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Lyric Essentials: Amy Haddad Reads Anya Krygovoy Silver

Thank you for joining us for Lyric Essentials! This week, we welcome nurse and poet Amy Haddad, who reads Anya Silver for us and discusses the intersections of poetry and healthcare, and of writing about illness. Thank you for reading!

Erica Hoffmeister: What drew you to reading Anya Krygovoy Silver for Lyric Essentials?

Amy Haddad: I only recently discovered Anya Silver’s work in the Spring 2020 edition of Ploughshares as I was thumbing through the poetry in that issue. The title of her poem, “Being Ill” caught me eye because of the similar themes that I write about. I read the poem and immediately fell in love with her words about illness. I was so smitten that I decided to write to her, let her know the metaphor she chose for the turn in the poem was spot on—a sock in a dog’s mouth? Perfect! I looked at the contributor’s section for contact information and found this: “The poem in this issue is from Saint Agnostica, which is forthcoming in the fall of 2021 from LSU Press. Silver completed the manuscript just before she died in August 2018 of metastatic breast cancer.” I was too late to tell her that I literally gasped when I read her poem.  Also, she and I had end-stage breast cancer. She was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer, a particularly aggressive type of breast cancer, in 2004 at the age of 35. I was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer in 2016 following 15 years of being “cancer free” after bilateral mastectomies and chemotherapy for Stage IIA cancer. No chance now to share with her what it is like to ferry between remission and recurrence, carrying the baggage of cancer or how hard it is to write about.

I wanted to read more of her work besides this one poem and learned that she published four poetry collections with the fifth, Saint Agnostica in production. Her obituary in the New York Times on August 10, 2018 stated, “When she received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation this year, the foundation said that her work ‘engages with the trauma of chronic and terminal illness, and with religious faith and mystery, storytelling, memory, and the risks and rewards of being human.’ Ms. Silver was not worried about making readers uncomfortable. It was, she said, her mission to be honest. And if the truth stung, so be it.” I thought, “My mission too.” I strive for honesty in my own writing about my illness experiences as well as my work as a nurse. I was reading her collections when the opportunity arose to read for Lyric Essentials. It seemed like a small way to honor her work that explores much more than her experiences as a person with cancer.

Amy Haddad reads “Strawberries in Snow” by Anya Silver

EH: Was there a particular reason you chose these poems to read?

AH: I have an abiding concern about the way this sort of personal, illness-focused poetry is viewed in the literary community. The subject matter is so close to the bone that people are wary of approaching it with the same critical eye as they would any other poetry. During a sabbatical at the University of Minnesota, a poet I met in a workshop told me I should meet poet Richard Solly who lived and taught at The Loft in Minneapolis because, “he writes about what you do.” He agreed to meet me and after he looked at my work, he said he knew why our mutual friend had suggested we meet. He said, “I write about my colostomy and you write about your experiences with breast cancer. No one wants to touch poems like this because when they criticize the work, it feels like they are attacking you, the person who is chronically ill, or worse, dying.” However, writing about the human condition with its suffering, pain, and other vulnerabilities is the stuff that great art and literature are made of, so I have not let it stop me. When I find a kindred spirit who writes about these themes, I am drawn to it to see how they use these first-hand experiences with frailty and mortality and where they take the reader.

I wanted to choose poems from her collections that spoke to other aspects of life like aging, sexuality, notions of being good, the randomness of suffering, the beauty in the mundane and commonplace. I think these two poems show her range and creativity as well as her craft. These two poems only indirectly address her illness. I really liked her use of fairy tales that speak to the magic and despair of life. Many of the poems with fairy tale sources are short and have a lyric quality. She packs a lot of emotion in “Strawberries in Snow,” and relies on our understanding of the way these stories usually go, that is, goodness is rewarded in the end. Here we are left with the unfairness of life -no strawberries for the sister. By the way, I love learning new words and I had to look up “rime,” so see what it meant and how to pronounce it as I had not heard it before. What a lovely word choice that adds to the music of the poem for me.

I chose the second poem, “To the Man Who Yelled ‘Hey, Baby’ At Me!” because of the humor in it. We understand that this is a bittersweet moment for the narrator in the poem. She is too old to be hooted at from a moving car, and yet, that kind of attention especially for a woman who has been through treatment that can literally strip away feminine identity and sexuality, is oddly welcomed.

Amy Haddad reads “To the Man Who Yelled Hey Baby! At Me” by Anya Silver

EH: As a nurse, do you find a particular connection to Silver’s exploration of illness and diagnosis in her poetry?

AH: I think because I am a nurse, I pay attention to the everyday concerns of patients and families. Because I am also a patient, I see how health care professionals diminish or ignore the realities of patients and families. No health professional means to be disrespectful or demeaning to patients, but it happens all the time. I started seriously writing poetry in a grant-supported writing group of women health professionals in 1992 although I had always written some poems even in grade school. We were focused on using literature to explore ethical issues in health care. The poems I wrote then were largely taken from my experiences as a nurse and how we often missed so much about what was going on in a patient’s life. This really came to light for me when I worked in high-tech home care where it was up close and personal with families struggling to care for loved ones who were dependent on complicated technology to survive.  While in the writing group, I got my first diagnosis with breast cancer, so my writing began to reflect my experiences as a patient. Since then,  I have been weaving these strands of my life along with my roles as a caregiver for my own family members into my creative work over the years.

EH: Lastly, is there anything else you are working on that you would like to share with readers?

