WAY- WAY... she said

One day at 12 o'clock my grandmother and I got on the bus. There were two other women with us. Since there were no empty seats, both my grandmother and the other two women stood. Not far from us, two female students were sleeping. After three or four stops, the female students "suddenly woke up" and got out at their stops. Grandma and an older woman took the empty seat. 

At that moment, one of the women who was sitting with her partner started insulting the female students. The first: "Don't be too hard on them, they are uneducated girls."  But the other one said, "She didn't give me a place, my legs hurt." 

I wondered why the girls didn't give room to the old women. Could it be that their parents or teachers did not teach them about public transport etiquette? In any case, it affected me deeply.

With our people, there is a proverb that says that manners are learned from you. I drew the necessary conclusion from this incident.

I am Farzona Khoshimova. I am a pupil in the 6th grade in the 18th compulsory school in Fergana. I was a presenter of kids’ programs on Fergana TV station. Since 4th grade, I have been a member of a children`s club which is opened under the Republican children`s library. So far more than 10 of my articles and stories have been published in magazines and newspapers. By participating in several online competitions in telegram I have got many valuable presents, diplomas, and books. My future ambition is to become the best journalist.

“Anything dead coming back to life hurts” Discuss how Toni Morrison’s Beloved explores remembering and forgetting with reference to this statement.

Or
Analyze the importance of storytelling in Beloved as a novel that grapples with “unspeakable thoughts, unspoken”.
Or
Critically examine the portrayal of slavery in Beloved. How does Morrison show Paul D and Sethe as self-defining agents of their own humanity?
Or
“Slave life; freed life—everyday was a test and a trial. Nothing could be counted on in a world where even when you were a solution you were a problem.”

Or
How does Toni Morrison portray the dehumanizing effects of slavery in Beloved?
Or
“This is not a story to pass on.” Discuss the relationship between individual and community, remembering and forgetting with references to the conclusion of Beloved.
Or
“He wasn’t surprised to learn that they had tracked her down in Cincinnati, because when he thought about it now, her price was greater than his; property that reproduced itself without cost.” Critically examine Toni Morrison’s Beloved in the context of female slavery.

Postmodernist bourgeoise Western tradition satirizes African American historicization of black community through the open-ended perspectives of fragmentations, absence and negation as embodied in the dichotomies and/or antitheses between living and dead, past and present, present and future, freedom and captivity, individual agency and the society. Toni Morrison abstracts as pamphleteer of protest writers epitomizing symbolically oppressive voices  within the marginalized narrative framework of subaltern readings. “Negroes”, “underclass” and “slaves” are implicated to be colloquial idioms to burlesque the psychological as well as spiritual deficiencies bereft of internal intricacies and psychic motifs. Paul D’s contemplative outlook of the substantial perceptivity and critical receptivity in the literary mindscapes of Sethe succinctly explains freedom as accessibility towards desires by the autonomy of the self-empowered will and/or wishes. This fiction chronicles the prosaic challenges of the slave narrative encountered by Margaret Garner whose paradoxical motherly love traumatized by the enslavement of political institutions, “Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” Stamp Paid’s body might be enslaved but his mind was elsewhere alludes to the ex-slave character that uses debt based images. Babby Suggs deconstructs history by disremembering of the bodies that result in the acrimony of one’s flesh: “here”, she said, “in this place, we flesh, flesh that weeps, laughs, flesh that stands on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard.” Babby Suggs’s conviction blooming springfield of racial prejudice that personal empowerment cannot completely transcend the power of unjust societal laws and customs. Sethe’s butchering of Beloved or “crawling already” emanates  the analogies embedded in the  striking extermination of sexual perversities and metaphorical resistance to the perpetuating effectuation of slavery through captive breeding. “Nobody had her milk but me […] The milk would be there and I would be there with it.” Morrison personifies the milk of Sethe’s motherhood as the apropria of monetary worth that resonates slave owners proprietorship of disremembered body appendages. “Beloved was making her [Sethe] pay for the hand-saw […] Sethe was trying to make up for the hand-saw.” Beloved is the embodiment of rememory on the repository of African American cultural heritage as diasporic amnesia—–spirits of the phantom horror genre with realistic skin and eyes resembling naivete and innocence in the exultation of sweet honey in the rock, the trees and the water. Thus, the act of feeding the dead and pouring the libations are meant as symbols of communion, fellowship and renewal. Thus, continuity of genes cannot be dissociated from sustenance of memorabilia of the “living dead” and tragic wrenching of being and/ or non-being as anticipated in the epilogue, “although she has claim, she is not claimed […] it was not a story to pass on.”

