PINYON REVIEW #8

When I opened the latest edition of Pinyon Review, A Journal Celebrating the Arts and Sciences, I was initially puzzled by Editor Entsminger’s introduction to the journal entitled “The Scarecrow,” but after reading the entire issue I realized that he had transposed and woven short lines from most of the selections within its pages to form a lovely introductory mosaic. In this issue, he also treats us to one of his own lighthearted poems about a cowgirl in a “pheasant feathered felt derby hat” who roams in a place where “no one spends/ their lives on indifferent things,” setting the tone that represents most Pinyon Review issues – a tone that combines levity and serious thought.

The Pinyon Review is always a “glad surprise,”* and this November issue contains a gracious plenty of poetry and art, but the cogent selection that spoke to my condition was a provocative book review of Notes on the Death of Culture by Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa. In this critical review about cultural decline, Jack Starr underlines LLosa’s idea that “…committed writers should resist the temptation to seek immediate success through entertainment alone…and must breathe life back into our culture, our development of the mind, our way of life, and our spirit that guides…” In the short three-page review, Starr elucidates Llosa’s warnings that modern culture has become “a spectacle, a vehicle of entertainment lacking value in all but the present moment or hour, to relieve our boredom…we measure our pleasures as quantities not qualities – and thus, we easily forget them…” These excerpts are just the tip of the iceberg in a review that will startle readers into serious pondering about Llosa’s ideas concerning the return of literature and art to their place as “the common denominator of culture,” and a return of religion to the spiritual realm, rather than to systems devoted to dogma.

There are so many excellent poets in this issue that I’d stretch the limits of this blog to include all of them, but as I began writing this, I glanced at the top of the bureau where an alebrijes creature stands. Friends bought this art piece crafted by a native Zapotecan for me on a trip to Oaxaca City, Mexico. They advised that I should view it daily to remind myself to persist in writing poetry rather than let some negative monster in the mind devour the Muse. Carried by some mysterious current of synchronicity, I turned to the pages featuring Eva Olsgard’s three poems, and saw the title “Angels de Oaxaca.” Imagine my shock when I read these lines: “Ninas know how to receive you. They know what to make/of your spiked tail, tongue and ears. Know that only the joy/of reaching your many textures will dispel the delusion/of using your many colors to delineate a difference/between your horns and your wings...When the wind knocks you/down,/the wind knocked out of you/releases your:/tail/wings/horns/spiked tongue…you persist to remind them./It is in their own hands,/recreating themselves,/enlivening the loving delight they find in themselves.” If you’ve ever seen one of these delightful creatures the Zapotecans create, you’ll appreciate the mystical imagery in Angels de Oaxaca. The poem gave me a new perspective about the creature above, which I've been regarding as an object that devours creative ability. "Angels de Oaxaca" is written by a poet who performs her own poetry, and readers can envision her performing this particular poem, costumed as an alebrijes character.

Three renderings of Jay Friedenberg’s pastel work appear in “Color and Rock” — depictions of “Pink Canyon” on the Apache Trail east of Phoenix, “Distant Butte” in Bryce Canyon, Utah, and “Mountain Range” showing the red mountains near Red Rock State Park, Nevada. Friedenberg also writes haiku, and readers can discern a touch of poetry in his soft and hard pastels of rock formations featured in this issue of Pinyon Review.

Many more poets in this issue deserve recognition and celebration, but I hope I've provided enough to titillate the interest of Pinyon Review readers. Susan Elliott’s breathtaking image of a white, pink, and orange canyon wall on the front cover of Pinyon Review #8 and her poetic text description on the back cover should entice readers to enjoy another banner issue of eclectic reading. I know they’ll appreciate that Pinyon Publishing is doing its best to “breathe life back into our culture.” 

Available at Pinyon Publishing, 23847 V66 Trail, Montrose, CO 81403.

*phrase taken from the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas: “The World, and the Men in it are full of glad surprises…a glimpse of the Truth that is in him, a momentary contact with his goodness, a recognition of his nobility – all of these are at once a joy, a surprise, and a rich promise…”  

    

THE FALL 2014 PINYON REVIEW

During the mid-20th century, "little magazines" began to burgeon in the U.S. Vital independent publishers emerged and have continued to proliferate since that time, and literary and art magazines have become an important part of the intellectual life throughout the country. The Pinyon Review, a journal birthed by Pinyon Publishing in Montrose, Colorado, has joined this burgeoning movement and has a mission of producing quality literature, art, and scientific essays through the efforts of Gary Entsminger, Editor, and Susan Elliott, artist and Managing Editor of the magazine.