AH: My first poetry collection, An Otherwise Healthy Woman, will be published by Backwaters Press, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press in early 2022 and my first chapbook, The Geography of Kitchens, has just been accepted for publication by Finishing Line Press in Georgetown, Kentucky. I am now working on poems for a chapbook or a hybrid book that narrates and reflects on photographs from the Durham Museum’s photo archives of the Visiting Nurse Association in Omaha in the 1920s and 30s when there was huge influx of immigrants to the city to find work at the stockyards and packing plants. The photos appear to be part of a plan to educate the community on the work that the visiting nurses did in the community. The photographs are amazing but there is very little information about the people in the pictures, just a few penciled notes on the back here and there, maybe a date.  There is so much to work with here, I am really enjoying the process.

Anya Krygovoy Silver is the author of four poetry collections: Second Bloom (Cascade Press, 2017), From Nothing (Louisiana State University Press, 2014), I Watched You Disappear (Louisiana State University Press, 2014), and The Ninety-Third Name of God (Louisiana State University Press, 2010). An educator and scholar, Silver taught at Mercer University was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2018. She wrote often of illness after an inflammatory breast cancer diagnosis in 2004, and died of breast cancer in 2018 at the age of 49 in Macron, Georgia, survived by her husband and son.

Further reading:

Purchase Silver’s most recent collection, Second Bloom.
Listen to Silver’s dedication from Grant Blankenship following her death.
Watch Silver read at the 2014 Burlington Book Festival.

Amy Haddad is a nurse, ethicist and poet who taught in the health sciences at Creighton University in Omaha, NE from 1988-2018. Her poetry and short stories have been published in the American Journal of Nursing, Janus Head, Journal of Medical Humanities, Touch, Bellevue Literary Review, Persimmon Tree, Annals of Internal Medicine, Aji Magazine, DASH, Oberon Poetry Magazine and the
anthologies Between the Heart Beats and Intensive Care: More Poetry and Prose by Nurses, University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, Iowa and Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies, Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio. She is the winner of the Annals of Internal Medicine poetry prize for “Families Like This” for the best poem published in the journal in 2019. She won third-place for the 2019 Kalanithi Writing Awards from Stanford University for her poem “Dark Rides.” Her first poetry collection An Otherwise Healthy Woman will be published by Backwaters Press, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press in early 2022.

Further reading:

Read Haddad’s manuscript announcement in the Creighton University press.
Check the Backwaters Press website for publication information about Haddad’s collection, An Otherwise Healthy Woman forthcoming 2022.
Read some more of Haddad’s poetry: “Primping for Tests in Radiology and Nuclear Medicine” in Aji Magazine and “At Rehab” in Journal of the Humanities in Rehabilitation.

Erica Hoffmeister is originally from Southern California and earned an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in English from Chapman University. Currently in Denver, she teaches college writing and advocates for media literacy and digital citizenship. She is an editor for the Denver-based literary journal South Broadway Ghost Society and the author of two poetry collections: Lived in Bars (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019), and the prize-winning chapbook, Roots Grew Wild (Kingdoms in the Wild Press, 2019). A cross-genre writer, she has several works of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, articles and critical essays published in various outlets. Learn more about her at: http://ericahoffmeister.com/

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: What Shines from It by Sara Rauch



Until the night we’re cooking dinner, and I’m watching
the water boil, and I can’t stand it anymore: We need
a bed. I don’t know why this is such a thing with you.
And Jacob, knife poised over a tomato, says, It’s not a
thing.
Don’t play dumb—I’m tired of this.
And you think a mattress will help? he says.
I pick up the nearest bowl and fling it at the floor.
Jacob jumps a little and says, What the—
It’s a bed, Jacob. Why is that so fucking hard for you to
understand? I start to cry—I don’t want to—I can’t help it.
He puts the knife down and stoops to pick up the pieces
of the bowl. We’re both barefoot. He gets the trash, throws
the bigger pieces in, gets the broom. I stand there, sniffling.
Like a girl.
He puts his arms around me, strokes my hair.
I should’ve kept my word, I say.
He steps back, takes my chin in his hand. About what?
Not letting you touch me till we got a mattress.
He sighs, and my whole body stiffens at that sigh, and
then he says, I’ll get you a mattress. I’ll get it tomorrow.
I’m pregnant, I say, and he steps back like it’s contagious.
We stare at each other, in this awful way, all my tears
gone, and what I’ve suspected for over a month, and known
for sure since yesterday, settles around us.
What about—? he says.
What about it? It’s not foolproof,Isay. But who’s the fool
here, him or me?
What are we gonna do, he says, and he sits down.
What I am going to do, I say, is go to the clinic, and—
We should talk about it, Jacob says. He takes my hand,
tries to pull me closer.
I already made the appointment. There’s nothing to talk
about.
Jacob knows this, I know he knows this, but his head
sags. He flexes and unflexes his hands—they’re so elegant,
like bird wings—and says, Just tell me what you need.
I need a bed, I say, and he nods, like maybe he finally