Denver is the character of the third generation of the trinity that explores the African American cosmological trajectory of the future and Morrion’s insurmountable thesis of freedom and ownership. Denver will venture out of the yard and encounter the community in the reconstruction era as transvalued by the proclamation of Paul D in cognizance of Sethe: “We had more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.” In her final soliloquy in the celebrated “She’s mine” section of the novel Denver reminds us of the perilous effects of disremembering : “I’m afraid the thing that happened that made it all right for my mother to kill my sister could happen again I don’t know who it is, but there is something terrible enough to make her do it again. Whatever it is, it comes from outside the house, outside the yard and it can come right on in the yard if it wants to.”  Satya Mohanty’s aphorism in “The Epistemic Status of Cultural Identity” , “The cognitive task of rememory is dependent on emotional achievement, on the labor of trusting oneself, one’s judgements and one’s companions” revives Valerie Smith’s critique redressal of the “inability of the text to convey the experience of what can no longer be spoken.”

Present epoch unspeakable racism of blackness is equivalent to a usable, marketable body politic as collectivized by narratological and dialogical positioning of Baby Suggs’s language that reveal the metaphor behind “We Flesh” associated with the return of dead bodies. These black bodies are euphemistically emphases of scarred, beaten, burning, pregnant, aged and growing as insidious symbols of commodities and machineries of reproduction in nineteenth century America that effulgently reviews reclaiming of dead bodies by Valerie Smith. Morrison’s politicization of corporeality and spirituality interweave body and spirit to be emphatically integrated by the visceral identity of the flesh sermon in the self-love dialectics of Baby Suggs. “And O my people they do not love your hand. They only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave out.” Critic David Lawerence describes the way in which this gesture of musicality, theatricality and linguistic reclamation put forth through the call of Baby Suggs underpins the connection of the seemingly alienated Sethe to the rest of her community: “This striving to claim self-ownership links Sethe’s own horrifying story to the story of the community. Central to the pursuit of self-ownership is the articulation of a self-defining language that springs from the flesh and blood of physical experience and that gives shape to the desire so long suppressed under slavery.” Baby Suggs’s sermon functions as the open and clear metaphor to relink flesh, desire and narrative. Sethe’s denial of death seems commensurate with the world that Morrison invents. There is a world of difference between Morrison’s insistence on remembering and acknowledging and even temporarily resurrecting the dead. Sethe’s desperate claim that nothing ever dies. In other words, the memoirs of the blackish holocaust must never be overlooked or disremembered. However, Seethe initially denies that anything passes on whether a memory, a feeling or a dead laughter. For Sethe, the static figure of her past is a picture or space into which anyone might offer her a temporary loophole out of loss and mourning and privileges for a denial both of personal responsibility and the inevitability of time itself. As Beloved consumes Sethe, Sethe loses herself to the embodied memory of Beloved until the community’s “sounds that broke the back of words”, snaps this cycle of repetition and returns Sethe to the history and Beloved to the oblivion of her death, in which she is literally dismembered—–”disappeared, some say, exploded right before their eyes.”

Toni Morrison’s depiction of the resurrectionist Beloved spotlights both state of remembering and disremembering through crisis and opportunity, that posits contours profoundly public and communal. Sethe literally becomes the superimposed dark face in Beloved’s self-reflecting gaze: “I see the dark horror that is going to smile at me […]It is the dark horror that is going to smile at me.” The unpunctuated language reinforces the profound desire to merge; the language itself resists separation and differentiation. Amy Denver’s scar as metaphor of Sethe’s back is associated with the chokecherry tree passage: “A chokecherry tree. See, here’s the bark———–it’s red and split wide open, full of sap, and this here’s the parting for the branches. You got a mighty lot of branches. Leaves, too, look like, and dern if these ain’t blossoms. Tiny little cherry blossoms just as white. Your back got a whole tree on it. In bloom. What God have in mind, I wonder.” In this context, Denver’s tree image is not relegated to her own racial imperative since Sethe’s assertion to Paul D: “I got a tree on my back” vindicates the narrative cultural impasse. Claiming her body and claiming her history become tantamount to Sethe’s learning that she is her “own best thing” linked both to community and to the forces of history.

