader just this lost art: Pure Story. A
 master of the episodic form, of the painterly eye, of the use of
 critical detail, Mr. Chatwin takes us back to the old-fashioned art of
 novel-making in "On the Black Hill."


World Wide Words Special Feature
--------------------------------
short fiction by Phil Pearson


 _the cellophane of memory_

 a shimmering green field soon soothes you, so bright in the summer sun
 from the pickup as your eyes come back to you. a green grass clearing
 stretches out far and wide, a rippling golden green for an instant for
 your eyes, then fading to a quick, lost sensation. you brake at the
 dead-end sign, pull your blinker arm down, head west

 west okoboji lake. the gentle gentle rocking. a windy moil of blue
 water. wind forever leaving you. just big pin-oak trees left to play
 an angry rustling tune. you wait by the lakeside: you wait on the
 water. pushing off then boating downwind, the water tolls�bells that
 only you hear. the green sounds of the ice-blue water. west okoboji

 some old city council signs peg the ground here and there. wind
 whistles. mechanical, hammer-headed grasshoppers, hind legs circling
 flywheels, genuflect solemnly, lonely pilgrims chained to the red
 soil, chugging on. blowflies, green- and bluebottle, hover over a dead
 possum, its tail a white limp curve there on the road in front of you,
 fur ruffling, scurrying the flies as you rumble by. "no HUNTING or
 TRESPASSING under the penalty of the law." one grunting pig scratches
 its piebald side against a thick wood post before going on burrowing
 in drying mud. some strange car honks. a bearded guy in black
 sunglasses. he guns around, shuddering by, wheels spitting back
 asphalt grains that ping off your truck's windshield. a boy pitches
 his fishing line back into a small brown farm pond with a small red
 dog at his side watching

 pulling those little round porcupine balls off, you, tennis shoelaces
 burred thick, your whiskey-red Irish setter yelping as you perform
 surgery, memory of a packed lunch eaten on the lake, slip-bobbering
 for panfish while listening to Saturday afternoon Iowa Hawkeye
 football games on your portable radio. hooking fat-bellied yellow
 bullheads off colcord's point at sunset. gored by that pelvic sidefin
 stinger, swelling the cee of flesh between the thumb and forefinger,
 hand sore for days. catnapping, seat cushion for a pillow, feet
 dangling over the gunwale, fish hatchery maps under your tackle box,
 tennis shoes prints sanding the hull. fall fever. october. browns.
 lush. an airplane drones overhead somewhere. just you trampolining
 upon the water in your 12-foot crestliner, a helmsman for the day.
 water scout. acquiring your water badge. outboarding all the way south
 on two fill-ups of gas to wide and deep emerson's bay, then trolling
 back and forth across the mouth of the bay, across the rock reef, from
 eagle point to pocohontas point, pocohontas point to eagle point, over
 the scattered gravel and emergent raccoon's tail, trailing your
 pole-bending red-and-white daredevil spoon for muskies, the afternoon
 gusty with hope. cold water clappers the boat, belling down along the
 v-hull from bow to stern. everything rings bells inside you. the
 bulrushes sibilate, the cattails kowtow, bentover chesspiece knights.
 hours ago Okoboji so penitent, robed in dark serge blue, now glinting
 whitecaps salute, roiling gunmetal gray at high noon. all of it you
 take in

 the sun beats mercilessly down. a jet contrail mars a pale indigo sky,
 diffusing into a dirty gray scar. white horses in a strange perfect
 circle graze, necks all kowtowing to the ground, now in the rearview
 mirror white dots against a tree line, tails swishing. a red-shirted
 farm kid up on a rusty bike too big for her waves, glances back at you
 in the cab, then yaws left, yaws right, her little legs pumping hard
 to get up a hill. "Trailer for Sale 827-6418." yellow ribbons enbow
 trees�the mailbox enbowed too in corn-yellow. car-clogged front yards,
 cars cannibalized for parts and up on cement blocks, hoods askew,
 stray green clumps of sprays of flowers, dirty puppies running loose,
 rusty gas tanks and cords and cords of pinewood stacked alongside
 trailer homes clotted with mud-spattered, muffler-rumbling 4x4's, then
 the roads pockmarked, edges crumbling, patchy and potholed, the
 asphalt oily, the sheen dulled, dulling

 on the dull, mossy rocks, overturning them, using the leeches
 underneath for night walleye bait, letting them suctioncup themselves
 to your fingers for fun, then the real laugh of squeezing, pulling,
 stretching them away from your skin, then you rinse your hands in the
 instant ice-tea foam. then it is 1976? bicentennial year? under a
 sunless sky and thrumming for walleyes with limegreen grasshoppers.
 remember those tiny orange eyes of their's. echoings of a boat motor.
 someone or ones heading for hayward's bay, calling it a day. a gull
 flaps into a light headwind. wave after wave cradles your
 double-anchored fishing boat. waters of memory advance and recede,
 advance and recede, you tread, tread, treading then remembering diving
 deep deep first through hot, then warm, then cool layers then cold,
 ah, icecube-like relief to your sunbaked skin, pure ice water, you
 jackknifed off and up and away from the lake bottom mud, legs
 scissoring, feet flippering, arms angelwinging, re-wing, surface
 finally with a headwhip, wringing out your tousled hair, snorts clear
 the nostrils, atread, floating, bobbering down and up and down, swell
 after swell after swell, they rollercoaster you to the end of a
 private dock, sitting alone, you desiring to be undisturbed, absorbed
 by a book, twenty years old? and very quiet, an independent mind of
 your own, a drinker of words, the hot burn of words, your fresh mind
 tasting cayenne peppers, tasting horseradish, feeling giddy, you, like
 a drunk who is aware of what is going on around you, yet not there, in
 a wholly different world of sensation, who is slowly leaving your
 body, to be resurrected as a new spirit in a new world someplace else