ntil the night we’re cooking dinner, and I’m watching
the water boil, and I can’t stand it anymore: We need
a bed. I don’t know why this is such a thing with you.
And Jacob, knife poised over a tomato, says, It’s not a
thing.
Don’t play dumb—I’m tired of this.
And you think a mattress will help? he says.
I pick up the nearest bowl and fling it at the floor.
Jacob jumps a little and says, What the—
It’s a bed, Jacob. Why is that so fucking hard for you to
understand? I start to cry—I don’t want to—I can’t help it.
He puts the knife down and stoops to pick up the pieces
of the bowl. We’re both barefoot. He gets the trash, throws
the bigger pieces in, gets the broom. I stand there, sniffling.
Like a girl.
He puts his arms around me, strokes my hair.
I should’ve kept my word, I say.
He steps back, takes my chin in his hand. About what?
Not letting you touch me till we got a mattress.
He sighs, and my whole body stiffens at that sigh, and
then he says, I’ll get you a mattress. I’ll get it tomorrow.
I’m pregnant, I say, and he steps back like it’s contagious.
We stare at each other, in this awful way, all my tears
gone, and what I’ve suspected for over a month, and known
for sure since yesterday, settles around us.
What about—? he says.
What about it?It’s not foolproof,Isay. But who’sthe fool
here, him or me?
What are we gonna do, he says, and he sits down.
What I am going to do, I say, is go to the clinic, and—
We should talk about it, Jacob says. He takes my hand,
tries to pull me closer.
I already made the appointment. There’s nothing to talk
about.
Jacob knows this, I know he knows this, but his head
sags. He flexes and unflexes his hands—they’re so elegant,
like bird wings—and says, Just tell me what you need.
I need a bed, I say, and he nods, like maybe he finally

ntil the night we’re cooking dinner, and I’m watching
the water boil, and I can’t stand it anymore: We need
a bed. I don’t know why this is such a thing with you.
And Jacob, knife poised over a tomato, says, It’s not a
thing.
Don’t play dumb—I’m tired of this.
And you think a mattress will help? he says.
I pick up the nearest bowl and fling it at the floor.
Jacob jumps a little and says, What the—
It’s a bed, Jacob. Why is that so fucking hard for you to
understand? I start to cry—I don’t want to—I can’t help it.
He puts the knife down and stoops to pick up the pieces
of the bowl. We’re both barefoot. He gets the trash, throws
the bigger pieces in, gets the broom. I stand there, sniffling.
Like a girl.
He puts his arms around me, strokes my hair.
I should’ve kept my word, I say.
He steps back, takes my chin in his hand. About what?
Not letting you touch me till we got a mattress.
He sighs, and my whole body stiffens at that sigh, and
then he says, I’ll get you a mattress. I’ll get it tomorrow.
I’m pregnant, I say, and he steps back like it’s contagious.
We stare at each other, in this awful way, all my tears
gone, and what I’ve suspected for over a month, and known
for sure since yesterday, settles around us.
What about—? he says.
What about it?It’s not foolproof,Isay. But who’sthe fool
here, him or me?
What are we gonna do, he says, and he sits down.
What I am going to do, I say, is go to the clinic, and—
We should talk about it, Jacob says. He takes my hand,
tries to pull me closer.
I already made the appointment. There’s nothing to talk
about.
Jacob knows this, I know he knows this, but his head
sags. He flexes and unflexes his hands—they’re so elegant,
like bird wings—and says, Just tell me what you need.
I need a bed, I say, and he nods, like maybe he finally

gets it. Not that it matters right now. All the padding in the
world won’t make this landing any softer

Jacob holds the front door, so I go in first. There, in
place of our sleeping bags, is a bed. A mattress and
frame and quilt and matching pillowcases.
Big, I say.
He goes over and pulls back the covers. He says, Get in.
And even though my whole body aches, even though
I’m crampy and bleeding and more exhausted than I’ve ever
been in my entire life, I don’t move.
Jacob’s face betrays nothing like sadness or shame. Do
you like it? he says.
Where’d it come from?
He walked through the protesters with me, sat in the
waiting room, still clutches the sheet of care instructions. If
you develop a fever. If you bleed through more than three thick
pads in three hours. If you pass gray, green, or white tissue.
Dan brought it, Jacob says.
He bought us a bed?
I bought it, Jacob says. He delivered it.
Takethe antibiotics you weresent home with. Take over-thecounter painkillers as needed.
I know I should say thank you. But my mind’s stuck on
the story Jane told me over the holidays, about a mother of
hers whose baby stopped moving inside at seven months.
How the woman carried it to term, how the labor dragged
on, how the baby arrived blue-lipped, with ten delicate fingers and ten delicate toes. And I think of how long the woman waited, just to have that still form placed in her arms.
Jacob says, You need rest.
He unlaces my shoes and pulls my feet out of them. I get
in between the sheets. Blue. They smell brand-new, creased
in perfect rectangles.
He says, Do you need anything? and when I shake my
head, he lies down behind me.
Resume your normal activities the following day.
You made the right choice, he says.
Avoid anything that causes pain.

You’ll be a good mother someday, he says.
You’re not helping, I say.
He loops his arm around me, rests his hand on my belly.
But it causes pain, and I move away.

This selection comes from What Shines from It., available from Alternating Current Arts. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Gokul Prabhu.

SARA RAUCH’s fiction and essays have appeared in Paper Darts, Hobart, Split Lip, So to Speak, Qu, Lunch Ticket, and other literary magazines, as well as in the anthologies Dear John, I Love Jane; Best Lesbian Romance 2014; and She’s Lost Control. She has covered books for Bustle, BitchMedia, Curve Magazine, Lambda Literary, The Rumpus, and more. In 2012, she founded the literary magazine Cactus Heart, which ran through 2016. She holds an MFA from Pacific University. Sara teaches writing at Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop and Grub Street and also works as an independent editor and manuscript consultant. What Shines from It, which won the Electric Book Award, is Sara’s first book. She lives with her family in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Find her online at sararauch.com, on Twitter at @sararauch, and on Instagram at @sara__rauch.

