Aerie InternationaL - Missoula County Public Schools
Aerie InternationaL - Missoula County Public Schools
Aerie InternationaL - Missoula County Public Schools
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<strong>Aerie</strong> <strong>InternationaL</strong><br />
Volume 2 2009
<strong>Aerie</strong> International<br />
a literary arts magazine edited<br />
by young writers and artists<br />
for young writers and artists
aer♦ie(âr’ē) noun, 1. The<br />
lofty nest of an eagle or other<br />
predatory bird, built on a cliff<br />
ledge, mountaintop, or high in<br />
a dead snag. 2. An elevated,<br />
often secluded, dwelling,<br />
structure, or position. 3. A<br />
home for exceptional young<br />
writers and artists from around<br />
the globe, providing publishing<br />
opportunities, literary prizes,<br />
and cross-cultural connections.<br />
4. A place where the<br />
distinctions and connections<br />
of culture, language, peoples,<br />
and environment are nurtured.<br />
5. An innovative new journal<br />
edited and published by high<br />
school students for high school<br />
students.
AdvISory boArd<br />
eric abbot<br />
sandra alcosser<br />
coleman barks<br />
dana boussard<br />
david cates<br />
david james duncan<br />
contact us at aerieinternational@gmail.com<br />
www.aerieinternational.com<br />
We InvIte SubmISSIonS of<br />
innovative poetry<br />
short stories and flash fiction<br />
brief non-fiction<br />
lyrical essays<br />
short drama<br />
foreign language poetry and translations<br />
visual art and photography<br />
CongrAtulAtIonS 2009 AWArd WInnerS<br />
rIChArd hugo Poetry AWArd<br />
wynne hungerford, greenville, south carolina<br />
JAmeS WelCh fICtIon AWArd<br />
alexandria kim, allendale, new jersey<br />
normAn mACleAn nonfICtIon AWArd<br />
emma lucy bay pimentel, jacksonville, florida<br />
rudy AutIo vISuAl ArtS AWArd<br />
austin j. noll, lawrence, kansas<br />
lee nye PhotogrAPhy AWArd<br />
iida lehtinen, suavo, finland<br />
debra magpie earling<br />
carolyn forché<br />
tami haaland<br />
ilya kaminsky<br />
robert lee<br />
naomi shihab nye<br />
caroline patterson<br />
prageeta sharma<br />
m.l. smoker<br />
robert stubblefield<br />
renée taaffe<br />
r. david wilson
edItorIAl boArd 2009<br />
edItor<br />
katie degrandpre<br />
Poetry edItor<br />
kiley munsey<br />
ProSe edItor<br />
jenny godwin<br />
Art And PhotogrAPhy edItor<br />
hannah halland<br />
CorreSPondenCe edItor<br />
caitlyn brendal<br />
WebSIte edItor<br />
ryan casas<br />
hIStorIAn<br />
hanley caras<br />
mAnAgIng edItor<br />
alissa tucker<br />
ASSt. Poetry edItor<br />
dove ashby<br />
ASSt. ProSe edItor<br />
caitlyn brendal<br />
dIgItAl edItor<br />
lori krause<br />
SubSCrIPtIonS edItor<br />
dove Ashby<br />
ASSt. WebSIte edItor<br />
tessa nobles<br />
AdvISor<br />
lorilee evans-lynn<br />
<strong>Aerie</strong> International is published annually by the students of Big Sky High School in<br />
<strong>Missoula</strong>, Montana. Subscriptions are $12 to U.S. subscribers, $15 to friends outside<br />
the U.S. Sample copies are $5. Subscription forms can be found at the back of the<br />
magazine. Exchange subscriptions are encouraged. <strong>Aerie</strong> International is supported<br />
by Big Sky High School, private contributions, and sales of its magazine. <strong>Aerie</strong> International<br />
accepts poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art and photography submissions from<br />
September 1st through February 1st. All work is submitted electronically. Potential<br />
contributors should send no more than five pieces. For full submissions guidelines<br />
and all other correspondence, visit our website or inquire through email.<br />
aerie.international@gmail.com<br />
www.aerieinternational.com<br />
© 2009 <strong>Aerie</strong> International<br />
Rights revert to the author upon publication.<br />
Printed on recycled paper with recyclable ink at Gateway Printing
friends of<br />
<strong>Aerie</strong> International<br />
the following individuals and organizations have made it<br />
possible for the <strong>Aerie</strong> literary magazines to continue and grow.<br />
Thank you!<br />
SPonSorS<br />
Anonymous Donors<br />
Paul Johnson, Big Sky High School<br />
Mike Peissig and Donna Elliott, Gateway Printing<br />
PAtronS<br />
Coffee Cart, Big Sky High School<br />
Dudley Dana, The Dana Gallery<br />
Gerald Fetz and Family John Lynn<br />
Scott and Mary Meacham, Montana Claims Service<br />
Laura Parvey-Connors, Loose Leash Marketing<br />
Renée Taaffe, <strong>Missoula</strong> Art Museum<br />
donorS<br />
Nancy Aitken-Nobles and Buddy Nobles<br />
Lela Autio Phillip and Melodee Belangie Judy Bullis<br />
Clayton Devoe, Hellgate Elks Lodge<br />
Dr. Brian Diggs J. Robert and Dorothy Evans<br />
Paul and Susan Fredericks, Mineral Logic<br />
