Candice Novak

 Portrait

While I cut out family portraits
I cut out all the self-portraits and sullen sitting girls out of my over-sized, slick hard cover Frida Kahlo book.
I taped them, all those people in their rectangles, onto my scuffed wall.
A bit of tape on all four corners.
And the wall looked a lot better.
It looked like a utopia of women. Except for Diego Rivera. But he’s fat and funny. So I
like him. He’s so malleable and feminine. And Frida’s got her mustache.
A family hallway. Everyone hanging there to stare. Sitting in the crooked grid of faces.
And then, at the bottom corner there’s Frida, sitting in a photo, in her wheel chair.
He reminds me of my father because he has a beard, and my father doesn’t.
His mouth is there and he can eat, and speak, but I’ve never seen his front teeth.
Even when he laughs it’s with his head thrown back, just a gapping hole flashing red and
black shadows.
Because he never really looks me in the eye. He never really looks at anyone, but then he writes about them like he was their guilt and their lover.
When he gets old he peppers and that makes him look tanner, and better than before.
He reminds me of my father because wrinkles look good when you’ve watched them grow.
His papery hands would sound like festival crepe hanging over the streets of somewhere foreign.
He could say “burn your suit� while wearing one.
He reminds me of my father because I don’t know him, only in passing.
He’s one in the group of faces you see every day -- on your way to wherever -- that get familiar.

An Austrian

An Austrian who sucked in phallic cigars wrote that hallucinations are an indication of Loneliness.
Some like capitalizing words that seem like entities.
Like you capitalize names.
The sane light of 10:30 in the morning.
The insane dark of 2:50 in the morning.
The humid air of disease.
I would argue that life is full of reasons to live.
But,
High cholesterol is an easy way to go.
No Pain.
And The Phone is getting eight hours of sleep each Night.

The German Grandmother's Got a Smile

Oma has got a strawberry meat smile. Ever since she dodged the green American fighter planes. Jumping off her bike, head long in to a trench, breaking the four front teeth, and the bike. She left her teeth and the bike in the dirt, even though the shot up metal was worth something. Walked home, and through the door into the kitchen where her aproned mother stood over steam. A beard of thick stinging blood dripping into a goatee. Coagulated and glazed. And she apologized for the bike.

"What the hell? Was this written by third-graders?"

was the first thing I heard as I entered the Ka Leo building, looking for Candice Novak. Sure enough, it was her voice echoing throughout the newsroom, letting the entire editorial staff know of its literary incompetence.I pulled Candice away from her desk for a quick interview.

KL: Hey Candice, how are you doing?

CN: I'm fine.

Really, you seemed a little flustered earlier.

No, no. I'm just really passionate about writing... and about getting other people to DO THEIR JOBS (she yelled it so that the entire newsroom could hear it).

Well, let's start from the beginning. As a child, how did you fill your time, besides yelling at people for grammatical deficiencies?

Growing up, I had an imaginary everything – friends, wars, ponies, adventures.

Okay. You sound like a very interesting child. How did this childhood lead you to become such an intriguing writer and poet?

I spent all my summers in strange places like on a cow field in Germany drinking fresh milk from the barn, the Bayou of Louisiana watching rodeo games, in San Francisco where everyone smelt mysteriously like oregano and the roads were like roller coasters. For all of this I was brutally forced by my dad to write a page a day in a journal about all this weird stuff my brothers and I were dragged along for. I guess I started doing it on my own at some point, and now I have graphophilia.

That can be a deadly disease. Now that you’re an outted graphophile, what prompts your writing? I mean, where are you when your inner bard emerges?

In a crowd, in the morning, in the dark, outside with my cat, in a fluffy chair, while listening to Miles Davis, when it rains and there’s that earthy smell in the air, after it rains and everything’s quiet, while I drink a cranberry-vodka, after I can’t handle anymore vodka, after a nightmare.

What kind of voice would you say that you use in your works?

You can’t hear my voice, what you hear while you read is always your own voice. Try it. I never really thought about it that way, but you do make sense.

On another note, what do you think about the burgeoning arts scene in Honolulu? How have you been contributing?

Does sneaking into shows and galleries with bars count? I can’t say that I’m too impressed with much of the ‘burgeoning’ arts scene when most of them are 21 plus. Basically, I'm involved, but I tend to like the off beat University art gallery show over a Tool concert, for example. Either way, I end up writing about it, wether it's a rave or bashing.

You do bring up a valid point. I mean, your first immersion in the writer’s culture started in childhood, as did many other prominent and creative writers and poets. I’m sure. Judging from your experiences, you seem like a pretty hip cat.

I’m definitely not hip, and I tend not to like cool people in general.

Okay, okay. You may not be a cat, but do you have one? Well, we have a cat that adopted us. Occasionally he’ll bring in a bird he’s caught and just pluck its feathers while the bird trembles naked. We’re proud of him, but he’s a snob, like all cats. We just feel honored that he lets us feed him and plop stunned animals on our bed.

Your cat sounds very nice. Nice. Ya, nice. So, what else fills up your spare time besides ridding your bed top of half-dead creatures?

Sewing found material together into something wearable, doing the New York Times crossword puzzle – only until Wednesday, after that it becomes embarrassingly hard – and finding typos after I do the crossword, meeting strangers that are eerily open about their lives, and willing to divulge everything they really shouldn’t, for the sake of art.

Gathering personal information from strangers? Finding typos in the paper? Sounds like a closet journalist. 

I’ve been writing for papers and publications since high school. Right now, I’m the Chief Copy Editor at my college newspaper and working at the Honolulu Weekly.

What other jobs have you held? I worked at a used bookstore so I could syphon all the good books out before they went to the shelves. That was the most profitable job I’ve had, actually.

Syphoning books? You are definitely hardcore.

-By Matthew K. Ing, Managing Editor