writing

The Rhythm of Life

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I love music. Now, I should clarify, I am not good at playing music. Save for the few years of piano lessons in grade school (I can still find middle C), trying to teach myself to play the guitar in high school (nothing ever stuck), to picking up a pair of drum sticks for the first time this past summer (why I waited so long to learn drums, I may never know), I have shied away from instruments. Listening to music, on the other hand, is a whole new story.

I can keep a few simple beats on a drum kit. I can pick a road trip playlist that will make you nostalgic feels ten times over. I sing in my church band. Music is a part of my life, and has been for as long as I can remember, but never more so than when I started college. I learned very early on that I cannot study in silence. It is unnerving. The typing of the keyboard or the scratching of pencil against paper is amplified in that silence and I had to find a way to break it up.

Cue music.

My first year of college, I created a playlist on Spotify. “College – Year 1,” for lack of creativity, is what helped me survive a new and challenging world I had no idea how to navigate. Since I will listen to almost anything (it’s all subjective to my current mood), I worked on building that playlist as I solved math problems and learned the basics of English composition. Coldplay and Owl City were, by far, the most popular artists I listened to that year. “College – Year 5” is much of the same, though the reunited Jonas Brothers have snuck a song or two into the mix.

Nothing against a hit song like “Yellow”, but there are times when I just need a tune or a beat to get me through reading a hundred pages of a novel and responding to my peers work in a constructive and thoughtful way over the course of a week. For moments like that, I created a separate playlist for the deep studying moments. Yes, it’s called “Studying.” Inside are the likes of composers/pianists Alberto Giurioli and Ludovico Eniaudi, along with instrumentals of a few of my favorite songs by 2CELLOS and Lindsey Stirling. Nature sounds and film scores are pretty great for those intense study sessions.

In short, there is a constant rhythm to my life. Whether I’m singing along to the latest Skillet album or drumming my fingers on my desk, practicing rudiments as I edit my novel installment, I always have a tune in my head. It helps me.

Coldplay may not be your favorite band. Maybe Mozart is more your speed. Maybe silence is best. Whatever rhythm you live your life to, live it well.

The Intimidation Game

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Poetry intimidates me. I can see Charles Bukowski shaking his head, but then again, I’m intimidated by Charles Bukowski. Poetry should not be intimidating. Poets should not be intimidating. Yet surely, I cannot be the only one who finds themself shouldering the stifling mental weight of upholding the classical standards established by the canon, right? Despite popular opinion, I’m a fan of our canon. Give me Keats or give me (a painless and swift) death, but even John – considered somewhat of a failure in his lifetime – has a way of getting into my head. If I cannot write like “them,” then why write at all?

For five years, I wrote poetry in secret. Bad poetry, albeit, but poetry nonetheless. I typed in darkened bedrooms and hid drafts within inconspicuous folders on my desktop for fear of being found out. Found out as what? Well, a fraud. I was no Bukowski, and I was definitely no Keats; so, I made the cruel assumption that my way forward involved suppression by means of artistic burial. I would share my poetry with no one, therefore I could be rejected by no one. This worked well for me until my senior year, where so few creative writing courses were offered that I had no choice but to enroll in ‘Creating the Poem’ to stay on track with graduation in Spring. Before even stepping foot in the classroom, I convinced myself that what I wrote would be criticized and cast away. I had no formal training, I didn’t understand iambic pentameter, and I couldn’t tell you what distinguished poetry from fragmented prose. It mystified me, terrified me, yet attracted me with its odd set of shapes and ambiguous rules. I wanted to figure it out, I really did. But I had been telling myself for so long that I was incapable and it seemed I could do nothing but believe this until proven otherwise.  

I’m not exaggerating when I say that one week of ‘Creating the Poem’ altered my entire outlook, completely flipped my preconceived notions on their head. Just one week, and I realized how wrong I had been. Isn’t this the story for most of us? Fear has a funny way of, you know, completely lying to us. You’d think we’d be able to recognize its deception by now, but aren’t we fooled almost every day? We think to ourselves, “Maybe this time it’s telling the truth, maybe this time we should listen. Because fear keeps us safe, out of harm’s way, away from discomfort.” It’s hard to ignore something so well-versed in our vulnerabilities, and, to be honest, I listen to fear more often than I tune it out. But what I’m attempting to get at here is that we must try. Fear only thrives when we let it win, and it only wins if we allow it to. I’m not saying fear will dissipate entirely when we push past it, but I am saying that it will begin to lose its grip. Trying may produce success, trying may produce failure, but wouldn’t you rather know for certain which one?