Bridget Johnson and Henry Ward Nina Johnson<br />
Dr. Mary Kleschen and Thomas Michels Robert Lee<br />
Mike and Ann Munsey Dr. Charles and Kathy Swannack<br />
SuPPorterS<br />
Butterfly Herbs<br />
Dr. Ken Fremont-Smith and Dr. Barbara Wright<br />
Robin Hamilton and Peggy Patrick, The Shack<br />
Steve, Sue and Jim Ledger Candice Mancini<br />
Partners in Home Care Frank and Beverley Sherman<br />
Linda Rayfield Barbara Theroux, Fact and Fiction<br />
Byron Weber Hans and Barb Zuuring<br />
Thank you for your support!<br />
Sponsors $1,000 +<br />
Patrons $500-999<br />
Donors $100-499<br />
Supporters $50-99<br />
Parents, Past & Present: Priceless
Highest Award 2008 National Council of Teachers of English<br />
Program to Recognize Excellence in Student Literary Magazines<br />
Dear Reader,<br />
It seems we have tried to define our mission thousands of times. This<br />
magazine just doesn’t seem to fit in any one category.<br />
For me, <strong>Aerie</strong> International’s meaning changes on a day to day basis. Some<br />
days, it is an object floating up in the clouds somewhere. I know it’s<br />
important, but I can only catch glimpses of it. Some days it’s stacks of<br />
papers, overflowing filing cabinets, and massive digital files that are<br />
never quite organized. Everyday, however, when I walk in our classroom<br />
door, or open up our email, the world feels real again. I am reminded that<br />
there are other people, other lives, and other stories that exist outside<br />
my own immediate surroundings.<br />
I think the beauty of <strong>Aerie</strong> International as an organization with a mission<br />
and a literary magazine, is that it allows students around the world to<br />
share their experiences with others. That in itself is empowering in a<br />
world where it seems that no one is actually listening, despite the many<br />
new technologies which are supposed to help us communicate.<br />
If <strong>Aerie</strong> International were an annual summer camp, this year’s theme<br />
would be sharing stories. All we would ever do is sit around a campfire<br />
with hot chocolate and s’mores listening to each other’s thoughts,<br />
fictional and non-fictional. I believe my experience would be a great deal<br />
less had I never had the opportunity to hear the stories of people like<br />
Emma Pimentel, Romanius Eiman, Alexandria Kim and Jake Ross. Each<br />
submission I looked at and each bio I read made my world bigger as each<br />
person’s ideas, thoughts, and personalities came alive through his or her<br />
art. I feel truly privileged to have been able to work on this magazine.<br />
We have many hopes for the future. We hope to make <strong>Aerie</strong> International<br />
sustainable when elective classes are too often on the chopping block.<br />
We are always looking for new awards and new ways to give a voice to<br />
more students around the world. We also hope to honor the writers and<br />
artists who have come before us. We have learned so much from writers<br />
and artists such as Richard Hugo, Rudy Autio, Norman Maclean, James<br />
Welch and Lee Nye.<br />
We have many people to thank for helping make our dreams with <strong>Aerie</strong><br />
International possible. The first is our international Advisory Board<br />
whom we were fortunate enough to meet with this year. They are our<br />
ultimate support group, inside the classroom and out, who prove to<br />
us that what we are doing is real and good. We so appreciate their
feedback and support. Thank you to our design and print gurus, Laura<br />
Parvey-Connors with Loose Leash Marketing as well as Donna Elliott<br />
and Mike Peissig of Gateway Printing. We learn something every time<br />
we meet and our magazine truly depends on you. Our teacher, Lorilee<br />
Evans-Lynn, and all teachers around the world deserve a standing<br />
ovation followed by a day of rest and ultimate pampering. It is teachers<br />
like these who inspire us to do more, to dream, and to achieve. Thank<br />
you to Dudley Dana and the Dana Gallery for hosting our ridiculously<br />
complicated fund raiser and our Advisory Board members for supporting<br />
us through your readings and your presence. Thank you to Chelsea<br />
Rayfield, who was not only a teacher, but a big sister and a friend to<br />
us. A final thank you to our wonderful parents and Cathy Marshall, our<br />
ultimate <strong>Aerie</strong> Mamma, who comes in and feeds our cranky souls early<br />
on Sunday mornings. All our parents deserve trophies and a multitude of<br />
thanks.<br />
Finally, thank you readers for supporting us, believing in us, and hearing<br />
the stories of all these outstanding people.<br />
Katie DeGrandpre, Editor
To the Reader:<br />
As we neared production of this, our 2 nd issue of <strong>Aerie</strong> International, I<br />
