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poemm Number Fourteen/2015 Amye Archer emoir Tina Mozelle Braziel Janna Brooke Cohen Stephanie Kaplan Cohen Denise Duhamel story Eliza Gilmore Meredith Davies Hadaway Jane Hertenstein Christine Higgins Kate Hovey Kathleen A. Kelly Catherine Landis Dell Lemmon J. Annie MacLeod Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich Bethany Mitchell Carmen Nieto Jenna Rindo Claire Schwartz Maura Stanton Christine Stewart-Nuñez Brittany Tacconi Kathleen Thompson Julie Marie Wade Margaret Wrinkle Lisa Zerkle 2015 $10.00 .. PMSpoemmemoirstory 2015number fourteen Copyright © 2015 by PMS poemmemoirstory PMS poemmemoirstory appears once a year. We accept unpublished, origi- nal submissions of poetry, memoir, and short fiction during our January 1 through March 31 reading period. We accept simultaneous submissions; however, we ask that you please contact us immediately if your piece is published elsewhere so we may free up space for other authors. While PMS is a jour nal of exclu sively women’s writ ing, the sub ject field is wide open. We strongly encourage you to familiarize yourself with PMS before submitting. You can find links to some examples of what we publish in the pages of PMS 8 and PMS 9. We ask that you limit your sub mis sion to either five poems or 15 pages of prose (4,300 words or less). We look forward to reading your work. Please note: PMS submissions are going all-digital this year on Submit- table. Our reading period remains the same, and there is now a $3 fee, which covers costs associated with our online submissions system. Please send all submissions to https://poemmemoirstory.submittable.com/sub- mit. For any other correspondence, contact us at poemmemoirstory@gmail. com. PMS poemmemoirstory is a member of the Council of Literary Maga- zines and Presses (CLMP) and the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ). Indexed by the Humanities International Index and in Feminist Periodicals: A Current Listing of Contents, PMS poemmemoirstory is distributed to the trade by Ingram Periodicals, 1226 Heil Quaker Blvd., La Vergne, TN 37086-7000. patrons College of Arts and Sciences The University of Alabama at Birmingham The Department of English, The University of Alabama at Birmingham Margaret Harrill Robert Morris, M.D. C. Douglas Witherspoon, M.D. friends Sandra Agricola Andrew Glaze Dail W. Mullins Jr. Daniel Anderson Robert P. Glaze Michael R. Payne Rebecca Bach Randa Graves Robert Lynn Penny George W. Bates Ron Guthrie Lee and Pam Person Peter and Miriam Bellis Ward Haarbauer William Pogue Claude and Nancy Ted Haddin Kieran Quinlan & Bennett John Haggerty Mary Kaiser Randy Blythe Richard Hague Jim Reed James Bonner Sang Y. Han Steven M. Rudd F.M. Bradley Jeff Hansen Rusty Rushton Mary Flowers Braswell Tina Harris John Sartain Jim Braziel Jessica Heflin Janet Sharp Karen Brookshaw Patti Callahan Henry Danny Siegel Bert Brouwer Pamela Horn Juanita Sizemore Edwin L. Brown Jennifer Horne Martha Ann Stevenson Donna Burgess William Hutchings Lou Suarez Linda Casebeer Lanier Scott Isom Susan Swagler Alicia K. Clavell Joey Kennedy Jeane Thompson John E. Collins Sue Kim Drucilla Tyler Robert Collins Marilyn Kurata Catherine Danielou Ruth and Edward Maria Vargas Jim L. Davidson Lamonte Adam Vines Michael Davis Beverly Lebouef Daniel Vines Denise Duhamel Ada Long Larry Wharton Charles Faust Susan Luther Elaine Whitaker Grace Finkel John C. Mayer Jacqueline Wood Edward M. Friend III James Mersmann John M. Yozzo Stuart Flynn Will Miles Carol Prejean Zippert staff editor-in-chief Kerry Madden managing editor Bethany Mitchell senior editors Halley Cotton, Poem Bethany Mitchell, Memoir Sarah Jennings, Story assistant editors Xenia Bethancourt Laura Simpson Mary Doss Cheyenne Taylor Christia Givens Jennie Tippett Melba Major Chance Turner Jamie McFaden Jason Walker business managers Pamela M. Parker Bethany Mitchell administrative assistants Sarah Jennings Bethany Mitchell cover design Michael J. Alfano cover art “World War II Postcards.” Submitted by Dell Lemmon from her grandmother’s collection of old postcards. production/printing 47 Journals, LLC contents from the Editor-in-Chief 1 Bethany Mitchell The Tension of Opposites: An Interview with Margaret Wrinkle 5 poemmemoirstory Claire Schwartz uncoaxed 37 Dell Lemmon Anti-postcards 38 Stephanie Kaplan Cohen The Cross Dressing Canteloupe 40 Jenna Rindo Step Over Cracks 41 Kate Hovey Out of Air 43 Christine Higgins When I Go 45 Having a Daughter 47 Brittany Tacconi Easter 1999 48 Kathleen Thompson Lament on Distance 49 Tina Mozelle Braziel The Afterlife of Pine 50 Laurel Knob 51 Carmen Nieto City 52 Which Memories Will