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T M M OOOOO RRRRR PPPPP OOOOO RRRRR EEEEE V V IIIII EEEEE W W
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MM MM O O R R P P O O R R E V V I E W W
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H M M M O O RRRR PPPP O O RRRR EEE V V I EEE W W W
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M M O O R R P O O R R E V V I E WW WW
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E M M OOOOO R R P OOOOO R R EEEEE V IIIII EEEEE W W
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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Volume #1 March 15, 1994 Issue #2
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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CONTENTS FOR VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2
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A Matt and a Bob . . . . . . . Matthew Mason and Robert Fulkerson
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Driving Past 27 Pigs in the Middle of June With the Windows Open
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gary E. Walker
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23rd Street Happy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peter Bray
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Answers to the Riddle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Colin Morton
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Beautiful Doll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Krackow
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While Walking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Krackow
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Questions on Art James and others . . . . . . . . Andrea Krackow
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For Andre Brereton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Daniel Sendecki
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The Drowners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jacqueline Jones
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Loveless Addictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stephen Miller
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Silicon Dreamer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Donna Dolezal Zelzer
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Favorite Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Stutz
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About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors
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In Their Own Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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Editor The Morpo Review Staff Editor
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Robert Fulkerson Matthew Mason
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rfulk@creighton.edu mtmason@ucdavis.edu
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Proofreader ReadRoom Layout Designer
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Kris Kalil Mike Gates
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kkalil@creighton.edu tsmwg@alaska.edu
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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_The Morpo Review_ Volume 1, Issue 2. _The Morpo Review_ is published
|
|
electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this magazine is
|
|
permitted as long as the magazine is not sold and the entire text of the
|
|
issue remains intact. Copyright 1994, Robert Fulkerson and Matthew Mason.
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|
The ASCII version of _The Morpo Review_ is created in part by using Lynx
|
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to print ASCII formatted text of the World Wide Web version. All literary
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and artistic works are Copyright 1994 by their respective authors and
|
|
artists.
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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A Matt and a Bob
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(Editors' Notes)
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o _Matthew Mason, Co-Editor_:
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Well, you're currently looking at the miraculous issue 2 of _The Morpo
|
|
Review_. I say "miraculous," first of all, because it's a nifty word
|
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that I haven't had so many opportunities to use since I left Catholic
|
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school. But I mainly use it because I'm surprised to see this magazine
|
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revived from the coma it lapsed into a few years back.
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Way back in those quiet, pastoral days when I wore more plaid and
|
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lived in Omaha, Matt Heys, Bob, and I planned out the original _Morpo
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Review_ as a tangible, formed-from-atoms, recyclable,
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useful-to-dry-your-hands-on type of magazine with far fewer run-on
|
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sentences in the editor's notes sections. For this, we advertised far
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and wee for submissions.
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A few poems and stories trickled in, and then Bossie fell ill and,
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well, I tear up and start wistfully humming Def Lepard power-ballads
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at this point in the story so I don't feel I can go on. Suffice it to
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say, that issue never saw a single photocopy and I had to skip town
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once the sun went down.
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So please enjoy this second issue. We here at _TMR_ are oh-so-happy to
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bring it to you in its current cheap, low-calorie, and environmentally
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tingly form. And we hope you'll agree that it's more fun than a bucket
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of nematoads.
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o _Robert Fulkerson, Co-Editor_:
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Much to my pleasant surprise, _The Morpo Review_ has taken on quite a
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life of its own. We have more than doubled our subscriber base since
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the first issue, we've found our way to the Etext archives at the
|
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University of Michigan, we're now a featured e-zine on a dial-up
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bulletin board system in Alaska (not to mention being formatted for a
|
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DOS reader program), we've thrown in our two cents toward the World
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Wide Web and we've found our way onto America Online in their "Palmtop
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Paperbacks" section. Wow. I never anticipated that we'd see so much
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growth in the short span of two months.
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Part of this growth is due to the friendly people of the Internet.
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Mike Gates, whose name appears in the masthead, contacted us in the
|
|
middle of February saying that he really enjoyed _TMR_ and wanted to
|
|
format it slightly differently so that the ReadRoom door on his
|
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bulletin board could read it and serve it up work by work instead of
|
|
as one large stream of ASCII text (kind of like this sentence).
|
|
Additionally, this has led to a DOS-based reader version of _TMR_.
|
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|
Rita Rouvalis contacted me about putting _TMR_ up for FTP and Gopher
|
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access from the University of Michigan etext archives. Shortly after
|
|
that, Christy Phillips contacted us about wanting to put _TMR_ in an
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ezine section on AOL (see "Where to Get _TMR_" at the end of this
|
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issue). Additionally, John Labovitz contacted me shortly before the
|
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first issue of _TMR_ went out about including it in his List of
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Electronic Magazines.
