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NONFICTION

LEAVING A TRACE
Many ecologists believe in the value to "leave no trace" on the environment. But what does that say about us if we subscribe to that? Are humans part of nature, or separate from it?
BACK FROM THE CRASH
Given the economic climate, and given a choice, why would someone stay in Michigan? Part memoir, part travel essay, part book-review, this article looks widely and finds opportunity and creativity in times of trouble.
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POETRY

The Auctioneer
By Cindy Hunter Morgan

He said the numbers so fast,
there was not time
for regret. ...

All the Time in the World
By Mary Ann Samyn

A wind makes quick work of the lake.
This is clarity. ...

April Upside-down
By Karl Elder

You dream you sleep beneath a sheet of sleet,
awaken, all perspiration, to find ...

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THE WAKE BLOG

This Gatsby is Raucous, Brilliant

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann says, “Fitzgerald was, in quotation marks, a clown, just like I am." At first glance this comparison sounds self-important and inaccurate. Luhrmann tends to resemble a mad artist splashing paint on a canvas in a delusional frenzy. The result in most of his work, and not least of all in his latest offering, The Great Gatsby, is an explosion of colors and sounds, a “kaleidoscopic carnival,” as Nick Carraway would say of certain infamous parties.

THE WAKE BLOG

FICTION

Young Love
By Randall Silvis
We lived in the country in a small yellow house, with large yards in the front and back, woods on all sides, our closest neighbors a half mile away and as eager to be left alone as we were. The exterior of the house was in need of painting and there was only one chair in the living room but we seldom had visitors then and one chair was all we needed when we sat holding one another in the evening while listening to music. We had a big, frisky and sometimes obtrusively affectionate Irish Setter named Berrigan, who on hot summer afternoons when we sunbathed behind the house never failed to warn of the approach of a meter reader or salesman, and who with his resonant growl would keep the intruder at bay until we could pull on our clothes and prepare ourselves for the world again.
Scenic Outlooks
By Jim Daniels
I remember only one vacation in my sixteen years on Planet Detroit, though my parents had photographic evidence of me as a baby on the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes looking marooned, disconsolate, in the middle of all that sand. It could’ve been the surface of the moon, a photo doctored like my father claimed they did at NASA.
FICTION

ABOUT WAKE

Wake is a new journal focused on work that evokes the broad culture of the Great Lakes. We are looking for a variety of articles on Great Lakes subjects, and we are open for submissions now. Please read our mission statement and submission guidelines for details, and check back often as we continue to add content.

Wake is a publication of Grand Valley State University.

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