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The Morpo Review Volume 01 Issue 2
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T M M OOOOO RRRRR PPPPP OOOOO RRRRR EEEEE V V IIIII EEEEE W W
MM MM O O R R P P O O R R E V V I E W W
H M M M O O RRRR PPPP O O RRRR EEE V V I EEE W W W
M M O O R R P O O R R E V V I E WW WW
E M M OOOOO R R P OOOOO R R EEEEE V IIIII EEEEE W W
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Volume #1 March 15, 1994 Issue #2
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CONTENTS FOR VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2
A Matt and a Bob . . . . . . . Matthew Mason and Robert Fulkerson
Driving Past 27 Pigs in the Middle of June With the Windows Open
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gary E. Walker
23rd Street Happy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peter Bray
Answers to the Riddle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Colin Morton
Beautiful Doll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Krackow
While Walking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Krackow
Questions on Art James and others . . . . . . . . Andrea Krackow
For Andre Brereton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Daniel Sendecki
The Drowners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jacqueline Jones
Loveless Addictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stephen Miller
Silicon Dreamer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Donna Dolezal Zelzer
Favorite Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Stutz
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors
In Their Own Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors
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Editor The Morpo Review Staff Editor
Robert Fulkerson Matthew Mason
rfulk@creighton.edu mtmason@ucdavis.edu
Proofreader ReadRoom Layout Designer
Kris Kalil Mike Gates
kkalil@creighton.edu tsmwg@alaska.edu
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_The Morpo Review_ Volume 1, Issue 2. _The Morpo Review_ is published
electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this magazine is
permitted as long as the magazine is not sold and the entire text of the
issue remains intact. Copyright 1994, Robert Fulkerson and Matthew Mason.
The ASCII version of _The Morpo Review_ is created in part by using Lynx
to print ASCII formatted text of the World Wide Web version. All literary
and artistic works are Copyright 1994 by their respective authors and
artists.
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A Matt and a Bob
(Editors' Notes)
o _Matthew Mason, Co-Editor_:
Well, you're currently looking at the miraculous issue 2 of _The Morpo
Review_. I say "miraculous," first of all, because it's a nifty word
that I haven't had so many opportunities to use since I left Catholic
school. But I mainly use it because I'm surprised to see this magazine
revived from the coma it lapsed into a few years back.
Way back in those quiet, pastoral days when I wore more plaid and
lived in Omaha, Matt Heys, Bob, and I planned out the original _Morpo
Review_ as a tangible, formed-from-atoms, recyclable,
useful-to-dry-your-hands-on type of magazine with far fewer run-on
sentences in the editor's notes sections. For this, we advertised far
and wee for submissions.
A few poems and stories trickled in, and then Bossie fell ill and,
well, I tear up and start wistfully humming Def Lepard power-ballads
at this point in the story so I don't feel I can go on. Suffice it to
say, that issue never saw a single photocopy and I had to skip town
once the sun went down.
So please enjoy this second issue. We here at _TMR_ are oh-so-happy to
bring it to you in its current cheap, low-calorie, and environmentally
tingly form. And we hope you'll agree that it's more fun than a bucket
of nematoads.
o _Robert Fulkerson, Co-Editor_:
Much to my pleasant surprise, _The Morpo Review_ has taken on quite a
life of its own. We have more than doubled our subscriber base since
the first issue, we've found our way to the Etext archives at the
University of Michigan, we're now a featured e-zine on a dial-up
bulletin board system in Alaska (not to mention being formatted for a
DOS reader program), we've thrown in our two cents toward the World
Wide Web and we've found our way onto America Online in their "Palmtop
Paperbacks" section. Wow. I never anticipated that we'd see so much
growth in the short span of two months.
Part of this growth is due to the friendly people of the Internet.
Mike Gates, whose name appears in the masthead, contacted us in the
middle of February saying that he really enjoyed _TMR_ and wanted to
format it slightly differently so that the ReadRoom door on his
bulletin board could read it and serve it up work by work instead of
as one large stream of ASCII text (kind of like this sentence).
Additionally, this has led to a DOS-based reader version of _TMR_.
Rita Rouvalis contacted me about putting _TMR_ up for FTP and Gopher
access from the University of Michigan etext archives. Shortly after
that, Christy Phillips contacted us about wanting to put _TMR_ in an
ezine section on AOL (see "Where to Get _TMR_" at the end of this
issue). Additionally, John Labovitz contacted me shortly before the
first issue of _TMR_ went out about including it in his List of
Electronic Magazines.
