The Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle
TheSigma Tau DeltaRectangleJournal of Creative WritingSigma Tau DeltaInternational English Honor SocietyVolume 89, 2014Editor of Publications:Karlyn CrowleyAssociate Editors:Rachel GintnerKacie GrossmeierAnna MillerProduction Editor:Rachel GintnerSt. Norbert CollegeDe Pere, Wisconsin
Honor Members of Sigma Tau DeltaChris AbaniKim AddonizioEdward AlbeeJulia AlvarezRudolfo A. AnayaSaul BellowJohn BerendtRobert BlyVance BourjailyCleanth BrooksGwendolyn BrooksLorene CaryJudith Ortiz CoferHenri ColeBilly CollinsPat ConroyBernard CooperJudith CristJim DanielsJames DickeyMark DotyEllen DouglasRichard EberhartTimothy EganDave EggersKatja EssonMari EvansAnne FadimanPhilip José FarmerRobert FlynnShelby FooteH.E. FrancisAlexandra FullerNeil GaimanCharles GhignaNikki GiovanniDonald HallRobert HassFrank HerbertPeter HesslerAndrew HudginsWilliam Bradford HuieE. Nelson JamesX.J. KennedyJamaica KincaidTed KooserUrsula K. Le GuinLi-Young LeeValerie MartinDavid McCulloughErin McGrawMarion MontgomeryKyoko MoriScott MorrisAzar NafisiHoward NemerovNaomi Shihab NyeSharon OldsWalter J. Ong, S.J.Suzan-Lori ParksLaurence PerrineMichael PerryDavid RakoffHenry RegneryRichard RodriguezKay RyanMark SalzmanSir Stephen SpenderWilliam StaffordLucien StrykAmy TanSarah VowellEudora WeltyJessamyn WestJacqueline WoodsonDelta Award RecipientsRichard CloyedBeth DeMeoBob HalliElizabeth HoltzeElaine HughesE. Nelson JamesElva Bell McLinIsabel SparksKevin StemmlerSue YostCopyright 2014 by Sigma Tau DeltaAll rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in theUnited States by Sigma Tau Delta, Inc., the International English Honor Society, William C. Johnson,Executive Director, Department of English, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois 60115-2863,U.S.A.The Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle is published annually in April with the continuing generous assistance ofNorthern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL) and St. Norbert College (De Pere, WI). Publication is limitedto members of Sigma Tau Delta. Members are entitled to a one-year subscription upon payment of theinitial fee. The subsequent annual subscription rate is ten dollars (U.S.).Sigma Tau Delta is a member of the Association of College Honor Societies.
2013–2014 Writing Awardsfor The Sigma Tau Delta Review andThe Sigma Tau Delta RectangleJudson Q. Owen Award for Best Piece OverallMegan Tilley“Flowering”Frederic Fadner Critical Essay AwardAlex Muller“‘Aggressive Disintegration in the Individual’: A Lacanian Study ofSignification and the Destruction of Self in Shakespeare’s King Lear”Eleanor B. North Poetry AwardVirginia Pfaehler“The Heaviest Postcard”E. Nelson James Poetry AwardJoshua Jones“Repairs”Herbert Hughes Short Story AwardMegan Tilley“Flowering”Elizabeth Holtze Creative Nonfiction AwardElisabeth Schmitt“Saving Abe”Judge for Writing AwardsCHRISTINA SHEA received her B.A. from Kenyon College andher M.F.A. from the University of Michigan. She is the author oftwo novels, Moira’s Crossing (Grove P, 2001) and Smuggled (GalleryBooks, 2011). Some of her awards include the Barnes & NobleDiscover New Writers Selection, a Mary Ingraham Bunting InstituteFellowship, and a Soros Foundation Grant. She is on the faculty ofLesley University’s M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing. Shea liveswith her husband and children in Boston.
