The Long River Review is in full swing for the spring semester. We are diligently putting together the journal for our April release, trudging through submissions, proofreading, and making all sorts of disclosed-behind-the-locked-door-on-the-QT-off-the-record-very-hush-hush editorial decisions. We are pleased to announce the winners for the English Department’s Creative Writing awards for 2009-2010. Congratulations to all the winners!

The Wallace Stevens Poetry Contest
First Prize, $1000: Phillip Korth
Second Prize, $500: Katelyn Aguilar
Third Prize, $250: Matt Salyer
Judges: Penelope Pelizzon, Roger Wilkenfeld, Charles Mahoney

The Jennie Hackman Memorial Award for Short Fiction
First Prize, $1000: Jesse Williams, “How Gary Met Melisa”
Second Prize, $300:  Miranda DePoi. “Shadows on the Wall”
Third Prize, $200: Sierra Ryan, “Funeral Reds”
Judges: Lynn Bloom , Richard Peterson, Fred Roden

Collins Literary Prizes
Prose Award, $4000: John Allie,  “Lander”
Poetry Award, $4000: Duncan Campbell, “Aesthetics”
Honorable Mention: Nikki Rubin
Judges: Jonathan Hufstader, Ellen Litman, Beth Ann Fennelly

Aetna Creative Nonfiction Award
Graduate Award, $500: Zara Rix, “Knowing the Enemy”
Undergraduate First Place, $300: Timothy Stobierski, “He Had Some Tears”
Undergraduate Second Place, $200: Jennifer Few, “The Man with the Lopsided Birthday Cake”
Judges: Regina Barecca, Liz Hart, Sam Pickering

The Aetna Creative Works in Progress Grant
$1000, Matthew Salyer, “Homecoming” from the novel in progress, Tenino
Honorable Mention:  Jennifer Holley, “White Portals”
Judges: Fred Biggs, Theodore Van Alst, Roger Wilkenfeld

The Long River Graduate Writing Award
$250, Zara Rix, “Deliberate Decisions”
Judges: Regina Barreca, Anna Mae Duane, Ellen Litman

The Edwin Way Teal Nature Writing Award
Graduate First Place, $125: Zbigniew Grabowski, “Husbandry”
Graduate Second Place, $75: Caitlin Shirts, “Climate”
Judges: Sam Pickering, Sydney Plum, Bob Tilton

Thank you to all who entered and we encourage all students to enter again next year! Be the first in line to grab a copy of this year’s journal at the Long River Review release party at the UConn Co-op on Thursday, April 29th at 7 p.m. For more Creative Writing events, visit creativewriting.uconn.edu.

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This is the title of a poem by poet Beth Ann Fennelly. The poem:

Once I did kiss her wetly on the mouth
and her lips loosened, her tongue rising like a fish
to swim in my waters
because she learns the world
by tasting it, by taking it inside.

I desired it–her learning my tongue that way.

Yes, I wanted to soul-kiss my daughter,
to lather, slaver the toothless gums
and the cat-arched back of her palate,
to sniff the bouquet of baby’s breath
all the way to the vase of her throat

Look at her, in her highchair,
wearing her yam goatee

I like to take her whole foot in my mouth

Look at her, in her bib
slung backward, like a superhero’s cape–
beware, small villains everywhere

Oh, that first day
when the nurses returned her to my cot
so newly minted, her soles were black from ink
they laid her, naked, on my naked chest
so she could swell my breasts with milksong,
so I could warm her skin with my skin,
and so, next to my more regular heart,
her skittish beat would steady–
though I swear when she latched on
all meter, music changed

I whispered in her see-through ear
I’d keep her safe forever–
I, her first lover.

This poem comes after a poem entitled ” ‘If Only We Could Keep Them Small Forever’ ” in Fennelly’s book Tender Hooks. I was thinking to myself as I read the book (just finishing ” ‘If Only We Could Keep Them Small Forever’ “) how bizarre it was that the next poem was entitled “Once I Did Kiss Her Wetly On The Mouth.” A lesbian encounter, a persona poem written from a male perspective, her husband’s perspective maybe? And right after a poem about her newborn daughter?

