Challenge 226

The Absence and the Presence

Rebecca Lu Kiernan’s “Inside My Hot House Orchid” is the last poem we have from her collection Rummy Park. In previous years we might have published them sequentially from week to week, but Years 4 and 5 of Bewildering Stories have favored us with a flood of poetry, much of it very good indeed. Rummy Park has thus served as a reminder by setting a continual standard of excellence in poetry.

Poets and readers, your official Challenge is to write us one or more articles on the themes and imagery in Rebecca Lu Kiernan’s poetry as it has appeared in Bewildering Stories. And don’t stop there: many other topics will appear as you read.
In Luke Jackson’s “The Spinning Pinwheel Flame War,” what seems to be the proximate cause of Fat Toe’s encyclopedic fulminations?
How does Jeff Brown’s “One Hundred Seventy-Eight” depict sentiment without lapsing into sentimentality? What’s the difference?
The Readers’ Guide introduction says that the angel makes two “Edenic” choices in David Redd’s “Coptic Street Sunset.” Not to be cryptic, the reference is to the two trees in the Garden of Eden. The angel’s choice of one seems to nullify the other. Why might the angel’s choice be the logical one?
In what way are the plots of E. S. Strout’s “The Big Empty” and Lewayne L. White’s “Something Fishy” similar?
What might the lady have said if the social worker had telephoned before coming to visit in Branigan Grace’s “Next Time, Call First”?
How does Stephen Patrick’s “Fragile: Handle with Care” resemble Ricky Ginsburg’s “Plates”? How does it differ?
Carmen Ruggero’s “Christmas Out Of Tinsel Town” ends with a realization of “both the absence and the presence of the spirit.” In what ways does the story show the absence? What is the Biblical source that proclaims the presence of the spirit? Cite chapter and verse. Never mind: let this be the Challenge’s Christmas present to you: Matthew 25:36.

Responses welcome!