Down in History
The man who drives the gas truck is built like a fireplug. He’s got a shaved head and goatee. He paces in front of his rig while it idles. I’m in his way.
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Fall/Winter 2011
Editor's Note
First, thanks to all the Boston area writers and readers who attended our Solstice lit mag fundraiser/book party, which showcased Andre Dubus III and Richard Hoffman. Solstice Institute is a growing literary community devoted to outreach to writers-on-the margins, published along with up-and-coming and established writers. Please feel free to click on donations at any point! Also, consider submitting to our 2012 literary contest, details in January.
Our new Fall/Winter issue offers you, the reader, a diversity of authors, styles, and subjects. In fiction, we’re primarily focusing on humorous/ironic visions, ranging from experimental stories by Eugenio Volpe and Mardith Louisell, (both including cultural rants, a new genre?) to Robert Lopez’s (Dzanc Books) postmodern short short, to more realistic ironic stories like that of Bryan S. Wang’s potentially violent Sunday School teacher, and Margaret Garcia’s young Mexican boy discovering his brother is gay, and, finally, to more serious realistic pieces, such as the story of a lonely woman’s joblessness in London, by M. G. Stephens, and finally, a novel excerpt about a boy watching his father kill another boy, by Richard Perry (a member of Columbia University’s Malcolm X Project, and NY African Burial Project).
In nonfiction, the essays question our culture--from Donna Steiner’s riveting response to late night pornographic phone calls, to Dawn Potter’s lyrical essay on a white woman reading Malcolm X, to Leslie Lawrence’s soul-searching account of teaching Hamlet to public school kids, to Julee Newberger’s honest musings on serving as an advocate for a foster child.
The distinguished poetry showcases variations in strategies and subject matter and includes such eminent poets as Martha Collins’ spare interrogation of white privilege, Daniel Tobin's accomplished lyrical musings, and Dennis Hinrichsen’s unflinching imagery, and also includes surprising, probing work by other gifted poets.
Please leave comments after reading. Authors often respond. Click contributors to find out more about these terrific writers. And do check out our Photography! We’re all promoting diversity in its many forms. Lee Hope
Fiction
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Had They Learned about Jayne Mansfield?
I couldn’t go to a movie with a friend because I had to go to my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend’s daughter’s wedding. The movie was about a serial killer but it was French so I knew it would be okay …
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The Body
We didn’t know what was wrong with the neighbors. Whenever we passed them in the halls they made a strange sound, like a hiss. They never looked us in the eye, either.
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In the Sunday School
By the time Dalton D’Amico arrived, Miss Nugent already had the other children at their little tables coloring pictures of Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount. She tried to keep their hands busy; you know what they said about idle hands.
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Freak Out in a Moonage Suenos del Dia
My mind was far away, thinking about how my big brothers were taking me out to Santa Monica for the Bowie show that night, when I heard it.
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SKINT
For two years Eileen lived in Queen’s Crescent, on the southern edge of Hampstead Heath, in the ground floor flat of a Victorian semi-detached building, with her landlord living above her.
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Excerpt from FORGIVEN
My father killed Albert Miller on Saturday, June 4th, 1851, an afternoon of high sky and unforgiving sun.
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Poetry
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Channeling My Sister
“You’re not even dead, are you?” I think to ask
as my cappuccino mug slips to the floor.*
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Three Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke
Rather than escaping,
this land accepts itself;
thus it is gentle and harsh,
vulnerable and saved.*
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The Earth’s Big Forest
Cutting corners because that’s all we have to cut,
pulling ourselves through the needle’s eye*
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Fly and Cricket
Its ear attunes homage to those wings
that would entice a consort’s tailored song.*
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Double Exposure
1. As the Gods Who All Things Know
You would save the harrowed from their foregone fall,*
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Recessive Blue, Left Handed, Red Hair, Webbed Feet, Widow’s Peak, You Name It
Blue’s on vacation. Your eyes
turn white in this light, ivory,*
Nonfiction
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My Caller
Phone. 4:45 a.m. Still dark out. Nobody calls with good news at this hour. Maybe somebody back east… Maybe something really great happened, so they know it’s okay to wake me up… Hope nobody died…
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Hated By Literature
I was in my early teens when I met, for the first time, a book that didn’t like me.
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Hamlet in the Hood
“Should Ophelia trust Hamlet’s expressions of love?” Ms. Baker asked.
“No way!” Keena called out. Several others also shook their heads.
“Why not?” Ms. Baker pressed. “Mavis…? Are you with us? No? Tran? Don’t look at me. Look at the text.”*
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Destiny’s Lady
I met her for the first time at her father’s apartment just outside Washington, DC.
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Photography
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Caribbean Festival
The images from the Caribbean Festival in Boston were suggested by a desire to view and capture the color and celebratory nature of the event. However, expressions of thoughtfulness or distraction were as compelling to shoot as the joy and color and liveliness of the marchers. There was beauty to be shared. My paintings and [...]
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