April 2025

Dedicated to our April Home Page Artist, Rosalind Forster.

From the Publishing-Editor of Hubris: “Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote/The droghte of March hath perced to the roote . . . And smale foweles maken melodye,/That slepen al the nyght with open ye/(So Priketh hem Nature in hir corages),/Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.” If it’s April, my subconscious has a choice: call to mind Chaucer, or Eliott. Honest to God, given what’s happening in America this April, I’ll take Chaucer. And, furthermore, I’ll begin with a review-cum-pilgrimage through Hubris’s Poetry Editor Claire Bateman’s latest book, The Pillow Museum: Stories, followed by Wordspinner Skip Eisiminger, writing this month about acronyms, and by yours truly, who continues (and, mercifully, concludes) her tripartite saga of Facebook Marketplace, Southern Iteration. Claire Bateman, herself, follows on, with four poems by Angie Mazakis. Kathryn E. Livingston, next, washes our mouths out with soap and then, herself, shares a few choice four-letter words. Dr. Guy McPherson, Hubris’s counterweight to unbridled mirth, tells us about a tilt in Earth’s axis. Well, don’t say he hasn’t warned us before, and don’t kill the messenger! After our climate update, photographer Chiara-Sophia Coyle returns to us with a portfolio shot at Shelter Cove, California; and Chris Jordan, our other resident photographer, contributes a portfolio titled Aquarellas. (April’s issue includes  a pair of essays from our Archives, by William A. Balk, Jr. and Diana Farr Louis, respectively.) Michael J. Tallon, of New York State and Guatemala, serves up a jeremiad about our stupid, stupid, stupid and yet burgeoning American presidential putsch. In closing, if, as editor of Hubris, I hold any sway in your reading lives, I would urge you to read Timothy Snyder’s books On Freedom and On Tyranny; and Madeleine Albright’s On Fascism: A Warning. We are experiencing a slow-moving fascist coup in the United States, and we would do well to confront this hostile takeover, sooner rather than later.

April’s Home Page Artist, Rosalind Forster, writes: “I am a painter printmaker, known for my watercolor paintings and linocut prints. Trained as a graphic designer and after working for several years for a London design group, I moved to Derbyshire, where I set up my own print workshop to produce posters for the Derby Playhouse and Winster Wakes. With the acquisition of a full-sized Albion press, I developed my technique of lino-cutting using the reduction process, where the block is gradually cut away between each printing to create complex and bold images with up to 16 colors. I started painting in 1982 after taking a course in lithography, a more painterly printing process. My work was published by Christies Contemporary Arts as a series of seasonal floral still lifes—a constant theme for me, sometimes involving a chance encounter, but more often a careful arrangement of favorite objects such as lace, jugs , shells, and flowers. Light plays a key role, especially as since 1989 I spend many months on a small Greek island. Here the dramatic and crystal clear light has been inspirational in my series of sunlit doorways and olive tree linocuts. My original watercolors and limited edition lino prints may be bought from Artfinder, and commissions ordered directly from me here.” (Editor’s Note: To read a beautiful, in-depth interview with Forster by Stella Sevastopoulos, click on Rosalind Forster: Nature’s beauty translated into art.)

Book Review

“The Pillow Museum: Stories, by Claire Bateman,” By Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

PENDLETON South Carolina—(Hubris)—April 2025—I preface this review of Claire Bateman’s most recent book, The Pillow Museum: Stories, with an admission: I know the author. Theoretically, knowing Bateman, and knowing something of her biography, having read her previous books and corresponding as I do with her (in my capacity as Editor of Hubris and her capacity as Poetry Editor of Hubris), you might be forgiven for imagining that I know Bateman too well to write about her work with any objectivity. In this you would be mistaken. The Bateman whom I know as a former colleague in Clemson University’s English Department and as the poet who, monthly, introduces Hubris’s readers to contemporary poets whose work may be new to them or me is not, in any way, shape, or form related to the author of The Pillow Museum. (Read more . . .)

Skip the B.S.

