"Its just that I love it, and especially when you tell it.

"


INTERVIEW
04. Nick Maurer interviews editor Jared Sumners

REVIEWS
06

Lemuria reviewed by Matt Soliz

08. Stag's Leap reviewed by Nick Maurer

ESSAY
09 From The Pastorate and the Poetics of Care by Nick Maurer

POEM
12 13 Revival by Jesse Mountjoy My Father by Jesse Mountjoy

14 For Kevin Upon the Event of His Upcoming Nuptials by Nick Tate 15

Sleep by Nick Tate Thoughts Like Thunder by Jared Sumners Light Falls Faintly by Jared Sumners The American Teen by J Ryan Bermuda

16 17 18

LITERATURE

BIOS
19 21

Sun Glass by Kevin Mayer

All Authors

FROM THE EDITOR

The purpose of this magazine is to share the work of writers in Southern California. It started, for us, in Redlands. Our region hosts a number of people with pens who put stuff on paper and weve taken to meeting and sharing our work. Its rough for me, to share something personal, or to share something which, personally, isnt good. But the writers of Redlands taught me that an oh-what-the-hell attitude is best for real writers. I dont know if thats true, but it makes me feel good inside. Many Redlands writers know each other. Most of us are friends. Some of us workshop poems together; others hang out all day and write ction in caves at night. And together we make a pretty ok, not-terrible collective of young geniuses. Ultimately, my love for these writers is found in this: that there exists a group of people committed to artistic interaction with the world around them and the careful choosing of words to match the meditations of their minds. Youngsters jest about restoring their hope in humanity. But often one only needs to inquire into the minds around them to see that not all humans is dumb. Enjoy, Jared Sumners

Editors

Nick Maurer Jared Sumners Contributing Authors Nick Tate J Ryan Bermuda Matthew Soliz Jesse Mountjoy Kevin Mayer
Contributing Artists
Taylor Johnson Rachel Joob Danny Schutt

Submit Or Contact
Inklinationsubmissions @gmail.com

Art by Nick Maurer

Interview with an Editor

By Nick Maurer
Nick: Where are we at right now?

Jared: Were in Redlands at a coffee shop called Stell and Im hungry.

N: What song is playing inside?
J: I believe its a Cure songduh duh duhhuh huuh huh
N: This Close To Me, right?
J: Is that what its called?
N: I think thats what its called.
J: Ok.
N: All right.
N: Sounds good. Umm, how did you get started in the literary world?

J: I just know that its The Cure and I like it. They played Boys Dont Cry earlier and I like that one.

J: Well, I started reading terrible books when I was in high school of the Stephen King and Dean Koontz variety and I matured in my tastes for literary thingies; I started reading deeper more philosophical things as well as um works of more literary quality.

N: Sounds good, awesome. What are youre favorite bands?

J: Favorite bands? My favorite band of all time is probably Thrice.

N: Great. Umm, what is your favorite coffee beverage?
J: I like small Americano drinks, so like, eight ounce or twelve ounce Americanos.
N: What is your vision for this project? And why do you think its important.
J: Uh, my vision, in combination with your vision, I believe, is that is that well just have something that is completely ours and our friends that we can say that we did and well have a cool collection of stuff thats just us and our friends; well grow our community of writers in Redlands and well have a cool body of work to say is our ownand its important cuz of happy.

N: Such as?

J: Such as, I would say, the, probably the most, uh, the inciting book that lead me into my favorite branch of literature which is Russian, uh, would have been Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky and uh

N: Well said.
J: from there I, I just fell in love with it.

N: Ok, uh, what is your reasoning for wanting to put this journal/magazine together?
J: Well, you and I started talking (laughs) about wanting to get a community of writers that was really local and really friendly and really committed to making each other better writers and putting out something that was for the community and by the community umm that was a cool idea and uh and I love working with the dudes were working with and I hope we get more disciplined in getting together and writing and critiquing each others work.

N: Good. Well said. So then who should submit work?

J: Anyone who has something to say um we take stuff thats poetic, stuff thats prosaic, and stuff thats non-fiction too so um anybody who has something to say and wants to express it in word form has a place, especially if theyre our friends and if theyre not our friends then that would be the way to inquire about submitting is to make themselves known to us and then well talk.

N: Cool. Awesome. What are uh some of your favorite authors or poets?

