Illumination

Light.  Enlightenment.  Epiphany.  Illustration.  What do you think of when you think of Illumination?  Coming of age stories?  Maybe stories of Americans traveling to the Far East and learning about Buddhism.  That’s possible.  Maybe that’s the story I would have written.  It’s certainly the first thought I had when I thought about a short fictional piece centered on the word Illumination.  But, of course, as artists will do, our contributors in this issue dug deeper than that.  They found nuances of meaning that most of us may not have thought of and they expressed those thoughts in their own creative ways.

As an editor, I enjoy choosing a word and letting other artists define that word for me.  A dictionary has so many limitations.  We like to leave it more open ended.  Using poetry, fiction, nonfiction, visual arts and comics, we’re able, collectively, to come up with a definition of the word that could never be conceived of in a dictionary.  Part of that is that we devote twenty-eight pages to it rather than a few lines.  But it’s also that we get so many different views expressed in so many different ways.  It is—dare I say it—illuminating to see how these highly creative people each view and describe the same word.

5x5 has been going strong now for over two years.  If you do an internet search for literary magazines, you’ll find that there are a lot that don’t last a year.  There are also a lot that publish their issues in seemingly random intervals.  We’re proud to say that we publish four issues per year, at the beginning of each season.  And we couldn’t do that without you, the reader and the artist.  For all the work we put into this, it wouldn’t exist without the community of writers, illustrators, photographers, and other various artist, as well as readers and donors.

Thank you all for being a part of this adventure.  I hope you find our latest issue illuminating.

Out with the Old

I found myself on a frantic de-cluttering spree yesterday--possibly inspired by staying in bed reading until 11:30 AM and then drinking a pot of coffee—I pulled boxes and bags out of the closet, tossed out those “someday-I-might-use-these-for-a-collage” magazines, created folders and spaces for the floater papers that so sneakily nest in a pile on the dining room table.

For the most part, it was time to say good-bye to the stack of journals, 5 years in the making, that I’ve been carting around (and creating) through several moves, in several cities, jobs, and educational programs. More importantly, it was time to let go of the material proof of my creative process and let go of the idea that I might somehow use this as fodder for future work.

Why, you ask, is this so necessary? How, you ask, does this improve my ability as writer?

If there is one thing I experience day in and day out as I wrestle with my creativity, (and the entire reason why I am a huge proponent of Morning Pages) it’s this: the less I tax my conscious and subconscious brain with expectations and responsibilities, the more I am able to create with a natural and deep ease. It just isn’t practical to obsess over the poems I could have written yesterday, when there is plenty of poetry to write today.

Take stock of what nags you when you sit down to write, find a way to address it, and say good-bye.

Mishon

On Making Lists

There is a statistic going around that the “average” American has read one or fewer books in the past year.  Although I find this terrifying, I know there are a lot of us reading fanatics picking up the slack.

Near the first of January, instead of making a New Year’s resolution, my good friend posts a list of all the books she has read for the year.  She makes note of books that she reread and a total page count for the year.  I felt inspired by her reading list.

I tried to think back over the month of December about all the books I had read.  I was certain I could recall each book.  I then tried to think back a month further.  That’s when I ran into trouble.  I couldn’t remember every book I had read and I wasn’t keeping track.  Perhaps it is part of entering into middle age and that my memory is no longer as good as it was.  Maybe it is the fact that I am in an MFA program and I sometimes find myself reading more than a book a week.  Whatever the reason, I thought it would be valuable to keep track of my reading habits.

From January until May, I have been careful to keep a list of the books I am reading.  I started noting the genre to remind myself, because even after a month I found myself wondering if some were poetry or short stories or something else.  This can be tricky as I tend to read a good deal of hybrid work or “compressed genres.”

What did I find out?

First, I found the majority of the books I read were poetry.  This makes sense because I am an MFA candidate for poetry at the University of Idaho.  I was surprised though, because I read 35 books of poems in five months.  Since I love statistics, let me break it down further.  This means I read 6 books a poems a month or 1.5 poetry books a week.

I also found that I read, on average, 12 books or about 1,250 pages a month excluding magazines, single essays and the like.

One other trend was that I found I decompressed by reading genre fiction and so far, almost entirely by a single author.  Tanya Huff was my go-to author for reading where I just wanted to “have fun.”   (I read five of her books over five months.)

I don’t know if you want to start a reading list or journal of your own, but I find it very useful.  Some authors even keep reading diaries, which later become books of their own.  How many books have you read in the past three months?  Can you name them all?  If not, consider keeping track.