One Small Twig is a Voice - A Review of Kindling II
One small twig is a voice. Another is a thought about memory, originating once from a giant tree trunk. This twig is a question about youth. Another stick is a touch of a lover from a far away place. Yet another piece of wood, added to our collection, is simply what it means to be patient. Here are a thousand ghost twigs, added to our pile in jarring clumps. Here it is: A community of experience for both the writers and the readers. A kindling. A bright flame.
Writer’s Edit as a literary magazine, an online website, a publishing company, and a human team believe in community. As writers themselves Writer’s Edit is encouraging of all forms of creativity in the written word. Thus, the Kindling Anthology is born.
Each piece within the anthology, regardless of genre, is deeply personal. This what excites me the most as a reader, that writing in any form is inspired from the passionate place of creativity itself. Instead of exploring memory through obscure literature, I was able to see memory as a clear palimpsest in the non-fictional The Couple in the Woods: Fragments of a Memoir. My appreciation of our physical senses, especially taste, is found in its purest form in the non-fictional Eat, Memory. Eat chocolate and be reminded of innocence. Eat banana bread and you are suddenly captured in your Mother’s kitchen. Every taste you’ve ever had is always a memory or two. I, Woman is gloriously defined by magical cities in the place we call Earth, how we are sculptured by these sculptures themselves, and what it means to tell a man: “I am Woman,” with every ounce of ‘masculine’ authority.
For me, the warmest parts of the anthology’s passionate flame, is poetry. Desiderium paces out the emotions of ardent longing like the painful seven stages of grief:
“ i long.
in throws of urgent ennui,
in idle melancholia,
from lofty heights of desiderium, do i.
i do.
crave i, that secondminutehouryear ardently. i do.”
The Red Room Company’s very own Lorin Reid (Lorin Elizabeth) is featured with her pieces, Leaves Pt. One and Leaves Pt. Two. Her poetry is physical by paying close attention to the sound words make, and in this way, sound itself. Reid’s attentiveness to sound not only comes from her spoken word poetry, but from her belief that community is everything.
Here is the sizzle of the pan of pancakes in the background of leaving:
“flips ‘em like ten cents
every time your bed’s made,
flips ‘em like his golden syrup women –
a stack of unread newspapers
dusted with cinnamon.”
Here is the voice we wish to hear, like Reid in that busy American taxi ride:
Maybe David hits the brakes for the last time
crinkled eyes in the rear-view mirror and
says, hey maybe one day I’ll find you again, or,
that’ll be twenty-seven dollars, thanks.
Leaving is entirely noisy, but in a community, somehow comforting.
As inspiring as Kindling II is in igniting small flames of creativity, I feel the anthology itself needed more structure. I think it is important not to look past the solid collective ability of themes. If the anthology were themed, the chosen pieces would seem less muddled and more connected instead of simply banded side-by-side. A strong sense of collectiveness must be had when any mention of community appears. Maybe this is why the fictional pieces are lacking to me as a reader, most were three pages so I had little contextual foundations to really immerse myself in the story.
This being said, Writer’s Edit has produced an amazing collection of written genres to keep any reader warm. The publication of Kindling is still quite young, so I am hopeful that with many more publications, Kindling will grow into the large fire it is so deserving of.
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Based in Sydney, Australia, Writer’s Edit is a young online literary magazine created especially for writers and book lovers.
Unlike a lot of other literary publications, Writer’s Edit believes in strong relationships with our writers. We offer advice, inspiration, feedback, friendship and a fresh and engaging publication platform for emerging authors, without the affiliate sales pitches.
Kindling II is their second anthology. You can buy it here.
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Winnie is a project assistant at The Red Room Company. She is currently in her third year of studying a Bachelor of Arts Pathway to Secondary Teaching at Western Sydney University. She majors in English and Modern History. A sometimes blogger at winniereads.wordpress.com, she likes to spend most of her time reading books, people and shamelessly sharing a lavender-scented toy bear with her seven year old sister.
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