J: Some of my favorite authors, well, I mentioned Dostoyevsky who is probably my all time favorite author um but I also would say that authors of books among my favorites would bethis is difficult.

N: Schweet. Uh, what gives you the nerve?

N: Ha, we can, we can move on.

J: Nowe probably should for the sake of time though.

J: Um, I would say I was born with a lot of nerve, uh, nerve endings. Sometimes I am hyper aware of them, like when I burn myself or uh when I touch my nipples. But I truly believe that I was born with nerves because of science.
N: They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so why is this better than Instagram?

N: Sounds good.
J: My favorite poet is probably, ah, T.S. Eliot.

J: Its not.
N: Well said. Thank you Jared.

"I'm starting to really love how much room I have to feel and imagine on my own terms when I listen to this album."

LEMURIA
The Distance Is So Big
By Matthew Soliz I was really excited when I found out Lemuria was going to be releasing the record. I've been a fan of the group for a while, but not long enough to have seen them put out a full length. I started following the band after their last album, Pebble, was released, but there's just something special about a band you like putting out a new full length. Lemuria did not disappoint. Lemuria is a trio from Buffalo, New York, who have been playing shows and recording since roughly 2004. The Distance is so Big is their fourth full-length album, and while I enjoyed the album, it wasn't my favorite of the four. The record opens with a short intro track, which is just 45 seconds of an odd, ominous droning. If you're in a bad mood, stay in those 45 seconds, because Lemuria jump right back into their old selves for the rest the album, which is crammed full of fun, bright indie rock jams. The second track, Brilliant Dancer, sets the tone for the entirety of the album. Fuzzy, garage rock guitars walk over infectiously fun rhythms set up by Alex Kerns's drumming. But on my first listen, almost everything played second fiddle to guitarist Sheena Ozzella's, sweet, clear vocals. I spent the first few songs enjoying just how lovable Ozzella's vocals were, and trying to figure out how someone who sang so effortlessly managed to stay so engaging. She shares vocal duties with Kerns, who is singing much more clearly and confidently then he has on previous Lemuria releases. His low voice provides some nice contrast to Ozzella's, and provides a platform for some fun harmonies, but I still found tracks where he carries a majority of the vocal load--songs like Oahu, Hawaii--to be underwhelming. But Kerns does a good job of making his shortcomings as a vocalist easy to overlook, as his inventive drumming creates the entire platform this record exists on. The groovy, playful rhythms on tracks like Paint the Youth, Brilliant Dancer, and Scienceless create some of my favorite moments on the album. They also create the motion needed to keep the songs interesting, as Lemuria don't seem to be very keen on big, gaudy transitions or cinematic emotional climaxes. They just let Ozzella's voice string long melodies over masterfully syncopated rhythms. As far as lyrics are concerned, I've noticed a pattern in most newer Lemuria songs. Its mostly obscure, quirky sentence fragments, with a heartwrenching one liner thrown in every so often. It took me some time to get used to, but I'm starting to really love how much room I have to feel and imagine on my own terms when I listen to this album. If there's one thing I didn't like about this record, it was definitely how similar all the songs felt. I could easily hear someone who likes more song-to song contrast telling me If you've heard the first track, you've heard the whole record. As strange as it is, this concentric feel sometimes makes this seem like more of a collection of songs then an album that takes you on a journey through someone's brain. Overall, The Distance is so Big is a really fun indie punk record. It is summer time so find a copy and have some summer time fun.

Awesome Songs: Ruby, Brilliant Dancer, Paint the Youth Mediocre Songs: Oahu, Hawaii, Michael and Stephen Moon

STAG'S LEAP
If you like being crushed to death by carefully spoken feelings, read this book of poems. The former New York Poet Laureate knows how to break a line over your face and make you make cry all over. Olds makes poetry in a conversational tone bound together with subtle rhyme, most of it internal. A sense of gratitude and celebration, especially of the human body, is prevalent in her work. One of her poems, Little

Favorite poems: While He Told Me, The Flurry, The Last Hour, The Healers, Tiny Siren, Red Sea

Other Poems by Olds: I Go Back to May 1937, Sex Without Love, Little Things

A review of Sharon Olds' book by Nick Maurer

Things, not found in this volume reads:

I am doing something I learned early to do, I am/ paying attention to small beauties,/ whatever I haveas if it were our duty to/ find things to love, to bind ourselves to this world./

taken-for-granted materiality occurs in the title poem as well as Material Ode, Object Loss and others. Starting with a meter free line she constructs simple, controlled narrative poems that express the deep pleasure and pain involved in the little curls of eros / beaten out straight. So much so, Pulitzer decided she deserved a Prize.