Literary archaeology excavates the memories from the site of memorabilia and antiquaries, depositories, souvenirs and collectibles, which generate an archive of mental images and metaphors. Memories within are the multiaccentuated psychic space of Morrison’s soil embedded in the unconscious realm as the interior recollections of the unspeakable and repressed.  Sethe memorializes the surface imageries that mystifies the language in Beloved: “I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house, and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in my arms.” That historically and culturally inscribed metaphoricity of articulation subsequently described or divested within postcolonial discourse into the amplification and/ or exemplification of Sethe’s mystery and Morrison’s text. Chokecherry tree the performative metaphor suggests and/or implicates historically and politically matrices of narrative modes of identity-formation as embodied by the textual field to be undergoing binaries in the polarization of African American history, race, gender, slavery, and white dominance/ white supremacy/ white ethnicity and black communal practices.Poisonous and astringent chokecherry mainly indigenous as flora in the landscapes biodiversities of Virginia and Carolinas associate the textual field/ etymological field/lexical field and semantic connotations fostering Beloved’s endeavor to liberate towards a vindictive stance through desperate and possessive longing for love and expiation. Sethe’s altruistic maternal affinity and Paul D’s retellings of slavery when his tongue was held down by an iron but. Morrison extrapolates the metaphor so that fragmentation and dissolution are reciprocated by literalization and performativity within postcolonial space avenues/vistas . Homi Bhava critiques this social and “interpersonal reality … that appears within poetic images as if it were in parenthesis” furthering Judith Butler’s gender identity that argues, “performativity appears to produce that which it names, to enact its own referent […] This productive capacity of discourse, a form of cultural reiterability or rearticulation, a practice of resignification but not  creation ex-nihilo.”

Chokecherry Tree symbolically signifies the disintegrated identity of a regressive past that anticipates the violent consequences slavery but also denotes the ambivalent locus for the production and reproduction of colonial desire, fantasy and fetishism. In other words, both mutilation and dispossession of the black bodies have become Morrison’s unspeakable historicity. Sethe’s own mutilation repeats her mother’s disfiguration through slavery. Sethe’s pregnancy becomes the site of dispossession by the brutality and inhumanness of the schoolteacher allegorically symbolic of the loss of subjectivity, and, therefore, in narrative terms, the absence of metaphor as identity incidental to Sethe’s dehumanization and breast milk thievery. The underworld and the heavens furthermore mythologized as chokecherry tree connects Sethe to the spirit of Beloved and hints at the possessive and desperate relationship between them. Neither Sethe entirely associates nor entirely  dissociates herself from the past[ness] and detachment and estrangement becomes existential crises.

Amy is like the Ariel creature in the context of being half slave, half human, half master, mediator or traitor and full of tales and songs and lackadaisical temperament, full of songs and tales and possessed by her lucrative aspirations —-the struggle for independence. Both Sethe and Amy Denver chronicler of their own story of survival and healing—-the latter points the verbal image of chokecherry tree after being conscious of dehumanization and mutability by the atrocities and ferocities of slavery underwent by the former’s enslavement and/or captivehood. Historical and psychological fragmentation of feminine subjectivity encapsulated in the doubling and divesting processes of metaphor that simultaneously Amy Denver’ aestheticizes performative narrative in so far as the connotations of birth; proselytizes the literal birth of Denver for which Amy Denver acts as a midwife. 

Further Reading
Barbara Christian’s Beloved, She’s Ours, Narrative January 1997, Volume 5, No. 1, pp. 36-49, Ohio State University Press
Cynthia Dobb’s Toni Morrison’s Beloved: Bodies Returned, Modernism Revisited, African American Review, Winter 1998, Volume. 32, No. 4, pp.. 563-578, Indiana State University Press
Heiker Harting’s “Chokecherry Tree[s]”: Operative Modes of Metaphor in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”. Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, 29:4, October 1998. University of Calgary Press.

the humans come out
& so do a few loud crows
after the snowstorm

—

tail end of winter
pretty warm in the sunlight
too cold in the shade

—

green buds have appeared
on Mom’s lilac hedge out front
first full day of spring

—

two deer & then three
in someone’s yard on Iris
missed the bus again

—

slept all day & night
I wake up past eleven
disoriented

—


bio/graf

J. D. Nelson’s poems have appeared in many publications, worldwide, since 2002. He is the author of eleven print chapbooks and e-books of poetry, including *purgatorio* (wlovolw, 2024). Nelson’s first full-length collection is *in ghostly onehead* (Post-Asemic Press, 2022). Visit his website, MadVerse.com, for more information and links to his published work. His haiku blog is at JDNelson.net. Nelson lives in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

War is hell. We all know that. We are living in a time where, with social media, television and the internet, we cannot ignore the thousands of people suffering in many parts of the world; people fleeing from their country’s enemy, explosions occurring daily, houses and infrastructure destroyed, famine, families separated, outright chaos and an unimaginable degree of civilian death.

