Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Brian Clifton on K-ROO tonight and tomorrow
Number One contributor Brian Clifton will read some of his poetry and chat with host Ross Stinemetz at 9 p.m. tonight and 10 p.m. on Thursday, March 28 on UMKC's student radio, K-ROO. We'll post the audio from "Word Up" Episode 2 on this website soon, so please check back!
Saturday, March 23, 2013
HISTORY: Remembering 66 Years of Number One
Take a look back at the history of Number One Magazine. We're sharing the names of those student editors, staff members, contributors, and faculty advisors who made this literary magazine such an integral part of the UMKC community since its debut in 1947. Though the cover designs have changed radically over the years, we still carry that deep-seated respect for literature and artwork that inspired the first issues of Number One. Tour the past with us here:http://www.numberonemagazine.org/p/history_23.html.
If you have more information to contribute to our history, please contact us at numberonemagazine@gmail.com.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
AUDIO: Bailey Grim on K-ROO's "Word Up" - Episode 1
Listen in as Number One contributor Bailey Grim reads some of her poetry about childhood, squirrels, and billiards and chats with host Ross Stinemetz on the K-ROO program "Word Up" Episode 1. There will be more episodes from UMKC's student radio station posted here in the coming weeks, so please check back for more readings from other UMKC authors. And remember to listen to K-ROO!
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
NEW! Number One on the air
To celebrate the launch of Number One Volume 64, several of our contributors recorded readings of their work for UMKC's student radio, K-ROO. First up is Bailey Grim, whose poetry will air at 10 p.m. tonight and again at 10 p.m. on Thursday, March 21. Tune in!
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Volume 64 has arrived!
...and it looks incredible! We're so excited to share the latest issue with you. Drop by the English Department (106 Cockefair Hall) during business hours to pick up your free copy, hot off the press.
We'll be circulating copies campus-wide soon. If you'd like us to distribute copies to your class or group, send an e-mail to numberonemagazine@gmail.com
Congratulations to all of the talented writers and artists featured in this year's exceptional volume!
Friday, February 8, 2013
Baby Girl Monster Hunter
So after I finished college I started hunting monsters. Well—that’s not the entire story. First I got a temp job. But when I figured it wouldn’t put a ding in my debts, I stole the office’s mega-stapler and started hunting monsters. That’s the entire story.
My parents were like . . . shit.
They had rigid brains. Their point of comparison was my brother Dorkass (not his given name), a developmental psychologist who wowed them with retroactive criticism of their parenting. When he stopped by for holidays, they couldn’t really imagine their baby girl stalking grimy slimy lemon-limeys.
They couldn’t imagine me, sweatsoaked in the jungle, rocking the natives’ warpaint. The spearmint scent of a hunt unraveling among the brush like a ball of yarn, threaded through my nostrils like a septum piercing. Me, baby girl, peeling back a venetian frond and seeing—for the first and only time—a cryobaboon.
Can you imagine? My parents couldn’t. They would’ve lost their baby boomer minds to see its albino coat. Its icicle whiskers. The soil of the rainforest, thin and loose, tundrifying beneath his cryobutt. Frostbitten fruit all around. And me, seven-foot stapler locked, materializing from the foliage. Flipping my weapon to its blunt side and meeting his gaze. Bashing unabashedly at his shrunken, vulnerable testes, as he breathes his last chilly puffs.
They had a much easier time imagining Dorkass, feet on the dining room table, elucidating why he and I would’ve been better off with two daddys. Just to shift the conversation, I would try to say something like, “You know, Mom, there’s no such thing as a small monster. I once wound up astride a desert. . . ” But they would only roll their eyes and ask when I was going to run out of staples.
To date I’ve corpsed seventeen colossi, cretaceonids, and chthonianisms. You can always tell they’re mine by the lethal, crooked ladders running up their sides.
•••
My first job was for my landlord, and it was bad. Though not “rats in the basement” bad. We had this mangy-ass stray cat lurking around the property because someone kept slipping it lunchmeat. He paid me thirty dollars to wait in the parking lot and bag it up. This was before I stole my office’s mega-stapler.
