Words and Images 2009 Table of Contents

The contents of Words and Images 2009:

“Notes from Our Contributors”: A Story by Dan Moreau

“How to Make Fatherhood Lyrical”: A Poem by Gibson Fay-LeBlanc

“Widow of Cyclops”: A Poem by Maureen Ann Connolly

“‘A Hard Man is Good to Find’”: A Story by Glenn Shaheen

“Between Her Lines”: A Poem by Todd Perry

“Dream in Which I’m Told How I Would Choose”: A Poem by Adrian Blevins

“Family Films”: A Poem by James McKenna

“The Third Man”: A Poem by Dennis Saleh

“Seven or Eight Versions of She”: A Story by Willard J. Rusch

“Film Still After David Lean”: A Poem by Alex Merrill

“Soul Train”: A Story by Glenn Shaheen

“The Method”: A Story by Patrick Hanan

“Retrospecter”: A Poem by Layla Carroll

“Pause”: Artwork by Benjamin McDorr

“Day of the Lord”: A Story by Burke Long

“These Two Eleanors”: A Poem by Melissa Crowe

“[Between the lines]”: A Poem by Lindsey Wallace

The Dos Cosas Award

Dos Cosas Award-winner “Inexhaustible Rooms”: A Poem by Allan Peterson

“Puzzles by Pablo”: A Poem by Amanda Nies

“Rule 21”: A Story by B.R. Bonner

“No Place for a Pink Angel”: A Story by Steven J. Dines

“After Fairfield Porter”: A Poem by Linda Buckmaster

“The boy who loved orange”: A Poem by Shelton Waldrep

“A 4X4 (Four Words/ Per Line, 4 Lines/ Per Stanza) Exposition of/ Bern Porter’s Appropriated Photographs”: A Poem About Bern Porter by Mark Melnicove,

with Six of Bern Porter’s Unpublished Photographs

“Ukulele Me”: A Memoir by Zoe Woodbury High

“An Interview with Salvatore Scibona”

“Dream in Which I Find Myself Confronted Yet Again With Why the Marriage Failed”: A Poem by Adrian Blevins

“The Harris Girls”: A Poem by Layla Carroll

“Turkeys”: A Poem by J.R. Solonche

“Exes in the Morning”: A Poem by Jesse Leighton

“True Love and the Giraffe”: A Story by Benjamin Chadwick

“The Way Life Should Be”: A Poem by Mia Cartmill

“Epithalamium with Adultery”: A Poem by Melissa Crowe

“&”: A Poem by Wade Linebaugh

“The Leaves Between”: Artwork by Ben Bishop

“Bloody Show”: A Novel Excerpt by Elizabeth Searle

“Notes on Thirty Years in the Life of a Ventriloquist”: A Poem by Gibson Fay-LeBlanc

“American Children”: A Story by Glenn Shaheen

“Girl Giant”: A Poem by Melissa Crowe

2009 Submissions Now Closed

As of February 1, 2009, submissions for Words and Images 2009 and the First Annual Dos Cosas Award are officially closed. We thank all of you who have submitted, and we promise that those of you who have not heard from us yet regarding your submission(s) will soon.

We ask that those who wish to submit for 2010 wait; open submissions will resume June 1, 2009.

For those of you in southern Maine who wish to attend, we will be having a release party for the journal along with several other events. All of these events will be open to the public, but the details are currently TBA.

The Editors are not Robots (Part Seven): Jeff Hodenberg

Jeff Hodenberg is a poetry editor and senior English major at USM. He considers himself a jack of all trades, enjoying myriad styles of literature and art (e.g. Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Vonegut, Hemingway, Blake, Bukowski, Medieval and Gothic texts). On at least one occasion he has made the claim, “Paradise Lost is the greatest book ever written, and I will punch you in the face if you dare disagree.” As a philosophy minor, he enjoys the gritty ideas and questions posed by Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Baruch Spinoza.

Outside of his love of literature, Jeff enjoys video games (often until he has mere hours to turn in a paper), music (from Johnny Cash to Cannibal Corpse to Wu Tang Clan), comic books and graphic novels (Spawn, Aliens, and DMZ, to name a few), watching cartoons, and other things equally nerdy.

