Neruda :: Editor's Picks

As an editor and writer, I read a lot. Sometimes it’s at ten at night sloughing - or what feels like sloughing - through the inbox, or at ten in the morning riding the eight bus trying to focus on the words instead of the smell of yeast, pee, and crushed dreams. Sometimes I love what I read and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes what I read makes me want to stop writing, sometimes it makes me want to write even more. One thing I can say is that the editor part of me can see when the writer part of me should read more. And the editor part of me can also see when the writer should read more.

As writers, or artists even, we are used to criticism. But sometimes, we try to ignore it so as to further avoid any depression we may be staving off, to avoid any discouragement. Or, sometimes we think we are just SO AWESOME criticism doesn't matter.

One thing that I have noticed as an editor is that the more good literature one reads, the better it influences one’s writing. Congratulations if you aspire to write like Stephanie Meyer or JK Rowling, we all can’t be the Joyce’s of the world. But those who do and can ascend to a higher level (or merit) of literature, should always be interested in the techniques, styles, voice, etc. that will help to better their own writing.

It's never a bad idea to have that one piece, a poem, a story, something to fall back on when you need an extra push toward not feeling like a total lump of shit. I read “Joachim’s Absence” by Pablo Neruda. Here's the first stanza:

From now, like a departure noticed from afar,
in funeral stations of smoke or solitary sea walls,
from now i see him plunging to his death,
and behind him I feel the days of time close in.

Philosophy of 'Father' & a Small Review of "Big Ray"

When I was younger, my dad got angry when I called him father. I guess there wasn’t enough devotion in that word. Yet, when he got angry with me for other things, he would call himself ‘father’ with a red face and the veins purpling in his forehead.

John Locke said, “Words in their primary or immediate Signification, stand for nothing, but the Ideas in the Mind that uses them” (the crazy punctuation is not mine). Now there are multiple ways to interpret this and there are scholars who have spent a majority of their lives trying to determine exactly (which is ironic despite his vagueness) what Locke meant. And to fully understand the point that I’m going to make, bare with me over the next four paragraphs…

We may collectively understand a word’s meaning but that act alone doesn’t prove that the word is a pure representation of an idea. There is still the speaker’s bias to consider. Anyone who has been around me would know that I choose any word in order to represent something that I’m trying to say. We all do it. Think to that scene in “The Princess Bride” where Inigo Montoya tells Vizzini “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Therefore if words rely on The Mind That Uses Them, then they are not static. And even if they are static for The Mind That Uses Them, there is still the audience to take into consideration. Even if The Mind That Uses Them has a static understanding of the word – lets say the general consensus, a dictionary definition ­– then the person receiving the communication may be biased and the probability of a miscommunication is great.

So why should a writer give a shit?

Attn :: Men of Baltimore

To the men who feel obligated to stop me on the sidewalk to make comments about my legs,

Look. I know my socks are super awesome because I wouldn’t wear them if they weren’t. In fact, they’re so awesome, when my neighbor gave them to me she said, “I think you might like these, I’ve had them since the 70’s and never wore them because they’re ridiculous.” I can only imagine that she meant to say awesome, that she never wore them because they are awesome. So yes, I like them too.

But please, PLEASE do not tell me how awesome my tattoos are. They’re not tattoos. They are awesome socks. And anyone who decides to get tattoos from their feet to their knees is stupid because that’s a stupid tattoo. Sleeves are fine, but not kneehighsocktoos – I don’t even know what to call them because no one does that because it’s stupid.

I’m not mad that you think my socks are awesome. I not mad that you think my “tattoos” are awesome, but do not stop me to ask if you can take a picture of my legs. And do not stop in the middle of the road in your white stalker van, blocking traffic, cars backing up, whizzing by, horns blaring, JUST so you can yell out “I like your tattoos!” Because… what do you think will happen? That your comment will make my panties drop? That your comment will make me realize that we were destined to be, and while you sit there idling, awaiting my response, I’ll come running over and jump into your van and we’ll ride off in the three o’clock sunlight – because it isn’t sundown yet, oh but we’ll drive until it is.