Sometimes, I still struggle with poetry. Sometimes, I struggle with those classical standards, and the fact I will never be a Charles Bukowski or a John Keats. But sometimes, I don’t struggle; and the only way I am able to experience that period of progress is by taking a stab in the dark, in spite of the intimidation that threatens to deter me.

 

The Art of Disneyfication

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I always loved Disney and their films growing up, and I still do; however, I’ve started to notice that a lot of their movies don’t seem to completely follow the various fairy tales, short stories, and other tales that they’re based on. Recently, I’ve done a little research and come across a phenomenon know as Disneyfication: this is a process of taking the original tale, story, or the likes, and telling their own “squeaky-clean” version.

When it comes to Disney, it is common knowledge that the majority of their films are based on classic fairy tales and books, such as Pinocchio, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, and so on. Being a family-friendly company, there were plenty of changes from the original source materials. Below are a few examples:

In the original Pinocchio book, Pinocchio accidently kills Jiminy Cricket by smashing him with a mallet. Later, he burns his own legs by sleeping too close to a stove. These two scenes were not featured in the Disney film. Pinocchio was never meant to be a child-conscious story, considering that Pinocchio commits suicide by hanging himself by his marionette strings in the original ending.

In the Grimm’s Cinderella tale, the two evil stepsisters had their heels chopped off in order to try to fit their shoes in the glass slipper. Not very magical, huh? Also, the stepsisters had their eyes pecked out by Cinderella’s bird friends at the end of the story so that they can never see true beauty again. Of course, these scenes were omitted for being graphic.

In the original story of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, the unnamed mermaid was given feet by a benevolent witch, but it actually felt like she was stepping on glass when walking on land. At the end of the story, the mermaid doesn’t marry the prince and actually dies, falling into the sea and turning into seafoam. Of course, Ariel doesn’t die at the end of The Little Mermaid film and Ursula was a villain.

It’s fair to say that the original Hunchback of Notre Dame isn’t without it’s darker edges. I’m not only surprised that Disney wanted to make an animated film adaptation of Hunchback, but that they chose to include a song, featuring Judge Frollo, about his lust for Esmeralda–if he cannot have her, then she shall burn in the flames of hell. Family-friendly?

Lastly, for Disney’s Hercules, it seems that their retelling of the Greek myth had the wrong idea about who truly hated Hercules. Hera is the one that despised Hercules (and any children Zeus had without her consent), not Hades. In fact, Hades was a benevolent ruler of the Underworld and Hera was the one that sent snakes to kill Hercules. Clearly, Disney wanted to turn the mighty Hercules into more of a “Superman” story.

I can understand why people are upset about these changes because not only are some of these changes stepping on what the original authors intended to write, but they’re also stepping on pieces of history and mythology. On the other hand, I usually go into a Disney movie that’s an adaptation knowing that there will be creative liberties taken, like any other film adaptation would. In the end, I don’t think Disney is trying to polish up stories so that children can enjoy them, but rather trying to ensure commercial longevity while compromising the authenticity and integrity of the stories themselves.

Apfelbaum by Laura J. Braverman

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LAURA J. BRAVERMAN is a writer and artist. Her poetry has appeared in Levure Litteraire, Live Encounters, The BeZINE, California Quarterly, and Mediterranean Poetry. Her first collection of poetry, In the Absence of Defense Against Loss, will be published in 2019 by Cosmographia Books. She lives in Lebanon and Austria with her family.


Apfelbaum

For a long time I believed Martin Luther said these words:
Even if I knew tomorrow the world would go to pieces,
I would still plant my apple tree.
We shared a birthday, though his was 500 years before mine.

He would have spoken the words in my mother tongue. I use
them as an incantation, as defense against helplessness—

I imagine
our globe as little as twenty years from now—septic seas,
garbage dunes, drought and flood. My husband soothes me,

says creation moves in cycles regardless of the reckless
doings of our tribe. He sides with Heraclitus: World ever was,
and is,
an ever-living fire,
kindling and extinguishing according to measure.

But surely our wild hunger has sped things up.

