Another bit of congratulations are in order: Scott Parker’s collection of essays, Teaching without Teaching, is just out from One Subject Press! We are so privileged to publish such wonderful writers.
Tag: writing
Publishing Begins!
So many thanks to all the amazing poets and writers for sharing your work during this year’s submission period. Our window closed yesterday—with over 560 submissions!! WOW!!! Our reading period begins next week, and there is yet another incredible group of student editors ready to learn all about publishing by doing the hard work to publish the next volume of our beloved literary journal—and our 30th issue!
Thank you!!
How do you go from a student-run lit. mag. to a national music prize? In just five easy steps:
Step 1: A poet submits his work. In September of 2022, Steve Deutsch submitted his poem, “Looking for America,” for consideration of publication in volume XXVII of the Clackamas Literary Review (CLR). Steve is the poetry editor of Centered Magazine and was the first poet-in-residence at Bellefonte Art Museum in Pennsylvania. He’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times and won the Sinclair Poetry Prize for his full-length book, Brooklyn.
Step 2: Student editors select Steve’s poem for publication. Students enrolled in one of the English Department’s book publishing course offerings at Clackamas Community College in Oregon City, OR, who were learning all about publishing by working as assistant editors to publish the next volume of the award-winning and internationally-read Clackamas Literary Review, read, discussed at length, and were thrilled to acquire “Looking for America” for publication.
Step 3: A composer from the San Francisco Bay Area discovers Steve’s poem in the CLR. Martin Rokeach, a professional composer who had been commissioned by conductor Bruce Koliha to write a piece for chorus, had been searching for just the right poem—scouring the internet, visiting used book stores—to set to music. He had read over 200 poems and was coming up short. And then Dennis Lum, whose poems “Milky Way” and “The Answer Is No” were published in the same issue as “Looking for America,” and who happened to be Martin’s cousin-in-law, sent a copy of the CLR to his family to read. In Martin’s words, “I at last found what I needed in Steve’s ‘Looking for America.’” Martin reached out to the CLR’s managing editor about connecting with Steve regarding the exciting opportunity. The editor connected composer with poet, and the rest is, as they say, history.
Step 4: Composer sets poem to music. Martin wrote the music, to be performed by the San Ramon Valley Chorale, renaming it “Remembering We’re Alive.” It premiered in April 2025, nearly two years after the poem was first published in the CLR.
Step 5: Choral work wins a national music prize. Sacramento State’s Festival of New American Music, which received more than 230 submissions in four categories, selected only one choral work in the choir category. You guessed it: “Remembering We’re Alive.”
See how that works?
“Remembering We’re Alive,” adapted from Steve Deutsch’s poem “Looking for America,” originally published in volume XXVII of the Clackamas Literary Review and set to music by Martin Rokeach, will be performed November 2nd, 2025 at Sacramento State’s annual music festival.
“Looking for America,” by Steve Deutsch
Let us be
best friends
one last time—
roll out the old
Ford
and take
that trip
we so often
dreamed of
when young.
Head to
the west coast
on those two lane
roads that once
were America.
Remember
when we were
America too?
Fill that old
Ford with
chips and beer—
the radio set
to the “Nothing
but Oldies” Station,
loud enough
to remind us
we are still alive.
Swap lies
with the locals
in pubs on Main Street
and sample
the biscuits and bacon
in dozens of mom
and pop diners
in what was once
the heartland—
a thousand dots
on a tattered
gas station map
long ago
bypassed
and nearly forgotten.
And when
the Ford
throws a rod
in Kansas
or Colorado,
as of course
it must,
we can unfold
the aluminum
lawn chairs
and sit on the berm
to wait for the sunset.
Interview with Heather Charton
Author of “What We Knew” (20th Anniversary Issue)
What was the inspiration for “What We Knew”?
My dad has an unusual hobby: fireworks. But he is not the only one. A few years ago, he became a card-carrying member of Pyrotechnics Guild International and then convinced my mom and me to attend a couple of their conventions with him. At these conventions, the fireworks were amazing, but the people were incredible, too. Their delightful passion for all things “pryo” were the beginnings of “What We Knew.”
The point of view came next. I’m a small-town Midwesterner, which makes it hard to get away from the effects—both good and bad—of community. I am fascinated by a town’s group mentality, the way it’s alliances shift and develop. In “What We Knew,” I used the focal point of fireworks to play with that social dynamic.
What made you decide to become an author?
When I started my undergraduate program at Kent State, I knew that I loved words and that I wanted to be a teacher. Then I took Joey Nicoletti’s Intro to Creative Writing course. He opened up to me the idea that I could not only teach others to love and use words but that I could also use them myself. He showed me that being a writer was a possibility. After his class, I still loved words and I still wanted to be a teacher, but I also wanted to be a writer. I took every writing class I could at Kent and then pursued my MFA at Lesley University.
Do you have any other pieces you’re intending to release soon or are working on?
I had another short story—“Grounded”—published in Bird’s Thumb this February. I currently have a few short stories in the submission process and am beginning to look for an agent for my first novel.
Author Insight: If you had one piece of advice you’d pass on to other authors, what would it be?
