Excerpts & Contributors: Fall 2004

 On this page we provide excerpts, commentary, and biographical notes for our Fall 2004 contributors.  If you wish to read the authors' entire work, please purchase a copy of this issue.  Order forms are available by clicking here or by clicking the “Subscribe” link at the bottom of this page.

Fiction

Janet McNally, Artist's Statement on "Winter Positions"

          On the genesis of her story, McNally writes, "It's interesting for me to talk about where a story comes from, since my stories very rarely end up where I think they will.  For 'Winter Positions,' I started with the 2004 Mars expedition, which fascinated me.  I read everything I could find about it.  What I found most intriguing was the way it made Mars seem not so far away, as I imagined the first moon landing had done for those who watched in 1969.  Sure, this time the visitors were robots and not astronauts, but we were still there.  It made all Earth-problems—love, cancer, gravity—seem different than before.

          "In this story, it took awhile before the relationships began to make sense to me, before they triangulated in the right way.  This is why a focus on the Red Planet made sense, because the three characters are always orbiting each other, moving closer and farther away.  And it gave me an excuse to have an appearance  by little green Martian mice."

Biographical Note

          Janet McNally is an M.F.A. student at the University of Notre Dame.  She has worked as an arts administrator, a teacher, and in book publishing, all in the past two years.  Her work has appeared in Traffic East.

Aaron Robison, "El Bendijo"

Biographical Note

          Aaron Robison is working toward a B.A. in Biochemistry at Abilene Christian University. He grew up in Midland and has lived in West Texas all his life.

Jyotsna Sreenivasan, Artist's Statement on "Lost"

          Sreenivasan writes, "'Lost' is based somewhat on my experience with my father, who really wanted me to be a doctor.  Unlike Sangeeta in the story, I didn't have a clear direction in high school as to what I wanted to do with my life, but nevertheless I was angry with my father for trying to force me into his choice of career.  Writing this story from the father's perspective helped me to realize the deep love that was behind my father's actions."

Biographical Note

          Jyotsna Sreenivasan is the author of a biography for young people, Ela Bhatt: Uniting Women in India. She has received two grants from the Washington, D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and her work has been published in India Currents Magazine and in the anthology Living in America: South Asian American Writers.

Nonfiction

Jeff P. Jones, Artist's Statement on "Falling toward Water"

          Jones says, "It was difficult for me to get the necessary distance to write this essay, and 'Falling toward Water' has gone through more revisions than any other piece of writing I've yet produced.  Part of this, I believe, is due to my close emotional ties to the material.  I'm much more comfortable writing about other people, and in order to access some of the memories in this piece, I had to think of the boy, Jeffrey, as a character in a story and not me.  Also, though I've never blamed my mother leaving my father and me, I worry about how others judge her actions.  This made my decisions about including some scenes especially difficult, though I hope, in the end, the picture that emerges of her is of a very compassionate person."

Biographical Note

          Jeff P. Jones studies creative writing in the M.F.A. program at the University of Idaho, where he is Editor of the literary journal Fugue.  His essay, "Sorrow and Clarity," won the 2003 Lamar York Prize in nonfiction, offered by The Chattahoochee Review.

Grant Sisk, Artist's Statement on "Chicken Slayer"

          Regarding the genesis of "Chicken Slayer," Sisk writes, "The idea for this essay actually came to me the night of the dog training fiasco.  As most of us do after a plan has gone horribly awry, I was turning the day's events over in my mind and trying to ascertain just where, exactly, I had gone wrong.  Later, I sat down to write, and as this was fresh in my memory, it came tumbling out."

Biographical Note

          Grant Sisk lives on his grandparents' ranch in North Texas where he writes, runs horses, and raises chickens.  He teaches at the University of Phoenix and has had work published in Colorado Review.

Poetry

Ralph Black, "Short Story from Wayland, NY" and "Poem for the Winter Solstice"

Biographical Note

          Ralph Black's poems have appeared in Carolina Quarterly, Orion, The Georgia Review, and Gettsyburg Review, among other journals.  His first book, Turning over the Earth, was published by Milkweed Editions in 2000.  His work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2002.  He teaches at SUNY-Brockport, where he is Co-Director of the Brockport Writers Forum.

Theodore Deppe, Artist's Statement on "On the Natural History of Possessions" and "Red"

          His poem "On the Natural History of Possessions" came from an experience with unpacking. Deppe says, "After three enjoyable years living in Ireland, my wife and I returned to the U.S. last fall.  Unpacking led me to begin this poem, and by the third draft, I found the poem also wanted to explore my homecoming after a thousand-mile walk that circled Ireland when I was nineteen."

          About the genesis of his poem "Red," Deppe says, "One of my favorite films, Krzysztof Kieslowski's Red, provided a backdrop to consider the tensions between using good judgment and being judgmental."

