Issue 19: Sustaining

Editor’s Note: Issue 19

Dear Readers,

Welcome to  19th issue! The theme for this issue, “Sustaining,” has been a wonderfully thought-provoking one, personally and for our entire staff. Sustaining in the sense of preserving natural resources was the original impetus for the theme and something that is close to our hearts and often discussed around the coffee pot in one another’s kitchens. Things like, “Do you buy in bulk? How is composting going?” Or admissions of guilt over the recycling we threw out in the rush to get the house clean or how hard it is to remember to bring our own grocery bags. And then even questions about what really counts, works, or matters in the whole big mess of things. All of these personal practices and how they affect our society now and in the future are ways we feel we can personally be responsible for the community around us and the natural resources we have been given.

Leif Enger judged our short story prize this year (of which the winners are in this very issue), and his comments on the finalists were beautiful and made me think about writing and sustaining in a new way. He says that through the art of writing we are participating in what Wendell Berry calls to “practice resurrection.” This is the last line of Berry’s poem “Manifesto: the Mad Farmer Liberation Front.” A poem of warnings: If you “Love the quick profit . . . Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer” and exhortations: “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”

And I love this idea. Because Jesus is alive, will be alive, and all of heaven and earth will be renewed, we have the power to be about sustaining and resurrecting right now—resurrecting the small patch of garden in my back yard or the many things I bring into my house that my son insists can always be used again for something else. And not only the power but the freedom to rightly practice the job given in the original garden—to work it and take care of it—and as God later tells the Israelites—to not overwork the land, “the land itself must observe a Sabbath to the Lord.” We do this not out of fear, but out of joy in the amazing goodness of a family supper, a comforting shade tree, and the sheer pleasure of participating in our Father’s creative work.

This issue also contains Ruminate’s first book review (p. 46). Melanie Springer Mock reviews Walking Gently on the Earth—a recently published book by Lisa Graham McMinn and Megan Neff. Mock says that as a working mother “with a moderate income, a barren yard, and poor cooking skills,” she is often skeptical of books on sustainability, but what she found in Walking Gently was different—the book’s challenge to live sustainably is “measured by the sense that [it] should not create a heavy burden to be suffered through, but instead provide a richer existence, one worth celebrating.” I think you’ll find the review both compelling and refreshing.

And we are proud to feature artist Bruce Herman and his most recent collection Presence/Absence. He says of his work that he has tried to “bear witness to something impossible to articulate.” And much of his work in this collection is a witness to the weather-worn peninsula north of Boston—Cape Ann, a place also loved and witnessed by T.S. Eliot, in whom Herman finds a kindred verse: “You are not here to verify . . . You are here to kneel.” (The Four Quartets)

We at Ruminate hope to be a part of this kneeling, this witnessing of sustaining words and visual images, as well as the resurrecting of the physical world around us. We invite you to “hot-pinked and over-perfumed” peonies (Giroux, p.7) and screeching out of a school parking lot in the middle of the school day wearing a Big Bird head (Smith, p. 19), hoping you find your own sense of resurrection.

With peace and hope,

Amy Lowe

Senior Editor

2011 William Van Dyke Short Story Prize

Sponsored by the William Van Dyke Family Charitable Foundation with finalist judge Leif Enger.

PRIZE WINNER
Allyson Armistead, “Oasis”

RUNNER UP
Jessica Smith, “Something Quick and Bright”

FINALISTS
Sally Bellerose, “Mouth to Mouth”
Linda McCullough Moore, “Contracting Obligations”
Lance Nixon, “War”
Amy Pechukas, “Sam Kenneth Jones”
Lyle Roebuck, “The Crab”
Rebecca Schwartz, “The Last Brisket”

Peonies

Drawn by heat, tongues of flame emerge,
sinuous, stilled in northern shadows,

like starlets in their form-fitting dresses
captured, in black and white, by paparazzi.

Tinged blood-red, stalks lift skyward,
trailing green. Leaves, like fists,

emerge, unclench,
revealing magicians’ balls

that open only under
the pinpricks of incisors.

