Yellow Arrow Journal, UpSpring: Vol. VII, No. 1, Spring 2022

By Yellow Arrow Publishing

Yellow Arrow Journal is a biannual literary journal of creative nonfiction, poetry, and cover art by writers/artists that identify as women. The theme for this issue is UpSpring.

Issue featuring: Heather Brown Barrett, Sarah Helen Bates, Kamella Bird-Romero, Emma Bishop, Julia Burke, Zorina Exie Frey, Joyce Hayden, Raychelle He

• Language: English
• Publisher: Yellow Arrow Publishing
• Release date: May 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781088034781

Book preview

UpSpring

Yellow Arrow Journal

Creative nonfiction, poetry, and cover art by writers/artists

that identify as women

Vol. VII, No. 1

Spring 2022

UpSpring

Editor-in-Chief

Kapua Iao

Guest Editor

Rebecca Pelky

Poetry Editor

Ann Quinn

Editorial Associates

Isabelle Anderson, Angela Firman, Siobhan McKenna,

Piper Sartison, and Rachel Vinyard

Contributors

Heather Brown Barrett, Sarah Helen Bates,

Kamella Bird-Romero, Emma Bishop, Julia Burke,

Zorina Exie Frey, Joyce Hayden, Raychelle Heath,

Jericho M. Hockett, Whitney Hudak, Julia Hwang,

Karen Kilcup, Merie Kirby, Ren Pike, Vanesha Pravin,

Darah Schillinger, Kay Smith-Blum, Jillian Stacia,

Liane St. Laurent, Jaime Warburton, Elyse Welles,

Kory Wells, and Beth Winegarner

Cover Art

April Graff

PO Box 102, Baltimore, MD 21057

[e-mail]

Yellow Arrow Journal - UpSpring

Copyright © 2022 by Yellow Arrow Publishing

All rights reserved.

ISBN (paperback): 979-8-9850704-1-5

ISSN (print): 2688-3015

ISSN (online): 2688-3023

Cover art by April Graff.

Cover and interior design by Yellow Arrow Publishing.

For more information, see yellowarrowpublishing.com.

We prioritize the unique voice and

style of each of our authors.

Every writer has a story to tell and

every story is worth telling.

Yellow Arrow Publishing

People are Always Comparing the Hills to Women

Whitney Hudak

I’m guilty of it, too.

Hips and knees and breasts, bellies

furred with pine

reclined and rippling

with wild grasses, goldenrod.

Blazing up bonfire red.

Cut through by power lines, ski lifts.

Blasted open to make a road.

Circled around a lake

soaking the last

warmth out of October.

It’s tempting to name them.

Which is your dead aunt

that you dream about

in flickering film reel pastels.

Or the friend you shattered

before you learned

how to truly apologize.

The walnut-haired

bookstore woman you wish

would compliment your taste.

That one professor you were certain

could be a salve, save you

if she could see you.

Which you wish you’d become

if you’d had better choices

instead of the ones

that led you here,

looking for mothers everywhere.

How does your piece represent an upspring for you?

It’s tempting, sometimes, to encounter other people as finished instead of the works-in-progress we all are. It’s tempting to see them in isolation and not consider all of the life that got them to the point at which you’re encountering them and all of the ways that they are still capable of growth and change. Similarly it’s easy to forget all of the experience and work, mistakes, and pain and joy that it took to get ourselves wherever we are at any given time. Looking to others who are working hard to be better at being human, seeing their struggles and the beauty in these challenges can be valuable and validating as long as we do not allow space for comparison. When we’re younger it’s normal and common to seek validation from others. That process becomes more internalized, I’ve found, as I’ve gotten older. Watching myself and the people I love learn to deeply trust themselves and navigate the experience of growth has become an additional source of joy.

Whitney

Table of Contents

People are Always Comparing the Hills to Women

Whitney Hudak

Introduction

Rebecca Pelky

Pruning

Jillian Stacia

short leather

Kamella Bird-Romero

On Edge

Kay Smith-Blum

Olive Oil, Sumac & Harissa

Vanesha Pravin

Forty Miles into the Seney Stretch

Sarah Helen Bates

Before the war?

Raychelle Heath

Green

Beth Winegarner

Vitamin Seed

Zorina Exie Frey

in which I die, become bird-tree

Liane St. Laurent

Dig

Jericho M. Hockett

Just one

Merie Kirby

cadenza

Emma Bishop

What I Now Know

Julia Burke

We’re of an Age Now

Jaime Warburton

Bougainvillea Bright

Elyse Welles

Growing a Mother

Heather Brown Barrett

Waking Up, Eight Years Later: The Out-of-Body Girl No More

Joyce Hayden

Whatever Happened to Jill

Kory Wells

Neko, beckoning

Julia Hwang

Making Space: Black Holes and Other Loners, 2019

Ren Pike

As it Was in the Beginning

Karen Kilcup

i walk home at 10:03 pm

Darah Schillinger

On the Cover: Spiritual Journey

April Graff

Contributors

Dear Readers,

I know the exact moment the seed of poetry was planted in me. It was in the back of an unused closet in an unused bedroom on the second floor my grandparents’ 100-year-old house. In a bulging box of stashed books that probably weighed more than I did, among the Reader’s