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The Bellwether Review promotes original art and writing cultivated by authors and artists attending PCC. We value showcasing work that expresses a diversity of voice and thought. We encourage a passion for meaningful creation, and provide a platform for students to appreciate art. ART POETRY FICTION NONFICTION Thank you for visiting our website. The Bellwether Review is a literary journal that hopes to promote and inspire creativity amongst those not only at Portland Community College Rock Creek but also throughout the broader global community of writers and artists. We hope you take the time to review these great pieces that were sent in to us and selected for publication by our editorial team. Visit our Submissions page if you are interested in having your work considered for publication in a future issue. Email us at bellwetherreview@gmail.com with any questions. LETTER FROM THE EDITORS Dear Reader, First and foremost, thank you for reading this year’s edition of The Bellwether Review . Students who submit their works for publication, as well as those who create the review, spend hundreds of hours working their craft, and we here on the editorial team truly appreciate the efforts that have gone into developing the outstanding works that appear in this year’s journal. One hundred and six works were submitted this year, and each one was reviewed and discussed by the editorial team, as we sought out what makes each piece special—what makes them beautiful—and ultimately selected those that stood out as exemplary to share with you, the readers of the 2024 edition. We here at The Bellwether Review team thank you for taking the time to appreciate the work of these contributing writers and artists, and we especially want to thank all those who contributed works to this edition. And with that, we hope to see you next year. Until then, take care. — The 2024 Editorial Team Copyright © 2024 Portland Community College Portland Community College reserves all rights to the material contained herein for the contributors’ protection. On publication, all rights revert to the respective authors and artists.

MASJID ROAD Shamik Banerjee Fishmongers’ cleaver knives don’t rest at all; Their heavy thuds outdo the termless spiels Of colporteurs dispensing large and small Versions of holy books. On mud-sunk wheels, Waxed apples, sapodillas, apricots Effuse their fragrance, trapping passersby Who check the rates, then stand submerged in thoughts— Some fill their punnets, some leave with a sigh. Outside the mosque, blind footpath dwellers wait To hear the clinking sound—the sound of true Relief—while dogs, flopped by the butcher’s gate, Get jumpy when he throws a hunk or two. Loudspeakers, placed on high, say “call to prayer” And all work halts; there’s silence in the air. Shamik Banerjee Shamik Banerjee is a formalist poet from Assam, India, where he resides with his parents. His poems have been published by The Society of Classical Poets, Sparks of Calliope, The Hypertexts, Snakeskin, Ekstasis, Ink Sweat & Tears , and Autumn Sky Daily , among others.

IN THE END David P. Sterner How will they live once they’ve all returned with tales of the dead and villages burned? Will they proudly speak of how bravely they fought or now live in shame and wish they had not? Will they think that a favor they’ve done for our world that on mothers and babes tons of bombs they have hurled? Or will they then see the evil in this deed they have done and fear that from God their souls will be shunned? How will they live once they’ve all returned with those shiny cold metals that so proudly, they’ve earned? David Sterner I was born in the small town of Grants Pass, Oregon. I have attended 22 different schools in Oregon, Montana, and Northern California—including PCC—which all exposed me to various cultures. My passions are art and science. I express my inner feelings by drawing, painting, sculpting, and writing. I study science to understand life and emotions, which I find very intriguing. Some of my achievements include winning blue ribbons for my artworks, being the lead singer of the Dave Everest Band, and receiving U.S. Patent #4,572,622 for a photographic lens. I have also authored a book titled DOR: The Missing Geometric Link . My hobbies include rock and fossil hunting, and I am proud to own the largest carnelian agate ever to be discovered in the Vernonia, Oregon region: it weighs a whopping 65 lbs.

BELLWETHER REVIEW Poetry Check out our prestigiously chosen works from the students of PCC. Here you'll find some of our beautifully written short stories Our Flash Non-Fiction pieces are sure to capture your attention. Our Spring Collection Fiction Nonfiction Art See our new pieces of photography and art that were phenomenally crafted. About Welcome Editors 2021 Contributors 2021 A Literary Magazine like no other. Cover Art by: Jessica Graber

STREET GLITTER Gigi Giangiobbe-Rodriguez Can you watch my section for five? we ask our coworker, one we may or may not have slept with, so we can slip outside apron still affixed and smoke a cigarette or just stand under the glow of street lamps, looking at the remains of a Tesla’s window in pieces on the sidewalk— street glitter — watching a rat scuttle across the pavement to dart behind a patch of grass, taking a moment of relative silence and fresh air. We are misfits degenerates hard workers sweethearts. We are gravely misunderstood. We smell like hops, yeast, oil, grilled meat, bread, fish. We make 500 on a good night if we’re front of-house, and we make 90 on a bad night. After our shift is over and we clock out, we drink three to six beers, depending. Sometimes, during the really long days, the really thankless nights, the nights where we cut the tip of our finger off, or have to clean up vomit, or piss, or a drunk guy pinches our ass, or some dude tells us we should smile more, we start drinking before clocking out. 86 TRIPLE SEC we yell at each and every server while we tend bar, pouring pint after pint of beer. 4 COUNT SWEET POTATO FRIES we yell as we pop out from our prep kitchen cave, to tell the spoiled front-of-house staff. BEHIND! ¡ATRÁS! we shout as we dart from kitchen to the line, back of house to the floor front bar to back bar walk-in back to the bar kitchen to the restroom restroom to the lockers storage closet back to the line prep kitchen to the dumpsters. WHERE IS TABLE SIX’S BURGER we demand of our line cooks, not daring to talk to the chef that way. STOP SEATING ME we frantically mouth to the host, after they have sat us a fifth consecutive four-top in ten minutes. Fuck. Table six stiffed me. On to the next. WHERE’S JESS? We, the almighty bartenders yell into the void. Our most loyal server finds her, tells her we have a question. Jess saunters up, already rolling her eyes— You didn’t ring this drink up right. Here’s how you do it. We hear ourselves and are annoyed. We’re nitpicking ingredient discrepancies with the servers for what, inventory? To save money? For who? So the owner can get a bit richer while we hustle our ass all night? What’s the new IPA taste like? A customer asks us, after they have already sampled three beers. “It tastes like fucking beer,” we wish we could say. “It’s really good. It’s hoppy but not too bitter. Super fresh,” we say instead. THREE BONELESS WINGS ALL DAY; FIRE ON TABLE NINE we yell from our little slice of hell stationed in front of the deep fryers, dodging hot oil, wielding knives and squirt bottles, tossing plating garnishing wiping repeat. Two hours left. Fuck I need a drink. I need five drinks. I need a new fucking job. And then we show up hungover the next day and do it all again. We don’t have much of a choice. No one’s holding our hands. We are a band of degenerates— these misfits, these sweethearts, these druggies, these assholes, these perfect human beings. We are a dysfunctional family just barely hanging on. Gigi Giangiobbe-Rodriguez Gigi Giangiobbe-Rodriguez is a writer based in Portland, Oregon but was raised in Oakland, California. She’s never met a tree she didn’t like and has what some would call an acute addiction to tea. When Gigi is not amassing books faster than she can read them, she’s writing, snacking, or scream-singing karaoke at a dive bar with her husband and their friends. Her current works include her chapbook: I’m Okay, I Promise . Gigi writes personal essays, memoir, prose poetry, poetry, fiction, and occasionally takes a stab at other genres. Her research essay on Indigenous voter disenfranchisement was showcased at PCC’s 2023 Groundswell Conference. Gigi is on the President’s List at PCC and is an All-Oregon Academic Team scholar. She is an editor for the literary magazine The Pointed Circle .

AUNT BOBBIE IS MY FAVORITE ON MY DAD'S SIDE Shane Allison Aunt Bobbie put in 16 years at Extended Care. She gossips with her friend Elenore on picnic benches during lunch breaks. They say she’s doing crack again. She sells television sets and wholesale outfits to gold tooth drug dealers. She takes care of babies of girls who party all night with golden boyfriends. Aunt Bobbie doesn’t want to be found. She doesn’t want anybody to see her this way. Her sisters have given up, thrown their hands up like white flags. Her brothers have had enough. Shawn, her only son, is ashamed and doesn’t want her for a roommate. Aunt Earline, who creates magic in the kitchen, who makes the best jelly cake, doesn’t want Aunt Bobbie in the house. She gave her clothes, soap to wash herself and three square meals on the good plates from her china cabinet. Aunt Alice didn’t have room in her heart for a drug addict grown up. Bodies pack in every crack and crevice of a three-bedroom house. Aunt Norris doesn’t trust her. She could run off with my jewelry and sell it for drugs. Anyway, my son is coming home from the army and she can’t be here. “If only you knew how hard she worked,” Mama said. Aunt Bobbie is my favorite on my dad’s side. Third cousins talk about her like a legend. She used to laugh loudly at family reunions. She used to be pretty. Will someone help her? Help her like Uncle Howard, like Uncle Weed falling down drunk on the living room floor. Shane Allison Shane Allison was bit by the writing bug at the age of fourteen. He spent a majority of his high school life shying away in the library behind desk cubicles writing bad love poems about boys he had crushes on. He has since gone on to publish several chapbooks of poetry, Black Fag , Ceiling of Mirrors , Cock and Balls , I Want to Fuck a Redneck , Remembered Men , and Live Nude Guys , as well as four full-length poetry collections, I Remember (Future Tense), Slut Machine (Rebel Satori), Sweet Sweat (Hysterical), and I Want to Eat Chinese Food off Your Ass (Dumpster Fire). He has edited twenty-five anthologies of gay erotica and has written two novels, You’re the One I Want and Harm Done (Simon & Schuster). Allison’s collage work has graced the pages of Shampoo , Unlikely Stories , Pnpplzine.com , Palavar Arts Magazine , Southeast Review , and a plethora of others. He is at work on a new novel and is always at work making a collage here and there.

