Delmarva Review, Volume 15

By Delmarva Review

THROUGH THE AUTHOR’S VOICE, we discover qualities and truths about ourselves. Perhaps more than anything else this describes the strength of our connections with literature.

Welcome to the Delmarva Review’s 15th anniversary edition. Writing from 60 authors was selected from thousands of submissions during the year. This issue includes 78 poems, 11 short stories, and 12 nonfiction essays. In all, the writers come from 18 states, the District of Columbia, and 6 foreign countries. The review welcomes the best new writing in English from all writers regardless of borders.

This year’s cover photograph of an osprey, The Fisherman, tells its own story. The osprey, with wings spread exhibiting his power, has positioned himself high above the water on a storm-broken tree trunk, his talons clutching a partially devoured fish. The osprey’s purpose is not so much the fish as it is his desire to lure a suitable mate for the season’s nest. Thematically, the image exhibits the territorial imperative shared by most animals, including humans.

Each story or poem in this issue has its own message. No singular theme was selected for the edition. As a literary collection, we focus on the most compelling new writing and what is at stake or at risk emotionally or intellectually in the author’s work.

Popular topics include grief, death, pain, love, living, place, acceptance, freedom, aging, and the uncertainty of life, among others. They have one quality in common—change—and the uncomfortable challenges of dealing with change.

The book is divided into three major genre sections: Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry. An editor’s interview with a featured writer opens each section. The interviews are designed to set a tone for the writing that follows and draw attention to the authors’ intentions—what they were thinking when they wrote the piece or the choices they faced.
This year’s fiction includes a “flash fiction” piece from the first recipient of the Delmarva Review-Talbot County Youth Writing Scholarship award. In partnership with Talbot County Schools and supported by a grant from the Talbot Arts Council, the review selected “E Duo Unum” from Maxine Poe-Jensen, now a high school senior at St. Michaels High School. The student collaborated with one of our editors, as a mentor, to prepare for publication in the Delmarva Review, and she received a monetary award. The program is part of the review’s ongoing efforts to promote the literary arts regionally among aspiring young writers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Delmarva Review
• Release date: Nov 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005374105

Delmarva Review

Founded in 2008, Delmarva Review is a literary journal dedicated to the discovery and publication of compelling new fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction from emerging and established writers. Submissions from all writers are welcomed, regardless of residence. We publish annually, at a minimum, and promote various literary and educational events, to inspire readers and writers who pursue excellence in the literary arts.Delmarva Review is published by the Delmarva Review Literary Fund, supporting the literary arts across the tristate region of the Delmarva Peninsula, including portions of Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia. Publication is supported by a grant from the Talbot County Arts Council, with revenues provided by the Maryland State Arts Council, as well as private contributions and sales.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Delmarva Review

Copyright

Preface

Fiction

FEATURED WRITER – FICTION JOSH TRAPANI

Josh Trapani

Sepideh Zamani

Erik Harper Klass

Nicholas Katsanis

Jerry Burger

Richard Hacker

Bob Bachner

Mary Gayle Newton

Carter Vance

Jessica Claire Haney

Maxine Poe-Jensen

Nonfiction

FEATURED WRITER – NONFICTION JOHN PHILIP DRURY

John Philip Drury

Chris Arthur

Sallie Bingham

Chila Woychik

Patty McLaughlin

Terry Riccardi

Martina Kado

Thalia Patrinos

Saoirse E. Doyle

Kerry Graham

Jacob M. Appel

Lauren D. Woods

Poetry

FEATURED WRITER - POETRY CATHERINE CARTER

Catherine Carter

Remy Lucien

Michael Salcman

V. P. Loggins

Robin Gow

Jeanine Hathaway

Ellen Sazzman

Lara Payne

Gale Acuff

Alison Hackett

Arnie Yasinski

Annie Diamond

JC Reilly

Roxanne Cardona

Gustavo Adolfo Aybar

George Freek

Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí

Everett Roberts

Robert Manaster

Igor Kojadinović

Carla McGill

Susan Okie

Carol Alexander

Henry Stimpson

Joshua Kulseth

A. J. Granger

Fran Abrams

Joshua St. Claire

Marda Messick

Roy Bentley

Matthew J. Spireng

King Grossman

Esther Lim Palmer

Contributing Writers

Contributing Editors & Board – Volume 15

In Memoriam

Orders

Delmarva

Review

Evocative Prose & Poetry

Volume 15

2022

Delmarva

Review

VOLUME 15

Cover Photograph: The Fisherman by Wilson Wyatt

Delmarva Review publishes evocative new prose and poetry selected from thousands of submissions annually. Designed to encourage outstanding writing, the literary journal is nonprofit and independent. It welcomes submissions in English from all writers. Please follow the submission guidelines, during the submission period, posted on the website: DelmarvaReview.org.

