Page 151 - Scrimshaw1977-78

Friday, May 19, 1978 Scrimshaw Page 3 Personal Viewpoint, " , ,,'.' " PartIng Notes: Reasons for Upgr'ading 'Colitrast; by Jesse Glass . pseudonyms should serve a pur- and Richard Brautigan, but their year on inferior productions. Many writers and English staff I've been a student at WMC for pose, either an aesthetic one like pens produced the same flabby international literary magazines 3) To promote contact between five years. Because I began my Kierkegaard's Victor Eremita, or language as "inspired" psych ran on shoe string budgets, offset WMC writers and contemporary liberal arts education with literary a social one-a mask to hide behind majors, chemistry majors, or only by their editor's imagination magazines & writers in the English aspirations 1 was naturally at- to escape censure. I wasn't sure, ROTC people. There were creative and industry--two things that were speakingworld tractedtoContrasl.Myownefforts on reading their efforts, which of writing classes, and the heroic obviously lacking in our ca-mpus 4) To promote literary ex- at writing were ill-rewarded; Iwas the two reasons held--but I was efforts of Del Palmer, Robert publication. cellence among WMC writers by reading the classics, modeling my sure of one thing-these people Lawler, and others, who tried to Contrast continued year after raising the standards of Contrast work after them, but Ihad no peers weren't poets. The thickness of the introduce intelligence and control year in the same slick. booklet for student work submitted-- to gauge my success or lack of annual Contrast assured me that to WMC creative writers, was form. Why not open it up a bit'! editorial judgement based on WMC success. When I arrived at WMC I there were many versifiers at rewarded by an occasional flash, a Produce chapbooks, broadsides, a writing workshops, etc. felt like I had entered an oasis. WMC, yet I could not find one work hint of excellance. But these were magazine that appeared quar- 5) To acquaint WMC writers with Here the subjects I had thought to that resembled literature. There buried under the over-all flab, and terly? To do these things last the proper manner of submitting be arcane were openly discussed. seemed to be attitude prevalent at I began to look upon Contrast as a year's editor shifted into a less manuscripts, the perils of rejection There were also poets and a the time that everyone was a poet. "dumping ground." Contrast was extravagant Icrmat-mimeograph. slips, and all the other things literary magazine! My enthusiasm All you had to do was set pen to filled with big fish in a little pond-- This year Joe Gainer and his staff necessary to know when sub- waned though, when I met these paper occasionally when "in- self deluded scribblers who con- have explored a range of mitting to other magazines. "poets" and Iread Contrast for the spired" by a beer blast or a sidered their efforts literature and production possibilities totally new WMC has a long tradition of first time morning lecture, and voila! At could prove it by saying that they toConlrast's history. excellence. The present editors of There was a group of rhymsters most there were people who were published in Contrast. But the problem remained-how Contrast wish to foster that back then who wrote under pen "played poet" without doing a Outside of WMC was a world of to transform a "dumping ground" tradition in the literary arts. Wc names like "T.R.," "Tracer," and poet's work, who lounged in the magazines and writers that the into a true literary magazine? It invite all people interested in the first by Nancy Barry, "Star." I've always thought that grille and discussed Kurt Vonnegut campus poets were unaware was decided, editor, and continued by craft of writing to become actively engaged last year's has to in all that Contrast Personal Viewpoint ~:l!~~~d~:~~e!:~a~~~:~:s~a~~~ Joe Gainer, to open Contrast to offer. Those people who wish to cut Why Did ItS tart? f~t: i~~hi~r~Fr~~s ;~it:~~ia:~~~ outside submissions, for these this vital link of WMC writers with reasons: world, who the rest of the literary' by Dave aeveland Contrast didn't offer. It was too irre familiarize WMC writers wish to turn their backs on the I will take the opportunity of my As to their question, "Could it easy to be published in our literary and readers with the forms & knowledge offered to them in criticism by Solomon Snyder and have been that the refugees served magazine. No one was rejected, no varieties of literary expression writing workshops and its prac- produced by contemporary writer tical application in the pages of- ~~a~~~~;~;~n ~e ;;;:{e5 ~~~~Z!~hrc~i~C:~ld p~~~~~ l~~~~ ~:~~o~~ t~h~e~~~ t:t~~e~~t~:' 2) To educate, in a practical Contrast, are trying to bring back way, the writers and readers of the "dumping ground" days. I ~~~\~~~a:~o~e o~i~~le A~:~~S~~:~ they been permanently settled?" I ~~~t~:lt~:~~'st~~~g~~~PFti~~m~ WMC as to what a good poem, or offer them a creative alternative-- magazine, attacked my scholarship and my ~~i~~~t~~~sp~:;;e~~~a~;:~! to me that a first rate little short story consists of--editorial begin your own your friends, cir- judgement and on based WMC it among culate ~~~tiVity. I hope to demonstrate Continued to Page 4 ~:g~~i~~ C~!~e~ ~~t~ea with workshops given by visiting think up a good pen name. Messrs. Snyder and Raynor demonstrated what I feel here A Fond is a common misunderstanding about the origin of the conflict. Prior tothe partition of Palestine in 1947, the native Arabs and the Farewell I Jewish imigrants lived in an uneasy and suspicious peace. However, armed bands on both sides turned mutual distrust into to the open hate. When the British left in 1948, fighting broke out im- mediately. The Israehes, far CADETS better armed and organized, and united by the horror of the Holocaust, would have crushed the Palestinians, had not the other Arab state gone to aid what they -i ~i~z~ ab;~~e fr~~~iS~i~~dvi~ j ~~~;~~~I;~:~~n~d ~:a~~a~~:: Israelies were able to overrun much of the land occupied by the Palestinians. It is the actions of the lsratlies after the cease-fire which have caused the conflict today. Before this first war, as Messrs. Snyder and Raynor stated, the Jewish immigrants did buy the land, perhaps at outrageous prices. But during the war, the Palestinian people fled the combat zones. Once again, Ma~k Bayer, our grad- Messrs. Snyder and Raynor hr=~;;;';'..C--~~ uating staff cartoonist, has let loose claimed that they left under the his artistic ability. These will be the threats of their leaders, but a ~ last set of CADETS ever published civilian population always flees ;!!-.~~J at ~MC, p.resumeably. From the , before the evacuation of southern eYllleaJ pomt of view, Mark has his Lebanon before the Israeli ad- final bit of fun looking at Western vance there. The people rightly Maryland College life, flee the combat zone to protect their lives But the great crime of the Israelies is that after the cease- fire, they closed their borders to these refugees-they refused to let them return to their lands. Messrs Snyder and Raynor are wrong. They claim that there was no displacement. But the Palestinians were displaced. They fled for their lives and the Israelles took their homes. As to their question, "Could it have bee~ that the refugees serded a .political purpose, a purpose , which would have been lost had they been permanently settled?" r ask questions of my own. What is this political purpose? What do the ~;i~~~~:t~a=l\~s !~t~~lI !!.'j ~:i~~;l'¥s~i~lr:r~~jf ~ a too