(no subject)
"Dear Donald,
Thank you for submitting "the neighborhood(s)" to Catch's Fall 2005 drive. After some discussion, we decided that we were unable to use this work for our current issue. However, we found your use of imagery to be compelling at times: 'so silky that I slipped off when she carried me.' We encourage you to dilute and reformulate your sentences, which are currently more poetic than fictional or non-fictional, and also to focus your efforts more on character development and situaltional analysis rather than solely relying upon the implications of your words.
we look forward to hearing from you in the future, and would like to thank you once again for submitting to Catch."
this is what i sent:
the neighborhood(s)
I remember that on one of my first Halloweens my father carried me down or up the block at night, of course after six in the evening because it was so dark and the only lights that I remember seeing were the orange jack-o-lanterns on the porches or sidewalks (it was too dark to see the sidewalks but I do remember seeing the metal gates, I always remember the metal gates), the yellow kitchen lights that gleamed through the windows, and maybe the grayish blues from the lonely televisions; and my Batman cape hung down, my mother close behind-I’m sure there were dogs barking because I know there were dogs on that block and it seemed that they all had something to say to each other but they spoke in a language I could never understand-with a pillow case of my collected candy.
Our neighbor was, I remember, old and white, but from the same neighborhood as the one last spoken of (it can be confusing because in another neighborhood I had another old, white neighbor but he was missing half of his left or right arm, its hard to recall that, but I do recall that I saw him buy a six pack of beer; he held it with his stub; his missing arm was just after the elbow, and I was impressed); anyway, my mother told me he married a Salvadorian woman: she was short and fat, but not too fat, but nevertheless, fat. Their child, David, was younger than me by a year, and it was obvious that he was different than the other kids but not in the same way I was different from the other kids; it was one of those things that you just knew, that when school started, he’d go into one of those classes that you’d only go into to help out the teacher with the students. But we played; I’d tell the sitter I was going next door, walking out the door, hearing the metal gate slam behind me, opening another gate (ah, the metal gates) to enter his front yard, passing the tree where I once pretended to be a pirate or a mermaid with David (he never knew what I was playing), where I buried my treasure that was kept in a wooden box that looked like a mini pirate’s chest, my mother’s jewelry that she had collected, in a wooden box (that looked like a mini pirate’s chest), over the years from her grandmother (may she rest in peace), mother, uncles, etc., and when it came time to bring the treasure back (this was a day after), I couldn’t find it, and I asked David, his mother, his father, if they found it, but they didn’t. His mother seemed the most nervous of the three when my mother asked them at their front door, in the evening (because that’s when she got off work) if they found her jewelry.
I remember hearing about David’s mother’s canary dying. A yellow one she kept in a copper cage; I would look through the bars, painted white, to see it’s neck wave, and hear it sing and chirp.
And so then I lived in a blue house, in another part of town (the neighborhood with the half armed veteran), I remember, but let me go back to the other house, because I do remember that my mother had a roommate after the divorce, and he had long blonde hair, black leather jackets and a motorcycle on which he gave my mother rides, and also me, but my mother was burned by the engine. He drank beer with his friends in the living room, brown bottle beers, as my mother and I were together in what was my room but now I recall that it was our room after the divorce because we slept together on the same bed and her night gown was light blue; so silky that I slipped off when she carried me. And she told me not to go out there, especially with my dolls, but I had to show everyone because they were mine, my mother bought them, and they were so beautiful, so I opened the door to see them sip their beers; I handed the roommate my doll, “See? Look,” I said, and he, sipping, pulled her head off, passed it around the circle of friends and handed it back to me, sipping; “Why?” I said or thought, probably thought, but he was kind, oh so kind enough to put it back. But I swear dolls weren’t my only toys, I swear, because I do remember I had the Batcave, pencil gray rock caves, and Batman, and his black cape that came off easily, lived there. I swear.
I was originally going to tell you of my blue house with my new father, Raghed, who had (still has) a thick black mustache he wouldn’t, and still won’t, shave, but I just remembered I dropped a white puppy during my birthday party, and the puppy was a gift from my dad (not Raghed)-and how funny, life always seems to give us dads and never fathers but I have a father now: Raghed. But Dad… I asked him if I could hold (lets call him-the puppy-Fluffy) Fluffy, and I did, for a moment but he moved too much and I was scared, and I heard his skull hit the cement of the driveway, where my party, with black and orange streamers (I was born on Halloween, I should have told you this sooner), was. This wasn’t the blue house.
My mother, I remember (okay, now this is the blue house in the other neighborhood with the half armed veteran), told me, after watching the chase on the television that was in the kitchen; as she filled the house with the smell of warm, red soup, to come outside, walk quickly to the end of the block (our house was two houses away from the end of the block), and stand barefoot on the Pet Co. parking lot and watch the 405 freeway with her; “No time for shoes,” she said in Spanish (I do speak Spanish, she’s Mexican which makes me half Mexican ), and she’d never say these things, it was strange because I always had to wear shoes. And I did stand with her there, in the parking lot, she was barefoot too, holding my brother, who was two at the time; we watched the white Bronco speed by with police cars and helicopters, following.
