By Karen LindellIt hurts to be haunted when no one can notice.
from the poem “Lost, I Linger” by Cal Lutheran senior Jazzy Colbert, featured in the 2023 edition of Morning Glory
All artists, no matter the medium, want people to notice their work, especially when they are sharing their very souls in meticulously crafted words, sounds and visuals.
Jacqueline Lyons, Cal Lutheran professor of English and creative writing, is a poet and writer who has felt desire to connect. As the faculty adviser for Cal Lutheran’s student-run literary and visual arts magazine Morning Glory, Lyons helps give young writers and artists on our campus the opportunity to scratch that artistic itch to share what they do and have their work read, seen, held and heard.
Morning Glory, founded in 1971 by former English professor and author Jack Ledbetter, includes poems, prose, visual art and music by Cal Lutheran students, faculty, alumni and staff, in either printed or digital formats.
“For students especially, the affirmation and recognition from being published in a literary journal is so meaningful,” Lyons said. “To see their work alongside a community of other writers and artists mirrors what can happen in the professional literary world.”
She doesn’t dictate what goes into the magazine. “I work with students on this,” she said. “I always want to respond to their sense, both what they want to create and read, and what other students want to read.”
In January, Lyons learned that the 2023 issue of Morning Glory had earned the rank of “Superior” in the Recognizing Excellence in Art and Literary Magazines (REALM) program from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Superior is the second-highest category, after First Class. The 2023 edition of Morning Glory, themed “Renaissance,” was published last spring.
“The student editors had enormous vision for that issue of Morning Glory, and gave so much energy to its creation,” Lyons said. “It’s of course wonderful to see their work, and the work of other student creative writers and artists featured in the journal, receive confirmation from a national organization.”
Lyons, who has a PhD in literature and poetry writing from the University of Utah, and an MFA in creative writing from Colorado State University, has fond memories of her own work being published when she was an undergraduate, in the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire’s literary magazine NOTA (None of the Above).
“It was a highlight of my college experience; I remember being so thrilled,” she said. Her master’s thesis was a book of poems, and since then she has published four books of poetry: Adorable Airport, The Way They Say Yes Here, Earthquake Daily and Lost Colony.
Lyons said her interest in writing is rooted in an “inherent love of language and sound and rhythm” she’s had as long as she can remember.
Although she received a great deal of encouragement from teachers to become a writer, Lyons recalled, “I still didn’t feel like I had something important enough to say.” After joining the Peace Corps, however, stationed in Lesotho, in southern Africa, she kept daily journals that she then turned into the book of poems for her master’s thesis.
In addition to serving as Morning Glory faculty advisor, Lyons is the founder and director of Cal Lutheran’s Guest Writers Series, founding faculty adviser of the Write Club, and mentor to creative writing students.
Her writing has been published in numerous journals, including first-person essays that read like poetry. Here’s just a small excerpt from her essay “Down Into Open”:
“A sentence makes a shelter with its seven parts: interjection, pronoun, adverb, verb, adjective, noun, preposition, as in: Wow – he quickly shared with me the spare key to his house.”
She will always take shelter in words.
To read Morning Glory online, or to find out how to contribute to a future issue, visit CalLutheran.edu/morningglory.