In addition to sales, we are thankful for the generous financial support we receive from individual tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council.

Send general correspondence to:

Delmarva Review

P.O. Box 544

St. Michaels, MD 21663

E-mail: [e-mail]

Copyright © 2022 by the Delmarva Review Literary Fund, Inc.

Paperback ISBN: 979-8-3593240-6-9

ebook ISBN: 978-1-0053741-0-5

Preface

THROUGH THE AUTHOR’S VOICE, we discover qualities and truths about ourselves. Perhaps more than anything else this describes the strength of our connections with literature.

Welcome to the Delmarva Review’s 15th anniversary edition. Writing from 60 authors was selected from thousands of submissions during the year. This issue includes 78 poems, 11 short stories, and 12 nonfiction essays. In all, the writers come from 18 states, the District of Columbia, and 6 foreign countries. The review welcomes the best new writing in English from all writers regardless of borders.

Since the beginning in 2008, Delmarva Review has published new literary poetry and prose from 490 authors. They come from 42 states, the District of Columbia, and 16 foreign countries. Forty-six percent are from the Chesapeake and Delmarva region, defined as: Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

This year’s cover photograph of an osprey, The Fisherman, tells its own story. The osprey, with wings spread exhibiting his power, has positioned himself high above the water on a storm-broken tree trunk, his talons clutching a partially devoured fish. The osprey’s purpose is not so much the fish as it is his desire to lure a suitable mate for the season’s nest. Thematically, the image exhibits the territorial imperative shared by most animals, including humans.

Each story or poem in this issue has its own message. No singular theme was selected for the edition. As a literary collection, we focus on the most compelling new writing and what is at stake or at risk emotionally or intellectually in the author’s work.

Popular topics include grief, death, pain, love, living, place, acceptance, freedom, aging, and the uncertainty of life, among others. They have one quality in common—change—and the uncomfortable challenges of dealing with change.

The book is divided into three major genre sections: Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry. An editor’s interview with a featured writer opens each section. The interviews are designed to set a tone for the writing that follows and draw attention to the authors’ intentions—what they were thinking when they wrote the piece or the choices they faced.

This year’s fiction includes a flash fiction piece from the first recipient of the Delmarva Review-Talbot County Youth Writing Scholarship award. In partnership with Talbot County Schools and supported by a grant from the Talbot Arts Council, the review selected E Duo Unum from Maxine Poe-Jensen, now a high school senior at St. Michaels High School. The student collaborated with one of our editors, as a mentor, to prepare for publication in the Delmarva Review, and she received a monetary award. The program is part of the review’s ongoing efforts to promote the literary arts regionally among aspiring young writers.

Delmarva Review was created to provide both established and aspiring writers with an enduring venue in print to present their best work at a time when many commercial publishers continue to reduce content or are going out of business. For electronic reading, we publish an eBook edition. Both editions are available from major booksellers online. The printed book is available from participating specialty bookstores.

To learn more about the writers and editors, we include a biographical paragraph about each author in the Contributing Writers section, located toward the end of the review. It is followed by a Contributing Editors section.

All of the editors are experienced and recognized in their fields. As volunteers, they read several thousand submissions and contribute to the final makeup and design of Delmarva Review. Selections are based on the writers’ literary skills. In all, the considerable work of the authors, as well as from the editors behind the scenes, combine to fulfill a love of the literary arts.

The writers’ submission period for the next edition, Volume 16, is open from November 1 to March 31, 2023, for publication in November 2023. Submissions are submitted electronically through the website: DelmarvaReview.org.

The review does not charge a writer’s fee for reading submissions or publishing the work. While we receive several thousand submissions, editors are committed to reading each one. We respond to most authors by May. Because of the large number of submissions, acceptance becomes highly selective and a mark of literary achievement.

As a final note, we are including an In Memoriam page at the end of this edition, recognizing one of the review’s original and most passionate supporters, George Merrill. He was a past nonfiction editor for several years. The review interviewed him in the previous edition (Volume 14), and we are pleased to republish a thoughtful excerpt from this outstanding interview, in his final words . . . for all to appreciate.

As an independent, 501(c)3 nonprofit literary publisher, we are greatly appreciative of the funding support we receive from individual tax-deductible contributions and a public grant from Talbot Arts Council with revenues from the Maryland State Arts Council.