Since we've added a World Wide Web site (see the end of this issue for
the URL) we've added more people to the "Morpo Community". Maurice van
Keulen from the Netherlands has us on his own Web section. Prentiss
Riddle has us listed in his List of HyperFiction (check out
http://is.rice.edu/~riddle/hyperfiction.html).
I know that the Infobahn has become the hot topic of the news media
lately and that some of the old-time 'Netters can get tired of hearing
about how wonderful it is. They've known that for some time. But
regardless of how many times I hear about the "innovation" and
usefulness of world-wide electronic mail or about the numerous
'Netloves met and made, the interconnection of seemingly un-connected
lives never ceases to amaze me. It's because of people like Mike,
Rita, Christy, John, Maurice and Prentiss, not to mention the readers
and writers, that _TMR_ is growing and reaching more people.
Enjoy.
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"Driving Past 27 Pigs in the Middle of June With the Windows Open"
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gary E. Walker
Pigs don't care for bacon.
I flash by, an orange blur to
Pig-poor eyes, staring
Blearily, thoughts
Of sows, and slop and mud
Percolating behind them.
Unhurried pork on the hoof,
Cloven (could Satan be a pig?) to
Slog through mud and hay
And yesterday's pork product.
Finally settling with porcine permanence,
Piggy heads hatching no plots.
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"23rd Street Happy" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peter Bray
8-10 bottles later I was fine, fine.
Crenshaw & Slauson was buzzin'.
Rich metal cruising the streets,
all zippy-de-do-da-ing along.
Smoke-daddy and me sat at the bus stop and chug-a-lugged.
Across the street was where I was from in the first place.
But I never knew about that, you know, that was way back in
'74 when my Poppa put his fist through my face.
Now he dead. He rolled along with the 9th Street
for a while when they didn't have no automatics,
no golden $$$-making pea-shooters,
no quarter turned S-guns, no lady-lady 45s, no S&Ws.
Just sat with his $yndicate and punched his ladies, his kids.
"Tss. Boy ya gonna git it," he said. Zap. I get up
and down I go again. That type of shit, some heroic 5-year old.
Now it was just me and Smoke sitting down.
I didn't wanna think about all that shit anyways.
Nice hot day in L.a. that's all. 23rd Street Happy.
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"Answers to the Riddle" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Colin Morton
1. I used to catch foul balls on the chin
& explore the bloody spot with my tongue.
2. I would load up the bowl of oatmeal with an evenly graded
heap of brown sugar
& wait for the milk to soak it through
before breaking the surface with my spoon.
3. A balloon will listen quietly to your advice
then turn right around and do its own thing.
You can't wag it the way you wag your tail.
4. You can ask a hen to tell the truth
you can even ask your creditors to tell the truth.
You can ask them to cockadoodle-do
but only the politician will do it.
5. My back has ached since I came of age
I was in labour for over a decade
I have shamed myself beyond comprehension numberless times
but I've never yet actually laid an egg.
6. When I'd sharpened the ax he inspected it
& joked "Sharp enough to pick your teeth on."
Then he peeled off a sliver from the nearest log
& used it for a toothpick.
7. Vulpine: crazy like a fox.
8. The beaver, unable to outrun his predator
will chew off his own genitalia
to leave as an offering or distract his pursuer.
Once, so far gone I believed the thought police were after me,
I ate my own marginalia.
9. Having canoed into the woods twenty miles
from the only road on the map
we portaged a low hill
& were almost knocked from our feet by the stench of the
smoke from the pulp mill turbines
that soon came into view.
By the time we'd returned the canoe to the water
we all had to sit on the ground
& cough our lungs clean.
10. Then he laid the ax against a log
took out a pair of yellow-handed Robertsons
& tapped out a jazzy drum solo.
11. I also ate my hatband once. Why
I have forgotten.
12. Oh, that? I've never seen it before in my life. How did it get
attached to me? Begone, tail! Yap! Yap!
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"Beautiful Doll" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Krackow
Sunday mornings in her kitchen,
Mama crying in peaches and tins
about
the stale husbands that never got cooking and
the linoleum stains of Saturday-nite men --
those burnt out cigarette butts stuck like weed
in her molded wonderbread.
She woke dead but
kept waking and
I learned the muscle of this woman to sweat
in the iron silent breast she fed her children.
