Wilderness House Literary Review # 2/1

WHLReview 145 Foster Street Littleton MA 01460 The Wilderness House Literary Review is a publication devoted to excellence in literature and the arts. The WHLReview is published online quarterly with a best of annual print edition.  Deadlines are as follows March 1 – Spring June 1 – Summer September 1 – Autumn December 1 – Winter The annual edition will be published in May. Editor & Publisher  Steve Glines Poetry Editor Irene Koronas Fiction Editor Julia Carlson Nonfiction Editor Steve Glines Book Reviews Editor Doug Holder Arts Editor Steve Glines Poet in Residence Tomas O’Leary The Wilderness House Literary Review is the result of the cooperation of the Bagel Bards,  and the Wilderness House Literary Retreat. Submissions Poetry may be submitted in any form. Short fiction may be submitted in three formats: 1. very short stories less than 500 words in length 2. short stories less than 1000 words in length 3. Short stories that don’t fit the above should be less than 5000 words. Non-Fiction is just that so lets see some interesting footnotes. Book Reviews should be positive unless the author is a well-known blowhard. Our mission is to encourage literature not discourage it. Non-fiction should be short, (a lot) less than 5000 words. Any form of art may be submitted with the constraint that it must be something that can be published in 2 dimensions. It’s hard to publish sculpture but illustrations together with some intelligent prose count.  Published works are welcome with proper attribution. Please submit all works electronically. Your Ad Here

Welcome to the fourth edition of the Wilderness House Literary Review. WHLR is a result of the collaboration between a group of poets and writers who call themselves the Bagel Bards (who have just published their latest anthology) and the Wilderness House Literary Retreat, itself a cooperative effort between the Rotary Club of Littleton Massachusetts and the New England Forestry Foundation. All of the stories, articles, poems and examples of art have been presented as PDF files, Portable Document Format. This is a format that allows for a much cleaner presentation than would otherwise be available on the web. If you don’t have an Adobe Reader (used to read a PDF file) on your computer you can download one from the Adobe website. The files are large and we hope you will be patient when downloading but we think the beauty of the words deserver a beautiful presentation.  Finally, the copyrights are owned by their respective authors whose opinions are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of our sponsors or partners. Let us know what you think in our new Letters to the Editor. Enough housekeeping. It’s spring at least by the calendar but the cold death of winter has yet to release the earth from its grip. Snow still lies in dulled white patches in well-shaded corners of the yard. The robin finds it difficult to find worms; the ground is still frozen just inches beneath the gelatinous ooze of freshly thawed mud. Outside a flock of small brown birds of unknown species bob and weave and dances in the enthralled romance of the promise of spring. Consummated, I presume, one of the little birds’ flies past the window with straw in her beak in the frantic rush of new construction. It’s been the coldest spring in 50 years but when it’s warm and the sun heats the flagstone path that leads to the front door a colony of small black ants emerge to socialize and exchange DNA. In July when this year’s progeny hatch they will again emerge en-masse with wings and take flight. Every season has its events like August when the slugs slither and slime their way up the back fence entwine, enraptured as only slugs can, and disappear for another year. Another spring tradition is the new Bagel Bards Anthology found here! Art Like ants and birds and we too stretch our wings and drag ourselves from winter’s isolation. The world, frozen as it was last fall looks different to our newly opened eyes. Our annual Rip Van Winkle experience gives us a different view of the world we left behind when we crawled into our den last fall for our winter hibernation. Old friends emerge, different somehow by the passing of time. All aging takes place in winter when we are gratefully unconscious of its effects. Spring is a time of reacquaintance with the world, of seeing who and what is left and what is new. The personal need for art left us searching for old acquaintances and we found them. Back in the 1970’s there was a small band of artists living in Cambridge Massachusetts who produced “Warm Neck Funnies.” A flash of inspiration and a google search later revealed that, like a treasure found lost in an attic for decades and discovered on some “Antiques Roadshow”, these old comics are worth a small fortune. My favorites among the artists were Jim Taylor (with the fish) and Mark S. Fisher. Jim paints and sculpts in Deerfield Massachusetts and Mark is a freelance illustrator living in a big spooky house in Lowell. Mark did the Antiques Roadshow Jackpot! drawing. Seeing art in the spring is a subterranean dwellers substitute for crocuses blossoms (which we have included just as a reminder that there is a world beyond the pavement). Fiction In our last issue we published part 1 of “Hunter Moon” by Anne Brudevold. Northwest Maine near the Canadian border. It is October, the month of the Hunter Moon. Ray Noonan, member of the Nunotuck Indian tribe is about to learn the meaning of a prophecy: “I see death,” the old woman had said. This spring we are continuing with chapters 5 through 9: Hunter Moon (Chapters 5-9) Also by Anne Brudevold is a short story titled Patience is no virtue. Finally, Luke Salisbury weighs in with a tail of road rage and revenge in Boston Driver: A Tale of 1988 Poetry Anne Brudevold Barbara Thomas Chad Parenteau Corey Cook Deborah Priestly Denis Emorine Gloria Mindock Jared Smith Judy Brekke Julia Carlson Kathy Horniak Ricardo Fitten Roberta Feins Reviews In no particular order we have, Poetry: ALTERNATE ENDINGS By: Mike James Review by Charles P. Ries Film: GV6, THE ODYSSEY: POETS, PASSION, and POETRY Graffiti Verite’ Documentary Series Directed by Bob Bryan Reviewed by Richard Wilhelm Poetry: Letting Go Poems by Robert Collet Tricaro Reviewed by Steve Glines Plays: OMMMMMM. A Collection of Plays and Monologues by Hugh Fox. Reviewed by Doug Holder Poetry: ONE OF US ONE NIGHT By: Mark Wisniewski Review by Charles P. Ries Poetry: On The Line By Don Winter Reviewed By Michael Kriesel As we said when we started this is a joint production of Wilderness House Literary Retreat and the “bagel bards”.  The “Bagel Bards” have just published their second anthology. You may purchase them here:

A new and exciting travelog: