EXCLUSIVE GLIMPSE INTO THE OLIVETREE REVIEW ARCHIVE FIND THESE AND NEW ENTRIES IN DIALOGUE IN THE FALL 2025 40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
THE [RE] VIEW PREVIEW MINI-ISSUE
Spring 2025 Mini-Issue
Permission to publish works appearing in The Olivetree Review is given by their creators through a license. All copyright is owned by the original authors.
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Cover Photograph: Untitled - Joe Cordaro
SPRING 2025 Staff
Editors-in-Chief
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PUBLICITY MANAGER
Print DesignerS
Social Media Publicist
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Art Editors
Elda Nesimi & Mia Rothstein
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Aman Tariq
Aleksandra Kwiecien & Mia Rothstein
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May Lin
Bianca Yu
Han uel Lee
Drama Editors
Alexander Rice
Billye Albro
Eldin (Eli) Mehovic
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Keila Cruz
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Shawn Mon
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Anastasiia Poleva
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We extend our thanks to the 2023-2024 staff and the former Editor-in-Chief, Elizabeth de Furia, for making this mini-issue possible.
Fariha Chowdhury
Issue 58 | Fall 2015
The Country in my mouth
i.
Sometimes, I’ll forget to say a certain word in my mother’s tongue and foreign words will move in as though they’ve been searching for a place and my mouth was the perfect place to be in I lick away the cities and villages there, building skyscrapers of a new vocabulary.
ii. [ I dream about My teeth Coming loose
All the time. ] iii.
Sometimes my mouth is awash in a blood trail of familiar words. I swallow them hungrily–tasting an unknown graveyard.
iv. Sometimes, my home crawls back in my mouth like criminals–I feel like a deserter. How many times can you dice a language a country a tongue before it becomes lost in debris?
Willy Clay Hiroshima
We did so well in ignorance—
Seeking in the graceful prisons of Stonehenge
Or bars where lovers chat of Scorpios
The stars.
How our dreams leaped out with angel hands
Our clod of earth, to cruise and court
Those itching seeds.
One flash, one flower growing earthward
In a flame, and lonesome eyes
From Hiroshima’s every street
Were trampled with a Milky Way. What ardor must our hands possess to wipe
Skin like suntan cream onto the earth.
The poets fish for fair bright stars
And soldiers bow until the end to rising suns.
What long has been a generous enemy
Rising on the brink of earth and dreams
Reaches us and is a ghastly friend.
Issue 1 | Spring 1984
Maria Gayle Untitled
digital photography
Joe Cordaro
Untitled
digital photography
John Champagne Death in Autumn
Magic, this spectacle death of leaves. They swallow the sun fire summer months, autumn turn transparent spill out their burning blood before our eyes a red death show sienna brown to grey the ashes, ashes covering the ground.
Not like us. Not like the lovers we lost, stolen away in the night while the gaping moon looked on, the fish-eyed moon, holding her hollow womb, screaming her silent white song.
Matthew, whose lungs collapsed in a poisonous sleep, Joseph, who slipped and disappeared, and James, who cut himself open to kill his disease of bruises.
All of them gone, leaving no letters etched in those desperate hours when names of God rattle the empty air as if He might appear, gone, not in flames, but softly,
Issue 4 | Spring 1986
no feast of bleeding no scream of colors, but taken from us like the many dreams we can’t recall upon waking.
Issue 41 | Spring 2007
Kseniya Linov BLUE
acrylic on canvas
Issue 1 | Spring 1984
Christensen Adam Vinueza
The Wall Street Journal writes one morning that this age is “The Age of the Executive.” The accompanying picture is of a handsome, graying, well-dressed corporate executive with a briefcase. The image is of success.
Christensen rises from the breakfast table, Journal in hand, and goes to his hall mirror. He buttons his jacket and stands in semiprofile. He makes a face of success.
*
Q: Is Christensen a social climber?
A: Christensen is a social watertreader.
*
Christensen walks to work every day. Today he passes a vagrant: a scruffy, middle-aged man (he thinks, as though automatically), who wears a cardboard sign around his reddening neck: PLEASE HELP ME. I AM HUNGRY.
Christensen would, on another day, have passed him with only a second or third thought, but today the street is sparsely trod upon; Christensen is afraid to pass the man without giving him something. He remembers reading that
Rockefellers were well-known for handing out money, especially to small children.
Christensen tries to pass nonchalantly as he pulls out a coin and drops it into the man’s paper cup. The coin is a subway token.
*
Christensen’s office building has a doorman, who holds open the elevator door for Christensen every day except Saturday and Sunday. The man gives him a pleasant smile each working day and says, “Good morning, sir.”
This matters very much to Christensen.
*
Christensen is walking home from his office, when he passes a boy fumbling with a coat hanger stuck into the side door of a silver Mazda. Christensen stops, turns to look again, but stops at the nose of the car, unsure of what to do. Christensen finds it amazing that someone stands out in the open and attempts to steal a car without noticing a witness standing only a yard and a half away.
Christensen finally, hesitantly taps his fist against the hood of the car,
and when the youth still doesn’t respond repeats the motion, more forcefully. “Hey boy,” he says, “what d’you think you’re doing?”
The boy stops suddenly, and jerks his hands away from the coat hanger as though it were charged with electricity. The youth and Christensen stand for a moment and look each other over, the boy paralyzed by shock and indecisiveness, Christensen by the same.
The boy comes to the realization that Christensen is not a policeman. He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out a—
Christensen does not bother looking to see what the youth is pulling out of his pocket.
* Watch him run.
One can see that Christensen is not athletic: he waddles like a duck.
*
Christensen has a dog named Buster, who is completely black. Buster follows him around the house, perpetually wheezing and wagging his tail.
Christensen likes to be followed around, and scuffles with Buster all the time. He leaves the dog hairs on his coat so people in his office will know that Christensen has a dog that rolls around with him.
*
Christensen is relaxing in his home. A scotch is in his hand, and he has taken off his jacket, tie and shoes. He looks out the window and, six floors below, he sees a group of young people dancing in a playground to disco music. Christensen wonders what it would be like
to be young (which he used to be) and physically attractive (which he never used to be).
He finishes his scotch, then pretends that the glass is the hand of one of the dancing girls. He imitates the motions of the young men. The lights in his apartment are on, and if anyone happened to be casually window-gazing from the building across the street, he would see a gray-haired, dumpy, middleaged man in a wrinkled suit waddling with a glass, stepping around his apartment like a ballroom dancer with an invisible partner.
*
Christensen learned two years after his divorce that his wife was earning more money than he. He pretends that it doesn’t bother him, but two days later he begins to frequent off-track betting. *
Christensen’s favorite food: Rice pudding. *
Christensen is doing his laundry in the basement of his apartment building. There is a young Puerto Rican woman also doing her laundry. She is wearing blue jeans and a tee shirt, and her curvaceous figure is noticeable to him.
Christensen cannot help looking at her body and desiring it. He must force himself to concentrate on his laundry. Whenever she speaks to him he trembles, and his replies are in a quavering monotone.
“Did you get hot water yesterday?” the woman asks him, as she folds family underwear.
“Y-yes,” he replies. Whenever the woman looks as though she is
concentrating on folding her laundry, Christensen steals a glance at her breasts. They are round as apples.
*
Christensen has trouble relating to women. Ever since he reached puberty, he’s been staring at women’s bodies, even if these bodies were standing in front of him and the owners were talking to him. He disconcerts the secretaries in his office, who think of him as a big drooling dog, harmless but irritating.
*
Christensen has a daughter, who goes to college on Long Island. She does volunteer work for the New York Public Interest Research Group, and because of her, NYPIRG keeps mailing him pamphlets about their various projects. Most of these pamphlets urge him in one way or another to write letters to his Congressman.
Christensen has never heard of his Congressman. He doesn’t remember voting for him. He feels guilty and ignorant. He would throw the pamphlets away if he didn’t know that his daughter is the reason he gets them.
*
Christensen’s superiors cheat on their income tax returns. He does not. He equates his honesty with a lack of machismo.
*
Christensen’s three vague terrors:
1) Totalitarianism
2) The Internal Revenue Service
3) Victoria Principal
*
Christensen is in Times Square, watching a pornographic film. While the film is in progress a tall skinny man with
horn-rimmed glasses sits down two seats from him. As a particularly erotic scene is flashing across the screen, Christensen feels a brushing on the side of his thigh. He looks down and sees that the man is caressing him with his middle finger while watching the scene.
