“Tumble and Rust” by Bailey Lindsey
On Tuesday, April 26, the Ozarks Poets and Writers Collective will present as its program the staff of and contributors to the 32nd edition of Fayetteville High School’s award-winning literature and art journal, Connotations.
The theme of this year’s Connotations is geologic, in particular the process of weathering, erosion and compaction that creates sedimentary rock.
The event will be at Nightbird Books just off Dickson Street on Church Avenue in Fayetteville. The event, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 7 p.m. Refreshments (and words) will be available for purchase.
Perhaps the editors speak best for themselves:
“During weathering and erosion, rock breaks into fragments which are scattered and changed by wind and water. After the sediment is deposited compaction begins, causing the eventual formation of new rock. We have simplified this complex, gradual formation to emphasize the importance of change in our writing and artwork. The cycle of sedimentary rock mirrors the way our experiences shape us, particularly in a tumultuous time as adolescence.
“Each person’s life, and each piece of rock, has unique circumstances under which it is weathered and shaped into something new.
“High school is a time of change each person experiences differently, one which influences who they become. We designed our magazine keeping in mind the universality of experience while recognizing the fluidity of emotion and individualism. We chose not to separate the pieces into sections to reflect the ongoing cycle of rock, which is without distinct division. The writing and art were neither chosen nor created to fit this theme. Instead, we chose our theme to unify and show relationships between pieces.”
Hence Connotations has a diverse selection of “sediment” — not, the teenagers would insist, “sentiment.”
Two of its artworks, “On the Brain” by Darcy Olmstead and “Tumble and Rust” by Bailey Lindsey, represent this diverse sediment.
“On the Brain” by Darcy Olmstead
Text examples include “Walk-In,” by Sophie Harris, a wry piece of flash fiction, in which the narrator drops into a salon to have her teeth trimmed. And consider Sophie Rickard’s “Eleven Months in Madison County”: “Wagon wheels massaged / the highway’s swollen shoulders / while silvery slivers of beer cans / whispered threats to tender feet.”
Please join the OPWC as we welcome the developers and producers of, and contributors to, the 2016 edition of Connotations. Standing by will be their adviser Katie Steuart.
Before and after the presentations by the teenagers, there will be the usual open microphone, where the members of the audience may present four minutes’ worth of prose or poetry to the assembled masses. All are welcome.
