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Welcome to PCC's Literary Magazine! Here you'll find our most recent digital issues of the Bellwether Review. Bellwether Review 2022 A Search for Meaning This year, we discovered that many of our submissions related to a search for meaning throughout year two of the pandemic. This search manifested in a cycle of experiences, as shown below. Experiencing Loss and Injustice Finding Strength and Surviving Discovering and Creating Finding Strength and Surviving A Cycle Feeling Trapped and Imprisoned Finding Strength and Surviving Finding Strength and Surviving Finding Strength and Surviving Works Browse our wide array of stories, poetry, and art. View all Black and Pearly White Taylor Woodworth with art by Morgan Belden Frigid Blades Stephanie Thomsom with art by Morgan Belden The Stone Pig Casey Elder with art by Casey Elder Random Access Memory Tyler Allen with art by Morgan Belden Spring into Summer Heidi Shepherd with art by Issac J. Lutz Hennesy David Hurley with art by David Hurley View all

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Home About Welcome Editors 2021 About The Authors Archive 2020 Art Poetry Fiction Groundswell Archive Best Essay Winner Rock Creek Writing Center Best Essay Winner 2020 2020 The Key by Alexander Prescott Rock Creek Writing Center Best Essay Winner 2020  Mental illness isn’t something you can really seem to medicate away. Sure, this pill can numb the pain, and that pill might make you feel apathetic. But overall, you are just putting a different mask on an ugly problem. My mother was one of those people with a little pill box, marked with each day of the week, reminding her to put on her “facade."  It was the day before my eighteenth birthday. Freedom was so close. I would finally be old enough to leave this small dilapidated town behind me, but freedom came at a cost. I would have to leave her behind. You see, my mother was born deaf, and because of this, it closed out the world around her. Her life was silent, and over the years the silence dug its way deeper into her than it should’ve. Her depression kept her captive to her bed, as if the sheer weight of sadness immobilized her.  I stood in her bedroom doorway, her eyes looked just beyond me, fixed on an empty space of wall. This woman wasn’t the lively, beautiful creature that raised me. Her fierceness and wild exuberance for life had faded away and all that was left was this shell of a woman, laying in that bed, impersonating my mother. Signing to her, I attempted to pull her attention away, but she was lost in a heavily medicated gaze. When I left the next day, she would be alone. I mean sure, there’s my dad, but no one understood my mother the way that I did, nobody even tried to.  My things were all packed and situated in boxes neatly lining the wall of my childhood bedroom. Tomorrow was the day when everything would be different, a new beginning. The landlord was expecting me, I had to go pick up my new apartment key. My fingers fluttered as I signaled to my mother and signed to her that I would be back soon, it wouldn’t take long. Her eyes locked onto mine with a piercing glare, as if I was betraying her. Sometimes the sadness almost made her look manic. I hastily made my way to the bedside, planting a kiss on her forehead, assuring her that I would be back soon.  I sped off in my Ford Mustang, making great time. Swinging into a narrow parking space, I gawked at my freedom, in the shape of a red brick apartment complex. The landlord greeted me at the apartment door and passed me the key, but as I held it in my hand, it felt heavy and weighted with guilt. I was the last of my three brothers to leave the house, and I knew that the reality of us being gone would completely sink in for my parents. But I couldn’t stay there forever, leaving was inevitable, and all parents must say goodbye at some point. I bid farewell to the apartment building as I left; I would be back for it tomorrow.   The drive wasn’t long; my childhood home was just one city over and if I hit the highway it was only a 15-minute drive. I pulled into the gravel driveway, pebbles crunching under the tires. I shoved the apartment key deep into my jacket pocket. The front porch steps groaned as I made my way up them; it was lunch time now and I had to feed my mother. This was usually my fathers’ job, but he had to work a double shift that day.  I swung open the door, kicked my dirty Chuck Taylors off, and tossed my coat on the floor. Making a beeline straight to the kitchen, I set a pot of water to boil and prepared all the ingredients for a pasta dish. She usually refused to eat, but today I would make her something special. Spaghetti used to be her favorite before she became the epitome of sadness.  The house was nearly silent, as it usually was, except for the rattling of a pot on the stove and the sound of my own feet tapping impatiently. Minutes passed and I finally had a bowl of spaghetti in hand and her pill box in the other. I made my way down the hallway towards her bedroom door. It was closed, which was unusual. I knocked. Nothing. Slowly opening the door, so as not to startle her, I made my way in.  The smell of iron clung to the air, thick and musty. And there she was, still captive to her bed but this time it was swallowing her in a pool of her own blood. My body went numb as my grasp of reality and of my own hands was lost, dropping everything to the floor. I tripped over my own feet as I rushed to her side. She was breathing, but her breaths were shallow and possibly her last. My father’s .22 pistol rested there in her limp hand.    I sprung for the phone on her bedside table, clumsily dialing 911. My words blurted out nonsense, but somehow the dispatcher understood. She instructed me to open my mother’s airways and talked me through how to keep her alive until emergency services arrived. I could barely even see past the panic in my own eyes as I fought to keep her going. It was all up to me now.  It seemed like those minutes lasted an eternity before they showed up. A slew of people rushed in, almost attacking her body in a desperate attempt to keep her from slipping away. I stepped back finally letting it all sink in. This wasn’t a dream, this was my reality. Terror rushed over me, as I processed what was actually happening. Her body was thrown onto a gurney and off she went, leaving nothing but her blood-stained sheets and a group of interrogating cops behind.   She was rushed to OHSU in Portland, which was on the other side of the state, where she clung to life for months in a trauma-induced coma. The bullet barely missed her jugular vein, and the doctors assured us that it was a miracle she even made it this long. I had spent my eighteenth birthday with that useless apartment key in my pocket, heavier than ever, and my mother just lying there on a hospital bed, without the certainty that she would ever wake up.   Eventually she did awake, but she was never the same. We never spoke of what happened, locking it away in the shadows of our minds. Hotels and hospitals became our new home; she would never go back to that small town, the place where she had put her depression to rest. The bullet didn’t take her life that day, but it took away her ability to walk, and my ability to stomach a genuine relationship with her. And that sense of freedom I had longed for was crushed and replaced with an aching feeling of regrets and “what-ifs”.  Before that incident we never fully understood her depression, or how lost she really was to it. We trusted that her doctors were taking care of her, and that all those pills would eventually do something. I guess no one really took her mental illness as seriously as they should’ve. Her physicians just wrote on their prescription pads and sent her on her way, just another sad person in need of something to suppress their emotions. She needed psychological help. She needed more than just a pill. But that’s just it, no one wanted to acknowledge her depression as an actual illness. It’s one of those things you just don’t want to accept, and often is pushed to the side. In my experience most doctors will just open that prescription pad at the very first sign of mental illness. It’s not to be confronted. Just shroud it in medication and mask it in ignorance. Take another pill to hide depression's ugly face.

