March 2025 Newsletter

The Catch

Introduction

For March, our “catch of the month” is an Atlantic salmon. They are known for hatching in freshwater streams then swimming to saltwater and back. Salmon are able to remember where they are from and return when older. This full-circle journey can reflect the process of life, swimming upstream and following a path of change, yet always returning back to who you are.

This edition of “The Catch” includes two interviews with contributors for our fall issue, Blued Reverie. Inspired by plants and identity, Neal Allen Shipley submitted a poem titled “Monstera deliciosa.” Captivated by landscapes in Ireland and people-watching, Mandira Pattnaik wrote “Summer Rubies, Fairy Favors, In Those Freckles Live Their Savors,” a fiction piece. Both writers, while utilizing different forms of writing, connect with nature (plants and landscapes) to reflect what it means to be human. Read these pieces and interviews with the authors below.

Talon Update

Thank you to all who have submitted pieces for our Spring Issue. Our next open mic will be held on April 22nd along with the Wainwright awards. Make sure to check our social media page @talon_review and our website for updates as we get closer to the event and release of our upcoming issue!

The Poetry of Plants:

An Interview with Neal Allen Shipley

Author Introduction:

Neal Allen Shipley (he/him) is a behavior analyst living in Colorado with a modest collection of pets and an unhinged collection of plants. His work can also be found in recent issues of Impostor, Creation Magazine, Wyld Craft, and SCAB magazine. Despite the horrors, he loves a gourmet hotdog. You can find him on Instagram: @nealio9.

In our previous issue, Blued Reverie, Neal Allen Shipley contributed a poem titled “Monstera deliciosa.” Read the full piece and interview below:

– or, delicious
monster: commonly accepted as derivative
of the Latinate monstrum,
likely referring to the vaguely heart-shaped leaves
which, in maturity, could drape both our chests.

We are not so monstrous
(even as we lie together pinkies touching,
because it is too hot)
as we were once led to believe. I graze
your pinky in public, to let you know I know.

II.

Fenestrations are holes,
allowing light to pass through to more tender leaves.
You count mine:
Dog bite (funny story), burn scar (accident), piercing (purchased),
tattoo (both), burn scar (hate crime), heart (joke).

III.

– a more direct translation:
Deliciosa, describing the pinecone-shaped fruit
which, ripe,
has been described as indescribably tropical,
which I point out is just bad copy.

But I have read,
in unripe specimens, there is a crystalline structure
which causes allergic-like
irritation in the mouth and throat of he who gluts
the flesh. You say you hope ours will bear fruit.

Interview Transcript:

Talon: We, the editors, have our own interpretations and readings of the contributions we receive. But we are always fascinated with hearing the author’s intentions. What was your “purpose” behind this piece, if any?

Shipley: I wanted to do something fun with the scientific name(s) of plants in general, and monstera deliciosa seemed like an easy entry because the English “translation” is pretty straightforward. I didn’t really intend to write a love poem but that’s the direction it took.

Talon: What sparked the idea for this contribution, and how did you know that you had some good dough to work with when the idea came to you?

Shipley: I like the scientific names of plants. I always think, “this would be fun to use in a poem.” I have a ton of houseplants, and the one I am most proud of is my monstera deliciosa. My partner and I raised it from a teeny tiny cutting, and it’s now 4 years old and taking over my home office. I wrote a draft that I liked, and sent it to a very good friend who is also a very good editor. He liked it and said it needed to be fleshed out a little more, and he is almost always correct. I sat on the draft for a while until I figured out how all the pieces fit together, and what form the poem needed to take, which ended up being a series of tankas.

Talon: What was the writing process like for this piece? Did it come easily, or was it more challenging?

Shipley: This piece changed a lot and across several drafts, and was a little slower in developing than I’m used to. It started as two pretty sparse stanzas, mostly focused on the play on etymology that still exists in this final draft. I was encouraged by a friend to add more, and for a long time, I just sat on that advice and did nothing. But then, I had the thought to turn the stanzas into tankas, and after I made that change, I was able to expand on the idea a little more and wound up with this draft.