ContentsThe Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle, Volume 89, 2014PoetryThe Heaviest PostcardVirginia PfaehlerEleanor B. North Poetry Award9RepairsJoshua JonesE. Nelson James Poetry Award10Seeing SpotsAndrew Chenevert11A Ghost with Four NamesChelsea Ortego12Working TitlesLinnea Nelson14ElegyLinnea Nelson16GirldollsCatherine Kyle18Post-partumJulia Petrich20grandpa, the cowboyJulia Petrich22My Being Here on the Benefit of DrugsQuinn Gilman-Forlini24
Cultural and PersonalCrystal Stone26AnonymityJamie Berilla-Macdonald28CulicidaeMartha Paterson29My Dearest Mountain, Living Memory & Master, My TextChelsea Kachman30SummoningC. Michael Downes34Half-casteJessica Perez-Jackson36Creative Non-FictionSaving AbeElisabeth SchmittElizabeth Holtze Creative Nonfiction Award39The VisitJiordan Castle44The StarsConnie Chan49On TimeJordan Kelly52Just the Two of UsBunny Arlotti57
Reflections of a Kuwaiti Ex LibrisAyat Al-Bloushi62Unspoken ParenthesesKathryn Baumgartner67Two-Wheeled FreedomTyler Auffhammer74The Abstract HumanSarah Towle78An Exposition of DeathSara Tickanen85Short FictionFloweringMegan TilleyHerbert Hughes Short Story AwardJudson Q. Owen Award for Best Piece Overall92The Ins and Outs of a Death-Defying TrickSean Pessin99The CureJuliana Goodman103The SentimentalistsAidan Ryan110The FamilyKirkland Back118A ProgressionMargaret Yapp121
The Adventure of Kid Bill WilliamsJamal Michel127SoundlessJiweon Seo131
PoetryThe Heaviest PostcardRepairsSeeing SpotsA Ghost with Four NamesWorking TitlesElegyGirldollsPost-partumgrandpa, the cowboyMy Being Here on the Benefit of DrugsCultural and PersonalAnonymityCulicidaeMy Dearest Mountain, Living Memory & Master, My TextSummoningHalf-caste
9The Heaviest PostcardVirginia PfaehlerAlanna, you rememberwalking through the market nibbling sandies.We stooped to pet dogs madelazy by summer’spalm closing overthe peninsula.She cupped us gently, like you used to hold water.The lady making sweetgrass basketshad my name, or I had hers, and shetold us they were remarkablebecause the more submergedthe basket was in water,the tighter the weave became.You’ve been in the desert so long, Alanna,where the air holds only dust. Do youstill rememberhow in the floodthe basket’s brim and the wave’s crestwere the same?Virginia Lee Pfaehler is a senior at Columbia College, Columbia, SC, where she majors inLiterary Studies and minors in Religion. She is the current Co-President of her Sigma TauDelta Chapter, a classroom partner for the First Year Writing Program, and an editor ofthe college’s literary magazine, The Criterion. After she graduates in May 2014, Virginiaplans to pursue her M.F.A. in Creative Writing.
10RepairsJoshua JonesThe river diverted, and amongthe bones and bricks, they found an armthrust up from the black silt floor.A bit of shovel-work discovereda god attached.Tiber himself dredged out of himself.No long locks, but clearly a beardscraped off,only a trail lefttoo rough to make outwhere it fell on his chest.Michelangelo,come to see the workmenabout a model for Adam,was asked to make repairs.He caked the loamin wavy veinsfrom neck to waistand knotted it at the bottom.“Is that how it looked?”“No, but that’s the way I saw him.”Joshua Jones is a recent graduate of Houston Baptist University’s Honors College program,getting his B.A. in English. He is currently pursuing his M.F.A. in Poetry at the Universityof Massachusetts, Boston, where he helps out with Write on the Dot, a community readingseries. He is excited to have this second publication in The Rectangle and thankful for allthe help Sigma Tau Delta has given him.
11Seeing SpotsAndrew ChenevertDoc I’m seein’ spots is a common wayin old vaudeville programs to indicateillness, stress, general wear; a causefor alarm. Any doctor today will tell youthat the condition comes from the eye’svitreous gel snapping off naturallywith aging. Totally harmless, they say.We’ve now reached the narrative’s unspooling.At the word harmless, the crowd can releaseenough breath to fill a balloon.Death’s flexed muscles deflate, or pop.Harmless drops fall off the actor’s face,like sweat flicked by the back of a hand.A dance number always followswith limbs levitating over tables,and a song to toss off heavy burdens.No one thinks a more accurate wordis inevitable. The first sign of rottingyou can see: your vision growingcobwebs, preparing for the mindto become an empty room.Our theater unpacks into the street.Ushers inside sweep at the debris.Andrew Chenevert recently received his B.A. in Creative Writing from Lesley University,Cambridge, MA. He currently lives in Boston where he does volunteer work for the BostonPoetry Union and its small press imprint Pen & Anvil. He plans on pursuing his M.F.A. inCreative Writing.
