The Catch Newsletter

April 2021

Welcome to Talon Review’s April 2021 edition of The Catch newsletter! This month includes an update on The Talon Review, two video submissions from Talon’s featured creators, two book reviews on Artress Bethany White’s My Afmerica and Tim O’Brien’s If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home, a flash creative nonfiction piece, and an invitation to Talon’s virtual open mic night!

Talon Update

The Talon Review is more than excited to announce the release of our Vol. 2, Issue 4: Dreampiece. The Talon staff has been working on putting this issue together since January 2021, and we’ve dedicated a lot of hard work to creating something we’re proud of, and we hope you’ll be excited for too. Dreampiece features the work of 30 talented artists and writers and is now available to read here. Additionally, we are introducing a brand new publication category here at Talon: Audio and Video. While we will feature our published fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and art in Dreampiece, we will also be featuring 4 of our accepted Audio and Video submissions on our website and here in our newsletter—two will come out this month, and another two next month. We hope that you check out Dreampiece, as well as our Audio and Video content, and love it as much as we do! Congratulations again to all of our contributors, and thank you for sending us all your wonderful work—it’s an honor to publish it.

— Sarah Dumitrascu,

Co-Editor in Chief

Dead Cherry - Written by Alisha Lockley

By: Carly Kramer and Alisha Lockley

Dead Cherry Transcript

The funny thing about social constructs is that

they're omnipresent and unbelievable.

Ironically, they exist to make intangible ideas

seem tangible. For example, no one can physically

touch someone else's sexual experience or the lack

thereof. And yet debates have gone on for

centuries about the hymen being an anatomical

measure of virtue.

No one is born for the sake of breaking. I've

never met a woman made of glass and there is no

receipt between my legs, but I can't help but

wonder why the little girl in me has a sudden

craving for better lessons, even though I already

know better.

Is our obsession with female innocence rooted in

It's desire to protect it, or the anticipation of

its demise? Is womanhood still considered a lesser

genre of the human condition? And why has so much

of it been tied to how secure we can make others

feel under our skin? What do we really lose and do

we have a right to mourn it? How do you throw a

funeral for your virginity?

She asks for a friend who's saving it for daddy

study arm at the wedding should she become a bride

ripe enough for gifting. He says he doesn't sell

used cars.

Warns she's nobody's 40 acres, should anything

happen just before the ceremony compares it to

crispier stands, let there be a crimsons show to

satisfy heavy obsessions of a red encore. Lack of

evidence may have her return to herself open

before purchase. After all, the boys can't bleed

into their rights the way we do.

Do you behead the flowers for stones, toss the

double standard is rice, throw the whole girl away.

What about the body? Should it be a thing broken

into did the second time at nine without

permission count, what good is a closed mouth?

Roses pricked themselves all the time.

The shilly. Still to be paddled for pressing in

blackbox, is her name a curse after, is she a dry

spell, homesick for a place that didn't exist?

REFLECTIONS

By: Chris

Kadeem Locke reviews My afmerica

When do Americans take a look at the system they live in and finally question if it is right? Before reading My Afmerica, it is important that readers not only take the time to understand the crafting of Artress Bethany White’s poems, but also take the time to try and understand them from another perspective. She puts readers into the shoes of an African-American living in America, trying to understand the world around them—while also fitting in. Without doing this, readers won’t be able to get the true heart of this collection.

Artress Bethany White’s poem, “Plantation Wedding,” begs her readers to look at the things they see as commonplace and asks why we allow such things to occur without question. The lines, “Why would any woman stage her twenty-first century wedding on a plantation where masters slaked their lust on the shivering bodies of black boys and girls?” encompasses the heart of this book of poetry. With very few words, a poignant picture is painted. Artress Bethany White uncovers what many believe to be the norm. Many will say a plantation is beautiful, and even have their weddings there, as that isn’t where countless lives were lost. Families were destroyed; men, women, and children killed. In such trying times, My Afmerica exposes what has been avoided for decades, challenging America to look in the mirror.

The poem “Coils” also takes on another part of American racism that still occurs in normal conversation. “How does your hair do that?” It’s a question every African-American child has been asked by white children and adults alike. Whether the response is an awkward laugh, or maybe a witty comment, there really isn’t an answer for the question. How do parents have a conversation with their children that hair will be a major factor in determining their future? The poet opens the poem with the lines, “Daughter, / your hair will govern your life / is what I think / but do not say.” Artress Bethany White brings readers into the struggle parents carry knowing their child will be judged prematurely by the texture of his or her hair when he or she goes out into the world. These images take on a life of their own as the poem ends, “The hallowed pleats/of Old Glory/yet crackling/on a breeze/in the New England schoolyard/still declaring justice for the free.” The poem rips an open wound and forces the real questions to the foreground: justice for who, exactly? Is it justice for the small African-American child who is looked at as unkempt because their hair forms coils, or maybe the adult whose job forces them to cut their natural hair because it doesn’t fit “American standard”? The poem makes the reader feel the same discomfort that African-Americans feel when that question is asked. Do they act as if the question didn’t bother them to keep the peace? Or do they say something, only to look as if they’re acting irrational and angry? The poet approaches “Coils” in another light saying, “Please/let it not be a Caucasian boy/swinging a noose through a/suburban high school door/one Halloween morn.” In the poem, Americans allow a blatantly racist gesture to occur and justify that it is only a child participating in a holiday tradition. The deeper the reader gets into My Afmerica, the more they have to wonder, “Is the norm right, or are we just too scared to change it?”