Gokul Prabhu is a graduate of Ashoka University, India, with a Postgraduate Diploma in English and creative writing. He works as an administrator and teaching assistant for the Writing and Communication facility at 9dot9 Education, and assists in academic planning for communication, writing and critical thinking courses across several higher-ed institutes in India. Prabhu’s creative and academic work fluctuates between themes of sexuality and silence, and he hopes to be a healthy mix of writer, educator and journalist in the future. He occasionally scribbles book reviews and interviews authors for Scroll.in, an award-winning Indian digital news publication.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: What Shines from It by Sara Rauch

After the holidays, a cold snap turned the sky to flint.
Kellie’d gone home for break, and I paced the apartment, my window open a crack to blow smoke out of.
After a few days of waiting, I went downstairs and knocked
on Tommy’s door.
He answered, said, Oh, you’re here, I didn’t realize.
Though he knew I’d only be out of town for a week, same as
him.
Can I come in?
He hesitated. I’m about to get lunch. He backed into the
apartment, and I followed him, the door banging shut. I’m
going to Burger King, he said. Then I have stuff to do.
I said, I’ll go with you. I could use the air.
Fine, he said. Where’s your coat?
Upstairs.
I’ll meet you in the lobby, he said.
We walked, he a little faster than I, toward Broadway.
It’ll snow soon, I said.
You think, he said.
I listened to the weather, I said.
I got a table while Tommy ordered. He sat and unwrapped his food, and I studied the people around us—a girl
younger than me bottle-feeding a baby; an old man in a
newsie cap; two cleanup workers huddling over their trays,
the fluorescent lights magnifying the shadows beneath their
eyes, the corners of their mouths pinched down. I wanted to
be anywhere but here.
Tommy ate his Whopper, watching the wall of televisions behind me, before he said, How long have we been seeing each other?
I counted back, said, Two months next week. Why?
Because I don’t want to anymore, he said. He shoved the
last bite into his mouth, finally focusing on me as he chewed.
There’s no arguing with that, is there, I said. I grabbed a
napkin and folded it into a loose cherry blossom.
He plucked it from my hands, examined it, let it flutter
down onto his tray. You’re an unusual girl, he said.
Did I do something wrong?
He removed his glasses and wiped them and put them
back on. I’m just—not feeling this anymore.
You don’t get points for honesty, I said and crossed my

arms over my chest.
He said, Are you ready to go?
I said, I’ll stay here.
He stood and walked out.
I moved to where Tommy had been sitting. The TVs
were all tuned to the same channel. On the screens a blond
woman with upswept hair stood beside images of the Towers belching smoke, her hands and mouth moving without
sound. Then images of Afghani men with kufi on their heads
crouching on desolate earth. A ticking scroll of names and
numbers beneath.
For a long time, I watched the frames flicker and repeat.
The thing that transfixed me was the smoke, how it billowed, blackening the air. How the people stepping out of it
covered in ash appeared so unsolid that an exhale might
blow them away. How that dust still hung suspended in the
air, how it slipped into the slimmest of spaces. How it clung
to each of us.
Back outside, enormous snowflakes blew down like
scraps of paper. I stood and let them pelt my cheeks. Then I
lit a cigarette and, bowing my head, made for home.

Last suitcase packed, set by the door, you drift through
the empty apartment, one final sweep. Running your
fingertips along the windowsill, you think you will not
miss this place. You will not miss this dust.
But the ghosts have become hitchhikers. You will discover them unpacking in another borough, another city, another state. They prefer the folds of hoodies, the grooves of
shoe soles, the corkscrew and bottle opener. They travel
light, with no particular destination.
Ghosts are like seeds that way, and they’ve sewn themselves into you.
Your body a field ripe for planting.
You wait, biding your time, until you burst into bloom.

This selection comes from What Shines from It., available from Alternating Current Arts. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Gokul Prabhu.

SARA RAUCH’s fiction and essays have appeared in Paper Darts, Hobart, Split Lip, So to Speak, Qu, Lunch Ticket, and other literary magazines, as well as in the anthologies Dear John, I Love Jane; Best Lesbian Romance 2014; and She’s Lost Control. She has covered books for Bustle, BitchMedia, Curve Magazine, Lambda Literary, The Rumpus, and more. In 2012, she founded the literary magazine Cactus Heart, which ran through 2016. She holds an MFA from Pacific University. Sara teaches writing at Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop and Grub Street and also works as an independent editor and manuscript consultant. What Shines from It, which won the Electric Book Award, is Sara’s first book. She lives with her family in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Find her online at sararauch.com, on Twitter at @sararauch, and on Instagram at @sara__rauch.

Gokul Prabhu is a graduate of Ashoka University, India, with a Postgraduate Diploma in English and creative writing. He works as an administrator and teaching assistant for the Writing and Communication facility at 9dot9 Education, and assists in academic planning for communication, writing and critical thinking courses across several higher-ed institutes in India. Prabhu’s creative and academic work fluctuates between themes of sexuality and silence, and he hopes to be a healthy mix of writer, educator and journalist in the future. He occasionally scribbles book reviews and interviews authors for Scroll.in, an award-winning Indian digital news publication.

