Spring Break
Latest 'New Letters' focuses on death
Jessie Burche
Issue date: 1/8/07 Section: Culture
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"We know we have achieved the level of art when such visions of difficulties find balance with another truth, one just as tough," wrote Robert Stewart in the editor's note.
"New Letters" is a quarterly publication that features short stories, poetry, reviews and essays.
This quarter, "New Letters" explored all the different meanings of death.
The very first story set a decidedly melancholy tone. "Ostriches" by Susan Tekulve is about Sadie, a woman with terminal breast cancer who makes a journey to tell her mother she will die soon. Her mother is so attuned to how death affects the people surrounding the deceased one that she offers her daughter nothing in the way of words, but gives her an ostrich egg that's been made into a Christmas ornament for Sadie's husband.
Another short story, "Tommy Henrich's a Prick" by Paul Zimmer, details the fall from grace the protagonist's favorite baseball player had due to Tommy Henrich. The main character is a young boy who loves Mickey Owen.
When the young boy goes to an autograph signing for Tommy Henrich, he decides to tell Tommy he is a prick. He does the dirty deed and even though Henrich doesn't do anything more than suggest he should get a drink, the kid feels like he's "g[iven] him what he deserves."
The most moving section of "New Letters" doesn't even have words - only pictures. These pictures, taken by Gloria Baker Feinstein, show orphans from Uganda in and around orphanages.
In the editor's note, Feinstein points out there are 13 million people under 15 in Uganda - out of the population of 24.7 million. And 2.2 million of the population have lost one parent or both due to a civil war and AIDS.
One of my favorite poems in this publication was "Ode to Clouds" by Christopher Buckley. It was a poem that had nothing, as far as I could see, to do with death. It simply admired and explored clouds. It described their beauty and discovered what they really are.
"Oh, the impromptu sails I followed out/of ignorance, out the blue, wide windows of my school" is an idea everyone that can identify with. It makes you wonder what it is about clouds that make them the subject of much daydreaming.
There were too many good pieces in this issue of "New Letters" to decide which ones to write about. It's not just poetry and stories in here. When you dig a little you find everything has a much richer meaning. And when you dig it gives you something to ponder: what are all the ways death enters our lives?
jburche@unews.com
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