Part two of My Afmerica focuses on the blended American family. From speaking on having a blended family in the poem, “The Worry,” to attacking a father trying to bond and vacation with his family while being black in America, both poems show the way others perceive the blended situations. In “Tripping with Dad,” the poet writes, “leaving tense airline staff in your wake/pleading Please, sir, do not come back this way.” When is it fine for an African-American to take their children on a family vacation? When will others feel “safe” having someone different from them in their presence?

In this collection, so many subtleties are brought to light, such as in the poem “The Race,” where something as simple as a foot race has two children facing racial and economic issues. The poem starts, “We are the only black family in the subdivision, / and your family is the poorest.” So much can be taken from these lines, but the racial undertones of expecting the black family to be the poorest is the most striking. It has been bred into society for this to be expected, and even if it isn’t true, it will appear as such. This has become such commonplace that the narrator, after beating her friend’s brother in a race asks, “if it was [her] years or color that offended him the most.” Even as a child, the narrator has to question if her greatness was an issue because of her race. Yet, if she had lost the race, it would have been perfectly acceptable for the only black child in the neighborhood to lose—they’re supposed to lose. The poet makes a claim in her poem “Family Planning” saying, “Creating good memories for a child / is a primer for sound parenting.” But how does a parent create those memories while trying to navigate an Afmerica that inherently hates them? The poems in My Afmerica reveal the lives of African-Americans and the struggles that touch us all in a world of unacceptable norms. Whether it is having a wedding on a plantation, or being asked about why your hair is so curly, changes need to occur. America has to face that there is a difference in the way African-American’s are treated. The cost of history is high, but will America ever reconcile and repair that history?

The Gas Station 

by Emma Barnett

Sticky counters, a concoction of sugar and water

Kids spilling slushies in a gas station

Annoying, but they’re just kids.  

A woman begging for a twenty. Please. You can spare it. 

I can’t. 

I tell her so, like I do every week. She’ll be back. 

The guy that always poops in the urinal instead of the toilet. 

I hold my breath and bring the mop. 

The creeps that eye my figure. 

Touch my hand, 

 Touch my back. 

I tell them to stop. 

The ones that ask for my number. 

That try to follow me home. 

I ask my coworkers for rides. 

I don’t feel safe walking.  

The cops that flirt same as the creeps. 

The coworkers that play hangman on old receipts. 

The old man that always buys a pickle and a moonpie. 

The woman that calls me ‘baby’ and plays too much lotto.

The girl who works next door, pink and purple hair. 

I visit the laundromat to see her. 

I sit on the marble counter, 

And tell her everything. 

She listens, she laughs. 

For five minutes. Maybe ten.   

It’s all I can spare.

I water the flowers, and get back to work. 

Bruce Baxter reviews if i die in a combat zone: box me up and ship me home

The dark heart of war continues to beat, even in the present. Step into the boots of a soldier who participates in one of the darkest campaigns in military history—join Tim O’Brien and Alpha Company as he recounts his experience in the Vietnam War.

In his book, If I Die in a Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship Me Home, Tim O’Brien recounts the harrowing encounters of his Vietnam tour with stories about his fellow men’s’ horrific experiences with Vietnam’s unforgiving jungles, fierce combatants, mines, and unnecessary bombings on villages. These events reveal the dark tragedy that is the theatre of war.

            O’Brien uses first-person to paint a picture of what life for a soldier in Vietnam was like. His writing style places you directly into his boots, or even the boots of a fellow soldier. The humid and dangerous forests of Vietnam fill every moment in the book with fear and tension. The sense of family among members in Alpha Company will help bring a sense of comradery, though being complacent about this will prevent readers from understanding the trouble O’Brien would experience. An accidental event will ultimately change O’Brien’s view of humanity forever, and his book’s structure and language succeeds in effectively conveying that change. Focusing on recounting the realities of a soldier’s life, O’Brien gives both physical and psychological details about his experiences. From describing the feeling of wading through the unforgiving swamps and muddy terrain of the jungles in Vietnam, to the traumatizing event of death and other events that are not easily extinguished, O’Brien does not merely paint a picture to make art; he paints one to show us the steps of getting to that art.

            O’Brien is talented at writing extremely detailed stories in the first person. He presents readers with a story that will promote conversation about the value of war. His description of war captivates readers because of its realism, instead of relying on action to run the story. If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home adds another chapter to O’Brien’s experiences in war and presents numerous reasons to be read.

            I found that this book presents a tough adventure to get through. The harsh reality of war never stops assaulting our understanding of humanity and its darker motives. This story is not for those with a humanitarian view on life. While O’Brien expresses an anti-war sentiment through his stories, his descriptions can leave a lasting impact on readers who are not fond of the effects war can inflict of individuals—combatants, or non-combatants. Readers who choose to make an endeavor to read this story will be in awe of O’Brien’s poignant storytelling.

The Talon Review invites you to our open mic night! Check out the poster below for more details.

Meet talon’s featured creator: Carly Kramer

Carly graduated from UNF in Spring 2020 with a bachelor's degree in TV production and a minor in creative writing. She spent her last year of school focusing on documentary production. Carly is now an associate producer at Action News Jax and continues to direct. freelance art films a few times a year.

Meet Talon Review’s Kadeem locke

Meet Kadeem Locke, our Audio/Video Editor and Fiction Reader here at Talon Review! As well as his love for the fantasy novelist Jim Butcher, he is also a big fan of anime and owns a cat named Cloud. Beyond the magazine, Kadeem’s end goal is to become a published author himself and work for a publishing company!