The Bookends Review

– dedicated to Larry Fagan

If I find
your bones, one day,
caressed by time
and cradled
by your children’s
handprints,
I will know
them for the laughter of others
reverberating within.

With words
still unknown,
I will whisper
my admiration,
my worship
and my sorrow
into their hollow.…

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We drive this turnpike across the length
of Pennsylvania for the hundredth time, as I
look through the smudged
windshield where my footprints are seen
when the light allows.

The highway is a barrier,
the laundry behind it waves in the sun—
a dimple on the day’s face. 

Things I can’t see: evaporation—the exit—
the floating up; the invisible water christens
itself into cloud, chanting:
I am one of you now
I am one of the heavy places that hold it all together
until I can’t…

There is the welcoming, dry earth; the ill-timed
clothes, pinned up; a summation
of someone’s life, up against the interstate.

We are viewers perched in front of the exhibition,

there are people standing against
large, red trucks—making O’s with their mouths
for cigarettes, before they blink past;

And then more laundry, hard with that sun-tiredness,
but dotted with the dark spots of the moment above.…

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Amy Bloom’s latest novel, White Houses, is a work of historical fiction that recreates the love affair between Eleanor Roosevelt and journalist Lorena Hickok. The novel is told from Lorena’s perspective and spans decades, encompassing everything from her abusive childhood in South Dakota to her time spent living in the White House (and ultimately finds her in her elderly years). Lorena makes a witty, charismatic narrator, and her relationship with Eleanor seems built on a mutual respect for each other’s strength. As a result, White Houses is a charming and tender depiction of middle-aged love, and Bloom captures the gamut of emotions—everything from rapture to pain—that accompanies growing older with someone.  

Lorena’s childhood in South Dakota informs facets of her relationship with Eleanor, and this section proves to be one of the most moving and vivid parts of the novel.…

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Jane Rosenberg LaForge is the author of six poetry collections (one full-length, four chapbooks, and one forthcoming full-length collection from Ravenna Press); an experimental memoir (An Unsuitable Princess: A True Fantasy/A Fantastical Memoir, Jaded Ibis Press 2014); and a forthcoming novel, The Hawkman: A Fairy Tale of the Great War, from Amberjack Publishing. More information is available at her official website.

In this episode, Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum speaks with LaForge about her upcoming work, her writing process, Greek mythology, teaching, and of course, politics!

– Jane Rosenberg LaForge…

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We hand over our passports as part of the routine. The customs officer reads the country of origin and watches how I’m already taking my glasses off, from years of hearing that being requested. I watch my husband talk to the officer, I can’t seem to make out the words as my ears are still cloudy from the long flight. I rarely feel completely clear until an hour from landing.

“Do you work?” the officer asks me.

“I am not working but rather helping my husband succeed,” I respond. He gives me a blank stare and sure enough, no immediate follow-up.

“Where is your husband’s office located?”

“Los Angeles. Want me to get more specific?”

“Is he looking for a change of career? And yeah, I assumed it’s in LA County if you’re landing here.”…

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Rambling through the brown hills and
rumpled ridges from the observatory

that reminded me every element in
my body (carbon, calcium, nitrogen,

hydrogen, phosphorus, and the like)
came from an ancient star—but

all I can think about are swaths of
star-drenched redwoods, stippled starfish,

all the star-crossed lovers in the world who
shoot past each other, just out of reach.

In these moments after the molten sun
has sunk under the Pacific, a raw wind

whipping through the ribs of the Jeep and
my friend’s bare shoulder leaning into

my own tank-topped chest, I gaze up,
past the slender palms and power lines

to the glimmering specks in the dark
purple ocean of the sky, and consider

how the chemicals were put to better use.

– Ben Groner III…

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Siobhan Vivian is the award-winning author of 2016’s The Last Boy and Girl in the World, 2012’s The List, and the trilogy of novels, Burn for Burn, which she co-wrote with Jenny Han. She graduated from the University of the Arts with a degree in Writing for Film and Television and received her MFA in Creative Writing: Children’s Literature from The New School in NYC. She was an editor at Alloy Entertainment and was a scriptwriter for The Disney Channel. Siobhan currently resides in Pittsburgh, PA, and teaches a Writing Youth Literature course at the University of Pittsburgh.

What was the first story you ever wrote?

It was a piece I had written to get into undergrad. I had done a little creative writing in high school because someone told me the [creative writing] class was easy.…

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