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Since we've added a World Wide Web site (see the end of this issue for
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the URL) we've added more people to the "Morpo Community". Maurice van
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Keulen from the Netherlands has us on his own Web section. Prentiss
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|
Riddle has us listed in his List of HyperFiction (check out
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http://is.rice.edu/~riddle/hyperfiction.html).
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I know that the Infobahn has become the hot topic of the news media
|
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lately and that some of the old-time 'Netters can get tired of hearing
|
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about how wonderful it is. They've known that for some time. But
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|
regardless of how many times I hear about the "innovation" and
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|
usefulness of world-wide electronic mail or about the numerous
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|
'Netloves met and made, the interconnection of seemingly un-connected
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|
lives never ceases to amaze me. It's because of people like Mike,
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|
Rita, Christy, John, Maurice and Prentiss, not to mention the readers
|
|
and writers, that _TMR_ is growing and reaching more people.
|
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Enjoy.
|
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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"Driving Past 27 Pigs in the Middle of June With the Windows Open"
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gary E. Walker
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Pigs don't care for bacon.
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I flash by, an orange blur to
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Pig-poor eyes, staring
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Blearily, thoughts
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Of sows, and slop and mud
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Percolating behind them.
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Unhurried pork on the hoof,
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Cloven (could Satan be a pig?) to
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Slog through mud and hay
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And yesterday's pork product.
|
|
Finally settling with porcine permanence,
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Piggy heads hatching no plots.
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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"23rd Street Happy" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peter Bray
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8-10 bottles later I was fine, fine.
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Crenshaw & Slauson was buzzin'.
|
|
Rich metal cruising the streets,
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all zippy-de-do-da-ing along.
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|
|
Smoke-daddy and me sat at the bus stop and chug-a-lugged.
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|
Across the street was where I was from in the first place.
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But I never knew about that, you know, that was way back in
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'74 when my Poppa put his fist through my face.
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Now he dead. He rolled along with the 9th Street
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for a while when they didn't have no automatics,
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no golden $$$-making pea-shooters,
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|
no quarter turned S-guns, no lady-lady 45s, no S&Ws.
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|
Just sat with his $yndicate and punched his ladies, his kids.
|
|
"Tss. Boy ya gonna git it," he said. Zap. I get up
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|
|
and down I go again. That type of shit, some heroic 5-year old.
|
|
Now it was just me and Smoke sitting down.
|
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I didn't wanna think about all that shit anyways.
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|
Nice hot day in L.a. that's all. 23rd Street Happy.
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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"Answers to the Riddle" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Colin Morton
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|
|
1. I used to catch foul balls on the chin
|
|
& explore the bloody spot with my tongue.
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|
2. I would load up the bowl of oatmeal with an evenly graded
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heap of brown sugar
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|
& wait for the milk to soak it through
|
|
before breaking the surface with my spoon.
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|
3. A balloon will listen quietly to your advice
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|
then turn right around and do its own thing.
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|
You can't wag it the way you wag your tail.
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|
4. You can ask a hen to tell the truth
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|
you can even ask your creditors to tell the truth.
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|
You can ask them to cockadoodle-do
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|
but only the politician will do it.
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|
5. My back has ached since I came of age
|
|
I was in labour for over a decade
|
|
I have shamed myself beyond comprehension numberless times
|
|
but I've never yet actually laid an egg.
|
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|
|
6. When I'd sharpened the ax he inspected it
|
|
& joked "Sharp enough to pick your teeth on."
|
|
Then he peeled off a sliver from the nearest log
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& used it for a toothpick.
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|
7. Vulpine: crazy like a fox.
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|
8. The beaver, unable to outrun his predator
|
|
will chew off his own genitalia
|
|
to leave as an offering or distract his pursuer.
|
|
Once, so far gone I believed the thought police were after me,
|
|
I ate my own marginalia.
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|
9. Having canoed into the woods twenty miles
|
|
from the only road on the map
|
|
we portaged a low hill
|
|
& were almost knocked from our feet by the stench of the
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|
smoke from the pulp mill turbines
|
|
that soon came into view.
|
|
By the time we'd returned the canoe to the water
|
|
we all had to sit on the ground
|
|
& cough our lungs clean.
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|
|
10. Then he laid the ax against a log
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|
took out a pair of yellow-handed Robertsons
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|
& tapped out a jazzy drum solo.
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|
|
11. I also ate my hatband once. Why
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I have forgotten.
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|
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12. Oh, that? I've never seen it before in my life. How did it get
|
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attached to me? Begone, tail! Yap! Yap!
