The Spirit That Moves Us for people looking for a place to speak in the old way

Volume 1, Number 1 Fall 2012 $3.95

ISSN 2166-2622

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The Spirit That Moves Us

The Spirit that Moves Us: for people looking for a place to speak in the old way (ISSN 2166-2622), Fall 2012, Vol. 1, No. 1, is a literary and artistic semi-annual publication by Writers House Press, an apostolate of the Oblates and Missioners of St. Michael.

Copyright © 2012 by the Oblates and Missioners of Sts. Michael. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, including translation into other languages, reserved. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the permission of the publisher. Download Price: $5.00/year. Single Copy: $2.95 CD Price: $7.00/year. Single Copy: $3.95 Postage: US/Canada: $2.00 per issue International: $4.00 per issue Submission of manuscripts or artwork is accepted online only at: http://writers-house-press.org/spirit/submit-manuscript/ Published by: Writers House Press 1111 S. Sheridan Ave Ottumwa, Iowa 52501 Main Website: http://www.writers-house-press.org/ Magazine Website: http://www.writers-house-press.org/spirit/ Opinions expressed by contributing authors, or depicted in artwork by contributing artists do not necessarily reflect those of the The Spirit That Moves Us magazine, its publishing and editorial staff, Writers House Press, or the Oblates and Missioners of St. Michael or its divisions, or the granting agencies and contributors who may support this work. Writers House Press has received the Outstanding Small Press Recognition from the Pushcart Prize Competition.

The Spirit That Moves Us for people looking for a place to speak in the old way

Volume 1, Number 1 Fall 2012

Contents

OETRY

NATHAN WHITING Six Line Poems

Ugly with a Fine Smell ............................................................... 3 Agatha’s Bewildered Yell ............................................................ 3 We Wear Today’s Costume ......................................................... 3 I Vanish, Joy in Place of Me ....................................................... 4 Rainbowstruck Play .................................................................... 4 Birds See What Birds Eat ........................................................... 4 Wealth Rises ................................................................................ 5 Attain Lizard Sight ..................................................................... 5 Lamps Get Used to Dark ............................................................ 5

DIANE WEBSTER Till Sated ............................................................................................ 6 Corner Eyes ........................................................................................ 6 Bird Man ............................................................................................ 7 Candle Imagery .................................................................................. 7

KATHERINE GOTTHARDT Grotto ................................................................................................. 8

MAGDALENE ESEKHILE I am Psalmos ...................................................................................... 9

SIMON PERCHIK You mourn the way this sand.......................................................... 11 You have this kinship, the limp ...................................................... 12 The dead the snow hold back .......................................................... 12 One hand held out—you expect ....................................................... 13 What a strange crop the smell ........................................................ 14

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reams MICHAEL HARP

A Wake ......................................................................................... 17

ETTERS ROVING EDITOR ...................................................................................... 21

ral History JOHN WILDER

On the Mississippi: Interview with Rebecca Johnson ................ 29

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS ............... 37

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EDITORIAL STATEMENT

The founders of The Spirit that Moves Us hold to the notion that meaning resides in us all. If that is so, then meaning must be one definition of what it means to be human. It is the various expressions of meaning that help us to understand what humans are up to these days. We fully recognize the unconscious desire for expression which is often considered unacceptable. For one reason or another many do not or cannot speak for themselves or for their community. Perhaps the chance as never been given to them, we do not know, but we hope to find out. To paraphrase an old teacher, this journal exists for people looking for a place from which to speak in the old way, as one person with something important to tell another. We solicit all forms of artistic endeavor that can fit into the two-dimensional space of a periodical and able to be submitted digitally: poetry, fiction, essays, letters, oral histories, photos, prints, and poetry, prose, and artwork from children. We are eclectic in our needs as this most nearly reflects the pluralistic nature of human experience and expression.

POETRY

They ask what your poetry means. Why don’t they ask the apple-tree what its fruit means - the apple? Probably if the apple-tree could speak it would reply: “Sink your teeth into the apple, and you’ll see what it means!” ... They ask you how you have come to create poetry. Why don’t they ask the rock how it has created the gem or the bird the fledgling or the woman the child? ... Without self-obliteration there is no concentration, without concentration there is no inspiration, without inspiration there is no revelation, without revelation there is and can be no poetry ... After you have composed poetry, where is your post? Certainly not within poetry: fancy finding in the apple the grains of the earth that nourished it! Maybe your post is behind poetry? No, not there either: your shadow would fall on poetry and confuse it. Under poetry, deep under it, that is your post: like every other fostering-ground.

— Vasko Popa

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NATHAN WHITING

Six Line Poems

These are not prose poems, but six line poems that contain the essence of a longer poem. The lines come out the same length as a discipline, for here a structure underlies the picture or the wording, perhaps a puzzle. —Nathan Whiting

Ugly with a Fine Smell

Agatha’s Bewildered Yell

We Wear Today’s Costume

A dry tree, far from control, shouts to meet a kind of wind. Spicy bark worthy of export Preserved this old tree well. Seeds drift lonely. One will Grow into a spiteful sapling.

It it’s heard one way, joy will be the message. If it turns the other, it seems a howl of horror. Which? Windows open. Day is cold. Uncles Embrace the sound family members keenly When her shout arrives. Did Agatha just die? Ladies who pull skin off tin cans, slyly smile.

Actually it’s the new costume of yesterday as the pharaoh of tomorrow orders coffee. “Yu have lips and a belly well preserved” the priestess implies. “You have a granite chin like an ibis after a scarab in a swamp of dismal crocodiles” the pharaoh coughs.

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I Vanish, Joy in Place of Me

Rainbowstruck Play

Birds See What Birds Eat

Thrills change me to elation. Could I be glad with me, the time of my vanished life happy as an (unheard) lark, the joy of (unmet) wisdom? Yes, few teach poets magic!

Prism colors rule by rattle horridly when bats whistle down. Children love bat flight. “Dark glasses dad.” Young eyes have yet to grow a skin vultures can’t smell. Prisms rotate. Scream. Colors clang. Tears laugh.