Talon: Our editors and readers are always asking that same old question: how do you push through “writer’s block”? How do you keep going when you are at a loss for words?

Shipley: I make time to write at the same time on Sunday mornings. If I get other time throughout the week, that’s great. But Sundays are habitual, and for the most part that helps. If I’m not having luck writing anything new, I use the time to edit––if I don’t feel like editing, then I use the time to read. If I’m really struggling to get something new, then I’ll google writing prompts or try to imitate a form/idea (or respond to a specific piece) from someone or something I’ve read recently that resonated with me.

Talon: At Talon, we value the careful and precise decisions behind word choice, shape, and structure. What elements are you particularly proud of for this piece?

Shipley: I personally love a poem in parts/segments, and I was delighted when I was able to use that device in ways that felt functional here. The poem always addressed “monstera” and “deliciosa” separately, so there came a point in writing where I was able to separate them in a way that felt natural. The middle segment, about fenestrations, came last and felt like the perfect bridge. I’m very proud of how it all worked out. Also, “gluts” is an incredible word that I was excited to use.

Talon: Does this piece align with any of your past work, or do you plan on exploring these topics and themes in the future?

Shipley: It always feels self-indulgent to say things like “I’m really interested in writing about identity,” but I am. I’ve been writing a lot about queer identifies and specifically my gay identity and this felt like an inevitable love poem for/about my partner. It was fun.

Flying Over Ireland:

An Interview with Mandira Pattnaik

Mandira Pattnaik's work appears in IHLR, The Rumpus, The McNeese Review, Penn Review, Quarterly West, Passages North, Contrary, Quarter After Eight, Best Microfiction Anthology (2024) and BSF (2021 & 2024), among others. She is the Contributing Editor for Vestal Review and a columnist at trampset. More: mandirapattnaik.com.

In Blued Reverie, Pattnaik contributed a fiction piece titled “Summer Rubies, Fairy Favors, In Those Freckles Live Their Savors.” Read the full piece and interview below:

Author Introduction:

Imagine the map of a place with a castle standing on an isthmus in Lough Leane. Assume the waves lapping the edge of Killarney. Ireland. Here you are—dream destination—but not in a dream, it is for real. Move a couple of paces. Stand behind the man with a huge trolley bag. Picture Ballyhack Castle on a steep slope, overlooking Waterford estuary. Walk more paces. Struggle to remember if it was Quin or Naas where Knappogue Castle is. Dig mind’s deep recesses if the glacier was south flowing or east during the Quaternary period. Take out pocket notebook, add a line to the To-Do list under the item Buy socks, scribble Find out and replace notebook in coat pocket. Should you add Room for two, and Visit the Art Museums too? Drop pen in haste, pick and return it to bag. Say Thanks! to no one. You’re getting forgetful. He had made it a point of his age-related jokes when he was staying with you back in Mumbai. Wonder why he hasn’t called yet; did he mention something about being late to pick you up from the Arrival gates in the emails? Be unsure. Notice woman at the desk doesn’t smile or acknowledge you, but resumes surveying the long queue behind you, taps her keyboard as queue moves again. Is this the queue-e-e? Incomer is a shabby man with dark eyes, unshaven, stitches loose on the side of his jacket. Yes, it is. He joins queue. Ah! Lucky me! He exclaims loudly. Everyone turns to look. You don’t, because you’re heading to the waiting area, waiting because you have nothing else to do. Your phone isn’t working here. Settle into a seat at the extreme end of the lounge. Grey-hair-man beside you, shuffles. You wish dialogue, but he doesn’t seem interested, fidgeting with his tablet. Notebook is out again. Go through the jottings. It’d take a week to get all reservations if everything goes well today. Three days in Belfast before hitting the road. Then Ballymena, where you’ll visit the Saturday market. You’ll expect him to offer you his umbrella for both to walk under one. Blush. Observe grey-hair-man start conversation with woman-in-floral-skirt next to him. Wonder if she has plans for summer. Notice her face light up at the mention of something. Try to be optimistic, like her. Ruminate again: how best to unpack, how you’d enter the estuary, the Three Sister Rivers: Barrow, Suir and Nore. You move to the place grey-hair-man has just vacated. What if you told floral skirt he may never come to pick you up? Because he has returned to his wife, three children, and you didn’t quite fit in—curly hair, tapering eyes—and he was sorry he had invited you at all. The fanciful request merely a whim. Close your eyes. Return to where you came from? Yes. But what of another chance for passion, where your freckles earned a second look from a loving man? Just to fool yourself return to imagine the tide rushing in on the jagged, fractured Irish coast, smoothening out the roughness of the cliff, like natural healing. Feel the angst of the lash of sea-gust on your face. Wait some more.