In Stags Leap this focus on the beauty of glanced-over and

From The Pastorate and the Poetics of Care

By: Nick Maurer

How is it that poetry can affect change within an individual? Some argue that fiction and literature do not have the power to truly affect our moral decisions. However, in her article, Fiction, Emotion, and Moral Agency, literary scholar Sara Coodin contends that the emotions brought up through fictional and poetic aesthetic experiences are very real and prefaced upon a substantial overlap between fictional and actual contents. This argument is relevant to the pastoral function of caring for a persons authentic emotions through everyday poetics because it asserts poetic languages ability to evoke a strong emotional response from audiences. Coodin states that both music and poetic language evoke particular affective rhythms in ways that suggest, to some researchers, at an ingrained aesthetic sensibility that may have evolutionary significance (Josh McDermott and Marc Hauser). She describes the moral-psychological complexion of the early moderns where the passions did not belong to minds or to bodies but circulated in the environmentthe Latin root of passionpassio literally signals passivity. This notion of passion was frequently aligned with the true-believing Christians co-experience of Christs suffering on the cross. She expounds on fiction and poetic languages ability to transport us beyond ourselves and experience sympathy; this is relevant to the pastoral role of sympathizing with the multitudes and having compassion for their needs, as Jesus did in Mark 6:34: when he landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Coodin concludes her argument for an authentic empathetic response evoked by aural poetics with an anecdote about her husky dog. She describes her ability to activate his desire to howl with her own howling; when she does get him to

howl, his pitch changes in accordance with her own. Perhaps this crude metaphor beautifully illuminates what Jesus means when he says, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me (Jn. 10:27). Margaret Jane Whipp, an Anglican priest, lecturer in Pastoral Theology, and chair of the British and Irish Association for Practical Theology, explores the role of pastor as wordsmith in her article Taking Care with Words: Everyday Poetics in Christian Pastoral Care. She investigates the creative use of language in everyday pastoral settings of prayer and conversation, testimony and care (342). She

Photo by Nick Maurer


presupposes that priests and ministers are expected to take care with their words in many settings, yet points out that this poetic sensitivity is not emphasized in ministerial training. Still, being good with words on a day-to-day basis is one of the indispensible skills of effective Christian pastoral care. If the function of a Church elder is to care for the individual outside of the realms of formal articulations of preachingand liturgy then the pastor-poet should be able to speak in ordinary language with extraordinary care (343). She points to the linguistic simplicity in Jesus ministry as a primary example of this practical and meaningful use of language. In Jesus, the gospel is articulated not in the set-aside language of privileged religious forms, but in the same language that we use for everyday life (342). This form of sincere poetics opens up fresh possibilities of meaning while remaining true to the transcendent and integrative Word incarnate. She offers three imperatives for every-day poetics to align themselves with Trinitarian value: polyphonic, participative, and particular. Polyphonic, meaning: a give-and-take dialogue that results in a sympathetic kaleidoscope of sublime sensitivity expressed in fragments of honest, homely metaphor (348). Participative: it finds its creative source in and for dialogue. Thirdly, it will be particular to its anthropological climate, exhibiting the ability to contextualize within fluctuating cultural currents. All of these are incorporated in the poets work, and evidenced by Jesus chosen poetic form: the parable. In The Poets Gift Donald Capps writes, Among contemporary literary genres, the modern poem is the most direct descendent of the parable. The goal of both forms is to inspire or even prod the reader to look at life in a different way. Concerning the relationship between pastor and poets, Capps writes: Poets and pastors also share a preference for language that is experience near, that speaks of human experience in the concrete, and not from some ivory tower or privileged distance. Given their investment in human experience, both poets and pastors exhibit an unusual care for how words

"Good pastoral care givers, like good poets, seek to use words and not venerate them."

are used and what words communicate. (3) Furthermore, good pastoral care givers, like good poets, seek to use words and not venerate them. This is done in the awareness that poorly chosen words have the power to hurt and well chosen words have the power to heal. Effective pastoral poetics require awareness of regional, cultural, and sociological differences among parishioners. Jesus illustrates this with his particular parables, with content ranging from agrarian settings, work and wages, weddings and feasts, father-son relationships etc. These parables are not abstract theological treaties, nor are they exalted spiritual intuitions; they are merely episodic revelations of everyday experience, carefully worded and timely spoken. Looking to a notable contemporary poet, we find the purpose of such poetry is presented in the poem, Passwords: A Program of Poems by William Stafford: Might people stumble and wander for not knowing the right words, and get lost in their wandering?