Moms on Coney Island Ave. leave Moslem prayer in raucous yellows, incisive greens or pleading scarlet, son met on a rubberized play yard. Men go for gossip to the only place To offer no drinks with spicy snacks.

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Wealth Rises

Attain Lizard Sight

Lamps Get Used to Dark

The Robin Hood of finance roves nearby A planet made of rock, seas and what lies over rock and in rock has been assaulted. The robin prances with her worm tricked from earth. Beaks also pull up oil rudely.

A reflection or prayer (it’s not sure which) hopes a train can take it to a favorite abyss all the clocks in Europe can’t detect. Faith trembles, a lamp inside a glacier the effect. Beams enlighten dragonflies. Crickets fly full of being, ripe in a cavern of cold blood.

What else can they do? Let us live in vaster dark with a secret visitor from Andromeda, where I not only can’t own light, I can’t know light, shocked to learn I did. I hike past chills to meet for years with death.

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DIANE WEBSTER

Till Sated

Suddenly overnight as dreams forgot to lodge in memory because sunshine stretched like his legs in bed he decided to wear aftershave… at first overwhelming, lingering like the woman’s perfume he used to complain about that hovered in air particles like sneeze residue after the host leaves. Maybe he prefers his own scent to battle masculine dominance even over the air we breath in tiny, barely life-sustaining sniffs or perhaps the two stink in a mating ritual the man you woman in flared nostrils like a thirsty horse scenting water before he gallops to shore sucking till sated.

Corner Eyes

She lives next door in the corner of my eye old woman, head down, always intent as if counting sidewalk squares to the grocery, to the bank, to her building out back until one day she lifted her face skyward at a corner and lost her way; she called to me. I helped Peggy, with macular degeneration, one block to the store, only now seeing I was always in the corner of her eye too.

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Bird Man

The bird-watcher man beneath his always wild bed hair and equal-to-it beard wears his coat open as it may not have the strength to close around his round body girth as he trundles up the road like a displaced penguin stopped when sane hill cranes ascend into Colorado sky.

Candle Imagery

The restaurant painted holiday candles across it window front — a beacon of false light, is safe harbor for hungry travelers as each white candle burns and melts in frozen imagery of the real. But the largest candle with molten wax descending like a naked woman’s breasts especially since someone on the inside erased paint to nipple size and location proudly proclaims, “Best food in town!”

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KATHERINE GOTTHARDT

Grotto

Sometimes a storm strips in my mind, clouds of something everlasting, a bird’s cry for mercy and worms. And I, in my own naked head, wander back to the monastery, the grotto, the place my parents brought me when I was young. God was always a cloud, beams streaming through gray, like my most brilliant self.

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MAGDALENE ESEKHILE

I am Psalmos

Oh Tehillim, Tehillah am I, Music of the lyre, song sung to a harp. A gyne of proves am I, For integrity of heart do I posses. Oh Adonai YHWY, A product of favour did I come into the earth, Created to fill the void By falling before your presence With ainesis and proskuneo. Anointed with oil from the great horn as my father, David was. Glorious are You in Your Ways, The universe acknowledges Your Sovereignty. I was born a weak, defenceless child, But Your angel, spreading his radiant wings, Guarded my cradle. From my birth, Your love has illumined my paths, And has wondrously guided me towards the light of eternity. From my first day until now, The generous gifts of your providence Have been wonderfully showered upon me. I give you thanks, and with all those who have come to know you, I exclaim: Glory to you for calling me into being, Glory to you for Spreading out before me the Beauty of the universe, Glory to you for revealing to me through heaven and earth the Eternal book of wisdom, Glory to your eternity within this fleeting world, Glory to you for your mercies, Seen and unseen, Glory to you for every Sigh of my sorrow, Glory to you for every step In my life’s journey, For every moment of joy, Glory to you, O God, From age to age.

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Oh Tehillim, Tehillah am I Music from a broken, porous heart Like the sharp axe cuts through wood So does my good heart cuts Through to Thee. Nearer are Thee to me, oh nearer For Thy very heartbeat, Which is thy secret place Thy Ikaros and Okia I dwell in Operate not my heart Outside Thy heart. For the lot of Thy Inheritance In a howly wilderness did I find Thee Circumsize my ears Oh YHWH For Thy voice I long to hear Beautiful are Thou to me In the strength of the Holy Spirit Each flower gives out Its scent – sweet perfume, Delicate colour, Beauty of the whole universe Revealed in the tiniest thing. Glory and honour to God The Giver of life, Who covers the fields with Their carpet of flowers, Crowns the plains With harvest of gold And the blue of corn-flowers, And our souls with The joy of contemplating him. O be joyful and sing to him: Alleluia

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SIMON PERCHIK

* You mourn the way this sand has no strength, keeps warm between one day and another and your closed hands that need the place left by a small stone dropping slowly in water though what rests here is the emptiness already mist and nothing starts again —you dig as if this beach blossoms once your fingers open and these dead lose their way among the flowers that no longer come home —-you kneel easily now pulled down by your shadow following head first as rain heavier and heavier tracing a face with just your lips and worn out nod.

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* You have this kinship, the limp

balances you and the Earth already blossoming with nothing under it though you lift one foot closer to the other hillside after hillside the way mud settles and clots —you're used to losing, come so this cane can grab your hand almost in time and what's left above the ground, knows you're drowning, in rain stops and starts, in dirt and tells you everything.

* The dead the snow hold back you rub between your hands —it's glare you're after before it disappears the way a cemetery fence is painted, then overflows —to get more white you let this bathroom sink open up in water wrap the soap over and over in that same wood still burning—how else can you bathe, the door closed and follows you out chased by flowers and the cold.

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* One hand held out—you expect it to end pressed against a rain already mixed with turns and falling too far —what you will remember is how this road died down though you needed both hands when it counted the way these handlebars still reach for a quiet place and the sound your arms make when holding close—she would forget with you what's ahead, sometimes dripping, sometimes she would lean as far as possible without touching your bones or make room.