Interview Transcript:

Pattnaik: I love the landscapes of Ireland so much that I once wished to become a bird so that I’d be flying over and just experiencing the sights. As that was not possible, I wanted to include as many highlights as possible in a brief, circularly-structured story. Like the narrator, it was to be a list of places to visit in an overused tourist notebook, but concealed within a story. But then my thoughts veered to a deeper question: is a tourist appearing to enjoy a visit to a new place ever completely detached from the circumstances and the city from where they come to visit? The answer is no. The narrator has a purpose other than being a tourist in Ireland. She has agency. The purpose of this piece is to explore this agency present underneath the grasping of the beauty of the place and the prospect of her future days.

Talon: What sparked the idea for this contribution, and how did you know that you had some good dough to work with when the idea came to you?

Pattnaik: The final plot for this piece came from sitting around in an airport for too long and watching passengers wait. I am always a people-observer and their mannerisms spontaneously spark storylines and backstories for me. This idea and my love for the landscapes of Ireland made the piece possible.

Talon: What was the writing process like for this piece? Did it come easily, or was it more challenging?

Pattnaik: I am usually a spontaneous writer, never taking too many drafts. For this piece, however, I took more time, continuously revising to get the ending correct. Was the narrator comfortable? Was she confused? Was she resigned to her circumstances? I did not want to force my thoughts on her. I wanted her to take her time. Hence, the sort of blurry ending that camouflages the tension within: Just to fool yourself return to imagine the tide rushing in on the jagged, fractured Irish coast, smoothening out the roughness of the cliff, like natural healing. Feel the angst of the lash of sea-gust on your face. Wait some more.

Talon: Our editors and readers are always asking that same old question: how do you push through “writer’s block”? How do you keep going when you are at a loss for words?

Pattnaik: I am new to writing. This July, I celebrated the completion of five years writing and submitting. I did not believe I could sustain my own interest for this long when I started out. Thankfully, I am yet to experience writer’s block. I guess I have kept it at bay by “diversifying my portfolio,” so to say. I constantly change genres and sub-genres and jump from fiction to nonfiction to poetry, which I believe keeps the exercise of writing and creating interesting.

Talon: At Talon, we value the careful and precise decisions behind word choice, shape, and structure. What elements are you particularly proud of for this piece?

Pattnaik: The brevity. I am happy with how the piece shaped up without using too many words.

Talon: Does this piece align with any of your past work, or do you plan on exploring these topics and themes in the future?

Pattnaik: No, this is a standalone piece. I have written and intermittently published a series of pieces set around Japan, even though I live in India. Japan is the second country, besides Ireland, that I adore everything about. However, as much as I love Ireland, this piece is the only piece based there. I think I’ll keep it that way in terms of the setting. As for the theme, well, I am fascinated by half-endings and missed chances and would continue to explore those in my future work.

Talon: Are there any other projects you would like to promote here?

Pattnaik: Thank you so much. My novella-in-flash Glass/Fire launched on November 22, 2024. It is a miniature novel, and it is wider in scope than anything I’ve created previously. I am really proud of Glass/Fire. As a writer from the global south, I hope readers will find the book interesting in how it examines a case of cross-continental reverse migration that permanently changes lives.