WOMEN WRITE

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RED CEDAR REVIEW

Figure without caption.

RED

CEDAR

REVIEW

Volume 9 Number 3

Copyright by Red Cedar Review, May, 1975


CONTENTS

Drama

Julie Jensen

Was Birds.........................................................................................................23

Fiction

Gloria Dyc

Blood-Tie...........................................................................................................7

Leonora Anderson

Waiting for the Mail........................................................................................45

Poetry

Barbara Drake

Good Friends and First Impressions...............................................................11

Judith Minty

Hungers....................................................................................................13

Night People..................................................................................................14

Driving the Back Roads............................................................................15

The Lake Road................................................................................................17

Linda Susan Moore

Evanescence.............................................................................................18

Alison Hedlund

miss america gives advice..............................................................................19

spiderwoman..................................................................................................21

for mama.......................................22

Debbie Wiitala

The First Apparition: Toward Sleep............................................................29

Second Apparition: The Drums in the Jungle-Heart of Night..................31

Carolyn Forche

Since Times Are So Hard, I Will Tell You Sweetheart............................. 33

White Wings, They Never Grow Weary.....................................................34

Kataloch.................................................................................................. 35

The Morning Baking.......................................................................................39


Dara Wier

One Woman and the Tailor...........................................................................41

One Woman and the Lady Medical Assistant..........................................42

One Woman's Words That Fall In the Night...........................................43

Allison Marlowe

Tripping...................................................................................................48

Vi Gale

Summer Session: Clatsop College, Astoria..................................................49

Grayce Scholt

Snapshot..................................................................................................50

Spelunking..............................................................................................51

Caress......................................................................................................53

Jeanice Dagher

The Ladies...............................................................................................55

New Year's Eve and the Private Baptisms of My

Brother-in-Law, the Fireman.........................................................................56

Fish Fry...........................................................................................................57

Phyllis Eyer

The Way of Light.....................................................................................58

Review

Joyce Ruddel Ladenson

Female Misfortunes: Marge Piercy's Small Changes ...............................59


Blood-Tie

Gloria Dyc

Night 
Crickets. 
Crickets.

(She pulled the sleeping bag to her chin.)

Night Crickets. 
One light from the barn.

Try and sleep now it's been a day.

Her legs hurt; they had said, "Jump! Go ahead!" as she clung to the 
rope looking down a gulf of hay. The first time was the hardest as they 
said, all these cousins (second? third? can't tell them apart) squealing 
"Jump! Go ahead! Put your feet around the knot and swing." All alike. 
Blondes. Pulling at their crotches and staring at this strange blood-tie. 
Following her from the yard to the barn, the barn to the house. Using 
her name. Blood-tie. Had they even recognized her at first? And did they 
really expect her to stay, to lie here on their couch? The one with the 
diamond pattern. With one light from the barn. The dog barked.

"I took care of you," Joan had said. Serving drinks with one hand. 
Pointing with the other. Mediator. Ring-leader. "I'll never forget the 
time you gave us when you had rheumatic fever." (Tell your cousins to get 
away from the chickens.) And would she spend the night? It was such a 
long way back.

Oh yes it was a long way back. Was there enough room? And you 
don't know how nice it is—what with living in the city and working so much 
and rarely getting away. Joan had looked with wonder (was this really the 
one...) and laughed of course when they had all lined up for rides and Clark 
had said his horse liked to "test" people and everyone was close by when 
she mounted because they were all ready to leave on the hayride and she got 
on and took right off in a gallop but she said (to herself) there will be no 
way he throws me not in front of all of them and hung on tight gripping 
with her thighs and someone yelled "ride that thing" and she had till they 
all started clapping and the horse tired of the performance and dropped 
anchor in his stall and she had walked back brushing her pants (stubborn 
thing); Joan had laughed of course. And would she spend the night? Yes. 
With the crickets. Here on the porch. On the diamond-patterned couch.

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The one their grandmother had. It was such a long way back. And so 
quiet here. Such space. In the city you could go for—weeks—and not 
see the horizon. (And could she live here...turning the soil, clearing the 
wheat...pattering about on the cold morning wood of century-old houses 
where porches came much later, added later when they had time to sit in 
the evenings and just listen...)

Her shoe had dropped in a rut on the cleared field, slipped away as 
though on a conveyor; Ann, the blonde one with glasses, jumped from the 
wagon laughing and retrieved it. Running back she warned with country 
authority against sandals on hayrides. And Ann had looked back at her 
uncle perched high on a throne of feedbags and grimaced playfully as he 
once again broke out in a serenade-this time it was "You are my Sunshine" 
and then he moved into "By the Light of the Silvery Moon." And it really 
got to Ann when they stopped at the bridge and everyone dismounted, 
relieving the cart of an extra 3,000 lbs or so and he remained, supine, 
refusing to give up his privileged place, still singing and sipping from his 
flask as they all hoofed it to the other side. So assembled and on their way 
the uncle resumed the games: "First one to spot an animal gets a quarter." 
And of course all the older ones flinched lest it be the two locked in coitus 
and he had said, "A wild animal. Anybody that spots a wild animal—no, 
that's an insect— gets a quarter." It was almost dark. Ann took her hand and 
asked, "Are you spending the night?"

And Joan had yawned and dug her bare toes into the carpet and asked 
if she wanted a last drink and there was room on the front porch she added. 
On the diamond-patterned couch. It wasn't very big. The one their 
grandmother used to keep in the house on Mason Street. Did she remember? 
Oh yes she did. And lifted the spread to make sure. She did. Yes. They 
really had a hard life and never had a big couch. But...did she remember 
the house on Mason? Oh yes, of course.

She was there sometimes in the distortion of dream floating down 
elongated halls, looking for lost rooms. They had closets with windows and 
they hid there behind clothes and the big room had three beds and they 
loved to sleep there or just visit because it was air-conditioned and smelled 
like Vicks and there was a picture of a very mellow christ pointing to a 
plum-colored heart which you could see right through his robe and one night 
she slept there and she swore it glowed and the next morning her 
grandmother said, "Turn your back. Grandpa has to put his pants on." 
And she did. But she turned back early and saw it anyway and it was all red 
and shrivelled and her heart was in her throat like the time she crawled under 
the bedroom chair because she didn't want an enema she only had a cold...

(Joan found one of her kids asleep on the staircase landing. She took 
inventory, decided who was in what room, who was in the tent.) She 
sucked on an ice cube. Yawned. "Grandpa was a mean man. Grandma had 
a hard life."

He threw bricks at cats, swore he would kill one from the porch that 
was so high you could walk on the railing if no one was looking because if 
you fell onto the cement you'd crack your head open like a melon. He

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swore and spit out the car and sometimes it landed on the window when 
they'd be on their way to the candy store where he'd tell them he was going 
to see a man about a horse and they would wait for him to come back and 
wonder if this time he'd really come back with one and what color would it 
be but grandma would shake her head and say, "He's only pulling your leg."

And Joan wanted to walk outside to make sure the kids were really all 
in the tent and not still in the barn, so they went; and Joan asked if she was 
going to have any kids and said this was the only way to bring them up. She 
agreed. Definitely there was no other way—the city was really unlivable. So 
they talked near the light from the barn where the flies made silent, 
perforated orbits. Joan said she hoped the couch would be long enough. It 
was. It was fine. The air was cool and clear and it was quiet except for the 
dog once in a while.

And the crickets.

On the diamond-patterned couch.

In the night.

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Good Friends and First 
Impressions

Barbara Drake

"I got a sunburn on my ass today," you said,

and flipping your tennis skirt

like an east coast can-can girl

you gave the party a peek. It was red.

