January
2003
Book
Review: The Bucks County Writer - Fall 2002
Published by The Writers Room of Bucks County, Inc.
Doylestown, Penn.
140 Pages - $5.95 (softcover)
Available
at Barnes & Noble and Local Book Stores
By
Mark Feffer
The
Bucks County Writer is a quarterly literary journal published
by the Writers Room of Bucks County, a not-for-profit group of writers
and, I daresay, readers, that seeks to "raise community awareness
and appreciation of the literary arts and those who practice them."
Just one of the group's efforts, the magazine features works by
local authors and poets, along with news and event listings for
writers and others.
Though set in or inspired by Bucks County, none of the pieces here
is so narrow it can't be read and enjoyed by anyone, anywhere. Jean
Baur's How to Love a Man, for example, is a lovely, wistful
story, describing the path a woman follows from curiosity to affection
to love, all in the space of an afternoon's hike through the woods
of Pennsylvania. She writes:
I
hate this line of thinking. Hate the poison of social pressure.
I will not be shoved around by the imaginary opinion of others.
So I stretch out my hand and rest on top of his. He is also sprawled
out in the sun, half on his side, turned toward me. His thumb
lifts to caress the side of my hand. Slowly, it goes back and
forth. Slowly it convinces me that it's all right just to be here
with him and that somebody else can worry about why he's fat.
With
this passage, Baur captures a moment where one person's view of
another gathers the momentum to change, and presents it in images
as delicate as the moment itself. Another story, Laura Rose's Small
Game, describes a young girl's efforts to mend her relationship
with her father by taking up hunting. "Some fathers smell like
Old Spice," writes Rose:
but
mine reeked of gunpowder all year round. To me, gunpowder is the
fragrance of masculinity and hope and despair intertwined. Because
we never did get closer by hunting. Along with the grouse and
rabbits and pheasants, we had flushed out each other. Unfortunately,
we were both expecting some other game-something larger, lovelier
and more graceful.
Far
from being the end of this story, this is just a midpoint that casts
the remainder in sad light. Like How To Love A Fat Man, this
is a well-constructed story focused on characters who are as honest
in observing their own struggles as they are in describing the actions
of people around them. And I admit I cite these two almost at random.
The other stories in the journal are certainly as good.
So, too, with its poetry, which ranges in subject matter from inner-city
Philadelphia to the Shore. One of the most remarkable images is
painted by John Eckert in his unfortunately titled, In the Penumbra
of Eighteenth and Allegheny:
A
shot falls softly off the rim; the small boy finds the
rebound by feel;
he fakes out phantom defenders; a train's muffled wail
builds and fades.
Again, he aims at the basket he doesn't need to see and
swells with the image
of a buzzer beater-a lush contract-the house he'll buy
his momma.
Whenever
I read a publication by a writer's group, I experience a bit of
trepidation. Too often, such magazines reflect the desire of writers
to publish, more than an editor's desire to compile a collection
that will touch readers. In this case, though, any such fears were
misplaced. The Bucks County Writer has gathered a collection
of stories, poems and feature articles that succeeds both as a reflection
of the community it serves and as a journal in its own rights.
Mark
Feffer is founding editor of the Trenton Writes Project
