"Another Letter From Corvallis" (a poem)

Published on 28 October 2025 at 11:54

"Another Letter From Corvallis" by Guillermo Bowie

Still, they don’t have the same level of personal investment

That I have in Corvallis, Oregon

They didn’t experience those days of turning twenty-one

As a junior in college getting to know Corvallis, Oregon

And still editor Michael Malan of Corvallis, Oregon’s Cloudbank Magazine

Sent me another copy of Cloudbank

Without mentioning the Bowie epic that I sent him almost a year ago

Something that is apparently larger and heavier than what he’s accustomed to receiving

Image Description: A brown envelope with a silver wax stamp rests on a wooden surface. Atop it is a calligraphy pen. A photo of a tree sticks out from under the envelope.

Credit: Elena Golovchenko / Pexels

Naturally he doesn’t understand

My decision to wait to hear from the Corvallis magazine while waiting to hear from places like The Atlantic

In all of its straightforwardness

Where I don’t know if I am imagining what The Atlantic did after receiving my Bowie epic

Michael Malan doesn’t know what Corvallis, Oregon was to a junior and senior in college

To a twenty-one-year-old that had endured the disturbing parental control (for better or for worse) that I had known

Editor Michael Malan doesn’t know

What kind of emotional impact that my Corvallis father-in-law and mother-in-law had in postponed latent early adult development


About the Author

 Guillermo Bowie is a Portland, Oregon based writer. In 2025 he is published in Maryland Literary Review, Maryland’s Academy Of The Heart And Mind, Grey Sparrow Journal, Literary Yard, The Gorko Gazette, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Children, Churches, And Daddies, Book Of Matches, Fowl Feathered Review, The Argyle Literary Magazine… 

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