Poetry, Fiction & Memoir
Theme: Ancestral Trauma
Soft cover | 155 Pages | $15
“Gripping, sweet, lovely, powerful, devastating, compassionate, healing art, everyone. Thank you for these beautiful works.”
Jordan Brown, Reader
“I see this issue as a mending, turning trauma and pain into art . . . It is the process of creating that heals us.”
Christine Lincoln, Guest Editor
Contributors
Poetry:
Cynthia Bernard
My Youngest Daughter Wants Nothing
Sarah Browning
The story that keeps
Lynne Burnett
The Strap
Patricia Cannon
Suitcases on Parnassus Street
Nancy Naomi Carlson
Phantom Pain
Daniel Carpenter
The Leaving Never Leaves
Tonia Dixon
Spoil the Children
Catherine Ferguson
Emergence
Diana Fusting
My Vagus Nerve Needs a Somatic Butterfly Hug
Karen Hones
Dear Friend, I Remember
Eaton Jackson
My Conception
Sheree La Puma
The Bootprint
Kelly Madigan
Retroactive Baby Shower for Iva
Moira Magneson
I am
James McGrath
Stones in My Mouth
Sharon McPeters
On Having Enough
Kevin Nance
Wilmington
Anne Rankin
Family History (short form)
Christine O’Leary Rockey
Portrait of My Mother
Ellen Hirning Schmidt
She Sits at the Desk in Front of Me
Leah Silverman
You’ll Remember the Blood
Barbara Simmons
After You Left
Shelley Smithson
It Is Always There
Carol Clark Williams
Spaying the Kitten – SOP
Janice Zerfas
Duffel Bags Are Swelling in the Muddy Culvert
Prose:
Gail Arnoff
Leaving Daddy Alone
Kirsten Backstrom
Walking Around the Block
Allegra Hyde
Baby in a Sink
Claire Kahane
Cats Go for Your Throat
Richard Moore
The Facts of Great-Uncle Wilfred
Diane Oatley
Bomb Proof
Christina Robertson
The Immunity of Milkmaids
Terri Steel
We Can All Get a Little Crazy
Peter Wallace
Ruby Makes a Call
Art:
Ophelia M. Chambliss
The Diaspora
Pushcart Prize Nominations from this Issue:
“Retroactive Baby Shower for Iva” by Kelly Madigan
“Wilmington” by Kevin Nance
Recordings
PART I | The Reading & Conversation: 18 writers from the issue read their poems, essays and stories related to personal trauma. The reading was followed by a conversation about writing about trauma, the process, the challenges, and the healing. Featuring guest editor Christine Lincoln.
PART II | The Cover: Cover artist Lenett Partlow-Myrick explains all that inspired her piece, “Tears of Radiant Light.”
Original Call for Submissions from Guest Editor Christine Lincoln
We hear the words ancestral trauma and we might immediately think of childhood sexual or physical abuse, or the dissolution of our parents’ marriage, or the discovery some awful family secret. Secrets and generational trauma often go hand in hand.
But there are other less obvious ways we can and, most likely, have experienced ancestral trauma. Generational trauma can be something as seemingly insignificant as being raised to fear people who live in the inner city, or something as quietly insidious as growing up poor, or it could be something as prevalent as bearing witness in a family that did not treat its women with the highest regard.
These are the kinds of trauma that have been passed down as easily as mother’s milk, the limiting beliefs and damaging ideas handed down as succinctly as family myths and bedtime stories — the legacy of pain that has been perpetuated by our ancestors, because they could not do any better, but also the generational trauma we have inadvertently continued, because of our inability — until now — to look straight into the shadows where these things hide, to heal, and transcend, create a new legacy.
Masthead
Christine Lincoln, guest editor. Mary Azrael, Kendra Kopelke, editors. Rosanne Singer, assistant editor. Christine Drawl, managing editor. Breasia Boyd, Ladi Glori, editorial assistants. Christine Drawl, design. Amber Campbell-Wheeler, Shira Segal, Dina Sokal, interns. Lenett Partlow-Myrick, cover painting.
Christine Lincoln
Guest Editor, 2023 Passager Open Issue
Christine Lincoln is an internationally award-winning author and motivational speaker. Her stories have appeared in many literary journals such as Pleiades Magazine and the Paris Review. They have been read and performed by Don Cheadle, Gary Dourdan, and Lizan Mitchell.
Lincoln is Poet Laureate Emeritus of York, PA. As Laureate, she created a writing group at a local domestic violence safehouse where she helped survivors of trauma and abuse explore poetry as a means to healing. Christine has traveled throughout the U.S. and the world, including South Africa where she was the first author to represent the United States in South Africa’s annual Year of the Writer Celebration. She has appeared on NPR, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and has been featured as a “Phenomenal Woman” in O: The Oprah Magazine.
Ladi Glori
Editorial Assistant, 2023 Passager Open Issue
Ladi Glori’s is an innovative Baltimore-based spoken word artist, actress, and author, as well as a passionate activist. She was named a top ten poet of Central PA by Jump Street. Ladi was featured on radio and performed as part of the ‘Becoming Human; Voices to End Rape Culture’ production. She has served as Master of Ceremonies at concerts that speak to the power and vibrance of culture, such as The Imani Concert, Equality Fest and Central Penn College Poetry Slam. Ladi Glori’s passion on stage is only surpassed by her urgency to retell the narrative through empathy, self-love and unapologetic truth.
Breasia Boyd
Editorial Assistant, 2023 Passager Open Issue
Breasia Boyd is an aspiring writer with a fascination for the imagination. As a child she experimented with writing poetry, fanfiction and screenwriting. She said, “I love all forms of creative writing and there’s nothing more magical than watching something you dreamt of come to life.” Growing up in both Maryland and Virginia contributed to her appreciation for culture, arts and her ever growing imagination that fuels her writings. “I’ve experienced city life, country life, beach life and everything else in between. I feel like I’ve lived all over without having to go very far.” Breasia is an alumna of Old Dominion University and is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts at the University of Baltimore.