If I hadn't known you better I'd have thought,

Uh, uh, look out for that one.

But I don't think that way any more.

At another party, ten years ago at least, 
when I met you the first time, 
you reminded me of a Captain Easy lady.

Your legs were curvy

the way they looked in comic strips in 1940.

You looked energetic enough

to jump aboard a passing Chinese junk

or wave from the deck of an aircraft carrier

at Easy flying by.

But you'd a baby in the car, and we were all 
too poor to be adventurers. "Women don't like me," 
you said. "Too much hair and lipstick."

But I liked you a lot. I'd see you pass our house 
with the plaid stamp buggy full of bags and the baby. 
You'd walk reading a Vogue or Cosmopolitan, such 
other-than-grad-school worldly stuff, with a pint of Ripple, 
red or white, in a paper sack—the girl from Smith.

You'd take a sip, push the buggy a few steps 
and read of Jackie, whom someone told you 
you resembled. Giving the baby a slice 
of Wonder bread white as an angel, you'd stop, 
offer me a snort from the bottle.

You've always been one of my most generous 
and unsanitary friends.

Well, that's how you looked to me then.

Also: behind the hedge in your yard painting 
enormous self-portraits. I thought 
you were trying to find your own face 
when all the rest of us dealt in words.

Or you, pulling something from a wrinkled

Goodwill sack and saying in your New England voice 
that sounded foreign on our West Coast,

"I found this lovely gown today."

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In the hospital, after my daughter was born 
and I lay like a tube of toothpaste someone 
had squeezed flat, you came 
bringing your odds and ends of lotions, 
lipstick, perfume, the kimona of rose-colored silk 
to bring me back to life.

And you laughing heartily, and you in tears, 
and you seeing whatever you have seen of me, 
and now after ten years and moving with husbands 
and children and dogs and rooms full of furnishings 
thousands of miles we are: here again, in the same town, 
turning up at the same parties, knowing 
too many of each other's secrets to ever talk 
at parties about anything but these 
true and untrue first impressions.

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Hungers

Judith Minty

Lately, a bulldog has been growling 
in my stomach. I am always hungry.

I visit grocery stores at midnight, 
dream of banquets, luaus and Roman feasts.

I send secret notes to handsome cakes in magazines 
and fondle all the bismarks at the bakery.

I crave kisses soaked in butter, 
arms around me like artichoke leaves, 
hamburger hugs, and love songs 
leaping out of the pan like popcorn. 
I want roast beef whispers in my ear 
and frankfurter fingers in my cunt.

I want to feel like lemon meringue pie again.

I'm looking for a gourmet cook 
who recites recipes in iambic tetrameter, 
whose cock rises like bread under his apron.

I need a man who wears his chef's hat to bed 
and smells of garlic, who likes to taste the soup 
every hour as it simmers on the back burner.

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Night People

Judith Minty

They glide through caves, sensitive 
as bats, as if lamps beamed out 
from their foreheads. They mine

under the surface of things, sure-footed 
moles in their tunnels. Bruce knows 
ivy grows toward fluorescent tubes

in the factory where he feeds his machine. 
The elevator man at the Pantlind Hotel 
feels roots tangle in the shaft below him

and at Jimmy's Club, the piano player 
hears leaves rustle. Sometimes 
he orders brandy when he plays the blues.

In this house we are oblivious to vines. 
We hibernate in sunken logs, make ropes 
of the bedsheets, open our gills 
to the stranger who swims slowly 
in our ocean, and when sun bleeds 
under the shade, we shudder into day.

We never see those night creatures 
who sink slowly into loam as we rise 
like the tide to a fading moon.

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Driving the Back Roads

Judith Minty

Sunday, a crossing back 
over back roads.

Slush sputters off wheels

like a covey of partridge

and our car 
swerves, catches 
the ruts again.

All day, the blackbird 
high in a winter tree, 
his eye raking the snowfield. 
Now the sun gone, branches 
lean and fade like smoke. 
Ahead, cats' eyes 
burning off tree trunks.

We see clearest sometimes 
in darkness. Tonight 
this wish to stay 
with wild things, to follow 
these twisted roads 
and never cross 
over to Monday.

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The Lake Road

Judith Minty

\Ne drive along the lake road 
toward water, the sky 
so blue the two will blend together 
at the horizon. We may never know 
whether we swim or fly.

The talk is of breaking

through heat into waves, crashing 
against foam. Father mother children, we will 
flutter, stroke, spread out our arms, 
float in again to shore.

We did not intend the splash of orange 
at the road's edge, a family 
of orioles scattered on the grass, broken 
when they lifted, fell 
in and out of currents.

The sun breaks its wings 
against our windshield. On fire, we 
soar over the rise to the lake.

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Evanescence

Linda Susan Moore

What hurts most 
about America 
is the 
way 
it has 
of disappearing folks, 
inside out, 
Black folks— 
'specially

Black men—

It's like at

Easter time when 
you blow the insides 
out of an egg 
and keep the shell 
to decorate...until 
later, purpose served, it's 
disposed of.

America sucks the souls 
from Black folks, 
taking the warmth 
and love 
and vomiting it into void, 
replacing it with 
obsession to obtain 
and prove— 
Hollow shells are 
oh so fragile 
and much too easily disappeared.

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miss america glues advice

Alison Hedlund

be sure to 
joggle yr 
hips the right way.

teeth not brite enuf? 
use pepsodent/pearldrops/even 
wy-ten will do/one must always 
smile dazzlingly.

push up tits w/(yr a maid now) 
maidenform. no cheap brassiere 
remember judges go for size/"perfection 
of form." they likum bouncy

(like rubber balls) 
real or fake/behind cotton they can't tell.

evening gown: avoid hi neck, be sure 
to have enuf filmy girly chiphony 
stuff. emphasize figure, numbers count. 
swimsuit most revealing—no: moles/ 
fat/wrinkles/ 
sags/muscles/ 
birthmarks. if you 
are (in any way) human fix it or forget it.

don't worry a minute girls 
about talent it's unwomanly so don't show 
them up. just a little bit will do.

oh and above all fuck the lights.

they love it.

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spiderwoman

Alison Hedlund

i have memorized

all the wrinkles on this quilt 
the way a spider knows its web.

& with bone & skin wrapped tight 
round your warmth

i have become that greedy spider.

i watch you sleep, my paralyzed prey.

i want to bite your neck

& lick the juice that oozes out— 
but you breathe gently.

i watch & wait.

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for mama

Alison Hedlund

one night 
us all in bed 
we heard 
mama crying in the basement (we 
had never heard/seen her crying before) 
how frightening it was 
to hear her 
we arose feeling sad/guilty/ashamed 
& wondering why, 
we arose 
feeling naked 
in our loose pajamas 
trooped three of us 
through the house, 
down the stairs,

saw mama washing clothes 
hair wild as a witch's 
we thought her an 
angel or 
ghost 
till she 
turned 
smiled through her tears 
hugged our worried shoulders 
told us to go back to bed: saying 
"everything is all right.” 
but we

weren't sure

returned to bed

feeling

for the first time

insecure

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Was Birds

Julie Jensen

(Vita, the only character we see in this play, is not an old woman; she 
is middle-aged or just beyond. She has lived alone in a small country town 
for a long time. She is kind but strange. The play takes place in her small 
quarters. There is a kitchen area up left and a table with three chairs stage 
right. She has lived here for many years and has collected more things than 
the place will hold. In addition, there are several cages with birds. However, 
nothing is made of the birds; Vita does not talk to them or even acknowledge 
their presence. There are also two imaginary guests in the play. The older 
one, Ida, is someone Vita has invented to excuse her own unpleasant nature, 
a scapegoat, someone whom Vita can victimize. We must assume that Ida 
has lived with Vita for quite some time. She is seated at the center of the 
table. The other imaginary guest, Cleanth (pronounced Clean-eth), is more 
Vita's age and is definitely a visitor, someone Vita talks to maybe once a 
month, though she has known her over many years. Cleanth is seated right 
of the table.)

