Views and Mechanics Publisher's Note Editor's Note Review of Nickel and Dimed Review of Night Shade By Elizabeth Murray Radical Influence: Review of Spoken Word Revolution Redux By Romella D. Kitchens Creative Nonfiction Toiling in the Garden of Memory By Madonna Dries Christensen Poetry Homecoming By Nic Sebastian Maple Syrup Emergency By Paul Carlino Bathroom Visitor By Michael Lee Johnson Fiction A Job Well Done By Catherine Cheek Animal Man By R.B. Trout Watch Over By S.K. Tatiner The Frailty of Perfection By William R. Stoddart Eat Drink and Be Merry By Rebecca Barbush Cover Art "Riot of Flowers" By Dee Rimbaud About the Contributors © 2007, River Walk Journal and respective authors and artists. All rights reserved. Do not use or reproduce without permission. River Walk Journal, Inc. Board of Directors Chairman - Elizabeth Ross Vice Chairman - Joseph Koch Secretary/Treasurer - Geri Stock-Ross Editorial Director - Patti Kurtz, DA Literacy Director - Kenneth Weiss, Ed.D Policy Director - PA State Rep. Jess Stairs Advisory Board Chairman - Patti Kurtz, DA Asst. Chairman - Dan Lachenman, PhD Samuel Hazo Christopher Leland Edwin Yoder Joseph Bathanti Journal Staff Publisher - Elizabeth Ross Editor-In-Chief - Joseph Koch Senior Editor - Patti Kurtz Senior Editor - Neeldhara Misra Copyeditor - Kathy Skaggs Blog Contributing Editor - Maggie Koster Education Blog Contributing Editors - Jordan Wirfs-Brock, Kim Haynes Publicity Director (PA) - Geri Stock-Ross For information about submissions, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/subs.html. Questions about promotions, subscribers' services, and advertising should be sent to publisher@riverwalkjournal.org. River Walk Journal, Inc. is a non-profit corporation run entirely by volunteers. For information about volunteer opportunities and internships, visit VolunteerMatch. |
Notes from a Journal IV It has been a long summer and regardless what the calendar says, it is still summer as far as the thermometer is concerned. If I didn’t remember the Indian Summers of my youth, it might make me ponder the apocalyptic predictions of men like Al Gore, but I have had many more immediate issues occupying me lately. Dissatisfaction in one’s work is a common enough condition, but I think I may have a fairly uncommon form of that disease. In general, I still love my work – right now I am unhappy with the fact that I have to spend so much time writing reports and proposals. I believe to my bones in the importance of what I write, but cannot shake the feeling that my intended audience doesn’t share my enthusiasm. Rationally I realize that the people receiving my reports and proposals are sitting behind desks at least as cluttered with papers as my own. Occasionally I allow the fleeting thought that people simply throw my work away without a glance. In my most cynical moments, I envision them shredding reports simply because they came from a woman. “…but here I was actually at the door which leads into the library itself. I must have opened it, for instantly there issued, like a guardian angel barring the way with a flutter of black gown instead of white wings, a deprecating, silvery, kindly gentleman, who regretted in a low voice as he waved me back that ladies are only admitted to the library if accompanied by a Fellow of the College or furnished with a letter of introduction.” The history of women taking a place in the academic world is a relatively short one. Virginia Woolf was writing of being excluded on campus in the early part of the twentieth century – a time when widespread exclusion was common. Now exclusion is more insidious, hidden in myths about women’s abilities in academic study and financial support within universities for programs about and for mostly women. Perhaps our current difficulties in education can be traced to the devaluing of the profession because women have traditionally held it. Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own has become a perennial classic describing the plight of women, writers in particular. “All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds. It is she – shady and amorous as she was – who makes it not quite fantastic for me to say to you tonight: Earn five hundred a year by your wits.” Woolf is gentile in the fact that she gives no explanation for the scandalous reputation of Behn – whether from assumed familiarity of her audience with that reputation, from lack of proof beyond rumor, or from scant historical documentation is also unclear. Behn’s history as documented today remains scant, and is in part theoretical. It is possible she served as a spy for the Crown, and that she spent time in Surinam. A trip to Surinam would explain how she acquired the information for her novel Oroonoko, and being a spy would explain the apparent popularity of her plays – the mere fact that so many were staged during her life. She may have been married for a very short time, and may have simply changed her name. Two things that are not disputed – cannot be – are that Behn was a playwright and a novelist. Scholarly interest in Behn was rekindled in the last century, and based on current information available on the Internet, continues today. In her time it was assumed – as it is occasionally today – that women had no head for business or politics. “Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand.” In the age of Wal-Mart and Halliburton, those words ring as true as ever, coined not by an enterprising man of an earlier age, but by Aphra Behn in her play The Rover. Elizabeth Ross |