I spent the afternoon in the shade of the building, reading a newspaper and counting bricks. When I saw the cat on the fire escape, I went up after it with a can of tuna, which had no pull-tab. I had to beat it open on the handrail. The landlord impounded the cat, and now I think it’s dead. But it wasn’t me that killed it.
My first real job was for a small suburb at the edge of rurality. I told my parents that I was going to spend the weekend with a friend, but this friend lived at the foot of a volcano, and if they didn’t hear back from me ever again then that was why.
My parents were like . . . shit.
They had rigid brains. Their point of comparison was my brother Dorkass (not his given name), a developmental psychologist who wowed them with retroactive criticism of their parenting. When he stopped by for holidays, they couldn’t really imagine their baby girl stalking grimy slimy lemon-limeys.
They couldn’t imagine me, sweatsoaked in the jungle, rocking the natives’ warpaint. The spearmint scent of a hunt unraveling among the brush like a ball of yarn, threaded through my nostrils like a septum piercing. Me, baby girl, peeling back a venetian frond and seeing—for the first and only time—a cryobaboon.
Can you imagine? My parents couldn’t. They would’ve lost their baby boomer minds to see its albino coat. Its icicle whiskers. The soil of the rainforest, thin and loose, tundrifying beneath his cryobutt. Frostbitten fruit all around. And me, seven-foot stapler locked, materializing from the foliage. Flipping my weapon to its blunt side and meeting his gaze. Bashing unabashedly at his shrunken, vulnerable testes, as he breathes his last chilly puffs.
They had a much easier time imagining Dorkass, feet on the dining room table, elucidating why he and I would’ve been better off with two daddys. Just to shift the conversation, I would try to say something like, “You know, Mom, there’s no such thing as a small monster. I once wound up astride a desert. . . ” But they would only roll their eyes and ask when I was going to run out of staples.
To date I’ve corpsed seventeen colossi, cretaceonids, and chthonianisms. You can always tell they’re mine by the lethal, crooked ladders running up their sides.
•••
 |
| "Kitty" by Nicholas Shea |
My first job was for my landlord, and it was bad. Though not “rats in the basement” bad. We had this mangy-ass stray cat lurking around the property because someone kept slipping it lunchmeat. He paid me thirty dollars to wait in the parking lot and bag it up. This was before I stole my office’s mega-stapler.
I spent the afternoon in the shade of the building, reading a newspaper and counting bricks. When I saw the cat on the fire escape, I went up after it with a can of tuna, which had no pull-tab. I had to beat it open on the handrail. The landlord impounded the cat, and now I think it’s dead. But it wasn’t me that killed it.
My first real job was for a small suburb at the edge of rurality. I told my parents that I was going to spend the weekend with a friend, but this friend lived at the foot of a volcano, and if they didn’t hear back from me ever again then that was why.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Passion fruits
Colorist Fantasy
Topaz fruit resembling an old lace gourd
floats lazily along a salty green swell.
Down by a bayou filled with cold sauvignon,
serpentine women bathe in long yellow grasses.
A colorist stirs the bayou at high noon,
bubbles blink and break against the sun.
Alice blue men gather under baobab trees
and read narratives written on scrolls.
The Citrus Grove
I curled in the lap of a citrus grove,
floated in the summer steam
of her perfumed blossoms, and dreamed
of orange marmalade from Seville
and verbena tea with honeyed milk,
and of the impossible hour when I
will lie below her bending limbs
(or will I be bending up to them?)
and suckle her ripened fruit until I feel
the juice trickle on my drunken cheek.
Topaz fruit resembling an old lace gourd
floats lazily along a salty green swell.
Down by a bayou filled with cold sauvignon,
serpentine women bathe in long yellow grasses.
A colorist stirs the bayou at high noon,
bubbles blink and break against the sun.
Alice blue men gather under baobab trees
and read narratives written on scrolls.
--by Mary Rogers-Grantham
I curled in the lap of a citrus grove,
floated in the summer steam
of her perfumed blossoms, and dreamed
of orange marmalade from Seville
and verbena tea with honeyed milk,
and of the impossible hour when I
will lie below her bending limbs
(or will I be bending up to them?)
and suckle her ripened fruit until I feel
the juice trickle on my drunken cheek.
--by Gregory Van Winkle
Saturday, December 1, 2012
The Absolute as Subject (a love story)
9:05 p.m.
