[Reviewed by Bruce Roberts]

Once we have taken care of life’s essentials—food and shelter—life can be a lot of fun. The day-to-day patterns of life can get comfortable, enjoyable, rewarding in all their small pleasures.

Sometimes, however, we must risk losing these comforts.  Sometimes, we are pulled to think not just of ourselves, but of our friends, our neighbors, our whole country. And we must rise up out of our familiar, comfortable lives and fight for a greater good.

This is the premise of In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez, the novel selected for THE BIG READ in 2011.  Based upon a real event in the closing days of Dictator Raphael Trujillo’s regime in the Dominican Republic, this fictionalized version traces the growth and development of the Mirabel sisters, four girls of a middle class, yet rural family, who have a good life.

Yet day by day, from their teen years on, friction develops between this good life and their whole country’s life under a brutal dictator: people informing on their neighbors,   people being jailed, young women taken for the whims of “El Jefe” Trujillo, people disappearing—never to be seen again!

Their good life of planting and harvest and cooking and celebrating ends when their father is suddenly arrested—presumably because Minerva, the most rebellious, the most politically active of the sisters, has refused El Jefe’s advances. The need to fight against Trujillo before he destroys the country spreads through everyone they know like a wildfire.

Bruce Roberts is a poet and ongoing contributor to Synchronized Chaos Magazine. Roberts may be reached by at brobe60491@sbcglobal.net.

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An Inspired writing from the reading of Matthew 26:67-68

Matthew 26:67-68 (from The One Year Bible for Women NLT, New Living Translation)
(67) “Then they began to spit in Jesus’ face and beat him with their fists.  And some slapped him, (68) jeering, “Prophesy to us, you Messiah! Who hit you that time?”
(From the NIV, New International Translation)
(67) “Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists.  Others slapped him (68) and said, “Prophesy to us, Christ.  Who hit you?”

Oh my dear Heavenly Father,

The Sadness

The Pain

The Anguish!

That you loved us so much

That you sent us your Son Jesus

To bear the weight of our sins!

These people you created

With such love and longing

With such care and unfathomable wisdom!

These people who questioned your commands

This race, so easily persuaded

To look away from the One

Who sent us His one and only beloved Son

That whoever believed in Him would be so blessed!

That they not perish but have eternal life!

Oh my Lord God,

As I read these verses,

The realization of what these people had done!

Striking out at You

Spitting at You

The devastation

The loss

The gain!

Oh my Father God!

That yet today mankind continues to do the same!

My sweet Heavenly Father

I am at a loss for words.

How can we be so blind!

So confused!

So twisted!

So lost!

Oh my sweet Lord,

Forgive us

Bless us

Those who fall at your feet

Whose hearts know the truth

Whose Spirit is alive

With your presence!

Those whose Spirit radiates your light

And conquers the darkness

Who thirsts for your love

Hungers for your teachings

Delights in your touch

And yearns for your kingdom!

Bless us my Lord

That we shall not waiver

But remain rooted in faith

That we shall not fear but rejoice

Not question but know

Not be silent but sing in worship!

That we shall not hang our heads

But gaze upward with outstretched arms

The Day You Take Us Home!

Blanca Jones is a past contributor to Synchronized Chaos. Jones may be reached at blancaejones@gmail.com.

[Reviewed by Kyrsten Bean]

“In The Spirit of We’Moon – Celebrating 30 Years – An Anthology of We’Moon Art and Writing” is an anthology documenting thirty years of We’Moon calendars and is filled to the brim with women’s art and poetry.

The idea for the original We’Moon calendar originated out of the women’s liberation movement of the 60’s and 70’s. It germinated at Kvindelandet in Denmark, amongst a group of women who were teaching themselves to live on the land in harmony with the earth’s seasons and the planetary cycles of the universe. The idea started to spread to women from all over the world who had an interest in the earth, the planets and the female plight.

The publishers of We’Moon (meaning women in the collective dialect of the calendar) have gathered poetry and art from the thirty years of the publications history to produce this labor of love. The publication has always been centered on women specifically, and celebrates wholeness, struggle and different voices from across the earth.

I remember vividly traveling as a teenager and stopping at one particular gas station in the Midwest. Driving along the freeway that day had been nuts. The gas station was filled with crazy energy. I looked up and it was a full moon. My fellow travelers and I lamented that the moon cycles seemed to cause such a stir in energy on the planet. That was my first recollection of the moon affecting the earth on any grand scale.

Lunar cycles affect everything: From the tides, to women’s monthly cycles. We’Moon celebrates the alignment of the planets and stars in relation to earth’s female energy and has documented the changes over the last thirty years through the collective unconscious of women everywhere.

Kyrsten Bean is a Staff Writer for Synchronized Chaos. She may be reached at kyrstenb@gmail.com.