With her bra strap crooked and her peroxide head,
she was the undiscovered, unplastic Barbie--
a beautiful, Venus Woman
who rose with her babies
but
never found
Ken
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"While Walking" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Krackow
These sidewalk shoes grin
and pretend our life.
Do you live? In tenement shacks of
Chunky Chicken, I dream of becoming
your wife.
Thumb walking,
limp talking,
my words are week--
day normal.
(I speak like gravel)
Will you crash on me?
Or steer another sideway street?
Or green on my tar
with your rose tires?
Green on my tar
with your rose tires.
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"Questions on Art James and Others" . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Krackow
how do you hide secrets? this is one:
i am in love with a man who will not
leave my tongue
i taste him everywhere:
on side walks, in cigarette butts,
at 3 am. sweat meetings, in my hairbrush
(i pig-walk everywhere, James-stuffed)
i am too young
to be so fat
of lust
he dug our heart down the grave weeks ago, but
i ate him in the Supermarket tuesday-past;
his bare belly cradled in my legs,
his hot breath breathing down my lungs,
Frozen Foods never felt so warm.
Haagan Daaz drizzled in steam, E V E R Y W H E R E
i am too young
and what if a taste like that
a man like that
won't come to lie on my tongue,
again, like that?
i will be bone ugly of no fat, and
i am too young to be too old
and self-address Valentines anorexic & alone,
or to feed a stranger, that i do not love,
the skin of my home.
but i love myself and i
do not, DO NOT want to bare love made alone
so here i am
about to play Hearts and Nerves
with a raw body i do not want
and what if i will want?
and what if i will love?
and what if this raw body comes to be the taste
of another grave, everywhere, and
i am too young
to be tasting all these men
on my tongue
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"For Andre Brereton" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Daniel Sendecki
Snowflakes fall to earth
like tired robins, curling
once about a tree
only to make their
nest in the smutty mire of
soot and slush and ice
there is loneliness
lamplight shines like hot butter
over cobblestones
rows and rows and rows
of madly identical
teeth, these stones shining
like enamel the
windows white with frost are blind
with cataracts
Just, now
host of sparrow
take to the evening sky
like frozen gears, so cold, they seize
and fall
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"The Drowners" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jacqueline Jones
Kalian desires roam the street. This street where a woman and her
vagabond veggibound companion clutches a busted bodrhan blasted by
cosmic feedback!
In her right hand she holds a staff for to take into fields of
Elysium, infinite unsubdued fields that seem to cover the whole earth
like some kind of emerald gem greenprint plan for survival.
They walk through pasturized, uncomplicated fields strewn with cows,
they have their pentagrams and wellington boots. Something mystical is
about to happen. The milk from cows teats flows backwards, they hang
upside down. AND THIS IS NO JOKE.
Pools wind like spools, concentric springs in a cyclycal culture of
the unquiet great mother, as they reach out to caress some insensate
animal gathering sensory overload in their arms, ripples of a heavy
cow-bog moisture, and discovering that the world is not entirely
green, they dive in to sacrifice their lives, and root like preserves
in memory, their actions to be repeated, legends orally transmitted
through the ages, and they crying, come in and join us!
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"Loveless Addictions" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stephen Miller
Through
Prolonged bouts
With the bottle
And masturbation
I learned to
Dispell
Your persistent
Memory.
A degenerated liver
and calloused hands
Are testaments
To my perseverant
Devotion to
Your absence.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
"Silicon Dreamer" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Donna Dolezal Zelzer
Harmonic impressions
And crystal memories
Claim my attention.
Mystical, magical,
Mathematical -
They weave rare worlds
In the interstices of my mind.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
"FAVORITE COMICS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Stutz
I hear somebody. I guess that there's someone else on the line; Mitch
had said that the lines were open, and so I called, and I didn't
expect anybody because I'd never really done this before, but somebody
was talking.
I did this a couple times, calling this shit late at night, and it was
real cool -- this night, there's a voice, a guy, talking to someone
else, a whisper. The whisper kept saying, "Yeah," and "Okay," and not
much else, like it was trying to avoid waking someone.
So I said, "Hello?"
And the voice talked. He said, "Hello?"
So I said, "What's up?"
And the voice said, "Not much. Listening to Mitch's show."
Mitch had put some music on, and I didn't like it all that much -- I
thought that the talk show was better, so I turned down the volume a
little. Then the voice said, "So what are you doing?"
