Issue 12 was edited by Calvin Bellomo.

From the Editor

When considering writing an editor’s note for this year’s edition of Any Other Word, I was understandably hesitant. I thought, “Why take away from the hard work and dedication to the creative process any more than my presence already has?” However, it would seem ego makes fools of us all. This project became very dear to me the more time and energy I poured into it, and now here I am boldly announcing myself at the curtain’s call. That being said, I believe this year’s edition of Any Other Word is unique. We received countless wonderful submissions, and the result, I hope you’ll agree, is something quite special. Penn State York bears the privilege of hosting some of the most talented and dedicated artists I’ve ever met. I am beyond humbled and privileged to have been able to participate in this process. We at Any Other Word worked diligently to select the best of an archive of wonderful works. I am extremely pleased to hand off the reigns now, to you, our readers, and I truly hope that you will enjoy the deeply provocative poems and brilliant works of art we chose to feature. Without further ado, I hope that my words will fade into the gray as you delve into the 2024 edition of Any Other Word. – Calvin Bellomo

 

 

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The Brushes

1st Place Visual Art – By Mary Frances Dizor

 

Woodward

1st Place Poetry – By Isabel Jungclaus

There is a cemetery
that crowns the hill smack
in the worst part of town.
Collapsed wire fencing
marks the boundary
and the church
skirts the corner
with its strawberry bricks
and brown paper bags
handed out on Mondays
in meek appeasement.

The churchyard is spongey,
lumped, sweet and soft,
bursting with beds of woodchucks
and neglected dead.
Climbing to the head,
the haggard houses sink
and calls of raucous carouses
fall, leaving all still to the horizon
of contorting hemlock.

Here you’ll find the angels
at their verdigris vigil
flanking the plot
of a family forgotten.
Lichen-lightened eyes look on
from an erosion of mercy,
no judgment for erring souls
slinking by their sphynxian stare—
they only watch
while spirits seek respite
against damp headstones.

Farther down the slope,
the collapsed ceiling
of ruined burial vault beckons
to those for whom no other door will open,
a hospitality of plywood and dry bones.

And there at the bottom,
just before
the thicket of thorns
and the line of the wood,
the aged pear shakes its leaves in shivers,
twists its dry limbs above
where we once lay
in the earth, in love.

 

Laughing Gull Sunset

2nd Place Visual Art – Photography – By Bryce Thoman

 

Ode to the Sibyl, Orlando

Honorable Mention – Poetry – By Isabel Jungclaus

I had walked there many times before
through fog-flamed day, or else bright ice of night,
but never yet had I traversed this shore
alone, and in a darkness one could bite
so thick it was—like fruit engulfed by blight—
which swallowed up the paleness of the moon
within the mere, like age-occluded sight.

Still I tread there in the press of gloom
and crushed the chestnut flesh which all around was strewn.

And as I came upon the sacred oak
whose gnarls had long presided on this bank
in weariness I sank in wooded cloak,
let muscled arms of roots embrace my flank
and soon, felled by fatigue, awareness shrank
beneath, incomprehensibly beyond
her fragile crescent body, cool and lank.
Something more than sleep possessed her, fond
as she appeared, red mouth curled like a feathered frond.

What transpired there is hard to say—
blood and heartwood, xylem corporeal—
all transmogrified, to spite the fray
of dissolution, a delight to feel
gloire of fresher days in mode surreal.
For spirits volatile with dreams that spin
and flush the wake bisected by the keel
that stirs the lake which blackly laps within,
know words are refluent, with wood and water kin.

 

Cautious Honesty

2nd Place Poetry – By Ben Levalley

Over the past two weeks, have you
Felt little interest or pleasure in doing things?

I read a story today

About a child who had to work all summer

Making necklaces to sell to pay off his school lunch debt.

 

Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless?

Yesterday they were arguing on Live TV

About whether or not it was appropriate

To bomb a refugee camp full of children.

 

Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much?