couldn’t help but reflect on our aspirations for this magazine. One was to<br />
establish a legitimate journal for young people, a journal of writing and art<br />
that young people could claim as their own. We wanted it be one of beauty.<br />
We hoped to make connections, not only for our editors and the people we<br />
were fortunate enough to encounter on and off these pages, but also to offer<br />
the means for young people far outside our sphere to meet. Having pen pals<br />
is great, but what if we could give young people the opportunity to share<br />
their art in their own magazine?<br />
It is a usual day for me to enter the classroom and find Katie, our 2009<br />
Editor, sitting cross-legged on a table, reading from a manuscript or waving<br />
one in front of my face (I mean that literally), usually accompanied with the<br />
command: “Lorilee, this is AMAZING. You HAVE to read it.”<br />
She is usually right.<br />
That’s how I first came to hear, “Worker Bee,” a story about what might<br />
be described as a very conventional narrator and his obsession with an<br />
equally unconventional young “antagonist.” Jake Ross manages to take<br />
on environmental issues, high school, middle America, and its fringes.<br />
His characters are whimsical and delicious and irreverent, at once both<br />
fantastical and oddly real.<br />
In her memoir, “Navy Blue,” Emma Pimmental speaks of visiting a<br />
hippotherapy farm in Sudan for children from underfunded hospitals. These<br />
children have been abandoned by war, disease and poverty that is nearly<br />
incomprehensible outside the developing world. Emma walked to Jane-<br />
Ann’s farm twice a week all summer in the Sudanese heat and dust to help.<br />
“I learned more about love and humankind that summer than I ever have<br />
before or since,” Emma writes.<br />
I don’t know that I could have picked two pieces from the magazine less<br />
alike. And yet they are about what the entirety of this journal, all of art,<br />
perhaps, is about—coming to the center of a thing and laying it bare, first<br />
to discover it for oneself, and then, if we are very lucky, to share it. This<br />
magazine is full of those kinds of moments, in image and in word.<br />
Many pieces poke fun at our cultures and who we are. Annie Chang<br />
writes about growing up Asian-American in central Oklahoma, “where just<br />
five minutes from my home are real cattle farms and horse ranches.” She<br />
says she likes to laugh at herself, and in so doing, gives all of us permission<br />
to laugh, not only at her, but at ourselves as well. Her story is part memoir,<br />
part fiction, about shopping trips to Wal-Mart where her mother insists,<br />
over her daughter’s protestations, to buy soymilk for the family “primarily<br />
because Oprah Winfrey tells her to.” Her story is hilarious, a convergence of<br />
cultures and coupons.<br />
Whether visual art, photography or writing, the pieces are about longing<br />
and love, about society, about what we accept and what we do not. In<br />
“Killing Beauty,” photographer Gabriella Otero formally poses two young<br />
girls in party dresses in a field. They are focused like manikins on an<br />
electrical power station in the distance, their backs to the viewer. Austin
Noll, whose self-portrait wraps the cover of the 2009 <strong>Aerie</strong> International, has<br />
superimposed newspaper articles and obituaries across his very elongated<br />
frame, a cut out cityscape in the background and what might be paper<br />
waves rolling in the space between the city and the figure. The visual artists<br />
and photographers are doing the same thing the writers are, discovering and<br />
sharing their images and comments on the world.<br />
I wrote an article earlier this year about the effect of publishing on<br />
student writing. I asked my own students for their thoughts. Katie brought<br />
home the public nature of art and what it does for all of us: “Getting<br />
published is one of the most empowering things in the world. We all write<br />
secretly in journals at night about our lives and what’s happening, but when<br />
that writing gets published, you just know that someone else out there<br />
understands and believes in what you are feeling or saying or thinking.”<br />
In retrospect, perhaps it is that notion more than any other this journal<br />
hopes to offer. A place where art can explore and affirm who we are and<br />
who we hope to be. When we have the opportunity to share those things,<br />
how can the world grow anything but a little closer?<br />
We have many people to thank, people who have transformed this effort<br />
into helping build a literary and art community among far ranging youth.<br />
First, thank you to everyone in my immediate radius who picks up the<br />
