Wednesday, April 27, 2011

I'd Like to Talk About the Bigger Stuff

via Phoebe
An essay by RBM that questions relationships among Coloradoans, the Kyrgyz, and our animals has won Phoebe's inaugural nonfiction contest, judged by author (and screenwriter) Shauna Cross. The essay will appear in the George Mason University journal's fall issue (volume 40). An excerpt:
Dinner and a bowl of kumis, or fermented mare’s milk, prompts another tale, this one about the melting of the snows. “I was born in the mountains,” says Salmorbek, his whiskers flaring around the words. From here in Kant, the Tian Shan range looms impossibly high, stretching all the way to China and 10,000 feet above the Rockies. Somewhere up there, in celebration of the equinox, points Salmorbek, through the kitchen window, men mount horses and compete in a sort of airborne wrestling match. Instead of a ball, they fight for a dead sheep. “I too rode a horse,” he adds with pride. “But I was better at riding a tank.”

That night, locked among the carpets, I find “Reviving the Kyrgyz Horse” in the guidebook Kyrgyz Republic. “For centuries, the horse was vital to nomadic life,” reads the entry. I swallow hard at what comes next. The author quotes a French historian dismayed by a Soviet plan to civilize the Kyrgyz: “‘The shepherds were in tears,’ says Jacqueline Ripart. Some of the horses went into giant Soviet stud farms but most were killed for their meat.’”
For Phoebe's current nonfiction and other genres, visit the journal's blog, which for a limited time is offering an entire issue as a free download. You can also follow Phoebe on Twitter and Facebook.

via Phoebe
Update -- "I'd Like to Talk" is now available at PhoebeJournal.com along with contest results and artwork for Phoebe volume 40.2. Congratulations to fellow winners and HMs Aja Gabel and Dwight Holing (fiction), Mark Wagenaar and Grace Curtis (poetry), and Jessica McCaughey (nonfiction).

4 comments:

  1. congratulations, r.b.! can't wait to read it…and very impressed by "exposure time," too, which i read a few days ago and still find myself thinking about from time to time (such as when biking: how many miles have a logged so far?)…amazing work, as usual.

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  2. Thank you, dear friend! Very kind words. I overheard a conversation with a certain essayist the other day saying how much he liked a certain Italian cooking post of yours.

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  3. Haha, how'd you overhear? (And yes…he's so great!)

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  4. So many birds chirping this time of year.

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