Issue #26: Person of Interest
December 2021
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LE CADAVRE EXQUIS
When we thought up the theme for this issue, I was thinking about a larger version of the game “Exquisite Corpse,” a literary game played at the kind of parties where the guests start out as uptight, pretentious literary types, and end up dancing, giggling, and telling fart jokes. First, a first person writes a sentence. The second person reads that sentence, writes another that furthers the story, and then covers the first sentence. Each subsequent person has only the most recent sentence from which to build a consistent narrative. The result is a story that has occasional intelligible sequences, but many more wild, often contradictory, turns. It’s always good for a laugh, especially after everybody’s had a few drinks.
But, as with many experiments, what we got was very different than expected. With the story “Palindromes” as our starting point, we expected people to submit stories that would fit the life of the person depicted in that story — a high school woman with a distinctive personality and style who dies at the end. Of everything we received, only a tiny percentage fitted the brief.
And then I realized that we hadn’t failed. The result was exactly what every game of Exquisite Corpse ends up as—a series of non sequiturs that doesn’t so much further one consistent narrative, as showcase the fascinating personalities of the writers.
But let’s think hard for a second about what human lives look like. Are you the same person as you were when you were five? Fifteen? Twenty-five? Sometimes I’m not the same person in the evening that I was in the morning, even though at my age one would think one’s personality would be fully formed and stable.
What forms our personalities? They’re a synthesis of input from our environment—friends, family, our close social circle, strangers—and the interpretation of our minds and hearts. As long as we live, we continue to have experiences and learn from them, to live and grow. The thing that allows two people to be present at the same event and yet experience it differently is what makes us us.
I can’t think of a single outward aspect of a human being that isn’t changeable. Hair dye, tattoos, and surgery can permanently change some things. Makeup, wigs, clothes, contact lenses, and accessories enable someone to be an entirely different person this afternoon than they were this morning, and yet another one tonight. We code switch, we exercise varying degrees of verbal self-control, we move through space differently depending on who we’re around. By the time we’re old, we’ve all lived many lifetimes. If someone wrote a bunch of stories about individual incidents from your life, it’s likely a stranger wouldn’t recognize them as being the same person.
Which brings me around to these stories, poems, and artworks. I occasionally lecture to various writing groups, and one question consistently comes up: “What if someone steals my story?” I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but you hear stories about it because it’s rare. I’ve given tons of writing prompts while teaching workshops and classes, and although people may write on the same themes or about the same people, places, or events, I’ve never seen exactly the same story written by two different people. Those same forces that make us unique individuals allow us to see the same thing differently, therefore to tell different stories.
Consider the following stories, poems, and art. Think about what they say about the lives of the characters who inhabit them, and what they say about the people who created them. Each of us has a legacy: the stories and images we leave imprinted on the hearts and minds of those we leave behind. Yours can be solid and consistent, fun and crazy, uncontrolled and frightening, productive and inspiring, but whatever else it is, it should be interesting.
Enjoy.
Lise Quintana
Hanna Marie Dean Wright
Cover art: Abstract Art 9.9.2021
Hanna is a self taught artist residing in Keavy, Kentucky. She uses her experiences from growing up in rural southeastern Kentucky, teaching special education classes, and living with obsessive compulsive disorder to inspire her unique works of art. Hanna Wright uses bold lines and bright colors to create abstract figures with relatable and at times deeply emotional expressions. Hanna was born in Barbourville, Kenucky on April 15th, 1993. Hanna graduated from the University of the Cumberlands in 2015 with degrees in Special Education Behavioral Disabilities and Elementary Education.”
Demi Anter
Demi’s work has been published by Magma, Banshee, Ninth Letter, and others. Her work has also appeared recently in The Times (UK) as a part of Liv Torc’s “Haiflu” project, and aired on BBC Radio London in 2020.
Lorelei Bacht
Virginia Leigh, on the soul sleep doctrine.
Lorelei’s recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Inflectionist Review, Proem, Harpy Hybrid Review, The Inflectionist Review, Visitant, Quail Bell, The Wondrous Real, Odd Magazine, Abridged, The Riverbed Review, and others.
Bryn Bartel
I like myself when I am boyish
Bryn writes primarily using letters and punctuation, but also incorporates porcupine quills, the scent of running water, and the idea of the color blue. Their poetry has appeared in smoke emerging from abandoned factories.
Kateryna Bortsova
Selfisolation
Kateryna’s work has been in international exhibitions (Taiwan, Moscow, Munich, Spain, Italy, USA, etc.). She won the silver medal in the “realism” category in “Factory of visual art,” New York, and 2015 Emirates Skywards Art of Travel competition, Dubai.
Barbara Candiotti
Wavelength
Barbara is a retired High Tech Worker. She enjoys photography, collage, and writing. Star*Line and Eye to the Telescope have published her poems. Her photography has been accepted by Reservoir Road Literary Review.
Christopher Collingwood
A Face for an Identity
Christopher has devoted his spare time to writing, with works published in Not One of Us, Andromeda Spaceways, Abyss & Apex, Hexagon, Shoreline of Infinity, and the new Smoke in the Stars Anthology.
Dr. Michael Faris
Pick One
Michael is an artist and art instructor. He is a former Assistant Professor of Art Education at Northwest Missouri State University. Faris has exhibited throughout the Midwest. Faris earned his PhD at Indiana University, Bloomington. Faris lives in Belleville, Illinois, with his wife Debra.
Olive Fitzgerald
Le Squelette
Olive is a non-binary writer from London, UK. Their writing has been published by Brain Mill Press and 8West Press, and usually explores the intersections between place, gender and trauma, but sometimes they write fun things too. You can read more of their work at vowelharmony.wordpress.com.
