Ephemera Newsletter Iss March.1
(Creativity and Motivation Weekly)
Welcome to the Ephemera Newsletter free edition, Cairde! (Irish for “friends”)
Thank you to all who submitted to poetry in January for our March issues and especially to our finalist, Sherry Rind, who will be the poet for the month of March! 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 Sherry’s work.
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: Submissions are in for the April issues. We look forward to reading! We are open for May now. March 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 your second consecutive paid month and every month thereafter for as long as you are a paid subscriber). 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:
In Brief…this week’s features:
Thoughts on No Doubt and their female-voiced Ska-Pop, girl power anthem “Just A Girl.”
Revisiting Mark Rothko from a chapel perspective.
March’s poet, Sherry Rind and her first of four poems, “Biblical Summer”
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, Coffitivity and their cafe soundtracks;
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.
Last Week’s Issue.
Merci. Danke. Kiitos. 고마워 Go-ma-wo. Cảm ơn. Xiè xiè.
Ephemera
Dear Readers,
We’re oscillating between hyped and havened. No Doubt’s fiery gal-ballad “Just A Girl” rocks and rages for just the right amount of raring. Right time too! It becomes clear sometimes that we’ve had it up to here…with a lot of things, including winter, which is why early-early spring is a great time to reclaim our passions as actively as we are able. We like to feel pulsed once in a while. Too, swinging oppositely, the salutary, the curative curation of the Houston Rothko Chapel has us meditating, remembering to pause for perspective, find the new center, the new self as hewn by the icicles we’ve dodged all winter, whether ducking away from sharp tips above or those penetrating the gut from inside aiming out—the winter can be blighting. At their apex, we’re finding a relative peace. Accessing a poignantly held and motivating belief can spur us to write. Giddyap ye muse! We love the right music for this. Rage-rage! Swinging, diving, re-cresting…and we’re at an opposite apex, mellow and well-rested. We’ve hibernated and churned over and over our wintry change in the crucible of contemplation for long enough. The chapel, any chapel that compels you for that matter, but this Rothko Chapel in particular welcomes our thoughts and aims our ministrations as filtered by the deep koamaru purple of the hanging plates back to us, peaceful, made tame. Pendulating…
“Cause I'm just a girl, a little 'ol me
Well don't let me out of your sight
Oh I'm just a girl, all pretty and petite
So don't let me have any rights.”
—Gwen Stefani of No Doubt, from “Just A Girl”
As the seasons turn, maybe we’re advised to allow for changeover. So above, so below, so inside… While we might generally advocate a consistent disposition, the changing winds, the oscillating tides too, much in the natural world calls us to transform. At least, we can look for times to lean into churns, to allow ourselves the flux of passion and also contemplation. Revel, but watch yourself as much as you blindly be. The promise of experience is a useful toil, and we must be able to extract from the muscle and spit in order to apply what we’ve collected to our work. Dither and then speed. Flex and then bow. These brisk sunny days before the rains offer us, if we allow for the tension in shifting dispositions, a way to aim our proceeding weeks and months. Maybe motivation, maybe inspiration, maybe a new perspective. Stillness and sanctioned tumult. Peak to peak to peak. Our writing reinvigorates by these undulations. Test and make note of all the tensions operating your strings.
Buíochas!
(Gratitude)
Poetry by Terry Rind
Biblical Summer
I long for the days of simple faith
when King Kong and Godzilla duked it out,
stubbing their toes on skyscrapers
and breaking off radio towers like twigs.
Oh, the joy of screaming until we puked.
And then it was over.They’re real enough.
Instead of evolution’s organic soup,
Godzilla bathed in nuclear muck.
I’d be angry, too,
with those radiation keloids.Say he wasn’t shot off Empire State,
Kong would’ve gone like Ishi
or the last passenger pigeon
housed in a museum
until death from a white man’s disease.We know, even before they loom into sight
there’s always some hotshot
who blows his load and becomes a just dessert
and always a man who says wait
and a beautiful woman everybody loves
for being kinder than god or man
and the extras who get trampled—those would be us.
But we know ways of escape
in helicopters or sewer system or the London underground.
We are as ants to those monsters,
yet we sweep them away every time
and love them so much that we bring them back
so we can win again.Previously published in Between States of Matter, a Poetry Box Select book, ©2020
Music: No Doubt
We’re not sure how this song isn’t on every girl-power anthem playlist. Further, despite not being the top track on No Doubt’s third and most well-known album (as it ought to be, to be opinionated about it) while being the first single released, “Just A Girl” kicks so much ass on so many levels that we think it’s a top-top rock-out, jam, scream-while-driving, throwback you-name-it song since whenever. It’s at least a top ska-punk-pop track of the 90s. But, nearly 30 years later, it doesn’t feel as aged as most of its contemporaries. We can blast this song whenever and it’s all encompassing and semi-reckless in the way of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Take all that with a grain of salt since we’re writers and poets and not musicians or even music-heads.