 the baking, remollient countryside steams droning sounds out over
 checkerboard fields. birds counterpoint strange strains of melody. a
 lavender skyline oranges lighter, pinking now the sky-rim, higher up
 softening to the orange-brown color of english marmalade as your eyes
 periphery the horizon. the pinkening deepens. low-lying clouds,
 bouffanted cotton candy, dissolve under the twilight sun. cool air
 fluffs your neck as you dip down a hill. manured air stenches the
 nostrils. you roll up your window. a cow grazes greedily, branded JR
 on its flank, you think of okoboji. some man in a white t-shirt, a
 coffee mug in hand, surveys the land as the orange sun sinks. four
 bobwhite quail waddle across the road ahead, skittering away into
 cover. one stalls at the roadside, backs off, then bobs and skedaddles
 away up into the ditch and up into the barbed fence-line. you pull on
 your lights. your world transforms and quickly reduces to varying
 circles of light�red, yellow, white. "Warning. All. Thieves. and.
 Trespassers. Will. Be. Shot" hangs on an abandoned farm house. past
 machine-littered, fire-scourged fields, past little 4-way junctions,
 past leaning stop signs, past recreational campers parked in driveways,
 past countless rust-spotted basketball bankboards starkly lit in the
 night, you stare at the yellow chips of butterscotch now, counting the
 squares. then moths flare up like whirling white dervishes, some
 meteoring right into the grillwork of your pickup, while others
 flutter off away unharmed into the gloom of nighttime

 sticky time, revolution, driftwood stumps cobwebbed with old fishing
 line, little miller's floating greenseed algae, thick peasoup, you
 spoon around with an oar laughing at the little round dunking balls of
 fluff, woodies, mom cheeps them away quickly into the marsh cane as
 you pole yourself around the bay's edge, trusty duckblind-green
 johnson motor tilted up, dip and dart of dragonflies preying on
 mosquito larvae, beads of lake water drip drop plop, plop, plop off
 the old splitwood blade ends of your two gray oars, smack of a
 smallmouth bass in the early crisp morning air, plash of waves washing
 up upon the shore rocks, emptying, emptying, xylophoning of sound,
 gradated rock by rock by rock, pellucid tuning forks sounding out out
 onto okoboji, out, out, onto the air, out out out onto you, pincering
 crawdad-like for life

 centerline reflector chips of butterscotch. the roadside's tree color
 russet, the pine's green clarifying itself in the cone of the
 headlights. leaves cartwheeling on the road and falling now and then
 from above with a grace and finality to the gunmetal gray pavement.
 gray telephone poles as if they are crosses, eerie hangmen. cold
 farmhouse lightpoles polka dot the eye's creep and bound. musty heat
 filters in from a blower fan. fingers prickle with sleep: little balls
 pinball against the sidewalls of the skin. the cocoon of night spins
 tighter. blue zombie-like glow of a TV through the gauze of living
 room curtains. all these country people, with their silly front-yard
 ornaments, hokey at best, these never-ending trailer homes with cars
 up on cement blocks, a mangy mutt or two moping around. tonight the
 yellow-soft rooms uninviting and unmysterious, these unknown people
 with their irritating foibles, their slow-as-molasses dinner-table
 talk, their dry and dreary banality. hum of tires and road, a higher
 pitch dopplers around the lateral sides, a hissing underneath away and
 out, gone into the cold air. a squiggly black and yellow road sign
 like a fat nightcrawler

 big fathead minnows wriggling in a styrofoam minnow bucket, you
 nightcrawler hunting by flashlight, Old Man Harry's back yard watered
 all afternoon. perfect. pinching the glistening heads, pulling,
 sliding, stretching, easing them out of the ground with care, not
 wanting them to sever apart on you in the hole, spying, fingers
 thumping down on the damp ground, doubles, mating pairs, soap bubble
 lubricity, the night wind sashaying a two-step in the treetops of the
 oak and the elm, bulldozing dirt into an ungarbaged glass miracle whip
 jar first, a baker's dozen later having met your following day's
 fishing-worm quota you jaunt home, the jar jiggled round by you and
 fishbowled, a wriggling and wry curiosity, clotting, mucous,
 membranous, clods turded up, tunnelling, corkscrewing around and down,
 shiny oiliness, then shakered up, primeval, slinky caterpillar
 movements begin anew, roto-rootering tips fencing each other all
 round, sidewinding contortionists so slippery. you shake again
 vigorously this time burying them all under for good. back in the
 garage you aerate the twist-top lid with a Phillips and refrigerate

 wet trunks cold so cold. just off the clothesline. off to go swimming
 again. whitecaps beckon. tennis shoes squish. tight black ball-like
 schools: the morning spent chasing baby bullheads with a minnow net
 along the shore rocks, delighting in each plucked-up blackie with a
 whoop. flotsam and jetsam now you pick at a dead shell. light blue
 skeleton: crayfish. gone. and suddenly you're returning in your green
 newport on highway 9, years later, and that smell of water, of lake,
 hitting you. miles away. amazed, you inhaled greedily and deeply then,
 filling your lungs, holding in your breath for minutes, exhaling
 slowly, serenely. epiphany. you're moving downwind now, upwind,
 slinking back, a shimmering gold comet, silver wiggle, you break the
 bread and wine of waves, commune. a wave takes a balletic hop. you
 roll up your shirt sleeves. your okoboji. every morning you smell your
 lake, your water. the gray-blue lake water and the surging whitecaps
 frosting the surface in the sunlight. aluminum fishing boat chunking
 the waves. the witchy water whispers only to you, splashing out a
 morse code. and waves after windswept waves thunder against the cold
 rocks. your own footprints in the sand. then gone. washed over, wiped
 out. a glimpse: white wings arc, smooth perfect landing, hugging the
 sandy runway. so white the raucous gull. you smile tenderly. your
 heart tightens