I found her in the back of the crowded bar, sitting with a man I’d
never met. The music was a gasoline lake—stagnant and dull like
muskrat piss. Customers stood three rows deep at the bar, passing
beers over their heads to cover orders made from behind them.
7:04 p.m.
The moon shone over the walnut trees and the stars popped like
bubble wrap. I sat outside listening to the hawks chasing rabbits. I
drank coffee and smoked a Tatuaji. The smoke drifted off in swirls,
swishing into nothing, seeking the vulnerable defect of lunar incandescence.
I hoped we were the same, she and I, separated just like
stars—or perhaps because of the stars—inside, ready to dance the
dance of indignation and embrace the incalculable options it offered.
9:09 p.m.
“Who’s this?” I asked, motioning to the man at the table. There
are people in the world who aren’t afraid to get in a cage with a wild
animal. They go in and they don’t take whips or chairs or any protection,
they just go in. I tried to act like one of them.
“Whatever happened to hello?” said Claudia.
“Hello,” I said, “who’s this?”
The man sitting at our table stared away at the crowd of people,
oblivious and uninterested. He had the words “High Times” tattooed
on his left forearm and each “I” was indicated by a drawing of a joint,
but they looked more like tampons.
“It’s a busy place, people have to sit somewhere.”
“I thought we were going to talk.”
“So talk,” she said. “I’m right here.”
“How are you?”
“The night is young. It’s too early to tell,” she said.
I found her in the back of the crowded bar, sitting with a man I’d
never met. The music was a gasoline lake—stagnant and dull like
muskrat piss. Customers stood three rows deep at the bar, passing
beers over their heads to cover orders made from behind them.
7:04 p.m.
The moon shone over the walnut trees and the stars popped like
bubble wrap. I sat outside listening to the hawks chasing rabbits. I
drank coffee and smoked a Tatuaji. The smoke drifted off in swirls,
swishing into nothing, seeking the vulnerable defect of lunar incandescence.
I hoped we were the same, she and I, separated just like
stars—or perhaps because of the stars—inside, ready to dance the
dance of indignation and embrace the incalculable options it offered.
9:09 p.m.
“Who’s this?” I asked, motioning to the man at the table. There
are people in the world who aren’t afraid to get in a cage with a wild
animal. They go in and they don’t take whips or chairs or any protection,
they just go in. I tried to act like one of them.
“Whatever happened to hello?” said Claudia.
“Hello,” I said, “who’s this?”
The man sitting at our table stared away at the crowd of people,
oblivious and uninterested. He had the words “High Times” tattooed
on his left forearm and each “I” was indicated by a drawing of a joint,
but they looked more like tampons.
“It’s a busy place, people have to sit somewhere.”
“I thought we were going to talk.”
“So talk,” she said. “I’m right here.”
“How are you?”
“The night is young. It’s too early to tell,” she said.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Trail dust
Leaving Maricopa
Driving to Tucson, I-10
tires could melt at any second,
gluing the car to the asphalt.
Around me, the dead are rising
from across the oranges, browns, purples, desert.
Zuni chiefs, from their cliff-side pueblos,
curse this foreigner cruising through their home,
top down and sweating like hell.
Dead cowboys, lost travelers,
Tom Mix, white as a ghost and his
double decapitation.
They vanish at the city limits,
falling back into their dust and sand.
by William Brent Wright
Driving to Tucson, I-10
tires could melt at any second,
gluing the car to the asphalt.
Around me, the dead are rising
from across the oranges, browns, purples, desert.
Zuni chiefs, from their cliff-side pueblos,
curse this foreigner cruising through their home,
top down and sweating like hell.
Dead cowboys, lost travelers,
Tom Mix, white as a ghost and his
double decapitation.
They vanish at the city limits,
falling back into their dust and sand.
by William Brent Wright
"Prairie Magic" by Colleen Burner
Friday, November 2, 2012
Two poems
Noah's Coffee House on the River
I want to get up one midnight before the moon yawns,
and stars pull the clouds over their heads,
before dew polishes the grass seductive green,
or frost plays heavy metal in the meadow.
I want to be the first customer at Noah’s Coffee House,
pour my first cup of scalding black coffee,
and find the first line of a new poem in the vapors.