Brian Garrison
Brian serves as Secretary in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. He knows more about neuroscience and brains than he should, and less about people than he would like. He splits his time between living in his imagination and Portland, OR. www.bugthewriter.com
Karen George
Karen is author of the poetry collections Swim Your Way Back, A Map and One Year, and the forthcoming Where Wind Tastes Like Pears. Her prose appears in Adirondack Review, Louisville Review, Stirring, Atticus Review, Inscape, Still: The Journal, and Hemingway Shorts Vol 6.
Alicia Hilton
The Purgatorial Ultrasound Technician
Alicia’s work has appeared in Akashic Books, Cemetery Gates Media, Daily Science Fiction, Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase Volume 8, Modern Haiku, Vastarien, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volumes 4, 5 & 6, and elsewhere.
Joseph Hope
Experiment X
Joseph has works in Reckoning Press, Evening Street Press, Zoetic Press, New Verse News, Praxis Magazine, AfroPoetry, Gemini Spice Magazine, Spillwords, SprinNG, Writers Space Africa, Nthanda Magazine, 5th Chinua Achebe Anthology, Ariel Chart, and Best “New” African Poets 2019 Anthology.
Leigh Anne Hornfeldt
The Fastest Gust of Wind Ever Recorded on Earth Was 253 Miles per Hour
Leigh Anne’s work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies including Foundling Review, Lunch Ticket, and Spry. She is the recipient of the Kudzu Prize in Poetry as well as the Juliet Miller Scholarship from SAFTA. She has published three chapbooks, most recently Fleshed from Winged City Chapbooks.
Christine Hsu
Korean Pirate
Christine was published by The Bold Italic, xoJane, KQED, ABC News Radio Online, Yellow Arrow Journal, Lunchbox Moments, Slipform Poetry Anthology 2020, Mixed Mag, and DropOut Literary Magazine. Her play I Love You But... was a finalist in the Negro Ensemble Company Play Competition.
Tureygua Inaru
Being Weird
Tureygua is a writer from Central Florida. Her poetry has been featured in Rigorous Magazine, Leonardo Magazine, and No Peeking Theatre’s INDIGENOUS.
Kwong Kwok Wai
The Map of a Myth III
Kwok Wai changed paths in becoming a painter, alongside the change of Hong Kong from being a British colony to returning to Chinese sovereignty. Also a published novelist, he is intrigued by the motif of people’s relationship with time and place.
aral l.
here he is
aral lives in the moss with the sky. Their work has appeared in Capsule Stories, Moonflake Press, and their vague dreams when they’re drinking the milky way at midnight.
M. A. Lang
The Sparrow and the Albatross
M.A. has had work appear in Baily’s Beads, Literary Yard, Quail Bell Magazine, cc&d, Page & Spine, Quarantales, Impulsive Walrus Books, You & Me Magazine, Clawfoot Press, Writers for Recovery, and Atlas Obscura.
Jeremy Lawrence
Head in the Clouds
Jeremy graduated from NYU in 2019 with a BA in cinema studies, and currently works full time as a proofreader in the city. His fiction and poetry has appeared in the Minetta Review, October Hill Magazine, Pinky Thinker Press, and Strikethrough.
Kate Meyer-Currey
Skeletons, hoes and tricks
Kate has over fifty poems in print and ejournals. “Gloves” recently made top 100 in the UK’s “PoetryforGood” competition for healthcare workers. Her first chapbook County Lines (Dancing Girl Press) comes out this year.
Elliott Orchard-Blowen
Smoke Signals
Elliott has been published in With Confetti and has work forthcoming in Warning Lines Mag. You can find him at your local second-hand store, kitschy bookshop, or in the dumpsters behind a strip mall. Just knock three times on the lid.
Muralidharan Parthasarathy
A Universal Crime Report Entry
Muralidharan has work in Global Poemic, Otherwise Engaged Journal, former People, Ekcentrica, Subterranean Blue Poetry, The MockingOwl Roost, and The Writers and Readers Magazine. He has translated Shashi Tharoor’s Why I am Hindu into Tamil.
Lois Roma-Deeley
In 1965 On That Day
Lois’s collection, The Short List of Certainties, won the Jacopone da Todi Poetry Book Prize. Her previous books include Rules of Hunger, northSight, and High Notes, a Paterson Poetry Prize Finalist. Roma-Deeley’s poetry is published in numerous poetry anthologies and literary journals.
Stef Rozitis
Becoming Anna
Stef Rozitis is a teacher, privileged to live and work in Australia. They are non-binary and have three wonderful, supportive grown-up sons and one judgemental cat. They enjoy writing both fiction and non-fiction and feel a warm glow whenever anyone reads it. Their background is Latvian.
E. F. Schraeder
Lee Was Here
E. F. is the author of the queer gothic Liar: Memoir of a Haunting and the story collection Ghastly Tales of Gaiety and Greed. Awarded first place in Crystal Lake Publishing’s 2021 Poetry Contest, Schraeder was also semi-finalist in Headmistress Press’ 2019 Charlotte Mew Contest.
Dave Sims
Tania Age 107
Dave’s comix and paintings both old-school and digital appear upon the walls, covers, and inside pages of over sixty tactile and virtual exhibits and publications. His new work appears in current issues of Sunspot Literature, Burningword, and High Shelf Press. Experience more at www.tincansims.com.
Rebecca Thrush
Coconut and Balsam
Rebecca has poetry published both in print and online with a variety of journals Most notably, she was featured to be part of Viewless Wing’s 2021 Scary Art Show and Line of Advance’s 2021 Wright Award series. She also has original art online with Decomp Journal.
Anton Violazzi
Oxygen
Anton is the author of Mortenary (2021). His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Burial Day Books, Brownleaf, and elsewhere. He lives in, above, and around the Bayou Country.