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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"Beautiful Doll" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Krackow
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|
Sunday mornings in her kitchen,
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|
Mama crying in peaches and tins
|
|
about
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|
the stale husbands that never got cooking and
|
|
the linoleum stains of Saturday-nite men --
|
|
those burnt out cigarette butts stuck like weed
|
|
in her molded wonderbread.
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|
|
She woke dead but
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|
kept waking and
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|
|
I learned the muscle of this woman to sweat
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in the iron silent breast she fed her children.
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|
|
With her bra strap crooked and her peroxide head,
|
|
she was the undiscovered, unplastic Barbie--
|
|
a beautiful, Venus Woman
|
|
who rose with her babies
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|
but
|
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|
|
never found
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|
Ken
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|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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"While Walking" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Krackow
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|
|
These sidewalk shoes grin
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|
and pretend our life.
|
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|
|
Do you live? In tenement shacks of
|
|
Chunky Chicken, I dream of becoming
|
|
your wife.
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|
|
Thumb walking,
|
|
limp talking,
|
|
my words are week--
|
|
day normal.
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|
|
(I speak like gravel)
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|
|
Will you crash on me?
|
|
Or steer another sideway street?
|
|
Or green on my tar
|
|
with your rose tires?
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|
Green on my tar
|
|
with your rose tires.
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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"Questions on Art James and Others" . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Krackow
|
|
|
|
how do you hide secrets? this is one:
|
|
i am in love with a man who will not
|
|
leave my tongue
|
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|
|
i taste him everywhere:
|
|
on side walks, in cigarette butts,
|
|
at 3 am. sweat meetings, in my hairbrush
|
|
(i pig-walk everywhere, James-stuffed)
|
|
i am too young
|
|
to be so fat
|
|
of lust
|
|
|
|
he dug our heart down the grave weeks ago, but
|
|
i ate him in the Supermarket tuesday-past;
|
|
his bare belly cradled in my legs,
|
|
his hot breath breathing down my lungs,
|
|
Frozen Foods never felt so warm.
|
|
Haagan Daaz drizzled in steam, E V E R Y W H E R E
|
|
i am too young
|
|
|
|
and what if a taste like that
|
|
a man like that
|
|
won't come to lie on my tongue,
|
|
again, like that?
|
|
|
|
i will be bone ugly of no fat, and
|
|
i am too young to be too old
|
|
and self-address Valentines anorexic & alone,
|
|
or to feed a stranger, that i do not love,
|
|
the skin of my home.
|
|
but i love myself and i
|
|
|
|
do not, DO NOT want to bare love made alone
|
|
|
|
so here i am
|
|
about to play Hearts and Nerves
|
|
|
|
with a raw body i do not want
|
|
and what if i will want?
|
|
and what if i will love?
|
|
and what if this raw body comes to be the taste
|
|
of another grave, everywhere, and
|
|
i am too young
|
|
to be tasting all these men
|
|
|
|
on my tongue
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
"For Andre Brereton" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Daniel Sendecki
|
|
|
|
Snowflakes fall to earth
|
|
like tired robins, curling
|
|
once about a tree
|
|
|
|
only to make their
|
|
nest in the smutty mire of
|
|
soot and slush and ice
|
|
|
|
there is loneliness
|
|
lamplight shines like hot butter
|
|
over cobblestones
|
|
|
|
rows and rows and rows
|
|
of madly identical
|
|
teeth, these stones shining
|
|
|
|
like enamel the
|
|
windows white with frost are blind
|
|
with cataracts
|
|
|
|
Just, now
|
|
host of sparrow
|
|
take to the evening sky
|
|
like frozen gears, so cold, they seize
|
|
and fall
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
"The Drowners" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jacqueline Jones
|
|
|
|
Kalian desires roam the street. This street where a woman and her
|
|
vagabond veggibound companion clutches a busted bodrhan blasted by
|
|
cosmic feedback!
|
|
|
|
In her right hand she holds a staff for to take into fields of
|
|
Elysium, infinite unsubdued fields that seem to cover the whole earth
|
|
like some kind of emerald gem greenprint plan for survival.
|
|
|
|
They walk through pasturized, uncomplicated fields strewn with cows,
|
|
they have their pentagrams and wellington boots. Something mystical is
|
|
about to happen. The milk from cows teats flows backwards, they hang
|
|
upside down. AND THIS IS NO JOKE.
|
|
|
|
Pools wind like spools, concentric springs in a cyclycal culture of
|
|
the unquiet great mother, as they reach out to caress some insensate
|
|
animal gathering sensory overload in their arms, ripples of a heavy
|
|
cow-bog moisture, and discovering that the world is not entirely
|
|
green, they dive in to sacrifice their lives, and root like preserves
|
|
in memory, their actions to be repeated, legends orally transmitted
|
|
through the ages, and they crying, come in and join us!
