Sac portfolio

WELL, GUESS WHAT? we can.

YEAH, YOU, THE KID WITH THE INK-STAINED FINGERS AND LOOK OF DESPAIR. YOU’RE A WRITER, RIGHT? OF COURSE YOU ARE. WHAT WOULD YOU THINK IF I SAID,

HEY YOU!i’m from a literary magazine, and we’d LIKE TO Print A FULL BOOK OF YOUR work. oh, AND we’D like TO DO IT FOR FREE.

THE QUIZ & QUILL is calling for submissions forthe 2012 single-author chapbook.

ENTRY RULES

QQuiz

uill&

Compile 12-25 pages of your original work in a single document. These pages can consist of any genre and any number of pieces. (We recommend more than one piece.) These will be the pieces that are published if you win.1

2

3All years and majors are encouraged to submit. Open to current Otterbein students only. English senior writing projects are not eligible. The Q&Q staff will vote on all submissions in the next few weeks.

Send your submission as an attachment to [email protected] by Monday, April 9, at 5 p.m. In the body of your email, include the name and page number of each piece. (Makes it easier on us.)

good luck and happy writing!

SINGLE-AUTHOR CHAPBOOK 2012 | 1

TulipsIN THE

GUTTER,

BLUE LIPSIN THE

GARDENJORDY LAWRENCE STEWART

QUIZ&quilL SINGLE-AUTHOR CHAPBOOK 2012


TULIPS IN THE GUTTER, BLUE LIPS IN THE GARDEN

A COLLECTION OF POETRY BY JORDY LAWRENCE STEWART

QUIZ&quilL SINGLE-AUTHOR CHAPBOOK 2012

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QUIZ quill&otterbein university’s student LITerary MAGazine

MANAGING EDITOR Tony DeGenaroPAGE DESIGNER Mike CirelliCOPY EDITOR Whitney Reedadvertising COORDINATOR Jeff Kintnerfaculty advisor Dr. Shannon Lakanen

Staff Mackenzie BoyerEmily ClarkKayla ForsheyMeg FreadoDanielle GaglianoAlyssa MazeyBrittany Peltier Kathleen Agnes QuigleyJordy Lawrence Stewart

JOIN OUR STAFFQ&Q is always looking for students to join our staff. All years and majors are welcome. We meet every Thursday from 5-6:30. Email [email protected] for more information.

SUBMISSION POLICY Q&Q prides itself on publishing the highest quality creative work. Therefore, every precaution is taken to assure a writer ’s anonymity during the selection process. Only the advisor of Q&Q knows the identi-ties of those who submit work to the magazine until after staff members’ selections are finalized.

CONTACT US Send all inquiries to [email protected].


Short North Hallelujah West Park Street

I Shake Myself to Sleep Sometimes Edisto

Raging Bull If I Don’t Make It to Sleep Tonight

There’s a Coupe Parked on the Pine TreesHere’s Looking at You, Kid

Frame It and Hang It in the BasementA Blue Jean Wax Poetic

Last Lines of the Year So I Am a Ghost Tonight

If You’re Gonna Break It, Break It CleanI’d Write You a Letter, But I’m No Letter Writer

Ashes, Ashes About the Author

TABLE OF CONTENTS

81013151720222426 2830 33 36 40 42 44


I’d like to thank my mother and father for their hard work and faith in my passion. I’d also like to thank my sister for picking me up many, many times and for my good friends who kept me from falling too far down. Finally, for the girl who filled up my head and heart with most of

these words, thank you for your patience and spirit, as I must apologize for the breaking of mine.

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jazz survives on the splashesof a beat up cymbal swingingonto an ocean wave of cool.a ukulele boy singing out in hisbare feet, vocalizing his bare soul.the night is ripe – right as rain.black, steel arches dressed upin white lights painting starson the flowing parade of cars.a turn of the hips and you’ve gotcloud nine echoing from a p.a.blaring beautiful lungs at high E.you want a cigarette and youdon’t even smoke but the nightis smoking. step on out and hearthe chatter of a hundred barswith a hundred different names,and a million different peoplewho have a million different stories to tell.

SHORT NORTH 9/10/11


through my light framesi look through tall windowsonto hung artwork without frames,just as free as the hands that paintedthem. in the steaming machineryof human traffic there’re six legsand maybe one or two sharedhearts, a shop for every countryand an open doorway to get you there.could life be so easy? the world so small?i snap back to my senses snappingmy fingers 1,2,1,2,3,4. duh dah duh.the sidewalk arrives to the impressionistsand their statements, ladders and brushes,creativity’s sweat and time on a twentyfoot stretch of wall and now i’ve got a legion ofaspiration calling for war in my unfit mind.beggars working the corner shake theircups in the rhythm of the beating street:sadness, confusion, sincerity – can you dig it? i’d say endlessly.