I want to see the first sailboat interrupt dawn
as it rocks past an ancient oil freighter
that’s barely piercing dingy green water.
Pureed Whiskey Shots at Dawn
I hurry out to the kitchen
to brew a brutal quart of coffee,
to sip while I wait.
I plan to be there to see the first customer
wipe the night from his eyes.
5:30 a.m.
I pour the scalding energy into my thermos
and drive down to The Place—
the restaurant where whiskey shots
lead the list of breakfast beverages on the menu,
followed by
1 petite order of thick hickory smoked bacon
2 lightly scrambled organic eggs
1 slice of buttered Texas Toast
where hyacinth, caramel, and chestnut
puréed whiskey shots are served.
It’s the restaurant where Delbert
hisses orders through his gums,
and Jean Anne, his wife, wears safety goggles
so she can honor orders without routinely
wiping spit from her eyes. Matthew, their son,
audits the liquor and serves it in skinny shot glasses.
5:45 a.m.
I am pouring a third cup of coffee from my thermos
when the first customer arrives driving an
18-wheeler. She parks her rig on the sandy tract
behind the paved parking lot. Mack International
heaves, burps, and upchucks acid soot from silver pipes.
She reaches to the top of the cab and squeezes a horn
that sounds like an elephant in heat. She swabs her face
with what looks like cotton candy, and then polishes her lips.
She exits Mack and walks into The Place. I follow.
Delbert hollers, “Hey Jo Rose, your usual is ready.”
He brings her bacon, eggs, and Texas Toast.
Matthew serves her puréed bourbon whiskey.
6:00
The Place begins to live as customers file in,
wipe the night from their eyes,
and order the Jo Rose Special, and
I wonder if this is Resurrection Day.
by Mary Rogers-Grantham
I want to get up one midnight before the moon yawns,
and stars pull the clouds over their heads,
before dew polishes the grass seductive green,
or frost plays heavy metal in the meadow.
I want to be the first customer at Noah’s Coffee House,
pour my first cup of scalding black coffee,
and find the first line of a new poem in the vapors.
I want to see the first sailboat interrupt dawn
as it rocks past an ancient oil freighter
that’s barely piercing dingy green water.
Pureed Whiskey Shots at Dawn
I hurry out to the kitchen
to brew a brutal quart of coffee,
to sip while I wait.
I plan to be there to see the first customer
wipe the night from his eyes.
5:30 a.m.
I pour the scalding energy into my thermos
and drive down to The Place—
the restaurant where whiskey shots
lead the list of breakfast beverages on the menu,
followed by
1 petite order of thick hickory smoked bacon
2 lightly scrambled organic eggs
1 slice of buttered Texas Toast
where hyacinth, caramel, and chestnut
puréed whiskey shots are served.
It’s the restaurant where Delbert
hisses orders through his gums,
and Jean Anne, his wife, wears safety goggles
so she can honor orders without routinely
wiping spit from her eyes. Matthew, their son,
audits the liquor and serves it in skinny shot glasses.
5:45 a.m.
I am pouring a third cup of coffee from my thermos
when the first customer arrives driving an
18-wheeler. She parks her rig on the sandy tract
behind the paved parking lot. Mack International
heaves, burps, and upchucks acid soot from silver pipes.
She reaches to the top of the cab and squeezes a horn
that sounds like an elephant in heat. She swabs her face
with what looks like cotton candy, and then polishes her lips.
She exits Mack and walks into The Place. I follow.
Delbert hollers, “Hey Jo Rose, your usual is ready.”
He brings her bacon, eggs, and Texas Toast.
Matthew serves her puréed bourbon whiskey.
6:00
The Place begins to live as customers file in,
wipe the night from their eyes,
and order the Jo Rose Special, and
I wonder if this is Resurrection Day.
by Mary Rogers-Grantham
Friday, October 26, 2012
Friday, October 19, 2012
In the attic
When I got home from work and found only my mother, she told me that my father had turned into a sparrow and had joined the others making a mess in the attic’s drafts and rafters. She had caught him in a plastic basket and was keeping him trapped there, fluttering and frantic, with a large leather-bound atlas to cover the top. The poor thing bore no resemblance to my father, but I fixed my mother a cup of chamomile tea and put her to bed early, my hand resting on her dear, troubled head until she fell asleep. Then I took the basket up to the attic and switched the bird out for the right one. My mother’s eyesight had never been good.
by Kara McKeever
by Kara McKeever
Slide 5, by Leanna Sparks
Friday, October 12, 2012
The Dream Ballet
CHARACTERS:
CARRIE: A 23-year-old girl who has just come home from a date at
the top of the play.