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
"Loveless Addictions" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stephen Miller
|
|
|
|
Through
|
|
Prolonged bouts
|
|
With the bottle
|
|
And masturbation
|
|
I learned to
|
|
Dispell
|
|
Your persistent
|
|
Memory.
|
|
A degenerated liver
|
|
and calloused hands
|
|
Are testaments
|
|
To my perseverant
|
|
Devotion to
|
|
Your absence.
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
"Silicon Dreamer" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Donna Dolezal Zelzer
|
|
|
|
Harmonic impressions
|
|
And crystal memories
|
|
Claim my attention.
|
|
Mystical, magical,
|
|
Mathematical -
|
|
They weave rare worlds
|
|
In the interstices of my mind.
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
"FAVORITE COMICS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Stutz
|
|
|
|
I hear somebody. I guess that there's someone else on the line; Mitch
|
|
had said that the lines were open, and so I called, and I didn't
|
|
expect anybody because I'd never really done this before, but somebody
|
|
was talking.
|
|
|
|
I did this a couple times, calling this shit late at night, and it was
|
|
real cool -- this night, there's a voice, a guy, talking to someone
|
|
else, a whisper. The whisper kept saying, "Yeah," and "Okay," and not
|
|
much else, like it was trying to avoid waking someone.
|
|
|
|
So I said, "Hello?"
|
|
|
|
And the voice talked. He said, "Hello?"
|
|
|
|
So I said, "What's up?"
|
|
|
|
And the voice said, "Not much. Listening to Mitch's show."
|
|
|
|
Mitch had put some music on, and I didn't like it all that much -- I
|
|
thought that the talk show was better, so I turned down the volume a
|
|
little. Then the voice said, "So what are you doing?"
|
|
|
|
"Me?"
|
|
|
|
"Yeah."
|
|
|
|
"Listening to the show."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah. I don't really like this shit."
|
|
|
|
"This music?"
|
|
|
|
"Yeah."
|
|
|
|
"Me neither."
|
|
|
|
So we both listened to the silence on the telephone for a while. The
|
|
whisper was even quiet.
|
|
|
|
"My neighbors are asleep," the voice said.
|
|
|
|
"Shouldn't they be?" I asked. "It's three a.m."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, but they're kind of weird."
|
|
|
|
"Why? Where do you live?"
|
|
|
|
"Euclid. Where are _you_ calling from?"
|
|
|
|
"North Royalton. I've never been to Euclid."
|
|
|
|
"I've never been to Royalton. I don't even know where that _is_."
|
|
|
|
I couldn't imagine anyone who lived in Cleveland and who hadn't been
|
|
to North Royalton. I mean, sure, there's East siders and West siders,
|
|
but North Royalton? I mean, come _on_!
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, but I have weird neighbors."
|
|
|
|
"How so?"
|
|
|
|
"This guy next to me worked for the post office. He sold cocaine and
|
|
he got busted, now all he does is sit around and play loud music --
|
|
loud soul music.
|
|
|
|
"He likes it that he's suspended -- he likes to sit around and play
|
|
music. When the weather's cold he invites everyone over that he knows
|
|
and has a barbecue -- with like sixty people."
|
|
|
|
I turn down the music on the radio a little more; I can't hear him all
|
|
that well. But he's still talking: "Then you know it's time to leave
|
|
-- you hear the thumping."
|
|
|
|
I hear a busy signal in the background, behind his voice.
|
|
|
|
He says, "Do you hear a busy signal?"
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," I say. Then, I say, "Hey -- is there someone else on here,
|
|
someone who was whispering?"
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," says the whisper.
|
|
|
|
"Oh."
|
|
|
|
The voice says, "I have to take off my socks -- hold on."
|
|
|
|
I hold on. I have nothing better to do.
|
|
|
|
Sockless, he says, "I want to go ice skating. I only went once, but I
|
|
want to go."
|
|
|
|
I say, "I went once. It didn't work out very well. I fell all over. I
|
|
was in Boy Scouts."
|
|
|
|
The voice is quiet to that.
|
|
|
|
I listen to the music; it's still pretty lousy.
|
|
|
|
"My neighbor asked me if I believe in God, and I said, 'No.'" This is
|
|
what the voice says, out of nowhere.
|
|
|
|
I wait a second, and then I say, "Oh."
|
|
|
|
I say, "So, tell me about your crazy neighbors."
|
|
|
|
He starts to talk. "There's two old people, the post office guy and
|
|
this old lady across the street. They're the only old people in the
|
|
neighborhood. Everyone else is young suburbanites: 'Hi, I work at
|
|
Tower City during the day and watch rented movies at night.' The old
|
|
people are the interesting ones. They're the ones on the medication.
|
|
|
|
"The old Alzheimer's woman is crazy."
|
|
|
|
"Why?"
