The word is the making of the world. Wallace Stevens

It’s a filmstrip afternoon            and we’re all grateful to the humming projector            in the middle of our desks, the closed blinds, the absence of a real adult.

There’s a vague promise of revelation            from the title and the dark, tree-lined streets, the voice            calling from a house carrying within it our freedom not to answer.

Inside another house, a little girl in a pretty dress            is falling asleep at her father’s desk, turning into            Alice in Wonderland as her mind falls down the rabbit holes of grammar.

The Madhatter and Jabberwocky            tell her to lure the letters into a trap so they can beat them            to death with mallets. We’d like to see that. Without words

no one could tell us what to do.            We know grammar is just a byproduct, like schizophrenia, of a brain that grew            too fast for its own good and that history is a series of conspiracies

by accidental despots. Mrs. Bradford is            falling asleep on the ...MORE]]> BY RITA MAE REESE

The word is the making of the world.
Wallace Stevens

It’s a filmstrip afternoon
           and we’re all grateful
to the humming projector
           in the middle of our desks,
the closed blinds, the absence of a real adult.

There’s a vague promise of revelation
           from the title
and the dark, tree-lined streets, the voice
           calling from a house
carrying within it our freedom not to answer.

Inside another house, a little girl in a pretty dress
           is falling asleep
at her father’s desk, turning into
           Alice in Wonderland
as her mind falls down the rabbit holes of grammar.

The Madhatter and Jabberwocky
           tell her to lure
the letters into a trap so they can beat them
           to death with mallets.
We’d like to see that. Without words

no one could tell us what to do.
           We know grammar is just a byproduct,
like schizophrenia, of a brain that grew
           too fast for its own good
and that history is a series of conspiracies

by accidental despots. Mrs. Bradford is
           falling asleep on the wide window ledge,
her blue polyester pants gapped
           to reveal her white socks
and pink spotted shins. We try not to look.

…To read the rest of the poem, order your copy of Issue 22.1-Winter/Spring 2010.

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RITA MAE REESE has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a Stegner fellowship, and a “Discovery”/The Nation award. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared or is forthcoming in journals and anthologies including The Normal School, Imaginative Writing, From Where You Dream, Blackbird, New England Review, The Southern Review, and The Nation. “The Alphabet Conspiracy” was a runner-up in Sycamore Review’s 2009 Wabash Prize for Poetry, judged by Mark Doty.

Martone passed through Sycamore’s hometown of West Lafayette last night as part of his 4th Annual Double-Wide World Tour of Indiana and spent some time with us at a local bar. We offered him a quarter to compose a poem for us, which he ...MORE]]> In his collection of essays, The Flatness and Other Landscapes, writer Michael Martone recounts how he and some friends would write poems for hire in Bloomington, Indiana. “We would go up to people on the street and ask them if they would like a poem today. On any subject, we said. In any form. We’d write it on the spot in pencil on a legal pad or on a portable typewriter we’d tote along. Charge a quarter. We called ourselves RKO Radio Poems and our slogan was “A Poem Must Not Mean But Be 25 [cents].”

Martone passed through Sycamore’s hometown of West Lafayette last night as part of his 4th Annual Double-Wide World Tour of Indiana and spent some time with us at a local bar. We offered him a quarter to compose a poem for us, which he did on a bar napkin, in honor of Editor-in-Chief Anthony Cook’s hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. Martone’s payment of 25 cents represents the most money Sycamore Review has ever paid an author it has solicited. Here is the poem.

