What We’re Reading, with MAR Blog Co-Editor Tyler Michael Jacobs

Maybe I‘ve been feeling a bit homesick, for lack of a better word, as of late. The semester ended and I’ve found myself with too much time on my hands. So, I picked up the copy of Willa Cather’s My Ántonia (Vintage Classics, 1994) I had lying around in some unpacked boxes in my apartment and started reading. I always forget how much I love this novel by Cather who might arguably be Nebraska’s most famous author coming from the red grass fields she writes about in her novel, until I pick up the book again. I had the pleasure of visiting The National Willa Cather Center in Red Cloud, NE last June and got to see many of the places written about in the novel: the back door Jim runs from to go to the neighbor’s when his grandparents move into Black Hawk from the farmland outside of the town, mirroring from where Willa Cather once ran. Returning to this novel once again with a greater perspective of the influence of place and what Cather is giving us, is bringing more resonance to the work this countless read-through to truly feel the “…motion in the landscape; in the fresh, easy-blowing morning wind, and in the earth itself, as if the shaggy grass were a sort of loose hide, and underneath it herds of wild buffalo were galloping, galloping….” (18). Cather’s novel is as close to this Nebraska as we can come to know; however, there’s still the same amount of sky blanketing a similar treeless prairie.

––Tyler Michael Jacobs, Mid-American Review

What We’re Reading, from Associate Editor Caitlyn Mlodzik

I have always been drawn to books with animal perspectives, so when I picked up a copy of Kathleen Rooney’s Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey (2020) at the Toledo Friends of the Public Library earlier this year, I took a chance. I am not typically drawn to war novels or any novels set during WWI or WWII, but Rooney’s novel was partially told in the perspective of a pigeon, so I had to see how that would play out. It turns out that Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey is based on the true story of a homing pigeon who saved the lives of over 500 men in WWI, including Major Whittlesey. Rooney crafts a heartwarming, historically-rich, and accessible text that flies the reader straight to the battlefield, not shying away from the gruesome realities of war but not reveling in them either. Additionally, with Major Whittlesey, Rooney navigates his tumultuous return to life after the war as he deals with fame and adjusting to civilian life. Another surprise Rooney had for me was that Major Whittlesey was gay, and her attention to historical detail depicted the realities of being queer in that time period. Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey is a must-read for animal lovers, history buffs, those interested in queer history, and lovers of seeing hidden or misrepresented histories come to light as they should have long ago.  

—Caitlyn Mlodzik, MAR

What We’re Reading, from Associate Editor Mary Simmons

Whenever I need to reconnect with my personal sense of artistic inspiration, I revisit Anne Carson’s Short Talks (Brick Books Classics, 1992/2015). Short Talks was first introduced to me in a creative nonfiction course in undergrad, and later as a hybrid form in my senior seminar class. Over the years, I’ve approached this text in many different ways, and the beauty of Carson’s work in this collection is that it defies definition and begs to be revisited. The book opens with Short Talk on Homo Sapiens, which starts with an early human “record[ing] the moon’s phases on the handles of his tools” and moves into a “Face in a pan of water” and the inevitable point in stories where the teller “can see no further” (27). In just a few sentences, we leap through history, the self, and the very nature of stories as we approach Short Talks, explorer and human and face and, perhaps, storytellers ourselves. In quick, flashing images, Carson finds that stopping point in the story, and it is the very start, the beginning of what we consider ourselves to be. The point from which we can go no further is our own reflection, shallow. There is no other world in the bottom of a pan of water; there is only self, and that self is rendered blind by the very nature of storytelling. I always find myself marveling at this very first short talk and how it speaks to the rest of the collection, setting us up for discovery beyond what can be discovered, and for story beyond what can be seen.