Does the earth care for us?
We scrub pots after dinner, pick up our children’s Lego bricks.
We better Narcissus—leap headlong into the reflections
our digital screens hold up. We save manatees stranded in mud,

compose cantatas, dry rose petals in the sun;
we beg at intersections with matted hair and little siblings, knock
on closed car windows.
We fear the swollen legs of our father,
scratch butterflies with our fingernails on stonewalls,
line up for death.

Does the universe care for us?
I’ve come across a theory: the cosmos expected life,
prepared for consciousness, for us, from its very cradle—

hoped for apple trees and their tart, pesky harvest.

Utter Your Words

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During the spring semester of 2018, I enrolled in Creating the Poem with Dr. Iliana Rocha here at the University of Central Oklahoma.  Before entering the classroom, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew nothing of poetry besides the few guidelines to some forms covered in half of a week’s span while I was in high school.  I honestly walked in the classroom on the first day thinking, This should be simple.  Roses are red. Violets are blue.  I couldn’t have been any more mistaken.

Dr. Rocha explained that we students would be creating and compiling a chapbook of our own for the semester.  What the hell is a chapbook? I thought to myself.  Normally, I’m not one to freak out when it comes to a required page count either, but when she told us the final chapbook portfolio was to be 20-25 pages, my brain went into panic mode.  I’m screwed.  Why did I do this to myself?  I’m good for one world-changing poem, if that.

But then, she made each student pull out a piece of blank paper and number the paper 1 to 13.  She told us to list something similar to the following: the street you grew up on, your favorite beverage, a cartoon character you remember from your childhood, an item of clothing, a dream destination, etc.  On another blank sheet of paper we were instructed to write, on line number one, a line of poetry using one of our 13 facts. Next, the person to the right, on line two, would continue the poem with another one of their 13 facts.  Together, the class created (for the most part) a cohesive and sentimental poem about their lives. (One line about an exploding toilet lightened the mood though). I soon began to think the class wouldn’t be that bad.

Until I heard the first poems about dying animals, war in Afghanistan from the eyes of a soldier, and growing up in a neglectful home as a child slightly older than a toddler.  I can’t write about red roses and blue violets? One evening, while in class, Dr. Rocha explained and discussed with us a term called the unutterable. Some students nodded their heads in understanding while I sat imagining how I must look like an animated cartoon character with the three bouncing question marks floating above my head.  As the discussion progressed, I came to understand that the unutterable was any raw emotion or uncomfortable writing from any given writer. Also, it’s simply subjective. The readers’ catharsis is based upon individual and personal experience. Who wants to talk about poop (Chen Chen) or menstrual cycles (Rupi Kaur)?  Such subjects that can bring out a quick shiver or shudder is successful in creating the unutterable.

The very discussion and encouragement from Dr. Rocha and my peers opened up a new pathway for my writing.  Just after a few months in the class, I was able to write about an assault that occurred in my youth that I never thought I would be able to verbally express to anyone. Poetry, and its mechanics, allowed me to write to everyone and no one in particular. The fact that Dr. Rocha explained to us that poetry is purely subjective encouraged me to write to other victims solely for my extended support and encouragement.  Roses aren’t always red and the violets I see are broken—petals forever flowing in the Oklahoma breeze.

To See Yourself

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I’ve always felt slightly different from other people, but I could never put my finger on what exactly it was that made me different. None of my friends seemed to feel the same way I did about certain things; my feelings weren’t portrayed by characters in the movies and shows I watched, and never appeared in the books I read. I assumed I was some weird anomaly and I would have to deal with feeling like I was alone on the subject for the rest of my life.

I was never able to understand my feelings before I found my place. I had no representation to compare myself to and help me navigate the rocky waters of understanding my sexuality. The young adult books I read dealt heavily with romance; whenever there were mentions of a character that didn’t fit the norm of sexual attraction they were disregarded and labeled weird, which didn’t help younger me feel any better about myself. The books released within the last couple of years have become much more inclusive than the books I was reading back in high school, when I was questioning myself. Even though there is more inclusivity, there are still groups being left out; it hasn’t been until the last year that I even was able to see characters like myself on the pages of books. Last December I was finally able to put a name to my differentness, I figured out I fall somewhere on the asexual spectrum in the LGBT+ community.

A few months ago I read the young adult novel Puddin’ by Julie Murphy; it was the first book that made me feel seen. There is a character, although they’re a side character they’re still a large part of the story, that identifies as ace and goes about explaining what exactly asexuality is; how there are so many different facets that people can fit into on the ace spectrum. After reading that scene, I remember putting the book down, taking a deep breath, and then clutching it to my chest with a gigantic smile as my eyes watered—for once in my life I could see myself represented. Let me tell you, it felt so good to see a character like me. There is no other feeling in the world that’s like seeing yourself represented.

