IN-SCAPE (N.) The essential, distinctive, and revolutionary quality of a thing: “Here is the inscape, the epiphany, the moment of truth.” -Madison Smartt Bell INSCAPE • 1 Faculty Advisors George Eklund Chris Holbrook Elizabeth Mesa-Gaido Gary Mesa-Gaido Crystal Wilkinson Dr. Thomas Williams Editors Ben Whisman Amanda Kelley Graduate Consultant Sean L Corbin Cover Design Penny Ashton Johnson Editorial Board Hannah Brown Joshua Adam Campbell Renee Dawson William Blake Gevedon Nicholas T. James Bethany Johnson Lindsey Roe Special Thanks To Morehead State University Department of Art and Design Department of English Office of Communications & Marketing Interdisciplinary Women’s Studies Program Kentucky Philological Association INSCAPE • 2 POETRY Sean L Corbin After a shower .............................................. 8 Square the root of loneliness ..................... 10 The longing desert ....................................... 10 Almost everyone is miserable ................... 15 Jeremy Wade Thacker Old Men Boredom Careless Candy ........... 16 Mary Kasimor from out of our mothers hot jazz ................ 17 raspberries .................................................... 18 Amanda Kelley Seven a.m. ..................................................... 20 Renee Dawson [The soul is an…] ......................................... 20 [It happens that I greet…] .......................... 22 [I am fluent in regret…] .............................. 23 [It is said that we are…] ............................. 25 Dallas Cox Frozen ............................................................ 25 Dorothy Bouzouma Exit Wound .................................................... 26 On a street in Brooklyn ............................... 27 Rebecca Baker Subtraction is Only Simple Math ............... 28 The Time I Was Murdered .......................... 30 Veronica Gollihue Memento Mori .............................................. 33 Caleb Hall Haunted by a Woman in Heels .................. 34 That flicker’s not a flame............................. 36 The Old New World ..................................... 37 Aspen Grender Cobwebs ........................................................ 38 Grant Wilcoxon Fractals .......................................................... 39 Making Place ................................................ 40 INSCAPE • 3 Nicholas T. James Was it 5 cups or 6 cups, punk? .................. 40 Marching ....................................................... 42 Jane Satterfield Triptych: Exile and Entanglement .............. 43 Solstice .......................................................... 45 Cortney Stewart Stuck .............................................................. 46 Matthew Jent Memoir of Autumnal Day ............................ 48 Flowstone Hymnal ....................................... 50 Flying Machine ............................................. 50 Ben Caldwell Campfire ........................................................ 51 Christopher Knox Sonogram ...................................................... 52 Selene ............................................................ 53 the last Indian ............................................... 54 Snow Beds .................................................... 56 Black Crow Down ........................................ 58 Ned Balbo The Owls ........................................................ 59 Your Ghost ..................................................... 59 Jeffrey C. Alfier To Those Who Endure on Anaheim Avenue ........................................................... 61 The Problem with Sunday Morning at the Atomic Inn .......................................... 62 Journey McAndrews Litany .............................................................. 64 Christopher Prewitt Ingenuity ........................................................ 65 Newlyweds ................................................... 67 Funny Glasses on an Ancient Human Skull .................................................. 69 Another Failed Effort at Bonding ............... 70 Dilemma, Mantra, Bargaining .................... 71 INSCAPE • 4 TRANSLATIONS Katerina Stoykova-Klemer Stoyanka Grudova Daring ............................................................ 74 Marin Bodakov An Addition to a Poem ................................ 75 INTERVIEW Sean L Corbin An interview with Donald Ray Pollock ..... 76 NONFICTION Sean L Corbin Silence ........................................................... 80 An appreciation of foreign cinema ........... 83 Sara Volpi Alive ............................................................... 85 Rebecca Rine-Stone I’d Like to Thank My Colon ......................... 88 Jo Grayson The Gospel of Herman ................................ 