For a moment, Christensen doesn’t know how to react. After several seconds, he slaps the man’s hand away. “Excuse me,” the man says, “I thought you were a human being like the rest of us.”
The man gets up and retreats to another row.
Christensen can no longer concentrate on the film. He gets up and leaves.
*
Christensen rarely watches television shows. More often, he sits and stares at the television set. The images appear and disappear, the figures flashing, moving, changing color; Christensen doesn’t try to figure out what is actually happening in the television dream he is witnessing. It all seems the same to him when he watches like this.
*
Christensen does, however, watch the Evangelists every Saturday morning. They make him feel superior.
*
Christensen stands at magazine racks and scans the covers of pornographic magazines. He is afraid to touch them, or even be seen perusing them for more than a few moments.
He has a subscription to Penthouse. Christensen cannot look people in the eye.
*
Christensen’s underlings in the office do not respect him. For a prank, a young male clerk sends him a Valentine’s day card, signed “With love and lust from the secretarial pool, who all desire your hunkiness.”
Christensen sulks into his office on February 15th but doesn’t mention the card. He places it on his desk as though it is a sincere card, and spends the week glaring at his coworkers, convinced that the culprit will make himself known with a snicker.
No one snickers. He throws the card away.
*
His daughter doesn’t write him for money, though she does send him letters on occasion. It disturbs him to see her so independent. When he sends her money, she sends it back.“Don’t try to buy my love, Daddy,” she writes once in a letter. Christensen tears the letter into pieces.
*
Christensen is reading on the couch. He reads: “As Gregor Samsa awoke One morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”
Christensen lays the book on his chest, then brings his hands and feet up into the air. He shuts his eyes, then wiggles his limbs the way he has seen bugs do when trying to struggle off their backs.
*
Q: Is Christensen a comic figure?
A: Christensen is not a comic figure.
*
Christensen’s greatest fear: That
he is pitiably common and the oddest of all odd people at the same time.
* Christensen is again invited to his high school reunion. For the occasion, he showers, shaves closely, and dresses his best. He wants to look well-adjusted. At the reunion he talks to his former classmates with, he thinks, an air of stateliness. He avoids the bar. But throughout the party he is trembling. He is trembling because he has nothing to fondle in his hands, neither a glass nor a breast nor a camera nor an old yearbook nor a...
*
When he gets back to his building, he meets the Puerto Rican woman from the laundry again, this time in the elevator. It turns out they live on the same floor. Apples, he thinks.
They live three doors from one another. Christensen passes her as she reaches into her coat pocket, then stops at his own door. He fishes through his pockets quickly, then makes a sad face and turns back to her. They smile at each other, and he takes a few steps forward. It seems that he’s forgotten his keys....
ad infinitum
Issue 58 | Fall 2015
Keka Marzagao Naila
mixed media, watercolor and wallpaper
Issue 16 | Fall 1993
Jaishri Abichandani Untitled
digital photography
Issue 58 | Fall 2015
VIDEO NASTY
Rachel Sather
(Blackout onstage. A Law and Order-esque voice-over speaks.)
VOICE
In the early 1980’s, over seventy films on videocassette were banned throughout the UK. Deemed, obscene, violent, and unfit for public viewing, these “video nasties” were believed to have violated the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, causing them to be forced off the market by British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. This is the completely factual account of how these films were recovered.
(Lights up on THATCHER’s office)
THATCHER
Ah, what a lovely day it is. Approval ratings are high, trade unions are weak, and most importantly, Britain is robust with the sweet smell of censorship. Yes indeed. (she sighs, then suddenly screams) CYNTHIA!!!!
(Her assistant, CYNTHIA, runs in and stands at the ready.)
CYNTHIA
Yes, madam?
THATCHER
Cynthia, darling, I’m feeling a tad sluggish this morning. Be a dear and fetch me some scotch for my tea, would you?
CYNTHIA
Forgive me for saying so, Prime Minister, but it’s half past eight in the morning-
THATCHER
Did I stutter?
CYNTHIA
(sighs) Right away, madam. (She grabs a large bottle of scotch and begins pouring it into a tea kettle as they speak)
THATCHER
So, what’s on the agenda for today?