VITA:

(From the kitchen area where she is making cheese and cracker sandwiches.) 
You know, she got no sense no more. Old and mean. Used to be a sharp 
one. Not no more, though. Could sit up and remember things—like what 
happened on my stories. You probably don't watch the stories. I'd say to 
her something like, "Ida, what happened on Bradford and Mary Lee?" She'd 
be able to tell. She'd say back something like, "Well, Vita, Mary Lee's 
mother is come to stay and they's trouble with their neighbor's son. He's 
gone to the devil with dope and stealing and a wild lady friend from town 
much older than him." Things like that. (Pause) Well, don't matter. But I 
tell you it's been years since she could do that. Maybe five or more. And 
she's deef. Deef as a post. "Ida, you as deef as a post," sometimes I say. 
"Deef as a post and you don't know a thing." See, don't trouble her none. 
(Setting down two plates of crackers and cheese, one for her and one for 
Cleanth.) Help yourself. (She sits in the chair left of the table.) Now all 
she does is make them high peeps and drum her fingers till she's wore through 
the leather on the arm of that there chair. Won't sit in another one, won't 
stop drumming. I taped it up the other week, so's she couldn't get at it. 
But didn't do no good. Time end of the day come, she'd got through the 
tape anyway. Can't do that every day. (Pause) Said to her not to. (She 
eats some of her crackers and cheese.) Said, "Ida, you makin me nervous

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and you makin a hole in the chair." But she don't stop. It's spite. Sometimes 
I think she's takin out on me the fact that she's lost all her sense. Well, ain't 
nothing to do with me. I only just take care of her. I'm just doing my job, 
getting paid. Not my fault. (Silence) Ain't ya hungry, Cleanth? Eat 
something. (Pause) You know, for a nickel I'd turn her back. Call up her 
daughter and just turn her back. Course she don't eat much. That's good. 
Cause if she did, I'd have to get rid of her. Call up her daughter and say, 
"Beverly, this here's Vita. Come and get her. Come and get yer ma. She's 
eatin me out of my pension. Now come get her." Beverly, that's her name. 
Ida's daughter. (Pause) Nice woman. Clean faced like a child...(Pause) But 
she don't do that. Hardly eats a thing. Used to like sausage. That was her 
favorite. That would always make her smile and go off into a story about 
making sausage when she was a girl. The same old story, over and over. 
Everytime we'd eat it. That's how I first knew she was losing her sense, the 
number of times she told the story. Over and over. Ever time we'd eat 
sausage. (Imitating Ida.) " You know, Vita," she'd say. Had this kinda 
high-pitched voice, you see. Like a bird. "You know, Vita, I know all about 
sausage. I made it with my pa when I was a girl. Take the leavins, grind em 
up..." Oh, would go on and on. Made you just sick. But she don't eat much 
anymore. Seems to know it ain't worth the money it costs. Sometimes 
she'll eat radishes or some garlick. She likes that. I just cut it up in small 
pieces for her, and she munches it a whole afternoon. Course, then she 
smells awful bad after that. So I don't give her the garlick very often. Can't 
sit next to her at all. Never give it to her when there's people coming. Now 
me. I'm more used to it, you know. So I've learned how to breathe around 
it. But others, well, I've watched them as they've come in the house. They 
jist can't stand sittin next to her. Comes out through their skin, don't you 
know. Nuff to make you sick right to your stomach right on the spot.

(Eats another cheese and cracker sandwich.) Beats me how somebody could 
get their self attached to something like that for food. Guess I don't mind 
tellin you that more than once I've thought it was for spite. "She's only eatin 
them things to get back at me for something," I've said, "something she 
don't even remember now. Something more an likely I never done." Go 
ahead and stink up the house till she starves to death and then I get blamed 
for not feeding her good. Can't win, I tell you. (Pause) If she was my kin, I'd 
have her put in a home. She really needs that kind of care. Don't get it 
here. Can't expect no person like me to handle someone like that. Besides 
the other things I got to do. Go to the store, church. It's not exactly easy 
managing things and her too. So I do what I can and don't worry about all 
the rest of it. What do it matter with her anyway? Don't know the difference. 
What I always says to my son Melvin, the youngest one, I says, "Now, 
Melvin, you don't let me turn into a pest," I says. "Don't nobody want to 
have to do with a pest." (Eats one of Cleanth's sandwiches.) That's what I 
says and I still believe it. Now that old lady ain't nothing but a pest. She 
ain't worth a thing. A first-class pest. Now me, I be quite happy to go 
when my time come. Don't want to go hanging on and on, like her. That's 
not right. I mean, they is right and wrong in this world. And you got to 
abide by them things. Just like you got to abide by the law. Well, this here's 
the same thing. When you time is come, take it graceful and don't go round 

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tormentin people until it's over. Now with me, I got it all planned out. How 
I'm gonna go, and what's gonna git done with my remains. First, after not 
turning into no pest, well, I want to just drift off, like Wesley done. That was 
the simplest thing you ever seen. Like a sleepin dog. And I think you can 
do that if'n you just set your mind. I'm sure that's what Wesley don. Well, 
you know didn't take him more an a week after he decided it was time and he 
was gone. No trouble, no bother to no one, least wise not to me. Just kinda 
drifted off at the end of the week, on a Saturday, something like that. And 
that was that. (Eats another one of Cleanth's sandwiches.) Well, that's how 
I'll do it and after that, don't want very much made of my remains, no 
statues or nothing on the grave. A plain marker. Never exactly been used to 
a whole lot of fuss over me. So it wouldn't be fitting for me to have to 
spend eternity with a big fussy statue over top of me. Just plain. The name 
and the date. That's all. (Silence) Listen to that. That's her, peepin. Don't 
know what it means. She took to doing that a couple of months ago. Peepin 
like birds. It's like she forgot how to say words. Cept she still moves her 
mouth. Well, you can see that. Isn't it strange? You'd think something like 
your words would most likely be the last to leave you. But not with her. 
They left, well, about the same time as her sense. She wasn't very long without 
the one till she lost the other. It was right soon. I was noticing she was 
failing and I kept noticing how she was repeating things, well, like the sausage 
story. And it wasn't too long after that till she stopped altogether. Sort of 
turned herself into this bird then. "My god, Ida," I say to her sometimes, 
"you dumb, blind, stinking, and you forgot your words." But it don't make 
no difference to her. (Pause) It's enough for one person just to watch all 
that. Some, well, there's some would like to see it happen, I'm sure. Sitting 
around day after day, just waiting and watching for someone to well, move 
on, but I don't. Don't like it. It's eerie. You talk and say things, important 
and not so important, don't you know, it's not that, whether they're important 
or not, it's whether there's anyone who knows your words enough to 
acknowledge. Now Ida, there, she don't. I tell you, I can think of better 
companions. I can even think of people I'd rather watch to die. Even ones I'd 
rather talk to when they're deef. Ida ain't one. (Pause) It's the way she's 
vicious that I don't like. Underneath that bird stuff and underneath that 
deefness and the smell is something mean. I can tell it. Course, you wouldn't 
want to go saying it. People, most of them, you know, wouldn't believe 
you. They take pity on anyone what'll show em a deef ear and a silly 
nonsense way of talking like a bird, and they feel sorry for them, they'd 
swear this old lady was harmless, but she ain't. (To Ida.) Evil. Ain't ya, Ida? 
Ain't ya? Ya deef old crow. Looka that, not a bit of knowing going on in 
there. Just some meanness, some evil. You can probably tell that. Well, you 
know she's spry in spite of being old, stinking, and deef. She could out run a 
dog if you wanted to race her. Oh yeah, she's spry. And with that kind of 
situation, you gotta watch, cuz they don't know nothing and yet they're evil 
so's you can never be peaceful. They can always get you, if you don't watch 
it. Something could get into them and they could just up and take off after 
you. That's what you got to watch for. Got to guard against. (Pause) I mean 
she could come at you with a knife or a stick or something. And things like 