2021 Sundress Subscriptions Now Available

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The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: What Shines from It by Sara Rauch


Solstice morning dawns drizzly, and still no word about the baby. I’m starting to wonder if Stella doesn’t plan to mention it at all while we’re here. We’re packing to head to Bolinas when Agnes says that I’ll have to be careful this year. I must look confused because she continues, The veil is so thin on this night. It’d be really easy to slip through, and end up in a life you don’t want. She smiles and hands me a holly wreath. You have to resist the temptation to let things happen to you.
I carry the wreath out to the borrowed Toyota, wondering if I’d have more of a backbone if Agnes had been my mother. I head inside to grab my own bag—double-checked to make sure the flask was still inside—thinking that if Agnes were my mother, I wouldn’t have to tote such a silly
talisman around. Not that it matters. We all have our attachments. Even Stella, who thinks she’s transcended the power of objects, can’t go anywhere without her zafu. Comfort, my
ass. She calls it practice, but I know an avoidance technique when I see one.
Once the rusty wagon is loaded, we drive up the 1, singing along to old Joni Mitchell cassette tapes. Wolf drives because Stella doesn’t want to, and Agnes, like me, doesn’t have a license, though I would guess hers didn’t get revoked because of crashing a friend’s car into a tree at the age of 19
after a night of heavy drinking. I haven’t driven since and have no plans to. Stella doesn’t know about the accident or how I was told I was lucky to survive. She thinks I let my license lapse after moving to the city, and I’ve never felt any need to enlighten her otherwise. If we move west, I wonder,
will I have to come clean?
As we unload beneath the redwoods, I feel, like I always
do here: tiny. An ant. Like I’m the most insignificant creature ever to step on this earth.
Ocean waves crash below, the tide rolling in, the noise
rising to the yurt where we’ll be camping out for the night.
Agnes’ friend, Jade, is a longhaired widow with watery green
eyes and a wavering smile. She looks as if the damp air has
entered every pore and plumped her from the inside out, no
wrinkles on her placid face. We’re the first to arrive for the
celebration, and she takes Agnes’ arm and leads her up to
the main house. Something about yarrow poultice.
Stella and Wolf carry everything into the yurt, and then
Stella comes out with her face vacant of any emotion, which
is, truthfully, how she’s spent most of this trip in regard to
me, and says, Let’s go for a walk.
Sure, I say and remember the seal from the other day. I
never told her about it, but given that she won’t meet my eye
as we head down to the shore, I can’t see that I want to now.
I keep a lookout on the water, though, hoping for more.
About the wine, Stella finally says.
I didn’t drink it, I say.
She rubs her forehead. Was I imagining the smell?
I— but what can I tell her that doesn’t sound ridiculous?
I took one sip. I choked. I’m sorry.
Stella looks out over the waves, wind whipping hair
across her cheeks. You’re pregnant, and you promised.
So did you.
Stella blends with the landscape, her shirt the same
silver-green as the beach grass. Even her body, the angular
length of it, fits here. I did, she says. I’m worried it’s too
much.
Her words deflate me. What’s too much—the baby?
I’m worried about moving while you’re pregnant. All
that stress.
I’m already stressed.
What about work? Our friends? What about your dad?
I thought we agreed the city is no place to raise a kid.
I guess I thought you might change your mind, you
know, once it took.
I touch my belly, which feels as choppy as the surf. Isay,
I want this.
Stella stares at the horizon, her expression unreadable.
Agnes will be so happy, she says.
I want to say, And what about you? But before I can
gather the nerve, she walks away up the beach and climbs
the wooden stairs. I keep along the water, despite the chill,
hoping for another seal. As if I might find an answer in its
liquid black eyes.

At dusk, we light the candles. Agnes starts the chant,
and the others join in. She leads us in honoring the
darkness and welcoming the light. She asks us to witness the shadow side, to understand its usefulness, to remember that without it, the light has no meaning. The
candles flicker to the cadence of Agnes’ voice, and there’s
this little twitch in my gut. I know the baby isn’t more than a
poppy seed, that there’s nothing, at this point, for me to feel
beyond my own hunger, but the flutter doesn’t let up. I press

my hand over it, wondering what it wants—wondering
what, after all, I want.
When we’re done in the circle, we break to eat and revel
around the fire. I can’t stop thinking about the flask, and
finally I retrieve it from the yurt. Stella’s watching me as I
come back toward the fire, and she squints to see what I’m
carrying. Has she always been watching so intently? Have I
been dancing with shadows all this time, obscuring my own
vision? I hold the flask out to her.
What’s going on? Stella asks, taking it.
I’m giving this to you, for now.
Kristen, you don’t need to—
I made a promise.
Stella rubs the engravings with her thumb and exhales
the same way I hear her do after a long meditation session,
then says, Farewell, New York City.
We can visit. Maybe head to Buffalo for the holidays.
Then, either with relief or fatigue or hormones, I start to cry.
You’re really sure of this, aren’t you?
I nod, too overwhelmed to say more.
Stella wraps her arms around me and says, I shouldn’t have doubted.

The next morning, groggy and smelling of woodsmoke,
we reload the Toyota and drive north to the state
park. The trees are massive, deep red like brick and as
solid. I stand and look up, look up the way I used to into my
mother’s unknowable face, but here I find awe, not fear.
Agnes says, Let’s hug the tree.
She’s been jubilant and overprotective since we broke
the news. I almost laugh, thinking she’s joking, but Stella
and Wolf take my hands, and we form a circle around the
base of the tree. I press my cheek, my belly, against the rough
bark and exhale. Nothing has ever felt so real.
We stand this way until Agnes, then Stella, then Wolf,
start chanting. I don’t know the words, and for once I don’t
let it bother me. The deal is sealed. I let the vibration fill me,
buoying the bubble in my belly. I’ll learn.

This selection comes from What Shines from It., available from Alternating Current Arts. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Gokul Prabhu.