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* What a strange crop the smell spread out the way this mud is plowed already warmed by the descent used to one, one more, one more though you are circling it with your mouth left open holding nothing, moving nothing nothing but this dirt no longer thirsty, confident —what struggles here is the rain still on the ground, thinning out as lakes, at most as lips and distances —here you've got to bend to get a closer grip, pull up this hillside broken loose and lean into where this water takes you handcuffed, smashed against the rocks and on your knees more kisses.

DREAMS

One of the most intriguing phenomena common to our species is the dream. Barely out of the cave, humans developed entire philosophies and mythologies around this ephemeral experience. A profession of dream interpreters entertained and even directed the state policies of kings. Today we are still intrigued by these ancient prophets as we read the stories in the Bible and other religious scriptures and in secular writing such as that of Nostradamus. Modern prophets have also captured our imaginations as found in the works of Freud, the proclamations of psychics, and in the teachings of the popular psychology movement. Dreams have come to be realized as significant in the maintenance of mental health, in the progress of personal growth, and in the awareness of the workings and motives of the sub-conscious. Society as a whole has come to know what the artist and writer has always known — that dreams are invaluable in the realization of personal and creative insight. This section will explore dreams as they are remembered by the dreamer. Interpretations will be left to the reader's imagination.

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MICHAEL HARP

A Wake

ust woke up from a different sort of dream. They’re all different sorts, but this one was real, like a presence still with me. To describe exactly my feelings: It was the kind of nightmare that sits and waits, perched in the dark, glaring at

and whispering threats into the rhythm of your heart. Your twitching brow is its delight, and eventually the dream (or presence that inspired it) flows forward and settles above your chest, sinking into your pores like ice melting. Slowly as rain with open graves, all that you are becomes submerged. Finally, amid the chaos of suffocation, terror reaches through your soul and around your spine, snatching you awake. A meeting in a garden- “Shall we kill our king?” I leapt off through the forest to tell what I’d heard. Twisting and stomping, a thought sparked inside my heart and slowed me to silence. I began to understand that it was I in the garden. I had been conversing. I have been plotting against the king! Then I saw myself: Sitting on large roots of a tree, I was gazing into the afternoon, while at the same time a paint-like mud started down the bark behind me. From branches high-up, it rolled on to my shoulders and made a mess of my forearms. Cool air fluffed my bangs as the substance oozed over my scalp and around my eyes. I looked closely and then had to turn away, for I saw that it was blood. Leaving myself behind, I came to spot where I viewed yet another, smaller tree. More blood—this time forming and dripping from all the little green leaves. I was entranced as the dots plummeted and appeared inside the ground’s shadows, masses of them layering the dirt. At some point, a breeze came through and lifted them sideways. I looked up and opened my palms. Closing my eyes closed, it felt like rainfall. Again, I could see myself:

Awkwardly stepping about in the sun, I looked as though I had taken an unholy shower. My splashed head and neck… My spattered, pale cheeks… It was eerie. And I could not get over that dumb expression on my face. Then, the woods grew black. All cracks of light died, as if something giant had gathered everything in its fists and grinded it. Unnatural sounds crept, and as I tried to make them out, I was violated. Gritty noises, deep and rising, blared through me offending my spirit. They flooded my brain and it didn’t seem fair! I tried to run, but was blocked. Something was staring into my face. “Enemy,” it hissed. “There is no escape for you.” I did not recognize the voice as male or female, and, in fact, I would say that it was neither. In my confusion, I saw

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what appeared to be a flash of eyes. Sneering teeth in the blackness. Amusement? The creature spoke my name, but from which direction, I wasn’t allowed to know. It said my mother’s name, the names of my uncles, grandparents, and two sisters. All appeared in the order they were called, standing in a line about ten feet in front of me. Everyone was looking down, naked with their hands folded. I was terrorized to the core, but then my mother raised her head. Coming near, she squeezed my hand and held it to her face. Locking eyes with me, she took my index finger into her mouth and bit down like something starved. Pain struck my heart and shot my arm to pieces. The creature had been there all along, and it was then that it seized my gut and wrenched it. “Enemy!” It shouted. “Enneeeemmy!” It screamed. Upright and damp, I watched figures disappear in the air and held my trembling stomach. My father was chopping wood outside below with Old Rusty (his axe). I wiped off tears and gathered myself to the window; his arms come to a stop. Turning slowly, he saw me there and frowned, and then went back to swinging.

LETTERS

…being letters of a personal nature, lost or discarded, found by our roving editor in his meanderings through the heart of the country looking for the poet of then many.

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ROVING EDITOR The following extracts from the letters of women who were in deeply melancholic states furnish a vivid picture of the way in which suicidal ideas may fasten upon the mind, of the mental anguish which it may occasion, and of the strange inconsistency, not uncommon in mental disorders, of a strong inclination to suicide accompanying the belief that death will be immediately followed by the everlasting torments of hell.

want you to know how much more the state of my soul has to do with the thought of suicide and with the agony in which I live than you would have any idea of from our short interview of yesterday. I left school at sixteen, and I am now thirty-one years of age. I cannot remember ever having the thought of

destroying myself or any one else before leaving school, but I do remember now that many years ago I was every now and then distressed with the idea. I heard a long while ago that two of my great uncles had destroyed themselves, and that made me fear that I had inherited insanity. But now with regard to the exercises of my soul. You, I suppose, regard my brain as the cause of all I suffer; I cannot for one moment believe that. It is something that cannot be reached by any remedies, I am sure. Every day and all the day I have before we my past life with all its privileges, mercies and sins—my whole character clearly before me in every point—the maddest remorse at knowing that up to this moment I have lived without God in the world, although outwardly so exemplary in many respects. I have such thoughts of time and eternity, heaven and hell, the soul and the body, and the relative importance of things material and spiritual as I believe no one has who is not on the verge of eternity. I have the inexpressible agony of knowing that my life is over so far as any possibility of salvation is concerned. Can you—no, you cannot picture to yourself the anguish of one who has loving parents, brothers and sisters, all, all Christians going to heaven, a beautiful home, everything external to give nothing but happiness, yet so intensely realizing that there is nothing but Hell before her, that she does not know how to endure existence from day to day. You talk of my case as bad but not hopeless. I know that it is hopeless. I know that the worm that dieth not, that the fire that is not quenched, is raging within me. Burning memories consume me every day, and I ask you what rest there can be for the brain when the soul is in such a hopeless state. It is a fiery tongue that carves the image of this life into death—and poems of which the following I offer as confirmation of my doom. She can not. Spider, Forgive her. She has no reason. She goes down to the shade of a hair. She dies fully on the floor. A mouse enters her room. She gets out of bed. She goes to her desk. She opens the stream in both arms.