Welcome to PCC's Literary Magazine! Here you'll find our most recent digital issues of the Bellwether Review. BELLWETHER REVIEW VOL 1 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. Home About Welcome Editors 2021 About The Authors Archive 2020 Art Poetry Fiction Groundswell Archive Best Essay Winner A Literary Magazine like no other. Cover Art by: Jessica Graber

Feeling Trapped & Imprisoned Previous Section Experiencing Loss and Injustice Finding Strength and Surviving Next Section Finding Strength and Surviving Finding Strength and Surviving Table of Contents Finding Strength and Surviving “Not the Slightest Inclination” Fiction by Penny Harper Art by Sawyer “November” Poem by Taylor Woodworth Art by Morgan Belden “November” Poem by Sydney Ross Art by Miriam Ridout “No Welcome Wagon” Poem by Luka Russo Art by Morgan Belden “The Eulogy of a Taxidermied Elk Skull” Poem by Stephanie Thomson Art by David Hurley “The Stone Pig” Poem by Casey Elder Art by Casey Elder Finding Strength and Surviving Finding Strength and Surviving Finding Strength and Surviving Finding Strength and Surviving Finding Strength and Surviving Not the Slightest Inclination By Penny Harper Anna Margareta Buxtehude glanced nervously out the window of the sitting room as she straightened the cushions on the chairs. Her family was expecting two guests from Hamburg, and her mother had ordered her to make sure the sitting room was ready. While she inspected the shelves for dust, Anna Margareta listened intently for signs of the guests’ arrival. Soon enough, she heard carriage wheels on the cobblestones below and flew to the window to watch. “Are they here?” Anna Margareta’s younger sisters Catrin and Sophia piled into the sitting room, their eyes bright with curiosity. Anna Margareta moved over to make room at the window, and all three girls watched the carriage enter the courtyard and draw to a halt. “Behold! Your bridegroom approaches!” teased Catrin. Anna Margareta blushed furiously but her eyes stayed fixed on the scene below. Anna Margareta’s father Dieterich Buxtehude, a portly man in his late 60s, was waiting in the courtyard to greet their guests. A slim young man alighted from the carriage with a grimace, turned to Buxtehude and made an elaborate bow. “Johann Mattheson at your service, sir!” Buxtehude returned the bow with tolerant amusement. A slightly younger, fairer man descended from the carriage beside Mattheson and also saluted Buxtehude, saying stiffly “Georg Händel. It’s an honor to make your acquaintance, Herr Buxtehude.” Buxtehude surveyed both young men genially. “You are both very welcome!” He waved his hand at the imposing cathedral behind them, whose twin spires rose far into the sky. “I am looking forward to showing you what St. Mary’s has to offer and to hear what you will make of her organ. Come in, come in! You must need refreshment after your journey.” As the three men crossed the courtyard, Anna Margareta and her sisters retreated from the sitting room into the kitchen. They heard their mother greet the guests and usher them into the sitting room. “Welcome! Please, come and sit down -- my daughter is bringing coffee!” ### This was the moment that Anna Margareta had been dreading. She knew that her father was actively seeking the man who would succeed him as music director and organist at St. Mary’s, and she knew that both Mattheson and Händel, who were making names for themselves in the Hamburg Opera, were candidates. But she also knew what they did not: fearing for the future of his wife and their three unmarried daughters, and in accordance with guild custom, her father had determined that whoever inherited his position must also marry Anna Margareta, his eldest daughter. Other organists had applied for the position, but none of them had met her father’s expectations. Anna Margareta had not overly concerned herself with the matter at first. As her father’s amanuensis and assistant organ technician, she had learned patience with his ways: when the right candidate appeared, he would know it. She trusted her father’s judgment and she was in no hurry to marry in any case. Anna Margareta’s mother was less patient: her younger daughters Catrin and Sophia could not marry until Anna Margareta married and Mother was anxious to get them all settled. Catrin, who was engaged to a church organist in a nearby town, was philosophical about the delay; Sophia was more critical and seemed to blame Anna Margareta for the constraint of the marriage condition even though it was hardly her fault. In the kitchen, as Sophia finished loading the coffee tray, Catrin regarded Anna Margareta critically, smoothing her hair and straightening her collar. “There, you look very nice,” she said. “Now go and charm those young men. One of them is bound to win!” Anna Margareta carried the tray into the sitting room. Her father was showing the visitors a portrait of his friend Johann Reincken, whom both young men knew as the organist at St. Katherine’s in Hamburg, but as she entered he turned to her. “Ah, there you are! Gentlemen, may I present my eldest daughter Anna Margareta? Grete, this is Johann Mattheson and Georg Händel.” Both men rose and nodded to her; Anna Margareta shyly lowered her eyes as she crossed to the coffee table. She hoped she would not have to speak; a stutter often overcame her when she was nervous, which made conversation painfully difficult. As she poured the coffee, Anna Margareta was grateful to see that the young men seemed already to have forgotten her and were concentrating on her father. She took the opportunity to observe them more closely. Mattheson was the elder by a few years. Dark and slight, he had a restless gaze and an air of discontent. Anna Margareta watched his eyes dart around the room as if he were calculating the value of its contents. As she handed him his cup she wondered whether his restless eyes had already measured and dismissed her as well; he seemed to be skeptical about whether this opportunity was worth his time. Händel was younger – Anna Margareta guessed no older than 18 – and less confident than his friend. He seemed very aware of his purple velvet jacket, tugging at the cuffs and occasionally brushing a lapel. Perhaps the jacket was new, Anna Margareta thought, bought specifically to impress her father. Which amused her because clothing was the last thing that would enter her father’s mind when evaluating a candidate for the organist position. Unless the jacket somehow interfered with Händel’s organ playing, Father would never notice. He looked up at Anna Margareta and smiled as she passed him his cup. “How are things at the Opera?” Buxtehude asked. “Are you doing anything new?” Mattheson spoke first. “I’m writing an opera based on Shakespeare’s ‘Antony and Cleopatra,’ which I hope will be performed next year. So many fine arias for the soprano! Magnificent.” As he went on, Anna Margareta saw her parents share a glint of amusement at the young man’s confidence. “And you, Herr Händel?” Buxtehude inquired. “Oh, I am also writing an opera about Almira, the Queen of Castile. A courtly drama, nothing as exciting as Marc Anthony, but I hope it will find favor.” Buxtehude nodded. “We have no opera house here in Lübeck, but there are always opportunities for new liturgical compositions. Perhaps you would find this dull by comparison?” Mattheson seemed to be considering this question, but Händel spoke up right away. “Not at all, Herr Buxtehude! How could such glorious music be dull?” “Yes, of course.” Beneath his genial manner, Buxtehude was studying the two young men carefully. He would never reach a final judgment until he had heard them play, but he was an experienced leader of musicians and well understood how their personalities could affect their performance. He would have their measure soon enough, thought Anna Margareta. Finally, Buxtehude clapped his hands together and rose. “Come! If you’re ready, I’m anxious to introduce you to St. Mary’s.” Mattheson and Händel made their courtesies to Anna Margareta and her mother before following Buxtehude out. “Well?” Anna Margareta’s mother watched her gather up the coffee service; Anna Margareta kept her eyes down. She knew how anxious her mother was to settle the question of Anna Margareta’s marriage, and that she considered both visitors to be highly desirable prospects. Mother herself had lived in St. Mary’s all her life; her father, Franz Tunder, had been Buxtehude’s predecessor, and Tunder had also required Buxtehude to marry his eldest daughter as a condition of inheriting his position. By and large the Buxtehudes’ marriage had been a happy one and Mother could not understand Anna Margareta’s reluctance to follow her example. “Mattheson seems to think very well of himself!” Anna Margareta thumped the cups onto the tray, earning a grimace from her mother. “Händel could hardly get a word in.” But even as she spoke Anna Margareta was considering what she’d seen in Händel’s face. After a moment, she realized what it was: Händel’s distracted and inwardly-focused aspect reminded her of her father. Mother pursed her lips. “If your father thinks they are suitable, that’s the end of it. I expect you to look your best at dinner tonight – we must show them how charming you can be. Now finish clearing up.” ### Charming! Anna Margareta thought resentfully. Surely the visitors would be charmed by pretty Catrin and lively Sophia long before they even noticed plain Anna Margareta – it was awfully hard to be charming when your fear of stuttering kept you in silence. And even if she could speak, what would she say? At home, Anna Margareta and her father could talk easily about music and musicians; he often praised her acute ear and laughed heartily at some of her observations of what the church musicians did when he couldn’t see them. Anna Margareta loved the organ and under her father’s tutelage had become very competent at repairs and maintenance. Perhaps that was too practical to be charming, but it was interesting – wasn’t it? Anna Margareta considered what might be going on in the church at that moment. No doubt her father was in his element, showing off the church’s grand organ to the two visitors and enumerating its dozens of stops and thousands of pipes. He could go on at great length about the acoustics of the church and how the largest 32-foot pipes could make a congregant’s bones vibrate in his body. There was more than one way to communicate God’s power, he would say! But then each young man would take his turn at the organ console. Each would have prepared a piece to try to impress Buxtehude, and Anna Margareta badly wanted to be there to hear for herself what compositions they chose and how well they played. Anna Margareta also wanted to gauge her father’s response to the auditions. Whether Händel and Mattheson knew it or not, Buxtehude would hear every nuance of their performance and would understand precisely what they were capable of; he would also be highly sensitive to how much reverence they expressed in their music. If Buxtehude doubted their priorities – if he thought they were placing personal ambition over the glory of God – they would never succeed him at St. Mary’s regardless of their musical ability. But how was Anna Margareta to hear the auditions? They were none of her business as far as her mother was concerned. Despite a lifetime spent in St. Mary’s, church music didn’t move her mother; managing it was the family business and she did her part well, but she was indifferent to its quality and never understood Anna Margareta’s interest in the organ. Let the men worry about it, she would say: we have a house to keep! Anna Margareta found her sisters upstairs and quietly confided her dilemma. “I must go over to the church to hear them play, but you know Mother won’t allow me.” “Why do you care?” snipped Sophia. “You’ll have to marry one of them anyway!” Catrin eyed Anna Margareta consideringly, then smiled. “Yes, I see. I fell in love with Caspar when I heard him play.” Then she narrowed her eyes at Sophia and added, “Whatever it takes, we’ll do.” A few minutes later, Anna Margareta stood in the hallway until she heard Catrin crying from the kitchen: “Mother! The herring has gone bad! Come see!” and then quietly opened the front door. Anna Margareta slipped into the church and found a place out of sight in one of the side chapels. She arrived just in time to overhear her father inviting Mattheson to take his place at the console. After a long series of warnings about some of the organ’s weaknesses (“the Rückpositiv, alas, has not the power it should have”), Buxtehude retired from the organ loft and sat near the front of the church where he could hear the organ most clearly. After briefly testing the keyboards and pedals, Mattheson launched into one of her father’s own Preludes. Though it was obviously intended as flattery, Anna Margareta had to admit that Mattheson’s choice of this particular composition was deft: she knew how much its prominent pedal work, unique to North Germany, would please Father’s ear. She wished she could see his face: no doubt he understood the compliment, but did he also understand the calculation? Of course he would: Buxtehude’s living depended on the wealthy burgers of the town and he was hardly ignorant of the necessity of pleasing people in positions of power. Mattheson played well, if a little showily, Anna Margareta thought. When the piece was finished, Buxtehude cried “Well done, sir!” in the direction of the organ loft. “You carried that with great skill! Now, Herr Händel, what do you have for me?” A long silence followed. Anna Margareta, still concealed in the chapel, began to feel anxious. But when the music finally began, her anxiety dissolved in a moment. Father’s compositions were often solemn, and Händel’s composition started somewhat solemnly, even tentatively. Notes in the organ’s upper range emerged into the silence of the church; Anna Margareta was drawn along the complex chain of melody and counterpoint in a way that felt deeply familiar. But the piece grew in intensity as Händel seemed to gain confidence; before long, Anna Margareta was so overwhelmed that she had to sit down quickly. The composition – certainly one of Händel’s own – pulled in more and more of the grand organ’s stops until the music reverberated powerfully through the entire cathedral. To Anna Margareta’s ear it spoke not only of power, but also of gratitude for the glory of creation. In contrast to Mattheson’s showy and mannered playing, Händel held back nothing: his passion and skill were exalting. If Father wanted a successor who had surrendered his soul, who understood entirely that his efforts were for the glory of God, surely he had found his man. Anna Margareta could hear no more; she crept out of the church, her heart pounding and her head spinning. What was to be done? If Händel wanted the job, it was his. Could she bear it? ### Back at the apartment, Mother stood forbiddingly in the doorway. “Where have you been?” she demanded. Mother was fiercely protective of her family’s reputation among the burgers of Lübeck and made sure she knew exactly what her daughters were doing at all times, especially now, when the marriage prospects of all three girls were constantly in her mind. “Checking to be sure Father didn’t need anything,” Anna Margareta lied. Her mother’s furious scowl showed what she thought of that excuse. “Your father can take care of himself, Grete. I need you here, and you need to get ready for supper. Now go!” Anna Margareta fled upstairs. Her sisters were fluttering about the room putting the finishing touches on their own toilettes. “Grete, you look awful!” remarked Sophia with satisfaction. “Mother is in a temper and you’d better get dressed.” Catrin studied Anna Margareta as she crossed to the clothes press to take out her good dress. “What did you think? Did Father like them?” Anna Margareta was still too shaken to answer; she stared helplessly at her reflection in the mirror and wondered how she was going to get through the next few hours. How could she try to charm the two young men from Hamburg? Did she even want to? “Here, let me help you,” Catrin offered kindly. She untied Anna Margareta’s hair and gently drew the brush through it. “You wear it pulled back so tightly! Let’s leave it down, it is very becoming that way.” Sophia snorted, and Anna Margareta felt ashamed and confused. Didn’t she want to look well? She felt a bit like a prize cow at the town fair, fussed over, brushed and shined for the occasion. It felt unnatural, but it was clear that if she was a prize cow, she was meant to win the ribbon whether she wanted to or not. ### A burst of masculine laughter at the front door signaled the return of Buxtehude and the guests. Buxtehude was jovial; apparently the auditions had been passed, and all that remained was the negotiation of terms. But first, supper! Anna Margareta found herself seated by Händel. Mattheson sat across the table, and she noticed that his gaze turned on her as often as it did on Sophia, who chattered beside him, or Catrin, who sparkled on Händel’s other side. Had some whisper of the marriage condition reached Mattheson’s ears already? He was punctiliously polite, but there was no warmth in his eyes, and Anna Margareta shuddered inwardly and hoped that he returned to Hamburg quickly. Händel seemed to have lost his reticence. “Frau Buxtehude, what a lovely meal! We don’t get fish like these in Hamburg.” Anna Margareta’s mother smiled deprecatingly, but Anna Margareta could tell she was pleased. “Herr Buxtehude, can you tell me more about the Evening Music concerts? How did they start?” Father’s eyes twinkled. “Best ask Frau Buxtehude that question – they were started by her father Franz Tunder, who had this position before me!” Anna Margareta listened closely to the conversations at the table, and tried a few times to work up her courage to join in, but the subject always turned before she could form the words in her mouth. Once she thought Händel might have waited to hear her speak, but when Mattheson laughed loudly at some remark of Sophia’s, his attention turned away, and Anna Margareta did not know whether she was glad or sorry. ### After supper, the men repaired to Buxtehude’s study while the girls and their mother