# 6 “Concessions”

“Concessions” by: Toni Judnitch

“Concessions” is a great short fiction piece that captures a summer job in a small town. By using concrete details Judnitch render’s what it’s like working at a concession stand for the first time. Her job is to slice onions and the way she writes you can easily feel the sting of onions while she slices bag after bag all day long.

“We were greasy and we were quiet and we were filled with the empty feeling of being tired and being seventeen and being strangers in a city at night.”

This line best captures the feeling of this piece. The repetition of the wording also helps give the sense of a job that is routine. Judnitch does a great job of rendering this fictious world in a way that is incredibly realistic, interesting, and captivating. One of my favorite pieces to read, and for some reason Hemingway’s writing style keeps coming to mind throughout this piece.

#5 “4:00”

4:00 by Dean brooks.

This poetry captures late night ramblings of a drunk narrator making their way home after a late night at the bars. The narrator is compelling because although a night was spent out on the town they are still in the right mind frame to feel compassion for the mother robin that lives above their door. A very lovely sentiment and draws in the reader through the narrators kindness.

The imagery is also compelling. I love the idea of a bully sun elbowing its way through the sky. Nothing worse for a hangover than bright lights. I also love the image of street lights being an imitation moon. So true. You cannot see the  night sky in a big city.

 

#4 “Looking Glass”

Looking Glass by: Jennifer Von Ohlen

I liked this piece since the first time I set eyes on it. The line

“Reflecting blue it does not own”

really resonated with me. The imagery throughout this piece is beautiful and peaceful. I’m taken back to the ocean and of summer pensivity.

Another cool feature of this poem is that you can hear the author read the piece so you can hear how the author originally meant for it to be read.

#3 “Hockey Parents”

Hockey Parents by: Jamee Larson

After reading this piece I wanted to read it again to go over the details I might have over looked at the beginning. At first the narrator is someone we trust but at the end we realize that they are decieving themselves. This dynamic had me reading it a second time to see where the narrator actually might have been oblivious to their own faults. One example is found when the family is late to the rink and the children shout out that there is a space up front but the narrator dismisses it and the kid grumbles that their father didn’t even look. There are these little signs that seem happenstance but actually is very telling of the narrator’s character since through their own eyes they dont see it until recorded on tape.

#2 Promotion of “Good Worker”

“Good Worker” by Pauli Meinecke. Fiction

Right away we are drawn into the piece with this unique dynamic between sisters that is usually considered taboo at their mature age,

“People thought it was weird that Renee and I often shared a bed during the summer. I never understood why. We were sisters, and it was fun talking to each other until the last possible second before we fell asleep.”

The narrator herself is also compelling because of her lack of desire to prepare for the day shown when she knows she will end up in a mad scramble but doesn’t care, she just wants to do what she wants. She is her own person and although she thinks about all the things she must do in the day, feed cats, get gas, go to work, she starts her day out doing what she wants. And what she wants is to snort pills and take a shot.

It’s also compelling and unusual that she works under her sister at  a fast food restaurant and brings her booze and weed. This excites her and she looks forward to drinking with her sister at work.

While reading I had two different reactions and I’m not sure which one the author intended but here is my thoughts. First as I read it I felt like the narrator must be down about life to be filling it up with so much alcohol and drugs and simply lacking motivation to get on with the day.

But then as I read through the story a second time I felt that this is just about someone who does exactly what they want when they want. They aren’t hurting anyone, she’s going to her job, has an understanding and close relationship to her sister and they know how to communicate with each other.

I feel my second reaction is most accurate. Either way the piece is well written and the details make every action vivid and compelling. And I love how at the end we are left with the words “Sunday funday,” and that is exactly what the day is going to be working with her sister.

#1 Promoting Photo Essays

Cre8here publishes works from anyone with a connection to northern Minnesota. There are currently (4/23/2013) only two photo essays and I hope more will come in the future.
The first is by Candice Spitler: “Muted.” 

Spitler went around the Bemidji area and took some fantastic winter pictures. She was able to edit a few of them on a website, www.befunky.com, but I believe most she left alone un edited. I love the attention to detail she used in taking these pictures. She has an eye for finding unique textures whether it is close up in the form of red berries, or an angle of a chain link fence. There is beauty to be found in the simplest and smallest things but also in different angels as well. By looking at the winter through her camera lens we see a slightly different view of things.