“Words, Words, Words: Development,” By Skip Eisiminger, aka The Wordspinner

CLEMSON South Carolina—(Hubris)—April 2025—E. M. Forster’s critical assessment of tomes coincides with my own: readers praise them because they’ve managed to read them. I used to tell my classes that James Joyce’s Ulysses, one tome I did manage to complete, is a great novel, but I never assigned it because I’d be forced to read it again. As a former professor of English and Humanities, I should be ashamed because Moby Dick (with 635 pages in the original) or War and Peace (with 580 main characters and about 20 more in minor roles) are among the lacunae on my curriculum vitae. I’m sure I’d have a better opinion of both novels if I’d read more than the Classics Illustrated Comic Book synopses. (Read more . . .)

Hapax Legomenon

“The Final (God Help Me) Frontier (or, Still Seeking Salvation via Facebook Marketplace),” By Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

PENDLETON South Carolina—(Hubris)—April 2025—Do not imagine that a minor event such as total hip replacement surgery has slowed me down this past month. Au contraire de ce que tu prétends, cela n’est pas le cas! Rather, I have found something else that a woman can enjoy while lying flat on her back in a bed of pain (though would that it burned up calories as well as money). For weeks, now, I’ve been merrily scrolling through Facebook Marketplace for things my business partners then have to go fetch for our booth at The Rock House Antiques. The latest “thing,” a snowy white credenza-cum-breakfront, about 7’ tall and 5’ wide, is made of solid wood, and required professional movers to retrieve and install. (Read more . . .)

Speculative Friction

“The Poetry of Angie Mazakis,” By Claire Bateman, Poetry Editor

GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Hubris)—December 2024—Published by University of Arkansas Press, and named one of the Best Books of 2020 by The Boston Globe, Angie Mazakis’s first book, I Was Waiting to See What You Would Do First, was chosen by poet Billy Collins as a finalist for The Miller Williams Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New Republic, The Boston Review, The Iowa Review, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, Mizna, and the anthology Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry. Mazakis’s essays have been published in The Atlantic and Gulf Coast. She has an MFA from George Mason University and a PhD from Ohio University. (Read more . . .)

Words & Wonder

“Solemnly Swear,” By Kathryn E. Livingston

BOGOTA New Jersey—(Hubris)—April 2025—My mother occasionally advised me, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.” She hammered this home when, at the age of five, I asked my brother’s date why she had spots on her face. My childish question was forgiven and innocent enough (I was five and he was 17) but had I followed our mother’s advice into my adult years I wouldn’t be true to the snarky person I truly am. That said, I don’t wish to be mean and I’m aware that the border between snide and full-blown hater can be tricky to navigate. Fortunately, I get around my nasty inner self by not saying everything I’m thinking aloud, which could be quite hazardous. (Read more . . .)

Planetary Hospice

“Off-Kilter & Oozing Mercury: Our Beloved Earth,” By Dr. Guy McPherson

BELLOWS FALLS Vermont—(Hubris)—April 2025—Human activity is quite literally changing the tilt and rotation of Earth. According to a headline at BBC on 20 December 2024, Human activity is changing Earth’s tilt and rotation. What does that mean for the planet? The subhead tells the tale: “Scientists have found that using underground water has more of an impact on Earth’s tilt than melting polar caps.” The article was written by climate scientist and Professor Emeritus Bill McGuire. It begins with six paragraphs that demonstrate McGuire’s ability to teach: “Even though we can’t feel it, most of us are aware that our planet spins like a top during its interminable journey around the Sun. (Read more . . .)

Clicks & Relativity

“Shelter Cove, California,” By Chiara-Sophia Coyle

SONOMA California—(Hubris)—April 2025—Spending five days in Shelter Cove on the Lost Coast of Humboldt County, California, and having it rain for four and a half of those days meant one thing: when the sun finally appeared, I had to make the most of it. That brief window of light became an opportunity for me to embrace the wild beauty, breathe in the fresh ocean air, and watch sea lions lounging on the single big rock comprising their home. If you know me, you know water is where my soul feels most at home. Naturally, I ended up capturing every water-related moment on offer—the ever-changing weather, the fleeting sunshine, and a sunset that stood out as one of the most breathtaking I’ve seen in a long time. (Read more . . .)

Beauty Emerging

“Aquarellas,” By Chris Jordan

PATAGONIA Chile—(Hubris)—April 2025—My mother, Susan Elizabeth Jordan Huggins, was an accomplished watercolor painter. She painted from my father’s photographs, and as a child I remember sitting on a stool next to her studio table, watching her lay down layers of wet color in gestures she called washes. Starting with a dab of blue or purple, she would spread it across the wet paper so thinly that it would almost disappear, leaving a subtle color gradient that was always far more interesting than the pure pigment she started with. Her favorite subject was skies, and I know she would have loved to see and paint the gorgeous skies of Patagonia. I call these Austral sky photos aquarellas (watercolors) in memory of my sweet Ma. (Read more . . .)