DREAM: The embodiment of CARRIE’s lost dream to be a ballerina.
She wears a traditional ballerina outfit and should have a magical
quality about her. DREAM should appear a few years older than
Carrie.
SET DESIGN:
A simple set with an entrance upstage and a couch center stage. The
set should seem like something a young college student could afford.
(Music from Coppélia plays and then fades out.)
CARRIE
Thanks again. It was a…I had a really good time.
(CARRIE shuts the door upstage and lights rise. CARRIE, giddy,
walks over to the mirror by the front door and checks her face
and hair.)
CARRIE
What a night! Aaah! What a kiss!
(CARRIE walks into the kitchen to get a Diet Coke from the
fridge and begins dialing a phone. DREAM emerges from behind
the sofa and begins dancing while CARRIE has her back turned.
Once CARRIE begins talking on the phone, DREAM stands still
in fourth position.)
CARRIE
Hey Laura, I know it’s super late, but I had to tell you—the date
was—out of this world. He’s a dream. A dream. We had the best seats
to the ballet, and we drank the yummiest wine at this cute place in
the art district. It’s only the third date, but this guy. This guy is great.
Call me tomorrow! Okay, love you.
(CARRIE turns and sees DREAM.)
CARRIE
Holy crap, what are…who are—
DREAM
Hello, Carrie.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Draining time
The Draining
After Kim Addonizio
I take the blade out of its package,
my hand trembling, though determined
as it rises towards the meringue
on my face, once gelatinous now lathered
and flooding my nostrils, a medicinal mint.
The chemical trails tickle my nose hairs
causing me to stifle back a choking cloud—
then I spray histamine upon the mirror.
I’ve anointed my chin with a slice of blood.
On the vanity sits a roll of toilet paper,
and I tear off small pieces & curses,
dotting my face like the wings of a ladybug.
As the patches saturate to red from white,
I remove & replace the obscenity of my face—
leaving my brain empty & spiraled,
the same as my drained tube of toothpaste.
by Allan M. Jones
After Kim Addonizio
I take the blade out of its package,
my hand trembling, though determined
as it rises towards the meringue
on my face, once gelatinous now lathered
and flooding my nostrils, a medicinal mint.
The chemical trails tickle my nose hairs
causing me to stifle back a choking cloud—
then I spray histamine upon the mirror.
I’ve anointed my chin with a slice of blood.
On the vanity sits a roll of toilet paper,
and I tear off small pieces & curses,
dotting my face like the wings of a ladybug.
As the patches saturate to red from white,
I remove & replace the obscenity of my face—
leaving my brain empty & spiraled,
the same as my drained tube of toothpaste.
by Allan M. Jones
"On the Clock"
by Nicholas Shea
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
No One Reads Kerouac Anymore*
I pull into the parking lot at work with the gnawing feeling/knowledge
I should be doing something better with my life. College grad
returns home, becomes convenience store clerk. The stuff dreams are
made of, straight out of a brochure promising debt and nothing. I
step out of my car and gawk for the nearest distraction before suicide
solves all of my problems.
The McDonald’s connected to Signal Convenience Store owns
a spotlight that beams into the Buffalo, MO, night sky. This baffles
me. Why does a fast food restaurant in a town of 2,500 people need
a spotlight? We don’t live in a post-apocalyptic world. No roving
bands of starving survivors seek rescue from death by cannibal. Perhaps
rural folk become entranced with the big ‘ole light in the sky. Ad
execs probably picture the Clampetts strolling inside a McDonald’s,
Jed taking off his cap, placing it over his heart and saying, “We saw
a strange ray of light up there in that big black empty thingy, and
by god if it didn’t point us right where we needed to be. Bless these
golden arches.” Or maybe somebody got a great deal on a spotlight
and couldn’t pass it up.