Although the Pinyon Review is a relative newcomer to the literary scene, it has gained distinction as a little magazine that nurtures an eclectic group of writers and artists from various parts of the U.S., ranging from Colorado to New York. The latest issue, #6, of the Review just arrived in my mailbox this morning, and I think that it's the best issue Gary and Susan have produced.

The lead poem in Pinyon Review #6, entitled "Why I Became A Vegetarian" by Barbara Schmitz, features the flower children, vegans, LSD users, and advocates of free love prevalent during the 1970's when young people felt threatened by ideas about the human race being annihilated by the "Big Bomb."

"Why I Became A Vegetarian" captures the essence of the hippy movement in 17 stanzas of masterful, descriptive lyrics narrated with tongue in cheek humor. "Because we read vegetarian cookbooks/like the Grub Bag with delicious recipes/like cucumbers in sour cream and essays/like the one advocating if people were made/to eat what they killed there would be less/ murder...and All We Need Is Love/Maybe It's the Time of Man/We were Looking for a Heart/of Gold in the eggplant/and in the zucchini." The writer of this poem confesses to being a part of the 70's crowd that extolled vegetarianism, food coops, consciousness raising, and other indicators of a non-conventional movement; but, today, she teaches a writing class and is interested in writing as a spiritual practice.

After spending time in New York City, painter Georgia O'Keefe searched for the light that would illuminate her paintings and found it in New Mexico. It seems that Jay Friedenberg has been on a similar search and discovered that light in "New Mexico Canyon Country," a center of Pueblo culture during the 9th-13th centuries. His hard pastel entitled "Chaco Ruins," located in Chaco Canyon, shows the late afternoon light as it "begins to darken details in the vertical rocks." Friedenberg writes that the adobe and grass hues brighten the landscapes in a pastel that reflects his appreciation for light and for the sweep of the New Mexico landscape. Another pastel of Chaco Cliffs features rocks and vegetation at midday in bright orange and red hues. A final pastel entitled "Canyon Morning" shows light filtering into the Chaco Canyon and is reminiscent of O'Keefe's work in which she often uses deep violet and blue hues to accent dark rocks. These arresting pastels are part of an exhibit that is featured in New York galleries, and I'm sure the exhibit attracts art lovers who appreciate the value of light in desert and mountain paintings.

A dual contribution of poetry and art by Britny Doane and David Burton showcases Corvus the Raven, a bird that would charm Edgar Allen Poe from the "other side." It's an exposition of the bird most people regard as a nuisance but whom Doane defines in "The Sensualist" as..."the sage of tricksters/changing night to day and day to night. / If you listen to my whispers/you may hear the gossip of time/I will never be starved/like my rottenly friends..." Burton's painting features the raven poised on a tree stump rising from a mist, regarding the viewer with "cunnai" (Cajun for cunning) eyes. The painting has a mystical quality Poe would have appreciated. Poet Doane's work will be featured in a book of poetry published by Pinyon Publishing in 2015.

Michael Miller, a regular contributor to the Review, gives readers a brief look into "The Next Room" with a wry description of a couple making love that is overheard through the walls by the narrator. The concise poem eclipses the passage of time and ends with an ironic twist characteristic of Miller's explicit tropes about Passion.

I liked the brief lyrics concerning age in Jean Zipp's "Haunted," in which a "withered, wheelchair worn" man sits, "his mouth agape/ In wonderment gone awry" (that last line is a starkly true line about the aged) and bestows a kiss on Zipp's hand, while she experiences "A lambent moment/Fleetingly retrieved/Who did he think I was?" A Tucson writer, Zipp has written a fascinating book, Windows: Letters to Ayla, published by Pinyon earlier this year.

Editor Gary Entsminger contributes a poem to this issue entitled "Old Bach" who "danced into life with/occult dissonances...and linking new grace notes/and his high wire canons... rubbed his eyelids until/the metal edges and wooden pipes/converged into an image/of wind chests trackers and bellows/saw himself playing the most/complex machine of the 17th century..." Gary, an accomplished musician who plays both country and classical music on several instruments, brings old Bach to life in a portrait poem that will incite readers to call for more of his lyrics.

And, finally, I enjoyed writing the review of Luci Shaw's Adventure of Ascent, a memoir that tells the story of turning points in the career of an aging poet who takes the time to reflect on the spiritual movement in her life as an octogenarian.

The works reviewed above that appear in the latest issue of Pinyon Review are only part of an outstanding literary journal celebrating the arts and sciences, a journal that continues to gain momentum in a literary world devoted to "little magazines."

P.S. The cover and frontispage photographs by John Johansson are striking, and Susan Elliott's beautiful design work underlines the quality of this distinguished journal.

Order The Pinyon Review from Pinyon Publishing, 23847 V66 Trail, Montrose, CO 81403.