|
|
|
|
"She's this old lady across the street and down a couple houses. My
|
|
window's on the side of the house and when she turns her porch light
|
|
on it hits my wall and it keeps me up -- you know how a little light
|
|
at night keeps you up? Well, she does this all the time . . . I wish I
|
|
knew her phone number because I'd call her up and say, 'What are you
|
|
doing?'"
|
|
|
|
He sounds like he doesn't believe that she's got her light on, like he
|
|
sees it but he just doesn't believe it. He's quiet for a second, like
|
|
he's reviewing what he just said, like he's talking to himself. He
|
|
says, "She'd probably say, 'Is it 1930 again?'
|
|
|
|
"She's crazy . . . she'll turn it off and on all night, at weird
|
|
times. I really wonder what she's doing."
|
|
|
|
"It's the disease," I say.
|
|
|
|
He is quiet to that.
|
|
|
|
Once, I wondered about that disease. I wondered what it would be like,
|
|
to not remember the things that you want to remember. To have to have
|
|
everything, all your good memories and all the noise, the stuff you
|
|
filter out, all go together. I think it would drive me nuts.
|
|
|
|
He is talking again. "I saw these pictures -- it's for a little kid's
|
|
coloring contest . . . most of these things were supposed to be red
|
|
and green, you know?"
|
|
|
|
"Christmas stuff?"
|
|
|
|
"Yeah. Well, most of them were okay, except this kid's, who was color
|
|
blind -- Santa was green, his nose was green -- it was pretty funny.
|
|
|
|
"I like the coloring contests. I always like to turn them in and
|
|
falsify my age . . . then they come and verify it."
|
|
|
|
We both laugh, and we hear the whisper laughing a little.
|
|
|
|
The voice says, "Family Circus has never been funny. I saw this thing
|
|
in the bookstore, they had all the Family Circuses ever, these thick
|
|
books. If you add up all the space he's been in newspapers, for the
|
|
past sixty years, it would probably fill up the space of the earth.
|
|
_Marmaduke_'s funnier than that.
|
|
|
|
"And Ziggy -- for a week, the guy that does it just does those vending
|
|
machines, and you wouldn't see Ziggy for a week."
|
|
|
|
The voice sounds really irritated, so I keep quiet, and listen.
|
|
|
|
"And B.C. -- _that_'s not funny.
|
|
|
|
"Calvin & Hobbes is strange: Calvin sends his pet _mail_ -- it shows
|
|
how schizophrenic he is.
|
|
|
|
"Born Loser -- I think there's a _computer_ that makes it. He draws so
|
|
bad, I don't think _anyone_ could draw so bad."
|
|
|
|
I laugh, but the voice sounds really pissed, and the whisper is quiet.
|
|
|
|
"Not many people put work into their things," the voice says. "I don't
|
|
know about Shoe. I think the guy's got _arthritis_ from the way he
|
|
draws. Herman's okay sometimes. Kinda that sadistic humor. And Bizarro
|
|
is okay once in a while.
|
|
|
|
"Cathy: you have to be a forty-year-old person to like it. And I guess
|
|
the real person is just like this -- she depicts her life in it.
|
|
|
|
"Beetle Baily is bad too -- I think the same computer draws that that
|
|
draws Born Loser. One box: 'Hey Sarge, what's going on?' and on the
|
|
next one: 'ZZZZ'"
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," I say, and I'm laughing.
|
|
|
|
"He's dead," says the whisper, and it surprises me.
|
|
|
|
"What?" asks the voice.
|
|
|
|
"He's dead -- the guy who does that comic."
|
|
|
|
"Oh, so then it _must_ be a computer that does it. Far Side is good
|
|
but it's too hard to find. They put it like in the Arts section or
|
|
something, away from the other comics. You have to look for it.
|
|
|
|
"Every publicized comic -- there's like two hundred of them in this
|
|
paper -- it would be okay to see, but most of them are like Family
|
|
Circus -- the computer drew it, and they just put in different words.
|
|
|
|
"I cut out these stupid things, bad comics, just to remember these
|
|
stupid things. I thought they used to be funny, but they're not
|
|
anymore -- they're not! After fifty years, it's not funny! I think the
|
|
Family Circus guy just turns in the same things."
|
|
|
|
I never read comics anymore, but I know exactly what he is talking
|
|
about. I mean, I read all that stuff before.
|
|
|
|
He says, "I'm thinking of writing to this newspaper and complaining."
|
|
|
|
"Do it," I say. He probably won't.
|
|
|
|
"They should have a comic that makes fun of other comics."
|
|
|
|
We're both quiet for a while, and then I ask him about his
|
|
neighborhood, if the crazy lady turned her light on again.