Wilson Wyatt, Jr.

Editor

Email: [e-mail]

Fiction

FEATURED WRITER – FICTION

JOSH TRAPANI

AN INTERVIEW AND A SHORT STORY

Interview by Lee Slater, Fiction Coeditor

Slater: You are Senior Science Policy Editor at Issues in Science and Technology, and you hold a PhD in geosciences from the University of Michigan, with a focus in paleontology. The storytelling in your works of creative expression reveals the sharp eye of a keen observer of human interactions. For how long have you been writing fiction, and what inspires your work?

Trapani: Minus a few pauses, I’ve been writing fiction since grade school. As a kid, writing seemed the most precise way to express myself: more so than, for example, visual art or music. Everything I wrote back then had elements of magic, fantasy, and the supernatural. What inspired it, I see in retrospect, was escapism and a desire to exert control in my life. Though none of this was above the line in my consciousness, there was also a safety element: in writing stories, I could conduct private, consequence-free experiments with emotions and situations. One thing I’ve brought from this start into my adult writing is an interest in the distinction between people’s interior lives and what they choose to express outwardly.

In college, I took a bunch of science classes and learned the real world was far more fascinating than I’d realized. I didn’t need orcs and wizards anymore. In my adult writing, a number of themes pop up repeatedly, mainly around how professional identity fits into a person’s whole self, especially in driven white-collar fields. This includes workplace absurdities, how people operate within hierarchies, and the interior/exterior split I mentioned before, often through an Erving Goffman-type lens.

One last core thing that guides me: I’m not a fan of literature that overtly moralizes or authors who attempt to advance an agenda through their fiction. So I always try, though sometimes it’s hard, to focus on questions rather than answers.

Slater: The central dynamic of this story resides in the tension between two academic researchers in the field in Ethiopia. What is the significance of this setting for you?

Trapani: Ethiopia is located within the East African Rift Valley and is one of the most important places on earth for understanding human evolution. In fact, the country’s tourism slogan is Land of Origins. As a scientist, I performed fieldwork in Ethiopia, as did many colleagues and friends.

My own experiences in Ethiopia were overwhelmingly positive, and I loved the people, the different cultures, the landscape, the food. But there are lots of stories floating around about crazy things that have happened there. And the sites where I worked were very remote … the most different place from my daily life that I’ve ever visited. This inevitably leads to vivid impressions.

One broader observation on fieldwork in general: when you’re in the field—anywhere—stuck with a group of people for some length of time, essentially in your own bubble and isolated from others outside your group, emotions run high and interpersonal dynamics get amplified. Sometimes to extremes.

Slater: Can you speak to the power of the title and to the layers of meaning that resonate from the word butchery?

Trapani: In the scientific literature on archaeology and taphonomy, butchery is a technical term. If you asked Kate (the story’s protagonist) what she studied, she would use that word in her answer. To many, butcher conjures the image of someone whose job is to take cows, pigs, or chickens apart. But it’s also an ugly word often used to denote ugly things: e.g., Saddam Hussein was the Butcher of Baghdad or the middle school chorus butchered that Beatles medley. In that sense, it implies ruination and mess: ripping and tearing rather than surgical dissection. Things being messily torn apart comes up repeatedly in the story, whether it’s the landscape, animals, or people: their physical bodies, but also their relationships, hopes, and aspirations.

Slater: If one were to map the striking visual images of various forms of butchery in this story (from the mention of dogs’ torn ears to the spectacle of rendered goats), one would find a vibrant symmetry much like the patterns of marks on the fossils that the main characters study. Could you share with the reader a bit of insight into your creative process?

Trapani: I would be hard-pressed to call it a process at all! I usually start with a concept or premise that fascinates me. Then, in developing characters, I ask myself: what kind of person would be really messed up by encountering this situation? While fine-tuning the premise and characters to achieve a true match made in hell, I have to work hard to achieve the needed conflict, tension, and urgency. It usually takes many tries because I’m a conflict-averse person who naturally writes conflict-averse characters. I also tend to get way too tripped up on logistics and details. That doesn’t work for stories … and also, it’s no fun.

Lately, I’ve been studying Story Grid and other story structure techniques, which have been useful for plotting and revising at the scene and story level. While working through the story and character elements, I also—though often it feels quite separate—work on the language at the paragraph, sentence, and word level. There’s lots of iteration and a surprising amount of reordering of sentences and clauses that goes on.

Trying to describe this, I’m tempted to quip about butchery, but I now work in policy, so I’ll default to the sausage analogy instead: the end product may taste good, but you don’t want to watch it being made.