THE QUEEN CITY

Your factories
on the east side
produce the daily
juxtapositions of
gorgeous junk. The
P&G moon is turned
into soap before our
eyes. Train loads of
potatoes are ironed
into Pringles and
the teeth of new corns
are hammered into
Crest. O Queen City
you are the
mother of mash ups
where else do pigs
fly and the
chili runs from
the waffle plated
taps like chocolate

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

MICHAEL MARTONE is the author of Racing in Place: Collages, Fragments, Postcards, Ruins (University of Georgia Press, 2008), Double-Wide: Collected Fiction of Michael Martone (Quarry Books, 2007), Michael Martone: Fictions (Fiction Collective 2, 2005), and many other works of fiction and creative nonfiction. He is a professor of English and director of the creative writing program at the University of Alabama. He was raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, attended Butler University and graduated from Indiana University. He also earned an M.A. from The Writing Seminars of The Johns Hopkins University.

If now you cannot hear me it is because we are breaking up because our borders are not secure because the iPod interferes with your pace

maker because there is no reason to worry about the past when the past may never come because no one else will remember how damp

the page smells after the network goes offline. One day you will forget the law of flood, you will take it back while the speaker behind the mirror

leads you further away from lines that began with first person address: “let the forgetting begin.” If now you cannot read him it is because distance

is what you lost once and now must drink. It is almost dark and the wind off the river proves a field for knots of clumsy and impenetrable English

confronting the translator of Persian lyric poetry their stanzas having become an abandoned house awaiting foreclosure as evidence

of the decade’s debacle ...MORE]]>

BY BARBARA CLAIRE FREEMAN

If now you cannot hear me it is because we are breaking up because
our borders are not secure because the iPod interferes with your pace

maker because there is no reason to worry about the past when the past
may never come because no one else will remember how damp

the page smells after the network goes offline. One day you will forget
the law of flood, you will take it back while the speaker behind the mirror

leads you further away from lines that began with first person address:
“let the forgetting begin.” If now you cannot read him it is because distance

is what you lost once and now must drink. It is almost dark and the wind
off the river proves a field for knots of clumsy and impenetrable English

confronting the translator of Persian lyric poetry their stanzas having
become an abandoned house awaiting foreclosure as evidence

of the decade’s debacle surfaces and if now you cannot hear me
it is because the sound of this night no one will remember no one else

_____________________________________________________________________________________

BARBARA CLAIRE FREEMAN is a literary critic and professor of literature who has recently turned her full attention to poetry. She is the author of The Feminine Sublime (University of California Press, 1998, pbk, 2000), among other works of criticism. Formerly an Associate Professor of English at Harvard, she currently teaches creative writing in the Rhetoric Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in A Public Space, The Beliot Poetry Journal, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly, Harvard Review, Iowa Review, Laurel Review, Modern Review, New American Writing, and Parthenon West. She is a recipient of the Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize, (2008); the Language Exchange Poetry Award (Sarah Lawrence College, 2007); and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Incivilities, her first book of poems, is forthcoming from Counterpath Press in the Fall of 2009.

“In the Garden of Migrating Ghosts” appeared in Issue 21.2 – Summer/Fall 2009. ]]> http://www.sycamorereview.com/2009/07/in-the-garden-of-migrating-ghosts/feed/ 0 http://www.sycamorereview.com/2009/01/sustainable-living/ http://www.sycamorereview.com/2009/01/sustainable-living/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:30:52 +0000 Sycamore http://www.sycamorereview.com/?p=868 JESSICA LOVE

My brother won’t eat the Costco strawberries, twenty giant strawberries in a carton the length of a twelve-pack. He sips his Coke and shakes his curly head. Not cool, he says. I’ve seen apples smaller than those berries. We watch the storm together, at Mom’s new place, watch as it turns from bluster to bite like a violent drunk slowly waking up. We lean against the couch and look out onto the deck. Mud sloshes down the flowerpots. And then a hearty sheet of water falls against the glass and we can see nothing but colors blurred together. It is how I imagine an impressionist depicting Spring but I am no art major. Museum junky, yes. This morning I studied every Mondrian on the wall while my brother, inspired by the abstraction, scribbled plans for a carbon-neutral house party. I wouldn’t be invited, he informed me. I lived too far away. Win some, lose some, he said as if he owned composure, and I let him. ...MORE]]> BY JESSICA LOVE

