No John Wayne
 
He likes people
if they are useful.
Women are useful.
Employees are useful.
Voters are useful.
Tax experts are useful
when you have
that kind of money.
 
You get the feeling
he loves his children
and that’s a good thing.
 
But despite the thunder
with which he’s galloped
out of his skyscrapers
to capture so much
of America, deep
in your heart you know
even if he puts on
a ten-gallon hat
he's no John Wayne.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

Remembering a War We Tend to Forget
 
I will never forget him
but I can’t remember his name
it’s been so long ago.
Maybe I never knew it.
 
But I think of him on days
America celebrates its veterans--
Memorial Day, July 4th,
Veterans Day, D-Day.
The wars are all remembered
but not so much this one.
 
He was Billy's big brother
and more than 60 years ago
Billy and the rest of us
were in 8th grade watching
him climb a ladder
and hammer a hoop
on the roof of a garage
so we could play ball
while he went to Korea.
 
I saw him again when he
came back from Korea.
He was walking in circles
in the family’s backyard
smoking Pall Malls,
one after another, talking
to no one we could see.
 
We were practicing at
the hoop he nailed up
before he went to Korea.
We were seniors
in high school then
and had to be ready.
We practiced all summer
for the season ahead.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

Move-out Day
Elizabeth de Leon
 
We found each other’s hearts: opened them up and made them home.
Stretched our legs, rested them on the coffee table, made our bed and laid in it.  
 
Pushed out the walls. Punched holes for air. Let the sun in.
Let the dust gather.
(It gets crowded when you move in somewhere meant for constant renovation).
 
Hopes and dreams, stapled up against the walls of each chamber.
Cuts and broken pieces mended by clear duct tape.
You pretend they’re not there.
 
But move out day arrives, furniture never used left behind,
and the scratches on the floor where we left them untouched.
You took our hopes and dreams with you, 
unhooked all the pictures on our walls,
but left the nails. 
 
So I change the bed sheets, wash off our days and nights,
vacuum the rug and wipe away the dust. 
 
Now I watch you walk out the door I unlocked for you
and down the street we paved.
 
You
packed both sets of keys and then lost them on the train.
You
left the room cold, so that my muscles would ache the same way
You
did.  
 
The ghosts of your routines still floating around,
they keep me awake and light up
Every
dark
corner.
 
You call them away. You move out.
 
Now someone took your side of the room,
responding to a sign
I didn’t remember I posted.
 
They sweep up my mistakes;
call the stretch marks you made tiger stripes.
The dust doesn’t collect.
Sutures up the rips and the tears.
Disinfects the cuts from the sharp edges of your words,
ices the bruises from bumping into your jaded desires.
 
They fill your side of the bed,
hold me from falling out my favorite window.
I change the lock
and make a new set of keys.
Keys are exchanged but still their door is always open,
you scarred mine shut.
 
So I unhinged the door,
 
pulled it off the frame
 
let them walk in.
 
Now I have a toothbrush in their mind and a drawer in their atrium.
 
We live in each other.
 
There is no move out day.
 
 

By Larissa Banitt
Sunrise Meets the Star is an adventurous coming-of-age story. Verone is whisked away from his small remote village to help a group of strangers complete a mysterious quest.  On the road he goes from boy to man and discovers things about himself he never imagined possible.
 
I really enjoyed seeing Verone’s character development. Starting as an educated but very poor young man, but treated as a lord as soon as he joins his travelling companions, it was very interesting to see how he dealt with his sudden change of circumstance. He grapples with how to adjust while staying the man he was before and this definitely added a depth to his character. I also thought how the culmination of the quest panned out was very clever. (I know I’m being vague, but I’d hate to spoil anything.)
 