Our Children Have? 54 Eliza Gilmore Book of Hours 55 On Watching My Older Brother Read Moby-Dick 57 Kathleen A. Kelly She Ought to Know Better 59 About the Bed We Share 60 The Third Thing 62 Mr. Ninda’s Business 64 contents… Lisa Zerkle Transformation 66 Meredith Davies Hadaway Wash Day 67 poemmemoirstory Denise Duhamel & Julie Marie Wade Green 71 Amye Archer Slow Motion 78 Christine Stewart-Nuñez Culinary Alchemy 85 Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich Opal 91 poemmemoirstory Catherine Landis Speechless 99 Maura Stanton One Hundred Famous Views 104 Janna Brooke Cohen The Doll Maker’s Tale 115 J. Annie MacLeod American Gothic 125 Jane Hertenstein Heartbreak Wall 138 contributors 148 FROM THE editor-in-chief Dear Reader, I thought I would begin this issue with some advice from Harper Lee, who once said: “Well, the first advice I would give is this: hope for the best and expect nothing. Then you won’t be disappointed.” Her words resonate today for every writer submitting work, although honestly it’s easier said than done, don’t you think? Who doesn’t, after all, hope that each time they sit down to write a story or a poem or a memoir that one day it will find a loving home and readers? As a writer, I have despaired over the seas of “no thank yous’” that lap upon the shore with each sub- mission, and as an editor, it’s often very difficult to say no to the good work that pours in during each reading period. But what is the alternative? Not to write? Not to submit? To give up hope? Flannery O’Connor wrote: “People without hope not only don’t write novels, but what is more to the point, they don’t read them.” As writers we have to find those slivers and slabs of hope, but even more than hoping, we have to devote the hours and time in the chair, letting our imaginations run wild on the page and giving our hearts and minds to the work at hand. We also write for those who have not given up hope because they are our readers. And so on that note, I am very grateful that Margaret Wrinkle did not give up hope when writing her novel, WASH, which took her over two decades to complete. Working as a filmmaker, artist, and teacher with roots deep in Birmingham and the world, Wrinkle always returned to the story that haunted her as the rumored ancestor of slave breeders. Haunted by her characters, she found a way to atone through fiction to her give her characters a life on the page. Bethany Mitchell’s interview with Wrinkle delves deeply into her process, and as writers and readers, we can all learn from her struggles and courage during her journey to create WASH. PoemMemoirStory is also overjoyed to have the poems of Dell Lemmon, Stephanie Kaplan Cohen, Tina Mozelle Braziel and so many others. This is an issue packed with poems from all ages and experiences in the landscape of verse. From Dell’s grandmother’s postcards to Cohen’s PMS.. 1 cross-dressing cantaloupes to Braziel’s granite domes and piney trees that scrape the Southern Appalachian skies, their words and so many others fill these pages with stunning vistas of grief, joy, and redemption. Each poem in this issue is a tiny, magnificent world unto itself—from freckled knees to the Greek sands of Amorgos to an ode to distance, and how the distances can often tyrannize our lives through years, miles, and silence. These poets give us a sense of beauty and connection as readers seeking connection. James Baldwin wrote: “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.” The first memoir piece is a collaborative essay by Denise Duhamel and Julia Marie Wade called, “Green,” which opens at the green grave of Dylan Thomas in Wales and covers miles and years of stories filled with green and longing. The second is “Slow Motion” by Amye Archer, the tale of two wildly different sisters on the streets of New York riding the subway, which reeks of “hot garbage soup” and begs the question of belonging and who gets to belong and who doesn’t. Finally the third memoir is “Culinary Alchemy” by Christine Stewart-Nunez, about a girl determined to cook for her sweetheart’s family, which calls upon kitchen witches and heart-shaped tomatoes and the visit of wrecked dreams of a mother who cooked for a father who preferred Wild Turkey to roast beef and potatoes. In the stories we have the luminous prose of Catherine Landis whose excerpted work from her southern novel, SPEECHLESS, gives us the tale of a woman who has decided to stop talking to see if anyone will notice. In Maura Stanton’s story, “One Hundred Famous Views,” we traverse the world to Italy where an artist survives by living on the cheap and teaching other aspiring artists how to paint the most beautiful city in the world.