Part of the intensity of the track derives from the very vivid, sarcastic, and yet poignantly delivered lyrics. The pop-ska structure makes it an easy bop, easy entry, easy to access the sentiment. And, no matter who you are, does your heart not palpitate with a type of roar-rage-rah-rah along with Gwen Stefani’s young-thing to screaming-woman delivery? The song is mesmerizing and uplifting. It’s poignant and relevant. Sure and importantly it’s about girls and women, but how is it also not about anybody? It invites any listener into the space of the put-on, serious and jokey rage of being misunderstood, misapprehended, and mistreated because of social expectations. Damn everything that constrains liberty and self-expression, is what any listener experiences at their core. We suggest playing this one loudly.
No Doubt is fronted by the vocalist and, at the time, soon-to-be star Gwen Stefani. Maybe it was MTV, certainly due to her personality, appeal, and all things performative, Gwen elevated the band to fame in 1996 after the release of their third album, Tragic Kingdom. It sold 16 million copies ultimately and three hit singles while making the rounds on MTV with, for the times, good music videos. Via Spotify, they receive 11.1 million monthly listeners and “Just A Girl” has 285 million listens. Their top song has 675 million and both of their tops are from this aforementioned album which dropped long before music streaming was a twinkle in the eye of whomever. The album is full of lyrics about Stefani’s breakup feelings written about band-member and bassist, Tony Kanal, and, written entirely by Gwen, is otherwise highly personalized around her experience. Musically, the band worked in collaboration and borrowed from ska, reggae, grunge, post punk, and even flamenco.
“Take this pink ribbon off my eyes
I’m exposed and it’s no big surprise
Don’t you think I know exactly where I stand?
This world is forcing me to hold your hand”
—Gwen Stefani of No Doubt, lyrics in “Just A Girl”
We love the lyrics to “Just A Girl,” in addition to the instrumentation and energy. Stefani strikes a very delicate and difficult to pull off tone of being both earnest and satirical. It’s almost a lament on having to lament, in addition to being fully present for the original, base lament. We’re in a space of growth in this song, where Stefani, in her mid-twenties, has realized a level of freedom beyond the scope of the song, which focuses on experiences from her teenage years. So she means it and also playfully, close to anti-means it (the anti-ness is more attitudinal and tonal, contained somewhat in the rhyme and the modulation of her voice—from interviews, this playfulness, we might call it, likely comes from being around guys all the time and so part of the genius of the song regarding its efficacy is its balance, how it can draw in any listener despite being transparently critical). “I hate it when I'm asked what that song is about. The lyrics are so obvious,” Stefani has said. Perhaps that meta game contributes to why the song was so popular, and why it worked with the instrumentation, and as a type of anthem relative to more earnestly critical songs in the same vein.
This song has style. It carries weight. It deploys humor and figurative forays. It rides several well-trod musical pathways to deliver something that feels of its own category. These are useful lessons for writers. How might we deliver voice uniquely without overwhelming the text? How we might use satire alongside earnest criticism. How we might include cultural and social observation within an entertaining product. Maybe that’s the purview of upmarket work (and we like to apply upmarketness to poetry as well). Great craft marshaled within the scope of genre, blended, made up with a strong voice that can deliver a message and entertain. Easier noticed than executed.
A good background on No Doubt with an eye toward explaining the Tragic Kingdom album.
Interview with Gwen Stefani.
Writers Submit: 3 Magazines
An online magazine that is looking for writing in all genres that mentions a sport, or sport idea in some way. They encourage new perspectives, diverse voices, and interpretations of any kind. They publish twice per year. DEADLINE MAY 1
Nelle is exclusively dedicated to writing about women. They publish in all genres and all entries are also considered for their annual $500 Three Sisters Award. The University of Alabama Birmingham publishes Nelle. DEADLINE JULY 2
A print and online magazine that publishes nonfiction and poetry. They look for work that extends the idea of sports games and are regularly featured and noted in a number of Best American collections. In print twice per year. DEADLINE ROLLING
Weekly Artist: The Rothko Chapel
Opened in 1971, the Rothko Chapel in Houston, TX serves as an intersectional shrine for worship, contemplation, and prayer as aided by the deep purple paintings of Mark Rothko. We find it worth quoting the institution’s mission as they put it: “mission is to create opportunities for spiritual growth and dialogue that illuminate our shared humanity and inspire action leading to a world in which all are treated with dignity and respect.” This is a noble cause and we are believers and supporters, particularly, too, of the message and hearkening to the mission of Martin Luther King Jr. through the monument in front of the chapel, an obelisk titled Broken Obelisk created by Barnett Newman (see third photo). The sanctuary aims to be a place of refuge and inclusion for all peoples, and they collect the world’s religious tomes inside as a symbol of their commitment to all peoples.