CYNTHIA
Well, the miner’s strike is still going strong. Those coal miners have really been suffering since all of those manufacturing jobs were lost.
THATCHER
Oh Cynthia. Darling Cynthia. You know I don’t give a shit.
CYNTHIA
But Prime Minister, unemployment has skyrocketed. Those people have families!
THATCHER
Don’t sass me. I know what I’m doing. I wasn’t reelected for nothing, you know! (Takes a large swig of “tea”) Now, I beg of you, tell me something I
actually care about.
CYNTHIA
(checking clipboard) Hmm……… ah yes! We confiscated quite a few more films today.
THATCHER
Splendid! Read the list to me.
CYNTHIA
There’s Cannibal Holocaust, I Spit On Your Grave, The Driller Killer, Zombie Flesh Eaters, Gestapo’s Last Orgy, and……oh this can’t be right……
THATCHER
What? What isn’t right?
CYNTHIA
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas?
THATCHER
Ah yes! I requested that one personally.
CYNTHIA
But madam, that’s a Dolly Parton film. It’s a musical.
THATCHER
Cynthia, I will not be promoting prostitution in this country!
CYNTHIA
But Prime MinisterTHATCHER
No buts! Whorehouse is banned.
CYNTHIA (sighs) Yes, Prime Minister. (THATCHER smiles and has another swig.)
THATCHER
God bless censorship. I, for one, feel much safer knowing Britain’s impressionable youth are protected from these disgusting, obscene films. Who knows what could be unleashed if we allowed these tapes to be sold?
(suddenly, two American AGENTS burst through the door, pointing guns at THATCHER and
CYNTHIA.)
AGENT A
Freeze, you film-hating swine! (CYNTHIA and THATCHER raise their hands over their heads and scream.)
THATCHER
Cynthia, call security!
AGENT B
(pointing their gun at CYNTHIA) Don’t move, bitch!
CYNTHIA
Who are you?! What do you want?!
AGENT A
We’re from the Federal Institute of the Liberation of Trash and Horror.
CYNTHIA
……FILTH?
More or less.
AGENT A
AGENT B
We travelled here from the year 2000 to free these so-called “video nasties” from your grasp and allow the British people the freedom to watch all of the gory, violent movies you’ve banned.
CYNTHIA
Why are you meddling in British affairs? You’re Americans!
AGENT B
It’s kinda what we do best.
THATCHER
You’ll never lift the ban, you Yankee scum! I would die first!
AGENT A
That can be arranged.
THATCHER
You would kill ME just so people can freely watch Evil Dead?
AGENT B
We’d do anything for Evil Dead
AGENT A
Hell, we’d kill you over Flesh for Frankenstein, and we fucking hate Andy Warhol.
AGENT B
Point is, film censorship is wrong and you’re a frigid bitch for allowing it. Besides, have you even SEEN any of the films on that list?
THATCHER
Of course I haven’t! I’m not a barbarian like you!
AGENT A
(scoffs) Figures.
AGENT B
Look, you either lift the ban, or we kill you. Simple as that.
THATCHER
But you don’t understand! You don’t know the type of horror that will be unleashed if the ban is abolished!
AGENT A
You have ten seconds, Thatcher.
THATCHER
But……what about the children?
AGENT B
Three……two……one.
(They shoot THATCHER. She drops to her knees, but doesn’t die.)
THATCHER
You’ll never kill me!
(They shoot again. She recoils, becoming demon-like.)
THATCHER
I tried……to protect you…… (They shoot again. She falls.)
THATCHER
Oh……fuck you, you horror-loving trash! (She collapses, dead. She continues to twitch before lying still. The AGENTS go to her.)
AGENT B
Wow. They didn’t call her the Iron Lady for nothing.
CYNTHIA
You really shouldn’t have done that.
AGENT A
We can’t allow censorship to continue, ma’am.
AGENT B
That’s what our beautiful country was built upon.
AGENTS
Freedom. (They nod at each other in unison)
CYNTHIA
Well, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re in Britain, not America. And there was a reason why those films were banned.
AGENT B
Which is……?
CYNTHIA
You really wanna know?
AGENT A
Well yeah.