Diversity has come a long way in literature from where it used to be, but there are still so many other identities that have yet to have their time to shine. I hope we get to see more of them represented because they deserve it. Everyone deserves to feel like they are represented; whether it be because of their ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. EVERYONE deserves to have that moment where they go, oh shit, that character’s just like me. I want others to have the same feeling I had when I first saw a character that was like me, and made me feel less alone in my journey of discovering who I am. Like I said, we’ve come a long way with diversity, but we still have a very long way to go.

Advice for Saying Hello by Ace Boggess

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ACE BOGGESS is an author of three books of poetry, most recently Ultra Deep Field (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2017), and the novel A Song Without a Melody (Hyperborea Publishing, 2016). His fourth poetry collection, I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press. His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.

 

Advice for Saying Hello

I’m the wrong person to ask—
heart in it, but not my voice.

If we haven’t met,
you’re the speck of a gnarled spider

dangling from a ceiling in the hall.
Legs atremble, I won’t approach,

might stare rudely or run away.
I’m paralyzed from the tongue up.

Should you encounter me,
please speak fast

before panic hides me in its cloak.
Tell me your name, your favorite film,

what songs play
on the soundtrack to your life.

Tell me how much you love
spaghetti & red wine,

the smell of frying eggs,
the color of anything

under a rain-gray sky.
I promise to listen, &

maybe then, I’ll have an answer
for the silence I wear

like a holiday sweater:
ugly, red, & pulled from a drawer

out of gratitude or duty
on yet another lonely, public eve.

Let the Music Speak

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Music has always been a big part of my life. It’s a way that I express myself when I can’t find my own words to: I can easily find a song to fit my mood or situation to express my thoughts and feelings.

Around late high school, I decided that I wanted to be a writer and began writing horrible fan fiction in my free time. I was struggling to write  an ending for one of the stories I was working on until I came across a song on YouTube that expressed the pain and longing I wanted to portray between the two main characters. I listened to that song on repeat, my fingers tapping the keys of my laptop until all the words left me and I had the perfect ending. Well, it was perfect until editing started.

I had let my two favorite things come together, and I never knew why I hadn’t tried to find inspiration this way before. I felt I had opened the floodgates, and every song that I came across had the potential to be a new piece. Some songs would sink their teeth into me and wouldn’t let go until I wrote down the idea it had spurred. I would put the song on repeat, and type as fast as I could, letting the words flow from my fingertips.

One of the best things about using music for inspiration is that it is constantly changing, and there is so much out there for me to discover. When I’m struggling with a piece, whether it’s from writer’s block or that the words just aren’t sounding right, I take a break and turn to music; waiting for the lyrics to speak to me. Sometimes the inspiration comes from a song I hear on the radio while driving, other times it comes from a shuffled song from my Weekly Discovery or Release Radar playlists curated by Spotify. I wait until a song finally speaks to me. At first it’s quiet, planting an idea in my head for a story. As the song builds, its hold on me builds as well, taking complete control and making my finger itch to release the story building inside me. With a song on repeat for hours, I sit with my fingers clicking across the keyboard until there are no more words waiting to escape. I’ll listen to the song once more, making sure that every last drop of inspiration is soaked up.

Now when I’m having a particularly hard time with writing, whether it be picking up an already started work or beginning a new one, I’ll sit for hours and listen to music on shuffle. I’ll listen for something that speaks to me and my project. When I struggle to find something to fit a particular project, I’ll take a break from it altogether and start a completely new project.

Music speaks to me, so maybe next time your struggling with a story, scene, or character, turn on some music and let it speak to you.

Who Art Thou Mona Lisa?

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I was giddy with unspent energy as I traversed the halls of the Louvre. People shedding their winter coats walked down the checkered hallway, pausing to snap pictures of the headless Nike statue before moving on. Glass skylights illuminated a grand hallway with towering ceilings embellished in ornate carvings. I followed the congested flow of people, my school friends in tow, as we rushed past life-sized battle scenes, mythological images, and picturesque landscapes rendered in remarkable detail. The crowd slowed, and the top of a dark painting rested with a glass case on the wall. I saw Da Vinci’s famous lady, surrounded by people scrambling to get near, and I laughed.