pieces tumbling from my hands as deadlines and fund raisers and readings<br />
approach—that includes my family and friends and my teaching partners,<br />
all of whom are exceedingly generous with their assistance and their<br />
indulgence. Thank you, too, to the families who support the giving of our<br />
awards—we are proud to continue a tradition of such remarkable writers<br />
and artists. We can only hope to pass on some of what they have offered<br />
us. Thank you to our Advisory Board, which convened at school this spring<br />
for our first formal Advisory Board meeting. For the <strong>Aerie</strong> students, these<br />
writers and artists are rock stars. Not only were our editors honored to<br />
be meeting, but the board was incredibly supportive of what the students<br />
have accomplished and equally ready with fantastic ideas for the future.<br />
Thank you as well to all who have supported us financially. The reality is<br />
that money makes it possible to do this sometimes overwhelming, always<br />
inspiring work. Finally, thank you to everyone who has submitted and<br />
everyone who subscribes to <strong>Aerie</strong> International. It is critical that we support<br />
what we believe in with our time and our money. Poetry and art are not<br />
inherently lucrative endeavors. They exist because we deem them essential<br />
and because we support them. Give subscriptions for <strong>Aerie</strong> International to<br />
your nephews and nieces and grandparents. Encourage your high school<br />
and local libraries to subscribe. Pass the word. We want <strong>Aerie</strong> International<br />
not only to be about the students who are published, but about sharing the<br />
art and writing created by young people with as wide an audience as we can<br />
possibly reach. Help us make those connections.<br />
Thank you!<br />
Lorilee Evans-Lynn, Advisor
To the Reader,<br />
<strong>Aerie</strong> International is housed in <strong>Missoula</strong>’s Big Sky High School, across<br />
from and ironically contrasted to nearby Fort <strong>Missoula</strong> which served<br />
as a detention center for Italian nationals and Japanese-Americans held<br />
prisoner during World War II. <strong>Aerie</strong> International represents a peaceful<br />
and celebratory step in building relationships across international<br />
boundaries. It is visionary, communal, and brilliant.<br />
You should see the classroom where it happens. It’s a workroom with<br />
tables layered in images and writing that have come from the United<br />
States, England, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Russia, Japan, Namibia, and<br />
Finland. This is a place where students can sit together, seminar-style,<br />
to converse with each other, with board members, and supporters.<br />
Presiding over it all is their magical teacher, Lorilee Evans-Lynn, the<br />
originator of this vision, the elegant orchestrator, promoter, fund raiser,<br />
supporter, and the encouraging voice that allows <strong>Aerie</strong> International, and<br />
its sister journal, <strong>Aerie</strong> Big Sky, to move systematically from conception to<br />
print. It’s an honor to serve with the other advisory board members on<br />
this amazing journey that is <strong>Aerie</strong> International.<br />
Youth have frequently been leaders in peace efforts, and I believe <strong>Aerie</strong><br />
International contains elements important to a peaceful future. The<br />
editors have the good fortune of communicating with global youth,<br />
and the readers have the good fortune to encounter visual and written<br />
work from many continents. In each issue, <strong>Aerie</strong>’s expert editors conduct<br />
interviews with several contributors which give readers a glimpse of the<br />
many conversations going on behind the scenes.<br />
The work of <strong>Aerie</strong> International is created, selected and published by<br />
young people whose futures and whose memories will be inextricably<br />
tied to this experience. Rather than seeing themselves primarily as<br />
separate, they will be part of a cooperative whole, a group who has been<br />
able to communicate actively and effectively in spite of physical distance<br />
and in celebration of cultural diversity. .<br />
In January, I wrote a note to Lorilee about an Iranian friend whose<br />
husband had been arrested for his participation in human rights<br />
work. The story is similar to many other arrests in various regions,<br />
some well-publicized and many which are not. He was fortunate to be<br />
released after two months of detention, but not everyone is so lucky.<br />
In this context, where people can be arrested for their beliefs and<br />
where information can be easily manipulated and censored, journals<br />