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that have happened, too. Ain't just idle fright. Even now, I don't like to go 
out in the yard till I've planned out where I'm going to be and till I've moved 
all the dangerous things away from my path, so just in case she took it into 
her head to do something, well, I'd have more of a chance to get away. You 
probably think it's wrong, being scared of a bird, little peeping, chirping bird 
of a woman—can't hear, can't talk, just peeps and don't eat. But birds can 
be dangerous. You probably heard that afore. It's true. They can. Birdscan 
go at you. They're slow and they're small, but they know what's your 
weakness. They peck at it. They wear down your eyes. Make you want to 
be a bird yourself so's you can have something to fight with, be able to get 
away. Yeah, a bird is a terrible thing. Wouldn't wish no bird on no one. 
Wouldn't. I says to Melvin the other day, "Melvin, don't you ever give me no 
bird for a present. Don't want one of them near to me. And don't think 
something like a cage makes one bit of difference. It don't." I can tell you. 
It's like with Ida here, not so much with her or a bird in a cage—what they 
can do, but what their spirit does to you. Now them two, well, they can get 
into your mind with their spirits, with their vicious spirits, like with regular 
birds gettin in your eyes with their beaks. With these birds of the spirit, it's 
that they're like your diseases. Can't be seen. Wouldn't know they was 
there except for their effect on you. And it's the same thing. Your diseases 
and the spirit of the bird can both get you down deep, make you crazy-like. 
Give you fright and terrible visions. I've knowed it to happen. And wasn't 
crazy people neither, just your regular people what was suddenly seized by 
something vicious from the birds or from people, other people that was 
vicious and had the power. And the way you know the people what has it, 
the power, is by studying their looks and their ways. And the more they're 
like birds, the more they're likely to be vicious, evil on you. Turn up bad. 
(Pause) You don't believe none of this, do ya, Cleanth? Think I'm crazy, 
but I ain't. Know what I'm talking about. It's happened to me. They was 
strange things to happen when it did. Seen the strangest things right in the 
very world you're used to. And scares you, the visions. Makes you think 
of being a baby again with a mother, but ain't one. Ain't nothing to do but 
try to live through. I seen em. I seen em bad. Was water over my feet like, 
and down in the water was animals without no hair come rubbin their smooth 
bodies on me. And it was like you wasn't meant to see what there was there— 
them kind of animals. Didn't have no hair. They skin was soft and wet. And 
they was thousands of them, all different and all turning over in the water 
and opening their mouths. (Silence) You never seen such a time as that.

Don't believe they ever was so much of the awful spirit as they was then. They 
come from Frank. When he was sick. And the birds was around. They 
caught it and passed it on. Frank diseased. Mind gone. Like Ida's here.

And the spirit of them birds seized anyone was nearby. (Silence. Slowly.) 
And now we got Ida here doing the same thing. And the birds and the spirit 
of the birds. With the viciousness of their ways. And the way they wears 
at your eyes. (Pause) I feel it more in the late day. That's when your birds 
is tired and most vicious. They wear at you. That's how they get in. Wear 
their way in. And you might be feeling it a bit now. They doin it. Wearing. 
Can tell. Cause it's late. And they're more vicious in the late. Come out with 

27


the dusk. Ain't nothing to do for it cept try and live through. Try and 
remember till the next day where you left your sense. But it's a terrible time. 
And the spirit is strong. Feel it now. The spirit of Ida. She's vicious. And 
lost all her sense to them birds. (Her voice trails off. She becomes silent 
and motionless. She has a frightened, vacant look.)

28


The First Apparition: 
Toward Sleep

Debbie Wiitala

Deep into night, when words come, lucid, 
like deer, to feed,

a new face from under bears the old one up 
to some extant-worldly light.

Eyes wider, luminescent 
animal globes 
as if the roots of night pushed up there 
dark petals on pools of white 
when moon skims on water like a single cell 
extending black water cylindrically.

A skin

about to lose itself, 
cells flaking snow-like toward sleep.

The last throb of light an opal in each heart 
like the glow of candle fire beneath the stairs 
blooming the bedroom wall.

Burning until morning and a new wax form.

Lumen.

Night invokes another world 
in which we are the bearers of light. 
Distinct.

Each movement lucid in its slowness 
like the ice-edge of assassin light.

A fragile existence, crystalline, 
carrying itself delicately, its own fetus.

My face grown more pale.

I wonder do I begin to glow 
toward sleep

a lantern feeding on shallow breath 
and dreams.

Eyes dark like pools in snow, 
deliquescent.

29


Figure without caption.

Second Apparition: The Drums in the 
Jungle-Heart of Night

Debbie Wiitala

I.




If I could speak now my voice would be 
as a loon's,

my mouth moving to the sound of a water bird far off.

*

Night again, as far as we have ever been 
into it.

We see only by the pale opalline 
light of our faces.

Bodies gone out. Only the face sustains 
its lamps, brain close to that surface 
like a generator chugging softly its power transfer 
wired by blood to an animal mask.

Only the eyes are dark, 
windows to a pumping station, 
inside machines make their own world 
like planets orbiting in the bottom of a well, 
two holes of small water 
tapping a universe's powerpipe.

Eyes and brain ash hearts where fire leaps 
extrapolating a network of heat and light.

All power in transfer;

that glow like the call of a loon— 
we're never sure that we have not just 
imagined it,

a trick of night, sorcery.

II.




Sonar.

All night voices 
come up from the iron lung, 
the deep-sea-diver's helmet. 
We communicate by sonar, 
at such times able to speak to dolphins 
in a common language.

Translations made by the slow black tongue 
of the hour of night which leads to death 
through a watery hallway 
if a certain hatch is opened.

Pressure necessitating the instant flowering 
of an uncatalogued aquatic death root 
at the base of the brain

from which we may speak to animals,

a language known in utero

—our hydrogen beginnings evolving to a life of deserts.

31


Mirages, of course. Dry and paperlike. 
But we know, when night is almost fluid, 
that under layers of ice, water, and silt 
the rotten fossil mouth of a common ancestor 
still sings, 
through sediment, 
obscenely.

32


Since Times Are So Hard, I

Will Tell You Sweetheart

Carolyn Forché

Out back the lake is a bath mirror.

Grapes and wire vines brush the field.

I boil soap and water in my pots. 
Light my kitchen with pans of ice 
And the stove burners heating soap.

Yams have grown shoots in the cupboard.

I would be crazy to open it.

My man is quiet, always quiet.

Fat on the divan, scootched to the heat.

Two sacks of his old tongues

Swish around in my dress.

My kid wants to suck but I'm dried up

I'm tired I'm talking again to myself

I go in the bathroom lift the shade

Snap on the light and strip.

Someone out sneaking through the fields

Could see me, pink in here, dusty with hot water.

Maybe it turns into blood, this shower

While my eyes are closed maybe no one

Is out tonight.