This historical fiction novel, SALT to the SEA by Ruta Sepetys, takes us back to 1945 World War II Germany, in East Prussia; to a time and scenario where thousands of civilians are subject to immediate evacuation or be killed. The scenario depicted in 1945 Prussia is equal to a page out of current day (2024) news in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, Haiti as well as in other parts of the world, people desperate to escape war zones.

For me, the underlying themes of this novel were wrapped around: hope, trust, instinct and the strength of strangers in a group who bond together to face a “life or death” crisis. Each of the main and secondary characters in this book has a unique perspective based on his/her cultural background, nationality and personal experiences before and during the war. 

The ages of the characters in this story range from 6 years old to 70+ years old. The small group meet for the first time when holed up in a cabin in the German forest in the middle of a snowy winter; most of them traveling alone, starved, hoping to get to a coastal port, and then board a ship to take them to safety. The hope for each of them is to somehow eventually make it back to their respective family in their home country, and not be murdered by Russians or Germans along the road. At first, the small group agree to stick together. They set out from the cabin in the woods on the treacherous journey, determined to reach the Baltic port of Gotenhafen, hoping to board the MV Wilhelm Gustloff, a cruise ship re-purposed by the German military to evacuate the thousands of displaced citizens.

The characters crafted by Ruta Sepetys are both colorful and complicated. And this is what I love most about this book. Characters include: an old man the group refers to as the ‘Shoemaker Poet,’ (the sage of the group), a pretty 21-year-old Lithuanian nurse (Joana), a 6-year-old lost boy (Klaus), a blind teenage German refugee (Ingrid), a 19-year-old museum apprentice from Prussia (Florian), a sometimes abrasive woman from Norway (Eva) and a 15-year-old Polish girl likely targeted for elimination by Nazis. Their collective mission is to reach the East Prussian port uninjured and ‘alive.’ 
Of course, there is internal conflict for several of the characters, as well as disagreements between group members. This heightens the tension as we move along in the story. For me, an author myself, I feel that there is no doubt that a story without conflict can lack believability and authenticity. Ruta Sepetys is a master at showing readers both internal and external conflicts without going overboard or appearing contrived. 

There is another key character in the story, a young German soldier named Alfred (Frick) who is not traveling with this small group of evacuees. Alfred has low self-esteem and also a passionate dedication to Adolf Hitler. Greatly flawed, Alfred is determined to prove to his family back home in Heidelberg and to the girl he loves and writes letters to, that he is becoming a hero in the German army, and is critical to the success of the massive evacuation. He is situated on the ship, the Wilhelm Gustloff, and in reality, assigned to menial tasks.

There are secrets about each of the key characters which are artfully revealed one by one by Sepetys. This writing technique kept me riveted as reader. SALT to the SEA is a book that I couldn’t put down, just a 2-day read for me. There were times when I thought I couldn’t take any more of the horror embedded in these pages but I cared so greatly for many of the characters and was anxious find out their next steps and see how they would navigate the scary obstacles and challenges anticipated.

The scene at the East Prussian port is chaotic; harrowing for each member of the small group, a few of them pretending they are alternative nationalities, so they would successfully be granted permission to board. It’s ‘touch and go’ for everyone at the port, and the tension the author creates is sizzling.

Readers may know ahead of picking up this book, that the ship, the “Wilhelm Gustloff” was in fact, ill-fated, and resulted in a much more catastrophic disaster than the well-known ‘Titanic,’ in terms of numbers of human casualties. The ship was, as mentioned earlier in this review, originally designed as a cruise ship. It was built to hold a maximum of 1400 souls. Yet, the German military loaded the ship with nearly 10,000 evacuees.

I won’t say more. The nuggets I shared here in this review in terms of plot and characters are often included in many previews of this well-written book.