98 FICTION Josh Shepherd Scavengers ................................................... 104 Misty Skaggs Dolly and I ..................................................... 113 Caleb Hall The Hunt ........................................................ 115 Bethany Johnson Visiting Elena ................................................ 119 Sean L Corbin Everything is getting complicated ............. 125 A message for Ted ....................................... 126 Charles Maynard L’anima ........................................................... 128 Heart on the Outside ................................... 129 Christopher Prewitt Prophecies 44 and 29 .................................. 130 INSCAPE • 5 VISUAL ART Marvin Andrew Puckett Wrankle ......................................................... 9 Erika Bias AAu Rin TG .................................................... 14 Annie Peterson Inner Demons ............................................... 19 Lauren Posma Hungry ........................................................... 21 Penny Ashton Johnson An Old Voice in My Head ............................ 24 Ryan Morris Sea-Section .................................................. 29 Shauna Boyd Wasted Meat ................................................ 32 Shalita Compton Nature Fairy .................................................. 35 Emily Johnson Words of the Heart ...................................... 41 Mark Snyder Mister ............................................................. 47 Matthew Jent Admittance .................................................... 49 Meggan Sloas Spirit Walker ................................................. 55 Maria Blevins Clipped Wings .............................................. 57 Jonathan Nickles Wisdom .......................................................... 60 Marvin Andrew Puckett The Light Within ........................................... 63 Angela Sheehan Here’s Looking at You Looking at Me ........ 66 Jeff Herr Teapot ............................................................ 68 Christopher Burton Ansco ............................................................. 72 Radiation ....................................................... 73 Marina White Benham Glazed & Confused ...................................... 79 Charles S. McKinney Crumble ......................................................... 82 Jarrid Scott Shine .............................................................. 87 Laurie Stoutenburgh Wander .......................................................... 97 Amanda Berry William ........................................................... 103 CONTRIBUTORS ........................................................................ 137 INSCAPE • 6 INSCAPE • 7 POETRY Sean L Corbin After a shower I want to tell you a story. Nicotine laces shoestrings hung across the windowsill. The wind is a harp. The beard is a soured chicken breast. Steam fogs the glass of a cigarette filter. The eyes are sacks of tobacco eggplants. There is something behind a palm print in the mirror. I want to tell you a rockslide. The teeth sag. Everywhere a smile is a button on the falling curtain. The grill yearns in the music. The towel skips the earthquake. The scar swells the chest of old clothes and moths. Ash is in the arm hair. I want to tell you a soda pop. Caffeine is the neck line. Empty carbon footprints dot the scalp. Where are the bubbles? In the hot ink. Where is the sugar? In the wet paper. Where is the bottle? In the stumbling creek. I want to tell you a miniature ship. INSCAPE • 8 Marvin Andrew Puckett Wrankle Ceramic First Place Art Award INSCAPE • 9 Sean L Corbin Square the root of loneliness [for Asheville] Amongst the goodnight I treble the frequencies and lampoon the ostrich oleander that abides the mustard sandwiches, the west amphitheater and kittens Greco-roaming the butcher streets, the apples waxing the moon in a jar in a bar, the cinnamon ice cream skyscraper of a cock accusing the clouds over Pack Square the root of loneliness of tangerines. Fried egg beef patty water spigots and the wedding cake, the box, the pastry trolley, the tasty folly of tourism as a means to smile at Asian abdominal tulips, both ready to lick clean the poppy seeds. The hippy creeds don’t describe the mountain’s thoughts – I see them in Indian cheese fries dripping from a bird’s beard. The bard, a wolf. The more built the more come, which is to say the honeymoons, the fructose lunar halo orgasms of light beneath sand, the stars, the Pabst Blue Ribbon, the maddest true gibbon screeches Hello! and the number of God. Sean L Corbin The longing desert [from “Look Homeward”] [One] Sand the salamanders across the grit. The fire is inflammable. Where is