like <strong>Aerie</strong> International are essential. It is my hope that <strong>Aerie</strong> International<br />
will continue to be a fine example of cooperation, artistic vision, and<br />
inclusive thinking for years to come.<br />
Tami Haaland, poet and <strong>Aerie</strong> International Advisory Board member
sumi selvaraj lilburn, georgia, usa<br />
flight of the shadow | digital photography
tAble of ContentS<br />
Chemical Bonding<br />
myrah fisher<br />
Roses<br />
alexaundra swann<br />
A Watermelon Defeat<br />
jennie lee<br />
Home<br />
mercy ndambuki<br />
Kenophobia<br />
kathleen harm<br />
I Am a Street Kid<br />
romanius eiman<br />
For Five Hundred and Forty-Three Days<br />
jennifer giang<br />
Haiku<br />
yuka tsuruyama<br />
Fish-Fry<br />
taylor nicole marlow<br />
Psychology<br />
jonathan o’hair<br />
Worker Bee<br />
jake ross<br />
Interview<br />
jake ross<br />
Imitating Kerouac in the Summertime<br />
allison lazarus<br />
One Day in Future<br />
ayna kuliyeva<br />
The Army<br />
obaid syed<br />
Haida Statues<br />
marquette patterson<br />
Winter<br />
shapovalova victoria<br />
1<br />
2<br />
4<br />
6<br />
8<br />
10<br />
12<br />
16<br />
18<br />
20<br />
22<br />
30<br />
34<br />
36<br />
38<br />
43<br />
44
Coloring You<br />
michele corriston<br />
Fish<br />
alexandria kim<br />
How to Make Kimchi<br />
alexandria kim<br />
The Two Sides of a Name:<br />
Alexandria Song-Hwa Kim<br />
alexandria kim<br />
We Were so Wise<br />
jamie pisciotta<br />
Dubai<br />
nadia qari<br />
He Breaks Another Bottle, I Go For a Walk<br />
deborah gravina<br />
Echoes of Alexandria<br />
maria nelson<br />
Conversations About Love<br />
natasha joyce weidner<br />
Speech<br />
kelsie corriston<br />
Dressed in Navy Blue<br />
emma lucy bay pimentel<br />
Interview<br />
emma lucy bay pimentel<br />
Greenworld # 1<br />
daniel alexander gross<br />
An Immigrant’s Guide to Colorado<br />
melanie brown<br />
Caretaker<br />
wynne hungerford<br />
The Milkman<br />
annie chang<br />
Sky<br />
amelia parenteau<br />
Rudy Autio Visual Arts Award Winner<br />
Cover Art | Self Portrait by Austin J. Noll<br />
46<br />
50<br />
52<br />
53<br />
54<br />
56<br />
58<br />
60<br />
64<br />
68<br />
71<br />
75<br />
82<br />
84<br />
88<br />
90<br />
93
ChemICAl bondIng<br />
The luster of the elements<br />
Has made mountain ranges of your acids<br />
And exponents out of my wings.<br />
The scientific notation expands; the phoenix burns.<br />
I’m wandless and bare-brained<br />
And all operational thinkings have ceased.<br />
You, I can make no thesis,<br />
But your shimmer-swept eyes and<br />
Melting point blush are enough to form a hypothesis.<br />
Maybe we can experiment—you, my constant variable,<br />
And me, the dependent value.<br />
As different as the front and end of a chimera,<br />
But still undeniably one mythical beast.<br />
You’re pulling me into your orbit, an aesthetic satellite,<br />
And soon I’m circling you through light years and solar flares<br />
And you’re keeping me close, stopping me from soaring away.<br />
myrah fisher<br />
jacksonville, florida, usa<br />
But the dragon inside overwhelms,<br />
You eclipse me and I’m abandoned in the vacuum of imaginary numbers.<br />
1
alexaundra swann<br />
roswell, georgia, usa<br />
roSeS<br />
We were laughing.<br />
No one told a joke but<br />
we laughed even harder.<br />
We were kids<br />
barely in seventh grade<br />
taking a night stroll around<br />
the biggest lake I had<br />
ever seen.<br />
We passed<br />
a bright pink Spanish home<br />
we swore one day<br />
would be ours.<br />
We sat on the dock<br />
catching turtles,<br />
examining them<br />
and throwing them back in the water.<br />
We held hands<br />
and prayed that we<br />
would be together<br />
forever.<br />
We passed the home<br />
of an elderly couple<br />
who had a yard full of rose bushes.<br />
The man said, “Would you two like a flower?”<br />
and the hearts of two anxious girls<br />
could not turn him down.<br />
We tucked our roses<br />
behind our ears<br />
and we were happy.<br />
2
samuel j. willger<br />
lawrence, kansas, usa<br />
painted landscape | oil on canvas<br />
3
jennie lee<br />
norman, oklahoma, usa<br />
A WAtermelon defeAt<br />
The dress already lay out in front of the door that morning. I ate a<br />
Korean breakfast, complete with kimchi, rice, and tea, and sat quietly while<br />
Mommy fixed my hair into a ponytail and a bow. I must have been around<br />
four or five, and as I recall there were not many kids who looked like me.<br />
All the other children were pale and big-eyed. My parents worried about<br />
me because when I was younger I always used to follow this Chinese girl<br />
around in preschool. I didn’t know English and attempted to talk to her in<br />
a language foreign to her. I identified with her dark hair and small eyes, but<br />