1. Coodin, Sara. Fiction, Emotion, and Moral Agency.

Shakespeare Studies 40 (2012): 63+. Academic OneFile. Web. 13 June 2013.

2. Whipp, Margaret Jane. Taking Care with Words: Everyday Poetics in Christian Pastoral Care. Practical Theology (2010): 341-49. 3. Capps, Donald. The Poets Gift: Toward a Renewal in Pastoral Care. Louisville, KN: Westminster/John Knox Press, 19993): 1-10. 4. Stafford, William. Passwords: A Program of Poems. Passwords: Poems, Harper, 1991.

Soshould you stand in the street answering all passwords day and night for any stranger? You couldnt do that. But sometimes your words might link especially to some other person

Here is a package, a program of passwords. It is to bring strangers together. Stafford describes the poem itself as a password, a word spoken that gives a person special admittance. But the purpose of the poem is not merely to point out the stumblers and wanders search for the right words, but that these strangers through their use of specific wordsmay be brought together. The bringing together of strangers is a crucial element of pastoral work, which involves bridging theological, socioeconomic, and other gaps, while providing individualized ways to understand the plethora of personal voices within the flock, ultimately pointing to the voice of the true Good Shepherd as the source and reason for caring.

Art by Jesse Mountjoy

REVIVAL
By :Jesse Mountjoy
I bought a desert to steep my dreams To sip under ashy yellow stars Recalling boiling disasters That scoff and scold And puff up their chest.

To swallow clay too dry to stomach Bleeding the edges in disfigured Pale pink hues; Cottonmouthed cravings of lustful diversion, Here mud, blood and bone blend in.

Dreams to soak in disheveled spindles of web Networks of threaded Holy connection Burnt out and abandoned Sons and Daughters of barren Mothers and Fathers The dust still dug into their fingernails.

I bought a desert to steep my dreams To saturate a generation in the roar of the kettle's fiery complexion Still drunk from dead cracked leather boots Who peel out their tongues to say, "Come and taste the wisdom we keep."

Photo by Taylor Johnson

My Father
By : Jesse Mountjoy

My father nishes the newspaper in the same way,

he folds it in half and slaps it against the table.
His eyes are narrow as he scans, looking to see if the world has changed
now that he has read of it.
I dont think it has.

As I leave for work he turns over my hands, saying

if you had a real job, these hands would look like iron.
His every word reminds me i'm not yet a man
Have a beer with your dad, it'll put hair on your chest.
All this talk, but he wont let me leave the house without a kiss.

Photo by Taylor Johnson

For Kevin Upon the Event of His Upcoming Nuptials

By: Nicholas Boone Tate Can you tell me that colorful part again? With the blues and the clouds and the brown that was really more of a green. Well, you know the pine scent. And with the funny men who have sound advice about cars or the slow speaker. I guess I shouldnt say that. The lady, Diane, with the stroke, and the supreme court decisions. Or no, I know. About the dreams and calculations, the wood ramp with no home and a new home. The beach and the bay. Where the boats come in. And all in a line. Yeah the parade. Tell me please so you dont take it for granted. As if all of that was normal. Didnt he get 7 bulls eyes in one game? Or is it a match? Well, just please tell me the one with the smell of pine and the rock and roller, the fakie. The unexpected rest. How it was so lovely and crisp and now. You know not like now, now today, but then now. In the moment. That moment where youre there and nowhere else, not even in your thoughts. Cause Im always in my thoughts and they just keep coming, one after another, like on a conveyer belt, but the attendant is asleep or looking at women in a car magazine. Sorry, Im clearly talking too much, I just dont want you to forget. Its all so good, and I know Im being vague, and we both know how it all goes, every second, every wave, each word, letter, and beat. Its just that I love it, and especially when you tell it.

Art by Rachel Joob

Sleep
By: Nick Tate

Here's to the second hand marching in circles The audible enumeration of this well lit interlude The cold hard truth, piercing bulbs Don't acquiesce, don't agree with our intentions. You insist Using a pillow to make bearable Where a bone hip holds in place The Earth. Where a loose lip lets slip Victory's breath.
Photo by Taylor Johnson

Thoughts Like Thunder

By: Jared Sumners Thoughts like thunder faintly swell, Powerfully humming; the source Is angry.

What a curse! Beautifully my mind devoured, But Fate's taken my turn away;

It was my turn.

Rich kids and minorities mock me; Unknowingly, they rally against me. I will not suffer the sons of fortune. Fury emanates from me in waves Of analytic cruelty, My red pen cuts into you.

Heart-rent, My Teacher wakes me. Relapsed, I've begun to study again. I study the good All day long -The necessary and sufficient Conditions for Goodness. Lord have mercy.

Art by Jesse Mountjoy

Light Falls Faintly

By: Jared Sumners

Light falls faintly now. The deer are dancing, Apples in their teeth, Fearing only the sound Of foreign appetites. Enter the unknown spark And the canyon swells To t the sound Of distant Movements. The wind rests a measure. Orange tongues stroke brush And the lungs drum, Rushing to crescendo, And the falling action is The settling of ash.

The American Teen

By: J Ryan Bermuda

The American teen owns nothing but the devils rest as their mothers forget every Beatles lyric written on binders as a girl their grandfathers cant recall the cinnamon velvet skin of Northern Bison; Every frontier is a desert

Photo by Nick Maurer

Sun Glass
By: Kevin Mayer

He said that when he went back down south to visit again, he had to stop right before he made it. Something about how everything good was in that town before his. Or maybe it was because someone told him that everything was good in that town before his. Thats not the point though. He said that as he drove in, the red tint of his sunglasses painted the sky like an August afternoon. Kind of like when the fire for the year had just been smothered. But still before the sun stopped burning your skin. Kind of like everything just got red hews all over it. At least thats what he said. He was tellin me though how all the people left the white Baptist church on the corner down in that town. About how Minister has some demon possession, or somthin like that, and so he had to go get fixed up back in the holy land. He said he drove by the Baptist church on his way home. And somethin about how he felt like the white had worn red from the criticisms of all the children there but it still looked so beautiful that day.

He had to drive by the theater and the market on North E Street. Past all of the homes filled with the people who now attended the other church. The one without the demon. He turned the corner where a girl in a white clerk dress on was walking. He moved through the pubs and diners. He said he had never seen it before, but he saw it all differently this time. This town did look good.

Anyway, back to the point. By this time the sun was setting he said. He had to take those sunglasses off right as he pulled into his town. He almost forgot that they were even on. He passed by where the womans laugh would sound like Hallelujah, and where conversations flowed whether or not there was enough to go around.

Photo by Nick Maurer


He said he checked to see if there were remnants of his tears, cried freely and in complete confidence, and just couldnt forget the sacrifices his friends made for his happiness as he passed that field of bails. Post cards and graduations. He said he passed by the gate where sleeping pills cut notches for strong holds. And something about scratching his teeth with the full moon eclipse. He was talkin to me all poetic for minutes like this. About how he had never felt so beautiful or maybe he said importantactually I think he said strong, before this. He even said somethin like it could never leave him. I didnt get that part so much, but I just kept listening.

He got home right as supper was being served and his dad had splashed whiskey in his cup for him. He said he could just lay down anywhere right around there. Just lay. He even said that he would maybe just do that from time to time. I guess he had to get to bed before heading out again in the morning, which he did. He had to pass back by all of those poetic things he was tellin me about and get through the other town on his way back here before the start of the year. But he got back yesterday, so I think everything went good on the way back.

Hell. I forgot why I started telling you all of this. The crazy part is that those sunglasses werent even his! He told me that they were some guys who lived in that town next to his. He had to drop them off on his way home. He said that everything got blurred and white washed at first but he kept saying that he didnt need them anymore. He just said that he would be better off without them.

Photo by Danny Shutt

BIOS
Married Married

Kevin Mayer

Nick Tate

Not Married

Married

Matt Soliz

J Ryan Bermuda

Married

Not Married

Jared Sumners

Jesse Mountjoy & Nick Maurer

All creative rights are reserved to Inklinations and the ascribed authors. Please ask us if you want to use our work, k? Don't just take it, cause we worked kinda hard on this stuff. Thanx doods!