Although this story is heart-wrenching, there are some bright lights all the way through, including plenty of romance, friendship and inspiring family scenarios. My belief is that readers will be fully invested in finding out who, in this unlikely group, endure the journey and who unfortunately fail to make it. I believe that the ending to SALT to the SEA, although painful, will leave readers hopeful and inspired. 
Reading historical fiction has been a great portal for me to continue to learn about the world that ‘was’ before I was born. But it also helps me see more clearly the repeated and disastrous mistakes in judgment made by at least a handful of selfish leaders across our planet.

Thank you Ruta Sepetys for your incredible story.




 

We are hosting our Metamorphosis gathering again! This is a chance for people to share music, art, and writing and to dialogue across different generations (hence the name, the concept of ideas morphing and changing over the years). This event is also a benefit for the grassroots Afghan women-led group RAWA, which is organized by women in Afghanistan who are currently supporting educational and income generation and literacy projects in their home county as well as assisting earthquake survivors. (We don’t charge or process the cash, you are free to donate online on your own and then attend!)

This will be Saturday April 6th, 2-4 pm in the fellowship hall of Davis Lutheran Church at 317 East 8th Street in Davis, California. It’s a nonreligious event open to all, the church has graciously allowed us to use the meeting room. You may sign up here on Eventbrite.

Also, we encourage everyone in the California area to attend the third annual Hayward Lit Hop on Saturday, April 27th. This is a public festival with different readings from different groups throughout downtown Hayward coinciding with Hayward’s choosing a new adult poet laureate, culminating in an afterparty at Hayward’s Odd Fellows Lounge. Several Synchronized Chaos contributors will read from their work at the 2024 Lit Hop.

Now for our second March issue: One Wild and Precious Life. Poet Mary Oliver said, “Tell me what it is that you plan to do, with your one wild and precious life!” In that spirit, this month’s contributors wonder and dream and fear and love and plan, all in the face of human mortality.

Susie Gharib comments on the tragedy and transience of life on Earth, while Duane Vorhees ponders the weight and influence of human ambition and history on an individual’s life.

Jacques Fleury celebrates Black history and encourages respectful and nuanced portrayals of Black people in media.

Gulyaho Karimova’s essay outlines the life and legacy of Jaloliddin Manguberdi, patriotic Turkish hero from centuries in the past. Z.I. Mahmud looks to the past and the influence of a single person in his essay on Walt Whitman’s elegy to Abraham Lincoln. Muntasir Mamun Kiron rhapsodizes in his poetry about Bangabandhu, the military and political leader considered the father of modern Bangladesh.

Xushroy Abdunazarova’s poem concerns the beauty of the Uzbek language while Adhamova Laylo discusses the structure of the Korean alphabet. Sarvinoz Mamadaliyeva urges support for the education of women and girls. Zulaykho Kosimjonova outlines strategies to improve students’ reading comprehension while Malika Oydinova compares the advantages of distance versus in person learning. Bill Tope reminds us of the value of free access to information in his protest story about book bans and censorship while Faleeha Hassan highlights the power of writing and creativity in her narrative prose poem on the cataclysmic effects of writers’ block on her imagined worlds.

Xabibullayeva Madina writes of the elegance of her Uzbek heritage, spring, and femininity. Graciela Noemi Villaverde illuminates the wonder, beauty, and strength of women. Annie Johnson celebrates romantic love and the divine feminine archetype as grounded in nature and culture.

Brian Barbeito speaks to the timelessness and mystical quality of natural landscapes and our place in them. Sayani Mukherjee describes how thoughts align in her brain like a choir or a forest of trees. Umid Qodir’s poem urges people to have the courage of a flower in the rain, while Maja Milojkovic compares committed love to a flower continually receiving needed water from nature. Christopher Bernard compares a graceful female dancer to a fountain of water. M.P. Pratheesh’s concrete photographic poems illustrate red rocks lined up and covered to varying degrees. Kristy Raines writes of the return of spring, spirituality, compassion, and lost love with a sensitive spirit. Mahbub Alam writes of swimming at dawn with a beloved, immersing himself in water and his tender feelings. His daughter Monira Mahbub crafts gentle scenes of village life and connection among people. Maurizio Brancaleoni contributes clever haikus on winter cold and human nature.