cleared away the dishes. Anna Margareta’s sisters gossiped about the two visitors. “Herr Mattheson is so handsome!” Sophia gushed. “Those dark eyes – so romantic!” Then, mischievously, “Don’t you think he is handsome, Grete? He could hardly keep his eyes off you!” “I quite like Herr Händel,” Catrin said quickly. “He spoke with good sense, at least when Herr Mattheson’s attention was elsewhere. Mother? What did you think?” “Herr Händel has lovely manners,” Mother allowed. “Your father said that he played extremely well.” Pointedly, “Perhaps you could tell us more about that, Grete?” Anna Margareta blushed and concentrated on the washing up. After the girls had been sent upstairs, Anna Margareta paced the room uneasily. What were her father and the visitors saying down there? She knew that her father would be conscientious to a fault in describing the rigors of the position, the stubbornness of the church officials, and the tight-fistedness of the town burgers. Had Händel and Mattheson seen enough of Lübeck to appreciate its charms? It must be different from Hamburg, though both towns were proud of their history as founders of the Hanseatic League. And how would the visitors respond when they understood that accepting the job at St. Mary’s required them to marry Anna Margareta? She slipped into bed and lay uneasily as men’s voices and pipe smoke arose from the study late into the evening. To Anna Margareta’s ear they sounded congenial, though occasionally her father could be heard making an emphatic point. Finally, unable to sleep, Anna Margareta heard the two young men ascending to the attic bedroom. She strained to hear: what were they saying? Were they – oh, God! – making fun of her? Perhaps a bit tipsy, and unaware of how their voices carried, the two discussed what they had learned. “The salary is pitiful,” Mattheson complained. “How he must slave to support this household! Scraping up events with the town musicians! I would have thought a man of his position was above busking for his supper.” “I wouldn’t mind,” Händel admitted quietly. “Herr Buxtehude is well-respected in Lübeck, and he seems to enjoy playing the viola da gamba with the town musicians.” Mattheson huffed dismissively. “And Lübeck supports the Evening Music concerts,” Händel continued. “Imagine the possibilities! All of Germany comes every year to hear them. A man could make his name as a composer here – and he wouldn’t have to stay forever.” With a slight edge, Mattheson inquired, “And the daughter? Are you inclined?” There was a pause during which Anna Margareta thought her heart might actually have stopped. “Not very,” confessed Händel finally. “Are you?” “Not in the slightest,” Mattheson clipped out. The emphasis he placed on each word fell like blows on Anna Margareta’s ears. Long after the young men had settled for the night and the attic had fallen silent, she lay awake contemplating the cruelty of Mattheson’s dismissal. Oddly, for a moment she felt more offended for her father than for herself. How could either of these young men refuse one of the most desirable positions in Germany? But this was quickly followed by a deep feeling of shame. Why exactly were they refusing it? Was it the organist position, Lübeck, or herself? Her mother’s voice (“we must show them how charming you can be, Grete!”) rang in her head. Anna Margareta knew that Father would regret only the loss of Händel’s talents for St. Mary’s, but Mother would surely be angry at Anna Margareta for spoiling her chances. ### In the morning, Anna Margareta arose drearily; not even the aroma of sweet rolls (an unusual treat in the Buxtehude household) arising from the kitchen lightened her mood. Sophia and Catrin eyed Anna Margareta but said nothing; her sleepless night must have shown on her face. Perhaps they too had overheard the conversation in the attic. The three went down together to help their mother with breakfast. In the kitchen, Anna Margareta asked her mother, “What did Father decide?” Mother shook her head angrily. “Neither one wants the job, it seems.” For once, Sophia was silent; the girls laid the table quietly. When the visitors straggled downstairs, they seemed anxious to be gone. Both young men were polite but spoke little, mostly of the journey back to Hamburg. No one raised the question of their staying; a gloom hung over the conversation and everyone seemed relieved when their carriage arrived. Anna Margareta and her parents followed the visitors out into the courtyard, where a driving rain hastened the leavetaking. As Händel made his farewell to her, Anna Margareta steeled herself and said in a rush “Y-y-y-you play very well, Herr Händel.” This earned her a surprised, shy smile and a quick bow before Händel joined Mattheson in the carriage, which departed quickly into the rain. As they returned to the house, Anna Margareta ventured, “Father? Are you disappointed?” Buxtehude surveyed his daughter thoughtfully. “I don’t think they would have been happy here. Mattheson thinks he is meant for greater things, and Händel, it seems, will do what Mattheson tells him.” Anna Margareta nodded and waited for more. After a moment, Buxtehude asked gently, “And you? Are you disappointed?” Anna Margareta shook her head and withdrew, but continued to contemplate the question as she prepared to run an errand for her mother. Was she disappointed? In some sense, certainly: it hurt less to reject than to be rejected. And she was acutely aware of the disappointment of her mother and sisters, who were so anxious for the matter of Anna Margareta’s marriage to be resolved. But for herself? As Anna Margareta put on her cloak to leave the house she realized that what she was feeling was not disappointment, but relief. Not to have to be the wife of the man with the restless calculating eye, who would never stop seeking his own advantage regardless of the cost to others. Not to be handmaiden to the genius of the other: she knew well how her mother’s life had been subsumed in servitude to her father’s genius. The rain had stopped, and a weak April sun glossed the wet cobblestones as Anna Margareta