One thing that was a bit tricky for me starting the book is there was not quite enough world-building. I knew that Verone started out living in a farming village in a fantasy world, but I was not sure whether to picture something like the English countryside with rolling hills, farmland near a forest, or someplace more arid. The world building definitely developed more as the story went on, but at the beginning it was a bit hard for me to orient myself. Another thing that kept me from fully enjoying the story was one of the characters, Berlin. For over half of the book Berlin keeps insulting Verone, calling him peasant and saying things like Verone doesn’t deserve the nice clothes Anteries, the leader of the group, bought him. He continues to do this despite the fact that everyone repeatedly tells him to stop and at one point they even threaten to send him home. It really grated on my nerves, and even though Berlin does change, the change is so gradual that the payoff was not worth the many pages of him being a nuisance.
 
I would recommend this book to fans of quest books. It follows the Heroic Journey to a T, making it full of gripping trials and an intense climax. Although the characters are all adults, I’d say this book would be appropriate for the older end of the Middle Grade audience and up.

Alleys and Obits
 
I started reading the paper
early in grammar school
to find the sports scores.
It was fun for a child 
hoping to play 
a sport some day.
 
After the scores
I had to read the obits
for my father to see
if anyone from Ireland
living in Chicago
had passed away.
 
He’d get home filthy
from working in alleys 
and ask me if I’d found
anyone in the obits
that he might know. 
 
Sometimes I had a name
and sometimes not.
Sometimes he’d say 
he knew the person  
and sometimes not.
 
I didn’t realize it then
but appreciate it now 
that he had me read
the obits as a child so 
I’d be ready for college.
He often said reading
was like breathing.
 
 
Donal Mahoney
 

 
Four Ways to Take Care of Yourself When You’re Stressed
By: Larissa Banitt
 
May is upon us, which means students all over the country are starting to feel the pressure of finals. It is easy to get swept along in the current of stress that builds up on college campuses this time of year, so to combat that I have compiled a list of things to do to take care of yourself this finals season, which you can also apply to any stressful period in your life.
 
1. Stick to a regular schedule for eating and sleeping.
            This may seem like a simple, obvious thing, but I wouldn’t include it unless I thought it was relevant. So many people I know pull all-nighters or skip meals in order to make time to finish a presentation or study for a test. The problem with this is that by the time they have finished they are too exhausted or distracted from hunger to do well on the presentation or test itself. Sure, they may have needed that extra time to prepare, but they also needed to make sure their basic needs were met and since they did not they did not function at the level they were used to. An easy way you can keep this from happening is to establish a firm, regular schedule for sleep and meals and plan everything else around that. You’ll feel better because of it and you will perform better too.
 
2. Take time to do things just for you.
            When things get busy in my academic life, the first thing I cut out is free time. This makes sense to some extent, since if I have extra work and need to find a few extra hours to do it I’d rather take it from leisure time than from time set aside for other commitments, especially if I am adhering to my first piece of advice about sleeping and eating. This habit can compound on itself, though, until I have no free stretches left at all and am running around frantically all day trying to get my work done. Living like this is not sustainable and will burn you out. In busy periods you may have to cut out a bit of your leisure time, but making sure to set aside at least an hour every day to do things not at all connected to work will give you time to experience some semblance of normalcy, even if the rest of your life is completely overwhelming.
 
3. Take time to relax.
            This is similar to my previous point, and for some people might be identical. However, what I mean by relaxing specifically rather than just incorporating leisure time into your schedule is that if your favorite leisure activities include watching high stakes sports games or graphic television shows they may certainly be a great form of escapism, but might still keep you keyed up or anxious. To be able to completely unwind and recharge, you might need to do things you would not when your life is otherwise fairly stress-free. Taking a walk, sketching, listening to soothing music, or journaling are just a few examples of activities to do that will ground and re-center you so that when you do return to work, you can tackle it refreshed.
 