SARA RAUCH’s fiction and essays have appeared in Paper Darts, Hobart, Split Lip, So to Speak, Qu, Lunch Ticket, and other literary magazines, as well as in the anthologies Dear John, I Love Jane; Best Lesbian Romance 2014; and She’s Lost Control. She has covered books for Bustle, BitchMedia, Curve Magazine, Lambda Literary, The Rumpus, and more. In 2012, she founded the literary magazine Cactus Heart, which ran through 2016. She holds an MFA from Pacific University. Sara teaches writing at Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop and Grub Street and also works as an independent editor and manuscript consultant. What Shines from It, which won the Electric Book Award, is Sara’s first book. She lives with her family in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Find her online at sararauch.com, on Twitter at @sararauch, and on Instagram at @sara__rauch.

Gokul Prabhu is a graduate of Ashoka University, India, with a Postgraduate Diploma in English and creative writing. He works as an administrator and teaching assistant for the Writing and Communication facility at 9dot9 Education, and assists in academic planning for communication, writing and critical thinking courses across several higher-ed institutes in India. Prabhu’s creative and academic work fluctuates between themes of sexuality and silence, and he hopes to be a healthy mix of writer, educator and journalist in the future. He occasionally scribbles book reviews and interviews authors for Scroll.in, an award-winning Indian digital news publication.

The Sundress Academy for the Arts Announces December Reading Series

The Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) is pleased to announce our readers for the December installment of our virtual reading series. The event will take place on Wednesday, December 30th, 2020, 7:00-8:00 EST via Zoom. Join us at http://tiny.utk.edu/sundress (password: safta).

féi hernandez (b.1993 Chihuahua, México) is an Inglewood-raised immigrant trans non-binary visual artist, writer, and healer. They have been published in Poetry, Oxford Review of Books, Frontier, NPR’s Code Switch, BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNEXT, PANK Magazineamongst others. féi is the author of Hood Criatura (Sundress Publications, 2020). féi collects Pokémon plushies.

Michael Credico is the author of Heartland Calamitous (Autumn House Press). His fiction has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Hobart, New Ohio Review, NOÖ Journal, Puerto del Sol, Quarterly West, and others. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Emma Ruth Wilson (she/her) is a poet from Central Illinois. Her work has appeared in Berkeley Poetry Review, Echoverse,and others. 

Open Call for Full-Length Prose Manuscripts

Sundress Publications is open for submissions of full-length prose manuscripts in all genres. All authors are welcome to submit manuscripts during our reading period, which runs from December 1, 2020 – February 28, 2021. Sundress is particularly interested in prose collections that value genre hybridization, the lyric, flash, strange or fractured narratives, new fiction, experimental work, or work with strong attention to lyricism and language. These collections may be short stories, novellas, essays, memoir, or a mixture thereof.

We are looking for manuscripts of 125-165 double-spaced pages of prose; front matter is not included toward the page count. Individual stories may have been previously published in anthologies, chapbooks, print journals, online journals, etc., but cannot have appeared in any full-length collection, including self-published collections. Manuscripts translated from another language will not be accepted. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but we ask that authors notify us immediately if their work has been accepted elsewhere.

The reading fee is $15 per manuscript, though the fee will be waived for BIPOC writers and entrants who purchase or pre-order any Sundress title. Authors may submit as many manuscripts as they would like, provided that each is accompanied by a separate reading fee or purchase/pre-order. Entrants can place book orders or pay submission fees in our store, here.

All manuscripts will be read by members of our editorial board, and we will choose one manuscript for publication by summer of 2021. We strive to further our commitment to inclusion and seek to encounter as many unique and important voices as possible. We are actively seeking collections from BIPOC writers, trans and nonbinary writers, writers with disabilities, and others whose voices are under-represented in literary publishing. Selected manuscripts will be offered a standard publication contract, which includes 25 copies of the published book as well as any additional copies at cost.

To submit, forward the qualifying Sundress store receipt for submission fee or book purchase to sundresspublications@gmail.com and attach a 20-35 page sample of the manuscript (DOC, DOCX, or PDF) noting the author’s first and last name in the subject line. The sample should include the author’s name and an acknowledgements page. The sample may include one story or a number of shorter stories. After our initial selection process, semi-finalists will be asked to send the full collection.

Sundress Reads: A Review of Notes For Mid-Birth

Karolina Zapal’s book Notes for Mid-Birth, available from Inside the Castle, is an incredibly insightful read. Following the promise of the title, the writing is in a very in-between place. It’s neither prose nor poetry, neither essay nor story. It’s a blend of both bringing a fresh, unique tone to a subject that’s been debated a hundred other ways.

The book is mainly about the abortion restrictions in Poland and their evolution. In it, Zapal explores the factual basis for the controversy and tells us what it’s like to inhabit the female body, to have people speak for it, to have to apologize (or expologize, as she calls it) for your own thoughts. She begins with a timeline of the laws, the amendments, the results, and the push back.

Zapal then goes on to examine the issue from dozens of different angles. The way she does so is incredibly familiar, and yet original. She pokes it from all sides, comes at it with different lenses. It’s something we can all relate to: a thought process that sees the holes in a theory and searches for an explanation to fill them, one that plays devil’s advocate for itself and wrestles with understanding both sides, one that must acknowledge it’s own information gaps and come to terms with the fact that there’s no way to know everything. All of these themes show up again and again in the series of essay-stories in Notes for Mid-Birth.

Zapal’s writing also has a very poetic way of associating words. Sentences don’t always flow like you think they’re going to. She pulls you in different directions. She makes connections between words and their different meanings, drawing on the Polish language to link and to separate ideas. Especially in the case of the section titled “Czern,” in which she makes some fascinating associations between colors and meaning, especially when she relates it to the meaning of the Black Protests in Poland. Her prose is incredibly vivid: though it’s not all narrative—it even does such experimental things as diverting to a list of Reddit comments—she invites you to see through her eyes, to understand her experiences, and to see that despite everything, there is no one way to think or feel about anything. We are allowed to grow and change our minds, we can have opposing thoughts that we believe in equal measure.

Though Notes for Mid-Birth has a core goal—to investigate Poland’s life-vs-choice legislation—it is not one note. Each section of the book takes a different direction to the same point. Zapal incorporates experience, research, other writers’ musings, to make a well-rounded, well-spoken, and well-written book.

__________________________________________________________

Bayleigh Kasper is a senior creative writing major at the University of Evansville. She dreams of owning a tiny home in Colorado where she can adopt cats, make music, write, and eat very judge-worth amounts of chocolate without actually being judged.

Project Bookshelf with Intern Bayleigh Kasper

I’ve always had a fascination with the stories behind the things that hold our stories—that is, the events and ideas that led to a book, the people who created the book, the physical copies themselves, even the shelves that hold the book. To me, every part of the story is important. It’s why I read the acknowledgements in the back of books whenever I can, why I remember where I bought a book or who gave it to me, and why I remember the details of getting my bookshelves. 

When I was five, my dad added built-in shelves surrounding the windows in me and my sister’s rooms. While hers filled with stuffed animals, boxes of markers, colored pencils, and souvenirs, mine filled with books. I’ve always been quite a book worm. You could hardly find me without one most of my life. So it was no surprise when those shelves got so full of books I had to get another book shelf…and then another. But those first big ones my dad built for me, those first ones I filled with my first books, those will always be special to me. 

The first new shelf I got was a pink metal shelf with pretty detailing on the sides. It leaned sideways just slightly, but it’s still standing. My grandparents gave it to me for Christmas when I was about fifteen—the last big gift I remember them giving me before they moved across the country. The second was a rolling cart I found at an antique store. Everything in the antique store seems to have a story bursting out of it, so how fitting that it would hold all of my favorite stories? I even have bookshelves made of books—not real books, mind you. Just decorative boxes from Hobby Lobby made to look like books I attached to the wall to hold more books and book art. Some have notes in them from friends, one holds candy, another jewelry. I find it very romantic that these books hold special things for me as well as display books and art created from books. 

Being around books has always made me feel at peace, made me feel at home. Book stores and libraries are where I go when I’m feeling stressed or need to concentrate on something. With all the books around my room, it’s one of my favorite places on earth to be. Each one is carefully alphabetized by author last name and stamped with a custom punch which says my name, and I have so many that each shelf is double layered. My bookshelves are something I love to take time to put in order, to clean, and to curate. 

So many of my books have stories behind the physical copies in addition to the ones found inside. There’s Swamplandia by Karen Russell I got from someone I sat next to on a plane because I mentioned I had recently read one of her short stories in a class and loved it. There’s A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass which is missing the front cover due to an incident with spilled bubble liquid. There are books four and five of the Underland Chronicles books by Suzanne Collins which, after buying them three different times, still don’t match the first three (because secondhand book sites don’t always give accurate images). My copy of Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore that has come with me to Switzerland twice. That’s what I love about having books. They’re so much more than the stories the words inside them tell. They’re the building blocks of experiences, real and fictional.

Bayleigh Kasper is a senior creative writing major at the University of Evansville. She dreams of owning a tiny home in Colorado where she can adopt cats, make music, write, and eat very judge-worth amounts of chocolate without actually being judged.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: What Shines from It by Sara Rauch

Calla followed Audrey into the loft. Music blared across the near-empty space in front of the DJ’s
booth. Clutches of people stood scattered around the room. It’s just a party, Calla thought. I can handle it. Music coursed through her. The scar twitched. She’d swallowed a
pain pill before coming—the first one she’d taken in over a month.
A woman appeared and threw her hands in the air, exclaiming and wrapping her arms around Audrey: You came!

LuLu. She wore a tube dress, her shoulders dusted with
glitter so she shimmered like a disco ball. Both arms loaded
with bangles, jingling and glinting.
This must be your roommate, she said, turning to Calla.
Calla extended her hand quickly, before LuLu could
hug her.
LuLu dragged them to the kitchen, a corner cordoned
off with curtains.
You live here? Calla asked, surveying the stack of takeout coffee cups and empty beer bottles.
Not technically, but yeah, mostly. Whatddya want—
beer?
Calla held up her hands. I’m fine. LuLu said, Really?
Really, Calla said. The racket in her stomach grew fiercer.
She can’t drink because of her medication, Audrey said.
I’d love a beer.
LuLu said, Oh, there’s Polly and Dylan—I’ll be right
back. She fluttered away, hands waving with excitement.
Calla raised an eyebrow at Audrey.
What? Audrey said.
Number one: she’s Ruth’s doppelgänger. Number two:
those bracelets are obnoxious. Number three: definitely straight.
How do you know?
I’m not blinded by lust. She’s got no edge.
You’re all edge, and you’re straight.
Different edge, and you know it.
We’ll see, Audrey said, drinking her beer.
You’ll see, Calla said. I have already seen.
LuLu came back with Dylan and a girl with dark hair
cropped close and a set of blue eyes as serious as a stun gun.
LuLu said, Polly, this is Audrey—the one I was telling you
about. Audrey and Calla, Polly and her brother—
Dylan, Calla and Audrey said.
Hi, he said.
This valley is so damn small, LuLu said.
Well, Lu, you do know everyone in it, Dylan said.
Don’t sass me, LuLu said, swatting his arm. Let’s dance. Audrey and Polly followed her across the floor. Dylan