Mykyta Ryzhykh also speaks to human nature, with lonely modern, or post-modern pilgrims wandering alone, wondering who they are and what they are looking for in life. Our prophet of lonely wanderings, J.J. Campbell, returns with pieces on the joy and precarity of romantic and family relationships, conveying the lostness he felt with his family of origin.

Nathan Anderson addresses questions of human nature in an even less linear manner, playing with punctuation and spacing of letters on the page. Mark Young renders images from his neighborhood into mixed media art images, providing a unique way of seeing things where reality melds with imagination. Clive Gresswell, in his new book Shadow Reel, reviewed by Cristina Deptula, explores our unconscious, how ideas and words continue to resonate in our brains past the point of linear thinking.

A. Iwasa provides a comical essay about his encounters with dopplegangers. J.D. Nelson’s haiku presents encounters with the unexpected: minor mishaps, strange combinations, reunions. Grant Guy’s concrete poems about surrealist artist Alfred Garry evoke the whimsical nature of his work and the tragedy of his short life.

Mesfakus Salahin ponders how he will prepare to meet the implacable force of death, while Jerry Langdon sings the blues for a soul doomed to damnation.

Ivan de Monbrison describes physical and mental pain as a force mangling the brain and body, permeating our structural integrity and the wholeness of our relationships with each other.

Taylor Dibbert reflects on the end of a relationship while Bill Tope relates the tale of a lonely woman who feels rejected in love and commits suicide. Farangiz Murodova’s breakup poem provides an elegant rendering of loneliness.

Zebo Ibragimova writes of the global scourge of drug addiction and the many lives affected. Pat Doyne speaks to questions of personhood and government authority in her poem satirizing a recent American court decision concerning in vitro fertilization. Emina Delilovic-Kevric evokes images of civilians oppressed by German military forces in a piece about the mental toll of society’s inhumanity.

Meanwhile, in a more abstract vein, Clive Gresswell crafts surreal images of invasion, decay and destruction.

Noah Berlatsky sends up a poem about the daily matters of life, such as breakfast, which continue even when our lives are in chaos. Wazed Abdullah compares the journey of life to a piece of music, to be experienced in all its different stages and moods.

Ezoza Eshonkulova’s piece personifies a clock and reflects on the passing of time. Dildora Toshtemirova’s two essays concern finding the courage to go live your dreams through determination and hard work and making the most of your time. Nosirova Gavhar expresses her wish that her fellow young people would achieve their goals.

Sherbekjon Salomov writes of the future potential of youth in Uzbekistan. Isabel Gomez de Diego revels in the beauty of a children’s playground in her photography.

In her literary essay on Tolstoy, Ravshanbekova Asalkhon discusses the author’s deep empathy for the poor and downtrodden. In Mashhura Umaraliyeva’s story, simple human kindness helps a girl lonely at summer camp. Sarvara Sindarkulova speaks to the importance of respect for parents. Muhammed Sinan describes his quest for goodness and compassion and Anila Bukhari’s poems reflect a deep faith and tender compassion for the human condition.

Ahmad Al-Khatat writes of learning from fellow immigrants how to move from fear to dreaming and hope, while Ellie Ness addresses the precarity and joy of travel.

John Edward Culp describes an easy camaraderie between two people while Nasser Al Shaikh Ahmed evokes romantic love with creative and lush poetic imagery. Elmaya Jabbarova evokes a sense of wonder and mystery about human relationships in her mystical piece. Stephen Jarrell Williams’ playful pieces express hope for softness and beauty and lasting love. An actual couple who met in a writing workshop, Ubali Ibrahim Hashimu and Maryam Yakubu, send up a gentle collaborative love poem as Daniel De Culla gives an earthy reflection on a romance.

Eva Petropoulou speaks of seeking love and human connection, more family love and general compassion than romance. Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa writes of respect and empowerment for women and also crafts a tale of an eccentric character finding welcome in a small town.

We hope that you might also find a welcoming home for your own creativity within this issue, with its many poignant, tender, amusing, strident, thoughtful, eccentric, and inspiring pieces.

Work on fallacy and shortcomings in reading comprehension
                                                                                             
        Qosimjonova Zulayxo Baxrombek qizi 
        Uzbekistan State World   Languages   
        University  sophomore  year student.

Annotation: This study aims to investigate reading comprehension problems faced by students, school children or language learners. 