"Me?"
"Yeah."
"Listening to the show."
"Yeah. I don't really like this shit."
"This music?"
"Yeah."
"Me neither."
So we both listened to the silence on the telephone for a while. The
whisper was even quiet.
"My neighbors are asleep," the voice said.
"Shouldn't they be?" I asked. "It's three a.m."
"Yeah, but they're kind of weird."
"Why? Where do you live?"
"Euclid. Where are _you_ calling from?"
"North Royalton. I've never been to Euclid."
"I've never been to Royalton. I don't even know where that _is_."
I couldn't imagine anyone who lived in Cleveland and who hadn't been
to North Royalton. I mean, sure, there's East siders and West siders,
but North Royalton? I mean, come _on_!
"Yeah, but I have weird neighbors."
"How so?"
"This guy next to me worked for the post office. He sold cocaine and
he got busted, now all he does is sit around and play loud music --
loud soul music.
"He likes it that he's suspended -- he likes to sit around and play
music. When the weather's cold he invites everyone over that he knows
and has a barbecue -- with like sixty people."
I turn down the music on the radio a little more; I can't hear him all
that well. But he's still talking: "Then you know it's time to leave
-- you hear the thumping."
I hear a busy signal in the background, behind his voice.
He says, "Do you hear a busy signal?"
"Yeah," I say. Then, I say, "Hey -- is there someone else on here,
someone who was whispering?"
"Yeah," says the whisper.
"Oh."
The voice says, "I have to take off my socks -- hold on."
I hold on. I have nothing better to do.
Sockless, he says, "I want to go ice skating. I only went once, but I
want to go."
I say, "I went once. It didn't work out very well. I fell all over. I
was in Boy Scouts."
The voice is quiet to that.
I listen to the music; it's still pretty lousy.
"My neighbor asked me if I believe in God, and I said, 'No.'" This is
what the voice says, out of nowhere.
I wait a second, and then I say, "Oh."
I say, "So, tell me about your crazy neighbors."
He starts to talk. "There's two old people, the post office guy and
this old lady across the street. They're the only old people in the
neighborhood. Everyone else is young suburbanites: 'Hi, I work at
Tower City during the day and watch rented movies at night.' The old
people are the interesting ones. They're the ones on the medication.
"The old Alzheimer's woman is crazy."
"Why?"
"She's this old lady across the street and down a couple houses. My
window's on the side of the house and when she turns her porch light
on it hits my wall and it keeps me up -- you know how a little light
at night keeps you up? Well, she does this all the time . . . I wish I
knew her phone number because I'd call her up and say, 'What are you
doing?'"
He sounds like he doesn't believe that she's got her light on, like he
sees it but he just doesn't believe it. He's quiet for a second, like
he's reviewing what he just said, like he's talking to himself. He
says, "She'd probably say, 'Is it 1930 again?'
"She's crazy . . . she'll turn it off and on all night, at weird
times. I really wonder what she's doing."
"It's the disease," I say.
He is quiet to that.
Once, I wondered about that disease. I wondered what it would be like,
to not remember the things that you want to remember. To have to have
everything, all your good memories and all the noise, the stuff you
filter out, all go together. I think it would drive me nuts.
He is talking again. "I saw these pictures -- it's for a little kid's
coloring contest . . . most of these things were supposed to be red
and green, you know?"
"Christmas stuff?"
"Yeah. Well, most of them were okay, except this kid's, who was color
blind -- Santa was green, his nose was green -- it was pretty funny.
"I like the coloring contests. I always like to turn them in and
falsify my age . . . then they come and verify it."
We both laugh, and we hear the whisper laughing a little.
The voice says, "Family Circus has never been funny. I saw this thing
in the bookstore, they had all the Family Circuses ever, these thick
books. If you add up all the space he's been in newspapers, for the
past sixty years, it would probably fill up the space of the earth.
_Marmaduke_'s funnier than that.
"And Ziggy -- for a week, the guy that does it just does those vending
machines, and you wouldn't see Ziggy for a week."
The voice sounds really irritated, so I keep quiet, and listen.
"And B.C. -- _that_'s not funny.
"Calvin & Hobbes is strange: Calvin sends his pet _mail_ -- it shows
how schizophrenic he is.
"Born Loser -- I think there's a _computer_ that makes it. He draws so
bad, I don't think _anyone_ could draw so bad."
I laugh, but the voice sounds really pissed, and the whisper is quiet.
