Life's Unexpected Bits of Sweetness

by Editor in Chief Mary Bast

Anyone who's been a long-time caregiver has experienced the mixed emotions inherent in that role. Having cared for my mother the final sixteen years of her long life, I know the quiet tug between strength and fatigue, compassion and anger, willingness and rebellion. So it was my personal and professional pleasure to support Editor Susie H. Baxter's 2017 Creative Nonfiction Prize award to Raphel Helena Kosek for Caregiver's Journal: How to Survive, or Not.

Kosek wrote so movingly, in fact, we also nominated her piece for a Pushcart Prize.

Described by the author as "one of the most honest and heartfelt pieces I've ever written," Kosek's three-part essay begins, "The Caregiver Addresses Herself at a Distance:"

The night path so often covered between your mother's house and yours falls like reprieve, like freedom, when you are able to leave her--pajamaed and ready for bed--return to your own world. . . Never in all your sixty-one years have you counted the air so sweetly. . . the next step, next breath, next page, word, desire, longing, gratitude--a swell rising like the tide, sand unresisting sweeping you along the sea of night where you are washed from your mother's bitterness. . . .  

Then "Taking Stock:"

. . . my mother slowly heading towards immobility next door in her house where the rituals of dressing and undressing, mollifying and tolerating, are endlessly repeated. . . No happy burden here. Age knocking at my door, I am still the rebellious teenager inside questioning, how did this happen to me? I want to take drugs, sleep too long, head into the woods. I don't do any of that. . . I am a monk in my skin. . . Aware of life's unexpected bits of sweetness, I hoard them like jewels. . . .

And in the final section, "Barking Dog in the Night:"

Stranded on the island of night, I try to navigate to the next minute, next moment. A neighbor's dog is barking but without urgency. . . He has been left out or let outside. . . My husband, more tired than I, has gone to bed. . . Now the dog and I are left to contemplate the vast universe that steams and dreams around us. . . If I try hard enough, I might arrive at some profound thought, but like the dog, feel no urgency to do so. Restless, I send some tentative feelers out--my bark to verify my existence. . . .

You'll find Kosek's eloquent, prize-winning piece in its entirety 

in Bacopa Literary Review 2017.  

For more about Raphael Helena Kosek:

Q & A with Eastern Iowa Review
Showcased Writer at Silk Road Review
Rough Grace (poems), 2014 Winner, Concrete Wolf Chapbook Competition

2017 Bacopa Literary Review Prize Winners

Congratulations to our 2017 Bacopa Literary Review prize winners:

Flash Story Prize: "Excerpts From the Trakl Diaries"
Stephanie Emily Dickinson

In this four-part flash, Stephanie Emily Dickinson "explores and illuminates the short and tumultuous life of the brilliant Expressionist poet, Georg Trakl (1887-1914). Born into a middle-class Austrian family, this towering visionary fought the demons of mental illness and drug addiction before committing suicide in Krakow at age 27."

An Iowa native, Dickinson lives in New York City. Her novel Half Girl and novella Lust Series are published by Spuyten Duyvil, as is her Love Highway, based on the 2006 Jennifer Moore murder. Her other books include Port Authority Orchids, Heat: An Interview with Jean Seberg, and the recently released collection, The Emily Fables.

Poetry Prize: "A Mote of Dust"
Claire Scott

According to some, "Our time here on earth is finite, and we better find our way off it sooner rather than later." Claire Scott's poem pulls us into that future: "have you thoughts of moving to Saturn / or Neptune or even Pluto / . . . maybe one night you will look out / and see a pale dot / a mote of dust in the night sky. . ."

An award-winning poet and Pushcart Prize nominee, Scott's work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Enizagam, Causeway Lit, and The Healing Muse, among others. She is the author of Waiting to be Called.

Creative Nonfiction Prize: "Caregiver's Journal: How to Survive, or Not"
Raphael Helena Kosek

"One of the most honest and heartfelt pieces I've ever written," says Raphael Helena Kosek of her "Caregiver's Journal: How to Survive, or Not."

Kosek's work has appeared in many journals and magazines including Big Muddy Poetry East, The Chattahoochee Review, Catamaran, Still Point Arts Quarterly, and Southern Humanities Review. Her chapbook, Rough Grace, won the 2014 Concrete Wolf Chapbook Competition and one of her essays tied for first place in the 2016 Eastern Iowa Review Lyric Essay Contest. She teaches American Lit and Creative Writing at Marist College and Dutchess Community College.

Fiction Prize: "Ignis Fatuus, and More, at Eleven"
Chad W. Lutz

"Ignis Fatuus, or 'foolish fire' (because of its erratic movement). 1. a flitting, phosphorescent light seen at night, believed to be due to spontaneous combustion of gas from decomposed organic matter. 2. Something deluding or misleading."

Chad W. Lutz is a runner, and you should be prepared for a read that will leave you breathless. Currently enrolled at Mills College in Oakland, California, and working toward an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction), Lutz's publications include The Chaos Journal, Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine, Fish Food, Gravel, Jellyfish Whispers, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Jazz Cigarette, and Route 7 Review.

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Bacopa Literary Review 2017 now available at Amazon.com