|
|
|
|
"No," he says, "but there's this other crazy lady about five houses
|
|
down that has an alarm on her house, but it's not a normal alarm --
|
|
it's like a buzzer from twenty years ago. And she's got one that when
|
|
you touch the house or anything it goes off . . . she sets it off by
|
|
mistake all the time -- but she hasn't done it lately.
|
|
|
|
"Once she locked herself out of the house and she called the fire
|
|
department to let her in. They were pissed when they got there and
|
|
there was no fire.
|
|
|
|
"She's crazy."
|
|
|
|
"Old people are crazy," I say. I once had this old man who lived next
|
|
door to me when I was a kid. He used to steal candy bars from the
|
|
store and give them to me. Then he would steal tools from our garage.
|
|
His fingers got cut off from his lawnmower once.
|
|
|
|
"I wonder if this lady sleeps during the day so she can turn the light
|
|
on all night."
|
|
|
|
The whisper says, "Send her a letter in the mail."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah -- maybe I will."
|
|
|
|
I put down the phone for a minute and go to the bathroom. In the
|
|
hallway, I'm extra quiet, so that I don't wake up my parents. I use
|
|
the downstairs bathroom for good measure.
|
|
|
|
"Okay, I'm back," I say, when I get back.
|
|
|
|
The voice says, "I got a Skippy jar full of urine, and another time I
|
|
got four pairs of women's underwear, menstruated -- all in the mail."
|
|
|
|
"_What_," I say.
|
|
|
|
"I got it in the mail. I sent about five thousand catalogs to my
|
|
friend's P.O. box at his dorm. They couldn't even fit it all in his
|
|
box, so he sent that shit to me."
|
|
|
|
"Why did you send him all those catalogs?"
|
|
|
|
"I was bored, and my mom has all these catalogs, and from the back of
|
|
mags like Cosmo I sent away for shit for him -- a free contact lens
|
|
cleaning kit (he just got arrested for trying to steal it) and a pair
|
|
of Depends underwear."
|
|
|
|
"He got arrested?"
|
|
|
|
"He got arrested because he needed it and he didn't have any money.
|
|
And the place he got it from only prosecutes if you steal over $4, and
|
|
it turned out to be $4.06. He got pissed . . . he got so pissed that
|
|
he sent me underwear in the mail that his roommate found in the
|
|
garbage."
|
|
|
|
"Oh."
|
|
|
|
"His mom hates me -- she thinks I degraded her son . . . she just
|
|
_hates_ me . . . he goes to Kent -- what other college would people
|
|
have no work, and they get so bored that they send shit in the mail?"
|
|
|
|
"I don't know. Do you go to college?"
|
|
|
|
"No," he says. "I did -- once. Whenever I go back, I'll probably major
|
|
in Art. There's all sorts of things I could do but probably never get
|
|
a job in, unless I come up with a bad cartoon and put it in the paper
|
|
-- but there's no room for anyone who does anything interesting."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah." It's hard to find work in the field you want. There just
|
|
doesn't seem to be as many opportunities as there once was, like on
|
|
television, on old t.v. shows where everyone has cool jobs. "My
|
|
neighbor just got home. There's this guy, his name's Nuna, he sells
|
|
cars for a living -- but at night, he'll leave at 3 a.m. and come back
|
|
around 4 -- I think he joyrides the cars. I've never seen him during
|
|
the day; I think he sleeps or works or something."
|
|
|
|
"Bye," says the whisper. He hung up; went to bed, probably.
|
|
|
|
I'm tired of all this -- the music is the same crap, so I shut the
|
|
radio off. Until next week; same time, same station.
|
|
|
|
"I'm tired, too," I say. "I think I'm gonna go."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," the voice says, with no inflection. He just says the word, and
|
|
then says this one: "Bye."
|
|
|
|
"I'll talk to you later," I say, not knowing what else to.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," he says, this time with a smirk.
|
|
|
|
"Bye," I say, and hang up. It's still dark out, but it won't last for
|
|
long. I get ready for bed: shut off the lights, pile in with my shirt
|
|
and pants still on, and let whatever's left of the dark hang over me.
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
|
|
About the Authors
|
|
|
|
o Robert A. Fulkerson (editor, rfulk@creighton.edu) is currently
|
|
thinking up strange things to do a Master's Thesis on. His poem, _snow
|
|
baby_, was featured in Volume 1, Issue 1.
|
|
|
|
o Andrea Krackow (krackoa@alleg.edu) is a nineteen year old girl in
|
|
Pennsylvania. In April she will live in a tree house with her friend
|
|
Aim. She builds flowers out of clay and chewing gum, and is a visual
|
|
arts major.
|
|
|
|
o Jacqueline Jones (jonesj@lamp.ac.uk) is a student at Lampeter
|
|
University in West Wales, studying classics. She is a surreo-mystic
|
|
with a keen interest in the theatre of the absurd.
