College lit. journal celebrates 20 years
pho to b y Sabrina Stout
BY KRISTEN WOHLERS
The cover design. The texture. The author. The
smell of the pages. Those are the things that
make me pick up a book. But it?s the words
inside that determine if I devour it all the way
through. The latest Clackamas Literary Review
was a front to backer.
CLR is a literary m agazine that accepts
subm issions from S e p t.i-D e c . 31. Editors
select the best from the batch to publish in the
book, which is produced annually. Instructor
Matthew Warren is the managing editor. Along
with associate editors, Clackamas Community
College students who are enrolled in W R- 246,
Advanced Creative W riting, participate as
assistant editors and designers.
Released on May 1, CLR’s “ 20th Anniversary
Issue” (published in 2017, though the year is
nowhere to be found) is packed full of short
prose and poetry, some of it published for the
first timeand others republished from previous
years in honor of the anniversary.
The cover design is nice enough, but it’s the
feel of it that really wins thebook lover. The
pages, to my dismay, have little scent. I can
overlook this detail, though, because the words
that fill them appetize me enough.
Mostly as a reader, I was eating up stories; as
a writer, I was drooling over phrases. But the
book has highs and lows. As I read, the lack of
genre headings tripped me up. “ Is this fiction
or non?” I asked myself on several occasions.
The table of contents in the beginning only
lists the pieces as poetry or prose. Overall, the
issue has a melancholy tone, which is fine by
me, but it could use more humor to break it up.
Here are some of the highs.
The poem “ Fragile Things” by Darius Atefat-
Peckham, which says but doesn’t say that the
speaker’s mother is gone, is so beautiful. “ It
strikes me, then, how easily the fragile bowl
had broken,” the speaker says. Like her art
that remains, the speaker’s mother was fragile.
CLR published three of Atefat-Peckham ’ s
poems, which are strewn throughout the issue,
almost like a story that we get to revisit after
others are told in between.
The short story “What We Knew” by Heather
Anne Charton is the tale of Mrs. Gockley and
the “ we” who knew things. The story is serious
and entertaining at once; and it includes one
of the book’ s few tastes of hum or, like the
mention of “ the diner that served early bird
specials all day long.”
“ The Queen is Dead” by Miranda Schmidt is
an easy and worthwhile read about kids and
their dad and m entally ill mom who are like
ants and their queen.
I absolutely love “jotted on the Underside” by
photo by Victoria Tinker
The boo k is a feast o f
variety that I don’ t suggest
digesting all a t once; rather,
it’s one nibble and savor
overtim e.
Paulann Petersen, a poem about an inscription
that the speaker’ s late Nana has left on the
back of a photo.
Other notables include “ Back” by Harry
Newman, “ Possible Side Effects” by Matthew
Roberson, “ Second M essenger” by Lauren
Smith, “ My Name is Benjamin Wilkes—15,111!!! ”
by Tyler Wilborn and “ W h it People Do” by Joe
Ballard.
The issue closes, fittingly, with a previously
published poem by Petersen, “ In M otion,” in
which the speaker wonders at not knowing how
to create a,story and so resigns to write poetry
(as if that’s easier). It leaves the reader with the
sentiment, that really, none of us know how to
make a story or poetry. We do it anyway.
The book is a feast o f variety that I don’t
suggest digesting all at once; rather, it’ s one
Top: Lee Shaw, left, and Linda Rodgers package books to be shipped.
to nibble and savor over time. The anniversary
issue is available at CCC’s bookstore, at Powell’ s Bottom: Copies of the CLR are collected in Roger Rook 220.
and in other stores throughout Portland.
Clackamas Print MAY 3,2017 theclackamaspnntcom i