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Flash Fiction by Randall Brown Posted on February 29, 2012 And So It Will Just Be the Two of Us My sister and I are racing the condiments . Come on—catch-up. Wait—I must-turd. I don't relish the thought of that. We are being given the silent treatment because yesterday we burnt down some evergreens using undergrowth and a magnifying glass. Do you understand now, my father had asked before going quiet, how fire can get away? He stands at the grill, recooking the chicken; he never knows when things are done. My mother has a skin disorder that makes red welts appear wherever she puts pressure. That's how she taught me the alphabet, my writing each letter with a chopstick on the underside of her forearm, waiting for the letters to arise, scarlet. Tonight she shows me her arm, “Ice”—and I go inside. In the window frame, there they all are. My sister in the burnt out grove trying to keep the hula hoop alive, my father turning the chicken over and over, and my mother pouring from a silver flask into her Fresca. I often think of that fire, how quickly it got out of our hands. Power. It had something to do with that, wanting the feeling that we could affect the way things were. It is my mom who turns to see me in the window. My sister will end up dead in high school, driving stoned; my father will join a far-off cult in the Adirondacks and, during an astral projection lesson, he will never return to his body. My mother holds up her other arm. Hurry . Randall Brown teaches at and directs Rosemont College 's MFA in Creative Writing Program. He has been published widely, both online and in print, and blogs regularly at FlashFiction.Net . He is also the founder and managing editor of Matter Press and its Journal of Compressed Creative Arts . _______________________________________ Posted on February 20, 2012 Teachings of Death I affirmation sticks to me the dumb animal death—instinctively where lions hunt II that wizened woman who has lain with goats under closed lids I watch her aghast the voice of the woman my body III she speaks of that man her voice of bodies she wags her wand as light deceives ‘climb' she says death's tongue & i am alone ˜ March 19 would have been Carol's 63rd birthday. She missed it by just over two months. This poem was first published in Carol's chapbook, Living Alone without a Dictionary , in 1974 (Gargoyle Poets 11, Makar Press, Queenland University , Australia ). Be sure to keep an eye out for the upcoming issue of Mad Hatters' Review (Issue 13), where many of Carol's works will be featured. ______ 3 Responses to Poem by Carol Novack • February 21, 2012 at 9:33 am This is an outstanding poem, thank you for posting it. Looking forward to the MHR issue. This has been a good funeral service. Thanks.
• March 12, 2012 at 1:59 pm Absolutely beautiful. “She speaks of that man as if he were holy” says so much. Thank you for posting this elegiac piece.
• June 28, 2012 at 7:30 pm Sorry to correct you: Carol's birthday was in fact February 19, an Aquarius. I am so glad we will have her early poems, reissued. She was clearly so talented from the beginning and recognized for it, too, during her years in Australia . _____________________________ Posted on February 8, 2012 Acoustic winter —for Carol If the year ends a plural spiral Of the five friends I am holding I move to see my parents Acoustic winter sings a summer May Venus never sever — love Lee Ann Winter Solstice 2011 Lee Ann Brown is Assistant Professor of English at St. John's University in New York City . A poet and filmmaker whose first book, Polyverse (Sun&Moon, 1999), won the New American Poetry Series Award. Her second book, The Sleep That Changed Everything, appeared in 2003 from Wesleyan. She is also the founder and editor of the small press Tender Buttons. ___________________________________________ Posted on February 7, 2012 Elegy for Carol Novack, 1948-2011 Farewell Carol. If death is a journey take it at a local pace. Don't hurry if no road presents the way. If no road presents the way beneath your feet, let the narrative fail where it fails. Let the narrative waft to a treble let it. If you hear a crackle of burning in the forest of tokens walk around it and sigh at the apocalypse. If this is the sweet spot of the poem this is the sweet spot of the poem. If I thank you for showing us how to walk around with a broken shotgun draped over a forearm I thank you. If art never offended you with the music of being alone after the wild darkness settles on the cobbled town center it never offended you. If you knew deep in your funny bone that clarity should be avoided if possible you knew it. If you knew that closure should be avoided if possible you knew that too. Gene Tanta was born in Timisoara, Romania and lived there until 1984, when his family immigrated to the United States . Since then, he has lived in DeKalb , Iowa City, New York , Oaxaca City, Iasi , Milwaukee , and Chicago . He is a poet, visual artist, and translator of contemporary Romanian poetry. His two poetry books are Unusual Woods and Pastoral Emergency . His poems, translations, and artwork work may be found in journals such as: EPOCH, Ploughshares, Circumference Magazine, Cream City Review, Exquisite Corpse, Watchword, Columbia Poetry Review, The Laurel Review , and Drunken Boat . Gene is Arts Director of Mad Hatters' Review . _____ One Response to Tribute poem by Gene Tanta • February 8, 2012 at 7:01 pm My new favorite poem. Just exquisite. ____________________________________________ Posted on February 4, 2012 Just a Handful of My Very Treasured Memories of Carol Glebe, Sydney , Australia February, 1977 Molyvos , Greece , October to December 1977 Danced the Syrtaki and Tsifteteli, in public Happily shared the secrets of Jewish Chicken Soup Had a policy: “you eat, you wash up” Co-wrote the Traveller's Hellenican Dictionary London , England , February 1978 New York City , December 1980 Glebe, Sydney , Australia , August 1999 New York City , September 11, 2001 Leonie Blair ______ 2 Responses to Tribute poem by Leonie Blair • Pingback: Carol Novack – A life remembered. Tributes from John Jenkins and Rae Desmond Jones | Rochford Street Review • April 15, 2012 at 4:16 am NOW AND THEN Those were the times, Nigel. Those were the days. Sundays stoked We'd perfected the art of buffoonery. Was it enough? To play at being Toughs? Marking time. Occasionally word-knitting ______________________________________________ Tribute poem by Larry Buttrose Posted on February 2, 2012 The Last Day of the Year in memoriam Carol Novack and Kerry Leves “he told me that writing poetry was the most beautiful thing anyone could do on this godforsaken earth” —Roberto Bolano
Larry Buttrose is an Australian writer. He is the author of the novels The Maze of the Muse and Sweet Sentence , and the travel books The King Neptune Day & Night Club , and Cafe Royale (also published as The Blue Man ). For the stage he has written Kurtz , his stage adaptation of Heart of Darkness , and a stage adaptation of Don Quixote , as well as co-writing the hit musical Hot Shoe Shuffle . Larry's first book of poetry, One Steps Across the Rainbow , was published in 1974. _________________________________________ 3 tribute poems by Robert Vaughan Posted on February 1, 2012 — for Carol Novack I Really Don't Know Clouds At All When the conversation evaporates, perhaps it's like the clouds vanishing before the
Flying From The Empty Nest I have discovered It's a challenge Do write. Meet, receive,
Circle of Dance The smoke where we dance does not fade. I see the roaming circle where we navigated our identities. I hear waterfalls, taste saffron, touch elephants. This is how you left me, as night crashes Robert Vaughan lives in Milwaukee where he leads writing roundtables at Redbird- Redoak Writing. His prose and poetry is found in numerous literary journals such as Elimae, Metazen, Necessary Fiction and BlazeVOX . His short stories are anthologized in Nouns of Assemblage from Housefire , and Stripped from P.S. Books. He is a fiction editor at JMWW magazine, and Thunderclap! Press. He co-hosts Flash Fiction Fridays for WUWM's Lake Effect. Click here for Robert's blog.
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