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It’s almost over. Her father bellows in the furnace. Overhead a spider drops a thread. She thinks of her mother’s depressing kindness. She peers through the window Of the medicine cabinet At bottles of poison, bandages, cotton swab, And screams without appearing to. Awake for the night Owls speak wisdom in the attic. A face is washed in the bathroom. Somebody says good night. I cannot and do not believe. oh! how I wish I could that there is now sufficient cause in my body for my anguished state of heart and soul: it seems utterly impossible to me. Then another thing strikes me more forcibly. I was not getting gradually, more susceptible when I heard of a murder or suicide. I had had no sudden shock; indeed, I had felt worse several years before. And yet without the slightest warning the thought came back, was intermittent for three or four weeks, and on my return home in July it was completely fastened upon me so that I could not forget it one minute when awake—wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, positively I could not forget, although I longed to do so—for I had no desire, no motive to commit suicide. But very soon I became religiously depressed, and about the middle of August I felt sure that I was lost for ever without the possibility of pardon. … Now I want you to see this very plainly that whereas at first I had every minute the thought of suicide without any motive to commit it, now and for a long time past the very hell in which my lost soul lives makes me so desperate that I feel as though I can not continue in the body—no motive at first, though certainly of hell for ever now driving me to it. . . . What life has been, and what it should have been in every respect, I see now with the agony of one who knows that the probation is over, and that there is nothing but death and hell before him. Only with me I have not the privilege of being diseased in body and thus stricken to death. I have got to put an end to myself over agony of heart and soul—an unforgiven, lost soul. Now, can you truly say that weak nerves produce all this? Oh, it is not so! I am quite sure that I shall never again return to my home and family. Such bliss will never be for me. God will not thus rescue me from the very jaws of hell, for it is there, I assure you, that I am. And one day you and my friends will know that I am a terribly true prophetess. There are indications of mental improvement in some of the expressions in that letter, which were confirmed by the next, received two weeks afterwards:

wished to be the first to have the pleasure of telling you of my decided improvement, but my husband has forestalled me. I was afraid of acknowledging it at first, lest the fancied change should prove a delusion. I

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Mercifully it was not so. Oh! how different I am from what I was even a week ago…. Still my thoughts run so much in one groove. The idea of suicide constantly there, without however, the wish to commit it. Do you think the time will ever come when for a whole day I shall never even think of it? I cannot yet imagine such freedom. I feel like one turned back from the brink of the grave to life and home and friends again—verily, I have been in a chamber of horrors! How glad I shall be to think less of myself! After a little time more, she recovered entirely.

§ § § § Dialogue with a psychiatrist on the woman question:

he Doctor has been talking with me today upon the feelings I manifested towards my husband. The Doctor asked: “Mrs. M, do you think it would be considered as natural, for a true woman to meet one who had been a lover and a husband, after one year’s separation, even if he had abused her,

without one gush of affection?” “Yes sir, I do say it is the dictates of the higher nature of a woman to do so in my case. He has by his own actions annihilated every particle of respect I have ever felt for his manhood, and thus my higher moral nature instinctively abhors him. To bestow upon such a man a gush of sensual affection, would be an insane act in me, inasmuch as it would demonstrate that my lower nature ruled my higher; whereas sanity requires that the higher rule the lower. I have obeyed the dictates of my conscience in doing so.” “Do you feel sure yours is a right conscience?” “It is one I am willing to go to God’s judgment bar with.” “Do you believe the bible?” “Indeed I do, every word of it! it is our sure word of prophecy.” “Does not the bible require forgiveness?” “It does, sir, on the ground of repentance, even seventy times seven. But without it, we are not allowed to forgive, lest it harden the offender in his sins, Mr. M has never by word or deed intimated that he has done one unjust or wrong deed in treating me as he has done, much less that he is sorry for it, and now for me to treat him as my husband, would be saying to him, ‘I think you are doing all right in treating me as you are.’ Thus I should be upholding him in his sins, by thus disregarding God’s express directions.”