that feeling was not returned; only now I know she dodged me and thought<br />
me strange. Even at a young age, I detected that I was different.<br />
Being accepted didn’t come to me as naturally as it did for most of my<br />
peers. This coupled with the fact that though I was born in the U.S., I had<br />
only learned Korean and couldn’t communicate well in English, which<br />
heightened my anxiety. I was unaware as to what I should expect in<br />
kindergarten but hand in hand with my mom, I timidly wandered in, my<br />
mother already having fussed over me as any typical parent would do on the<br />
first day for his or her offspring. Adorned in my watermelon dress I noticed<br />
my surroundings: the glaring fluorescent lights, impersonal white walls,<br />
the carpet with a unique, foul odor. The windows of the classrooms were<br />
decorated with tacky plastic things like smiling flowers in an attempt to<br />
seem welcoming. The truth was the school could swallow me whole, and<br />
me, I was helpless.<br />
Doubt hit me in waves and sudden thoughts rushed over me. What if<br />
nobody likes me? What if they think I’m weird? Would I play alone? Would<br />
I be left to try and push myself on the swing? I looked about, searching<br />
for a target; anything to hate to get my mind away from being at school.<br />
Violently, while hunting for the object of abomination, I located a victim:<br />
the red quarter-oval shape speckled with black dots on the neckline of my<br />
A-line dress, complete with thin green and white vertical stripes. Everything<br />
became clear to me; I knew instantly what I should do. I reminded myself<br />
that I had declared to my mother that morning, “The dress is ugly. I don’t<br />
want to wear it.” Her reply: “Look at it. It’s so cute – you’ll be the cutest in<br />
your class if you wear it. Remember, we were at Dillard’s and when I picked<br />
it out for you, you were so happy.”<br />
4
Then, I was content. But now – now things were different. People would<br />
judge me by that dress. I was wearing a watermelon! Mommy deserted<br />
me, leaving me with my teacher and a few boys and girls my age; we were<br />
the early ones. Nobody else was a fruit. I didn’t see any oranges or apples<br />
anywhere. As I defensively observed the environment, I wrung the melon in<br />
my fingers. I twisted it around my neck, wrinkled it underneath my palms<br />
and managed to mangle the stiff fabric momentarily: I did not want it to<br />
surface again. On my first day of school, it was my worst enemy. Though I<br />
saw a girl wearing a dress, it was nothing like mine. I observed the boys: one<br />
was wearing t-shirts and cargo shorts, and another wore jeans. Compared<br />
to the other children’s clothes, mine stuck out like a sore thumb. I did not<br />
even mind my dress if not for the crescent shape on the neckline, but that<br />
neckline was so undismissibly hideous. The watermelon was my problem,<br />
and if only I could hide it from everyone inside my fists, nobody would<br />
know. Nobody would know I was different. Nobody would criticize, “What<br />
is that little squinty-eyed girl wearing? Why does she have a plant around<br />
her neck? Why isn’t she wearing blue jeans like me?” With my little hand I<br />
frantically tried to scrunch my adversary up into something unrecognizable.<br />
Kids started pouring in, and again I didn’t see anybody who looked like me.<br />
When the teacher ordered my class to do activities, I had to admit defeat.<br />
With one last-ditch effort of squeezing my limbs a bit more, I finally opened<br />
my hands, palms up; I could no longer continue strangling my enemy. The<br />
little piece of cloth had beaten me, and dismayed, I participated in the<br />
games, the watermelon wrinkled but vivified again, taunting me out of the<br />
corner of my eyes at every second.<br />
I could not look anyone in the eye. Not only did I forfeit, but I was<br />
wearing a fruit. And not only was I wearing a fruit, but I was wearing<br />
a wrinkled, ugly fruit. The rest of the day commenced and I remained<br />
ill-at-ease and self-conscious.<br />
As I reminisce about that memorable day, I recognize I was too young<br />
to learn that lesson. I did not even know the source of my anxiety. As I<br />
matured, I realized it was not about the clothes I was wearing; it was about<br />
being comfortable in my skin – my skin that has a slight tint distinct from<br />
most.<br />
On one particular trip to the bank, I miraculously spotted a blonde girl<br />
wearing an almost exact replica of the watermelon dress. She donned it with<br />
such nonchalance it would have put my self-conscious, five-year-old self to<br />
shame. Her bearing convinced me to search for my old outfit in the corner of<br />
my closet shelf, and after I lay it on the floor neatly – much like my mom did<br />