The second is by myself, Sarah Dahlheimer: “In The Darkhouse.”

These photo’s I also edited at www.befunky.com and gave each picture an idea of ‘other worldliness.’ It’s a unique and crazy place to be and I wanted to capture that when taking and later editing these pictures. There is also a short story about darkhouse fishing to give a reader a sense of place beyond the pictures.

I am hoping to submit some wildlife photography in the future. I always see deer, geese, swans, ducks, ect, by my house and would love to turn it into a photo story of some sort. Will be working on it this summer to submit to the magazine this fall.

#6 Spell Against Gods

Poem: Spell Against God’s by Patrick Phillips

This piece is full of resentment against mortality. What if the roles were reversed between humans and the divine? What if we could make the gods feel how we have felt? What would the darker feelings be? This poem is speaking directly to this idea. Two sentances get at this idea:

“Let them know they will die. And all those they love.”

This a truth everyone must face, and usually doesn’t face until an older age. Death is a hard event in life everyone will face, and likely, see loved ones face before they go. Many people turn to prayer during these times but may feel alone and silent as the poem suggests. If the role was reversed, it is almost like this narrator seeks revenge, wanting to be silent as stars towards the divine that was silent during their own turmoils.

This poem is dark, but works well as it displays a role of reversals that might not have been thought of before. The narrator is someone who is resentful against the divine and wishes to have them feel as they do when it comes to mortality.

#5 Glad to be Human

Poetry Prose: Glad to be Human: A Joie De Coeur by Irene O’Garden

This piece used repition throughout the piece to bring attention to certain human sensations. She covers all complex human emotions from helping out the homeless, wise grandmothers, birth, work, love, a dying man on the street, sickness, travel, boredom…All with the repitive ‘glad to be human’ throughout. In life there is the good and bad, and the narrator is person who wants to celebrate being a human in any of those circumstances. Bad things will happen, we must expect the unexpected and not be surprised. It will happen and nothing can change whatever your ‘it’ is. Humans have gone through alot over history, and what has happened will happen again, why not enjoy it. Life comes with times of abundance but also times of poverty. This piece is full of opposites, juxtoposing the good with the bad, but always being glad for it.

 

 

#4 Family Math

Poem: Family Math by Alan Michael Parker

Family math is all about numbers. The numbers of how we relate to the world around us. It makes a reader think about themselves, their age in comparison to their parents, grandparents, birthdays in comparison to others, age compared to technology, time spent at work, age of children, years of wars… All this reference to time we get the feeling of the narrators stance against time. The narrator feels sadness, older, questioning, change, loss. The narrator doesn’t know what to think of time, because the next day the math changes with only:

“More to have. More to let go.”

We get a list of things that happened in the past knowing more will happen in the future where nothing is certain. We can all relate to feeling uncertainty in the future, and also wondering how we fit into the scheme of things. Havent we all looked into our past and thought about what our parents were like as kids and how similar or not we were to them? I wonder if this is what the poem is getting at.

#3 Little Wet Monster

Poem: Little Wet Monster by Chad Sweeney

What are all the feelings a person can as they prepare for childbirth? What happens if your wife had an affair and you know it’s not your child? What happens if it wasn’t planned? Or maybe everything is right and ready, but you know you are bringing a child into a broken world. A parent might not feel nuturing to their child right away, or perhaps feel guilt knowing that there is good in life but also the bad as well. I think this poem covers a vast array of complex human emotions in this poem that is sometimes over looked in the blessings of childbirth.

The narrator is constantly talking to their unborn baby as a “little wet monster”, “rainweed monster”, “my zero”, all terms that don’t ring of endearment. A reader is forced to look at the possible reasons for this, and to look at the other lines in the poem for possible answers. We have beautiful lines “Distance shiens in the ice like a flower” as well as darker ones “unmask the stones my darkling grief.” These lines make me think that there are blessings, beauty, and happinesses found in life, but also sorrow, grief, and fears. Perhaps the narrator is getting at that by bringing a child into the world they know they cannot possibly shelter their child from the bad things and feel dread at knowing it all begins at birth.