passed down the street. Above all, she was relieved that the decision had been deferred. She might be Buxtehude’s daughter, to be bartered as part of a business deal, but she was still Anna Margareta Buxtehude and for the moment at least, the possibility of grace was still open to her. Back to top November Taylor Woodworth Shortly after the geese fly south and the Jack O’Lantern smile melts into a grimace, darkness begins to infect. Spreading like fog over a desolate graveyard, the night cloaks the cityscape and I lay sleepless. Between the unfinished tasks of the day and the sound of midnight scraping my name into a lone headstone, I’m afraid the only dream-like state I will inhabit is the all too familiar 4am delirium. My monochromatic days consist of searching for the REM cycle on the washing machine and endless hours of sitcom laugh tracks that giggle at me every time I stumble walking up the stairs. Every hour I sink a little deeper into my memory foam mattress, and hope that the sun will come to rescue me from dusk. Back to top November Sydney Ross lonely tuesday mornings come and go like leaves blowing softly in the wind, my hair dancing around my neck like a noose threatening to tighten at any given moment. Back to top No Welcome Wagon Luka Russo That decrepit ashtray is a gatekeeper, silent and knowing watchdog. I have been here before, crying over traphouse children's laughter, trembling with sisters in school chairs reused. Repurposed. We marked calendars with dead friends birthdays, and that bucket of inkless pens: an unwanted triumph. Now my body is a compass for breathing. I, once a shrouded corset, followed it to this entrance. Where cigarettes wrap secrets until they are burned into the air. I inhale and listen. Home. Anywhere I choose to snarl at my demons. Back to top The Eulogy of a Taxidermied Elk Skull Stephanie Thomson I wonder if I’ll ever be more than a taxidermied skull of an Irish elk hanging from a ceiling with fractured bones, oleanders growing in the cracks, floral overgrowing along the carcass. You’d watch it like a predator stalking its prey. Still and holy. Waxing and waning. Watching like a lonely moon, circulating an abandoned planet. Am I like the taxidermied skull of an Irish elk with overgrown antlers getting entangled in the trees? Too large to support my head as I sink deeper and deeper into the sea. Do my eyes match the hollowed-out gaze of the skull of an Irish elk? Dulled out, fragmented remains of a life once lived. Do you love me like you love the taxidermied skull of an Irish elk? Do you pray to its skeletal remains like a lost deity? Am I nothing but a silhouette? Not even your shadow? Maybe I am nothing but a skull hanging from a ceiling, A forgotten frame ith cracked antlers and blood leaking from the roots. I am the taxidermied skull of an Irish elk. I am the bindings of orthogenesis theory. The long since abandoned theory of how the Irish elk went extinct. Back to top The Stone Pig Casey Elder in the backyard the stone pig plays sentry wisps of smoke drift by on the breeze in the otherwise still night beyond lies the crooked fence bulging with the overgrowth of ivy and aphrodite in the shadow of the big house a hammering on the sauna being built ricochets out into the open air i am looking into the yard where my mother and father were married within the soul of the 70’s from my grandmother’s gardening to my mother’s pruning to mine and my brother’s sometimes sleeping off the drink on the covered swing until the cold crept in the stone pig which nearly toppled me over in moving it sits with all patience, watching Back to top Anchor 1 Anchor 2 Anchor 3 Anchor 4 Anchor 5 Anchor 6 Anchor 7 Anchor 8 Anchor 9

POETRY Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~Plato Home About Welcome Editors 2021 About The Authors Archive 2020 Art Poetry Fiction Groundswell Archive Best Essay Winner -> -> Virginia Lisa Plummer I dig my toes down beneath the hot surface of the sand. My salt water curls dance in the breeze coming off the water. The pink and purple sky casts it all in a rosy glow. There’s a man on the boardwalk, he begins strumming an acoustic guitar. The tinny sound vibrates through the air. It brings thoughts of vinyl records spinning to the stories of your youth, to our midnight doughnut runs. The hot, sweet smell permeates the red cadillac’s interior as Motown sounds escape through the cracked windows. I see you, Virginia, in the granules coating my brightly polished toes, in the way the sun’s brilliance blinds me with its reflection off the water. You are there when I close my eyes, in that moment after a bite of pulled tart taffy, and as warm sugared doughnuts melt in my mouth. I see you, Virginia, when I take in deep gulps of the salt infused air. In stirring melodies springing from struck strings, in vibrant beats that echo your energy. I watch you, in the ocean’s blustering, destructive ways. You’re there, even in its powerful stillness. In the way the waves break and crash, their sound surrounding me, like boisterous laughter, wild and free. no milk, no sugar Katherine Harris i was never one of the pretty girls —wrists the perfect size for a talon’s grip, teeth stained from cigarettes and whitening strips stolen from their mother’s bathroom cabinet along with benzos for all the friends who wouldn’t last until spring. i tell myself i don’t miss drowning in jeans six sizes too big, held up by a shoe-string noose tied long before i tried my first diet, or nights spent on my knees clogging the shower drain with half-chewed chinese food and hair i didn’t have the chance to pull out, or my mother’s grieving smile every time she hugged me just to find another hollow where her daughter once was, but disease has made its home in me and i can’t stay above ground without it. i’m not one for confessionals but God, please, tell me i can fix myself if i bleed enough on the page, that if i empty all the ink from my veins, i will be beautiful in my mother’s face i once thought was a shame i inherited. four years fully recovered and i still take my coffee black. A Lost Voice