for me my first day of kindergarten – I called out a realization to my mother,<br />
“Mom, you were right! I must’ve looked adorable that day.”<br />
5
mercy ndambuki<br />
norman, oklahoma, usa<br />
home<br />
The drops beat fiercely on the tilted window panes<br />
Ripping through the gutters of the roof<br />
They attack the red soil<br />
Soil that bears a few new huts.<br />
It has changed so much.<br />
The rumbling chatter bursts out of the thatched kitchen<br />
With delight, hiding the silence.<br />
Astonished I glide to the source<br />
And watch from a distance the unending folktelling<br />
All of them, grandma and her young granddaughters,<br />
Cornering the scorching flames<br />
With arms stretched out.<br />
6
mackenzie enich<br />
missoula, montana, usa<br />
market in arusha | digital photography<br />
7
kathleen harm<br />
ho-ho-kus, new jersey, usa<br />
KenoPhobIA<br />
My keraunograph records a thunderstorm today.<br />
A stranger walks in with his beat-up kennebecker on his back;<br />
a brown kausia on his head—<br />
he’s beautiful but when I hear his voice, there’s kalon.<br />
He prepares a thick kava from a Polynesian plant;<br />
I keck at the smell coming from the olive-green jug,<br />
but he becomes the kelpie and speaks to me softly,<br />
and suddenly, that scent from the kalpis seduces me.<br />
I take a sip and I’m in kef:<br />
the colors of the room swirl into kente—confusion; euphoria.<br />
But he drops the kedge and the ship rocks.<br />
I hear a clamor through the fabric;<br />
my head hurts from the katzenjammer.<br />
Around his thin waist is a keister;<br />
he takes out a screwdriver and opens my heart.<br />
I try to kep the blood;<br />
it flows until the organ is empty, and no keloid forms to cover the hole,<br />
but I have kenophobia, so only he can fill the void.<br />
Keraunograph: instrument for recording distant thunderstorms<br />
Kennebecker: knapsack<br />
Kausia: Macedonian felt hat with broad brim<br />
Kalon: beauty that is more than skin deep<br />
Kava: narcotic drink<br />
Keck: to retch; to feel disgust<br />
Kelpie: mischievous water spirit<br />
Kalpis: a water jar<br />
Kef: state of dreamy or drug-induced repose<br />
Kente: hand-woven African silk fabric<br />
Kedge: small anchor to keep a ship steady<br />
Katzenjammer: hangover; uproar; clamour<br />
Keister: burglar’s tool kit<br />
Kep: to catch an approaching object or falling liquid<br />
Keloid: hard scar tissue which grows over injured skin<br />
Kenophobia: fear of empty spaces<br />
8
austin j. noll<br />
lawrence, kansas, usa<br />
wrinkly face quartet | digital art<br />
9
eiman romanius<br />
southern africa, namibia, otjiwarongo<br />
Tita ge a!gan/gôa<br />
Ā, mû ta ge ra âitets tasa<br />
/Apoxawaba xu ta ra ‡û // aeb ai<br />
Sa ui-uisa aisa ti !oa<br />
Tsî t’ra // nâu sa uixaba<br />
Sa !oa ta ge / apob hîa / apoxawab !nâ ao‡gāhe hâb khemi ī.<br />
Xawets ‡an tare-i !aroma ta !gangu !nâ ra hâsa?<br />
Tare-i !aromab !ganna ti //khā//khā!nā-omsa?<br />
‡Âi!gâre!<br />
/Khowemâb ai ta ra ûi!kharu, aodo mâ!khaigu tawa !nari-aoga nape, audode//ā.<br />
/Gui// ae ta ge /on-e ūhâ i – ti ‡hunumasa.<br />
Nēsisa da ge tita tsî /hosan tsîda /gui /onsa ūhâ - !gan/gôan.<br />
Ti în tsî / aokhoen xa ta ge //orehe<br />
HIV/Aids xa ta de !guni/gôa tsî huisen//oase !hūbaib !nâ<br />
//nāxūhe.<br />
/Gâb, /khurub, dâu!khūdi, /û/khāhes !ganga !oa //garite.<br />
Ûib /ūsa ‡gās ai xūmâite.<br />
/Hōsana ta !gangu ai ūhâ.<br />
‡Gui xūna da ūhâ /goragu da rana:<br />
!Âs, !aob, hâ!khai-osiba,<br />
/Khai!nâ kartondi !nâ //omma.<br />
//Khore t’ran ge, /gamsa !anu kharob, /gamsa ‡û-i tsî ti ‡hunuma<br />
/ons /namma.<br />
//Khore ta ra in tita /kha âi, âi‡uis ose.<br />
Tari-e !ganga xu nî ū‡uite?<br />
‡Âis !nâ ūhâ re, //aris ‡gae‡gui-ao ta ge.<br />
//Îta, tita ûiba !ganga xu ge //khā//khāsenta.<br />
Tsî nēsi !gan‡an hâta.<br />
10
I Am A Street KId<br />
romanius eiman<br />
otjiwarongo, namibia, southern africa<br />
Yes, I have seen you laughing at me as I ate food from the dust bin.<br />
I have seen your look of disgust and even heard you say yuck.<br />
To you, I am like litter thrown in the dust bin.<br />
But have you thought about why I live on the streets?<br />
Why the street is my classroom?<br />
Think about it.<br />
I survive on begging, waving motorists into parking areas, washing cars.<br />
Once upon a time I had a name, my own one.<br />
Now me and my friends have the same name – street kids.<br />
I was abused by parents and relatives.<br />
HIV/Aids left me an orphan, defenseless against the world.<br />
Poverty, drought, floods, neglect, led me to the streets.<br />
Life has left me nowhere else to go.<br />
I have friends on the streets.<br />
We have lots of things we share:<br />
Hunger, fear, lack of shelter, sleeping in cardboard boxes.<br />