Epicurus’ Porch

“Spring Has Blown!” By William A. Balk, Jr.

ELKO South Carolina—(Hubris)—April 2025—Everywhere you turn, there’s another sign of spring’s exuberant arrival: sneaky peeks at emerging new foliage; buds on trees and shrubs; so many flowers have started to blow. Do you know that term as applied to flowers? To blow? It’s from Old English, and it means to bloom or to flower—and this botanical usage is the root of the term “full-blown.” There’s a beautiful small tree called Shadblow (Amalanchier arborea, or Serviceberry), which gets its name from its regularly blooming at the time of the shad runs in the rivers. The signals that make us know that spring is finally, officially here are subtle, sometimes ephemeral, but persistent about declaring the season’s change. (Read more . . .)

Eating Well Is the Best Revenge

“Prospero’s Kitchen: The Odyssey of An Ionian Cookbook,” By Diana Farr Louis

ATHENS Greece—(Hubris)—April 2025—Last year, Prospero’s Kitchen, a collection of stories, customs, not to mention recipes from the Ionian islands, experienced its fourth incarnation, no small feat for any book. Last week, a new bookshop in Kifissia, a northern suburb of Athens, Greece, offered to host a “delicious book presentation” to celebrate this event. June Marinos, my co-author, and I chose a few of our favorite dishes to entice our guests into coming and buying our cookbook. Before we served them, they had to sit through a short history of Prospero’s origins and subsequent career. It all began on a tennis court in the late 1980s. (Read more . . .)

Fairly Unbalanced

“Idiocracy 2.0,” By Michael J. Tallon

ANTIGUA Guatemala—(Hubris)—April 2025—In all my nearly 60 years on this pretty blue marble of a planet, I’ve never seen an era more defined by boastful stupidity than right now. Truly, when sitting down to write a column about the state of our democracy and the existential danger our nation currently faces from Donald Trump’s commitment to unreality, I’m at a loss. How do you even approach political analysis in 2025 without first acknowledging just how rock-headedly obtuse, how fact-and-reason resistant our nation has become? Take, for example, this recent headline about the wildfires in Los Angeles that, according to several appraisers, will cost over $250 billion (billion with a B) in property loss, economic disruption, and environmental damage. (Read more . . .)

Beauty Emerging

“Beauty as a Three-Dimensional Container,” By Chris Jordan

PATAGONIA Chile—(Hubris)—March 2025—How do we face the dark realities of the human world? As the distance between how things could have been and how they are actually going widens every day, how do we bear the rage, terror, disappointment, and grief that threaten to overwhelm us like a tidal wave? For me at least, one thing feels certain: turning away is not an acceptable response. Our collective shadow affects all of us on the deepest unconscious channels, and to really know and feel this seems imperative as part of living an authentic life. And at the same time, the mind can zoom itself out like an astronaut observing the Earth from space and see that in every moment the world is an incomprehensibly complex and amazing miracle. (Read more . . .)

Addison

“Next Sign from God: 253 Miles,” By Mark Addison Kershaw, Cartoonist in Residence

ATLANTA Georgia—(Hubris)—March 2025—When Mark Addison Kershaw takes a hiatus from his corner table (with its view of all the doors, aka avenues of escape) at Hubris, I suit up in my ashes and sackcloth (a coarsely woven fabric, usually made of goat’s hair) and cover the mirrors with black crepe. I really do feel his absence when he goes dark over there in Georgia. Yes, I know things suck in America and, perhaps especially, in the wretched, red-state South that Mark and I both inhabit. But if I have to stand watch, can he not spell me every few months? Spell me, and you, Gentle Reader? It might help if y’all wrote him a note every now and then, which you can do at this magazine (scroll down below all else in this very column). (Read more . . .)

Skip the B.S.