33


White Wings, They Neuer 
Grow Weary

Carolyn Forché

April stars, crisp in the deep plot 
pulling off, late snow clouds 
clean themselves.

But the river lets loose the carp

And coughs beneath the frozen part. 
Slowly drippings on the roof hit the gutter.

Ice branches ripped off in wind are water born.

In the house, a rim of cheese is quiet.

There is a chunk of lard to be rendered.

I should hang pails on the trees and wait for sugar.

I want to tie off the time like a birth cord 
chewn broken in a proud woman's teeth. 
My navel is gone, the moon up.

In a month or two my breasts will be in pain.

Out here a woman wonders.

And if she has no man her arms get strong.

When the seasons change she can't believe 
there will ever be milk in her body.

Ever believe there will be someone 
asking something from her.

34


Kalaloch

Carolyn Forché

1

The bleached wood massed in bone piles, 
we pulled it from a dark beach and built 
fire in a fenced clearing.

The posts' blunt stubs were sunk down, 
they circled and were roofed by milled 
lumber dragged at one time to the coast. 
We slept there.

Each morning the minus tideweeds 
flowed it like hair swimming.

The starfish gripped rock, pastel 
rough. Fish bones lay in sun.

Each noon the milk fog sank 
from cloud cover, came in 
our clothes and held them 
tighter on us. Sea stacks 
stood and disappeared.

They came back when the sun 
scrubbed out the inlet.

We went down to pi les to get 
mussels, I made my shirt 
a bowl of mussel stones and carted 
them to our grate where they smoked apart.

I pulled the mussel lip bodies out 
and chewed their squeak.

We went up the path for fresh water, berries. 
Hardly speaking, thinking.

During low tide we crossed

to the island, climbed

its wet summit. The red foots 
and pelicans dropped for fish.

Oclets so silent fell 
toward water with linked feet.

Jacynthe said little, 
her tuk pulled on her hair, long 
since we had spoken Nova Scotia,

Michigan, and knew beauty in saying nothing. 
She told me about her mother who would 
come at them with bread knives then 
stop herself, her face emptied.

35


Figure without caption.

I told her about me, 
never lied. At night 
at times the moon floated. 
We sat with arms tight 
watching flames spit and snap. 
On stone and sand picking up 
wood shaped like a body, like a gull.

I ran barefoot not only 
on beach but harsh gravel 
up through the woods.

I shit easy, covered my dropping. 
Some nights, no fires, we watched 
the sea pucker and get stabbed 
by the beacon




circling on Tatoosh.

2




I stripped and spread 
on the sea lip, stretched 
to the slap of the foam 
and the vast red dulce.

Jacynthe gripped the earth 
in her fists, opened— 
the boil of the tide 
shuffled into her.

The beach revolved, 
headlands behind us put 
their pines in the sun. 
Gulls turned a strong sky.

Their pained wings held, 
they bit water quick, lifted.

Their looping eyes continually 
measure the distance from us, 
bare women who do not touch.

The rocks drowsed, holes 
filled with suds from a distance.

A deep laugh bounced

in my flesh and sprayed her.

3

Flies crawled us, 
Jacynthe crawled.

With her palms she 
spread my calves she 
moved my heels from each other.

A woman's mouth is

37


not different, sand moved 
wild beneath me, her long 
hair wiped my legs, with women 
there is sucking, the water 
slops our bodies. We come 
clean, our clits beat like 
twins to the loons rising up.

We are awake.

Snails sprinkle our gulps, 
fish die in our grips.

There is sand in the anus 
of dancing.

Tatoosh island 
hardens in the distance.

We see its empty stones 
sticking out of the sea 
again. Jacynthe holds tinder 
under fire to cook the night's wood.

If we had men I would make 
milk in me simply. She is 
quiet. I like that you cover 
your teeth.

38


The Morning Baking

Carolyn Forché

Gramma come back, I forgot

how much lard for these rolls.

Think you can put yourself in the ground

like plain potatoes and grow in ohio?

I am damn sick of getting fat like you.

Think you can lie through your Slovak?

Tell filthy stories about blood sausage?

Pish-pish nights at the virgin mary in detroit?

Hear your country on the radio and bitch.

I blame you for raising me up, making

my tongue slav, all this slapping and dancing.

I'll tell you I don't remember any kind of bread,

your wavy loaves of flesh in my sleep,

the stars on your silk robes.

But I'm glad I'll look when I'm old

like an old gypsy dusha hauling milk.

39


Figure without caption.

One Woman and the Tailor

Dara Wier

Fine London fog, filigree 
filaments every color thread, 
one bare bulb bulges over 
his table, over his head, 
he works with a knife, (she 
calls hers her scissors) slices 
out shoulders, thighs, skirt, 
bodice, breast to size. 
Inventing with pique, batiste, 
chiffon, tracing the seams 
by bodkin, little penis, 
pin-sharp in his pants, will she 
wear this to a dance?

The tailor tries it on, looks 
to his mirror, grabs a reel 
of bobbin lace, pins in place 
(she's up early learning Sears' 
zigzag way). He does the darts, 
tacks the seams, bastes, binds. 
Fastidious with careful stitch, 
he shapes the little buttonhole 
lips, tip of his rattler's 
tongue ties the thread. Will she 
wear this when she's dead?

41


One Woman and the Lady

Medical Assistant

Dara Wier

Assuming his masculinity, she 
thinks I won't shy, telling me 
to buy a slip, telling me not 
to think of it.

She hands him the cake decorator 
that opens me up, birthday 
or wedding day one, eyes like lead 
slits, he wears one shining light 
on his head, am I smiling? 
Jack-lighting game is outside 
the law, he is no minor.

Her swishing skirts, she looks 
at me hardest, she has names 
for us all: Mohawk, city 
mob, red swamp, pygmy lips, rabbit 
breasts, slug, black fern, oyster bed.

I know, as I lay here, there is a mirror 
at the foot of her bed.

42


One Woman’s Words That

Fall In the Night

Dara Wier

criss crossed kokomo roll 
a pole candlestick finger 
roll kumquat come squat and 
roll bird roll

the taste of tubular roses 
twang of tongue, tuft 
of skin in the margin 
roll of meat in the oven 
power of darkness 
fall of light, failure 
of promise, pulse of pumpkin 
fool of the night

kink in the switchblade 
sandwich of his ankles 
tongue of his skin 
scaling my skin

pulse of this word 
that falls in the night

43


Waiting for the Mail

Leonora Anderson

I am cutting the roast into small squares for Hungarian goulash. It is 
bloody work, but precise: there is some satisfaction in the symmetry of the 
squares. It will be a luxurious meal, the pieces of meat in the thick reddish 
sauce over the golden noodles. I am a good cook.

Roger and John have gone to water the garden and pull the weeds that 
wait to choke out the smaller plants. They will come home with armloads 
of zucchini squash that has grown too large to be tender and huge red 
tomatoes, one slice big enough for a sandwich. I seldom go myself anymore. 
I did the planting, put the tiny seeds in the ground and patted the earth 
over them. After that, I prefer to leave it. I hate pulling up the weeds and 
the wrench of the fruit twisting off the vine in my hand makes my stomach 
sink.

Besides, I appreciate the opportunity to be alone, the luxury of the 
meal I am making in the twilight, the feel of the knife in my hand. The 
pile of bloody squares grows very satisfactorily, in tribute to my work.

And as I slice, I dream about tomorrow's mail. Every day I wait for 
the mailman with excited anticipation, as though when I open the box I 
will find a paper bearing some secret formula for my life. 500 dollar a 
month income. Your own vacation home. An expense paid trip anywhere 
in the world. Some strange proposal, some sign. None of this has ever come, 
but my expectation increases through the years of my life.