12A Ghost with Four NamesChelsea OrtegoMy name is Isabel, a haunt.I am a magnificentholding-the-door-man,Isabel.I fought the Spanish War and knew the worldred;and I am a gypsyAnd my name is Isabeland Francesco,and I knew you when you were softlike a peach.My name is eroded mountains,kicked up by the horses’ hooves,and I am there—Isabel, Francesco, Maria, riding the air,haunting my own.I am a Jew,and a TV repairman—Maria,a haunt (who has lost the shapes taped off in the stars).I am walking this house,and you can watch if you cannot sleep—but then you are the specter.I am Isabel, leaving maps for you(in the walls).I threw the body.I haunt my own, as you pretend I am not watchingyou comeand go.I ate bread with the Lord, fought for La Patria—I am an infant’s mellow dream—fisherman of Greece—Guillermo.I met the Kennedy’s in Grand Isle and burned down the housebecause of all the straw.
13And the secret is this: that the leaves will lay themselves openlike pages—No, like warm, flowering whores if you whisperto them, “I am Isabel, Francesco, Maria, Guillermoand I haunt my own,”and their undersides have maps for days.Chelsea Ortego is a senior at Rhodes College, Memphis, TN, majoring in English literatureand Creative Writing with a poetry concentration. She is a Film Studies minor and iscompleting an internship with the Memphis and Shelby County Film Commission. Sheplans to embrace the gap year(s), looking ahead to a postgraduate degree in either film orCreative Writing.
14Working TitlesLinnea NelsonWe hadn’t planned on it coming down like that,like how it snows in dreams—a frigid sandstorm taking the city out.It lasted for hours, all afternoon,while we sat on our separate plains,latitudes and longitudes getting in our way.Borrowed dimensionswere our silent gifts to each other.The dinner and the weather werethe same, I think—the month a little different, andthe year. Still Sunday.I had trouble remembering much of anythingand lost track of how many times we watched theweighted snow slide in sheets from yourbig black car, thoughit seemed very important to us both,for a while.We gave our lives working titles.We cried in the style ofcrying that makes a person doubtanything will ever be quite that good again,and still half the reason I was crying was for you—
15was for the way this had not been our plan.We spoke in What did you says and I don’t knows,your stuffy brick apartment impartinga language of its own, and I forgaveyou, if that was necessary;and fate, or whatever,that my hair couldn’t keep its curl that day.So we needed to believe in leftovers—that some borders are worth demolishing,that such things as temporary sadnessesstill exist.And we made their geography collapse that Sunday—made it utterly desist.
16ElegyLinnea NelsonWhen your beginning was over,no one sought out a small, solemn boat and pairof eager oars to sailaway and find you.No one locked themselves up in a burninglighthouse to watch for you.I unlaced my boots and listenedfor weeks to creaking furniture, soapspreading itself over vitalskin, and flakes of winter slipping intorooms where you and I had madestaggering accusations tothe human race for who knowshow long.Our beautiful neighborcontinues to choke at his breakfast;books and cupboards persist inclosing.The foolish lights we considered walkingunder, for the sake of breakingthe veritable world somewhat open,still do not suggestwhat exactly it is thatholds even the tallest ofmysteries together, andstill refuseto go out.
17Wherever you ended up,I wonder if you, too, are noticing these things;if it’s any easier there to get the last word—if you are still giving yourself awayin indiscernible quantities—if, there, it is also true that some people never getold enough to do what you did.Linnea Nelson will graduate this spring with a B.A. in English from North DakotaState University, after having completed her coursework while studying abroad at LeedsMetropolitan University in Leeds, England, the previous semester. She served as the editorof NDSU’s literary journal, Northern Eclecta, and Vice President of its Sigma Tau DeltaChapter. She intends to pursue an M.F.A. in Creative Writing.