"Not many people put work into their things," the voice says. "I don't
know about Shoe. I think the guy's got _arthritis_ from the way he
draws. Herman's okay sometimes. Kinda that sadistic humor. And Bizarro
is okay once in a while.
"Cathy: you have to be a forty-year-old person to like it. And I guess
the real person is just like this -- she depicts her life in it.
"Beetle Baily is bad too -- I think the same computer draws that that
draws Born Loser. One box: 'Hey Sarge, what's going on?' and on the
next one: 'ZZZZ'"
"Yeah," I say, and I'm laughing.
"He's dead," says the whisper, and it surprises me.
"What?" asks the voice.
"He's dead -- the guy who does that comic."
"Oh, so then it _must_ be a computer that does it. Far Side is good
but it's too hard to find. They put it like in the Arts section or
something, away from the other comics. You have to look for it.
"Every publicized comic -- there's like two hundred of them in this
paper -- it would be okay to see, but most of them are like Family
Circus -- the computer drew it, and they just put in different words.
"I cut out these stupid things, bad comics, just to remember these
stupid things. I thought they used to be funny, but they're not
anymore -- they're not! After fifty years, it's not funny! I think the
Family Circus guy just turns in the same things."
I never read comics anymore, but I know exactly what he is talking
about. I mean, I read all that stuff before.
He says, "I'm thinking of writing to this newspaper and complaining."
"Do it," I say. He probably won't.
"They should have a comic that makes fun of other comics."
We're both quiet for a while, and then I ask him about his
neighborhood, if the crazy lady turned her light on again.
"No," he says, "but there's this other crazy lady about five houses
down that has an alarm on her house, but it's not a normal alarm --
it's like a buzzer from twenty years ago. And she's got one that when
you touch the house or anything it goes off . . . she sets it off by
mistake all the time -- but she hasn't done it lately.
"Once she locked herself out of the house and she called the fire
department to let her in. They were pissed when they got there and
there was no fire.
"She's crazy."
"Old people are crazy," I say. I once had this old man who lived next
door to me when I was a kid. He used to steal candy bars from the
store and give them to me. Then he would steal tools from our garage.
His fingers got cut off from his lawnmower once.
"I wonder if this lady sleeps during the day so she can turn the light
on all night."
The whisper says, "Send her a letter in the mail."
"Yeah -- maybe I will."
I put down the phone for a minute and go to the bathroom. In the
hallway, I'm extra quiet, so that I don't wake up my parents. I use
the downstairs bathroom for good measure.
"Okay, I'm back," I say, when I get back.
The voice says, "I got a Skippy jar full of urine, and another time I
got four pairs of women's underwear, menstruated -- all in the mail."
"_What_," I say.
"I got it in the mail. I sent about five thousand catalogs to my
friend's P.O. box at his dorm. They couldn't even fit it all in his
box, so he sent that shit to me."
"Why did you send him all those catalogs?"
"I was bored, and my mom has all these catalogs, and from the back of
mags like Cosmo I sent away for shit for him -- a free contact lens
cleaning kit (he just got arrested for trying to steal it) and a pair
of Depends underwear."
"He got arrested?"
"He got arrested because he needed it and he didn't have any money.
And the place he got it from only prosecutes if you steal over $4, and
it turned out to be $4.06. He got pissed . . . he got so pissed that
he sent me underwear in the mail that his roommate found in the
garbage."
"Oh."
"His mom hates me -- she thinks I degraded her son . . . she just
_hates_ me . . . he goes to Kent -- what other college would people
have no work, and they get so bored that they send shit in the mail?"
"I don't know. Do you go to college?"
"No," he says. "I did -- once. Whenever I go back, I'll probably major
in Art. There's all sorts of things I could do but probably never get
a job in, unless I come up with a bad cartoon and put it in the paper
-- but there's no room for anyone who does anything interesting."
"Yeah." It's hard to find work in the field you want. There just
doesn't seem to be as many opportunities as there once was, like on
television, on old t.v. shows where everyone has cool jobs. "My
neighbor just got home. There's this guy, his name's Nuna, he sells
cars for a living -- but at night, he'll leave at 3 a.m. and come back
around 4 -- I think he joyrides the cars. I've never seen him during
the day; I think he sleeps or works or something."
"Bye," says the whisper. He hung up; went to bed, probably.
I'm tired of all this -- the music is the same crap, so I shut the
radio off. Until next week; same time, same station.