And I still remember the story from this past summer,

About the 13-year-old child

Forced to give birth to her rapist’s baby in Ohio.

 

Feeling tired or having little energy?

And when I got home and tried to watch TV

To take my mind off things

I saw the Great Barrier Reef

A bleached wasteland.

 

Poor appetite or overeating?

The lungs of the Earth have been set ablaze

To make room for more cheap beef.

 

Feeling bad about yourself – or that you are a failure and have let you or your family down?

We try taking to the streets

But the White Moderate™

Is worried about the Target.

 

Trouble concentrating on things, such as reading the newspaper or watching television?

The message is clear.

 

Moving or speaking so slowly that other people have noticed? Or so fidgety and restless that you are moving around a lot more?

If we can’t figure out a way to grow crops without tilling the soil

Or to get rain without a storm

 

Had thoughts that you would be better off dead, or thoughts about hurting yourself in some way?

Then “nothing will fundamentally change.”

 

The Babe Rainbow

3rd Place Visual Art – Acrylic – By Mallory Kurnik

 

Stranger

Honorable Mention – Poetry – By Ben Levalley

Sometimes he knocks,
Asks,
Politely,
To come in for a talk.
To sit and have tea
And discuss killing me.
With an obedient smile, he’ll turn and go
When I tell him “No.”

Other times he walks right in
And blows right through my defenses.
Emasculated, ego incinerated
I fall.
Imagination straining

To detail scenes of my kids without dad
Wondering what sickness he must have had.
Leaving them scared of what’s around the next bend,
And if it will come for them, too, in the end.

Then the mocking begins.
A cancerous dare to think that they care
Or would even be worse off without me.

Then just as I resign to eternal disgrace
He turns right around and leaves me in place.
He chuckles and shakes his head as he goes,
Disperses his cloud of daggers into the wind.

 

mad.

3rd Place Poetry – By Mallory Kurnik

second-hand madness is getting to me.
when I talk to the mirror
I’m confused on who’s who.

tongue-kissing with my sanity
thanks to sleep deprivation
and excruciating muscle pain.

tired of being tired.

second-hand anxiety gets to me.
doing so much yet
nothing at all.

tongue-kissing with my dreams
of being a fitness freak,
an esoteric art geek.

maybe I want a divorce.

second-hand irritability makes me unstable.
unable to focus
on what’s important, the Jabberwocky.

tongue-kissing with my happiness.
trapped in Wonderland
with no escape.

I wonder if I have a long-lost twin.

second-hand tomfoolery isn’t a thing.
him and that Dormouse just
drive me madder.

wandering in circles.
too much color or not enough
one extreme or the other.

what’s in my closet?

second-hand mercury poisoning has made its way to me.
voices in my head
attacking what I’m thinking.

tongue-kissing with Death
like I’ve already taken a breath
as deep as I’m able.

now that he’s gone
I hoped my madness would go with
but the sane never came.

the best people are

 

The Northern Face

Honorable Mention Visual Art – Acrylic – By Carson Kratzer

 

Picasso Persona

Honorable Mention – Poetry – By Maxwell Humphris

Youth.
He looks so soft,
Such smooth features,
Free of this world’s
Blemishes and fear.

Framed but also flowing.
He still has this sense of
Innocence in his eyes.

I remember him.
Having yet to be claimed.
Still virgin to
The angular indentations
And brick-like bruises.

I hate his smooth face.
It is unrealistic.

Like the lies of his lively skin.
So lovely, so rosy, full of life,
But truth lies in his eyes,
Drooping, black under swooping.

How he hides half.
In the shadows, obscuring,
Deceiving, only displaying.
Betraying his true self.

When I look now,
I see reality.

The true colors of his
Lifeless skin. How that pristine
Jawline was hiding sharp corners.
And his sets of staring eyes
Were on both his lover and
Love for his legacy.

I see several dimensions
Outside of his plain appearance.
How he can show all of his
Faces. Not half of a mask.

How young and inept I was,
Blinded by brushwork and
Ruined by reality.