Gabby Remington As a girl, I sat on a stiff wooden pew and gazed through stained glass; my father’s voice was God. The youngest of three children, I had to be the charm- all soft demeanor and graceful steps. My ears, coin slots. Eagerly accepting words of praise as currency. Every last detail from the warmth of my smile to the honeyed taste of my words, were precisely performed. But no amount of practice could erase the tired from my eyes. Now a woman, I walk the desolate streets plagued by the static sound of an abandoned world. Flash of traffic lights and empty store windows. The silence makes my skin itch and brain buzz. The voice I once knew, gone. All that remains is this quiet. Dear Henry Stella Robertson At the grocery store, just the two of us, the romantic music seems to be laughing at me. I think you must hear it too, but when I gaze through the cereal boxes on the shelf you’re in the other aisle, gently squeezing every single avocado. You look nice in the fluorescent lights and I wonder why you don’t use our shared bathroom anymore, or tell me that I take up a large space in your brain, the way you did that one night when it rained so loud you thought it was the sound of someone rolling in their trash cans for a really long time. We talked about how cool it was when the lightning hit, even though you wouldn’t get all your eight hours of sleep. As I’m looking for eggs I wonder if the other customers think we’re together. We check out separately, and you tell me I owe you $2.43 for paper towels. On the way back I ask you to help me cook brussel sprouts for dinner and you say no because you’ve already planned out each minute of your evening, but at home you stand over me as I add salt and oil to the pan. This house is plastic and the walls are thin so I find myself worrying late at night that you can hear me remembering when you’d hold me so tightly I thought I could spend the rest of our year-long lease in your arms. I wish I had pulled out a piece of paper right then and written out word for word how it felt, so on nights like these when we don’t speak of anything, besides paper towels and brussel sprouts, I’d still have it in my dresser drawer. I Would Rather Be A Champion Than A Martyr David Dionne Facing lions without the bright stigmata of fiction is a different thing by far than a storybook hero hurling steel and fire into the jaws of death. Our death need not bite to reduce our flesh to the shreds and tatters on the colosseum's sandy bleeding floor, spreading our blood on the bright ichor of poor truth. Our lions are toothless and light like celluloid, great beasts without substance that kill us invisibly, and those far away, unexamined, convenient. We victims of the colosseum, we poor and we small, must all guard each other, for the monster comes from behind, snarling in sirens and swinging claws like a nightstick. These are the beasts that pace beside every martyr: hyenas laughing at difference, jackals stealing success, unfeeling snakes, helpless mice, a virus. A hero is a martyr who has slain his lion: a champion the crowd liked already because he shone with the gleam of falsehood. I want a lion like the bright stigmata of fiction: something of flesh and blood, that I can rail against and kill with steel, a frail thing like me. Tulips Jessica Graber The rain sticks to me as I walk down the sidewalk. I carry with me a bouquet of tulips, a long way from Constantinople. This seems too far to be real, as I drift along. I should have known tulips weren’t the correct flower for this occasion. Every holiday and party has an array of roses, baby’s breath, carnations and even marigolds, but tulips... Always the odd one. Always looked down upon when their petals are still entombed around each other, never able to bare themselves as their best. Now, as I scrutinize these purple, parroting, peony wannabes, small droplets of water drip into the plastic crevices of this paltry wrapping. Could these be my watered sorrow, or just the rain adorned on my brow? The Fledgling Katherine Harris With wings outstretched I plummeted —I thrashed and flailed and with a cheep I plunged— but for a moment before I fell, when I met the crescendo of my callow arc, the currents surged, lifted up my hollow bones, and I flew— for a moment I flew! -> ->

Home About Welcome Editors 2021 About The Authors Archive 2020 Art Poetry Fiction Groundswell Archive Best Essay Winner Poetry See some of our poems from past volumes. 2020 “Poetry isn’t an island, it is the bridge. Poetry isn’t a ship, it is the lifeboat. Poetry isn’t swimming. Poetry is water.” ― Kamand Kojouri

Fiction Frigid Blades Stephanie Thomson You knew the Saints, and they were not kind. You knew this, and yet you prayed to them. You're on your hands and knees, bound to the... Read More The Girl Who Glowed Morgan Belden We knew it was too good to be true when she walked into our class, eyes sparkling, and looked at us with a gaze so full of hope and... Read More Hennesy David Hurley In the cool night air of the city, a woman named Moe walks down the street. She walks past dozens of rich town businesses while... Read More Not the Slightest Inclination Penny Harper Anna Margareta Buxtehude glanced nervously out the window of the sitting room as she straightened the cushions on the chairs. Her family... Read More Surrogate Eliza Jones The walls of the cave were red stone, smooth and barren. The ground was slanted, stretching into a darkness the sunlight couldn't... Read More Random Access Memory Tyler Allen You remember you're on a beach, the air cool and wet, and you feel a breeze on your face. You know it's real because... Read More What it Takes to Live Ian Rule Arther took a calming breath and raised the pistol to his head. Candles cast a soft light, filling his living room with a mockingly gentle... Read More

Home About Welcome Editors 2021 About The Authors Archive 2020 Art Poetry Fiction Groundswell Archive Best Essay Winner Art See 2020's amazing art pieces. 2020