|
|
|
|
o Kris M. Kalil (proofreader, kkalil@creighton.edu) is an intrepid
|
|
world traveler searching for the perfect slice of cheesecake and is a
|
|
graduate student in English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her
|
|
poem, _Leaving Home_, was featured in Volume 1, Issue 1.
|
|
|
|
o Matthew Mason (editor, mtmason@ucdavis.edu) Matt Mason is a
|
|
graduate student at UC Davis. He is currently organizing a book of his
|
|
poems that may be titled _God, Sex, Cows_ or something like that. He
|
|
has no future plans so please offer him a job or send him money. His
|
|
poems, _In Museums_ and _Conversation Hearts Ghazal_, appeared in
|
|
Volume 1, Issue 1.
|
|
|
|
o Stephen Miller (stephen.miller@m.cc.utah.edu) lives in Salt Lake
|
|
City, Utah, where he is attending graduate school. He is blessed with
|
|
having "too many" cats.
|
|
|
|
o Colin Morton (aa905@freenet.carleton.ca) has published four books of
|
|
poetry, and his first novel, _Oceans Apart_, will appear from Quarry
|
|
Press in 1995. His poem, _Yes Kai, yes Margaret, yes, yes, yes_, was
|
|
featured in Volume 1, Issue 1.
|
|
|
|
o Michael Stutz (at118@po.cwru.edu) is a net_writer living in
|
|
Cleveland. He says that _where_ you are is just about the same as
|
|
_who_ you are, and ("this is for real!" -- ms) he once took a bite of
|
|
Allen Ginsberg's banana.
|
|
|
|
o Gary E. Walker (walker@cofc.edu) is a 21-year-old Chemistry major at
|
|
the College of Charleston, SC. He has been writing off and on for some
|
|
time now, but finds the fact that he is writing this "about the
|
|
author" bit in third person highly amusing. [Ed. note: we ask each
|
|
author to submit a personal biography to us.]
|
|
|
|
o Donna Dolezal Zelzer (donnazelzr@aol.com) has been writing since she
|
|
was about 5 or 6 and has had a small number of things published. She's
|
|
currently working at a small press magazine, _Midwifery Today_, as
|
|
marketing director, database designer and
|
|
person-in-charge-of-online-stuff.
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
|
|
In Their Own Words
|
|
|
|
o _Driving Past 27 Pigs in the Middle of June With the Windows Open_
|
|
by Gary E. Walker
|
|
"Pigs-B-Zen. Zen-B-Pigs. Therefore, Zen smells bad and eats its
|
|
own feces. That's really all there is to this poem. Me, my
|
|
little orange Toyota, Hwy 701, and a pig farm in eastern NC.
|
|
Wake up and smell the pork."
|
|
|
|
o _Answers to the Riddle_ by Colin Morton
|
|
"I teach a creative writing class at Algonquin College in
|
|
Ottawa and have been using _The Practice of Poetry_ edited by
|
|
Robin Behn & Chase Twichell. Working through the many
|
|
stimulating exercises in the book on my own helped me loosen up
|
|
and simply enjoy writing. These are my answers to Alberta
|
|
Turner's exercise, 'Intelligence Test.'"
|
|
|
|
o _Beautiful Doll_ by Andrea Krackow
|
|
"_Beautiful Doll_ was composed while on a Sunday jog in
|
|
Pennsylvania. The morning light made me think of peaches, and
|
|
there was a that crummy Sunday-feeling creeping about."
|
|
|
|
o _While Walking_ by Andrea Krackow
|
|
"_While Walking_ is a poem about a crush. I composed it on foot
|
|
while walking to a 7 Eleven to buy marshmallows."
|
|
|
|
o _Questions on Art James and others_ by Andrea Krackow
|
|
"_Questions on Art James and others_ is an obsession/ridiculous
|
|
poem.
|
|
|
|
o _The Drowners_ by Jacqueline Jones
|
|
"I wrote this piece in [the] summer of 93 after going to a
|
|
music festival, and reading lots of stuff about aliens, and
|
|
absorbing the organic and occult atmosphere of Lampeter and
|
|
environs."
|
|
|
|
o _Loveless Addictions_ by Stephen Miller
|
|
"Well, this one should be pretty obvious. I was drunk and a bit
|
|
sad, missing someone whose voice, flesh, eyes, mind and
|
|
presence mean a great deal to me. I guess if it 'means'
|
|
anything, the poem is about the visceral feel of longing for
|
|
something that has long been dissipated. Literary
|
|
references/influences here: Charles Bukowski and Jim Carrol."
|
|
|
|
o _Silicon Dreamer_ by Donna Dolezal Zelzer
|
|
"_Silicon Dreamer_ started as a few interesting phrases
|
|
generated by a very simple computer 'poetry writing' program I
|
|
wrote in response to an article I read in an sf magazine. Then
|
|
I just played around with the words until I discovered
|
|
something with sounds and connotations that pleased me."
|
|
|
|
o _Our Favorite Comics_ by Michael Stutz
|
|
"I wrote it on my laptop one night while talking to a stranger
|
|
on the telephone. I listen to those late-night college radio
|
|
talk shows that the story briefly mentions, and sometimes the
|
|
dj at this one station would set up a party line where people
|
|
could call and talk. Well, one night I called it and met up
|
|
with two people and had a totally inane conversation at about
|
|
four in the morning, which formed the basis of the story."
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
|
|
Where to Find _The Morpo Review_
|
|
|
|
Current and past issues of _TMR_ can be located and obtained via the
|
|
following means:
|
|
|
|
o Interactive Methods:
|
|
The following methods of accessing _TMR_ allow you to
|
|
interactively pick and choose what you want to read. WWW and
|
|
ReadRoom support are the most interactive, allowing you to
|
|
select individual pieces to read. Gopher access simply provides
|
|
access to _TMR_ as one whole issue.
|
|
|
|
o Via the World Wide Web.
|
|
Point your WWW browswer to:
|
|
http://morpo.creighton.edu/morpo/
|
|
|
|
o Via Gopher.
|
|
Just point your Gopher client to one of the following
|
|
sites:
|
|
|
|
o morpo.creighton.edu in /The Morpo Review
|
|
o ftp.etext.org in /Zines/Morpo.Review
|
|
|
|
o Via the following Bulletin Board Systems:
|
|
|
|
The Outlands (Ketchikan, Alaska, USA)
|
|
+1 907-247-4733, +1 907-225-1219, +1 907-225-1220.
|
|
_The Outlands_ is the home BBS system for the
|
|
ReadRoom BBS Door format. You can download the
|
|
IBM-PC/DOS ReadRoom version here.
|
|
|
|
o Semi-interactive methods:
|
|
You can grab the full text of past issues (currently ASCII
|
|
only) from the following sites.
|
|
|
|
o Via Anonymous FTP.
|
|
Just point your FTP client to ftp.etext.org in
|
|
/pub/Zines/Morpo.Review
|
|
|
|
o Via America Online
|
|
Just use Keyword: PDA and then select Palmtop Paperbacks/
|
|
Electronic Articles and Newsletters. You can find the
|
|
DOS-based ReadRoom version here, also.
|
|
|
|
o Subscriptions:
|
|
You can obtain an electronic mail subscription and have the
|
|
full ASCII version of _TMR_ arrive automatically in your e-mail
|
|
box when it is released to the public. Send Internet mail with
|
|
a subject of "Moo!" (or some variation thereof) to
|
|
_morpo-request@morpo.creighton.edu_ and you will be added to
|
|
the distribution list. There are currently 174 world-wide
|
|
subscribers.
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
|
|
Addresses for _The Morpo Review_
|
|
|
|
rfulk@creighton.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Fulkerson, Co-Editor
|
|
mtmason@ucdavis.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matthew Mason, Co-Editor
|
|
|
|
kkalil@creighton.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kris Kalil, Proofreader
|
|
tsmwg@alaska.edu . . . . . . . . . . Mike Gates, ReadRoom Layout Designer
|
|
|
|
morpo-submissions@morpo.creighton.edu . Submissions to _The Morpo Review_
|
|
morpo-request@morpo.creighton.edu . . . Requests for E-Mail subscriptions
|
|
morpo-comments@morpo.creighton.edu . . . Comments about _The Morpo Review_
|
|
morpo-editors@morpo.creighton.edu . . . . . Reach all the editors at once
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
|
|
Submit to _The Morpo Review_
|
|
|
|
What kind of work do we want? How about Sonnets to Captain
|
|
Kangaroo, free-verse ruminations comparing plastic lawn ornaments to _Love
|
|
Boat_ or nearly anything with cows in it. No, not cute, Smurfy little "ha
|
|
ha" ditties--back reality into a corner and snarl! Some good examples are
|
|
"Oatmeal" by Galway Kinnell, "A Supermarket In California" by Allen
|
|
Ginsberg, or the 6th section of Wallace Stevens' "Six Significant
|
|
Landscapes."
|
|
|
|
But, hey, if this makes little or no sense, just send us good stuff;
|
|
if we like it, we'll print it, even if it's nothing close to the above
|
|
description of what we want (life's like that at times). Just send us
|
|
good stuff, get published, and impress your peers and neighbors.
|
|
|
|
So send us your unhinged poetry, prose and essay contemplations at
|
|
|
|
morpo-submissions@morpo.creighton.edu
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
|
|
Our next issue will be available around May 15, 1994.
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
|