Shameless in magenta,
hot-pinked and over-perfumed,

they flash their golden headdresses,
like crowned queens,

beauty pageant contestants
primping for portrait shots.

Weighted down by beauty,
they flirt with the earth,

a come-hither look,
‘til rains come.

We pluck these beauties, enjoy them
a few weeks each spring.

We beat them on the ground
to drive away the ants,

leave them to lie, waning,
on sandy flagstones.

Brown-edged, their feathers fall,
like yellowing bruises,

around weighted vases.
Stalks, unpicked, bleed

red on green, exposed, poised,
posed for an O’Keeffe print.

We kneel before them
to cut them down.

Contributor’s Notes

Allyson Armistead is a graduate of the MFA program at George Mason University. She was listed inNarrative Magazine as one of 30 Under 30 exceptional emerging writers, was nominated for the 2010 Best New American Voices anthology, and was the recipient of the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award in 2008. Her short fiction has appeared in Emprise Review, Coal City Review, and Narrative Magazine and was recognized as a finalist in the 2010 New Millennium Writings short fiction contest. She is currently at work on a novel,The Way of Lien, a story set around the events of the 1937 Nanking massacre. Allyson resides in the Washington, DC, area with her husband and cat.

Brian Baumgart teaches at North Hennepin Community College just outside Minneapolis and holds an MFA in creative writing from Minnesota State University, Mankato. In a former life, he was an alternative high school teacher. Although he self-defines as a “transient writer,” having moved around since birth—originally from Texas—, he is now clearly a Minnesotan, and he is comfortable with this. His writing has been published in or is forthcoming from various journals, including Sweet, Tipton Poetry Journal, Blue Earth Review, Orange Coast Review, and Blood & Honey Review.

Sara Burant’s poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including Prairie Schooner, Poetry East, and The Comstock Review. She eschews plane travel in favor of trains and lives mostly car-free in Eugene, OR, with her husband, a dog and very old cat in a house which is perennially under construction. A small flock of chickens inhabits her garden and a very fine coop.

Richard Cummings is an associate professor of art at College of the Ozarks and is also the director of the college’s Boger Gallery. He received his MAFA in studio art from the University of Leeds in England and has exhibited work on three continents. His piece “Christ.223 | Locked and Loaded” is touring the country for the next three years in the CIVA exhibition, Work: Curse or Calling, and he will be exhibiting his assemblage work at Asbury University in late August. Richard is the husband of the beautiful and talented Alana Trueblood Cummings and the father of two energetic and amazing boys. He writes: “The three works featured in this issue of Ruminate are composed of the discarded and forgotten pieces of our culture and the fractured, decayed elements of nature. Sticks, stones, and quirky objects (like pumpkin stems) unite with oxidized metals, bits of worn plastic and broken pottery. The process is redemptive and becomes a physical metaphor for the spiritual truth that Christ redeems us back into a wholeness and unity with God. ”

Gretchen Fletcher’s second chapbook, The Scent of Oranges: poems from the tropics, is being released by Finishing Line Press in the spring of 2011. The poems in the collection are set in South Florida where she lives and suffers from wanderlust. Fortunately, her poetry gives her ample opportunities to travel for readings, book signings, and award ceremonies. The most exciting of those was in Times Square where she was projected on the JumboTron while reading her poem that won the Poetry Society of America’s Bright Lights/Big Verse competition.

CJ Giroux is a lifelong resident of Michigan who continues to be inspired by the peninsulas that surround him. Born and raised in the metropolitan Detroit area, he is an instructor of English at Saginaw Valley State University. He has been published in Bear River Review, Thema, Relief, San Pedro River Review, The Prose-Poem Project, and The Ambassador Poetry Project, among other publications.

Charity Gingerich is originally from Northeast Ohio and is anticipating the completion of her MFA in poetry from West Virginia University in May. She will be teaching creative writing and composition this spring, and finishing her thesis! Gingerich is excited to share that her essay “Of the Meadow,” which appeared inRuminate’s Issue 18, was nominated for a Pushcart. She is especially thankful for the gift of love in her life.