 hoo, hoo-oo, hoo, hoo. plaintive. a great horned. high up somewhere a
 jet grinds like a garbage disposal. dirty cotton rag cloud cover. full
 milkwhite beaver moon. arcturus wnw in the bootes constellation.
 silhouetted pine trees like old featherdusters. dark dark green
 treetops: brussel sprouts. soft whisking sound of wind stirring
 leaves. an accelerator hammered down, muffler pistoning out pops. the
 cool burn of night air wafts against the cheekbones. rich spice of
 wet, fermenting forest duff. shiny, slick leaves curled up like wood
 shavings. bur oak limbs seemingly denuded grapevines. gnarled,
 corky-ridged branch clusters. maples celery stalks. a rising point and
 counterpoint of crickets. hurly-burly of farm dogs rustling brush in
 the woods. yaps and yelps. the subsequent tang of skunk. far far away
 hunters' voices echo in the loess hills. suddenly a strange loon-like
 whinnying breaks forth

 coon tracks. three wheeler's. sidewinder, stallion of the lake,
 rumbles by, white tail, watering a banana-shaped spray. you, leaving
 fresh footprints on the beach sand for the past. into a lower
 galloping gear, sidewinder, runner of the waves, gambols around the
 sand bar buoy out from gull point state park. wind and water shear
 rocks on the sand bar point and you are watching the dragonflies do
 their ritual kissing of the rod tip, summer of ? you dunk those pests.
 you forever trying to dunk them in the lake water and never
 succeeding. then you are taking a scoop of baking sand and slowly
 sieving it through your fingers, slowly riddling it, a rolling
 movement from side to side, trickling down to the ground. scoop and
 sieve. listen. for only you hear the fluid sounds of lake water
 tolling to you. and rod and reel in hands you set off. time a full
 hourglass

 passing time you catch a darting glimpse of raspberry-dusted rumps and
 bibs of hubbubing house finches gorging themselves on black oil
 sunflower seeds. you remember the rutting stags in the woods at night
 with their sexual snorting. you see stubbly fields, razed corn stalks,
 a combined row of corn as far as eyes can see. that yellow tilled road
 to oz. diesel fumes cloying the air, the churned-up fodder whirled out
 by chaff spreaders, that rich vegetative musk. wicker chair tentacles
 of rooted corn, like half a bird cage above ground. ramrod stalks,
 kings, spiky crowns, drooping with heavy ears while bearded with a
 nest of deep-brown tobacco, leaves curliecued and dry as onion skin,
 paperlight. chock-full grain trucks lumbering through the fields on a
 mission, through pink bull thistle looking like champagne glasses,
 through the bristly greenbrier with its pigtailed tendrils, like when
 you take a scissor's edge to a christmas ribbon. the rabbit-eared pods
 of milkweed split open. those amazing seed throwers. brown pumpkin
 seed gondolas going up like hot-air balloons, downy soft white
 spiders, once grounded tumbleweeds, yet airborne again and up up ready
 to velcro themselves to your clothes, those pods fine as deer antler
 felt, cargo bay hatches open and little parachutists spilling out,
 carried by the whim of the wind out among the black-headed gulls

 the lake gulls dally and the squirrels scurry, busily burying acorns.
 air is spiced with seaweed and leaf smoke. leaves tumble and beckon as
 grounded leaves cartwheel back and forth across the beach sand. you
 out on the lake, late autumn, in insulated coveralls, a few docks
 remaining. you fished for jumbo perch that day while the water
 xylophoned, xylophoned, the lake wash xylophoning over and over the
 pebbly littoral. hearing those cricket chirps in the deep grass, the
 cicada's bray strange and solemn somewhere, maple's rasp and crackle
 of dry leaves, hearing okoboji, in-seeing its blueness, you, the fever
 of water, the pulse of water, throbbing, beating, stethoscope you, you
 its sounding body, you alone its heart, water beat, water beat, water
 beat, between water beats that liquid lull, happy beating beat beat
 beat beat hydroplaning beats across the lake's skin, skipping the
 surface, frisbee flip flung hanging catching major air you canoe
 paddle swirl underwater, you, fluttering sailcloth dimples in and out,
 ruffles, sand like a deck of cards spread wide, sunlight curlicues
 under and in through the sand bar riffle defining the water's
 oil-smooth form, chthunk thunk thunking speed bumps of a ski boat
 plowing through an overgrown field of whitecaps, only you hear the
 suspirations of the wind in the sedge grass as you climb that
 tire-roped tree crabwise, heady coenesthesis of vertigo you swung out
 with a bird's eye view, cannonballing yell dopplering you down down
 down down, and you are picking up a dry-as-dust king crawdad, pugjawed
 shad silvering the surface with little filliping spanks, heron, a
 wading great blue, still life, pencil-lead legs then gallop, a greedy
 gulp, some gurgitating, an after-dinner billful or two of liquid
 refreshment, then back to the stalk, pose, sneak attack, miss, a
 squawking croak, its bass call sounding like an old creaky floorboard,
 then again back to the stalk. ahead on the shingle remember suddenly
 the zippered buzz of hoppers jumping out of harm's way in the wild rye
 grass, you after that walk along the beach, that shell, hands
 fingering it, that shiny wet washboard feel, you a beachcomber at
 five, burrowing for your lucky arrowhead, right-sized rock hammers and
 you wedge it open enough for a fingertip's hold and then pry it wide
 open to soft-poached egg-white jelly, learning full how to destroy
 then, no pearls, an angel wing left dehiscent on the flint brown sand.
 okoboji and the cellophane of memory clinging to you still today at
 this very instant