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Besides, Mr. M is not satisfied with branding me as insane, but is trying to defame my virtue also, and he bases this charge upon my benevolent regard for the hap-piness of others! O most cruel man! Does he not know that my regard for God is superior to all others? Could the sovereign of my higher nature—conscience—be made the servant instead of the ruler of my lower nature? Nay, verily, my very nature renders it a moral impossibility! Oh, how my nature is blasphemed! My husband has rebelled against the best government in the world, that of Jesus Christ; who has established the government of the individual conscience. He ignores that government, by insisting that his own conscience is a safer guide for me than my own. And because I cannot yield to this usurpation he is determined to ruin me. “Rule or ruin” is his motto, If I could only feel as some undeveloped women do, that it Is right to give up the responsibility of their own actions to their husbands, I could then say “I will do and think as he pleases, since I am a nonentity after marriage!” If God regarded me as the law does, in this respect, I could willingly yield my conscience to get my children. But he does not. He holds me as an entity, subject to his own laws equally with my husband. Therefore I cannot do wrong to get my children. While this sacred right of my nature is ignored by our government, I protest against this usurpation, and claim that my children are mine, by the first right of nature. Neither should my children be allowed to suffer this loss of a mother’s care, for this is their God appointed heritage, and no man should dare to alienate their most precious boon of their existence. God has given them to me; and no law or man has any right to force me from them. I do believe that to have my body roasted at the stake, I should not have suffered a tithe of the anguish my spirit has already suffered by this unnatural separation. I have felt that I could echo the wailings of a mother here, who, with streaming eyes exclaimed, “Oh, I would willingly give this house full of gold if I had it, to be with my children!” On the Doctor’s visit today he asked, “Mrs. M, what is meant by ‘Wives, obey your husbands?’” Now as my imprisonment is a false one, and as I am entirely capable of assuming a self-reliant position, being in the full possession of all my mental and physical faculties, and having ever been an eminently practical woman, I already know how to use these faculties for my own pecuniary support, without the advice or aid from others Thus I answered him in this manner: “It means that he is the head, or the senior partner of the firm, and the wife the junior partner, or companion. He has this headship assigned to him instead of the wife, because he is the best fitted in nature to defend and protect the wife and children. He is the head, to protect, but not to subject the rights of the other members of the household. This headship gives him no more right to become the despot, than the junior position of the wife allows her to become his slave. Being associated as partners, does not confer on either, the right of usurpation.” “But what shall be done, when, on a point of common Interest, they can not agree?”

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“The junior must yield her views to the senior’s.” “But supposing the wife feels that the husband’s plans will bring disaster upon the family interests?” “It is her duty to yield notwithstanding, after she has urged all her strong reasons against it, for unless she does, she trespasses on his right as ‘head’ of the firm. The risk must be assumed by some one, and as the head is compelled to bear this responsibility, he ought to be allowed to act in accordance with his own judgment, after the opinions of his junior partner have been candidly weighed. Then, if disaster follows, she has no right to complain, for this is one of the indispensable and inseparable liabilities of a co-partnership relation. Understanding this principle when she entered the firm, she would be domineering over an inalienable right of her partner to do otherwise. Unless this principle of justice can be peaceably conceded, there is no alternative except a peaceable dissolution, or a civil war.” Whether a married woman can retain her personal identity or not, is the great practical question involved in my case. This great question should be discussed, examined, and placed in the focal light of the present age, so that an intelligent verdict may be rendered upon it. My painful experience furnishes convincing proof that the agitation of this question has become a practical necessity, for no woman can now develop her higher nature, under the subjective influence of this marital power, without the most fierce heartrending struggles. O God! guide, direct, control, each and every influence bearing upon this momentous subject! For peace, regardless of justice, is a treacherous sleep, whose waking is death.

ORAL HISTORY

Oral history is about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life. It is captured memories and perceptions preserved as an aural record for future generations.

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JOHN WILDER

On the Mississippi An Interview with Rebecca Johnson

On the Mississippi is the story of an Iowa woman who challenged the River alone by canoe, Rebecca Johnson, Becca as she is known to her friends, at the age of 23 became the first woman in history to complete the near 3000 miles of the Mississippi River from Lake Itasca, Minnesota to New Orleans. Her trip began May 23 and ended August 26, 1975.

Her story is one of a twentieth-century Huckleberry Finn adventure with danger, pirates, heart-warming encounters, physical hardships, loneliness, and ultimately personal rewards.

Rebecca Johnson was born in Indiana in the town of Connersville. At five years

of age, her family moved to Tama, Iowa where she spent most of her childhood. After high school Becca came to the University of Iowa as an engineering student. Bored with her studies she attended the undergraduate writer’s workshop and the art school. “I dabble at things,” she says. “I dabble at this and I dabble at that. I dabbled at engineering for three years. I dabbled at writing for a couple of years. And I’m good enough at this stuff that I get bored quickly. I know that sounds vain, but it’s not. Things come relatively easy for me I never get really good at anything for that reason. Success comes early so I never strive any farther… I just get bored.”

Becca says she has always felt “taken care of.” She met her husband at the age of nineteen. She spent some time in the university dorms but says she basically went from the care of her parents to the care of her husband. She believes this didn’t give her a chance to discover any reality in life. She wanted to know more, to experience more of what life had to offer. The idea of the Mississippi trip was born. In her words:

The best answer I can come up with as to why I did it is that although I was twenty-three it was a coming of age—a sort of Jewish idea of bar mitzvah—a coming into my own where I could handle things on my own. The only time I had to myself between mom and dad and my first husband was a brief time in the university dorms. But the dorms don’t teach you anything about anything… college doesn’t either. I decided I needed to know something about reality. I thought the Mississippi trip would teach me. Beyond that I don’t know why I wanted to do that particular thing. I only knew I wanted to do it... that I had to do it... the minute I thought of it I knew I had to do it. It became an obsession. That is probably the most honest reason why... it was something I could do to prove myself... that I was what I thought I was… that I could do anything. I discovered I was right. I can still do anything. I’m intelligent enough and courageous enough.

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The best compliment I received on the River was from a hillbilly in Arkansas. He said, “Lady, I don’t know how you’re gonna take this, but you got balls!” That’s the best compliment I got. I loved it, I absolutely loved it.

The following is the first in a series of excerpts from many hours of interviews with Rebecca Johnson.

That river was mean and ugly and the hardest goddamn thing anybody could ever imagine. People shot at me. People tried to rape me. You know I was constantly being sexually harassed and harassed in ugly, vicious, and nasty ways. I had to fight the elements. I had to fight alligators. I had to fight bears. You name it, it was there. And yet it was fun, it was great fun. And I made it.

One Ranger told me I couldn’t make it. He said 200 people a year attempt the River. He asks all of them to send him a card when they get to New Orleans. Most of them, he said, didn’t even make Bemidji which is only three days downstream. He told me no one made Grand Rapids. So, I sent him a card from Bemidji. I sent him a card from Grand Rapids. I sent him a card from St. Anthony Falls near the Twin Cities. I sent him a card... oh god… from every town I stopped in. I sent that sucker a card all the way down the river and I don’t even remember his name. Isn’t that terrible? But he made me mad. A lot of times he was the reason I pushed on. You know, that’s rude to tell someone they can’t make it. You wish them luck if nothing else. He was just a real cantankerous old cuss and he kept telling me, “Nobody ever makes it, nobody ever makes it.” I made it.