4. Keep it in perspective.
            It is easy to look at any given final grade or paper and feel like your entire fate is held in the balance of your results, but, most of the time, this just isn’t true. I had a professor once who only had three assessments for the entire term, which, understandably, freaked many of us out. He knew this, so he asked us to think bigger than just this class. Sure, a final test worth fifty percent of one’s overall grade seems enormous, but he asked us to consider how it was only half of one final grade out of the nine or so final grades we would receive that year, or even the thirty-six odd final grades we would get in the course of our undergraduate education. Suddenly, his grading system no longer seemed so apocalyptic.
            Another way to gain perspective is to remind yourself that you are not a grade. School can feel all-consuming while you are caught up in it, but in the end it is only one facet of your life. You may be a student, but you are also a friend, a family member, a part of a community. You are an amalgamation of your experiences, hobbies, relationships, and so many more components that are more impactful in your life and will last longer than a letter on a piece of paper ever will.
 
 
Edited by: Anna Sweet

 
He asked and so I told him.
The “cancer” poems stem
from cancer in the family.
Daughter’s terminal.
Son's a five-year survivor.
Mother died at 59.
I had 13 polyps, all benign,
snipped a year ago.
I go back next month
for another roto-rooter.
 
As one grows older,
neighbors, friends and folks
one doesn’t know
die from it.
That’s life, isn’t it.
 
One never knows
but the question’s not
“Why me?”
The question is
“Why not me?"
 
Think about it.
We’ll all pop something
now or when, won’t we.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

ABOUT THE BOOK:An indispensable resource on what everyone needs: a mentor
Whether you have a mentor, can’t seem to find one, or haven’t even thought to look, Jayme Hull walks you through every aspect of this critical relationship, including:

• Its purpose, value, and benefits
• Marks of a healthy mentoring relationship
• Initiating, navigating, and even ending a mentorship
• Becoming a mentor to others

Packed with stories and anecdotes from Jayme’s experience as both a mentor and mentee—plus sprinklings of wisdom on balance, purpose, and change--Face to Face speaks to the heart of young Christian women eager to grow. In her warm, personable style, Jayme offers expert advice on how to journey well with someone further along.

MY REVIEW:  The opening was attention-grabbing, and I really enjoyed the story of transitioning from home with parents to trying to make it on her own in NYC. Who hasn't gone through something similar when it comes to a transition period like this?

However, I will admit that the book lost me pretty early in when it went from making on her own in NYC to all of a sudden throwing bible quotes out there and talking about making it big in NYC with hardly any transition on how she got there. I found it hard to read at that point.  Too much of a content gap.

MY RATING: 3 stars for it starting off good but I couldn't finish it.

Ash Street
 
Willie’s songs were yet unsung when they lost the farm and moved halfway across Kansas to the little town where my parents lived.
 
The aroma of homemade bread wafted three blocks
Down to the post office where Grandpa and I
Went every other week for ten, three-cent
Stamps. The angel who helped raise me always
Baked five loaves at a time, just as she had done
For years, feeding family and farmhands who were
Working the harvest.
 
Grandpa, Uncle Paul, and I would set out on the
Wraparound porch on summer evenings to watch
Bats circle the bell tower of the Methodist church
Across the street, and make rooster calls at passersby.
The feather bed my great-grandparents had given them,
When their lives began together,
Always beckoned a blissful night’s sleep.
 
My clubhouse was an old abandoned ‘fraidy-hole
In the chicken yard with a Hudson hood roof
And Plymouth Rock chicks for club members.
Grandma loved her layers. Double yolks
Went in a special basket.
 
That first Mother’s Day, Grandpa and Uncle Paul
Made one final trip back to the farm for some horse tack
And a used Hesston tractor. While Grandpa
Settled some business, Paul went swimming with
Ex-schoolmates in a stock pond that doubled as a
Dippin’ hole. He got a cramp and drowned before
His friends could reach him. Paul was fifteen,
The apple of my angel’s eye.
 
 Kevin Heaton
 
Kevin Heaton was born in Council Grove, Kansas, and grew up in Oklahoma. He currently lives and writes in South Carolina. His work has appeared in a number of publications including Guernica, Rattle, Slice Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Adroit Journal, and Verse Daily. He is a Best of the Net, Best New Poets, and a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee.

http://kevinheatonpoetry.webstarts.com/index.html
 
Edited by August Wright