About the Columnist
*******************
 Phil Pearson hails from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he's involved in higher
 education and enjoys fiddling around with multimedia projects. A Mac
 aficionado, Editor-in-Chief of the popular "MacSurfer's Headline News"
 website, he maintains a keen interest in twentieth-century poetry and
 fiction. In his quieter moments, he can often be found fishing for
 yellow perch and the elusive walleye.



Audrey L. Smith
---------------
<[email protected]>
2 poems


 _Sonnet for Eric_

 What did you want to show me in the black and white
 Photographs you took at your grandmother's house?
 Maybe you thought I'd see the curved lines and contrasts,
 And maybe I'd recognize a theme in the images?

 I saw the doorway of the guest room where you stood,
 Daffodil in hand, staring at the mirror;
 The dark lake that cast a spell on you, one
 Clear, starry midnight--you almost drowned;

 The stalky high grass that waved in subtle
 Wind behind the house. It also grew around
 Lime tombstones on the edge of the pine woods,
 Behind a falling wrought iron fence.

 I could almost read the writing on the closest stone
 "In memory of childhood and human thresholds."



 _In Shadow Unseen_

 You and I crunching
 Through the ice and sparklesnow.
 Me in black boots

 And the black hat
 That everyone seems to like on me.
 You've got your camera

 Capturing shadow, capturing
 Light, the streetlight shining through branches
 On my cold face.

 You, all in darkness,
 Asking, "Lift your hands to the sky and
 Turn your face to the light."

 I want to switch places;
 You in white brightness, and I in shadow
 Unseen, holding the camera.



Richard Parnell
---------------
<[email protected]>
1 poem


 _Moot_

 Mutable founts,
 if not wisdom, then "what?"
 or rather, "whom?"
      Who sees anymore what you hear,
      ch-ch-changing the way you who do?
 Wind bends to spray:
 syllables, silly little symbols;
 then a crash (crush) of meaning on fixed ground
 as if all is in vain
 and a striving after wet.

 Mute-able fonts,
 pixel by pyx'l silence be traded in on?
 Speak written words!
      Yet  dumb,
      we're struck in an auditorium.
 Hear ye, hear ye, my holy wayfaring friend,
 nothing
 you see
 is sacred anymore,
 unless you are blessed to be deaf.



Illiterati
----------
by Shaun Armour <[email protected]>>

 **"The Bridge on the Drina" & " "Captain Corelli's Mandolin""**


 "Wherever men have lived there is a story to be told, and it depends
 chiefly on the story-teller or historian whether that is interesting
 or not."
 --Thoreau, "Journal"  (1860)


 In 1945 Ivo Andric published "The Bridge on the Drina", in 1961 it was
 awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Immediately, one wonders why
 it took the judges sixteen years to give this brilliant novel it's
 much deserved accolade. Certainly the fact that the world was just
 ending it's most bloody conflict in history didn't help. The global
 state of affairs, and the little matter of the book being the
 chronicle of a three-hundred-year-old bridge in Bosnia, written in
 Serbo-Croat, with no central protagonist (except possibly for the
 bridge itself) is enough to get any book shelved for sixteen years.

 But wait! I know what you're thinking. "Dry, Eastern European,
 historical fiction, oh yeah, I've got to read more of that." Well
 actually you do, and for a couple of good reasons. "The Bridge on the
 Drina" isn't dry in the slightest. It's a thoroughly engaging, and
 often a profoundly eloquent story of simple people attempting to deal
 with a powerful and enigmatic world constantly encroaching on their
 humble town and way of life. More importantly though, the novel is the
 most succinct, clearly explained introduction to Balkan history
 available. If you've ever wondered what exactly the war in Bosnia is
 all about, this is the book that will explain it clearly, catch you up
 to speed on three centuries of European history, and tell you one hell
 of a good tale.


 "History is all about geography."
 --Robert Penn Warren, "Writers at Work: First Series"  (1952)


 The "Bridge on the Drina", while fiction, is historically accurate in
 it's depiction of the politics and polemics of the troubled area. The
 story focuses on the little town of Visegrad, nestled next to the
 powerful river Drina from which the bridge and, in turn the novel,
 gets its name. Visegrad's only inherent significance is that it is on
 the road connecting the predominantly Christian world of Western
 Europe, with the East, and the great Moslem Ottoman Empire which rules
 Bosnia at the beginning of the novel.

 The town is populated by Turkish Moslems, Christians, Jews and
 Gypsies, all of whom live tenuously at peace beside one another. The
 opening of the novel coincides with the rise to power of the Ottoman
 Grand Vezir, Mehmed Pasha, (a thoroughly documented historical
 figure), a man whom, as a boy of thirteen was taken from his native
 Bosnia to be a slave in the Ottoman Empire. The young boy grew up
 within the Empire and rose to it's most commanding official position.
 At his bequest--in memory of his native Bosnian roots--the Grand Vezir
 commissioned the building of a bridge over the river Drina in an
 attempt to surmount the natural divide between East and West.

 The majestic bridge quickly becomes the central focus of the town,
 whether as a source of Moslem pride at the power of the Ottoman
 Empire, or Christian resentment against the occupying forces. It is
 with the bridge--used with the same dramatic emphasis as a stage--that
 the lives of the people of Visegrad are played out over many
 generations.

 Ivo Andric uses the timeless, immutable structure of the bridge as a
 pedestal to tell powerful and at times horrific tales. Sometimes, the
 stories are in vignette fashion, while others weave together over
 decades and centuries. Whether he is telling the story of Radislav,
 the Christian workman who is impaled upon the bridge as punishment for
 attempting to obstruct its construction, or Fata, the beautiful, young
 bride who commits suicide as a testament to her own honour, Andric
 takes history and makes it personal and meaningful on an individual
 level. Andric manages, with remarkable clarity, to take the epic scope
 of warring empires and reduce it to understandable and relevant
 experiences of the people who are subject to the whim and caprice of
 great change.

 The beauty of this novel is that as you find yourself engrossed in one
 of the stories, like that of Fedun the young soldier of the
 Austro-Hungarian Empire, who tries to make the best of a boring guard
 duty on the bridge and pays dearly for becoming enamoured of a pretty
 Moslem girl, you realise that you are absorbing and witnessing
 powerful historical changes: the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the
 rise of European power, the inherent conflict between Moslem and
 Christian ideology. But, this is not "history lite"; it is history
 made accessible and lucid.

 With each new story, Andric uses his immense and insightful narrative
 skill to condense the facts, through fable and anecdote, and make it
 immediate and relevant. Though the novel ends in the midst of World
 War I, it presciently predicts and defines the problems that plague
 Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia to this day. And while Andric does not
 offer any easy solutions, he clearly states that the difficulties are
 historic and involve not just the people who live in those countries
 but the outside powers who have traded, fought over, and dominated
 these lands.


 "History knows no scruples and no hesitation. Inert and unerring she
 flows toward her goal. At every bend in her course she leaves the mud
 which she carries and the corpses of the drowned."
 --Arthur Koestler, "Darkness at Noon"  (1940)


 Like "The Bridge on the Drina", Louis de Bernieres's, "Captain
 Corelli's Mandolin" (1994), fluidly tells an emotionally stunning
 story within the confines of historical fact. Louis de Bernieres
 chooses the rustic Greek island of Cephallonia, an island described by
 one of the central characters, Dr. Iannis as "an island so immense in
 antiquity that the very rocks themselves exhale nostalgia, and the red
 earth lies stupefied not only by the sun, but by the impossible weight
 of memory."

 Within this palpable air of nostalgia, Dr. Iannis and his beautiful
 young daughter, Pelagia, live a sheltered and idyllic existence. While
 Dr. Iannis struggles to write the complete and definitive history of
 Cephallonia from the time of the ancient Greeks, Pelagia is off
 falling in love with Mandras, a young local fisherman. This
 intoxicating first love is jarred back into reality by two major
 forces: the attack upon Greece by Italy and the fact that Mandras, a
 humble fisherman, feels unworthy of Dr. Iannis's intelligent and
 spirited daughter.

 "Corelli's Mandolin" is infinitely more than a straightforward story
 of true love, denied by war and fate. Louis de Bernieres has a
 powerful gift for creating  hilarious, charming and believable
 characters. He populates his world with people the reader grows to
 love and identify with. They are humans with real weaknesses and
 frailties who sometimes do evil things and sometimes rise above the
 wickedness around them to a beatific level.

 Two such characters are Captain Antonio Corelli and Carlo Guercio,
 soldiers in the invading Italian army. We are first introduced to
 Carlo early in the novel as a young soldier in the Italian campaign
 against Albania. Carlo, a closeted homosexual, has joined the army
 after reading Plato's symposium, where Socrates argues that the best
 army would be made up of male lovers.

 While denying himself any hint of overt love, Carlo defines his
 existence by befriending and protecting another young soldier as an
 act of pure love and devotion. The sad story of Carlo and his
 unrequited love leads him to the occupying army stationed in
 Cephallonia, where he meets the charismatic and charming Captain
 Antonio Corelli during a formal morning opera session in the military
 toilets. Corelli is billeted in the house of Dr. Iannis and Pelagia,
 where try as they might to treat him as an invading soldier, they are
 defied by his humanity and kindness and both in their way, grow to
 love him.

 This novel is filled with a natural and effervescent wit and humour.
 The idiosyncratic inhabitants of Cephallonia, such as Velisarios the
 strongman; Alekos the ancient goat herder; Kokolias and Stamatis, the
 aging political rivals and best friends; all deal with the invasion in
 their own amusing way. Meanwhile, Dr. Iannis reminds the reader--through
 the writing of his history--that Cephallonia has been invaded many,
 many times before, and that some invaders are far worse than others.
 This point is proven by the arrival of the German Army. While the
 Italians are spending their time on Cephallonia like a vacation by
 playing soccer and chasing girls, the Germans approach the occupation
 with a fanatical zeal that brings forth some of the true drama and
 horror of the novel. When the Allies defeat the Italian army in
 Europe, the Italian soldiers forgotten on Cephallonia find themselves
 abandoned and facing a new enemy, the Germans.


 "Good writing is almost the concomitant of good history. Literature
 and history were joined long since by the powers which shape the human
 brain; we cannot put them asunder."
 --C.V. Wedgwood, "History and Hope"  (1987)


 In the same way that "The Bridge on the Drina" taught history by
 telling eloquent stories about simple, honest people, "Corelli's
 Mandolin" allows the reader to absorb Greek history and the forces at
 work during World War II while being totally engaged in the
 complicated love story involving Pelagia, Corelli, Mandras, and Carlo.