* * * * * * * * *

The Mississippi was my great adventure. But the River was the hardest thing I’ve… no it isn’t… raising kids is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. At least with the River you know how far you have to go. With kids you’re never quite sure.

Actually there’s a lot of things I’ve done since then that were harder, but nothing that leaves you with the same sense of I’ve done it. Once I made the River I had a certain amount of security in knowing that no matter what happened to me I could survive, I could make it. A lot of people were surprised that I didn’t have a breakdown because of some of the life crises I’ve had. Not only did I not have a breakdown but I thrived–at least eventually–and got myself up from the ground and the dirt.

The river was under my belt. If I could handle that I could handle anything. I think if nothing else that sense of security in myself will last me the rest of my life.

I use the River too. Whenever I’m feeling insecure the River is the first thing I drop on myself–I’m the only woman to canoe down the river and all that. I’ve discovered that about my own psychology.

* * * * * * * * *

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I slept wet and cold a lot of times. When I started out Lake Itasca had just thawed. That water was cold and it was rainy and it was wet. I kept telling myself that this was a great adventure that I can tell my grandkids someday. That sustained me a lot of times… thinking of the great stories I could tell to my grandchildren. You can laugh a lot of stuff off if you think of it in that context. It puts you in a frame of mind to put things into perspective. Otherwise you’re so bloody miserable that you can’t go on. So you put it into some sort of life perspective, or try to, and it helps you deal with very difficult situations when they come up.

* * * * * * * * *

...and if people could just view life as being great fun. I think we have to view what’s happening to us right now, no matter how horrible it is, in the context of a great adventure to tell the kids about someday. I think that really puts things into perspective.

Christ, can you imagine going through… god… all the horrible things the people who settled this country had to go through? Can you imagine being out in the middle of nowhere by yourself and suffering a broken leg and yet making it… and you know people did it. That’s a lot worse than anything that happened to me. I had a lot of close calls but these people actually had things happen. And they made it. It’s how you view life’s situations that I think keeps you satisfied… keeps you pleased with the quality of your life.

* * * * * * * * *

It was rough. It was really rough. I had friends tell me when I got back, “Oh, I could have done that.” I said, “Fine, I bet you could, but prove it. All you would have to do is to go the first two weeks and the last two weeks. That’d prove it to me.”

In the first few weeks the river is very narrow and then turns into several large lakes. There is Cass Lake and Lake Winnibigoshish and others. Plus there are large pools backed up behind the many dams which really are large enough to be lakes. When you get a little breeze across these pools or lakes you know you’re out in some weather. It can be really dangerous.

Lake Winnie (Winnibigoshish) was the worse as far as weather goes. I started in the morning with the weather looking kinda nasty. But I thought I could make it across–it was fourteen miles. The lake sort of kidneys out so if you want to take the shortest way across you have to go straight across the middle. I knew the weather was rotten but I followed a fishing fleet. As long as I stayed with them I knew I would be relatively safe.

About half way across it hit. Thirty mile per hour gale winds. It was scary as hell. The wind was behind me so it was helping me push but the canoe’s hydrodynamics caused it to turn sideways into the wind. I was fighting all the way to keep the canoe straight.

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I knew it was dangerous. I was out in the middle when the storm broke. I knew I was in the middle because on the water level the horizon is seven miles away. All I could see was a line ahead of me and a line behind me. Nothing but water all around.

Fifteen minutes before the storm broke the fishing fleet took off. It was like they disappeared into thin air. One minute they were there and the next I couldn’t see them anywhere. I said to myself, “Oh boy, I’ve had it, I’ve had it. The storm’s coming. I know I’m in trouble.” it was a constant fight. Your back starts screaming after a while. But if you’re scared enough you keep fighting. The storm came and I survived it, obviously. It wasn’t that bad in that I did live through it. But it was bad. I don’t want to go through that again.

I finally got to a fisherman’s dam… a little fishing village. They let me dock there to wait out the storm and to dry out. Everybody there bought me a drink I think. I had a good time. They were nice and accommodating. It was nice to get out of the rain and the wet and to be safe and comfortable.

* * * * * * * * *

On the other side of Lake Winnie the river turns back into a river. That was a relief after all those lakes. At Grand Rapids I had to portage a paper mill or power company. I’m not sure which it was. I didn’t have any idea on how I was going to get around the sucker... It was big… it took up a lot of river area. As it turns out I found a place to put the canoe and walked into town to look for a restaurant. I was starved again it seems like I was always hungry. I found a place to eat. The lady who owned the place told me the power company provided a truck to portage people around the facility. That was a relief to hear that. It would have really been a pain to carry all my junk around that place.

I met another woman in the restaurant who sailed boats–I always seem to find people with sailboats. That’s my love sport. I canoe because I have to; sailing is my real love. This gal lived on another lake near Grand Rapids. They were suppliers to restaurants of certain commodities. They put me up for a couple of days.

These people were incredible. They were building a ferrous cement sailboat. A huge one–about 50 feet. The boat was sitting in a barn in their backyard and it was a mess. But it was going to be beautiful. You could tell that. They were putting all the amenities into it. It was really neat. They had a lot of plans for this boat. Going to retire on it, I guess. I hope they did, but I doubt it because they hadn’t sailed that much.

They had a little Hobie Cat. But I was surprised they still had it. Their daughter, who lives in a trailer just off their property, ran into a power line with the boat and fried her arms. They had to amputate. She has a pincher now. She fried most of her guts out also. But she was in good shape for a woman who was as damaged as she was. She was really hurt by the sailboat accident but the parents still sailed. So did the daughter. The daughter was married and had children also. Neat people though. Had a great time there.

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The power company put up my canoe for a few days while I spent time with this family and sailed a bit. When I left the company, threw the canoe back in the river for me and I continued on.