CYNTHIA
Okay. When these films were released, some people noticed some strange occurrences on the videotapes when they viewed them. Apparently these films are so horrifying that a curse was implanted into the cassettes. The only one that could tame them was Margaret Thatcher, so she confiscated them all and locked them up. But now that she’s dead……
AGENT A
What happens now?
CYNTHIA
That’s what I’m afraid of…… (A part of the Evil Dead score begins to play.)
CYNTHIA
What was that?
(Suddenly, a DEADITE bursts through the door, laughing horrendously. CYNTHIA screams.)
AGENT B
Holy shit.
DEADITE
I’ll swallow your soul! I’ll swallow your soul!
AGENT A
What do we do?
AGENT B
What do you think? Use your boomstick! (They take out their guns and shoot the DEADITE multiple times.)
DEADITE
(Gurgles and dies.)
AGENT B
Groovy.
CYNTHIA
(smugly) Would you still do anything for Evil Dead?
AGENT A
Oh absolutely.
Definitely.
AGENT B
AGENT A
Great fucking movie.
CYNTHIA
God. What’s next?
(The drum beat for Blood Feast begins.)
AGENT B
Oh shit.
What?
I know this one.
CYNTHIA
AGENT B
(A deep, vicious laugh offstage.)
Blood Feast.
AGENT B
CYNTHIA
Which one is that?
AGENT A
Herschell Gordon Lewis’s 1964 horror debut. Regarded as the first gore film.
CYNTHIA
Oh. Great.
AGENT B
So that means……
(FUAD RAMSES walks through the door, an Egyptian statue in one hand and a butcher knife in the other, behind his back. His eyebrows move wildly.)
AGENTS
Fuad Ramses.
FUAD
(gross, distorted laughter) Ha! Hahaha. Ha. (he speaks to his statue) What’s that Ishtar? You want me to KILL this virgin for our blood feast? Well, if you say so. (He lifts his knife and slowly moves towards CYNTHIA.)
CYNTHIA
Do something!
(As the AGENTS are about to fire, FUAD drops his statue. AGENT B quickly runs and grabs it, throwing it to AGENT A, who fires into the statue. FUAD screams in pain, collapsing. He is dead.)
AGENT A
(to CYNTHIA) You’re a virgin?
CYNTHIA
Shut the FUCK up. Now do you see why we needed Thatcher?
AGENT B
Nobody needed Thatcher.
AGENT A
We got this. Chill. (The Cannibal Holocaust theme begins.)
AGENTS
Fuck.
CYNTHIA
What? What movie is it this time?
AGENT A
The big one.
CYNTHIA
You don’t mean……?
AGENT B
Yep.
(A CANNIBAL bursts onstage, a human arm in one hand and a monkey in the other.)
CYNTHIA
Not Cannibal Holocaust!
(The CANNIBAL slowly approaches, gnawing on the arm. The three back away.)
AGENT B
Let’s just relax. I mean, if you think about it, the cannibals aren’t even the real villains in the movie, right?
(The CANNIBAL rips off the monkey’s head and starts to eat it. Everyone freaks out.)
AGENT A
Fuck that! He ate the monkey!
AGENT B
Kill him, kill him with fire!
(AGENT A shoots the CANNIBAL. He dies. The three sigh with relief.)
CYNTHIA
Well, now that you’ve killed my boss and literally unleashed hell, I don’t see any more reason for me to stay here. So, uh, bye, and good luck getting home. Assholes.
Bye!
(CYNTHIA exits.)
AGENT A
AGENT B
Good luck getting laid!
CYNTHIA (offstage) Fuck you!
(The AGENTS shrug. They sit on THATCHER’s desk and take out a joint. They pour some “tea”.)
AGENT A
You know, I really do wonder who the real cannibals are.
AGENT B
You’re such a pretentious piece of shit.
AGENT A
Why do you think I got into this business?
(They laugh and clink glasses. Curtain.)
Issue 14 | Fall 1992
Issue 38 | Spring 2005
Leola Bermanzohn
About this issue
This [Re]view Preview Mini-Issue features archival creative entries from previous issues, and offers a glimpse into the upcoming 40th Anniversary Edition, scheduled for release in Fall 2025. While this [Re]view Preview Mini-Issue highlights exclusively archival works, the 40th Anniversary Edition will curate a dynamic conversation between past and present, bridging archival pieces with 2024 and 2025 creative entries.
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