Month: November 2024

Meet Our New Intern: Scott Sorensen

I like to think I’m unique from the rest of my family for going into writing, but I know I was raised on it. My dad used to read my brother and me poetry before bed every night from Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems anthology. I don’t remember any of the poetry, but I do remember there was a section called “Yellow” that was entirely composed of poetry about pee. My brother and I thought that was just fantastic.

In eighth grade, I fell for a girl who was into poetry. She showed me a couple poems she wrote and I wanted to relate to her, so I wrote a few poems of my own. That girl moved onto business and is now so terrifyingly smart that she’ll have the world under her thumb in a couple years, and I’m still writing poetry. She’ll make money but I can make words sound good. So really, who’s the real winner here?

The poetry club my friend and I founded in high school solidified the love I’d caught from that middle school crush. Every poem we read at meetings would come with a “lore dump,” where we’d say what life events inspired that writing. People talked about suicide attempts and their parents’ divorces, and we also talked about our first kisses and the way our girlfriends’ dads stabbed us with pushpins while putting our boutonnieres on for prom. If you’re reading this, Mr. Wagner, I know that wasn’t accidental. Poetry made us vulnerable in a way that just wasn’t acceptable anywhere else, and that feeling of security is what I strive for in every writers’ workshop.

My freshman year of college, I wrote a poem about how lost I felt on campus. My favorite line, “I am tired of being courageous in a town I do not recognize,” might be the most honest thing I’ve ever written. I performed it at a campus open mic and I had random people coming up to me for weeks afterwards to tell me how much they related to my poem. Life is like watching a horror movie with men: everyone’s scared but nobody wants to admit it. I’ve performed at every seasonal campus open mic since then, writing about whatever has bugged me most that term. My only requirement for myself is that I tell the truth.

My favorite author (okay, actually my idol to an unhealthy extent) Kurt Vonnegut’s brother said “We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” Writing is my way of doing that. I will never take my country to Mars or make gazillions on the stock market, but I know how to make things make sense for a second. I think that’s just as valuable as any other gift I could give this world.

Scott Sorensen is a junior at Dartmouth College studying English while performing standup, writing for the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern satire magazine, and helping edit the Stonefence Review. Scott dreams of becoming the first Latvian man to win an MMA championship, which is pretty unlikely given the fact that he is not Latvian and has no idea how to fight.

Project Bookshelf: Claire Melanie Svec

A stack of books sitting horizontally against a white wall on wood flooring. From top to bottom, the titles read: Salvador by Joan Didion, The Ear Issue 26, The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner, Paris in Our View, poems selected by Shakespeare and Company, The Carrying by Ada Limón, Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman, Then the War by Carl Phillips, From, From by Monica Youn, The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón, Very Cold People by Sarah Manguso, Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado, Bloodchild by Olivia Butler, Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel Moniz, Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson, American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis, The Rules of Attraction by Brett Easton Ellis, and I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy.

As my husband and I prepare for a year-long stay in Paris, where he will be attending school and I will be writing, I’ve gathered the most cherished books from my collection for this project. I’ve taken them out of their boxes and stacked them on the floor to serve as my traveling “bookshelf.”

A stack of books sitting horizontally against a white wall on wood flooring. A dilute calico cat is touching its nose to the top of the stack.
Kisa headbutting my stack.

This post would not be complete without acknowledging my cat, Kisa, who loved rubbing her face against the book covers and lounging next to the scattered paperbacks on the carpet as I took these photos. (Is this a bookshelf or a cat appreciation post?)

My collection includes several signed copies from author events I attended in college, and a few recommendations from a fiction professor, curated based on my workshop submissions. Admittedly, many of these books are partially read, especially the short story and poetry collections, which I’ve enjoyed on and off as my interest piqued for individual pieces.

I will highlight the most noteworthy of the stack. The book with the skinny green spine is an assigned reading from a Debates in Creative Writing class, The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner. Despite my love for poetry, I appreciate this book’s candid examination of poetry’s inaccessibility and the struggle for poets to reach an audience. This reading, in particular, has deepened my appreciation for poets whose words spring to life and grab the reader (like Amanda Gorman, Ada Limón, and Carl Philips, whose collections are included here.)

There is also Paris in Our View, a unique poetry collection about Paris from authors all over the world. I picked this up from the Shakespeare and Company bookstore, where I made a brief stop as a tourist during a vacation in Paris last summer with my mom and sister. When my husband and I move this August, I hope to frequent this bookstore for its rumored status as the hub of English-speaking literary events, in addition to another bookstore called The Red Wheelbarrow.

Four books lay side-by-side on carpeted flooring. A calico cat sits in the top left corner of the picture. The titles of the book read from left to right: Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson, Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel Moniz, The Rules of Attraction by Brett Easton Ellis, and American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis.
The aforementioned recommendations from my fiction professor at UC Irvine, William Eng.