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[Reviewed by Nicole Arocho]

Lynn Lonidier’s poetry drives you through a rollercoaster of poignant emotions that leaves you breathless and wanting more of her quirky use of bilingual vocabulary and unconventional metaphors that constantly surprise the reader. She writes poetry, but she doesn’t let poetry forge a specific structure on her work. She switches effortlessly from short, minimalistic stanzas to prose poetry. Even though Christmas Kitty in Bilingual and, Or What I did this Year read very differently from, say, Happy Doris On Her ‘69^th, they are equally powerful. Her work is greatly influenced by her lesbianism and by the work she did in the Mission District in San Francisco as a teacher. Both elements are woven beautifully in the unique style she sometimes utilized, a construction of thoughts rather than complete phrases or sentences.

As a bilingual myself, I enjoyed very much Lonidier’s use of both Spanish and English to convey the multicultural space that is the Mission District she so much refers to in her poetry. With her Spanglish we get a better sense of the mix of cultures that color her San Francisco, California. Some of the words may seem random and spelled or grammatically incorrect, but each one of them is conjures a meaning, an essence, a philosophical idea that Lynn Lonidier wanted us to examine, to taste in our reading, to sense in our minds when thinking of her poem afterward.

Her prose poetry is very experimental and fresh; her stylistic choices make her pieces fun to read for the reader but they are also a challenge that Lonidier interposes to this genre and to the reader. The structure plays itself like a metaphor of the development of her own identity as a lesbian and member of the Mission District community. Overall, this book is very unique and a rare combination of wit, passion, flamboyant language and situations, unexpected comparisons and images that reveal, little by little, the realities of two communities (lesbians and the immigrants) who are brought together thanks to Lonidier’s insight and personal connection to both of them.

You can contact the reviewer, Nicole Arocho, at narocho3@gmail.com.

[Reviewed by Sarah Melton]

In hindsight, I may have been the wrong person to review a book such as Gordon’s gritty, dark tale of corruption in the world of equestrian racing, circa 1970’s Virginia.  For instance, I wasn’t fond of horse racing to begin with. Not that this story argued the already long-ingrained belief I had about the abuse of horses for the sake of money and prestige – in fact, it accented that issue  throughout – but some of the terminology and references to the sport weren’t really made clear to those who didn’t follow racing to begin with, and the use of it made the overall plot of the layers of conspiracy and betrayal between the main characters that much harder to figure out.

Also, the writing style – in particular, the absence of any quotation marks or other signifying punctuation to separate one speaker from another (or a speaking character from their own internal thoughts) made the novel a particularly difficult read. I had to read several paragraphs of dialogue over and over, just to figure out who was talking, then again (if they were talking about racing in technical terms again) to figure out what they were actually getting at with their conversation.  I realize this was an intentional style by the writer, perhaps to make the conversation seem to flow to the reader, but to this reader in particular, it had exactly the opposite effect. Not every reader will feel this way – in fact, the very fact that the novel has won a National Book Award shows that someone (likely even a majority) would find this particular writing style much more favorable than I did. Perhaps I’m just set in my ways as far as formatting and style goes, or need it spelled out for me to figure out who is saying what in any given conversation…or perhaps, as I originally thought, the very style of the dialogue was so perplexing that it detracted from the heart of the story – the characters themselves.

Sarah Melton can be reached at SarahM@aptosfire.com. You can find a number of Melton’s short stories in the Flash Fiction collections at www.absolute-x-press.com.

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Men Were Growing Up through the Flowers

Men were growing up through the flowers
at a speed that none of us could capture.

Their bug-eyed faces crushed the stalks,
leaving behind mounds of ruinous dirtscape,
as their arms brought with them a wind
that pulled their chests above the tree line.

Young oaks were slain, as were caterpillars,
whose nibbles had done little harm.

They were men with gorgeous, bug-eyed faces,
two strikingly young, two marvelously old,
growing far too fast for us to believe
that it could be more than boredom’s trickery.

Yet they endure, giant above us.
They drink the rain straight from the sky.

The sun has tanned their stunning faces
around their eyes, now ceaselessly closed,
as we, slouch-backed and thirsty,
push their mighty ankles that will not yield.

Jessi Finn may be reached at finnjfinn@gmail.com. Click here to check out Finn’s blog.

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San Francisco

City of little garbage cans
gently tended by Sunset Scavengers
in the early morning fog.

I stand here on the summit of Twin Peaks
and peer through the daze
in hopes that I can somehow see
San Francisco.

This is not a fog that comes in on little cat feet,
all cunning and demure –
it is a Western fog, swift and brave
born in the cold, blue Pacific
and drawn like a magnet
to the heights on which I stand.

Behind me there lies a crumbling desert,
before me are vast waters,
and betwixed and beclouded
is San Francisco.

©2007, Stephen Labovsky

Click here to read more of Stephen Labovsky’s poems from the collection, “City By The Bard.” Labovsky can be reached at labo16@comcast.net. Continue reading →