and Calla stared at each other. There it was again, his eyes
seeing right into her. What a mess.
Are you okay? he said. You look pale.
I’m always pale, Calla said.
Fine, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Do you need
water?
Maybe just to sit down.
Dylan led her along the back wall, behind the DJ, to a
little door, which opened into a windowless room that contained a futon and a TV.
She sat on the futon. Dylan sat next to her. His thigh
touched hers, and she leaned away.
About the other night, I wanted to talk—
We don’t need to, Calla said.
The music vibrated the walls. Calla wrapped her arms
around her body, trying to quiet the thrashing inside her.
She wanted to take off her jeans and be in her own bed with
the lights out and none of this happening.
I like you, Calla.
Please, don’t.
And I know you’ve been through a lot, but—
I can’t.
Why?
It’s too weird for me, too soon.
If you’re worried about what I saw, you shouldn’t be.
My body is ruined.
That’s not true, Dylan said.
You’re not a doctor. You don’t know, Calla said. She
pressed her hand to her scar and felt the thudding, anxious
and red-tinged, inside her.
I do know.
Calla looked at Dylan, his mismatched eyes, his crooked
nose, his shock of black hair. She wanted him, and she
wanted him to go away. You know I’m barren? she said. That
my fiancé abandoned me?That my best friend is camped out
on my couch with no intention of leaving? Calla stood. The
room wobbled like a funhouse mirror. She said, This is too
much for me.
Dylan reached for her hand. Wait.
I can’t.
She opened the door and went out into the main room.

People everywhere. Strobe lights flashing. She pushed into
the crowd. Everyone was smiling, drinking, gyrating, beatific, blissful, letting the waves ofsound and light wash over
them, and all Calla could think of was a crash. A crash like
water curling around her, sucking her under. A crash like
the car skidding slow-motion across the icy pavement away
from the startled deer and rolling until a tree stopped it, and
the crunch and the crush and the shatter were awful and
peaceful because the worst had happened, and then everything she never knew she wanted flooded out of her, dripping down while she hung suspended and waiting.
She had to get out.
Audrey was dancing with Polly in the center of the mob.
As soon as she saw Calla, she stopped.
We need to go. Right now, Calla said.
Calla started for the door, Audrey behind her, but before they could get there, LuLu appeared out of nowhere—
she has a knack for that, Calla thought, through the web of
fear tightening around her—saying, Don’t leave yet.
AndCalla looked up to see Gabriel there holding LuLu’s
hand, and Gabriel’s mouth opened and closed without a
sound coming out. He’d grown a beard, looked like he hadn’t
slept. Calla reared back, furious, futile, the scar screaming
like a banshee.
I was going to call you, Gabriel said, letting go of LuLu
and grabbing Calla’s arm.
Don’t touch me, Calla said, yanking away. Don’t you
ever dare touch me again.
Calla, be reasonable.
Reasonable?Heatseared throughher. She started shrieking. She was certain she would split open. The scar would
rip and out would fly her feral baby, intent on mauling Gabriel’s body, too.
Then Audrey clapped her hand over Calla’s mouth,
said, Shhh. He’s not worth it.
Who are you? he asked.
Her emergency contact. Get out of our way. Audrey
stepped toward Gabriel, and he flinched.
Calla, Gabriel said as she walked by. I can explain.
But Calla didn’t stop. She kept her gaze forward as she
followed Audrey; she didn’t want to know if anyone stared.
Calla got in the passenger seat. The night was cold, and
she wrapped her arms around herself. The scarlay quiet, her
body a state of abandon.
That was really something, Audrey said. They were
halfway home. I’ve never heard you scream like that.
It’s done, Calla said. Over. We can go to the Goodwill.
She watched the treesflash by. Above were the underbellies
of new leaves, bright against the night sky.

This selection comes from What Shines from It., available from Alternating Current Arts. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Gokul Prabhu.

SARA RAUCH’s fiction and essays have appeared in Paper Darts, Hobart, Split Lip, So to Speak, Qu, Lunch Ticket, and other literary magazines, as well as in the anthologies Dear John, I Love Jane; Best Lesbian Romance 2014; and She’s Lost Control. She has covered books for Bustle, BitchMedia, Curve Magazine, Lambda Literary, The Rumpus, and more. In 2012, she founded the literary magazine Cactus Heart, which ran through 2016. She holds an MFA from Pacific University. Sara teaches writing at Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop and Grub Street and also works as an independent editor and manuscript consultant. What Shines from It, which won the Electric Book Award, is Sara’s first book. She lives with her family in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Find her online at sararauch.com, on Twitter at @sararauch, and on Instagram at @sara__rauch.

Gokul Prabhu is a graduate of Ashoka University, India, with a Postgraduate Diploma in English and creative writing. He works as an administrator and teaching assistant for the Writing and Communication facility at 9dot9 Education, and assists in academic planning for communication, writing and critical thinking courses across several higher-ed institutes in India. Prabhu’s creative and academic work fluctuates between themes of sexuality and silence, and he hopes to be a healthy mix of writer, educator and journalist in the future. He occasionally scribbles book reviews and interviews authors for Scroll.in, an award-winning Indian digital news publication.