And then, of course, who could resist a title like I’m Glad My Mom Died? This memoir by Jennette McCurdy is nostalgic, insightful, and heartbreaking. Plus, the copy serves as a memento from when she visited my college, where I saw her speak in a live interview on her book. I remember her raw sincerity, how she candidly spoke to us on eating disorders and familial trauma. She stayed long after the allotted event time to answer our questions and tell more anecdotes about her nearby hometown, Anaheim, and other familiar spots close to the UC Irvine campus.

The last book I’ll mention is my physical copy of the literary magazine I was published in, Issue 26 of The Ear. I’ve flipped through it a few times, reading the other short story candidates, as well as the poetry of authors I had met the night of the launch party. I cherish this copy for the experience it’s linked to: standing at a podium, presenting a live reading, hearing praises from enthusiastic strangers, and connecting with talented writers.

These are not all my books, as I’ve moved from college to a city near my hometown, and now abroad. Not shown is my current Audible selection: Carrie by Stephen King. In an effort to catch up on missed-out classics, I gravitated toward Carrie for a couple of reasons: it’s King’s shortest work, and he and I share a similar interest in human morality. Also, I thought it’d be a good start to my audiobook collection, an initiative I’ve taken to make more time for reading amongst all of this packing chaos in my life currently.

Five books sit side-by-side on carpeted flooring. From left to right, the titles read: The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón, The Carrying by Ada Limón, Very Cold People by Sarah Manguso, From, From by Monica Youn, and Then the War by Carl Phillips.
My signed copies from attending author events at UC Irvine.

My collection is small but intentional. Truthfully, I often have a difficult time choosing what to consume, whether it is books, movies, or TV shows. Too often, I’ve invested in stories that decline in quality or fail to keep me interested. Tired tropes and unoriginal observations turn me away, in addition to anything that feels too cheesy or juvenile.

My tastes have drastically evolved from my childhood, when I enjoyed fiction as vicarious fantasy. First it was the Magic Treehouse series, then Percy Jackson & the Olympians, The Hunger Games Trilogy, Harry Potter, and A Series of Unfortunate Events. Though they fostered fond memories, I now seek entertainment that adds value to my adult life. I choose titles from diverse perspectives that grip me with strong opinions and an investigative voice. This is why I rely on a fellow writer’s recommendation, along with their personal connection to the piece.

All this to say… I am open to book recommendations!

Claire Melanie Svec holds a BA in Psychology with a Minor in Creative Writing from the University of California, Irvine. She is a writer, poet, and singer-songwriter whose work focuses on mental health, morality, and feminism. She has won the first-place prize in fiction for The Ear Literary Magazine‘s Linda Purdy Memorial Prize. In addition to her editorial internship with Sundress Publications, she is currently serving as a fiction reader for West Trade Review.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Some Days the Bird by Heather Bourbeau and Anne Casey

This selection, chosen by guest editor Livia Meneghin, is from Some Days the Bird by Heather Bourbeau and Anne Casey (Beltway Editions 2022).

Watching the grass grow

by Heather Bourbeau

The hunched cat mewls at phantom squirrels,
cries for birds that have not come today. Then leaves.

For a moment, I mistake this for quiet.
I scratch myself on a thorn I do not see

for all the lemons mixed with roses.
Then I notice the fig now bent in supplication,

the apple tree suddenly bare of blossoms.
I strain to see new starts rise through earth,

witness the peel of bark, hear leaves unfold
on branches. For a moment, I am like an absent father,

aware what little part I play in the miracle
I almost ignored.

Heather Bourbeau’s award-winning poetry and fiction have appeared in The Irish Times, The Kenyon Review, Meridian, The Stockholm Review of Literature, among others. Her writings have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net. A contributing writer to Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond with Don Cheadle and John Prendergast, she has worked with various UN agencies, including the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia and UNICEF Somalia. Her latest poetry collection, Monarch, examines overlooked histories from the US West (Cornerstone Press, 2023). 

Originally from Ireland and living in Australia, Anne Casey is the author of five poetry collections including one co-authored book. Her work is widely published internationally in The Irish Times, The London Magazine, Rattle, American Writers Review, Nimrod, Australian Poetry Anthology and The Canberra Times among others. Her recent awards include the American Writers Review Prize, Henry Lawson Prize for Poetry and American Association of Australasian Literary Studies Poetry Prize. She has a Ph.D. in archival poetry and poetics of resistance from the University of Technology Sydney where she teaches creative writing. 

Livia Meneghin (she/her) is the author of the chapbook Honey in My Hair and is the Sundress Publications Reads Editor. She has earned a Writers’ Room of Boston Poetry Fellowship, Breakwater Review’s 2022 Peseroff Prize, an Academy of American Poets 2020 University Prize, and most recently Second Place in The Room Magazine’s 2023 Poetry Contest. After earning her MFA, she now teaches writing and literature at the collegiate level. She is a cancer survivor.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Some Days the Bird by Heather Bourbeau and Anne Casey

This selection, chosen by guest editor Livia Meneghin, is from Some Days the Bird by Heather Bourbeau and Anne Casey (Beltway Editions 2022).

