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Candy in Our Brains by Anne Barngrover and Avni Vyas. Missoula: CutBank Books, 2014.

Anne Barngrover and Avni Vyas recently collaborated to co-author Candy in Our Brains, a humorous and raw take on life and relationships told through a collection of poems. Full of unlikely combinations, and using a series of poems following “the heroine,” Barngrover and Vyas take the reader through the struggles of love. In the poem titled, “It’s My Party and I’ll Implode If I Want To” the authors pair interesting combinations such as, “You show up with a cake and moths fly out when I slice it” with the gritty thread of thread of dissatisfaction, “For your birthday: / heavy petting and a cake with your name in purple, gouged as if by my nails.”

Barngrover and Vyas pursue turmoil in nature in “The Heroine Shamwows Her Way Through A Hurricane” where “The fissures in our youth show up in our faces…tiny mushrooms breaking out in a rash: this / could be the tumor in my happiness swelling. This is my joy split wide open.” In “Fossils,” the language of forest and animal combine: “We were together, a cawing / battalion” and later, “How could we / have foreseen how much to camouflage in bruise and how much to coddle?” A collection that is unified by startling and vivid language, the turmoil of our relationships seeping through metaphor and everyday reality, Candy in Our Brains makes for a powerful collaboration.

Teri Dederer, Mid-American Review

Welcome back to Pets with MAR. Meet two adorable cats, Chloe and Lucy, owned by our Winter Wheat Coordinator and editor on the poetry staff, Coral Nardandrea. Her fellow MFAs designated her a crazy cat lady even though she only has two cats. (And a cat pillowcase. And a cat blanket. And a cat wine rack.) Coral is finishing her second year at BGSU’s MFA program and plans to go into the business of publishing.

First up, meet Chloe!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chloe has been training her human for twelve and a half years now. The human has since figured out which blanket is her favorite, which meows signal hunger, and the list of the few movements allowed when being sat upon. Once a hunter of bottle caps, hair ties, plastic bags, and flip flops, Chloe has since retired, and can rarely be persuaded to play by any toy except her old tennis ball. To earn her favor, hopefuls must be impressed by her snore and respectful of her disdainful expression.

 

And now, Lucy!

Lucy is the most recent addition to the family, much to Chloe’s displeasure. A little round, simple-minded, and unable to meow, Lucy likes her life just the way it is, with a lot of food and even more sleeping. She’s preferred her quiet lifestyle since getting stuck in a chimney for a week when she was a kitten under another human’s care, and certainly avoids traipsing over roofs several years later. She can be distinguished from her sister by her often-dazed expression and signature waddle.

 

 

 

The White Swallow by Anna Kovatcheva. Los Angeles, California: Gold Line Press, 2015. 52 pages. $10.00, paper.

Anna Kovatcheva’s The White Swallow was the winner of the 2014 Gold Line Press Fiction Chapbook Competition. Broken into five sections, The White Swallow explores the complexities of fulfilling expectations and the sacrifices one makes to take care of others. The forbidden love surrounding two young girls suffers both external and internal complications as the two try to navigate their unsatisfying world. In the story, the healing bird, based off Bulgarian folklore, brings both life and destruction.

Kovatcheva’s language also balances both grace and gore. In the opening section, the swallow burrows into a dead baby; “The bird pecked at the baby’s open ribs, and its small head disappeared inside.” Later, Zina, the girl carrying the bird inside her, tries to heal a cat. The line states, “She heard ribs grind and straighten, heard them knit together. The cat’s ruptured stomach stitched itself whole, skin and fur slide back into place. The lungs reinflated.” However, each gruesome reconstruction is paired with a beautiful song; “She opened her mouth to fill her lungs, and the bird song came. A high trilling, desperate and earnest.” The magical realism adds another layer to the piece rather than distract from the very real horrors of everyday life. While these characters are destined for tragedy, The White Swallow allows for momentary glimpses of hope through beautiful imagery and profound emotion.

 

-Katie O’Neill, MAR

Katie O’Neill is a second year MFA candidate at Bowling Green State University. She is from Lake Winola, PA.

Saucy and Cirrus are like the behind-the-scenes mascots of this Pets with MAR series. More often than not, they kept Fiction Editor Laura Maylene Walter company as she sat at her desk posting pet photos. They’d nap nearby, meow for food, or even trot back and forth across the keyboard.

Laura is moving on from her fiction editor and blog editor positions, but she could think of no better sendoff than to post her own cats posing with the issues of MAR she worked on:

For more Saucy and Cirrus goodness, visit Laura’s personal blog here, here, here, and here.

It’s been fun, everyone. But don’t worry, this blog isn’t going anywhere. Stay tuned to this space for more MAR magic!

MAR 35.1 contributor Bryce Emley (read his recent contributor interview) submitted this photo of his dogs, Seamus and Mabel, standing at attention before a copy of MAR. According to Bryce, “Seamus is a border collie and is afraid of most noises. Mabel, a blue heeler, eats leaves sometimes. They’re both exceptional runners.”

MAR welcomes all fans, including athletic leaf-eaters who cower at loud sounds. Welcome to the MAR family, Seamus and Mabel!