Summer 2004: aka "Multiples of Four"
- Providence, journey from Alison Kotin
- Cartographic Disobedience, artwork by Steven R. Holloway
- When I Think of El Paso, poetry by Charles Gillispie
- Ground Truth, an essay by Kathryn Mauz
- West George Street Stories, fiction by Matt Mitchelson
- Plus more poetry, photo essays, reflections, and prose.....
Now available for $5 per copy.
Editors' Note from Summer 2004 issue:
Welcome to
the 6th volume of you are here: the journal of creative geography. You
hold in your hands a map (for we are geographers, after all). We hope
that his map will lead you not to a literal destination, but rather to
new ways of seeing the place you now inhabit.
Opening each of the submissions included
here was a unique pleasure: the pleasure of being brought out of our narrow
focus within the field of geography, and the gift of a new perspective
on our own discipline. Perhaps that is why some of our most intriguing
contributions come from those outside the field of geography. We hope
that the journal fulfills a dual purpose: making geography new to those
of us immersed within, and introducing those outside to explorations of
place that have nothing to do with memorizing state capitals. In the earthwork
at Western Michigan University we have a glimpse of the delight that comes
from this melding of perspectives and the hard but rewarding work of collaborative
projects. In a more personal way, Wendy Gavin Gregg and Elizabeth Gregg
create a multidimensional impression of space by combining the media of
poetry and photography. If their place-portrait invokes a momentary experience,
Alison Kotin's work reflects on the transformation of interior spaces,
as well as exterior places.
For some, realizations come when faced
with the unexpected: Jennifer Wise describes the moment when an image
of oneself is suddenly clear, brought into focus by new surroundings.
Kathryn Mauz takes a different approach, sinking deeply into one patch
of land, in a slow descent from sky to earth. Securely on the ground,
Peter Happel Christian gives us a concentration of place: while Mauz takes
in miles in an inch, Happel Christian's work focuses us on the miniscule
and ordinary. Steven R. Holloway brings us a little bit of both, picking
up and examining individual stones beside a river, but then condensing
that deep experience of place into a bird's eye view of a river. All of
these pieces bring us a new way of seeing what is already visible, but
there are also invisible links between us, unseen and unbreakable. In
their own ways, Matt Mitchelson and Michele C. Battiste explore these
bonds. Some places are ordinary while we inhabit them, but when we have
left, their hold on us only intensifies, and we find ourselves helplessly
recalling their sights, smells and sensations. Celeste Trimble, through
photography, and Charles Gillispie, through poetry, evoke these feelings
of longing and nostalgia.
In the fall, as fledgling editors, we
asked ourselves, "What do we know about creative geography?"
This winter, in the midst of reading submissions, we discovered with joy
and relief that this work revolves not around 'knowing' but rather listening
to others and being dazzled by their innovations and variations on our
chosen field. Now, in our sunny Arizona spring, we are filled with gratitude
to the contributors whose images and ideas fill our minds. Thank you for
making familiar places suddenly strange and compelling, and for bringing
the distant closer to us.
Sara Smith
Erika Wise
Tucson, AZ