Home About Welcome Editors 2021 About The Authors Archive 2020 Art Poetry Fiction Groundswell Archive Best Essay Winner Poetry See some of our poems from past volumes. 2020 “Poetry isn’t an island, it is the bridge. Poetry isn’t a ship, it is the lifeboat. Poetry isn’t swimming. Poetry is water.” ― Kamand Kojouri

Home About Welcome Editors 2021 About The Authors Archive 2020 Art Poetry Fiction Groundswell Archive Best Essay Winner 2020 The Groundswell Conference of Portland Community College provides a place for students to be heard. Throughout each year, professors across the college search for compelling creative and academic student work to be presented at the Groundswell Conference in the spring. The 2020 Conference, which was supposed to be an intimate day full of sharing voices and refreshments, was unfortunately canceled due to COVID-19. Angel of Scorn October 9, 2002. By all accounts, it is a gorgeous day to die in Florida. Placid sunlight beams down on the white roof of Raiford State Prison. From above the prison looks like a twelve-armed cross, twelve cellblocks forming limbs connected by a central beam. In a small room at the heart of the prison, brown curtained in front of the pane of viewing glass, several people gather to witness a woman's execution. Her name is Aileen Wuornos. She is the convicted murderer of six men and “America's first female serial killer.” Compassion In My Eyes When you are homeless, all you have to rely on is somebody's compassion and/or empathy. Whether it be a church group coming by where you are camped handing out sack lunches that generally contained and peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a small bag of potato chips, a granola bar, and an apple or orange with a tiny little napkin and tiny styrofoam cups with hot chocolate or coffee in them or its some random stranger handing you a five, ten, or twenty dollar bill as you sit outside a business, generally a store of some kind, freezing to death because you have nowhere to go and starving cause you have had nothing to eat in days. I Love You Stinky Face Eight years earlier, snug in my bed, I held one side of the same book, I Love You Stinky Face with my left hand. I had a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and a giant mound of pillows behind me. My mom sat next to me, holding the other side of the book. We had read it together so many times that I nearly had it memorized. She turned the page. Always Okay On every brisk morning, my father walked me the five, much too few, minute walk to school. We would pass a pine tree that towered above us, and each day acknowledge its growth. Soon after, we’d meet the crosswalk lady, who was always kind and encouraging. She helped my brothers through their very own bouts of school anxiety in the years after mine. I’d come to know her as the librarian who played the bagpipes in celebration on every last day of school, even following her retirement. Sidewalk Reminisces It is true that humans are an emotionally resilient species. Most of us can persist through trauma, in fact, almost everyone I know lives with it. But it ravishes you and leaves you scathed. When we are hurt beyond our capacity to cope, our brain protects us from the brunt force of the pain. We may act out, we may become reckless, we may even appear apathetic, but this is all in lieu of breaking down. This keeps us from attempting to traverse to the far-away promised land ourselves. Most importantly, it keeps us sane. We may appear out of character, but this emotional response ensures the stability and health of our future. It ensures that we will have a future. Court Bear I am eighteen now and I have never heard from her or seen her again. No phone calls, no letters, not a damn thing. I never even saw her around town ever again. I thank my adoptive mom and dad so much for telling me when I was young because it brings me a sense of love and sincerity knowing the truth. That day taught me to never take loved ones for granted, and I still have my court bear from when I was first adopted over fifteen years ago. I Am An Indian Elephant We neared the end of a talk that lasted almost the whole day and my friend asked if he would be seeing me again. I stopped for a moment, unable to explain. After a minute of blabbering nonsense, trying to make sense of my situation, I thought of a book my dad very ironically had me read when I was younger, Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations. Although I had only read the first chapter, the horrifying example of India’s elephants and their training had always made a deep impression on me: What I wasn't Taught In My Hometown When I later researched this I learned that children were being brought from all over the country to Forest Grove to be “civilized”. After learning a little more about the Natives I decided to visit my high school again and ask about whether or not they have changed the curriculum since I have left or whether or not they started teaching about them more in classes and if I could meet with the vice-principal briefly, but the look that the secretary gave me was like I offended her. The Filtration Pipeline In 2010, a male student was asked to remove his “‘do-rag’” prior to entering his school (Kupchick 79). Despite adhering to the request of the teacher, the student was sent to the principal's office for cursing and exhibiting aggressive behavior. Upon further events, the student tried to leave the office. Only to be stopped by the assistant principal. Due to attempting to push the assistant principal out of the way the student was handcuffed by a “‘school resource officer’” and then arrested (Kupchick 79). Instances such as this one, illustrate the improper methodation of dealing with children of color within schools. Moreover relating the predominant disengagement of students in combat to unfair and harsh punishment. Absence of Color To Those Who Don't Know Their Color: For every black child who has never been black enough: not enough melanin to be included. I'm speaking to you. "You sound 'White,'" they would always accuse. I never understood it. Because I was able to speak proper English? An "Uncle Tom" I have always been since March 17th, 1985.