She was small, and her colors were muted, but she monopolized everyone’s attention. She sat across from a grand painting ten times her size with ten times her vibrancy of color. She was underwhelming. Or perhaps, I was just very young.

I would later learn that my approach to art, and to the world, was still developing past its shallow stage. Appreciation of the arts was more complex than its surface level, and that to access something beyond a superficial approach was key in understanding not only the world, but myself as well.

I grew up on TV, fast ads, and colorful cereal boxes. My attention span was here and then out the window watching a cat climb a tree.  But I was living in a society that fostered my behavior. There was sugar in my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Colorful signs trying to sell me something fast. Time was money, and money made the world go around. Worship it, worry over it, waste it. But do not waste time.

I didn’t have time to be staring out windows. I had to be focused on my grades, on sports, on my friends, on my social media. I had to worry about how my life appeared to colleges and how my face appeared to the world. Because those things were important, right?

It wasn’t until I got to college that I learned that I worry too much about the world’s perception of myself. I worry about the words I write on this page. That they will never be good enough. Never perfect.

But to create art in any form involves leaving yourself at the mercy of others’ scrutiny. It is my primary reason for writer’s block. Why I am constantly conflicted, because I am a writer that does not write as often as I should. Can I call myself a writer and admit that I sometimes hate writing? I tell myself to stop trying to fit into a box of what a writer should be and to just be me.

It’s a popular mantra now days. Just be yourself. And through living it, people are breaking down barriers not only in literature and writing, but in all facets of life. This freedom of expression allows for a plethora of diverse perspectives and allows us to look beyond the surface level to find greater understanding and greater human connectivity.

Four Influential 20th century Female Horror Writers

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When we think about modern horror, the great and disturbing Stephen King pops into most people’s minds. While King is  wonderfully spooky and influential to one of my favorite literary genres, there are also plenty of women who wrote many creepy tales that impacted the 20th century and the horror genre as a whole.

Daphne du Maurier

Daphne du Maurier began her writing career in the early 1930s with one of her most successful works being the Gothic novel Rebecca (1938). In a similar way to traditional Gothic novels, Rebecca contains a heroine, who is never given a name, who is forced to deal with the oppressive and almost ghostly past of her new home. The real terror in this novel comes from the titular Rebecca’s grasp on the protagonist’s psyche, causing the heroine to feel a kind of inadequacy that many people experience when constantly compared to another, seemingly perfect, person. With discussions of identity, obsession, and even suicidal thoughts, Daphne du Maurier’s novel is an intricate modern Gothic novel with a dark and well-written twist ending.

Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson has written many creepy novels and short stories that have become classics in the Horror genre. Her novel The Haunting of Hill House (1959) is often considered one of the best haunted house stories ever written. This novel contains creepy hauntings, shocking incidents that are never truly explained, explorations of mental illness, bisexuality, and a diverse small cast discovering the ominous character of the titular mansion. The Haunting of Hill House is a suspenseful horror novel that leaves readers with chilling images and thoughtful explorations of fear, paranoia, and isolation.

Anne Rice

Anne Rice first appeared during the horror boom of the 70s and 80s with her debut novel Interview with the Vampire (1976). This vampire novel has been cited as the beginning of the “romantic vampire” trend that took off in the 20th and 21st centuries. Despite writing about vampires who are human in many ways, Rice’s characters are complex and intriguing monsters who give the reader a striking and bleak look into the life of the monster that usually is just in the story to be defeated by the good guys. Interview with the Vampire is also revered for its positive depictions of sexuality between its vampire protagonists as well as discussing morality in a philosophical way.  With deep introspection, a disturbing and well written cast of characters, and a deep look into the monster’s point of view, Interview with the Vampire is an enchanting and horrifying look into the psyches of humans turned into monsters.

Angela Carter

Angela Carter is a great British author who has written many plays, short stories, children’s stories, and some novels during her lifetime. While Carter’s work usually falls under the umbrella of Magical Realism, her body of work also contains some horror novels too.  One of her most popular short story anthologies The Bloody Chamber (1979) is one such work. The Bloody Chamber is an atmospheric and mature reworking of different fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White with a dark and distinctly feminist edge. Dealing with women’s sexual identities, luscious and graphic prose, and a chilling harken back to the more adult Grimm’s fairytales, The Bloody Chamber is a startling collection of feminist fairy tale horror that is scary as it is thought provoking.

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