NOT THE WORST DAY Sean P. Hotchkiss 1 2 3 Fig. 1 Funeral by Robert Hotchkiss Stop for a moment and look at the photograph before you proceed. Okay, that should be long enough. It is an overcast day, a gray day, but still light. There is a red and gray kilt-clad bagpiper standing on a field of grass in the bottom left corner with his back to us. His stance gives the impression he is playing. The grass is well groomed with hues of yellow and green mixed in. There is a blue canopy in the center of the photo, sheltering a closed silver-trimmed gray casket that lies upon what looks like a bronze-hued pedestal. The pedestal is actually the bottom of a grave box designed to protect it from water damage, but the casual observer would not know this. A couple lines of grave markers are set into the earth in the foreground that may not be immediately visible. There is an astroturf-covered mound behind the casket, presumably covering the dirt that has been displaced by the digging of the grave. Lying flat on the grass are several plywood panels. A large bouquet of beautiful red roses lies atop the casket and a green University of Oregon bucket with white and yellow roses sits beside it. Also nearby is a small vase of red and white flowers. In the background there are a mix of large evergreen and deciduous trees with a line of cars parked in front of them. The deciduous trees are leafless, adding to the starkness of the image. Two distinct groups of people stand in a rough semi-circle around and behind the canopy, with a few lone people standing apart. Most are wearing black, but there is a splash of pink, green, brown, or blue here and there. Everyone is wearing a mask to protect themselves and others from Covid-19. Upon closer inspection you see four people seated close to the casket with a space in between them. Two, a man and a young woman, are on one side, and two more, a young woman and a young man, are on the other. It appears that the people are either listening to the piper, lost in silent contemplation, gazing at the casket, or all three as no one seems to be speaking. Most appear to be looking in the same direction. What did you think of when you first saw the image? How did you feel? Did any memories or images from your past surface? Were there any imaginings of what the future may have in store for you or your family? Even without the casket being so prominent, it is easy to tell that the photograph has captured a funeral in progress. The somber gray sky, the grass, and the mix of evergreens and deciduous trees are classic signs that this photo was taken in the Pacific Northwest. The canopy, seeming out of place with its bright blue color, is unaware that it is pulling focus away from the other details in the picture. It is only there to fulfill its purpose of protecting what is underneath from potential rain. The lack of leaves on the trees tells us it must be winter. The University of Oregon bucket leads to the conclusion that at least one person in attendance is a Ducks fan and may narrow down where the photo was taken, Oregon. All the masked faces show that the funeral is taking place during the Covid-19 pandemic. Perhaps this death was another casualty of the virus. Seen are friends and family paying their last respects to a loved one. Presumably grieving would be a unifying catalyst, but cliquish groups, reminiscent of a poorly-themed high school dance, have formed. It’s unclear if these groups were formed because of a rift, a coincidence, or social distancing. While it is expected to see black formal wear at a funeral, reality leaks into this photograph contrasting what is seen in a movie or television show. If this were a staged ceremony, everyone would be in almost-matching black suits and dresses. The splashes of color or the blue jeans would be absent. This must be a real event—with people present having different stories. This must be a real event—someone is in the casket. This must be a real event—someone is in pain. The four seated people are likely to be the closest friends or family of the deceased. Who else would rate such an unwelcome honor? Who are they? Who did they lose? Who was this person being honored by this group willing to risk their health by gathering? How this photo affected you, if it did, might depend upon your own personal experiences. It may be easy to make some assumptions about aspects of this image based on where we live and what is currently going on in our lives right now. Perhaps your observations and conclusions were similar to what has been described so far. Perhaps they were different. Often, I think our reactions to and interpretations of photos are impacted by our level of separation from what is depicted. This photograph of a funeral could be interpreted differently by those who have or have not attended one. Differently still if the funeral was for someone you were close to. And even differently still if someone you love is very old or infirm. To what extent did your own memories and experiences shape what you saw and how you felt? Our interpretations might not reflect the reality of the photograph, or the timeline of events to the left and right of it. The truth behind the photograph is that it was taken by my brother at my wife’s funeral—freezing, forever in time, a single frame of the terrestrial end of a wonderful story. She passed away and was laid to rest in January of 2021 after bravely and tenaciously battling cancer for almost a year. The image was captured as the Piper played “Amazing Grace” to a grieving and tearful audience towards the end of the service. The four people seated under the canopy are me and our children. We had just finished honoring my wife with our words and stories of love and loss and hope. As I write this, it occurs to me that the closeness of the relationship each person had with my wife can be gauged by their distance from the casket. The two groups that formed are primarily segregated by my wife’s people, who we call the “Out-laws,” on the right, and “my people” on the left. We named them the Out-laws because they are the family of my wife’s brother-in-law, so not “in-laws” themselves; therefore, “Out-laws.” The man in the suit closest to the pavement is the minister and the other two lone mourners are friends of my kids. My wife and I had ended up staying closer to my people, so the distance between the groups may reflect that. My wife is a Ducks fan and the bucket was her constant gardening companion. To some, it may seem just as out of place as the blue canopy, but not to me. So now that you’ve read an interpretation of the photograph and have heard some of its story, how much have your thoughts and feelings changed? Are your perceptions and perspectives different now that we are at a different point in time? You may wonder, how could this not be someone’s worst day? This picture cannot convey the emotion I and the others attending are feeling; that can only be left to the imagination, informed by interpretation and context, of the viewer. For me, examining this photograph so closely has been deeply interesting, frequently tearful and painful, and hopefully a little healing. There are things that I noticed for the first time, some of it pointed out by others. Such as the unanticipated segregation of the crowd, the ashen sky, and how the artificial blue of the canopy seems unfit for the occasion. This photograph is of one of the worst days of my life, but what it does not show, can’t show, is that the day after was worse. The thirty years prior to the snapping of this photo had been spent getting to know, marrying, loving, and being loved by my wife. The year prior had been spent caring for her, helping her fight the cancer that would take her from me. The days prior were spent making preparations for her memorial and funeral. The day after, there was nothing more I could do, or needed to do for her—except tell her story. Sean P. Hotchkiss Sean P. Hotchkiss was born and raised in the Portland Metro area of Oregon. He is a proud father of three, grateful partner of one, and widower. He recently rediscovered his love of writing after returning to college after three gap-decades. Sean is in his last term towards earning an A.A.S. in Business Marketing at Portland Community College (PCC) with plans to pursue a Master’s degree in clinical mental health. In addition to his “day job” as a digital marketer, he is also a reading and writing tutor at PCC. He believes he does his best work where thought meets inspiration, and seeks out those things and people that stimulate both. You can engage with Sean on Instagram @sphotch_the_writer or on his website at https://www.sphotch.com .