"I'm tired, too," I say. "I think I'm gonna go."
"Yeah," the voice says, with no inflection. He just says the word, and
then says this one: "Bye."
"I'll talk to you later," I say, not knowing what else to.
"Yeah," he says, this time with a smirk.
"Bye," I say, and hang up. It's still dark out, but it won't last for
long. I get ready for bed: shut off the lights, pile in with my shirt
and pants still on, and let whatever's left of the dark hang over me.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
About the Authors
o Robert A. Fulkerson (editor, rfulk@creighton.edu) is currently
thinking up strange things to do a Master's Thesis on. His poem, _snow
baby_, was featured in Volume 1, Issue 1.
o Andrea Krackow (krackoa@alleg.edu) is a nineteen year old girl in
Pennsylvania. In April she will live in a tree house with her friend
Aim. She builds flowers out of clay and chewing gum, and is a visual
arts major.
o Jacqueline Jones (jonesj@lamp.ac.uk) is a student at Lampeter
University in West Wales, studying classics. She is a surreo-mystic
with a keen interest in the theatre of the absurd.
o Kris M. Kalil (proofreader, kkalil@creighton.edu) is an intrepid
world traveler searching for the perfect slice of cheesecake and is a
graduate student in English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her
poem, _Leaving Home_, was featured in Volume 1, Issue 1.
o Matthew Mason (editor, mtmason@ucdavis.edu) Matt Mason is a
graduate student at UC Davis. He is currently organizing a book of his
poems that may be titled _God, Sex, Cows_ or something like that. He
has no future plans so please offer him a job or send him money. His
poems, _In Museums_ and _Conversation Hearts Ghazal_, appeared in
Volume 1, Issue 1.
o Stephen Miller (stephen.miller@m.cc.utah.edu) lives in Salt Lake
City, Utah, where he is attending graduate school. He is blessed with
having "too many" cats.
o Colin Morton (aa905@freenet.carleton.ca) has published four books of
poetry, and his first novel, _Oceans Apart_, will appear from Quarry
Press in 1995. His poem, _Yes Kai, yes Margaret, yes, yes, yes_, was
featured in Volume 1, Issue 1.
o Michael Stutz (at118@po.cwru.edu) is a net_writer living in
Cleveland. He says that _where_ you are is just about the same as
_who_ you are, and ("this is for real!" -- ms) he once took a bite of
Allen Ginsberg's banana.
o Gary E. Walker (walker@cofc.edu) is a 21-year-old Chemistry major at
the College of Charleston, SC. He has been writing off and on for some
time now, but finds the fact that he is writing this "about the
author" bit in third person highly amusing. [Ed. note: we ask each
author to submit a personal biography to us.]
o Donna Dolezal Zelzer (donnazelzr@aol.com) has been writing since she
was about 5 or 6 and has had a small number of things published. She's
currently working at a small press magazine, _Midwifery Today_, as
marketing director, database designer and
person-in-charge-of-online-stuff.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
In Their Own Words
o _Driving Past 27 Pigs in the Middle of June With the Windows Open_
by Gary E. Walker
"Pigs-B-Zen. Zen-B-Pigs. Therefore, Zen smells bad and eats its
own feces. That's really all there is to this poem. Me, my
little orange Toyota, Hwy 701, and a pig farm in eastern NC.
Wake up and smell the pork."
o _Answers to the Riddle_ by Colin Morton
"I teach a creative writing class at Algonquin College in
Ottawa and have been using _The Practice of Poetry_ edited by
Robin Behn & Chase Twichell. Working through the many
stimulating exercises in the book on my own helped me loosen up
and simply enjoy writing. These are my answers to Alberta
Turner's exercise, 'Intelligence Test.'"
o _Beautiful Doll_ by Andrea Krackow
"_Beautiful Doll_ was composed while on a Sunday jog in
Pennsylvania. The morning light made me think of peaches, and
there was a that crummy Sunday-feeling creeping about."
o _While Walking_ by Andrea Krackow
"_While Walking_ is a poem about a crush. I composed it on foot
while walking to a 7 Eleven to buy marshmallows."
o _Questions on Art James and others_ by Andrea Krackow
"_Questions on Art James and others_ is an obsession/ridiculous
poem.
o _The Drowners_ by Jacqueline Jones
"I wrote this piece in [the] summer of 93 after going to a
music festival, and reading lots of stuff about aliens, and
absorbing the organic and occult atmosphere of Lampeter and
environs."