Jeff will be completing his studies at USM in the Spring of 2009 and moving to Japan to teach English for a few years. Beyond that, he will travel wherever the winds may take him to pursue his master’s degree and eventual PhD, thus allowing him to lord his lofty intellect over students everywhere

The Editors are not Robots (Part Six): Aubin Thomas

Aubin Thomas is the Art Director of Words and Images and is currently in her third year at the University of Southern Maine.  Although she is majoring in English, her main passion is the creation of art using mixed media such as music, video, paint, collage, etc.  A connoisseur of popular culture, she also enjoys doing amateur research on the icons and somewhat forgotten figures of decades past.  This hobby often leads her on strange journeys to find such people’s gravesites, former residences, and other interesting pop culture and historical locations.  When she isn’t searching for new dark cabaret music and recreating famous photographs with her digital camera, she enjoys collecting pins with interesting subject matter to them and hanging out with her incorrigible two-year-old nephew, Max.

The Editors are not Robots (Part Five): Caroline O’Connor Thomas

Caroline O’Connor Thomas has lived in too many locations in the Boston area, including: Somerville, Revere, the North End, Cambridge, Medford. She has slept under beds, in beds and on floors. Prefers night, but thinks day has some excellent qualities. Likes mountains as much as skyscrapers. She takes music courses that do not have anything to do with her major in English. Being the poetry editor of Words and Images 2009, she enjoys reading and writing poems. Favorite poem as of today: Wherever You Are, Be Somewhere Else by Denise Riley. It does not take much prompting to get her to dance/ make a fool of herself. Her favorite feeling is indescribable but it includes being a stranger in a crowd/ a small thing in a stream.  Despite the heading of this post, Caroline may actually be a robot. The previous sentence is a lie, as Caroline is secretly sensitive and romantic (please don’t tell anyone). Enjoys adventures in cars with friends, particularly if it involves going to the 76 Diner in Latham, NY past midnight. Does not exclude rap or country music from the blanket statement “I like all kinds of music.” Caroline is going to England next semester, where she hopes to acquire a British accent, meet Julian Barratt of The Mighty Boosh and single handedly destroy Stonehenge (just kidding). If you are a poem that looks sparse on the page but features heavy words that bend their very definitions and like long walks on the beach, soft caresses and the song “Monkey Gone to Heaven” by the Pixies, please contact Caroline, as you may be her soul mate. Take a chance, buy her a drink, read her poetry – you’ve got nothing to lose.

Those interested can read a few of Caroline’s poems here: (LINK!). Her thoughts are also available for mass consumption: (LINK!).

The Editors are not Robots (Part Four): Benjamin Rybeck

Benjamin Rybeck is the publishing director of Words and Images; from 2007-2008, he served as managing editor. He considers his most important job to be finding the right people with whom to work, and being as he has put together a staff replete with editors who are smarter than he, his job sometimes seems almost ridiculously easy.

Rybeck is a full time English major at the University of Southern Maine, interested in interdisciplinary studies. He is especially drawn to the following: the films of Paul Thomas Anderson and the French New Wave; the stories of Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Connor, and Charles D’Ambrosio; “Winesburg, Ohio”; all things James Bond; and the TV series The Wire.

He’s hoping to find fiction and poetry that all those other idiot literary journals have missed; after all, tons of great stories and poems go to sleep unpublished each night. He’s not looking for “perfect” work, because “perfect” work lacks the rough edges where the soul of the artist can be seen bursting out, trying to struggle free from under a pile of technique, trying to breathe again. Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections,” a novel with a million digressions, is preferable to Geraldine Brooks’ “March,” a perfectly controlled story, because “The Corrections” has energy in its imperfections, and “March” seems overworked and smoothed out until it lies dead on the page.

Sometimes he has trouble finding the time to exercise.

The Editors are not Robots (Part Three): Jill Jacobs

Jill Jacobs is one of the two fiction editors for Words and Images 2009. By day, she is a Piano Performance major who studies under Laura Kargul; under the cover of night, she writes, and feasts upon literature to such a fiendish extent that her room currently resembles a library. Though Jill’s two passions seem disparate, she finds each process to be a fairly similar journey towards perfection; both require manic amounts of analysis, and an obsessive, unyielding eye for detail.

Jill’s literary tastes fluctuate according to her mood. Sometimes, she finds she must immerse herself in history books on the Napoleonic Wars; sometimes, she must binge on Russian classics, or partake in a spot of science fiction parody. Jill likes mysteries, be they of happenstance or character, and endings that surprise her. She believes many of the best books sit unnoticed in children and YA sections around the world. For the most part, genre does not influence her; she is willing to love any story, so long as it moves her.

Outside of classical music and literary pursuits, Jill enjoys listening to bands that no one has heard of, watching fabulously cheesy 80s movies, and indulging in retail therapy.

After the completion of her undergraduate degree in Spring 2010, Jill plans to flutter off to graduate school, where she will keep up on her reading and writing, and eventually be overcome with madness when she attempts to apply Schenkerian analysis to anything by Robert Schumann.