“Jesus Christ, you’re finally here,” Rachel says as I walk into the
annoyingly bright convenience store. I recently added her to my roster
of imaginary sexual conquests. Half-Filipino and half-Mexican,
trim figure, thick black hair, and dark skin.
“JC is pissed, Rachel. Why the hell am I working tonight?”
“I had to fire Patti today.”
“For what?”
“Bouncing personal checks at work. She’d have Mike come in
and—”
“Yeah, I don’t care how she did it,” I say. “I mean, I knew she was
retarded, but damn, how long do you really expect to get away with
cashing bad checks at work?”
“Took us almost two months to figure it out,” Rachel says.
“I already knew this place was retarded,” I say.
“Most people fake being nice to their boss,” she says.
I look around. No one’s paying attention. People stand in line at
McDonald’s, but that’s across the building, past the chain link barrier
separating the two businesses from eleven p.m. to five in the morning.
“Those people don’t sell weed to their boss,” I say.
“Shit,” she says. “You’re gonna go to that well one too many times
and end up getting your ass fired.”
“Whatever will I do without all this?” I ask.
“Spare me,” she says. “One of these days poverty will erase that
too good for this job attitude you got.”
“I am too good for this job.”
“No, no,” Rachel says, “tell me how you really feel.” She grabs her
purse from underneath the counter and walks out.
Alone. Standing at register one. The chewing tobacco to my right,
the cigarette racks behind me. Pint and half-pint bottles below the
smokes. To my left, trucker speed and different variations of fake
Viagra that promise erections but only succeed in making you giggle
at funny names like Jackhammer and Bonez.
I should be doing something better with my life. College grad
returns home, becomes convenience store clerk. The stuff dreams are
made of, straight out of a brochure promising debt and nothing. I
step out of my car and gawk for the nearest distraction before suicide
solves all of my problems.
The McDonald’s connected to Signal Convenience Store owns
a spotlight that beams into the Buffalo, MO, night sky. This baffles
me. Why does a fast food restaurant in a town of 2,500 people need
a spotlight? We don’t live in a post-apocalyptic world. No roving
bands of starving survivors seek rescue from death by cannibal. Perhaps
rural folk become entranced with the big ‘ole light in the sky. Ad
execs probably picture the Clampetts strolling inside a McDonald’s,
Jed taking off his cap, placing it over his heart and saying, “We saw
a strange ray of light up there in that big black empty thingy, and
by god if it didn’t point us right where we needed to be. Bless these
golden arches.” Or maybe somebody got a great deal on a spotlight
and couldn’t pass it up.
“Jesus Christ, you’re finally here,” Rachel says as I walk into the
annoyingly bright convenience store. I recently added her to my roster
of imaginary sexual conquests. Half-Filipino and half-Mexican,
trim figure, thick black hair, and dark skin.
“JC is pissed, Rachel. Why the hell am I working tonight?”
“I had to fire Patti today.”
“For what?”
“Bouncing personal checks at work. She’d have Mike come in
and—”
“Yeah, I don’t care how she did it,” I say. “I mean, I knew she was
retarded, but damn, how long do you really expect to get away with
cashing bad checks at work?”
“Took us almost two months to figure it out,” Rachel says.
“I already knew this place was retarded,” I say.
“Most people fake being nice to their boss,” she says.
I look around. No one’s paying attention. People stand in line at
McDonald’s, but that’s across the building, past the chain link barrier
separating the two businesses from eleven p.m. to five in the morning.
“Those people don’t sell weed to their boss,” I say.
“Shit,” she says. “You’re gonna go to that well one too many times
and end up getting your ass fired.”
“Whatever will I do without all this?” I ask.
“Spare me,” she says. “One of these days poverty will erase that
too good for this job attitude you got.”
“I am too good for this job.”
“No, no,” Rachel says, “tell me how you really feel.” She grabs her
purse from underneath the counter and walks out.
Alone. Standing at register one. The chewing tobacco to my right,
the cigarette racks behind me. Pint and half-pint bottles below the
smokes. To my left, trucker speed and different variations of fake
Viagra that promise erections but only succeed in making you giggle
at funny names like Jackhammer and Bonez.
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