18GirldollsCatherine KyleOnce we were dolls,cloth and floppy, hands eloping,but they told us, hey! girldollsdon’t hold hands that way.Can you remember? Our hairswere strands of chaos, chattering,conversing in the language of crackedbells. Our scars were paused on open,rosebud mouths that bit on secrets,and our glass bead eyes cavortedand our blouses were all—but then we changed our minds;remember? They told us tolook elsewhere; they told us todrop hands.The sky was so bright that day, blindinglybright. There was, you said, no place to go—there should have been a corner or at leasta slender shadow into which we couldhave wriggled like a pair of living vines—but the sky was so bright that day, blindinglybright, that even the dark alleys in ourneurons waved their flags.
19We cooked there on the pavement,stranded seastars for the white gulls.The starkness of the playground was enoughto startle God.Catherine Kyle is a Ph.D. student in English at Western Michigan University. During the2012-13 year, she was the President of her university’s Sigma Tau Delta Chapter. She wasalso the recipient of the William C. Johnson Distinguished Scholarship in 2013.
20Post-partumJulia PetrichShe misses its release—doesn’t seethe disposable organ detachfrom Mother& plopas it landsin the sterilemetal pan.What a wasteso much effort to end up tossed inwith other biohazardsin a towerof frying tumors & charredblack lungs.*****Bury it—maybe hide it in an arid hole, wrappedin inky newspaper & shrouded in stove ashes,return it to the earthOr do as the Kwakiutl & give it a funeral in the sandat high-tide then the child will know where & howto dig for clamsLeave it out for ravens to peck at & devourthen the child will grow a third blind eye,another vision with it
21Treat it with reverence as baby’s fallencomrade, dead twin, comatose siblinglifeless, insensible thing*****She sticksone gloved hand in & gropesthe still-warm bloody bag—one side slickthe other raw & meatyShe reads itlike the lines on a palm & imaginesshe knows its language
22grandpa, the cowboyJulia Petrichalmost midnight & i’m smashingsaltines on your kitchen countertopyou sit hunchedover the table—belt high & loosehovering above your waist—buckleglowingvexed you straightenyour bolo tie—the onewith the owl on italmost midnight & you can’t sleepbecause your love lies on a hospital bednot with you in yoursi pour crumbledcracker into two tall glasses & topthem off with fresh velvetymilk—just the waywe like ityou smoothyour shirt & take hold of the glasslong garden snake fingers spooningout the soggy saltyscrapsminutes laterglass half-empty & ready for bedyou struggle to stand
23i follow as youon two feet & two wheelsshuffle down the corridor & my guidinghand meets your jutting spineedge of the bed & i untie your shoestake off your bolo & gleamingbelt buckleyou know youdon’t have to be toughfor meJulia Petrich is a senior at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, where she studieswriting. She works as a Spanish writing assistant and a literary agency intern, as well aswith her university’s press. Upon graduating in May 2014, she hopes to pursue a career inpublishing.
24My Being Here on the Benefit of DrugsQuinn Gilman-ForliniYou would not see me withoutmy concoction of pharmaceuticalsmixed in blue dessert bowls,swallowed in fistfuls, capsules andround yellow pills with tiny numbersimprinted along the crease—howare those etched? I imagine a tinyman with a silver scalpel in his studiochipping away, drug scrapings strewnall over the floor for his dog to lapup and we dream the same fiery colors,this dog and me, we each lay besidesomething cool to control our sensitivityto lights, our loose heads lolling alongin nods, yes, yes, there’s nothing else wecan do, clucks mister doctor in his white coatI can pinch him between two fingers if Isquint small enough, crush him like a singlepiece of brittle rosemary over a pot of apothecarysoup, slip him into its flame-warmed bath.In 1968 my father was watching lunarlanding hype on television, my motherdrawing dress patterns on paper bags, mygrandparents planning vacations and divorcesI think I was there, in a speck of dust fallingfrom their bedside lamps as they read
25biographies of presidents’ wives or scrawledletters to people tied by blood, and I am tiedtwisted in their worlds and lineage, floatingaround times before I was an idea, throughthe invention of cordless telephones andplastic orange prescription bottlesmaybe they held a pre-pregnancy powwowand asked questions like: if it’s only herebecause of drugs, should we keep it?and they must’ve shrugged, decided sure,why not? We could move across the streetfrom the pharmacy, forego the kitchenrenovation, keep that tiny man in businessat least, enough so he can feed his dog.Besides, what are the chances of that?Quinn Gilman-Forlini is a junior at Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA, studying English,French, and Creative Writing. She is currently Vice President of her Sigma Tau DeltaChapter and runs the Literary Society at Ursinus. She envisions a future of writing andtravel abroad as soon as she runs into some money.