And to the mister with the white button up and Pest Control embroidered over the left breast, did you think I’d go all sexy-up-in-the-air-leg-pose because I’m a young college girl and damn if Girls Gone Wild hasn’t taught us that these are moments when a girl’s low self esteem just SHINES. What would you have done with it? Would you have shown your friends? Maybe uploaded it to facebook. You would say, “Hey, lookit this girl’s tattoos, they look like socks!” And someone would reply, “Man, that girl has low self esteem.”

While I think that these socks do deserve the attention that you are throwing at them, anyone who has tattoos that looks like socks is dumb and therefore your attention is dumb. Don’t get me wrong, I like tattoos, even have a few. But don’t get mad when I laugh at the look on your stupid face as I roll down my socks and say “THEY’RE JUST SOCKS.” Awesome socks.


Thanks,
Melissa

A Letter to Citizen Garbage

To the guy who was driving a van that looked like an Astro van but wasn’t because you weren’t cool enough,

I was the one on the yellow motorscooter who honked at you. Your van was that ugly, retro grey-brown that people thought was an awesome color, but isn’t anymore. You were on the larger side. Not the oh-my-god-I’m-so-fat-I-get-stuck-behind-the-steering-wheel fat, but enough that your van probably sinks to one side when you get in. We were on some road in Towson, headed for Bosley Ave. I think you were wearing a white tee, and if I could imagine it – which I can – it was probably stained yellow around the pits, neck and on the stomach where you probably drop a lot of food. It wasn’t that warm outside and the wind was blowing. Your windows were rolled up but you were probably sweating. Not a lot though. Just a thin film of sweat on your face. Not enough to turn into droplets, but moist. You were pulling left, out of your parallel park job, to merge into my lane. I was the one behind that medic truck. You were looking right as you pulled out left.

I don’t understand this. Were you looking at something in your passenger seat? Was a Towson girl, over tanned, with blonde hair, walking by? Were you looking at the clusterfuck of papers, maps and McDonald’s wrappers on your dashboard and thinking, “Why the hell is all this shit on here?” Well I was thinking that, because I saw the clusterfuck on your dashboard and you looking the other way and pulling out in front of me and I was thinking, “What is that clusterfuck on his dashboard? Why is he looking away? Is he pulling out?” and that’s when I honked my horn. It wasn’t a hey fuck you buddy honk, but a hey, don’t hit me honk. Because I don’t like being hit, and I’m sure you didn’t want me to sue you or have little pieces of dead girl in your carburetor because I hear that it’s a bitch to clean, not like you would clean it you fat fuck. And I’d just sit there collecting all sorts of nasty shit. I’d just sit there, a part of your stupid van.

I was doing you a favor. But after that nasty look you gave me, maybe it should have been a fuck you honk because you seem like a dick. So next time, why don’t you look where you’re driving, so when you see me I don’t seem like a jerk for doing us both a favor.


Melissa

A List of AWP in Chicago

Just recently 75% of our editorial staff (sounds fancier than listing our names) went to AWP in Chicago. I thought about writing up a Gonzo-esque blog post, but I forgot to take my upperdownerLSDbarbituate-tonic mix. Instead, here is a list of things collected throughout the trip:

Wednesday February 29, 01:14 am
1 List

A Brief Inventory:
5 socks (un-holey)
1 green t-shirt with a brown smear of
unknown origin on the bottom right hem
1 camera
3 underwear (no thongs)
2 jeans in which you’ve slightly peed in
   on separate occasions: laughing too hard and
   that one time when you were drunk
1 pair of contacts (no solution, get water or orange
   juice in Chicago)
1 tampon (just in case)
1 iPod
1 toothbrush (which one is mine?)
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, David Foster Wallace

Thursday March 1, 02:27pm
2 photos of the Poetry Building