Kendra Langdon Juskus is the editor of Flourish magazine, which inspires and informs Christians in stewarding and enjoying creation. Her poetry was a mostly private passion until she won the first annualPrairie Light Review poetry contest in 2009, and now she is gradually releasing it into the wilds of the world. Originally from New York’s Hudson River Valley, Kendra is enjoying the wide skies and fertile gardening ground of Illinois, where she lives with her husband, Ryan.

Jane Lebak wrote her first book at age three, in magenta crayon, on green-bar computer paper. Her writing has improved since 1975, but the passion remains. Her first publication was her novel The Guardian (Thomas Nelson, 1994 under the name Jane Hamilton). Her second novel, Seven Archangels: Annihilation is currently in-print with Double-Edged Publishing, a small press. She’s had shorter pieces published in New Christian Voices, Mothering, Muse, and The Wittenburg Door, among others. She has an MA in English from SUNY Brockport.

Joey Locicero lives in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.  He is a recent graduate of The University of Akron where he studied English, with an emphasis on film literature and creative writing. Along with Ruminate, his work has also appeared in the Penwood Review.

Donovan McAbee loves long drives on mountain roads, kudzu-covered forests, and his currently inanimate 1969 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. Originally from a small town in the foothills region of South Carolina, he moved to Nashville, TN, in 2009 after completing his PhD in contemporary poetry at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Melanie Springer Mock has two eight-year-old sons, Benjamin and Samuel, and two stepchildren, Melissa (30) and Ryan (26). She is an associate professor at George Fox University and has written for a number of publications. Her book, Writing Peace: The Unheard Voices of Great War Mennonite Objectors, was published in 2002. Even though her kids stopped naps five years ago, Melanie still takes one every afternoon, even at her office.

Amy Pechukas is originally from Brooklyn, NY, and now lives in Watertown, MA. She has loved to write since she was a kid, and in 2005, she was serendipitously invited to join a wonderful writing group led by a fabulous facilitator, Deborah Bluestein of Juicebox Artists in Somerville, MA. The group followed the Amherst Writers & Artists Method, and all participants simultaneously wrote short unedited pieces in class based on prompts. Amy participated on and off in the group for the next five years and her story, “Sam Kenneth Jones,” grew out of one of these prompts.

Luci Shaw is a poet and essayist who lives in Bellingham, WA, and spends her summers fending off the hungry deer who nibble at her garden. She is working on her thirty-first book. Her most recent books areBreath for the Bones: Art, Imagination & Spirit, What the Light Was Like, and Harvesting Fog: New Poems.

Jessica Smith was born just outside Buffalo, NY, (which explains her love of pierogi, bleu cheese, and the Buffalo Sabres) and has lived and taught in Minnesota and Maine. She currently teaches writing and literature at Central Maine Community College and has had work published in Permafrost, Louisville Review, Portland Review, and the Berkeley Review. She lives near the coast with a boyfriend who can do a mean Maine accent and a cat who thinks she’s a human.

Cole Thompson lives in Laporte, CO, where he creates black and white photography that has appeared in hundreds of exhibitions numerous publications, and has received many awards. His work also appeared inRuminate’s innagural issue. He writes: “I am often asked, ‘Why black and white?’. I think it’s because I grew up in a black-and-white world. Television, movies and the news were all in black and white. My heroes were in black and white and even the nation was segregated into black and white. My images are an extension of the world in which I grew up. Darkness in my images represents the trials of our human existence while the light represents the strength and power that comes from the realization that we are the captains of our souls. For me color records the image, but black and white captures the feelings that lie beneath the surface.”

Paul J. Willis is a professor of English at Westmont College in Santa Barbara. He is the author of two volumes of poetry, Visiting Home (Pecan Grove Press, 2008) and Rosing from the Dead (WordFarm, 2009) as well as Bright Shoots of Everlastingness: Essays on Faith and the American Wild (WordFarm, 2005). His most recent book is a four-part eco-fantasy novel, The Alpine Tales (WordFarm, 2010). He and his wife, Sharon, met in the Sierra Nevada and still enjoy hiking there.