The Editors are not Robots (Part One): Seth A. Bishop

Seth A. Bishop is Managing Editor for Words and Images 2009. While a student of Political Science at the University of Southern Maine, he has made it a point to pursue interests outside of his major and, through doing so, has manufactured a relatively unique angle of vision influenced by Political Theory, Sociology, Cultural Studies, and Philosophy. The overarching theme of Seth’s studies has been the exploration of the interplay between individuals and social institutions, be they formal institutions such as the state, or informal abstractions of collective identity. He anticipates the completion of his degree in the Spring of 2009, at which point he intends to take a year off before applying to Graduate programs for Political Theory and a few interdisciplinary Social and Political Thought programs.

Seth’s literary interests are predominantly of the so-called ‘low art’ variety. An avid reader of comics and graphic novels, he considers the comic book to be a valuable yet often ignored cultural artifact that deserves greater attention as both an object of admiration and critical analysis. Toward this end, Seth is currently working on a content analysis of Captain America that examines the perpetually evolving nationalist narrative presented within the comic as well as the unique manner comics deliver collective identity narratives to disparate audiences. For similar reasons as his love of comics, he also appreciates film, science fiction in its various forms, and popular music.

Although his writing is exclusively academic, Seth appreciates reading prose and poetry. If he did not, one would assume he would not work for a literary journal.

Details regarding our upcoming reading series

The details of Words and Images’ Reading Series, September 22 – September 26, are now posted on our Upcoming Event(s)! page. I encourage all interested to check it out. To those of you who are looking specifically for more details regarding our event on September 25 at SPACE Gallery, the details have been moved to the post directly below this one.

Fast, Powerful, and Punk: A Literary Event

The act of writing should be one of solitary performance – and when the author ventures out into the world for a reading, the result should be a piece of theater.

Come join Words and Images, the University of Southern Maine’s literary journal, for a FREE evening of readings and music, to celebrate the 2008 issue of Words and Images – and, hell, just to celebrate writing in general.

This is writing stripped of all pretension. This is writing that, first and foremost, wants to engage its audience.

The readers include:

MELISSA CROWE, a poet new to Portland, whose work has appeared in Calyx, Seneca Review, The Atlanta Review, and Crab Orchard Review;

DAN DOMENCH, author of the audiobook “Hold Me Fast,” regular fiction contributor to “Portland Monthly,” and a writer with a long history of performance;

STEVE GIBBON, a USM student, who recently attended the Stonecoast Writers’ Conference and is the winner of the 2008 Words and Images Award for Excellence in Expression;

MARK MELNICOVE, a poet and artist known for his performance poetry around Maine – especially his collaborations with the late Bern Porter;

ZACHARY MOSHER, a recent graduate from USM who published his first poems in Words and Images.

The evening’s musical guests include:

AKUDAMA, an indie-rock band from Brooklyn that has had the rare distinction of opening for Arcade Fire (and is every bit as good);

COUGARS KILL COBRAS, a quickly-up-and-coming post-punk band from Portland, Maine, that sounds like all those awesome “alternative” bands you used to listen to in the eighties, instead of Duran Duran and A-Ha.

And, as mentioned above, this event is free and open to the public. What the hell else could you want?

Come and be a part of the performance of writing!

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This event is part of a week of public readings sponsored by Words and Images, to take place on or around the USM Portland campus. Keep an eye out for readings earlier in the week by Maine’s Poet Laureate BETSY SHOLL, McSweeney’s author JESSICA ANTHONY, executive director of the Telling Room and poet GIBSON FAY-LEBLANC, Iowa Short Fiction Prize-winner DIANNE BENEDICT, poet/fiction writer/teacher extraordinaire BRENDA EDMANDS, and plenty more!

At this event, we will be accepting donations, which will be split between Words and Images and another group TBA.

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Past contributors to Words and Images include: John Brandon, Kevin Brockmeier, Dan Domench, Megan Grumbling, Richard Hoffman, Michael Kimball, Richard Lethem, John Manderino, Wesley McNair, Mark Melnicove, Bruce Pratt, Bill Rasmovicz, Kenneth Rosen, Colin Sargent, Betsy Sholl, Laima Sruoginis, Martin Steingesser, and Shelton Waldrep.

In 2008, we had the pleasure of being able to interview Matt Berninger, from the rock band The National; bestselling author and National Book Award-finalist Jennifer Egan; 3-time Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Todd Field; and Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Russo.

Namedropping? Hell yeah!

Are you a facebook user?  if so, you can RSVP here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=30352937742&ref=ts