Blur: A Collection of Writing by Cleveland Teens

By Parafine Press

A Collection of Writing by Cleveland Teens. This anthology of poetry, short fiction, personal stories, and visual art created and edited by Cleveland area teens, collects responses to a question: what does blur mean to you? Teen creators answer by telling a story about a misty forest, snapping a photo through a foggy, rain-streaked window, and l

• Language: English
• Publisher: Parafine Press
• Release date: Jun 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781950843589

Book preview

Foreword

by Laura Maylene Walter

When I began reading the work in this anthology, I was transported back to my high school years, when I edited the school literary magazine. Back then, as a teenager in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, my interests in reading, writing, and editing had already taken root. I didn’t know what my future would look like, where I’d live or what kind of job I might have, but I knew one thing for sure: books and writing would play a role in that future.

In those days, we designed the literary magazine by physically cutting and pasting the individual pieces into position in a mock-up journal. My co-editor and I retreated to my basement after school to agonize over the placement of each poem, drawing, photograph, and short story. We sat side by side and turned the pages, studying our progress as the publication slowly took shape. If every decision felt monumentally important, it was because we were handling no less than our peers’ hopes, fears, dreams, and imaginations. This was work that demanded courage and vulnerability to share, and I took my editorial responsibilities to heart. The reverence I felt for those pasted-together pages, meanwhile, told me that writing and editing would always be a part of my life.

Later, when I grew older and had to find the time and energy to write around a day job, I held tight to my dedication to the creative life. I refused to abandon my love of writing, never mind the rejection (and there have been many, many rejections, including one that arrived as I wrote this essay), the setbacks, or the self-doubt. Writing is difficult, with few tangible payoffs, and publishing can often seem a fraught and arbitrary process. Still, I carried on because, as one of the poets in this anthology asserts, the only thing I desire is to write.

Since those early days, writing has served not only as a creative outlet, but as my way of processing the world and understanding my place in it. I see that same sense of exploration in the poetry, prose, and artwork of this anthology. These young artists have produced work that is beautiful, wrenching, and true, and their creative impulsive are on crackling display in this publication. How lucky for you, reader, for the chance to experience that work right this very moment.

The anthology’s title, Blur—a timely theme as we find ourselves in the wake of two dreamlike pandemic years—presents itself in many forms. It’s expressed as paint colors, police lights, a worm’s consciousness, smoke haze, a rainforest hallucination, and so much more. But when I read and view the work here, I also think of this: the blur of turning pages. It doesn’t much matter whether those pages are digital, printed, or even pasted together in a mock-up. I hear blur and I am inside not only these pages but inside the contributors’ words and art—the kind of creative expression that allows the world, and the deepest parts of ourselves, to come into focus at last.

Laura Maylene Walter is the author of the novel Body of Stars (Dutton/Penguin Random House, 2021) and the short story collection Living Arrangements (BkMk Press, 2011). Laura’s writing has appeared in Poets & Writers, Kenyon Review, Slate, The Sun, Ninth Letter, The Masters Review, the Horse Girls anthology (Harper Perennial, 2021), and many other publications. She has received fellowships, residencies, or grants from Tin House, Yaddo, the Ohio Arts Council, the Ohioana Library Association, the Chautauqua Institution, and Art Omi: Writers. Laura is a founding editor of Literary Cleveland’s Gordon Square Review and is the Ohio Center for the Book Fellow at Cleveland Public Library, where she hosts Page Count, a literary podcast.

Chapter 1

Searching for Hope

Introduction

When the editorial board came together to consider this year’s submissions we were amazed by the ways each writer had interpreted Blur. The theme was open ended, producing a range of voices and ideas, ones we could relate to and others we’d never considered. Coming from different places, equipped with different experiences, each editor was able to view the theme, as well as the writing, from a new perspective. Since the anthology serves as a writing outlet for Northeast Ohio teens, many of our editors have grown up in cities across the region, from Akron to Cleveland. As we came together to discuss each submission, our diverse backgrounds encouraged a deeper look into each author’s message.

Many pieces left us considering different viewpoints on the intended message of the author, spurring debate as we re-examined the language and traded opinions. As readers and editors it was immensely rewarding to shed new light on a writer’s work and truly understand their purpose. After reading through the collection of submissions, we began to notice similar experiences and emotions being conveyed, but it surprised us the way that each author used the language in a variety of ways, making for a diverse book.

