November 2025

From the Publishing-Editor of Hubris: Our November issue is dedicated to two long-form contributions, by poets Janet Kenny and Don Schofield, respectively. We open with a third excerpt from Kenny’s New Zealand memoir, A Provincial Childhood (or, What I Did in the War) and follow with an excerpt from Schofield’s memoir, From the Cyclops’ Cave.

Our November Home Page Artist, Deborah DeWit, has been making images for 50 years, first as a photographer, then a pastellist and, for the last 25 years, an oil painter. Her imagery is a collection of domestic comforts, explorations of the natural world, and contemplations of emotion, intellect, beauty, ideas and metaphoric wanderings. Thirty years ago, she wrote Traveling Light: Chasing an Illuminated Life, about her experiences as a photographer. In 2007 and 08, two volumes of her paintings and pastels were published, In the Presence of Books and Painting Cats, and in 2010 a documentary, Wetlands: a film about art and the environment, by her filmmaker husband Carl Vandervoort, which tells the story of DeWit’s artistic relationship with a suburban wetland and its restoration to native habitat, premiered in Portland, Oregon. In 2024 Kim Stafford, Oregon Poet Laureate, 2018-20, wrote 21 poems, one for each new painting in DeWit’s White Bird Gallery exhibition. (A volume of the poems with details of the paintings is titled Cherish & Release.) In 2009, DeWit and Vandervoort bought a derelict one-hundred-year-old house and property on the Oregon Coast and spent the next 14 years restoring both land and house. An extensive selection of DeWit’s original artwork may be viewed on her website; her paintings are also represented by White Bird Gallery in Cannon Beach, Oregon.

Singing & Drowning

“A Provincial Childhood (or, What I Did in the War): Part III,” By Janet Kenny

POINT VERNON Australia—(Hubris)—November 2025—My mother used to purchase mysterious parcels in the corset department of one of the larger department stores. She never divulged their contents and for some reason I never asked. I can’t remember when I first heard about menstruation. My first information about sex was told to me, along with lurid anecdotes, by a clever pretty girl who was two years my junior. Although I had already read delicately pornographic historical novels for some years and had been enrolled in the adult library since I was nine years old, I had somehow read the purple passages without understanding them. (Read more . . .)

Imagination’s Favors

“Two Arrivals,” By Don Schofield

THESSALONIKI & ATHENS Greece—(Hubris)—November  2025—There I was, thirty-years-old, with most of my worldly possessions in a heavy blue backpack and a stained grey suitcase at my feet, leaning toward the oncoming traffic on Queen Amalías Boulevard, in t-shirt, cutoffs, and Birkenstock sandals—unmistakably American—nervously waiting at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for the only person I knew this side of the Atlantic, John Photiádes. John was the Greek-American econ prof who befriended me in my last year of graduate school at University of Montana. When I told him I wanted to go live in Greece, he offered to teach me the alphabet and, as I made plans for my one-way trip, agreed to meet me when I arrived. He’d be in Athens anyway, he said, for his annual visit. But now he was late. (Read more . . .)

Our September/October 2025 Issue

Singing & Drowning

“A Provincial Childhood (or, What I Did in the War): Part II,” By Janet Kenny

POINT VERNON Australia—(Hubris)—September/October 2025—When I read Elizabeth David’s description of French provincial life I recognized the New Zealand home of my maternal grandparents. The rich black soil brought forth prodigious vegetables, fruit, and flowers. My grandmother’s freesias surpassed any I have seen, as did the gooseberries, quinces, and vegetables. A tall hedge surrounded their property and the paths between the manicured lawns and flower beds were made of tiny white river pebbles. My grandfather allowed me to play with the pebbles as long as I didn’t spread them onto the lawn. At the bottom of the large garden a fowl run was well stocked with a variety of birds. (Read more . . .)

Skip the B.S.

“The Theology of Tools: Builders,” By Skip Eisiminger

CLEMSON South Carolina—(Hubris)—September/October 2025—“Poet,” a Greek borrowing, was first used in Middle English in about 1200 as an occupational surname for an anonymous builder, probably a mason. The authorial sense of “poet” was not used until about 1325. Of course, this first poet was still a builder. Like the author of this paragraph, he just built with words instead of stones. I have long admired builders whether they build cathedrals or epics, homes or haiku. I feel certain my admiration comes from the long line of proud builders and creators in my own ancestry. (Sadly, I’m the only “word spinner.”) Allow me to call your attention to my German surname, originally spelled “Eisenmenger,” or “iron mixer.” (Read more . . .)

