Decimation, apocalypse and cherry blossoms are only a few of the themes and images explored in Creative Writing and Literature Department faculty member Matt Donovan’s new lyric essay collection, A Cloud of Unusual Size and Shape.

Muse Times Two is an annual series of poetry readings, which takes place at Collected Works Bookstore. The series includes a contest open to students from Santa Fe’s four local colleges, and a winner is selected from each school. This year, SFUAD’s winner is Creative Writing senior Marina Woollven.

Matt Donovan, Creative Writing and Literature faculty member, was recently awarded a $50,000 grant from Creative Capital to produce an opera titled Inheritance, which is based on the life of Sarah Winchester, heir to the Winchester gun empire. This opera will be in collaboration with Pulitzer Prize in Music finalist Lei Liang, Grammy Award winning soprano Susan Narucki and internationally renowned artist Ligia Bouton.

By Alexa Curnutte Our dark porch lingers in the camera flash. Blue painted slats, red trimming, brick steps. When I look at the picture I imagine Mom taking it. Dad probably wasn’t there. My brother, Chance, and I are grinning down at the camera through the white rise of our cheeks, flushed deep pink from the October cold. It’s Halloween. Chance is Buzz Lightyear. I’m a fairy. My small hands clutch the white plastic end of my wand, iridescent strings floating down my knuckles. Chance’s black mask is crooked. If you look closely you can see that he stands oddly on one leg, shifting his weight off center. The clubbed foot, after surgeries and casts, is still struggling to become normal. My ears stick out like broken egg shells and my calves have already begun to bow outward. Our costumes glow against the small shapes of our bodies. Most Halloweens Dad was deployed. Christmases. Birthdays. The ‘Take 1!’ sign behind us is in Mom’s long cursive. Behind that is a pumpkin mask on the door. It’s eyes are blank, barely feasible in the worn out paper of the Kodak. Life hovered like that, in the background. As children we waited for phone calls, a knock on the door to sneak up on us. Anything that moved suddenly. Autumns like the one in this photograph were quiet, but summers hummed with energy. Distracted us. We survived on Walmart runs, metal carts full of frozen beef and bandaids. I was an army daughter among army sons. The boys had orange tipped plastic guns. On Saturdays they played war, and I became familiar with the sting of Bbs on my legs. We ran through the thick pines, unaware of the cumbersome way our young limbs moved. Under...