Challenge 1039

Now You Catch It

In Presley Acuna’s Pressing the Flesh: Once Peter Clement’s interviewer starts drawing blood by biting his own hand, why might recalling the interviewer’s name make Peter stare in horror and, perhaps, even bolt out the door?
In Robin Helweg-Larsen’s Zombies and Wolves: The poem identifies two tragic themes in present-day literature. What are they? Are there no comic themes today, i.e. ones in which restorations or reconciliations are made without experiencing wrack and ruin?

In Charles C. Cole’s Swain Clatchee Goes Fishing: How does Swain minister both effectively and honestly to Levi without accepting Levi’s superstition about the literal, physical manifestation of Levi’s soul?

In Ron Sanders’ Masters of the Wheel: Does the prose poem imagine the evolutionary appearance of mankind or does it depict mankind’s recurring evolution and resulting apocalypses?
In Mark Kirkbride’s Time Machine Needed:
1. Does Gareth explain to Stuart what might happen if Stuart goes “off script” while time-traveling? Or does Gareth simply warn him against improvising?
2. Is Stuart’s fate the same as or similar to that of “off-script” time travelers in “Don’t Get Noticed”?
In Julie Brandon’s We Wear Black:
1. Is black a universal symbol of mourning? What is the equivalent symbolic color in Korea and, perhaps, other places in eastern Asia?
2. How might a poem be written on a similar theme with visual imagery and yet without particular color symbolism?
In William Quincy Belle’s The Fungal Trance:
1. Does the story read like a chapter from a larger work, such as a novel or novella? How might the larger work conclude: in a successful resolution or an apocalypse?
2. How might the current story reach a conclusion?
3. The Cordyceps fungus emits life-threatening spores in the Last of Us games and TV series. Does “Fungal Trance” qualify as fan fiction?