We started with no expectations for the submissions we would receive, finding ourselves surprised and intrigued by each writer’s interpretation of the prompt. Every time we thought we noticed a pattern, there was always one piece that would deviate—th­­at stood out. We received everything from sci-fi/fantasy to short, impactful poems that all managed to explain Blur in their own unique ways. Our selection process revolved around uncovering the most compelling pieces amidst everything we received.

As editors we found ourselves relating to the authors who depicted their perception of the world, and in awe of the boundaries they broke to express themselves within the lens of Blur. We saw a variety of emotions throughout the subject matter, but everything always tied back to our central theme. While some pieces were celebratory and adventurous, others described deep, personal and emotional situations through writing. This dichotomy characterizes the book perfectly—a blur of the many emotions we experience in the world today. When we opened this book, we asked the question, "What is Blur?" There is no definitive answer, but our anthology gathers the voices of authors across our region, each with their own definition of Blur.

Who Am I

by Nora Nathan

Thoughts, feelings

Confused emotions

Who am I

It’s all a blur

What am I

How can I fly

If I don’t even

Know who I

Am

And bam

The world rushes by

While I wonder

Who am I

What do I want

I want the blur

Gone

The thoughts, the confusion, the emotions

Gone

I want it all gone

I’m through with it

It’s through with me

But who am I

To tell it to go away

To say goodbye

Who am I to know

What I am

What I want

Who I am

It keeps coming back to me

Won’t leave me

Alone

The thoughts

The feelings

All jumbled up inside

Waiting to explode

Pushing me aside

And still I wonder

Who am I

My Mother and Me

by Christina Bencin

My mother grew up in a small, poor town in Sichuan province in southern China. Life was rough then. As a child, she didn’t have much to do other than suffer the unbearable sweltering sun by resting under trees and eating sugar water popsicles and take on the horrific chill of the winter air by rolling herself in a tight bundle of sheets.

As a teenager, my mother’s world was void of opportunities for sports and music and other activities and whenever she wasn’t at school, only on Sundays or for two months over the summer, she was seen reusing old workbooks to study material over and over again. At first, she did this because she had nothing else to do but as college approached, this was in preparation for the gaokao, a national college entrance exam Chinese students prepare for basically their whole life to get into a good college and consequently, attain a good life.

Despite her lack of resources, she did exceedingly well on it and went on to attend one of the top universities with a major in math.

***

I was an average student in all respects as a kindergartener and never demonstrated typical, genius kid behavior. Yet, starting in second grade, I ended up becoming that genius kid.

Why? Because my mother, as I would say as a kid with a bite of resentment, forced me into doing extra math during the summer leading into first grade.

During that summer, I would spend what I thought to be long hours (probably only an hour a day) reading clocks and practicing multiplication word problems in my Singapore math textbook. I continued to learn ahead of my class, crying at the kitchen table as I stayed up til my bed time doing long division in first grade, desperately rushing to get pages of quadratic equations done during the summer leading into fourth grade, so on and so forth. By fifth grade, I was taking Algebra I. I was even offered to be put in the grade above due to my outstanding test score when I tested into my Algebra I placement.

But my mother declined the offer.

Why? Why can’t I skip a grade? I remember whining the day I got the offer.

You won’t have friends. my mother said, almost indifferently, as she loudly smashed the ginger in the mortar with the worn pestle.

"Ok, but I can make friends. And really quickly! I’m already friends with Quinn and Lucy and a few others!"

Your reading scores are also low. She ran her hands through the cool water streaming down the sink and reaching for a warm towel to wipe her hands with.

They aren’t that low. Besides, I can improve them! Please! I begged. She turned around, to my surprise and stopped what she was doing to look me in the eye.

No! It’s not a good idea for your well being. You aren’t as socially and emotionally developed as the other kids and you’re going to struggle to catch up. Don’t you like the kids in your grade? Do you want to leave your friends?

No… but I want to skip.

Why?

It will make me look good. It will make me look better and smarter than everyone else.

***

My mother admitted years later that conversation broke her heart.

Despite understanding well how that could make a mother upset, I asked her why. She replied that she was reminded of the bloodthirsty competition in her days in China, the resentment towards her parents for damaging her sister through the same sort of skipping, and the mindset of this horrific idea of only skipping to be better than others, and my arrogant thoughts of supremacy.

"My parents put *Xiao