Then something happens. I cannot say just what, but I put down the 
knife slowly and carefully and hold up my index finger to the light. I cannot 
believe it is my own finger. A precisely inscribed line runs lengthwise across 
the knuckle. And as I bend the finger I see, at the bottom of the crevass, a 
white flash of bone. The cut is so bloodless and perfect at this moment, 
that it seems to have been put there purposely. I stare.

It is not painful: as a matter of fact, my hand feels nothing. I seem to 
be examining some peculiar exhibit in a museum of natural history. The 
flesh inside the slice is a palish color, whiter than the meat of any mammal 
I have ever seen. And the cut has been made so that the delicate blood 
vessels lie exposed on the surface. They are fine and beautiful, and do more 
than carry the blood, like a road map of some fairy world. I am transfixed.

Then the bone, the flesh, the blue threads, dissolve in red. The white 
of the kitchen cupboards shifts peculiarly before my eyes, straight lines 
moving in curves. What has happened here?

45


I am not a woman who faints at blood. I have cut myself many times, 
been injured, burned. A broken arm. When I was young, living in the 
country, my neighbor slit through the veins and tendons on her wrist while 
drying a drinking glass. The blood was spurting over her head as her heart 
beat, but I stopped it with the sash of my bathrobe, and held her arm while 
I drove her to the hospital. I am capable in emergencies. But this is different.

I try to decide what I should do about my finger. Something must be 
done, I know, but I cannot clear my mind of the picture of that white bone, 
and its brightness, down there under the flesh, blinds me. Underneath, 
through my whole body, the bones flash and the fine vessels quiver. I try to 
focus on the red comfort of the blood that drips out through the rag I have 
wrapped around the finger, but I know it is only a disguise for what lies 
beneath.

I sit on the kitchen chair, quietly staring at the peculiar movement of 
the light and the shifting of the lines around me. What is this place? What is 
happening to me? Something, I am sure, that can never be undone.

The blood runs down my arm and off my elbow into my lap. The feel 
of it on the inside of my thigh rouses me. I wrap the finger with a clean rag, 
peering at the slit for a sign of the bone. Perhaps it was only a trick of the 
imagination, or a vision of some sort. I cannot see anything but blood. Still, 
the bone haunts me.

I go to the telephone and call a taxi. I put on lipstick, carefully, in the 
mirror, and put on a clean skirt. It seems quite incredible that I am going on 
in this ordinary way as if nothing has happened. Inside, I am amazed, but 
the motions have a weight of their own that carries them.

I write a note, "I have cut myself. At the hospital. Back soon. Love, 
Shirley." Of course, that is not what I want to say at all. It is some kind of 
code that even I cannot decipher.

The taxi comes and we drive away toward the emergency room. The 
world passing the windows is one I do not recognize at all, as though I am in 
some alien place, though I have been this way many times before. The lights 
have an unaccustomed brightness and the corners of the buildings are askew.

The driver is a young man, curly-haired and blonde. I want to reach 
out and touch his neck with my white-wrapped hand and lift the curl off his 
shoulder. Perhaps he would turn off the meter and we could go off together, 
through the town and away.

But, of course, I do not touch his shoulder. We pull up at the emergency 
entrance of the hospital and I pay him with the money I have held carefully 
in my hand since leaving home. It is two dollars, but I do not have time to 
wait for change. I am very excited.

The blood is seeping through my bandage and dripping onto the floor 
and I stand there waiting for someone to do something. They will, I know. 
The walls are white and bare as bones and they gleam and shimmer in the 
fluorescent light. A nurse takes my name and vital statistics. Shirley 
Williams. Thirty years old. Social Security number 133-36-5257. Blue 
Cross. Is that who I am? She is satisfied with the information, but I am not. 
Some vital piece of information has been omitted. There is something more 
to be revealed.

46


"I cut myself," I say, holding up my finger. And she takes me to a 
small clean room with a narrow bed. I wait there for the doctor, still 
bleeding.

When he comes in the room, I open my eyes wide to him. He is a 
short, dapper man; not the one I might have chosen. But he is here.

"What happened?" he asks. What does he suspect, I wonder.

"I cut myself slicing roast beef," I say, "by accident," to make it very 
clear.

He places my hand on a white board and calls for sutures. I am not at 
all frightened of him, but I wish I were wearing a long silken gown that lay 
softly over my thighs and curved around my ankles. I smile at him gently, 
just curving my lips, eyes still wide, while he jabs the needle in my flesh. It 
does not hurt very much, but I arch my back and stiffen as is expected of me. 
And when the finger is numbed, he takes it in his right hand and pulls the 
edges of the flesh apart and looks down into my flesh and bone.

Then he washes it out with a sterile piece of gauze and begins to put in 
the sutures. He is meticulous at his work, his head bent over my finger, 
smiling with pleasure at the neatness of each stitch and tiny knot. I am 
being repaired.

"Did you see the bone?" I ask, though I know full well.

"Yes," he says, "It's a deep cut."

He keeps stitching, though he must know, as I do, that no amount of 
repair can hide that bone. He has looked down into my flesh and traced my 
blood vessels with his fingers, and is now connected with me intimately for 
the rest of our lives. He sews on, tying the knots with a flick of the hemostat 
as if he were a magician.

"How do you bear it?" I ask, "Seeing people this way."

"You do what has to be done," he says. "And in a certain way, you 
get used to it." I am grateful that he does not pretend not to understand, 
but I cannot believe that anyone can live with so much intimacy. Still, he 
has brown hair that curls over his ears and I could forgive him any lie he 
needs to tell. He can see the skull under my forehead as I brush the hair 
away from my face, and he knows the muscles that move my jaws. My 
bones, bare and gleaming, are in his hands. I am a network of nerves and 
veins.

The white walls of the room move as if in a dream and like a dream the 
time and the place and the man seem more real than life. I feel elated, as if 
anything is possible here.

"All done," he says, as he puts the tape around the gauze. But we both 
know that is a lie.

I get up from the bed and go out into the waiting room to call for a ride 
home. John and Roger will be there by now. They will come in the old 
pick-up, full of vegetables, to take me home. And I will finish dinner and 
the three of us will eat, quietly, pleasantly, in the dining room under the dim 
light.

But tonight in bed I will think about my flesh and my bone and about 
what has happened here. And I doubt that tomorrow I will wait so avidly 
for the mail.

47


Tripping

Allison Marlowe

On the way 
to the Soviet Union 
I stopped off 
at a 
McDonald's restaurant 
in Tokyo 
for a Big Mac and fries. 
(They made 
everyone 
pay 
with personal checks.)

We did a skit 
in Russian 
class;

I found myself 
with a part 
I did not want. 
Fumbling the 
words, 
I fled 
(the teacher in pursuit) 
out into 
the streets of 
Leningrad.

Running, running 
through the 
streets and narrow 
alleyways 
and I finally 
ran up the 
flights of stairs 
to the little 
attic room 
to tell 
the young 
Russian 
with whom 
I was living: 
I can't play 
this game 
anymore.

48


Summer Session: Clatsop 
College, Astoria

Vi Gale

6 a.m. I press 
a Japanese transistor to my ear. 
Stretching out of sleep, history 
held in rented walls, I tell 
my body clock to set itself 
for river weather, temperature 
in cranberry bogs, new nasturtiums 
twisting over old brick. 
The city hassles dog control.

Man walks on the moon. Pain, private 
and sharp as April three months back, 
dulls, I begin to think 
in terms of luck.