Slater: The main character, Kate, is fascinating in her decision to reverse course. What does this say about human behavior, vulnerability, and the traces we leave etched on each other’s bones?

Trapani: This is a place where the story touches on several core themes of interest to me. Kate exists within the scientific hierarchy, and through no fault of her own, she is fated to suffer the consequences of bad actions by someone higher and more powerful in that hierarchy. She’s seen enough of Sondersohn to know this won’t end well. So there is a practical side to her best bad choice decision. But it also comes with a reordering of her priorities that speaks more to her character. No matter how driven she is toward professional accomplishment, she hasn’t lost her moral compass. There are some lines she won’t cross.

✦

Josh Trapani

BUTCHERY

AT DINNER, Sondersohn told Kate they’d reach the site by late afternoon. But when they arrived at the river crossing the next day around noon, the ferry was missing.

The two-track road they’d rattled down all morning wound back through tan scrub into haze. On the bank, four men squatted beneath the weak shade of an acacia. The only sounds were buzzing flies and the wet chewing of the men’s jaws as they worked khat. Decorative scars covered their bare chests, their split earlobes hung pendulously. Each wore an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. A pungent odor filled Kate’s nostrils. Goat.

Birhanu, their driver and guide, wrinkled his nose. Mursi.

The stalwart guardians of our ferry, quipped Sondersohn.

Birhanu stepped toward the acacia. Three dogs crouched beside the men: tough little things, by the look of them, covered in bites and scratches, missing chunks of ear and, in one of them, an eye. They growled but, undaunted, Birhanu began speaking to the men in a language that sounded nothing like Amharic.

That’s why he’s here, Kate thought. Why she was here, well … once they reached the site, that’s when her skills would come into play. But it was taking a long time. Too long, Sondersohn said, and she agreed. Nearly two weeks in-country so far. First Addis: an interminable blizzard of Amharic negotiations, with many piles of birr exchanging hands. Then five dawn-to-dusk days lurching along progressively worsening roads in their field vehicle, a white Toyota SUV overloaded with field tools, camp supplies, and extra fuel and water. At the site, she’d be in her element. Until then, she was just one more piece of cargo.

Birhanu turned to Sondersohn. "Doctor, the Mursi say we go across. The toll is 250 birr for each, 2,000 for the truck."

Sondersohn wiped sweat from his eyes. Stocky and pale, with short straight hair and a pudgy boyish face, he gave off more the impression of an overgrown schoolboy than of a star scholar of ancient human prehistory. "Where is the ferry? Ask them where’s Bulaba? He’s the one we negotiated with last year."

Birhanu turned back to the Mursi. Sondersohn gave Kate a Can you believe this shit? look. She’s seen it often since they met for the first time—she’d known him only by reputation and her adviser’s recommendation—in the Bole Airport.

As the two farenji, they were set apart. Alone together, Kate thought, like the book. The staring, the begging, the kids chanting you, you, you everywhere they went, only amplified the aloneness. So what happened at dinner last night — which really wasn’t much of anything, just a brush of the fingers — was about companionship, not anything more.

Bulaba not here, they say, Birhanu informed Sondersohn.

Really? Sondersohn glared. Thanks for helping figure that out.

Whereas Sondersohn treated Birhanu with absent condescension right from the beginning, Kate had wanted very much to like him. At first, she thought it would be easy. A compact man with wispy white hair and crooked teeth, he gave off a grandfatherly vibe. The slender National Tour Operators cap he wore made him resemble a train conductor, and she imagined him conducting them out to the site in an orderly yet caring manner.

Once they set off, however, he grated on her. He ignored Kate completely and spoke to Sondersohn only when necessary. This despite his excellent English and propensity to argue or negotiate with nearly everyone they came across. Vendors, government officials, police, managers of the restaurants and hotels they stopped at on the road; Birhanu spoke with them all, sometimes at great length, but to what end she never knew. The conversations went untranslated and unexplained.

And, for a so-called tour operator, he wasn’t much of a guide. As they drove through the lush, hilly countryside—nothing like the arid scrub she’d seen in photos of the site or here by the ferry crossing—hours would pass without his saying a word. One afternoon in the midst of his silence, he’d made a sudden remark: it sounded like a swear word. She spent the rest of the day wondering if something had upset him. But that evening, when curiosity got the best of her and she asked Sondersohn, he explained with a laugh that Birhanu was merely pointing out a bustard near the road.