One of my favorites is Short Talk on Ovid. Carson transports Ovid into a more modernized setting so organically and casually, with the “radio…on the floor” as the only concrete indicator that Ovid has somehow been displaced in time (38). But transported into an almost dreamscape between realities, Ovid carries his exile with him, as if his immortality within this short talk is another form of exile, or at least an extension of it. I am always struck by the understated and profound beauty of Ovid “put[ting] on sadness like a garment” (38). It is no longer a part of him, but something he wears and carries with him. There is a certain weight to grief that is outside of the self, but still intrinsically tied to you. Throughout this short talk, there is a certain gentleness within hopelessness. Though “no one will ever read” the epic poem Ovid is trying to teach himself to be able to write, there is still meaning to be found in the fact that he chooses to “[go] on writing” (38).

—Mary Simmons, MAR

Why We Chose It: “Character Sketch for the Oil CEO” by Alyssa Quinn

“Character Sketch for the Oil CEO” by Alyssa Quinn will be featured in an upcoming issue of Mid-American Review.

“Character Sketch for the Oil CEO” by Alyssa Quinn is an astounding metafictional work that shifts the authorial lens back onto the author (fictional, in this case). Though the story maps out the traits and behaviors of an oil CEO, the story also reveals the biases and preferences of the writer, an implicit character in the narrative. The writer deliberates over whether the CEO can be blamed for the cataclysmic oil spill his company has likely caused. The writer agonizes over this guilt in the same way the character might: “he is just a single person in such a large system, does he really matter that much, can he really be blamed? Can he?” The unfamiliarity of hearing this wavering from the writer exposes the tendency of writers to replicate themselves in their characters.

This story also challenges perceptions of how real characters are and what their creators owe them. Intimate description is usually considered a fundamental tool of characterization: an achievement when used well. Quinn makes it feel like an invasion. “You could follow him into the shower, describe the way he washes.” We chose this piece not because it sketches an Oil CEO well—though it does—but because it makes us doubt whether we should be sketching him at all. Perhaps he does not want to be “summoned by every sentence.”

—Daniel Marcantuono, MAR

Featured Writer: Sara Moore Wagner

Thursday, March 23rd, at 7:30 PM, Sara Moore Wagner will be reading a series of her poems for the 2023 Prout Chapel Reading Series at Bowling Green State University.  

Sara Moore Wagner is the author of multiple collections including Swan Wife, awarded with the 2021 Cider Press Review Editor’s prize, and Hillbilly Madonna, published by Driftwood Press in 2022. Wagner has also authored two chapbooks: Tumbling After released in March of 2022 and Hooked Through published by Five Oaks Press in 2017. Her work has appeared in several publications such as Sixth Finch, Waxwing, Nimrod, Western Humanities Review, Tar River Poetry, and The Cincinnati Review. Wagner has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize multiple times as well as Best of the Net and Best New Poets awards.     

Wagner’s poems explore relationships between mother and child, father and son, and other family ties in Appalachia. Several poems address the opiate crisis that heavily ravaged Appalachia and the entire country. Poems such as “Girlhood Landscape” explore the impermanence of beauty through a young girl waning optimism, stating: “because I want to remember blooming. // Because I think I could just bloom.” These poems also depict moments of trauma associated with miscarriages. Her work incorporates fairy tales and folklore, with several poems devoted to sharpshooter Annie Oakley, myths of Tantalus and Thetis, and Biblical figures in works like “Self Portrait as Judas.” 

In her work entitled “Invasive Species,” published by the Normal School in December 2020, Wagner talks about a nest created in a dated wreath. The relationship of mother/daughter and mother bird/hatchlings seems to blur. Both mothers are “separated […] by a door” from their young. The poem closes with: 

We’re all just waiting to crack open  
or be emptied out, to be forced  
from our homes or windows,  
to destroy what we love  
because we need it,  
because we think  
we’re safe.   

There is a sense here of the complicated necessity of letting our loved ones live their own lives, continuing to love them from a distance. This necessary and natural trajectory of love and how it operates exists in these final lines. Perhaps the complexities of love lead to hurt when love is needed most. The shared habitat of the nest on the house’s door creates all these avenues of focus. 

Poem excerpts appear courtesy of Normal School and Saramoorewagner.com. Biographical info also from saramoorewagner.com. 

–Michael J Morris, MAR