8 p.m. I sort

a first-day cache of student work 
Shale-rough stories, tide-slosh poems 
green as fresh kelp. Downstairs 
a granddaughter, practicing Mozart, sways 
like a reed. Her young sister 
crowns herself cereal-box princess. 
Students get my blood. Will the school 
get its money's worth?

High ceiling. Wide staircase. 
In this ship-sturdy house, 
this rivermouth town, I breathe 
salt air, march lilies, 
water striders and shifting mud flats. 
Personal adversity makes half-sense, 
wasting hurt begins to heal 
on a flute note, sure 
as a cutout crown.

49


Snapshot

Grayce Scholt

Fading gray 
your shadow slants across my face, 
my eyes unsmiling, blind to dream 
beyond the frame:

If I could call you back, 
my mother, whisper, scream, 
if I could rub your lips to life 
(what-is-thirty-years-to-death), 
my mama, if I could

Where is Monday morning now?

Your arms uplifted in a steam of clothes, 
your jaw stiff set in struggle toward a grove 
of poles that slant against a winter sky, 
toward snapping sheets, toward crackling 
underpants as cold as steel as sharply clean; 
if I could call you back to only 
automatic 
wash 
machine.

There's only this: 
young and smiling, holding up 
a small black box, 
you point it at me: click. 
You lock me in a kodak kiss. 
I kneel beside your tulip bed, 
my arms around our long 
dead 
dog.

50


Spelunking

Grayce Scholt

I would have said that 
we had studied openings; 
it was our course, exploring 
cave and cove with torches and without; 
on thread as tough as rope we traversed 
distances as steep as time across abyss 
as dark as space and cold.

I would have said that we had broken rock 
together, mallet striking bright quick flecks 
that opened bodies, ancient fins and wings;

I would have said that we had run our fingertips 
across the age, had touched the flesh that dropped 
a million years ago today. But now I know 
the distances, dead as webs, that bound us 
separately, that held us fast 
within the tomb, were 
voyages beyond the moon.

I would have said that we had studied 
openings, but found instead 
ourselves the relics 
sealed within the ruins.

51


Figure without caption.

Caress

Grayce Scholt

May apples grow 
in our dark woods 
in one small clearing

all around wet sunshafts 
ravel down in cylinders aglow 
with grains that rise and fall 
(a glancing pain)

Remembering well that 
silently you said 
this ground was surely 
where the child Eve 
awoke to Adam first

I remember all the rest

Not daring now as then 
to stop the rich contagion 
I stand in velvet penetration 
here again: in wild 
ascent/descent 
without one bee 
I swear that I could 
fertilize this earth 
of trees

But only human 
fuller than I've ever been 
of love's distress, today

I turn and walk 
(right-thigh-rubbing-left) 
caress 
(left-thigh-rubbing-right) 
away.

53


The Ladies

Jeanice Dagher

Laughing at old ladies 
having martinis and 
singing that they are 
Miss America because 
they all have fur coats 
of sable or mink; how 
it really could have been but 
their mothers died and 
their brothers cried and 
they were all very young. 
So they blink their powdered eyes 
and woo another husband to 
dance this one 
Just for me.

Mary dances with Bob and 
his cancer is worse and 
he can't add anymore; 
he excuses himself when you 
step on his toes, but 
that's only the years 
with Virginia. So 
valiantly sliding in 
support hose and 
green velvet shoes 
the legs are too thin and 
the belly hangs low through 
an emerald green knit and 
the ladies drink Beefeater's and 
never ask where is the olive 
because they're flying.

55


New Year’s Eve and the Private Baptisms of My 
Brother-in-Law, the Fireman

Jeanice Dagher

A first cigarette burn 
in this still unfamiliar 
carpet; it is my own,

I admit, and 
Marvin's warnings 
flash at me 
as I flick an ash 
the wrong way.

It was last New Year's Eve 
and amidst an 
exchange on J.P.

Sartre and a world 
of contradictions 
(surrounding us) 
he told me about the 
most dangerous fires 
he had walked right 
into. (Once he fell 
through a hole in the roof; 
once he cut a man's arm off to 
set him free.)

I said, "Jesus, Marvin, 
that's a very rough 
line of work."

Only now,

I am increasingly 
sure that an 
unknown spark 
will rise out 
of the depths 
of the rug and 
when I am least aware, 
swallow me in great 
tongues of fire.

56


Fish Fry

Jeanice Dagher

Lonnie killed the great fish 
last night in the darkness 
behind my back.

I heard

the breath knocked 
from him and 
felt it was my own; 
I heard his throat cut 
and thought of his 
great mouth gaping, 
quiet now.

His flesh scraped carefully 
for our dinner, 
the angry pike now 
lay harmless and 
humble for our enjoyment. 
I stared, 
swatting at mosquitos, 
and Lonnie said, "It's 
survival, baby. 
Just survival."

Very funny how 
I can absently tear 
a chicken apart, 
crushing the bones, 
ripping the joints, 
just making supper 
in a September afternoon.

57


The Way of Light

Phyllis Eyer

The Song

First you screamed, then we all 
And now we cannot escape 31 kinds. 
Who liked short shorts? You. Me. We.

Now you raise goat/goats, I raise goat/goats 
We all scream for Denver.

The 15 Cent Hamburg

Red barn doors never close.

Old McDonald's cow is ground up everywhere. 
The angle of incidence

Equals the angle of reflection. 
We're caught between mirrors.

The Record Jacket

Why did you bring it in, Bob 
When you brought it all back home?

The picture of you shows you 
Holding the picture of you holding

The picture of you hold...

The Hockey Game 
Once a cold climate game 
Played on black river ice, quickly gouged; 
Now on electric ice, machine swept, 
Caught on camera mirrors 
From Toronto to Atlanta.

The Writing Class

Write only what you know. 
Mirror the life you see about you.

For experimental effects

Use warped mirrors, or slick round balls 
That invert images.

Reflection

Mirrors reflect light rays 
Only at the angle from which they come. 
Bending glass is not enough.

Shatter mirrors, squeeze the eyes to blackness, 
Turn in to see the light.

58


Female Misfortunes: Marge Piercys 
Small Changes

Joyce Ruddel Ladenson

The reluctance to admit that all art masks ideological assumptions is 
fast disappearing. Even Susan Sontag, the once high priestess of non-interpretation, 
has recently condemned the fascistic efforts of Leni Riefenstahl, 
Hitler's favorite film maker, and a current favorite among some American 
film critics. Dressed in more exotic garb than her early film, Triumph of 
the Will, Riefenstahl's recent, dazzling collection of color photographs, The 
Last of the Nuba, fascinates as it subtly nudges the deeply dangerous longings 
in too many of us for beauty and power. Sontag's point is unmistakable: 
we deceive ourselves merely to regard Riefenstahl's art for its own sake. We 
must examine carefully the strict hierarchical, authoritarian structures of the 
idealized societies she celebrates. 1

Fortunately, fascism has not cornered the market on fascination. 
Reversing right-wing ideological preoccupations, recent feminist novelists 
have begun to attract concern for more egalitarian and humanistic subjects. 
One such writer is Marge Piercy, whose reputation as an important novelist 
and poet has already been established through her first two novels, Going 
Down Fast and Dance the Eagle to Sleep, and her two volumes of poetry, 
Breaking Camp and Hard Loving. Her most recent novel, Small Changes, has 
been applauded by some as an extraordinarily important and serious feminist 
narrative, and has been denounced by others as a blurry ideological treatise 
which sacrifices clear focus, complex characterization and a comprehensive 
political canvas. Interestingly, very few of Piercy's hostile critics really 
specify how her so-called uncertain ideological intentions impair her art. 2

I am tempted to guess that some of the hostile response is a reaction to 
Piercy's painfully honest vision and to the justifiably ambiguous implications 
of her prose. Although a dedicated feminist who no doubt wishes a brighter 
future for us all, she tells a story which does not promise paradise, nor does 
it include the full range of class and race experience. Piercy focuses on two 
young white women, whose lives in late sixties America intersect at moments, 
but take different directions almost from beginning to end. Although these

1Susan Sontag, "Fascinating Fascism," The New York Review of Books, 22, No. 1 (6 February 
1975), 23-30.

