Ephemera Newsletter Iss Dec.2

(Creativity and Motivation Weekly)

Welcome to the Ephemera Newsletter, Oi Filoi! (Greek for “friends”)

We’re still in the throes of congratulating our December poetry finalist, Kirsten Shuying Chen, who will be the poet for the month! You can review her poems altogether once they publish as well as her artist statement and bio on this dedicated post on our Substack page. We thank you for checking out her work.

And in other announcements. After thorough and lengthy review (apologies for taking our time) we’ve named Brock Kingsley as our Write-In Residency selection! Brock received the writing-space improvement stipend and will also receive a shipment of books from indie presses coming in January, 2024. Thank you to folks who submitted to this residency contest! To the field: please know that many people were deserving based on their writing and personal essays. We hope to have a larger pool from which to draw from and select several more recipients in the future. Toward that end, in 2024 we’ll be applying for arts grants and will announce new slots for the residency should we receive the grants. Stay tuned.

On to our standard content matters: Won’t you please check out last week’s issue if you missed it.

And here are some reminders:

• Call For Submissions: We are open for February now. December 31 is the deadline. If you are a paid subscriber to Ephemera, you can submit to poetry @ Ephemera for free as a membership perk! (We email you a secret link at the end of the month). Free subscribers and anyone else can submit, too, with the reading fee and can submit up to 10 poems. Paying the reading fee will grant you 1-month paid access to Ephemera’s full letter. Learn more or:

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In Brief…this week’s features:

• Thoughts on Tears for Fears, and their well-liked mod-rock song “Pale Shelter” which was sampled by The Weeknd and producers, a major component of last week’s song choice for Ephemera.

• Thoughts on art from Larry Bell and his glass, mirror, and light geometric sculpting.

• December’s poet, Kirsten Shuying Chen and her first of four poems, “Mapping My Mother”

• Our weekly lists:

  • 3 magazines with open calls

  • 3 awards/prizes

  • 3 recent job listings for editors and writers.

• **No sponsor this issue: Sponsor our letter! Reach out to info@Litbreaker.com to advertise with us.**

• More ephemera: check out an Interesante selection, a brief clip of Ray Bradbury discussing being creative in the now and more; Book Recs, bonus content, and our mini-essays to start!

• Support us on Bookshop - See our past book recs and others. A highly curated list.

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Merci. Danke. Kiitos. 고마워 Go-ma-wo. Cảm ơn. Xiè xiè.

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Ephemera

Dear Readers,

Maybe these busy holidays are a time for a break from tinkering, trying to achieve the best poetic outcome as measured by the feels our lines can deliver, worrying about our characters, closing tight a plot loophole. Maybe a cleanse. Cleansing and detox is quite in style, nutritionally speaking, and we might incorporate a fast of sorts into our practice, the frequency and amplitude of which we can leave to the individual. Often with a cleanse or detox you focus on some type of supplement, a binding agent, paired with a re-assessment of your diet or inputs. Long-Covid-related relief from intermittent fasting (no food this morning…not until 2pm!) has us thinking about analogs. Why not a writing detox? We don’t mean to necessarily imply no work. A cleanse or detox can just be about eliminating certain components and refocusing, for a time, on others. In this way, we might take an interest in our materials in the way of Larry Bell—this week’s artist (see below)—focusing not on the creation or the editing of our respective project, but on the nature of the tools we have at hand, at the timbre of the voice we intend to use, for instance, the point of view, the framing or shape, why a stanza, why a space, why a flashback, why this or that tempo. Let’s get to know these things we call writing style.

“Art is a teacher, it’s not an object,”
—Larry Bell, from FT.com

A good focus shift can aid endeavors once we’ve reengaged after this meaningful absence. Of course, a basic not-sitting-down-at-the-desk absence can suffice. But we want to know who we are as a creator a bit more in this suggested cleanse. Why do you like that rhyme? What about your ear draws you to an approach you tend to reuse? Should we take a break from “I” and what would that look like written in third person and one of the third person variants? Channeling Bell again, how about your structures? Can you let in more light? How does intense emotion read with white space, excessive enjambment, or overcrowded with maximalist everything? Free verse, no form, can be liberating, but have you approached recently using a geometric framing, something with form that defines for you how you must deliver the sentiment, ravel or un- the plot or character? Examine you, in essence. Feel the weight of techniques and tactics (since we’re blending dietarily and escritorially, err, a la portmanteau: tacniques? techtics?), and assay the why of your leanings. Too, think on a form or tool you rarely reach for. Do a quick study. Mull that for the time being. Completion can wait during these times. We have all the resolutions coming up to aid us in a triumphant return to gorging ourselves. For now, let’s be fed by our fast.

Evgnomosýni!
(Gratitude)

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Dec 31 Deadline for the February Issues

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Poetry by Kirsten Shuying Chen

Mapping My Mother

The ski accident I remember
The first time I washed your hair
I don’t. 
The distance between my pet traumas is not to scale.
My memory
is knotted lines 
and shaping
the land it’s left behind.

I’m there, one day, on a square of forgotten turf,
when a landmark rises from the east.
It’s not summer, but a small boardwalk,
and you and I after school 
covering the whole quarter mile of it
in oversized sweatshirts.

We reach the north end in slow triumph
and you put one hand to the fence for closure.
It is the last time we will walk.
But a snow-capped mountain intervenes— 
and your clean hair. 
I miss true North 
All coordinates run off 
All measuring errors vary again;
a concept complicated 
by the curvature of the earth’s surface, 
a moment lapsing over the horizon
over you on a boardwalk in not-summer
and a bent sheen from which my vision slips.

I find myself 
at the base of one site
surveying the empty plane.
Where did it go?
At any given moment, the whole map,
held between terrestrial poles,
waits for the altitude to shift.

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Bookstore: Guides, Gifts & Classics

Please consider supporting our letter and literature by buying books. It helps us and others! Bookstore via Bookshop.

The Artful Edit: On the practice of editing yourself:

From Last Week — Then The War - Poems. Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer in Poetry.

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Music: Tears for Fears