I met a bunch of kids at St Anthony Falls near Minneapolis. Two of the kids almost went over the Falls which is the largest drop on the Mississippi … about 75 feet, I think. It was a big drop anyway.

The director of the school the kids were from was taking them on this trip. The kids ranged in age from 8 - 16, I think, but the two kids in the same canoe as the director seemed younger... 6 or 7 maybe. Their names were Becky and Tony.

These kids were the heroes of the day. Becky and Tony–these little kids–held the director’s canoe onto one of those anchored buoys while the director grabbed two little girls out of the water. The two girls’ canoe went over the Falls and was smashed to pieces. It was a close call. Little Becky and Tony were the saviors of the day. It was exciting... those two kids just held on to that damn buoy so the director could save the girls swimming in the water about to go over the dam. To me that’s just incredible.

* * * * * * * * *

There’s a lot of scary stuff going on. The reason I was afraid of Arkansas because of an area on the river called the White Bear River Valley. It is where the White Bear River comes into the Mississippi… and it’s pirates… honest to god scary-type pirates on that river. They carry shotguns and board barges to steal cargo and they’re a bunch of outlaws. The police don’t go into White River and neither do the sheriffs. Nobody messes with these people. The river captains warned me about them. The captains will not drive their tows through there without carrying shotguns… too many robberies, too many killed.

Anyway, the river captains told me to avoid the White Bear River Valley area. And I’m chugging along and have it all planned that I would start out at 6 am twenty-five miles above the valley so that I could get through it by nightfall. But something happened... I hadn’t been paying attention to the charts. I flipped the chart... and there I am... there’s the White Bear River Junction. I’m going… Ah, shit.

About that time two real scuzzy people came up to me in a fishing boat and asked me what I was doing. I told them I was going down the Mississippi and so forth. I was polite and tried to be very nice, especially when there was two of them and only one of me. One of the guys said, “Oh, well, that’s neat. Come on down here and we’ll feed you supper.”

I said, “No. I’ve already eaten supper. I think I’m just going to continue on down until it gets good and dark,” …lie.

I could barely understand these guys, but I guessed them as saying, “Come on down, we’re gonna feed ya.” Then one of them grabbed my canoe... and I got scared.

I grabbed my paddle and said, “I’ll break your damn hand or you’ll let go of my boat. Don’t touch my boat. I’m not going to eat supper with you.” He let go and they took off.

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I set up camp at a big broad sand beach that came to a point like a peninsula in the river. I set up my tent right in the middle so I could see the woods behind me and the river all around me, After I sat up the tent I spent a lot of time listening. I couldn’t sleep for obvious reasons and sure enough at about midnight I heard this motor boat coming. These guys pulled onto the beach. I stood out of the tent with a flashlight held with the butt end towards them. I had a sweatshirt on so I put the flashlight in the pocket so it looked like I had a gun. I said, “Okay fuckers, you come up on this beach and I’ll blow your asses into the water.” I was going to be tough, right… I thought that if I was going down that I was going down fighting. They left, thank God, and they didn’t bother me again. I think they figured that if had canoed all the way from Lake Itasca Minnesota that I must be tough.

* * * * * * * * *

Another time a man threatened to cut his way into my tent. I thought I had hidden myself away, but this guy found me anyway. He wanted a little free hanky-panky. A lot of men in the South seem to have this feeling that if you’re a woman alone you’re a whore, or at least very loose morally.

I met this guy earlier in the day on the river. He invited me to a party, but I said, “No, I’m too busy doing my thing, but thank you very much.” I was a little concerned about it so I found a little slough, parked the canoe and set up camp. But the guy found me. He came out on the river in a motor boat to look for me.

When he found my camp he comes up to the tent. I said, “Co away, I’m trying to sleep.” I just stayed in the tent.

He said, “listen lady, you unzip this goddamn tent or I’m going to cut my way in.”

* * * * * * * * *

I was mean, ugly, and tough. I had to be. It was so bad that when I got home I found myself backed in a corner protecting my ass when a bunch of my friends, whom I had known and trusted for years, gave me a welcome home party. I didn’t trust anybody in the goddamn room. And these are people I’ve known for four of five years. Before I went on the trip I would have trusted my life to these guys. But afterwards I didn’t trust anybody. It took me about a year and a half before I got back to feeling trust again... I still carry some residuals... I still watch my back.

* * * * * * * * *

The trip was real hard, but it wasn’t that bad until I hit the South. Then the attitudes really changed – radically. I got nonsense like the one guy who said, “You got much of a nigger problem up North?”

I said, “Ah…I don’t know. People I know preferred to be called Black, at least I’ve never called anyone a nigger. The Blacks I know, one is a Ph.D. engineer, another is an attorney, a doctor, and a couple of students. I don’t think

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you could consider those people much of a problem.” Then they all started calling me a nigger-lover.

Of course, they all expected me to be loose morally, which I’m not really. I hate that assumption. They just assume that because I’m a woman alone I’m going to party with all of them at once or something. It doesn’t matter that I had paddled clear from Minnesota. Because I was alone I was a whore. I really... oh god–that just drove me crazy. A few of them found out I wasn’t to be had in any case.

There’s some very generous people in the South, but I generally found them in couples. It’s a very different climate In the South – between the sexes. I was really surprised. I was shocked.

This seemed to be true everywhere I went In the South. Barge captains were an exception. ‘Course most of them came from the North, believe it or not. But the southern men just carried that attitude. It was almost like they constantly had to push you.

I did look for companionship. I was lonely. I needed conversation just like any other human being. I wasn’t out there to be an isolated Daniel Boone communing with the critters. But I would not accept companionship on the terms most of these southern guys expected and demanded.

* * * * * * * * *

Another interesting story is in the reporters. They were awful because they all had their own view of what I was doing and it had nothing to do with what I thought I was doing or where I was at emotionally or anywhere else.