My brother won’t eat the Costco strawberries,
twenty giant strawberries in a carton the length
of a twelve-pack. He sips his Coke and shakes
his curly head. Not cool, he says. I’ve seen
apples smaller than those berries. We watch the storm
together, at Mom’s new place, watch as it turns from
bluster to bite like a violent drunk slowly
waking up. We lean against the couch
and look out onto the deck. Mud sloshes
down the flowerpots. And then a hearty sheet
of water falls against the glass and we can see
nothing but colors blurred together. It is how
I imagine an impressionist depicting Spring but I
am no art major. Museum junky, yes. This morning
I studied every Mondrian on the wall while my brother,
inspired by the abstraction, scribbled plans
for a carbon-neutral house party. I wouldn’t be invited,
he informed me. I lived too far away. Win some,
lose some, he said as if he owned composure,
and I let him. He is a brother for whom things
haven’t come easily. I gamely chomp a strawberry.
The white part: too tough. The rest, though, tangy-
sweet. My brother rolls disgusted eyes.
Things disgust him now that didn’t use to,
but he watches storms with me again. He stopped
when he was four, me six, and the wind bent
a sapling’s spine until it snapped in two
like a wishbone. We clapped, shrieked, ran for our parents,
stunned at the audacity shown by our reliable world:
the earth had kept the larger part, but barely.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Jessica Love is a doctoral student in psychology at the Ohio State University, where she studies text processing and memory. Her poem in this issue is her first creative publication.

          With a Mozart concerto in the background and little to do as I waited for the next available associate           to be with me shortly, I began to comprehend how one infinity can be larger than another,           not in the sense of the mathematician who can prove that rational numbers are countable           and real numbers are not, but my patience, which I am continually thanked for,           the next available associate undoubtedly

unaware of my infinite fascination with Mona Lisa’s           excised eye staring upside down from the minute hand, obliterating the smile at half past           the hour, according to the artisanal timepiece my wife brought back from Florence last year.           A larger infinity is what my neighbor’s cow exhibits every day lying near the split-rail fence,           alone with her thoughts as the cars speed by. Today, she was watching the sky clear

          after an early morning rain that Constable would have captured in a pastoral scene,           though the cars would have been horses, and they would likely have been grazing ...MORE]]> BY JIM TILLEY

          With a Mozart concerto in the background
and little to do as I waited for the next available associate
          to be with me shortly, I began to comprehend
how one infinity can be larger than another,
          not in the sense of the mathematician
who can prove that rational numbers are countable
          and real numbers are not, but my patience,
which I am continually thanked for,
          the next available associate undoubtedly

unaware of my infinite fascination with Mona Lisa’s
          excised eye staring upside down
from the minute hand, obliterating the smile at half past
          the hour, according to the artisanal timepiece
my wife brought back from Florence last year.
          A larger infinity is what my neighbor’s cow
exhibits every day lying near the split-rail fence,
          alone with her thoughts as the cars speed by.
Today, she was watching the sky clear

          after an early morning rain that Constable
would have captured in a pastoral scene,
          though the cars would have been horses,
and they would likely have been grazing when the sun
          broke through and beat on their backs, the life
of horses not so different from the life of cows
          or people on hold, or even an artist like Reinhardt
whose work, exhibited at MoMA, seemed to be rushed
          near the end of his life, no doubt the reason

he turned to monochromes and turned so black,
          and tall rectangles of earlier paintings
ceding their space to smaller squares, the subtle changes
          in hue and tone maybe discernible by others,
but not me, though they might have been
          if viewed under different light where one could
catch a trace of the mountains at deep dusk
          he must have first brushed onto the canvas,
followed by a beach with bathers clad only in dark skin,