Biographical Note

            Theodore Deppe is the author of Children of the Air and The Wanderer King from Alice James Books, and Cape Clear: New and Selected Poems from Salmon Books, Ireland.  His work is in or is forthcoming in issues of Southern Review, Sou'wester, Tar River Poetry Review, and Diner.  He has received two grants from the NEA and a Pushcart Prize.  Currently writer-in-residence at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, he also teaches in the Stonecoast M.F.A. Program.

Susan Donnelly, Artist's Statement on "Images of Paul" and "Ordnance"

          Regarding the origin of her poem, "Images of Paul," Donnelly says the poem "was written after recent death, at 82, of my uncle, who in his generation lived the life of a closeted gay man.  He was also a part-time artist.  I reflect in the poem on how it must have been for him both to keep a real part of his life always separate from family expectations and to keep painting even when 'the light strikes his subject wrong.'"

Biographical Note

            Susan Donnelly is the author of the poetry collections Transit and Eve Names the Animals, as well as three chapbooks.  Her new poetry has appeared in The Bellevue Literary Review, The American Scholar, and The New Yorker, and is forthcoming in Potomac Review. She lives, writes, and teaches poetry in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Meagan Evans, Artist's Statement on "Fugue for the Horned Toad"

          Regarding the origin of her poem "Fugue for the Horned Toad," Evans says, "Though I am only twenty-three years old, the poem came out of this sort of grandmotherly, back-in-my-day urge to preserve by telling.  My niece has just turned one, and chances are I'll never be able to frighten and delight her by covering her eyes and placing one of those warm scaly bodies in her hands.  So this poem was written as a kind of mourning for the loss of that possibility and really for the loss of anything 'counter, original, spare, strange' to that swift, bright devouring."

Biographical Note

          Meagan Evans is enrolled in the M.F.A. program in poetry at Texas State University.  Her work has appeared in Phoebe.

Jason Gray, Artist's Statement on "The Little Sphinx"

          On the genesis of his poem, "The Little Sphinx," Gray writes, "I have been thinking about Egypt ever since I visited in 1999, but only more recently writing about it.  The initial situation of the poem is pulled from life, though I'm not certain I was as scared as I made out.  Just about all of my encounters with Egyptians were friendly, but this event was still rather chilling because, not long before, tourists had been killed at nearby Queen Hatshepsut's temple.

          "The Sphinx has always fascinated me, too.  I'm not sure I would have written the poem this way if the current state of world affairs was different, because our culture is even more at odds with Arabic culture now.  But the Sphinx seemed a good image for this conflict—a symbol from the early days of Western culture, but one that has resonance, at least as archaeology, in the Middle Eastern world."

Biographical Note

          Jason Gray is the author of Adam & Eve Go to the Zoo, winner of the 2003 National Chapbook Prize from Dream Horse Press.  His poems have appeared in, among others, Poetry, The Threepenny Review, and The Kenyon Review. He has received a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council and a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers' Conference.  He holds an M.A. from the Writing Seminars of Johns Hopkins University.

Robert E. Haynes, Artist's Statement on "Along the Back Wall of a Garden"

          As for the genesis of his poem, "Along the Back Wall of a Garden," Haynes writes, "I wanted to write a poem about how so many things that make me happy seem to be fleeting, but how I just can't help wanting to hang on to moments of hope indefinitely.  I actually do think I'll win the lotto every time I buy a ticket.  Those days between buying and waiting for the winning news fill me with all sorts of happy plans for what I'd do with all that money.  I think the family dog knows this feeling between the afternoon walk and the evening meal.  Of course, I have not yet won the lottery.  I have, however, buried some loving pets.  I'm disappointed every time my numbers aren't the winning jackpot; yet I go again and again to buy another ticket."

Biographical Note

            Robert E. Haynes teaches English at Arizona State University.  He is the author of The Grand Unified Theory, a single, book-length poem.  His poetry has appeared in The Louisville Review, New Letters, Poetry Northwest, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere.

Jonathan Musgrove, "The Night is Full"

Biographical Note

          Jonathan Musgrove writes and farms near Lexington, Virginia.  His poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, and other magazines and journals.

Bill O'Connell, Artist's Statement on "Sakonnet Point (12)"

          On the genesis of his poem "Sakonnet Point (12)," O'Connell says, "Sakonnet Point, Rhode Island, is a place with deep, primitive desires: rock, sand, ocean, seabirds.  What Roethke called 'the place of my desire.'  For two weeks each summer,  I sit on a red rock at dawn and the world evolves below me.  If I am lucky, there's a poem."

Biographical Note

          Bill O'Connell has published a chapbook, On the Map to Your Life, and his poems have appeared in Colorado Review, Green Mountains Review, Poetry East, The Sun, and many other journals.  He makes his living as a social worker and teacher in western Massachusetts.