But some of the lockmasters would lock me in the damns until I’d talk to the reporters. So I finally gave up and figured I’d talk to them. ...but they would, they wouldn’t let me exit the damn until I agreed to talk to whomever. I don’t know how the reporters bribed the lockmasters.

When I got into Memphis a reporter from NBC found me. He had been hunting me for three weeks. I mean they had crews out all over the place on that goddamn river. They wanted the story. It never was actually on national T.V. because this guy from the local station was rotten. He had gone on an overnight canoe race a couple of days before. He said he was so lonely out there by himself in his canoe. In fact, that’s all he could talk about. He never really got around to interviewing me very much. But he talks of loneliness… I had been on the river for two-and-a-half months… I was not lonely? I found companionship when I wanted it and avoided it when I didn’t want it... obviously, I had to duck NBC for three weeks and they were looking for me.

This guy found me through my first husband. I called my husband from somewhere in Missouri. I told him I was lonesome and could he meet me in Memphis. “This is rough, it’s terrible, it’s awful,” I said to him,” come meet me.” I told him that if he couldn’t come that I would catch a barge home. I wanted to see a face from home, someone that I knew. So he came down. He only met me twice on the river, in Memphis and in Dubuque. Dubuque is so close to Iowa City that it would be expected for him to come and see me and say hello.

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The night before getting into Memphis, I slept on a shelf bank. Believe me, you haven’t been in misery until you’ve slept on cut-up shells, So I was anxious to get into Memphis and into the motel my husband was in.

That’s how the reporter found me. He checked all the motels in town. When he found out that my husband was from Iowa City, he asked him if he knew anything about this woman going down the Mississippi. He said, “Well, she’s my wife.”

I said to him, “Why did you do that?” You know, I didn’t do it for the press, dammit, I did it for me.

* * * * * * * * *

There was also some good times on the river and some good people. What’s really neat about the river is the people on it. Two days before Memphis, I met one nice couple who helped me a lot. I was just done in, sick, ill. I was salt-dehydrated. My mouth tasted like metal. I had a barge crew member tell me that was an indication of salt depletion. I was just plain worn out and this marvelous couple… boy, were they awful, but they were wonderful… how do you describe it? They were so dirty… walk into their house and it smelled like urine... you know how a cheap bar smells? He was a commercial fisherman and she was a fat old housewife… and a darling little girl, cutest little kid; couldn’t believe two such ugly people could have such a beautiful child. He was overweight, had no teeth; the ones he had were black and stubby, you know, snaggly-toothed. He would go out and run fishing lines everyday and they would dress these fish right on their dining room table. I don’t know if you’ve ever dressed fish, but it’s a mess.

They took me in, took care of me, fed me, and nursed me back to health for two days. They were wonderful. When I was well and ready to go, they insisted that I take a barge to New Orleans. They weren’t going to let me canoe the rest of the way, they were so sweet. I lost my shoes and she took me into town so I could buy another pair. All sorts of awful things had happened on the trip, so I was just shocked when she did this.

Debbie and Walter were their names. Deb taught me how to fix catfish. And I’ll tell you, anybody who has eaten my catfish will swear it’s the best catfish they’ve eaten on earth. Deb taught me. I couldn’t fry until she taught me to fry catfish. God, I’d eat and eat and eat. I can’t stand to eat if the conditions aren’t clean, you know what I mean, but I ate like a pig with those people. That woman cooked so well despite all the dirt and filth… they were wonderful.

The Mississippi was my great adventure… nothing since has left me with the same sense of I’ve done it. The river was under my belt. It was something I could do to prove to myself that I was what I thought I was, that I could do anything; I still can.

The best compliment I received on the river was from this guy, a hillbilly in Arkansas, who said, “Lady, I don’t know how you’re going to take this, but you got balls.” That’s the best compliment I got, I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

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CONTRIBUTORS___________________________________________________ MAGDALENE ESEKHILE is a girl of twenty-six, hailing from Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria. She was born into a family of six children. Magdalene started writing poems at the age of 12. She writes about love, God, and life in her native Nigeria. She is an Accounting graduate from Ambrose Alli University in Ekpoma Nigeria. Magdalene currently works in as a Sales Executive in an IT company based in Lagos. Magdalene's interests also include fashion, art, dance, singing, traveling, charity and motivational teaching KATHERINE GOTTHRDT is a prolific poet and writer. Her first book of poems was, Poems from the Battlefield. Her poetry has also appeared in a number of online and text journals. Katherine has also published a children's book and a novel. A full list of my publications and more information on me is at www.katherinegotthardt.com. MICHAEL HARP is a twenty-four year old undergraduate theology student. SIMON PERCHIK is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com. DIANE WEBSTER worked in a newspaper office for thirty years. She enjoys drives in the mountains, and looks for poetry ideas in everyday life. Diane’s work has appeared in Illya's Honey, The Hurricane Review, The Other Herald, and other literary magazines. NATHAN WHITING is a poet who has developed a unique style of “six line poems.” Nathan explains that the Six Line Poems have often occurred in his work, but that he has only recently seen them as a project—“a smallish poem which can contain the essence of a longer poem as they omit a tendency to ramble.” Nathan further explains, “The lines come out the same length as a discipline, for here a structure underlies the picture of the wording, perhaps a puzzle. Nathan’s short poems have appeared in The Auroean, The Laughing Dog, Lilliput Review, Clwn Wr, and The Moon. His book, I A Hen Guard Myself By Me A Fox, was published by The Moon. JOHN WILDER is a poet and writer. Wilder was a pen name used at the time On the Mississippi was originally published in Beginning Magazine. He is now a Catholic consecrated brother under the religious name of Brother John-Paul Ignatius Mary. His other works include a volume of poetry, Only Silence is Shame (under Wilder name), and several books of essays under his religious name, including Answers for Trouble Times and Three Secret Strategies of Satan, and the manuals, Hope, Help, Victory: A Spiritual Warfare Workshop and the Rule of St. Michael (the rule of life for the Oblates and Missioners of St. Michael. He is currently working on his personal memoirs entitled, Life and Other Monsters.

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