The Letting

by Heather Bourbeau

People have become numbers, corridors are morgues
and we are mocked by the tenacious need of green to grow—
jade blossoms repel rain, my lemon tree’s grotesque fecundity,
my apple tree with patches of leaves, brown and golden, clinging
to branches that welcome the slow growth of lichen.

The soft rain a cleansing. Too trite a metaphor for this, this
broken dam of sorrow and relief pouring forth.
Some things cannot be forgiven. The cheapening of human life,
the persistence of oxalis, the failure to witness
when the lavender began to green.

I wake to a battle of squirrel and blue jay,
the leftover musk of skunk taunted by cat.
Above us, the conjunction is dissipating, but the wondrous
is not always this out of sight. This land, my fate
to be taught over and over again, I am not in control.

Heather Bourbeau’s award-winning poetry and fiction have appeared in The Irish Times, The Kenyon Review, Meridian, The Stockholm Review of Literature, among others. Her writings have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net. A contributing writer to Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond with Don Cheadle and John Prendergast, she has worked with various UN agencies, including the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia and UNICEF Somalia. Her latest poetry collection, Monarch, examines overlooked histories from the US West (Cornerstone Press, 2023). 

Originally from Ireland and living in Australia, Anne Casey is the author of five poetry collections including one co-authored book. Her work is widely published internationally in The Irish Times, The London Magazine, Rattle, American Writers Review, Nimrod, Australian Poetry Anthology and The Canberra Times among others. Her recent awards include the American Writers Review Prize, Henry Lawson Prize for Poetry and American Association of Australasian Literary Studies Poetry Prize. She has a Ph.D. in archival poetry and poetics of resistance from the University of Technology Sydney where she teaches creative writing. 

Livia Meneghin (she/her) is the author of the chapbook Honey in My Hair and is the Sundress Publications Reads Editor. She has earned a Writers’ Room of Boston Poetry Fellowship, Breakwater Review’s 2022 Peseroff Prize, an Academy of American Poets 2020 University Prize, and most recently Second Place in The Room Magazine’s 2023 Poetry Contest. After earning her MFA, she now teaches writing and literature at the collegiate level. She is a cancer survivor.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Mom in Space by Lisa Ampleman

This selection, chosen by guest editor JJ Rowan, is from Mom in Space by Lisa Ampleman (LSU Press 2024).

content warning for drowning

Water of Life

On a moon crater named for a sixteenth-century Jesuit astronomer, there’s a twelve-ounce-bottle’s worth of water spread through a cubic meter of soil, not enough to drink or drown in. An astronaut on a spacewalk felt water on the back of his head; a goldfish in a fishbowl, he lurched back to the airlock, globs of water covering his ears, eyes, nose, in danger of drowning 250 miles from any ocean. Swim class teaches babies to float until a parent can pluck them from the pool. Because bodies of water beckon. My cousin’s child was found face down in an in-ground, near the plastic pool he’d asked to play in. In church they get a silver cup of holy water over their heads, startle when it’s poured. We are bathed in the glory of God. Water rushed through three hundred feet of tubes in Luca Parmitano’s spacesuit to keep him from overheating, until some, blocked by a clogged filter, seeped into his air vent. A black hole galaxies away makes water by sucking in material, releasing energy waves that knock H and O together. In a children’s movie, a claymation Jesus stands in an unwatery river that folds around his robes. His jaw jerks as he reminisces about playing in the river with his cousin, then he dives underwater, suddenly animated cartoon, pausing beneath the surface as if he knows what will happen when he rises. Luca’s station-mates doffed his helmet, wiped more than a liter of water from his face with towels. Exposed to vacuum, water vented into space wouldn’t freeze at first; it would boil away, evaporating into a crystal mist. God’s dome separated the water below from the water above, and He called the dome sky. The water above the firmament is, of course, a mirage, just waves of light scattered by gas molecules. The water below has enough give to cushion the blow of a NASA capsule splashing down from the heavens, enough tension to keep it from sinking.

Lisa Ampleman is the author of the poetry collections Full Cry and Romances. She is the managing editor of the Cincinnati Review and the poetry series editor at Acre Books.

JJ Rowan is a queer nonbinary poet and dancer whose writing and movement practices have developed largely out of collaborative approaches and the pursuit of deep connection. They are looking for the places where the written line and the lines of the moving body intersect, where genre blurs and remixes and reboots, and where style and role reach maximum fluidity and deeper capacity. Their chapbook, a simple verb, is available from Bloof Books. You can follow their handwriting and movement projects on Instagram.