Words & Wonder

“Pave Paradise,” By Kathryn E. Livingston

BOGOTA New Jersey—(Hubris)—September/October 2025—A few weeks ago, a fellow rang our doorbell and said he was in the neighborhood doing some work. Did we want our driveway paved? Our “driveway,” which consists of a smattering of scraggly pebbles strewn between the house and two spruce trees, is a source of mud and pine needles, and the path to our two-car garage (that has never once housed an actual working vehicle unless a kayak counts) is a narrow swath of grass and an ever-expanding blackberry patch which yielded enough for five pies this summer. My husband, who for a living plays a musical instrument invented in the 1700s, replied, “No.” “No?” “No.” And then I heard him say, “We like the dirt.” (Read more . . .)

Plant People

“East,” By Jenks Farmer

COLUMBIA South Carolina—(Hubris)—September/October 2025—I could claim that it started with my father who, while working on the railroad, had an ongoing quest to find the kind of falling-down old farmstead that he’d been raised on in the 1930s and 40s. I remember two things about riding through the country with him when we were young and lived in a little brick ranch-style house. One was that if a train was anywhere to be seen for miles, instead of speeding up to get over the tracks, he would stop, turn off the truck, get out, wait, and watch the train pass. As it roared by, he’d explain what every single railroad car label and insignia meant. (Read more . . .)

Book Review

“Fire & Ice: Heat & Hatred,” By Dr. Guy McPherson

BELLOWS FALLS Vermont—(Hubris)—September/October 2025—Political figures in the United States are quick to mention military action as a solution to any problem. Although the US has been at war only five times—because war requires approval from Congress—it has engaged in military actions nearly every year since it has existed. America is, without question, the most lethal country in history. It’s difficult to imagine any other factor causing more human deaths than military actions. From Pressenza, the International Press Agency, comes this story on 25 June 2025: Swiss Re SONAR 2025 Report: Global Heat Kills 480,000/Yr, here’s the lede: “Extreme heat is one of the world’s leading killers, outdistancing worldwide conflicts of 233,000 deaths in 2024 by more than double the count with 480,000 people dead from extreme heat.” (Read more . . .)

Hapax Legomenon

“The Silences of Paula Goff,” By Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

PENDLETON South Carolina—(Hubris)—September/October 2025—I found no photograph online of Paula Culclasure Goff (1938-2003), my fellow poetry student and instructor at USC, in Columbia SC. Nor can I, or you, now find her poems. There is a bare bones notation stating that, in 1988, The South Carolina Academy of Authors, “with the mandate of assisting emerging writers” voted to award Columbia poet Paula Goff a fellowship and an unrestricted cash award of $1,600. But Paula Goff, the writer, emerged, only to slip back again into almost total silence. Like Eurydice, she briefly followed a massively flawed Orpheus, her teacher and mentor and lover, James Dickey, out of that silence and, I believe because of him, reentered that realm of wordless shadow. (Read more . . .)

Eating Well Is The Best Revenge

“Tell Me What You Ate (Best of Hubris),” By Diana Farr Louis

Athens GREECE—(Hubris)—September/October 2025—This Epiphany, instead of watching young men all over Greece plunge into icy waters all over Greece to fetch the crosses thrown by priests, I found myself riveted by a paragraph from an article in The Guardian excerpted from the introduction to an intriguing book by Laura Shapiro: What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories. The questions Shaipiro poses challenged me and sent the memory wheels spinning in all directions. “Tell me what you ate when you were a child,” writes Shapiro, “and whether the memory cheers you up or not. Tell me if you cook, and who taught you, and why you don’t cook more often, or less often, or better. Please, keep talking.” (Read more . . .)

Addison

“Addison & The Women (Best of Hubris),” By Mark Addison Kershaw

ATLANTA Georgia—(Hubris)—September/October 2025—Editor’s Introductory Note: In preparation for this month’s themed issue on Woman/Women, I interviewed our resident cartoonist, asking him some pointed, if indeed pointless, questions about his (and our) subject matter. Elizabeth Boleman-Herring: How you feel about women in general? Kershaw: I chanced upon a live woman once . . . in reality, not just online, and I remember walking away from that encounter thinking it was quite a pleasant experience. I hope someday to have another parley with one of these fascinating creatures, as it is my understanding they are becoming more frequently seen in the streets and countryside and seated in positions of prominence. (Read more . . .)