Curt Rode, Artist's Statement on "Against Wisdom"

           About the genesis of his poem "Against Wisdom," Rode writes, "In college, I took a couple of courses in existentialism and Continental philosophy.  I was especially fascinated with Jean-Paul Sartre's notion of 'the look' in the context of sexual activity (or what he cheerily called 'concrete relations').  I was fascinated by the states of self-consciousness Sartre describes as taking place during moments of intimacy and sexual release.  While writing this poem about ten years later, I knew that I was exploring my particular difficulty in moving on after a long-term relationship.  Shortly after the poem was more or less in its current form, I realized the metaphor of grass blade and field articulated what I had taken from Sartre years below."

Biographical Note

          Curt Rode has published work in Sycamore Review, The Flint Hills Review, Apostrophe, The Chatahoochee Review, and has work forthcoming in the anthology Migrants and Stowaways.  He teaches creative writing and composition at Texas Christian University, where he is also an associate editor for Descant.

Bobby C. Rogers, "Newground"

Biographical Note

            Bobby C. Rogers is Professor of English at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee.  His poetry has appeared in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, and many other magazines.  New work is forthcoming in The Southern Review, The Southwest Review, The Southern Humanities Review, The Literary Review, and Epoch.

Hilary Tham, "Chorsu Market"

Biographical Note

          Hilary Tham, a Chinese-Malaysian now Jewish American, is Editor-in-Chief for the Word Works Press and Poetry Editor of The Potomac Review.  She is the author of nine books of poetry including Bad Names for Women, The Tao of Mrs. Wei, and a memoir, Lane with No Name.

Feature Interview

Scott L. Baugh, "The Evolution of Writing: An Interview with Mark Spragg"

Biographical Notes

Scott L. Baugh is Assistant Professor in the English Department at Texas Tech University.  His current research focuses on multicultural aesthetics in American film and electronic and digital media.

Mark Spragg is the author of Where Rivers Change Direction, a memoir that won the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Award, as well as two novels, The Fruit of Stone and the recently-released An Unfinished Life.  His books have been translated into numerous languages.  He and his wife, Virginia, have co-written several screenplays, including the script for An Unfinished Life, directed by Lasse Hallstrom and starring Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman, and Jennifer Lopez.

Discovered Voices Award Winner, Fall 2004

Nicky Beer, Artist's Statement on "Cardinal Virtue," "Scapula," and "Erosion"

          About "Cardinal Virtue," Beer writes, "The poem has its origins as a response to the late Czeslaw Milosz's 'Magpie,' which I know has prompted responses from several other poets as well.  It's Milosz at his best, conveying a kind of sacred astonishment with the world, fueled by equal parts of faith and doubt.  Of course, I'm not capable of such equanimity (for now, at least), but accepting this (with the hope that I might be more capable of faith in the future) made it easier for the skepticism to take over in my own resposne."

          About "Scapula," she writes, "In looking back over the development of this poem, it occurs to me that elements of the ode and the dramatic monologue were each struggling for dominance.  Yet in a relatively late draft, this other-worldly voice emerged in the poem and began to command more attention, which helped me rethink what the poem was really trying to talk about.  It's a poem that has reminded me not to be too committed to my initial intentions—one has to be willing, in the course of writing, to forget about one's destination and allow the poem to take the lead."

          About "Erosion," Nicky says, "My father's death has always been a difficult subject for me to write about.  This is one of the earliest poems where I found myself able to do it with some degree of comfort—mostly because I arrived at this fragmented, disjunctive form.  It relieved the pressure of having to write about the circumstances in a cohesive, narrative way.  It also helped me think more seriously about writing from a place of memory—which is, by its nature, fragmented.  It was a crucial lesson for me to learn firsthand: hitting upon the right form for one's subject is as vital to the poem as choosing the words themselves."

Biographical Note

Nicky Beer received her B.A. from Yale University and her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Houston.  She is currently a Ph.D. student in Creative Writing at the University of Missouri-Colombia.  She has served as poetry editor at Gulf Coast and is currently the poetry editor for Center.  Her poetry, reviews, and nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in American Literary Review, Cider Press Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Columbia, Indiana Review, New Orleans Review, Nerve, Notre Dame Review, and Pleiades.

Photography

Charlotte Jones, "Baltic in Abstract"

Excerpt:

Biographical Note

Charlotte Jones, after a twenty-year career as a management consultant, reinvented herself as a writer and photographer.  She has had writing published in literary journals and anthologies, such as Bellevue Literary Review, Nerve Cowboy, New Texas, Events Quarterly, and Side Show: Tales of the Big Top and the Bizarre. Her first play was produced last year in both Texas and New York.  Her photography has appeared in several journals, such as Edgar, and has accompanied a Houston Symphony children's performance.  Some of her photographs hang in private collections.

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