| Welcome to the web page for the independent literary and Fine Arts Magazine A Light Left On |
| IMPORTANT NOTE: A Light Left On has been dissolved, and will no longer be publishing work. We thank the Muses for four great years. |
| This page was primarily used to facilitate submissions for and provide information about an independent literary magazine based in the Sacramento/Davis, CA area called A Light Left On. For four years, A Light Left On provided a venue in which local, aspiring artists and writers can start to take their craft seriously and express themselves in the public forum. A Light Left On has been sold at Borders, Bogey's Books in Davis, The Avid Reader bookstores in Sacramento and Davis, Newsbeat of Sacramento of Davis, Wild Oats of Carmichael and the Davis Farmer's Market. Due to last year's fundraising efforts and a generous grant from the Club Finance Council at the University of California at Davis, we were able to distribute the magazine for FREE at the main office of UC Davis's English Department and other scattered points about Sacramento and Davis. With repeated generosity and support of the arts, we at A Light Left On hope to continue making our fine publication available to the public for free, in the interest of greater proliferation of the arts in the Sacramento Valley. Ryan will revisit this page to keep it somewhat current and fresh with worthwhile links and scattered, slight storms on the sun of his young brain. |
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| A Light Left On featured poetry, short stories , artwork, photography (preferably black and white), comics, creative literary essays, and reviews of: poetry readings, art shows, independent music and indie films. |
| Want to get in touch with us? Email your questions or comments! [ryanjj19@yahoo.com] |
| A Light Left On's Literary Links: |
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| The following is a sampling of actual poetry found in issue four of A Light Left On, printed in May 2001: |
| Abnormal Sisterhood You feed me tempura and steamed rice like you will feed your new baby boy, and I wonder if you have prayed to our grandparents' God for a little sister who does not sit while you stand, or speak in slow, scrambled words. I wonder if my wheelchair somehow cheated you out of a jungle gym playmate who did not require dressing, bathing, mothering. I wonder if jealousy wrapped around your adolescent mind when your friends taught their sisters to shadow young eyes, shave untwisted legs, and walk without wobbling in grown-up heels. by Melissa Crisp (untitled) The red rose You gave me On Sunday Has bloomed. It stands Brilliant And unnatural Beside the pale Yellow lampshade, Lilting longingly Toward the open Window, And bragging Its blood To the sun. by Heather Luttrell Huff She clutches the spray-paint can Rhythmically thumping the flaccid pea Trapped inside its tinfoil cylinder cell shaking Clackety-clack New and Improved scrawled in orange ink like Tangerines shriveling into mushy beads Strung along the backbone of their branches Her shoulders curve into the crusty apex of Abandoned alley walls Knees widening against her bony chest An unused paper bag inflates into a crisp potato All at once she zealously squirts the paint inside In a fit of agitated heat, hand quakes, and Clackety-clack Her papery lips scuttle to seal in the Delectable vapor swirling inside the brown abyss She inhales convulsing In-out-in-out-in-out-in Brown bag collapsing and plumping and collapsing And plumping then Sliding to the ground Wheat hair weaving with the weeds Twisting from between the cracks of pewter cement The dull ring of gray paint Staining her opaque mouth like Mold growing on dried pear halves by Nicole Trudeau Free Fall After church I would dangle my twig legs, bleached in sunlight, glittering with pubescent peach fuzz, from the third story of a leaky apartment building. I would straddle my concrete prison, a rounded stair case, and drop everything; to watch each object float, dwindle, or fall to a shallow grave. Opening my God-like hand to release Wrigley's gum wrappers, paper straw spit wads, suicidal G.I. Joe men and handfuls of freshly plucked grass. Wanting to follow them, I lean forward to melt into vertical lines that absorb my mortality, save me from falling. by Lindsey Holmes Venice Something about the oil stain, pondered through his broad, fatted calves, fixed Heff to that spot. Curb-perched in that empty parking lot, he seemed a thing of concrete-- ants plodded from the north over his right Reebok as he sat, yards of the to come after yards of those already crossed headed toward any one of six chocolate-stained candy bar wrappers at his side. That's how long he sat there, still, never disturbing a one of them. As summer sun shifted its seat overhead and a thick breeze played on the oil slick surface, Heff watched the colors ballet around each other and remembered last night's dream: Somehow he knew he was in Venice, in a low-celinged room, propped in a pink bed, surrounded by red masks collaging all four walls. A nude Italian girl sat next to him, perfectly olive, and without a word she poured her soft, cool hand down the front of his cutoffs and spread her fingers wide in an upside-down bloom. She smiled at him, and breathed out-- her breath seemed to have an accent to it. He could not speak to her, could not move save to nod his head, and so he did, over and over. She seemed to understand, and continued to blossom. His body a statue, an ant-ramp in the Sunday afternoon light, Heff sent his thoughts away on a great zeppelin-ride over the Atlantic to Italy. by Ryan Miller This 2001 issue of A Light Left On also featured many other poems, short fiction, photography, artwork, a profile on Melissa Crisp (the author of "Abnormal Sisterhood," above) and a feature on one UC Davis student's experiences in Brazil, illustrated by her own photographs. If you have not yet picked up your copy of issue four, head to the English Department at UC Davis or email Ryan at the address below. |
| e. e. cummings |
| Editor's note: Photos of some poets whose honesty, craft and insight I believe we poets would do well to learn from appear throughout this page. Their proximity to the ads, to the poems or to anything else is only done in the interest of aesthetics and space. |
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| Sharon Olds |
| Michael McClure, Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg |
| Galway Kinnell |
| Sylvia Plath |
| Li-Young Lee |
| Jack Kerouac (and kitty) |
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| Elizabeth Bishop |