“Traveling Among the Spheres Where the Music Has Stopped: Sol,” By Dr. Skip Eisiminger, aka The Wordspinner

CLEMSON South Carolina—(Hubris)—March 2025—As a recently confirmed, olive-complected boychild of about 13, I had a brief, solipsistic notion that not only was my shadow tailing me, but so was the Sun. If Jesus was the son of God, I wondered, why couldn’t I be the son of Sol? No matter how I turned, the sun shone its spotlight on me like some Hollywood star basking in the klieg lights. I first noticed this solar attention at my Uncle Ted’s swimming pool, and when I mentioned it to my sisters, they thought I was barmy. “Look,” snarky Karen said, rising from her towel, “it’s following me, too!” Her point was well taken, but I was slow to accept it, for my belief made me “bulletproof.” (Read more . . .)

Speculative Friction

“The Excursions & Ephemerals of Poet John Lane,” By Claire Bateman, Poetry Editor

GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Hubris)—March 2025—Poet John Lane has been writing and publishing poetry for some 50 years. For over 30 years, he taught writing at such places as UVA, the Interlochen Arts Academy, the Fine Arts Center in Greenville, the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts, and, for over 30 years, at Wofford College. Lane was born in North Carolina but Spartanburg, South Carolina, his mother’s ancestral homeland, is where he has lived most of his life.  Soon after college, he was a Hoyns Fellow at UVA and later completed an MFA in Poetry at Bennington College. (Read more . . .)

Fairly Unbalanced

“Mr. Burns, William Shakespeare & The Eternal Conversation,” By Michael Tallon

ANTIGUA Guatemala—(Hubris)—March 2025—Though I retired from the profession many years ago, on occasion I’m still asked why I became a teacher. The simple answer is that Mr. Burns, my high school Shakespeare teacher, inspired me to follow in his footsteps. The more dramatic answer is a retelling of the time when King Lear, descending into madness on the moors of my high school classroom, first cracked my skull open with a particularly deft bit of magical compassion and saw some light shining through. For teacher-appreciation day, I’d like to share that story with you. My hometown of Binghamton is a small city in Upstate New York, so it’s no surprise that Mr. Burns, aside from being my teacher, was also a family friend. (Read more . . .)

Plant People

“Planting Tree, Building Ponds, Listening Father,” By Jenks Farmer

COLUMBIA South Carolina—(Hubris)—March 2025—“We’ll plant the cypress grove over here. See? We’ll curve it this way.” I walk along the muddy bank, swinging my arms in a broad curve. “Yeah, I like that. Blends the cypress pond into the garden. Dad’s cottage will go over there, on the point where the lake turns east.” Mac looks to see his Daddy’s reaction, then he keeps on talking. “He’ll have nice morning sun on the porch. But Jenks, the elevation here might be wrong. Squat here. Look at the horizon.” I squat. “I see it. When the earth-moving crew comes back tomorrow, ask them to take this six inches deeper. That’ll keep the cattails from growing.” This conversation is muted by soft gray clay walls of an enormous hole that’s soon to flood and then turn into a lake. (Read more . . .)

Hapax Legoumenon

“Amoir & The Snail Folk (or, Continuing Adventures on Facebook Marketplace),” By Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

PENDLETON South Carolina—(Hubris)—March 2025—“The only place in the world that nothing has to be explained to me is the South.” I don’t often open a piece of writing with a quote from Woodrow Wilson, but there it is: and the man was right (if his syntax was twisted). Those of us born of Southern mothers may well grow up in Pasadena, California and Athens, Greece, as in my own case, but drop us down into Slabtown, South Carolina or Blue Eye, Alabama, and, like Br’er Rabbit in the briar patch, we know ourselves to be at home. In the South, everything around us makes sense: as with Cinderella, the shoes fit, however many times we wish they didn’t. (Read more . . .)

Wing + Prayer

“A Soft Answer: (Proverbs 15:1),” By Rev. Robin White

PENDLETON South Carolina—(Hubris)—March 2025—Two days before my father died, the Hospice chaplain, a short compact man who looked like Saint Nicholas in street clothes, made a pastoral call. Dad had begun his final journey and was at the stage where he wasn’t speaking but was still alert. As St. Nick leaned over the hospital bed to greet him, I stood on the other side of the bed and held Dad’s hand.  Dad was not big on visits from religious or “churchy” folk, and I had grown accustomed to serving as his “bouncer,” especially over the course of the two months he had spent on the oncology floor of the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. I thought he’d be OK with the Santa Claus guy, though, because he didn’t seem too religious or churchy, but I was still willing to intervene if necessary.  (Read more . . .)