NEA Big Read at PWPL

Sap Season  In loving memory of Helen Haskell Remien  by: Jennifer Elen Brid everything is in a circle  they said  roundness of birch trees  bark thin and curling  Golden Lake,  the tires of the bike  that could have killed  me on James Lake Road  across from the sixteen acres where we tapped  maples for amber elixir,  stirring, stirring  in the cook pan sweet steam  and woodsmoke, a benediction  in that garage of logs and chipped chinking  snow-melt streaked  across the floor  some March not long ago  my friend Helen offered me  a jar of sugar water  the first of sap gathered  filled with Faery glee, her  body thin and curling  I had forgotten sap’s mellow sweetness  how it courses through the body  how it made me feel at one  with trees  only the maples knew  or the Faeries maybe  that this would be her parting gift  this woman made...

Gandhi is everywhere, by: Lynn Domina I thought, lost in Rio’s Centro district. A vendor hawking snacks blocked my view, until, stepping into the street, I saw his wire-rimmed eyeglasses, bare arms, his disproportionately large sandled feet, this black statue twice as tall as he ever was. The high sun flattened his features. I wanted to touch him, it, the smooth black stone formed into his image. A boy’s Portuguese confused me, something about water, something about thank you. Taxis loitered behind buses. The familiar body emerged from their exhaust, walking toward the sea or toward Parliament or toward his assassin. Later, I opened a map and saw his name there among metro stops, the Lapa steps, the Cathedral of St. Sebastian. I found my way back to my hotel, then home again to English, flat accents, potable water, cold winters, our fear of brown men teaching peace. (originally published in The Glacier ) Lynn Domin a is a poet living in Marquette. She enjoys traveling just about anywhe...

The Immigrants’ Samovar: My Russian Novel (Abridged) by: John Smolens L. and his wife left Smolensk in 18--, taking with them nothing more than the clothes on their back and maybe one small valise. Most everything else had been sold or confiscated by the Czar’s soldiers. I wonder what happened to the samovar. They left with just enough rubles to buy their way out of Russia, crossing the Dnieper River and traveling west until they reached a port, let’s say Gdansk, where they boarded a ship. Its deck was packed with immigrants—we’ve all seen the photographs—and it was a hard voyage across the ocean to Ellis Island, where they all waited in line, and waited and waited, until they stood before a uniformed clerk with waxed moustaches. More than a century later, I have stood in that great hall, where the clerk’s incomprehensible English reeked of flask whiskey, saying Welcome to America . The light in that hall angles through large semi- circular windows high above the tile floor, which is n...

How a Family Crumbled by: Gideon Achatz As a child in a small town like Ishpeming, there weren’t many things to do without being bored after a minute.. Going to the park got old, hanging around at my own house made me feel sluggish, but my grandma’s house was always one block away, where there was a house full of my family and the people I loved most. So, most of my time spent as a child would be spent at that house. Whenever it was the weekend I would want to sleep over, and whenever I had downtime, I would walk over. In the household there were about six people in total, with a couple others coming in and out occasionally. First, my Aunt Ruth, who’s not exactly the happiest when she’s not in control. Next, my Aunt Bev, who would always spoil me when she was working. My grandma and grandpa, who were like the silent sentries of their household, and my Aunt Rosey, who’s Down syndrome didn’t stop her from being a beacon of happiness. Finally, Aunt Sally, a nurse who was responsible for m...

  At the Wolfe Sewing Center by: B. G. Bradley From Hawk’s Worlds of Wonder (A soon-to-be-released magic reality memoir from Benegamah Press)           Looking back at what I’ve written so far, I see I’ve painted a pretty dismal portrait of both Key and Wuh as human beings. Yes, from my viewpoint as a five-year-old, hung up on a coat hook inside a draw string bag while bound and gagged, they did seem pretty villainous, but I should say here and now that in subsequent years, and despite the fact that they did tease and harass me on a pretty regular basis while I was growing up, they were and remain two of my best friends on Earth, and have stood up for me with brotherly love on occasions too numerous to mention. Even when I was little, and Key and Wuh were full-on committed to their campaign to keep their younger brother subservient, humble, and completely under their thumb, any harassment or abuse of their little brother by anybody outside the family, was s...