Thank you for submitting "the neighborhood(s)" to Catch's Fall 2005 drive. After some discussion, we decided that we were unable to use this work for our current issue. However, we found your use of imagery to be compelling at times: 'so silky that I slipped off when she carried me.' We encourage you to dilute and reformulate your sentences, which are currently more poetic than fictional or non-fictional, and also to focus your efforts more on character development and situaltional analysis rather than solely relying upon the implications of your words.
we look forward to hearing from you in the future, and would like to thank you once again for submitting to Catch."
this is what i sent:
the neighborhood(s)
I remember that on one of my first Halloweens my father carried me down or up the block at night, of course after six in the evening because it was so dark and the only lights that I remember seeing were the orange jack-o-lanterns on the porches or sidewalks (it was too dark to see the sidewalks but I do remember seeing the metal gates, I always remember the metal gates), the yellow kitchen lights that gleamed through the windows, and maybe the grayish blues from the lonely televisions; and my Batman cape hung down, my mother close behind-I’m sure there were dogs barking because I know there were dogs on that block and it seemed that they all had something to say to each other but they spoke in a language I could never understand-with a pillow case of my collected candy.
Our neighbor was, I remember, old and white, but from the same neighborhood as the one last spoken of (it can be confusing because in another neighborhood I had another old, white neighbor but he was missing half of his left or right arm, its hard to recall that, but I do recall that I saw him buy a six pack of beer; he held it with his stub; his missing arm was just after the elbow, and I was impressed); anyway, my mother told me he married a Salvadorian woman: she was short and fat, but not too fat, but nevertheless, fat. Their child, David, was younger than me by a year, and it was obvious that he was different than the other kids but not in the same way I was different from the other kids; it was one of those things that you just knew, that when school started, he’d go into one of those classes that you’d only go into to help out the teacher with the students. But we played; I’d tell the sitter I was going next door, walking out the door, hearing the metal gate slam behind me, opening another gate (ah, the metal gates) to enter his front yard, passing the tree where I once pretended to be a pirate or a mermaid with David (he never knew what I was playing), where I buried my treasure that was kept in a wooden box that looked like a mini pirate’s chest, my mother’s jewelry that she had collected, in a wooden box (that looked like a mini pirate’s chest), over the years from her grandmother (may she rest in peace), mother, uncles, etc., and when it came time to bring the treasure back (this was a day after), I couldn’t find it, and I asked David, his mother, his father, if they found it, but they didn’t. His mother seemed the most nervous of the three when my mother asked them at their front door, in the evening (because that’s when she got off work) if they found her jewelry.
I remember hearing about David’s mother’s canary dying. A yellow one she kept in a copper cage; I would look through the bars, painted white, to see it’s neck wave, and hear it sing and chirp.
And so then I lived in a blue house, in another part of town (the neighborhood with the half armed veteran), I remember, but let me go back to the other house, because I do remember that my mother had a roommate after the divorce, and he had long blonde hair, black leather jackets and a motorcycle on which he gave my mother rides, and also me, but my mother was burned by the engine. He drank beer with his friends in the living room, brown bottle beers, as my mother and I were together in what was my room but now I recall that it was our room after the divorce because we slept together on the same bed and her night gown was light blue; so silky that I slipped off when she carried me. And she told me not to go out there, especially with my dolls, but I had to show everyone because they were mine, my mother bought them, and they were so beautiful, so I opened the door to see them sip their beers; I handed the roommate my doll, “See? Look,” I said, and he, sipping, pulled her head off, passed it around the circle of friends and handed it back to me, sipping; “Why?” I said or thought, probably thought, but he was kind, oh so kind enough to put it back. But I swear dolls weren’t my only toys, I swear, because I do remember I had the Batcave, pencil gray rock caves, and Batman, and his black cape that came off easily, lived there. I swear.
I was originally going to tell you of my blue house with my new father, Raghed, who had (still has) a thick black mustache he wouldn’t, and still won’t, shave, but I just remembered I dropped a white puppy during my birthday party, and the puppy was a gift from my dad (not Raghed)-and how funny, life always seems to give us dads and never fathers but I have a father now: Raghed. But Dad… I asked him if I could hold (lets call him-the puppy-Fluffy) Fluffy, and I did, for a moment but he moved too much and I was scared, and I heard his skull hit the cement of the driveway, where my party, with black and orange streamers (I was born on Halloween, I should have told you this sooner), was. This wasn’t the blue house.
My mother, I remember (okay, now this is the blue house in the other neighborhood with the half armed veteran), told me, after watching the chase on the television that was in the kitchen; as she filled the house with the smell of warm, red soup, to come outside, walk quickly to the end of the block (our house was two houses away from the end of the block), and stand barefoot on the Pet Co. parking lot and watch the 405 freeway with her; “No time for shoes,” she said in Spanish (I do speak Spanish, she’s Mexican which makes me half Mexican ), and she’d never say these things, it was strange because I always had to wear shoes. And I did stand with her there, in the parking lot, she was barefoot too, holding my brother, who was two at the time; we watched the white Bronco speed by with police cars and helicopters, following.