Tell them, Sondersohn said, there’s nothing more to talk about until we know the whereabouts of the ferry. Reluctantly, Birhanu reengaged the Mursi, who—faced with the prospect of their leaving without parting with any money—suddenly had a lot to say.

They had spent last night in Jinka, the nearest town of any consequence. After dinner, the inevitable beg wot the only choice at the hotel’s dingy restaurant, Sondersohn ordered another beer. Heading to her room to swat cockroaches off the walls and lament the lack of running water was distinctly unappealing, so Kate joined him.

When the Bedeles arrived, they clinked them together. May be our last cold beers for a while. About time, huh? Then he added, eyes gleaming, Afar, 1993, 2.2 million years old.

This was a reference to why they were here, to the scientific record they seemed poised to break. During last season’s excavations, Sondersohn unearthed ibex bones with suspicious cut marks. The site was old, older than 2.2 million years. So were the bones. He’d recognized the possible significance but wisely left them in situ when the rains drove him back to Addis. He needed an expert evaluation, and through a convoluted set of referrals, here sat Kate, a mere doctoral student yet one of the world’s top experts on an incredibly obscure, hyperspecialized topic that almost no one cared about. Except for the few who cared passionately.

The Leakeys, she replied. Their hands crept closer to one another across the battered tabletop. "The cover of Science magazine."

If this worked out, it would be a find of staggering significance. She imagined a Science cover with their names on it, rather than the Leakeys. The media appearances. The professional society accolades. Even … tenure. It would make her career. Their fingers brushed.

If it worked out. Kate slowly withdrew her hand.

Now she glanced sidelong at Sondersohn, intently watching Birhanu parlay with the Mursi though he couldn’t understand any more of the back-and-forth than she could.

That brief touch last night, she hoped they were both clear on what it was … and wasn’t.

She turned her gaze across the coffee-colored river. A glint on the opposite bank drew her eye. Not one but several large pieces of sun-roasted metal protruded from the tan mud. A termite mound rose, like a stalagmite, from the dust-caked edge of one.

She pointed and Sondersohn scowled. Birhanu!

Doctor, the Mursi say they will give us a bargain. Only 1,000 for the truck.

Sondersohn blinked. "Have you been haggling over price? The ferry’s on the other side of the river. It’s in pieces. Let’s go." Flushed, he strode toward the Toyota. Kate followed.

At the truck, Sondersohn turned back toward the Mursi and unleashed a torrent of verbal abuse. She’d seen flashes of his temper before, but nothing like this.

Though they couldn’t understand the words, it was surely clear to the Mursi that their payday had evaporated. The dogs growled again, baring their fangs. One of the men, broad chested and muscular, rose to his feet and shoved Birhanu, who’d been standing mutely during Sondersohn’s tirade. He went sprawling, his NTO cap landing beside him in the dust. The other Mursi men stood up. One slipped the rifle off his shoulder.

Erik! Kate yelled. She stepped forward, but Sondersohn stopped her with a hand.

Birhanu retrieved his cap, then inched back and rose awkwardly to his feet. He was covered in dust. The Mursi shouted what Kate was sure were taunts.

I said, let’s go, Sondersohn chided him.

Teeth gritted, Birhanu limped to the driver’s side.

THE ONLY OPTION now was to cross the river at the nearest bridge and approach the site from the north. This was a terrible option. They’d need to drive most of the way back to Addis to reach the bridge and would then face a longer journey on the western side of the river. Just how long they didn’t know, as even Birhanu had never been that way before. Every day on the road ate into their precious time at the site.

The next morning, back in Jinka, Birhanu took the Toyota to be serviced, leaving Kate and Sondersohn with some hours to kill. The center of the town was a large grassy field that served as both an airstrip and grazing for goats. Corrugated metal-roofed shacks — homes and shops in an undifferentiated jumble — lined the dusty road bordering the field. Bright-colored Amharic signage everywhere advertised she had no idea what. Diesel fuel and woodsmoke ripened the air as they strolled past wandering chickens and goats, women hauling wood and water, and kids who called to them. Sondersohn kept up a low-level chatter, complaining about the ferry, the Mursi, and the added time. Kate, overwhelmed by the surroundings, listened with half an ear.

At a small roadside market, old ladies sat beside pyramids of produce: tomatoes and mangos, potatoes and garlic. A stocky man managed piles of brightly colored spices and a rickety balance. Heaping bags of brown grain, which Kate surmised was teff, rested next to stacks of spongy, freshly made injera discs. There were jerry cans and water jugs. Washbasins and buckets. Candy and tinned fish. Cheap digital watches and tired clothes of the sort that, in the US, would remain