26Cultural and PersonalCrystal StoneThe TeacupDo you still remember who you were?The tea bowl—blooming honeysuckle,watered with hot dewdrops each morning.Now, like a boat docked on the shoreof a sun-bleached, Caucasian island—the lines on your surface stretch like stems,roads on maps headed West.At the rim, the silver-lined border is brokenby a chip in the ceramic—a lost war.You reek of Earl Grey, subduingthe oolong-stale scent you once exhaled.Dearest tea bowl, who have you become?To what depths have you gone?Beneath what ocean, under what tianchi,in the cupboard of what country?The china was England’s betrothed,handled with ringed privilege.The Mother LandBouguereau, 1883, Oil PaintingThe children are innocent, hugginga mother too young for nine.None of the children have clothesbut the shy brunette on the left;the tan boys feel right at home.But where is the father, the source of their color,the rice hats, the Áo bà ba, the sandals?
27The purple mountains threaten invasion,but the mother is stern, and one day,the children will forget their homeland,the faint black clouds of smoke behind them.Even now, they just of trivial things:how long will it be before they can wear theirmother’s laurels, her daisies and roses.Memory: Age SixThat day, I drew mom’s cheeks pinklike flamingo wings, the way they were whenI ruffled her feathers. I did not showhow her face wrinkled like her parachute pantswhen she sipped the vodka orange juiceshe hid in her drawers. Or how her eyebrowsfurrowed, Spanish accents on vowels, once visibly drunk.I wanted to make her look beautiful, butshe just wanted me to get into the car.I don’t want to go, I protested. I don’t—the car door shut, off we went.In the car, on the way to Jersey’s Storybook Land,my crayons had melted in the door—the only papers I had left to redraw my mother’s faceon were the maps I had to learn to readif I were to guide us back home.Crystal Stone is a junior at Allegheny College, Meadville, PA, where she majors in Englishand minors in Psychology. This summer, she worked as an editorial assistant for FilmCriticism and studied poetry at the Black Forest Writing Seminars in Freiburg, Germany.She is currently working as a writing consultant at her college and hopes to teach English inthe future.
28AnonymityJamie Berilla-MacdonaldChina—silence ruled in customs, enforced by threatening glancesand foreboding bilingual signs. Then sound explodedthrough the gates, signs held for those incomingas our tour guide shepherded us to th
Neil Gaiman Charles Ghigna Nikki Giovanni Donald Hall Robert Hass Frank Herbert Peter Hessler Andrew Hudgins William Bradford Huie E. Nelson James X.J. Kennedy Jamaica Kincaid Ted Kooser Ursula K. Le Guin Li-Young Lee Valerie Martin David McCullough Erin McGraw Marion Montgomery Kyoko Mori Scott Morris Azar Nafisi Howard Nemerov Naomi Shihab .
Stanley C. Rosenberg, Tau Beta Sigma -Delta Delta Honorary, Spring 2014 . Tyler Jason Ramsay, Tau Beta Sigma – Delta Delta, Spring 2015 . BethAyn Curtis, Tau Beta Sigma – Delta Delta Honorary, Spring 2015 . Awards and Recognition: District Alumni Secretary Award, 2013 . Tau Beta Sigma,
2019-20 WRITING AWARDS FOR SIGMA TAU DELTA REVIEW AND SIGMA TAU DELTA RECTANGLE Frederic Fadner Critical Essay Award Ashley Walker: "It Drives Me Crazy: Childhood and Madness in J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye" Eleanor B. North Poetry Award Sydney Roslin: "Evolution" E. Nelson James Poetry Award
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