 Don't confuse this novel with a bodice ripping historical romance. It
 is deftly written with a lyrical energy filled with beauty, tragedy
 and satire. Clearly de Bernieres, like Andric, respects the importance
 and the inherent power of the history at work. The past in these
 novels is not used as some sham stage, only valuable as a backdrop to
 the stories. Both authors distill the great historical processes at
 work and find human denominators to make some sense of the larger
 pictures. The irony is that Andric writing fifty years ago, accurately
 foretells Bosnia's current situation, and de Bernieres, writing now,
 humanises the past, and makes it resonate for us today.

 Andric and de Bernieres embrace the characters in their novels as
 human beings, be they Christian, Moslem, Greek, or German. Neither
 story allows itself to lapse into stereotypical portrayals of good and
 evil, or comfortable visions of right and wrong.

 This sensitivity is all the more dramatic in "The Bridge on the
 Drina". Ivo Andric grew up in the the town of Visegrad as an Orthodox
 Christian and was educated in Sarejevo. What's remarkable about his
 novel is the depth and grace with which he writes about the Moslems in
 the novel, the ease with which he insinuates himself into their
 psyches. Looking at the current political situation in that devastated
 region, it becomes all the more acutely visible that the understanding
 and respect Andric shows in his novel is all but dead in the Balkans.
 Undoubtedly, it was that profound empathy as well as the epic scope of
 "The Bridge on the Drina" that captured the minds of the Nobel
 committee, sixteen years after it's publication.

 Louis de Bernieres is also a masterful writer who is getting better
 with every new novel. Recently he was chosen as one of the best young
 British novelists by "Granta". He has won the Commonwealth Writers'
 Prize for Best First Book with, "The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether
 Parts" (1991), and Best Book Eurasia Region for "Senor Vivo and the
 Coca Lord" (1992). Louis de Bernieres's first three novels are a
 trilogy of sorts all set in a fictitious Latin American dictatorship
 and while they are a great read, I strongly suggest starting with
 "Corelli's Mandolin"; it is the pinnacle to date of de Bernieres's
 talents and I think one of the best novels of the last decade.  If you
 are buying the novel in Europe or Canada, it is distributed by Minerva
 under the title, "Captain Corelli's Mandolin". In the United States,
 publishing rights were recently picked up by Vintage and for some
 strange reason the title was changed to "Corelli's Mandolin". "The
 Bridge on the Drina" may be a little tougher to find. It is published
 by Phoenix Fiction through The University of Chicago Press and is
 deftly translated from the Serbo-Croat by Lovett Edwards (which is not
 to imply that I have read the novel in the Serbo-Croat version, merely
 that my version seems very smoothly translated, and so I surmise Mr.
 Edwards did his job deftly).

 A little closing aside:
 I'm a book junkie, constantly searching for the next great literary
 fix. I recommend these books to you not as an ivory towered academic
 quoting from The Canon, but as someone in search of the best in the
 written word--not just the most popular and accepted. Please eMail me
 with your own book recommendations or opinions about the books I
 entreat you to read in every column.

 If you have a favourite book that few people have read, or has been
 forgotten over the years, I'll do my best to find it and read it. I
 may not like it, but if I love it, I'll owe you one, and I'll spread
 the word.



About the Columnist
*******************
 Shaun Armour lives in Toronto, Canada. He is currently in the process
 of writing a novel, and likes bowling shirts and has his own pool cue;
 alas, he cannot yet eat fifty eggs.



News From The Front Lines
-------------------------
John Freemyer, insipid reporter
<[email protected]>


 _Pro-Animal Group Claims Responsibility For Blast_

 CHICAGO (CN) -- Today an animal rights group claimed responsibility
 for a fire bombing attack Saturday that burned the women's restroom at
 the Bloody Bard Truck Stop after a controversial poet smashed more
 than a dozen eggs on the podium during a poetry reading.

 The Animal Liberation Militia sent a fax to _The Champion News_ in
 Masterson and other news organizations saying the attack was on
 "behalf of the more than twenty-five living eggs being exterminated
 each night by the well-known slime poet Calvin Xavier at the Bloody
 Bard Truck Stop."

 Federal, state and local authorities were investigating the predawn
 incident at the truck stop, located near Masterson, which is 17 miles
 east of Venial Falls.

 The militia, which has sabotaged research laboratories, furriers and
 meat plants around the world, said incendiary devices were planted in
 the restrooms and below the podium to protest the "senseless killing
 of live eggs." It also said that sandwich vending machine units were
 sabotaged with exploding "blood red" paint cartridges. Only one fire
 bomb exploded. Damages were estimated at $2000.

 A one-time resident of Masterson, poet Calvin Xavier said he wasn't
 surprised by the attack. "I know how those Animal Rights bastards
 operate. They're too stupid to discuss the issues so they try to blow
 up the issuer. It's typical."

 Xavier deeply regretted damage to the Bloody Bard but says he will
 continue to perform his messy "Egg Slut Suite" performances despite
 the apparent attempt on his life.

 "I won't read 'Egg Slut Suite' without the eggs," the poet says,
 "unless you can find me a slut who'd be willing to do monkey head
 stands at the podium with me."

 Bloody Bard Truck Stop owner, Biff Monkstag says the poetry readings
 will go on as scheduled tonight.

 "Truckers love Cal's nasty sex poems," Monkstag explained. "And all
 this publicity has been good for business."