          then a black haystack with Black-Eyed Susans
off to the right, and ending with a self-portrait
          that explicated his choice of color−
undetailed, unremitting, permitting, no not permitting,
          but coercing the viewer’s mind to co-exist
with the artist’s, as in stepping into Gaudi’s forest
          of columns that draw one’s eyes to a ceiling
where porphyritic trunks branch into geometry,
          the redwood canopy leaving no sense

of outside world, there being no sign of anyone’s
          god lurking in the stained glass,
no resolution of apse from transept amidst a thicket
          of rusted iron shafts and crossbeams,
scaffold for the project he couldn’t complete in a lifetime,
          that may never be finished in anyone’s lifetime
my wife and I concluded as we passed through
          the timelessness of the cathedral on our recent trip
to Barcelona. Finishing is not the point in art,

          just calling it quits when one runs out of patience
or some other project commandeers the mind,
          which brings to mind the plight of the pandas,
a species also on hold, who, like their forebear
          Ling Ling, seem unable to reproduce
in captivity, the problem not that there aren’t enough
          bamboo shoots or Eucalyptus leaves
to keep them healthy and amorous,
          or enough open space to tango with a mate,

but unlike the cow trying to insinuate herself
          into the Constable landscape, the female panda
doesn’t see the point of lying around
          feigning lack of interest until her consort
springs into action. Or perhaps she can see
          the thing is being filmed and refuses to take part
in panda porn, isn’t fooled or moved by Mozart
          saturating the air from speakers hidden in trees,
no more than I was for 19 minutes and 57 seconds

          (no, Mona Lisa doesn’t have a second hand,
but the rose-gold Tourneau that my wife
          bought me in New York City does)
kindly continuing to hold for the next available associate
          at William Ashley, sole Canadian distributor
for the English Portmeirion Botanic Garden collection
          of fine china, in particular the six 8”-diameter
pasta bowls featuring the Treasure Flower,
          Eastern Hyacinth, Sweet William, Garden Lilac,

Dog Rose, and Belladonna Lily, their common names.
          Later, with more time, though for no good reason,
I was able to find the Latin appellations,
          which, in the interest of space, I won’t provide.
Did I mention that I was trying to buy the pasta bowls
          for my mother’s 80th birthday in two weeks’ time?
Or that the next available associate told me
          they were out of stock? “Would you like
the salad bowls instead?” she asked.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

JIM TILLEY earned a doctorate in Physics from Harvard University.  He retired in 2001 after a 25-year career in insurance and investment banking.  He has won numerous prizes for his papers in actuarial science, finance, and investments, and recieved the 2008 Founder’s Award from the International Insurance Society for his pioneering work in asset-liability managment.  His poems have been published in Southen Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Chattahooche Review, New Delta Review, Nimrod, Rattle, Florida Review, and other journals.  He resides with his wife in Bedford Corners, New York. Poet Billy Collins selected “On The Art of Patience” as the winner of Sycamore Review’s 2008 Wabash Prize for Poetry. The poem was published in Issue 21.1-Winter/Spring 2009.

For A. H.

The brain is three pounds of soft mass. It’s the consistency of pudding, one doctor told me, which put me off pudding afterwards. He gestured, motion of the finger going through it, and even made the wet sound for something—the knife?—sliding in. Easy to make a mistake.

They worked in the most primitive part of the brain, the area that governs pleasure. And because it was the brain, they kept me awake for surgery. I didn’t know—they hadn’t told me—what would happen when they took their instruments in to pry the tumor away from where it nestled against the base of my skull.

When they were close, they leaned in, hovering, faces taut in anticipation of the glorious moment and so it came:

a soft touch to the reptilian brain and delight sprung out, shooting my body with ecstasies. I shook the table, silver metal of their instruments tittering as my eyes rolled ...MORE]]> BY KC TROMMER

For A. H.

The brain is three pounds of soft mass. It’s the consistency
of pudding, one doctor told me, which put me off
pudding afterwards. He gestured, motion of the finger
going through it, and even made the wet sound
for something—the knife?—sliding in. Easy to make a mistake.