Nope. As interesting as any of those would have been (if only, maybe, at the hands of Fennelly herself), the poem is instead one about kissing her daughter, on the mouth–in the mouth. What should my initial reaction be? Well, I think I was shocked initially (probably intentionally) that I could only see Sylvia Plath–the “cat-arched back of her palate” & “bouquet of baby’s breath” immediately recalling “Your mouth opens as clean as a cat’s” and “your moth-breath / Flickers among flat pink roses” from the poem “Morning Song.” So I read it again. I read it eight times, maybe nine. Did this really happen? I couldn’t help to think: what if a father wrote this about his son? Or his daughter?

I still don’t really have answers to those last questions, but if that man (somehow) came from the same powerfully beautiful perspective as Fennelly then it would probably be difficult to argue against him. As utterly confused as I was after my initial reading, I could not bring myself to even attempt to condemn Fennelly’s actions. Child abuse? I, simply, could not even think it. I was humbled, I think. The poem was a self-contained argument, finding its power not in rhetoric and logic but in the profound connection between mother and daughter I could probably never understand.

I mean–”soul-kiss”! And “milksong!” Where does this kind of writing come from? “I desired it–her learning my tongue that way.” Absolutley honest, fearless poetry.

Well, this whole thing isn’t necessarily a Beth Ann Fennelly plug, but for anyone in the UConn area come March 17th–Konover Auditorium at 7:00 PM should be a place to check out considering she’s coming to read here . . .

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I’ve become bored with solid foods. They stick to the mouth (e.g. peanut butter) and wedge in our teeth (e.g. apples).  No one likes talking to a girl with apple-teeth.  I’d rather talk to an apple.

Thus, I propose elimination of all solid foods from UConn dining halls.  This would benefit the student body in numerous ways:

• Increased productivity via reduced eating time
• Elimination of apple-teeth
• Reduced dining facility costs (Blenders become only appliance)
• Exposure to interesting flavors (e.g. Meatloaf + Water)

There will be opposition at first, no doubt, but this happens with any progressive movement.  Students will learn to appreciate the soft innocence of liquid foods.

Such a movement will also open the door for fun themed-meals.  “Udder-Mayhem” would involve dining facility workers carrying mock udders.  They would spurt different flavored streams into the air, warming both the bellies and hearts of UConn students.

“Just Like Grandpa” wouldn’t be much different than a normal dinner, except everyone is in wheelchairs.

With different flavor mixtures, fun themes, and reduced facility costs, the liquid food movement is making a convincing case for itself.  I urge my peers to take arms in this worthy cause. Remember, solids are sloppy, liquids are luxury.

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Seeing advertisements for book sales usually excites me. I always gather a bunch of friends to file through endless stacks of antique copies that are sold for five dollars. The idea of being able to purchase as many books as I want with my limited budget is vastly appealing, but lately my positive outlook on book sales has lessened.

In a publishing class I am taking this semester, I have learned about the printing of books, and the effort put into getting a book edited and published. Writers spend years crafting a masterpiece, and hardly succeed on the first try. Publishing is an extremely undervalued business, for people care about the finished product of books and less about the process it takes to accomplish a final copy.

Think of how many of those copies end up in a book sale. Underneath the books with pictures of kittens, guides to traveling, and old copies of Dr. Seuss, lies that gem of literature about the girl locked in a garden. If you keep looking you may find a story of the man searching for his wife through the tundra, or animals plotting escape from a farm.

Every writer’s idea has been thought, executed and endlessly edited. Where is it now? In the .50 box of the small book sale on the next street—that’s where.

Although they are known for their unlimited genre piles and freebies, book sales are a literary graveyard. The stories written sell for a depressing amount of money when they could be sold at full price in a bookstore. It is also a dumping ground for people who need to rid of useless objects in their house, and no longer want the burden of the book that keeps collecting dust.

Every book sale I attend from now on will be a funeral. I will mourn for the bodies of books that are before me, and say a prayer for the ones that may still make it.

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