Art ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES Wrapping Freedom Mehdi Gassi Oil on canvas 16 x 12 in cover on print edition* Growing Out of Bounds Dean Wilson Photograph A Tasty Thank You Shane Allison Décollage 14 x 11 in 5 Off Your Order Shane Allison Décollage 14 x 11 in Abandoned Homestead Dean Wilson Photograph Amanita Kelley Wezner Watercolor on paper 4.5 x 6 in Astoria at Blue Hour Dean Wilson Photograph Bok Choy Kelley Wezner Watercolor on paper 12 x 9 in Death and Life Bailey Moore Diptych in charcoal on paper 24 x 36 in Drawing of Jessie Ed Vassilenko Chalk pastels on paper 24 x 18 in Duality Ed Vassilenko Chalk pastels on paper 24 x 18 in El Alcatraz Jacky Sanchez Lozoya Linocut on bristol 17 x 14 in First Impression Mehdi Gassi Digitalized drawing Farm House Laila Sheikh Oil on canvas 36 x 29 in Ice and Rocks Dean Wilson Photograph Mad Scientist Kelley Wezner Watercolor on paper 4.5 x 6 in Misty Voyage Laila Sheikh Oil on canvas 36 x 29 in Orange is the Loneliest Color Xiomara Mueller Self Portrait of Self Discomfort Ed Vassilenko Mixed media on cardboard 24 x 18in Sentinel Kelley Wezner Watercolor on paper 4.5 x 6 in The Thinking Mehdi Gassi Screen print and gold leaf on paper 12 x 12 in Untitled Mehdi Gassi Oil on canvas 16 x 12 in