Blotchy but Deep

 
The spring 2008 issue of Manhattanville College's Inkwell is rich with solid and compelling work. Impeccably laid out at a generous 143 pages, it begins with a note from the editor, the memorably named Autumn Kindelspire. Her theme is the magic of storytelling, especially from parent to child at bedtime. She invites the reader to "[f]ind a comfortable spot, perhaps nestled in your bed or in your favorite chair, take a deep breath, and listen as you tell yourself (or someone you love) a good story." Not many literary journals I've encountered set an introductory tone for their readers, but Kindelspire has done just that and lived up to her implicit promise: There are good stories to be found here.

First up, the 11th annual poetry competition winner. Cynthia Lowen's two-part poem begins with "the one game / the missionaries brought" -- a can of sardines, "the neat rows of bodies / lined up fin / to fin." The second part depicts a summer corn crop, "And the cornsilk burned black as our hair. . . . We burned our fingers picking ears from the fire." What links these two seemingly dissimilar scenes? The title of the poem, "Hibakusha," is a term used in Japan to refer to the victims of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In its subtle use of tone and imagery, it's the most devastating poem I've ever read about the aftermath of those two historic events.

The 10th annual fiction competition winner, "Lipstick Peonies" by Kathryn Shaver, opens on a decidedly anti-romantic note: "Love is no enigma." But that is David speaking, David whom we only see through Stacy's eyes as this is her account of their on-again, off-again love affair spanning thirty years. To Stacy, love is a labyrinth, which is a much more accurate assessment of the winding messiness of their relationship through marriages, war, parenthood, divorce, and reconciliation. In lesser hands, this would have felt like a constricted short story in need of a novel. But Shaver's decision to tell David and Stacy's story in the second person, with Stacy addressing David, is a wise one, since a novel's length wouldn't likely have sustained it, whereas what she manages to compress into eight pages is both impressive and, by the end, deeply moving.

"'It's a cute story,' Tammy used to say. ‘But, I mean, so what?'" I wouldn't go quite that far.

Tammy, Nate's ex in Paul Michel's "Tea for Tito," is tired of Nate's grandmother's account of meeting Tito when she was a medical volunteer during World War Two. Milena, in her nineties, wheelchair-bound and living in a nursing home, is a local legend because she served the General tea and cakes on the battlefield. But Nate is the main character here. He spends two weekends a month with his eleven-year-old daughter Jenny, sometimes more, when Tammy has "meetings" on weeknights. "Something in public relations," she says, though Nate suspects she's really going on dates.

I wanted to know more about Nate's relationship with Tammy. I wanted to know more about a woman named Lynda, who pops in for a few lines and then is gone. I wanted to see more flashbacks of Milena as a young woman. What's here is good, but this is a case where, unlike "Lipstick Peonies," the story could have been greatly expanded, possibly to novella length.

One more thing. Michel has Nate refer to Milena's meeting with Tito in that medical tent as "an anchor in Time's ocean." I've never heard the phrase, so I suppose you could say he coined this particular cliché. But "Time," like "Love," is best spared as a proper noun. It stops the story cold.

Tracy Thomas's "Salsa and Iguanas" is my pick for best title in this issue. It's a unique poem in that it's basically about someone trying to write something to someone else and not knowing how. It begins confidently enough -- "I thought I might tell you a story / It would be a long story," and indeed the first page is dense with words. But halfway down the speaker falters and admits that "I really don't know what I'm saying so give me a few lines." There are several stops and starts like this that endeared the speaker to me and had me rooting for the right words, finally. Even the speaker isn't sure that a poem is the right vehicle. If not a story, perhaps a song? A play?

In the end, it takes 57 lines to reach the conclusion that "I just don't know / What to say to you." And that is just as it should be.