The Weekly Atticus (11/04/2017)

A recap of the week at Atticus Review, along with some extras.

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Dear ,

I spent part of this week chasing little monsters. And while this could refer to my new puppy or my children, who dressed for Halloween as a gargoyle and skeleton, I confess that my case is far more serious than that. I am still playing

Pokemon Go

. 

My boys tell me that is

so

2016

, and when I ask if they want to go Pokemon hunting, they sigh and shake their heads. My husband sometimes indulges a walk to the nearest Pokestop, but mostly he agrees to start dinner so I can do a legendary raid with my new tribe: 20 and 30-somethings with avatars like

Poseidon1912 and SilverOwlHootz. I still open the app as I walk to work, going the distance to hatch a 10-kilometer egg and hopefully get a rare and coveted Dratini. I flick Pokeballs at whatever monsters appear on the street, earning candies to evolve these “pocket monsters” into stronger versions. 

You can’t see these creatures if you don’t have a phone screen open to the game, so it would be accurate to say that I spent part of this week chasing

invisible

little monsters, that I am obsessed with trying to capture what most people can’t see. 

In that way, Pokemon hunting isn’t much different from living as a writer.

We are all plagued by monsters: memories that haunt us, hybrid ideas and identities that fail to fit neatly into categories designed to make others comfortable, imaginings we deem too warped to let out of their dark holes. Maybe yours are small and mischievous, sometimes jumping away when you try to catch them, but mostly agreeable to integrating into the rest of your collection. Other monsters are “legendary”—elusive demons that, once you find them, seem impossible to tame. You may try for years. You may not succeed. (The Pokemon I most yearn to encounter is called “Unown,” a name that wonderfully looks like

un-own

and sounds like

unknown

and, of course, takes the shape of various alphanumeric symbols.)

If, as the poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “A thinking woman sleeps with monsters,” then a thinking writer wakes with them and heads straight to her computer to capture whatever she can. In

Pokemon Go

, I use little digital berries as lures and throw Pokeballs at the monsters that appear on my screen. When my target is zapped into the magic ball, I wait, and when the ball makes its third shake and erupts with sparkling stars, I know I’ve caught it. I’m done. 

I wish writing were that easy. 

I never know what will lure my monsters or make them easier to capture in words. Some days I don’t even know what monsters I’m looking for or don’t want to do the hard work of looking. I’d rather they popped up at random on my phone screen, already named, their strengths and weaknesses cataloged. But if we don’t search for our own monsters, they will find us, usually when we’re least prepared.  Perhaps the crucial difference between Pokemon Go and the writing life is that the “pocket monsters” in the game don’t actually exist. (Someone tell my family that I do realize that!) But the monsters with which writers grapple are real. They exist, and they matter, and it takes real courage to write and read about them.I’m still waiting for my lucky break at finding one kind of Unown, but I’m mustering courage every morning at my computer to work for other kinds. I hope you are too.Thanks for reading. We’re glad you (and your monsters) are here.

Chauna CraigCreative Nonfiction Editor

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

FERAL TOWN by Adam Gustavson

MONTOYA

BOOK REVIEW: Verse of the MultiverseA Review of PARALLEL by Catherine KyleReview by P.J. Dominiski"What does poetry look like when that experiential life is native to the cultural condition of multiple realities? Kyle examines themes of loss, abuse, and identity in pieces all premised as alternate universes that often bend and even fracture the limits of reality as we know it. "READ MORE

FICTION: Myth in Which My Father Does Not Recreate the Moon LandingBy Todd Dillard"He was still laughing when my fingers dipped into his chest, when my arm sunk in up to the elbow, when my hand wrapped around his spine. Even when I pulled the flag out of him, blue and starless and heavy as a rain-thick scarecrow, his laughter tattooed the air, trembled the stars."READ MORE

POETRY: Where There’s Still A Little LightBy Thomas Mitchell"It’s late and everything settleslike smoke on Tenmile lake. The shadowof a heron glides above the water’s surface,softly, like someone rustling sheets."READ MORE

CNF: Canada Geese  By Josey Foo "Words really matter, I thought. It’s a luxury to say they don’t. I felt like crying for the cloudless blue sky that contained so little, nothing at all today. The Malaysian languages were all spiced up and infused with diverse Chinese, Malay, English and Tamil words. Being away from that, even after thirty years, was difficult. After thirty years I was as good as I ever could be at anything adopted."READ MORE

MIXED MEDIA: Living ImageA mixed media project by Susie Welsh"The Living Image project began as a call-and-response between my writing and the paintings of visual artist, Bill Atwood. These static elements were then brought to life on camera through my collaborations with video artists, Billy Hunt and Brian Wimer, as well as musician, Deke Shipp."Watch the Video

FILM REVIEW: The Wonder Women: Pulling Back the Curtain on Subversive IdeologyA Review of PROFESSOR MARSTON AND THE WONDER WOMENby Alison Lanier"Finally, here’s a superhero movie we didn’t see coming. In a visually beautiful, wonderfully acted, and relatively short film from writer and director Angela Robinson, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women follows a polyamorous, kink-oriented family confronting the various ingrained taboos of their society and their internalized shame in the face of those taboos. The movie is a call for tolerance in the face of bigotry and conservatism, and it works."READ MORE