Inside the sanctuary, hang 14 Rothko works. Rothko is famous for using broad strokes, layering color, and creating a depth of visual experience capable of moving viewers in a way that fans of the work from anywhere can likely share a deeply felt moment in front of a Rothko piece, the first time they truly “got” the work, maybe even art in general. Born in Russia in 1903, Rothko moved to Portland, Oregon in 1910, lived in worked in the USA creating over 800 known paintings (it’s said), and died in New York City in 1970 after many exhibitions and a successful career, a career and legacy that very much carries on posthumously and popularly as evidenced by the many small Rothko chapels and rooms in museums around the country and the myriad Rothko corners and walls. He’s been collected by the most important museums around the world. (We’ll discuss Rothko more in depth in the next issue).
“I'm not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.”
―Mark Rothko, from “Conversations with Artists”
What sort of purple is this? We like the deep koamaru descriptor, but, much like Rothko’s other pieces, these purple canvases are shifty. They undulate if you stare too long or look askance; sometimes they open up and attempt to swallow you into their depths. Depending on the light, maybe the angle of eye line, maybe how proximal you are to another body, any body, no body, these paintings can be impenetrable. In those moments, even after a successful dive, the space offers a palette cleansing black canvas, almost like a snuff of coffee between wine tastings, to cleanse, renew, re-oriented (or maybe disorient). It wouldn’t be bad to allow yourself disorientation. In fact, that’s what we felt visiting some time way back in 2018. It could have been the mid-summer heat and consequent dehydration, but the walls wobbled, and the grayness flexed inside the cavernous, temple-like interior sanctuary. The gray was blinding in a way. We sat down. A pillow on the floor. Caught the black side dish. Snuffed or huffed or swirled and spat then ached in the direction of the deep purple. It moved us in time, to tears, to sincere and bodiless thought. Moments, or minutes—maybe tens collected—back on our butt, blindness dissipating, we came to, stood, shivered and left, holding on to a vision deeply personal so as not to forget it before we could put it to paper.
This is one of the experiences we advise without inclination to characterize beyond it’s worth the experience. Spirituality is an inextricable biological truth. It can be accessed and encouraged. The non-denominational aims of the chapel open the door to anyone, everyone accessing themselves how they might. We praise the architects, too, for their design. The form of the building gives itself to the access of the art as needed, but provides a stealthy depth of its own, likely palpable without the art, though the two are synergistic. A trip here might do a writer wonders. It might be just the thing for a self-directed writing retreat, a mini adventure, a pilgrimage. Speaking to random folks who lingered outside, we ascertained that nearly everyone had some kind of profound experience—maybe all 12 people we interviewed informally. It was conversation in which they dropped significant details that clearly indicated that divinity—however one means it—could be broached by just being intentional, being quiet, being present. A gift, certainly. We wish you a future trip.
Interesante: Cafe Sounds
From: Coffitivity.com
— (0 min read/10 min study)
“A moderate level of ambient noise is conducive to creative cognition.”
This has been really fun and a bit of a game changer for those dull, distractible moments working alone in the office or at the kitchen table when we wish we could be out in public, at least working somewhere cool. Well, now we have the coffee shop sounds to aid us. Coffitivity records hours of ambient cafe sounds and runs them as soundtracks. Some of these are free, other are somewhat oddly behind a paywall. They site the quote above as a part of a University of Chicago pier-reviewed study on productivity. We believe it. A lot of our best creative work has occurred while at our favorite shops. This might be the next best thing to being on site. Their site offers some info on the study, a subscription model, and a few free hours long sound tracks. Enjoy! —Check the site.
Prizes/Awards/Stipends Winter ‘24
Atlanta Review gives $1,000 to one poem written in English. All submissions to the contest are also considered for publication in the magazine. The contest began in 1996 and is over 25 years old. $1K + Pub. $15 Fee. DEADLINE MAY 1
Diagram Chapbook Contest Awards $1,000 and publication for a hybrid/experimental chapbook. Diagram is known for interesting visual and written work, and the contest publishes other deserving work. $1k + Pub + 25 Copies. $25 Fee. DEADLINE MAY 15
Winter Soup Bowl Chapbook Contest awards $100 and pub to a chapbook of any genre. Hosted by C&R Press, they publish 1-3 books from the contest, & are interested in “New Weird.” $100 + Pub + Ad Campaign. $20 Fee. DEADLINE MARCH 21
Bookstore: Guides, Gifts & Classics
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Last Week: The Voynich Manuscript With Drawings
»»»Remember last week’s letter has urgent deadlines!«««
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~~~Slán~~~
(Goodbye)
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