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QJORDY LAWRENCE STEWART&A

How long have you been writing poetry? I started writing poetry when I was thirteen or fourteen. It was ter-rible stuff too, but I soon found myself falling in love with the craft, so it’s been about a ten-year love affair so far.

What is your inspiration when working with style and content? I read a lot of poetry, so it’s hard to peg any one person. I enjoy the Beats and their style and sense of language. The kind of madness for form they had – that recklessness and rambling – it really changed how I looked at poetry. Diversity is the key. I can be reading with Shake-speare one night and having a drink with Bukowski the next. I take it wherever I can find it, whatever “it” is anyway.


JORDY LAWRENCE STEWART

What is the story behind your title, Tulips in the Gutter, Blue Lips in the Garden? I’ve been in the position in my life where I had to make the most out of a bad time or sink down with it, and I was there doing that with some of the best people I know. We were all kind of tulips – out bloom-ing in places we shouldn’t have been blooming, all wild-like in the bear rain and snow. The blue lips part is just another spin on that idea I guess. To be blue-lipped, tired, beaten, but not quite defeated and in a beautiful spot all at the same time. I think there’s something to be said for those days and people. We were all just kids out there.

Which poem is your favorite from the collection and why? I don’t think I could pick a favorite. Some of them were easier to write than others, but that doesn’t make one any better than the other. They all have a place for me.

If you could give yourself advice as a beginning writer what would it be? If you don’t feel like you have to write, then don’t write. Many people want to be a “writer.” But I think a lot of the time writers find themselves writing when they wish they could be out doing other things. The writer is a slave to his or her words and perceptions. There’s usually no want at all – only the need. I tell myself to put the “what I want” of my writing to the side. It only gets in the way.

What writers do you enjoy, even if they do not directly influence your style? J.D. Salinger is at the top of the list. He had such an innate ability and understanding of his own work. You have faith and conflict with these people he wrote to life. I’ve always respected and admired that quality in a writer, and he’s the first person who comes to mind.

If you could smoke a cigarette with one poet, who would it be and what would you say? Maybe Keats, yeah, I think it would be Keats, at least right at this moment. He was around my age when he was doing his thing, and he was bold when it came to writings of the heart. It’s hard to walk that line between what should be made public and what should stay private. I’d ask him about that, if he was ever self-conscious or afraid of that thin distinction of choice. Though I don’t know how the smoking would go over with him.

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What challenges did you face while writing the collection? There are pieces in this collection that span from one month ago to three years ago. It was hard putting together a collection of the right variety and cohesion. It was also difficult cutting a final product that I thought people would want to read.

How much sleep did you lose preparing these pieces for publication? I don’t think I could count the hours. It was more the wild nights of thinking and self-derision that came before the actual writing of some of these poems that ate up most of my nights. I was going on one or two hours of sleep a night back in the fall. That was when I was doing my best writing though.

What is your project as a poet? I want to inspire people, but not in a conventional way. I want people to feel something – hopefully something refreshing – and I want them to get all crazy about it. There are lives being lived that people don’t normally like to talk about or ignore entirely, but there’s always more to it than that. I guess the catalyst of my work is that taboo Amer-ican story, but my project is everything else that surrounds it. There’s no time for apathy or ignorance, and that’s why poetry is important to me.

What do you hope people will take away from this collection of poetry? Joy, sorrow and everything in between – if the reader could pick up this collection and feel something different from the time before they picked it up – that would be enough for me.

Why don’t you use capitalization in your poems? I do, but rarely. Capitalization is a device I like to use to give more meaning to something in the poem or to show that something is “big-ger” than I am.

What advice do you have for beginning poets? Read twice as much as you write, and don’t take life too seriously.

What would you like to do after college? I’d like to teach college English and hopefully publish some of my work on the side. Traveling is also something I’d like to do.

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THE QUIZ&quilL SINGLE-AUTHOR CHAPBOOK is a yearly publication filled entirely with the work of one author. To determine who this author is, the Q&Q editorial staff reviews and votes on the submissions of multiple authors. During the voting process, all works are left unsigned to ensure total objectivity. This year, the poetry of junior Jordy Lawrence Stewart, a creative writing major, was selected to be published in the single-author chapbook. For more information on Jordy, flip to the Q&A in the last few pages of the chapbook.

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