The study also examines student learning.
Keywords: READING, PROBLEMS, EFL, L1, EASY TEACHING METHODS, COMPREHENSION DEFICIENCIES.

Reading plays a crucial role in our life. It is an important part of everyday life without which life cannot be imagined this . Four language skills are used to learn English.Reading is the most important thing students should know.It helps students to familiarize themselves with their majors and subjects help to improve language skills.Reading is an interactive process in which the writer and the reader communicate through the text.

Reading is important because it is one of the most used language skills in everyday life.Internet usage. Students search for information on the Internet, and most of it is published in English. “As a skill It is clear that reading is one of the most important, in fact, in many cases around the world we read the most important foreign skill, especially when students have to study the material in English on their own. Many researchers have noticed that students' reading is very weak, especially in English texts. As a result, they still have reading comprehension difficulties. They also rely on word-for-word translation when reading English.

 According to Al Ma'ani, there are two main reasons why students' comprehension is low. 

When teaching reading, most EFL teachers assess students' word comprehension. Rather than teaching to understand sentences. Second, students' lack of study. That is, the reason is that they rarely read books in their normal life.

Comprehension strategies are also a major cause of students' poor comprehension skills. Taking into account the difficulties of studying a foreign language, especially cognitive, cultural and linguistic aspects, all EFL reading has been proven to be more difficult and complex than L1. To help students need help improving reading comprehension and solving reading comprehension problems.

Difficulties in reading comprehension. 
A reading disorder is a learning disorder that involves a significant impairment in reading accuracy, speed, or comprehension to the extent that the impairment interferes with academic achievement or activities of daily living. People with learning disabilities perform well on reading tasks below what would be expected based on their general intelligence, educational capabilities, and physical health. A reading disorder is most often called dyslexia. Reading comprehension problems are lifelong problems that can seriously damage anyone's learning.

Common problems in people with learning disabilities include
-Slow reading speed. 
-Poor comprehension of material when reading aloud or aloud.
-Skipping words while reading. Confused words or letters while reading.They suffer from difficulty decoding syllables or single words and associating them with certain sounds.
-Difficulty in pronouncing or recognizing words is one of the biggest problems students face.
-Another manifestation of reading comprehension problems is difficulty reading aloud. Usually, people with these problems have difficulty understanding while studying and their interest in the task is reduced.

Problems with reading comprehension: Its basis should be the ability to understand what you are reading. Many learners avoid reading and writing due to lack of interest in reading. Difficulty understanding what you read is one of the main symptoms of the problem.
Most of these cases actually stem from a lack of self-confidence in the people who have the problem. Students with these problems find it difficult to read and write and become nervous.
It takes a lot of time to solve the main tasks. Especially, another sign of reading comprehension problems is an inability to perform basic tasks.

A problem that many EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners may face is not understanding the words in the text. 

Getting rid of reading comprehension problems. Although reading comprehension problems can be difficult to deal with, there are good strategies to help make them livable. In fact, working with professionals can often eliminate these problems almost entirely or turn them into minor problems.

This information can be used as a guide to the direction and style in which students interact with texts to improve their reading comprehension.There are several ways to overcome reading comprehension problems. For example, you can use the following methods as a solution to these problems.

Reconstruct meaning is repeat it and ask questions until you understand its meaning. Think about characters and events when reading fiction.They tend to summarize informational texts. Accepting learning as a productive process.Reading comprehension skills are important for students to become effective readers.
  
      References:
   1. CRE101 - College Critical Reading
           2. Tompkins, G. E. (2011). Literacy in the Early Grades: A Successful Start for Prek-4 Readers, (3rd ed.), Boston:  
Pearson.
       3. Cain, K. & Oakhill, J. (2011). Matthew Effects in Young Readers: Reading Comprehension and Reading Experience  aid Vocabulary Development.
       4. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 44(5): 431-443.
       5. Goodman, K. (1973). Analysis of reading miscues. In Smith, F. Psychologist andReading. New  
 
York: Rinhast and Winson. 
       6. Hartney, R. (2011). Investigating reading difficulties in English second language of Grade 3  learners in one primary school.
       7. Khomas education region of Namibia. (Unpublished  
 
master thesis). The University Of Namibia. 
       8. Hoover, W. & Gough, P.B. (1990). The simple view of reading. Reading and Writing, 2, 127- 
160.

Give My Greetings To My Amazing God

In fields of sunflowers, where she roams freely,
A lady with flowing hair stands in awe,
Plucking cotton delicately from the earth,
Cradling it in her pure palm.

