What Editors Want. . . ?

 What Editors Want: A Week of Fresh Catch Wishes (as opposed to the old reliable, workshop-safe, combed-and-scrubbed, A+-in-deportment, even par  poems & stories)

Day 1
Funk, something hybrid and loamy, misbehaving
like a snake that’s twined a wild vine
scabbed bark and lush blossoms
flagrant, ghastly
rumpled surface, tightly wrought structure and texture
crow-cawking, naughty (but dodging the obscene)
or something wholly serendipity and green

Day 2
A fairy tale subverted, myth twisted, old saw with new teeth
Grimm written as history
“Boldness has genius.” – Goethe
creepy-compelling (maybe ogres, but no vampires, werethings or zombies of fashion)
in hock to Angela Carter
madness with method to it

Day 3
urgent as a mystery, piquant, desperate even
channeling some kind of Anthony Burgess’s Little Alex-like primal embellishment
Catullus, undated again
what Sicorax said to the storm
a form deformed – sestina scrambled or writ as prose or camouflaged
OK – what The New Yorker seems to think is de rigueur, sine qua non
– but just this one day

Day 4
comic, but not mild or confectionary

Day 5
what the redwing blackbirds would say, could they be resurrected
feral, not floral nor feeble
angry, cranky
a fool’s errand successfully achieved

Day 6
a non-literary genre (menu, invitation, Christmas letter . . . ) yoked to literary ends

Day 7
work authentically, persuasively set in times with no (or few) cars, phones,
quickburgers, Brazilian waxes
or in places not predictable (Guatemala?  the Caucasus? a barber shop in Saigon?)
       but rendered untouristy
or, finally, work about characters whose occupations (luthier, Rotor-Rooter woman,
      jockey, surgeon) or preoccupations (luna moths, the Spanish-American War,
      hopscotch, scotch, hail, tetherball, mantel clocks, tomatoes, doubloons,
      funerary customs) provide them with a perspective and jargon that makes them
      refuse stereotype)

 Now that would be a week of discovery and re-configuring glee.

[lagniappe] quirk, swoon, horror, dazzling pizzicato

scarred bark and astonishing blossoms of the crape myrtle
pipsissewa suddenly arising under the river birch
and yes, there is the obligatory carpentry, but it’s not scrabble or
Betty Crockery


recent-meR. T. Smith has edited Shenandoah since 1995 and serves as Writer-in-Residence at Washington & Lee. His forthcoming books are Doves in Flight: 13 Fictions and Summoning Shades: New Poems, both due in 2017.

 

The Gloaming

I was recently reading Nightwoods by Charles Frazier when I stumbled upon a word that really stuck in my mind: gloaming. Frasier uses it as a possible option for a description of the state of nightfall, which the antagonist, Bud, is experiencing. Frazier writes, “It gets to a point of darkness where you don’t know what to call it. Dusk or Night…People used to have a word, gloaming, but that’s only a snatch of memory from a song.” I do not think I had ever heard the word before, at least not in a way that would have made it memorable, but this time it just resonated with me. I find myself watching for its appearance in the evenings. It seems I have a new compulsory desire to feel its manifestation.
It’s strange how that happens, when an author uses a word well and you just can’t stop thinking about it.  I later looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary, but the somewhat stagnant definition of “Evening twilight” did not captivate me near so much as Frasier’s “snatch” of time between dusk and nightfall.  As I think it over, I probably have heard the word once or twice, but it took Frasier’s unique description to make it stick. There is something mysterious about the way he describes it. For instance his use of “people.” People is a very ambiguous term. What people? And from where? Perhaps it was the combination of the strange new word and the ambiguous one, but my mind immediately jumped to the faery people of old. It must have been the mystifying quality of the idea of a “gloaming” that entranced me, but I would have never have noticed that quality had it not been for Frasier’s vivid description.
Have there ever been any particular words that an author has brought to life for you in the past?


Spring Fever

It is finally March, and despite the freak snow fall we had yesterday in Lexington, it feels like Spring is in the air.  Spring is by far my favorite season.  I am not really sure why, but it might have something to do with the fact that my birthday is March 20th, which marks the official start of this glorious season.  I am proud to share my birthday with noteworthy individuals such as Lois Lowry, the author of the classic children’s books The Giver and Number the Stars, as well as Mr. Rogers and Big Bird from Sesame Street.  In addition to this momentous occasion, Spring is also a time of rebirth and new beginnings.  The flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, and practically everything is green.  At the risk of sounding overly optimistic and Disney-esque, I should mention that early Spring is also a time of repentance and reflection.

This confluence of natural beauty and reflection always brings to mind one of the definitive Romantic poems, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth.  The Romantics are known for their obsession with man and his relationship with the natural landscape.  In “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” Wordsworth explores the beauty of nature recollected in solitary contemplation.

Quotes from Wordsworth’s famous poem float through my head as I walk through Washington and Lee’s beautiful campus.  I can’t pass by a bunch of daffodils in a neighbor’s yard without thinking of the lines “When all at once I saw a crowd;/A host of golden daffodils.”  Spring truly is a time to sit back, reflect, and bask in the awe-inspiring splendor of nature.

Are there other poems that sing Spring for you?


Senior at Washington and Lee University. Originally from Chattanooga, TN. Majoring in English.

Homegrown Literature

Reading a novel that is set in a place where you have actually lived or visited is an interesting experience. Being born and bred in East Tennessee, this is not a common occurrence, but it does happen. Usually, the books I read take place in distant or imaginary lands such as New York City, England, Yoknapatawpha County, or Middle Earth. However, over the past few years I have come across several novels that are centered on my home turf.

I have a complicated relationship with my Southern roots. Growing up I despised the South. I was perpetually embarrassed by my extended family’s twangy accent and bizarre colloquialisms. I despised traditional Southern food, I refused to read indigenous authors or listen to country music. In short, I was certain that I would flee the South as soon as I could. Thus, when I began my college search I confined my scope to the Northeast and Midwest. Imagine my surprise when I ended up falling in love with a school that is located in Lexington, Virginia and steeped in Southern history.

During my almost first few years at Washington and Lee, I have learned to love my home and my heritage. However, that is only the glamorous side of my Southern roots. Beneath the surface lurks the dark side of my family history. One side of my family is originally from deep in the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee. They are what you might call “hillbillies” and many of my ancestors were moonshiners. I tried to hide this side for years, but when we read Cormac McCarthy’s The Orchard Keeper last year in my Southern Fiction class, it all came flooding back.

McCarthy, an East Tennessee native himself, perfectly captured the region’s uniquely grating and nasally accent. The strange folktales that appear in the novel are the same stories that I grew up listening to whenever I visited my grandparents. The untamed and awe-inspiring mountains depicted in The Orchard Keeper, are the same peaks that I trekked through annually with my parents. Rather than feeling horrified and embarrassed by McCarthy’s depiction of my home, I felt proud. This novel made me realize that my culture was something to be celebrated. Now, I fully embrace my distinct Southern background.

What about you? Are there any novels that take place in your home town? Did they do the place justice?


Senior at Washington and Lee University. Originally from Chattanooga, TN. Majoring in English.