They worked in the most primitive part of the brain,
the area that governs pleasure. And because
it was the brain, they kept me awake for surgery.
I didn’t know—they hadn’t told me—what would happen when
they took their instruments in to pry the tumor
away from where it nestled against the base of my skull.

When they were close, they leaned in, hovering, faces taut
in anticipation of the glorious moment and so it came:

a soft touch to the reptilian brain and delight sprung out,
shooting my body with ecstasies. I shook the table, silver metal
of their instruments tittering as my eyes rolled behind my lids
in glories. But after, I saw the strangeness in their eyes,
the flat black of them all having seen me.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

KC TROMMER’s poems have appeared in AGNI, The Antioch Review, Coconut, MARGIE, Octopus and other journals. A graduate of the MFA program at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, KC has been the recipient of an Academy of American Poets prize, as well as fellowships from the Maine Summer Arts Program, the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Prague Summer Program. She lives in New York City with her husband, the novelist Justin Courter. “The Mechanism of Pleasure,” appeared in Issue 21.1 – Winter/Spring 2009.

Form will save us from Looking like scoundrels Or worse Being taken to icy waters & rescued from secondhand Remnants of trees

After the war they dripped ice & then got warm again They commended each other & were embarrassed They wrote cookbook after cookbook As if to say here is something better

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Daniel Brenner grew up in PA and currently lives and writes in NJ. His first book of poems, The Stupefying Flashbulbs, won the Fence Modern Poets Series in 2006.

“Let’s all watch as the world goes to the devil!”                                         —Fritz Lang, 1926

She must have written Beauty’s how-to book: see the isotopes inside her veins, her literal veins, lit up under her skin, her liquidmetal jumpsuit skin, when the mad scientist throws the switch and her whole vascular system shines. I don’t know

how we fabricate the silver from this gray- on-gray concatenation of flanges sitting on her throne with the electrostatic waves twitching into her limbs, her knees and breasts like walnut shells: she’s an armadillo/hybrid/roller derby queen.

And we who try to grip Futura in our hands find she is like water. Nothing there when we open them up yet see the wetness on my palms— at certain times of day they too are silver and if sunlight hits them right they are ablaze.

But any iridescence I wear is thin veneer whereas the robot wears hers deep deep deep in her titanium bones, which we’ll see in the end when she hangs toasted on the ...MORE]]> BY LUCIA PERILLO

“Let’s all watch as the world goes to the devil!”
                                        —Fritz Lang, 1926

She must have written Beauty’s how-to book:
see the isotopes inside her veins,
her literal veins, lit up under her skin,
her liquidmetal jumpsuit skin,
when the mad scientist throws the switch
and her whole vascular system shines. I don’t know

how we fabricate the silver from this gray-
on-gray concatenation of flanges
sitting on her throne with the electrostatic waves
twitching into her limbs,
her knees and breasts like walnut shells:
she’s an armadillo/hybrid/roller derby queen.

And we who try to grip Futura in our hands
find she is like water. Nothing there
when we open them up
yet see the wetness on my palms—
at certain times of day they too are silver
and if sunlight hits them right they are ablaze.

But any iridescence I wear is thin veneer
whereas the robot wears hers deep deep deep
in her titanium bones, which we’ll see in the end
when she hangs toasted on the cross,
hips swiveled, knees bent
in one of the common, iconical poses of Jesus.

Then what are we left with—the hero’s silly silk knee boots?
Or that smirking blondie heroine
with only rubber bones inside?
And our longing for what—a robot, a Reich.
Something capable of the hardest kiss.
So civilization, your turn: rough me up, now that you’re saved.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Lucia Perillo’s fourth book of poems, Luck is Luck, was published by Random House in 2005 and was awarded the Kingsley Tufts prize from Claremont University. Her poetry and prose also earned her a MacArthur fellowship in 2000. She lives in Olympia, Washington.