With a gentle breath, the cotton takes flight,
A dance of white against the sky.

Her voice carries through the fields,
Singing praises to the heavens above,
"Oh, cotton, you resemble an antique woman,
With silvery tresses, bring my greetings
To my beloved God," she serenades with passion.

Sunflowers sway in harmony,
Their vibrant petals *join* the dance.

In her own crafted stanza, she reaches for the sky,
Arms outstretched, twirling in graceful rhythm.

"Give my greetings to my exceptional God,
The one who loves and cares for eternity.
I am grateful for the pain that shaped me,
Into an artist, for the challenging days and nights,
That birthed a brand new life within me."

Tears blend with smiles, a testament to the journey she's embraced.
"Oh, my extraordinary God, you have granted me the power of prayer,
Ignited the fire of passion within me,
And blessed me with a mind and body that are forever grateful.
Give my greetings to my great God,
The one who embraces all, regardless of mistakes or skin type,
Always present in the nights and days."






I'm a sword

I am a sword for the tyrant
My role is to fight for justice
against all poverty and suffering
Some find it difficult to explain my existence

People judge me by my beaming smile
My interesting outfit will be looked at for a while
They don't know the struggles I face
Pain beneath my grace

Others despise me and hate me with joy
But they don't know what drives my practice
I'm not just a pretty face
I have a purpose, a reason to embrace it

I pretend to be happy, I pretend to be strong
But deep down, my heart is not in that song
And I bear the burden of the oppressed
My own pain, I have to suppress

I don't want to hurt my loved ones
So I pretend and hide the negative truth
I just shed tears before God
Because only he knows my pain and my love

He understands when others do not
He comforts me when I feel alone
He gives me the strength to keep going
And fight for the oppressed

I am a sword, a weapon for good
 however, misunderstood
I will continue my fight, my mission
To bring justice and end discrimination.





Anila Bukhari emerges as a luminous thread, in the legacy of Pakistan, weaving tales of empowerment. A beacon of hope in a world shrouded by adversity, she stands as the epitome of courage and conviction, etching her mark on the annals of history.

Anila, daughter of the nation, embodies the essence of strength and purpose. From the tender age of ten, she wielded the pen as her sword, crafting prose infused with the fervor of change. In a society veiled by patriarchal norms, she dared to challenge the status quo, amplifying the voices of the marginalized and disenfranchised.

With each stroke of her pen, she painted portraits of courage and defiance, shedding light on the harrowing realities of child marriage, forced unions, and the plight of the orphaned. Through her literary opuses, such as "No More Tears" and "Whispers of the Heart," she wove a tapestry of awareness, igniting conversations that reverberated across continents.

But her journey transcends the field of literature; she is an example of activism, a harbinger of change. At the tender age of fourteen, she started on a crusade for peace, dedicating eight years of her life to the noble cause. Her efforts culminated in international acclaim, as she was bestowed with the prestigious International Excellence Community Service Award, a testament to her unwavering commitment to humanity.

Anila's endeavors extend beyond the written word; she is a catalyst for action, a catalyst for change. Through her initiative, "No More Brides, Just Shine," she waged war against the scourge of child marriage, mobilizing communities and igniting a spark of hope in the hearts of the oppressed. From organizing speech competitions to spearheading educational campaigns, she left an indelible mark on the landscape of advocacy.

Yet, amidst her tireless crusade, she remains grounded in compassion, extending a helping hand to those in need. Through her project, "Hopeful Hugs," she brings solace to homeless children and solace to cancer patients, embodying the true essence of altruism.

Anila Bukhari, a visionary in her own right, is not merely a writer or an activist; she is a testament to the indomitable spirit of the human soul. Inspired by the timeless wisdom of Rumi, Maya Angelou, and Khalil Gibran, she dreams of a world emancipated from the shackles of injustice, where every girl can aspire to greatness.

In the hallowed halls of art galleries in the USA, Florida, and the Philippines, her verses adorn the walls, a testament to her transcendent talent. Her words resonate in the hearts of millions, a clarion call for change in a world yearning for transformation.

In her, we find the embodiment of beauty with brains, intellect, and compassion—a true luminary whose brilliance knows no bounds. Anila Bukhari, the daughter of the nation, a force to be reckoned with, and a guiding light of hope for generations to come.