About the Contributors
----------------------
 Ben Judson is this issue's _Featured Writer_. Go to that section to
 read more about Ben.

 Michelle Ernst, an engineering student at Rutgers, has never been
 published before. She enjoys classic literature, philosophy, computer
 programming, and fine audio equipment.

 Misty Leigh McGuire lives in Madera, California. She has written many
 poems, stories and songs; some of which were included in "First
 Flights", a student literary magazine of Madera High School. Misty is
 currently at work on a short children's story.

 Dave Delaney is twenty-four years old and lives in Toronto. He has
 been writing short stories and poetry for about three years. Delaney
 has compiled his own 'zine called "Mashed Potatoes For Skinny". The
 'zine is available by eMailing him at: <[email protected]>.

 Richard Epstein's poems frequently pop up in obscure places on two
 continents, though of course he regards his appearances in POETRY INK
 as the crown jewel in his poetic regalia. He lives in Denver,
 Colorado; makes a rudimentary living as a freelance litigation
 paralegal; acts as chief cook, housecleaner, and chauffeur for his
 teenage son; and tries to locate a publisher for his most recently
 completed collection, "The Missouri Shores and Other Poems". If you
 are such a person, don't be reticent about it.

 Darren Lauzon is a twenty-seven year old researcher and writer in
 Ottawa, Canada.  He is interested in so many things and people that he
 does almost nothing with his leisure time except read, write and talk.
 This his his first time in print.

 Matthew W. Schmeer is the editor of POETRY INK. He shamelessly plugs
 his own works in this 'zine. If you get sick of him putting his own
 stuff in POETRY INK, send in something better yourself!

 Audrey L. Smith works at a veterinary diagnostic lab as a necropsy
 technician. She has lived in several developing countries; loves
 reading, writing, and cave exploring; belongs to 4 cats; drinks her
 coffee with 2 oz. of cream and 3 tsp. sugar; and lives happily ever
 after with her husband Eric and their 8-month old son.

 Richard Parnell lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and sometimes
 attempts to write poems.

 John Freemyer lives and writes and programs multimedia projects
 in Redding, California when he is not covering events for
 the Masterson, Illinois "Champion News".

 Calvin Xavier likes milk because it does a body good. He lives in the
 backrooms and poolhalls of a small undistinguished American town, and
 his book of poems and prosody entitled "Who Fucks Screws" is scheduled
 to be published by catacomb pussy press as soon as they emerge from
 bankruptcy.



Writing Rant
------------
by Calvin Xavier
<address unknown>


 **Taming Cerberus**

 I hate it when I have the urge to write but I can't think of anything
 to write. It happened again the other day, when I sat down to write
 like I do every day after dinner. Only this time, nothing happened.
 Oh, I wrote stuff, but it was all crap and I know it was crap but I
 wrote it anyway. Which is good, because that is the whole point of
 writing: to get it out on paper.

 As a writer, I write because I have an undying need to write: if I
 don't write, I shrivel up and die down deep inside where it counts. I
 have had this discussion with Matt (the fine young editor of this fine
 zine you are reading), and he and I have come to the same conclusion:
 if writers don't write, they are shit.

 It is an addiction. I have spent entire nights hunched over a pad of
 paper, scribbling away like a fool, not stopping to catch my breath or
 take a shit or grab another beer from the fridge. It is like God
 flipped a switch in my head that suddenly turned on a 24-hour, 7-days
 a week satellite channel of words that I can't shut off because I lost
 the remote and this station doesn't break for commercials and if you
 leave the room for a moment you are totally and helplessly lost and
 there is absolutely no way in the entire universe that you will ever
 be able to figure out the plot to this never-ending soap opera written
 like Joyce's "Ulysses", only that it's starting to make sense when
 your pen runs out of ink. And that's just how it feels to get it out
 on paper. After that, it's a whole different monkey you have to deal
 with.

 Once it's on the page, the spewings of your brain must be dealt with
 viciously and forcefully to mold them into form. It is not enough to
 just re-write your words in legible format, or even type them up using
 MicroSloth Werd 6.7.8.5.3.1b. No, you must use the Xacto(tm) Knife of
 Death and slice the dross from the gold and rescue the concise from
 the redundant. I am talking about that noblest of professions:
 Editing.

 Whereas writing is the process of getting it all out on paper; editing
 is putting that same said vomit on the page into edible form. I
 touched on this subject during last issue's rant; anybody can throw
 words on a page, but that ain't poetry. Poetry has to be shaped and
 sculpted into form; while the rudiments appear in the chunky green
 stuff on the page, it's up to you to make it make sense. And that is
 the difficult part.

 I hate editing. I hate it with a passion. But I must do it, because if
 I don't, all I have is garbage on the page that isn't worth the ink it
 is printed with. I hate editing because I have to get dirty to do it,
 and I hate to scratch out things I have written and toss away lines
 that I think are pretty good but really don't fit into the poem or
 story in any real context. You know what I mean: tearing into a poem
 and having to make those tough decisions along the lines of "should it
 be an 'either' or an 'or'? Will it matter? Which makes more sense?
 Which is more grammatical? Which gets the point across? Does it really
 matter? Will anyone know the difference?" That's just the way it is,
 and we have to live with it.

 The problem with editing is that you are slicing up your words, your
 poems, your stories, or as Gwendolyn Brooks puts it in one of her
 poems, her "babies."  It tears me up to tear apart my
 spur-of-the-moment masterpieces and actually render them anew. It
 hurts. But it must be done.