o _Loveless Addictions_ by Stephen Miller
"Well, this one should be pretty obvious. I was drunk and a bit
sad, missing someone whose voice, flesh, eyes, mind and
presence mean a great deal to me. I guess if it 'means'
anything, the poem is about the visceral feel of longing for
something that has long been dissipated. Literary
references/influences here: Charles Bukowski and Jim Carrol."
o _Silicon Dreamer_ by Donna Dolezal Zelzer
"_Silicon Dreamer_ started as a few interesting phrases
generated by a very simple computer 'poetry writing' program I
wrote in response to an article I read in an sf magazine. Then
I just played around with the words until I discovered
something with sounds and connotations that pleased me."
o _Our Favorite Comics_ by Michael Stutz
"I wrote it on my laptop one night while talking to a stranger
on the telephone. I listen to those late-night college radio
talk shows that the story briefly mentions, and sometimes the
dj at this one station would set up a party line where people
could call and talk. Well, one night I called it and met up
with two people and had a totally inane conversation at about
four in the morning, which formed the basis of the story."
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Where to Find _The Morpo Review_
Current and past issues of _TMR_ can be located and obtained via the
following means:
o Interactive Methods:
The following methods of accessing _TMR_ allow you to
interactively pick and choose what you want to read. WWW and
ReadRoom support are the most interactive, allowing you to
select individual pieces to read. Gopher access simply provides
access to _TMR_ as one whole issue.
o Via the World Wide Web.
Point your WWW browswer to:
http://morpo.creighton.edu/morpo/
o Via Gopher.
Just point your Gopher client to one of the following
sites:
o morpo.creighton.edu in /The Morpo Review
o ftp.etext.org in /Zines/Morpo.Review
o Via the following Bulletin Board Systems:
The Outlands (Ketchikan, Alaska, USA)
+1 907-247-4733, +1 907-225-1219, +1 907-225-1220.
_The Outlands_ is the home BBS system for the
ReadRoom BBS Door format. You can download the
IBM-PC/DOS ReadRoom version here.
o Semi-interactive methods:
You can grab the full text of past issues (currently ASCII
only) from the following sites.
o Via Anonymous FTP.
Just point your FTP client to ftp.etext.org in
/pub/Zines/Morpo.Review
o Via America Online
Just use Keyword: PDA and then select Palmtop Paperbacks/
Electronic Articles and Newsletters. You can find the
DOS-based ReadRoom version here, also.
o Subscriptions:
You can obtain an electronic mail subscription and have the
full ASCII version of _TMR_ arrive automatically in your e-mail
box when it is released to the public. Send Internet mail with
a subject of "Moo!" (or some variation thereof) to
_morpo-request@morpo.creighton.edu_ and you will be added to
the distribution list. There are currently 174 world-wide
subscribers.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Addresses for _The Morpo Review_
rfulk@creighton.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Fulkerson, Co-Editor
mtmason@ucdavis.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matthew Mason, Co-Editor
kkalil@creighton.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kris Kalil, Proofreader
tsmwg@alaska.edu . . . . . . . . . . Mike Gates, ReadRoom Layout Designer
morpo-submissions@morpo.creighton.edu . Submissions to _The Morpo Review_
morpo-request@morpo.creighton.edu . . . Requests for E-Mail subscriptions
morpo-comments@morpo.creighton.edu . . . Comments about _The Morpo Review_
morpo-editors@morpo.creighton.edu . . . . . Reach all the editors at once
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Submit to _The Morpo Review_
What kind of work do we want? How about Sonnets to Captain
Kangaroo, free-verse ruminations comparing plastic lawn ornaments to _Love
Boat_ or nearly anything with cows in it. No, not cute, Smurfy little "ha
ha" ditties--back reality into a corner and snarl! Some good examples are
"Oatmeal" by Galway Kinnell, "A Supermarket In California" by Allen
Ginsberg, or the 6th section of Wallace Stevens' "Six Significant
Landscapes."
But, hey, if this makes little or no sense, just send us good stuff;
if we like it, we'll print it, even if it's nothing close to the above
description of what we want (life's like that at times). Just send us
good stuff, get published, and impress your peers and neighbors.
So send us your unhinged poetry, prose and essay contemplations at
morpo-submissions@morpo.creighton.edu
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Our next issue will be available around May 15, 1994.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