2The critical controversy over Small Changes began with Lucy Rosenthal's negative review 
("Ideology and Fiction—A Delicate Balance," Ms, September, 1973, 29-31), and was followed by 
several positive rejoinders—Phyllis Chesler and Martha Shelley among them. Piercy's negative critics 
generally make the impossible demand that the novel conform to their particular feminist view of reality. 

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two lives cannot possibly represent all of womankind, they can shed new 
light on where a lot of us are at, or are headed, or have been.

Beth, the first of the two women protagonists, emerges from an average 
though backwater family into a more stifling early marriage. The novel traces 
her daring escape from that marriage and the sexist culture it represents, to 
the cosmopolitan milieu of the Boston-Cambridge late 1960's youth culture. 
Beth's feminist maturation leads her to lesbianism and an involvement with a 
communal counter culture. All this is told with pathos and humor, as the very 
shy Beth nonetheless discovers resources to dissemble against her husband and 
family, and finally, out of her own and her lover's volition, to forge a new 
life for herself.

Miriam, to whom we are introduced secondly, nevertheless occupies a 
central position in the novel, since she dominates most of its 557 pages and 
is realized far more complexly than Beth. Miriam's parallel emergence from 
her Brooklyn Jewish origins into the more cosmopolitan Boston youth circles 
comprises an intriguing and contradictory journey of self realization through 
work, conflict through heterosexuality, partial "adjustment" through 
marriage, and finally desolate isolation. Miriam's trials and tribulations with 
her two "movement" lovers and her eventual marriage to her boss, a relatively 
conventional though liberal man by whom she dutifully has two children, 
sounds on the surface like the script for an afternoon soap; but Miriam 
attracts us with her loquaciousness, vitality, intelligence and bohemian style, 
as she alternately evokes our sympathy and disappoints us with her weakness 
for men she cannot satisfy or be satisfied by.

Piercy's feminist biases are especially apparent as she details Miriam's 
life. Her protagonist's initiation into sex is more of a joy to her than to her 
lover-initiator Phil, an appealing counter-culture poet; yet Phil's macho need 
to brag about his conquest serio-comically underscores his male egocentricity. 
And, in a series of succeeding scenes, we see Miriam caught between the 
trauma of her mother's dying of cancer, and of Phil's overdosing on acid, the 
impact of which tears her apart. On the one hand her mother, even near 
death, stubbornly insists on conventional expectations for her daughter, 
despite the opposing reality of Miriam's life. And on the other, Phil demands 
everything of Miriam—her emotional and much of her financial support. 
Rejecting Phil, yet still clinging to an ethic of dedication to a worthy man, 
she turns next to Jackson, the taciturn, independent self protector and best 
friend of Phil, who poses the archetypal challenge to Miriam's feminine wiles. 
Yet, she is a pawn in this game too, since Jackson's perverse inability to give 
of himself drains her dry, and she turns more to her scientific work, to Beth 
and other women activists.

Miriam's subsequent marriage to her boss, Neil, an arrangement she 
relies on for normalcy and support, is actually that for a few years. The 
relaxation of tension comes as a welcome relief and a realistic turning point 
in Miriam's search for some security and communication with men. Neil 
does appear to be a sensible choice too: at first he encourages her research, 
applauds her culinary and domestic talents, and seems not to make the 
adolescent demands of his predecessors. Yet Piercy's vision is relentless. As 
Miriam continues to be woman acted upon, rather than woman acting, her 

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fortune reverses. Neil's desires for a family are realized and he casts Miriam 
in the role of mother-civilizer-domesticator, reversing his earlier approbation 
of her work, which she needs. And, more socially unyielding than Phil and 
Jackson, both of whom show capacity for personal change, Neil finally 
emerges as the worst threat to Miriam's dignity, and their marriage as an 
emotional and mental straightjacket.

Beth suffers parallel misfortunes, although she is symbolically at least 
more of a self-determined figure. Having found strength and personal meaning 
in her relationship with a woman choreographer, she helps her lover 
escape from a Grand Jury witch hunt that drives them both underground 
and isolates them from their supportive Boston circle. It is here in the 
concluding sections of Small Changes, that Piercy's refusal to soften the 
harsh realities of women's lives troubles some critics. Feminist sympathies 
and beliefs will not force her pen to propogandize; the gloomy implications 
of her conclusion are an outcome not only of her fiction but of contemporary 
American life, which, despite the women's movement, compels us to 
recognize, for the moment at least, genuine constraints upon our lives.

Some of the objections to the novel are valid. The rapid transitions from 
one phase of Beth's life and consciousness to another do reduce her complexity, 
and the conversations between Miriam and her two lovers occasionally 
seem staged; the repartee is too clever to be real. But the overall impact of 
the characters in their everyday situations is enormous, and I can recall no 
other novel in recent years which has engaged my interest as much as 
Small Changes.

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Contributor’s Notes

Leonora Anderson has an M.A. in Curriculum from Michigan State and 
works in Supportive Services. She also has a six year old son and a waitress 
job at Emil's.

Jeanice Dagher is a graduate student in English at Michigan State.

Barbara Drake teaches in Michigan State's American Thought and Language 
department.

Gloria Dyc is currently working on a Master's degree in theatre at Wayne 
State. She is an editor of Moving Out and writes criticism for Margins.

Phyllis Eyer (Keon) has an M.A. in English from Michigan State. She has 
appeared in Red Cedar Review and will appear in The Ball State Journal.

Carolyn Forché graduated from Michigan State and taught poetry writing 
in Justin Morrill College in Spring 1974.

Alison Hedlund is an undergraduate at Michigan State. Her poetry won 
third place in the Dyer Ives Contest in Kent County.

Julie Jensen is an editor of Moving Out. Her work has appeared in Woman 
Becoming, Libera, Off our Backs, and The Periodical Lunch.

Joyce Ruddel Ladenson is a feminist activist and assistant professor of 
American Thought and Language at Michigan State.

Allison Marlowe holds an M.A. in History from Michigan State and is 
interested in researching and writing history as well as continuing creative 
writing.

Judith Minty is currently teaching at Grand Valley State Colleges. She is 
the author of a book of poetry entitled Lake Songs and Other Fears.

Linda Susan Moore is from Detroit and will be attending graduate school 
in English at Michigan State in Fall 1975.

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Grayce Scholt is currently an instructor in the Language, Literature and 
Philosophy Division at Mott Community College in Flint.

Dara Wier has appeared in Poetry Now, New Orleans Review, Seneca 
Review, and Sunset Palms Hotel.

Debbie Wiitala is from northern Michigan. Her work has appeared in 
Red Cedar Review and will appear in Intro 7.

RED CEDAR REVIEW is a tri-annual magazine of the arts published 
at Michigan State University. Manuscripts may be submitted to 325 
Morrill Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, 48823. 
Please include return postage and contributor data.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: Single copies $1.50. Three issues $4.00.

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RCR Staff

Editors:

Patricia Polach

Louis Reinwasser

Neal Villhauer

Business Manager:

Mark Fenske

Staff:

Jeanice Dagher

Kim Delmar

Alison Hedlund

Graphic Design:

Amy Rufus Miller

Darcy Drew Greene

Robin L. Roach

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