 The reason it must be done is that no matter how great something
 initially looks on the page, it can always be made better. What comes
 out of the head, through the pen, and onto the page is a rough draft,
 and must be treated as such. All cases of divine inspiration aside, I
 cannot think of one writer who was/is ever satisfied with the first
 version of a poem or story that is put upon paper. Even Old Uncle Walt
 continually revised "Leaves of Grass", the "final" edition coming out
 only shortly before his death. Never happy with his work, he was
 always fleshing it out and trying to find a way to be more succinct.

 And therein lies the ultimate problem: when do you stop revising? For
 some folks, the revision processes is an everlasting endeavor. For
 others, myself included, the stopping point is around the fifth or
 sixth draft. Mind you, sometimes months or even years pass by between
 revisions. But I usually stop after six, because by that time I have
 lost the original 'oomph' that I had for the work when I originally
 placed it on the page. Which is the other major danger inherent in
 editing: losing sight of the reason you wrote something in the first
 place.

 As a writer, I want my stories and poems to be fresh, insightful, and
 most of all, genuine. As an editor, I want my works to be direct, to
 the point, and devoid of meaningless clutter. It is a difficult battle
 to reconcile these two distinct duties while being faithful to that
 third big bugaboo living in my skull: The Reader.

 Ah, yes, the reader. Remember, the audience is always listening and
 the first audience any writer ever has is himself. So ask yourself:
 would you want to read what you write if you didn't know that you
 wrote it?

 This is not a rhetorical question; if I always wrote stuff like the
 stuff I like to read, I'd go insane. I mean, sometimes I read some
 pretty insipid verse and prose, not to mention the occasional Danielle
 Steel "novel" just to assure myself that yes, you can get rich and
 famous by writing complete crap, which really helps during those times
 when I write twenty-three pages of a really intense once-act melodrama
 only to have it fall apart when the antagonist hangs himself in the
 final few moments in an act of asphyxiatic masturbation gone awry.

 Regardless of such moments, I, for one, enjoy reading the droolings of
 my brain--no matter how much of a pain in the ass it is to edit them
 into readable format. But I don't pander to any particular audience
 and I don't write for anyone but myself.

 And that, my friend, is for whom all writers ultimately write; that
 big three-headed beast living within themselves which is gnashing its
 teeth if you don't put the pen to paper.



Submission Information
----------------------
 POETRY INK is a free electronic literary journal written by and for
 writers and poets with access to the burgeoning global community known
 as the Internet. Rather than existing solely on the World Wide Web
 (that part of the Internet getting all the media attention nowadays),
 POETRY INK is designed to be downloaded to your computer and read
 off-line. We encourage you to share POETRY INK with your friends,
 family, classmates, and coworkers.

 Since we are a free publication, our contributors acknowledge that the
 only compensation due to them is the right to access a copy of the
 issue of POETRY INK in which their work appears. Because POETRY INK is
 found on America Online, CompuServe, and other various online services
 - as well as our own World Wide Web home page - we do not anticipate
 access difficulties. We regret that we cannot provide so-called "hard"
 paper copies; if you desire a "hard" copy, you will need to download
 POETRY INK and print a copy on your own printer.

 POETRY INK accepts submissions on a per-issue basis, with each issue
 published on a bi-monthly schedule for a total of six issues per
 calendar year. Generally, each issue is uploaded and eMailed to
 subscribers and contributors on the fifteenth of every other month
 (April 15, June 15, etc.). We do not send rejection letters; if your
 submission has been accepted for publication, you will be notified by
 eMail within one week of sending in your submission (or within two
 weeks if you sent your submission via snail mail).



Our Submission Guidelines
-------------------------
* Your name, eMail address, physical (snail mail) address, and
 telephone number must appear on each submission. Your name and eMail
 address will appear on any published work; the remainder of this
 information is only for our files and will not be released. You may
 omit including your telephone number if you are uncomfortable
 disclosing this information; however, please realize this means that
 if we need to reach you immediately regarding your submission, your
 submission might be excluded from inclusion.

* Electronic submissions should be submitted as either plain ASCII
 eMail files (where you type the submission in the body of your
 message), or as BinHex 4.0 (.hqx) file attachments. BinHexed files
 should be in plain text format (the kind produced by SimpleText on the
 Macintosh and WinWrite on Wintel machines). Regardless of submission
 format, please use the subject line "SUBMIT POETRY INK: your real
 name" where **your real name** is your actual name and not the name of
 your eMail account. For example, it should look like this:

 SUBMIT POETRY INK: John Q. Public

* Please keep poems under 3 printed pages apiece (page size = 8" x 11"
 page with 1" margins printed with Times 12-point plain font). Please
 limit short stories to under 5000 words.

* Please limit submissions to no more than 5 poems or 2 short stories
 per person per issue.

* Simultaneous submissions are okay, but please contact us if your
 work is accepted by another publication so that we may remove the work
 in question from consideration. No previously published work may be
 submitted.

* Please include a short biographical sketch (3 to 5 lines) with your
 submission; if your work is selected for publication, this bio will be
 included in our "About the Contributors" section.

 (These submission guidelines are an abbreviated version of our
 complete guidelines; all submissions are subject to the guidelines
 outlined therein. For a copy of our complete submission guidelines,
 send a request to our eMail address.)



Spill The Ink!
--------------
 Spill the Ink! Read POETRY INK, the electronic literary magazine! For
 details and complete submission guidelines, eMail us at
 <[email protected]> with the subject line "SG Request."

 We encourage you to share POETRY INK with your friends, family,
 classmates and coworkers.
.

You are viewing proxied material from infinitelyremote.com. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.