Try to never stop writing. Keep getting to the desk. Get into a rhythm of regular, if possible, day writing. Some kind of discipline above all. Because when you stop it can be very hard to return. And it gets harder. “Back” doesn’t only relate to finding your footing again in life, it’s a metaphor for returning to yourself as a writer. I’ve written that poem too many times.
-Harry Newman, 20th Anniversary Issue
For the most part, I still consider myself on the learning end of writing, so any advice I have is surely advice that was given to me by someone much wiser and more experienced than I am. That being said, though, if there’s one thing that’s helped me immensely in my writing it’s getting into a daily habit, and having people around me that know my work and my style to offer constant critical feedback. Even if it’s small, setting a goal of writing a set number of words a day really does help the flow of ideas. I’m also a firm believer in the idea that you can’t really write a great story until you’ve written the bad version of it, so writing every day is another way of getting the bad out of your system so the good can start to poke through. And with regards to having people around, there’s really nothing that’s helped me learn and grow as a writer more than helpful, critical peer reviewers. Even if it’s over email, having another set of eyes to read your work and critically assess it for what it’s trying to do is essential to improving.
-Tyler Wilborn, 20th Anniversary Issue
“Your words are worth it.”
It’s too easy to say, “I’ll write when…” There is always something else you should or could be doing, but your words are important. If you intend to be a writer, then be a writer. As Theo Pauline Nestor writes in Writing Is My Drink, “What does it look like to give permission to ourselves [to write]?…It’s knowing that all the other stuff you need to do will get done. Or it won’t.” No one else is going to prioritize your work (and writing is work). You have to honor your words and give them the time they need. And you have to remind yourself to honor them every day.
-Heather Charton, 20th Anniversary Issue
Interview with Patricia Murphy
In 2005, the CLR published Patricia Colleen Murphy’s poem “Days After.” This year, she won the May Swenson Poetry Award for her poetry collection Hemming Flames. We had the chance to interview Trish about her writing process and what inspired these poems. Enjoy!
What is the background and inspiration behind this collection?
I’ve been writing about my complex family history for as long as I can remember. Poetry is helpful in articulating that history because I can use an objective correlative to show what happened, rather than trying to explain it. I think about how many times I’ve summarized the conditions of my nuclear family–how often do any of us answer the questions, “Do you have siblings?” or “What do your parents do.” I spent years and years (on an airplane or at the dentist) flat out lying. I had to lie. I couldn’t stand that look of pity when I told the truth. In this book I tell the truth about everything: madness, violence, hostility, and chaos.
What difficulties did you have writing about the mental illness and more disturbing aspects of your life? Did you have any reservations about publishing this work?
The difficulty came from having to relive so many of the painful events that render the characters and actions on the page. My mother’s mental illness made me timid and insecure throughout my lifetime. It was always going to be bigger than me. And for so long I thought her illness was my fault. This is not an uncommon occurrence for a child of a mentally ill parent. But the feeling was exacerbated when she attempted suicide when I was 15 and I saved her life. She went on to attempt suicide many times. I was never in control of anything.
I don’t have reservations about publishing this work, but I do wish I had something more uplifting to say. It’s hard to give readings from the book because it’s so intense and it’s not really fair to take an audience to the same dark place that I had to go to write it.
How do you begin a poem, generally, and how did you begin to approach this collection in particular?
I have a very disciplined writing practice. I read a lot. At least 104 books a year. And I keep an extensive writer’s notebook. When I sit down to write, first I journal, then I read a full collection of poetry, then I journal again with reactions to that. Then I review my writer’s notebook and I decide on a line or image to drive the composing process. Every once in a while I’ll have a strong emotion and I use the poem to make a sweeping gesture to address that. But usually the poems are image based or line-driven.
For this collection, I wanted to have a satisfying arch. Most of the poems were already written, but I did decide to write a series of nonce sonnets about my brother that rounded out that topic in the book. My writer’s group read and commented on them all–for many years we exchanged a poem a week for ten weeks, on and off throughout the year–and they encouraged me to be brave and detailed.
Your poem “Days After” was published in the CLR in 2005. What has changed about your writing craft—the ideas or characters you explore, how you approach them—over the last ten years?
That poem is about a different death–the death of my partner’s father in 2001. We really spent the aughts with sick parents, losing all four between 01 and 09, before I was 40 years old. I do have some love poems, and a lot of travel poems, and some conservationist poems, and some nature poems, etc. But over the course of those years we took a lot of hits! So it was asylum, cancer, death, death, hoarding, asylum, death death, etc.
What advice do you have for writers and poets working on trauma-related pieces?
First, I would say that every poem has a little trauma in it. If not, then it lacks tension, and it’s not really a poem. Second, find a group of people who love you and support you and who will read your work and tell you when you are being honest. Third, I would say read everything you can. There are so many amazing examples of poetry collections that deal with traumatic events or conditions. I’ll list some here:
Black Aperture by Matt Rasmussen
After Urgency by Rusty Morrison
Self-Portrait with Crayon by Allison Benis White
Temper by Beth Bachmann
Rising by Farah Field
How Beautiful the Beloved by Gregory Orr
Wheeling Motel by Franz Wright
How can readers discover more about you and your work?
At my website patriciacolleenmurphy.com.
CLACKAMAS LITERARY REVIEW 