I long for a warm, clean bed, warm food, love of my own name.<br />
I long for you to laugh with me, not at me.<br />
But who will lift me off the streets?<br />
Remember, I am tomorrow’s leader.<br />
I, who have learned about life from the streets,<br />
And having become streetwise.<br />
My poem is written in English and Damara Nama, my mother tongue. Damara Nama<br />
(Khoisan group of languages, also used by the San Bushmen) is a very old language that<br />
involves clicking sounds and is only spoken in parts of southern Africa. In order to write<br />
it down, it involves four different symbols, one each for where the tongue is placed in the<br />
mouth in order to make the correct sound. - romanius<br />
11
jennifer giang<br />
lilburn, georgia, usa<br />
for fIve hundred And forty-three dAyS<br />
I. Photograph<br />
I don’t wait for Mom to stop the engine, just open the door and run<br />
outside, not even bothering to slip on my sandals. The grass is rough against<br />
my feet, and I probably just stepped on an ant pile, but I don’t care. All I<br />
care about is the heat, and smell, and feel of the June sun burning through<br />
my shirt, melting me with its buttery rays. Everything looks the same. The<br />
rusty makeshift watering can is still propped up by the dead stump, and the<br />
wild shrubs are still spreading their arms out, greedily taking in the dusty<br />
concrete.<br />
I nearly trip on the pile of shoes that booby trap the entry as I follow<br />
Jane, my sister, through the doorway. Aunts and uncles crowd around us,<br />
and we grimace as Mom prods us towards them. The ritual begins: an holá,<br />
cómo estás, quick hug, air kiss on both cheeks. We get to my abuelita—<br />
my grandma—and she smiles and envelopes<br />
me awkwardly with her left arm. “Mira qué<br />
hermosas están poniendo.” Look at how pretty you<br />
all are becoming. I kiss her, wishing I could say<br />
something, but the Spanish limits me to this<br />
small greeting.<br />
Soon, everyone begins shuffling towards the kitchen, grabbing plates and<br />
plunking down food onto their dishes. The smell of piquant enchiladas is<br />
just beginning to tickle my nose when Mom calls at me to come eat. I grab<br />
a platter and stand in the corner next to the air vent so the cool air can slap<br />
my legs.<br />
My abuelita laughs from across the room, and her gold tooth glints under<br />
the harsh glare of the light bulb. She reaches over to eat but as she begins to<br />
pick up her fork, her smile fades. The fork doesn’t want to come up and lays<br />
there, stagnant on the table, as if that piece of Dixie plastic were the weight<br />
of a whole sea. Her gold tooth disappears behind her lips now, and she grabs<br />
the fork with her left hand instead. No one notices.<br />
I watch her from my corner, and get dizzy, as if something was pulling me<br />
out of the scene and framing my abuelita’s crippled right hand into a distant<br />
snapshot.<br />
12<br />
The ritual begins:<br />
an holá, cómo estás,<br />
quick hug, air kiss on<br />
both cheeks.
II. Spying<br />
Mom calls it “showing houses.” She drives around for hours, opening lock<br />
boxes and showing people their future homes. She likes having us kids in<br />
tow: Catalina squawking in the baby seat, me and Jane breaking the law by<br />
sitting on the floor near the back. That annoying T-Mobile ringtone sounds<br />
again—probably the tenth time in the last twenty minutes—and she juggles<br />
the clamshell phone between her ear and shoulder, while she pulls up into a<br />
cul-de-sac. She talks—whispers— to an unknown face for fifteen minutes.<br />
The three letter acronym<br />
stands for sitting in an<br />
ugly blue sofa-chair for<br />
one year with nothing<br />
to do but memorize the<br />
shapes of the blemishes on<br />
the wall.<br />
Jane pokes at me to watch a baby getting<br />
burped by her dad in a driveway.<br />
The cell finally snaps shut, and I hear<br />
Mom tossing it to the passenger’s side.<br />
She’s upset, and the phone falls to the<br />
ground. I peek at her through the gap<br />
between the car seats. Her head is resting<br />
on the wheel, nestled in her forearms.<br />
“Abuelita has ALS,” she murmurs into the<br />
leather. Jane and I glance at each other.<br />
ALS. What is that? We wonder what could be giving her a headache. And<br />
making her cry. I see her trembling through my peephole.<br />
III. One Year in a Blue Seat<br />
It takes me a year, but I finally figure out the meaning of ALS. It means<br />
falling straight backwards onto the garage floor and getting stuck in a<br />
wheelchair. It means rolling to a million doctors and losing all sense of<br />
privacy. It means getting hand fed oatmeal for every meal, then switching<br />
over to a stomach tube. It means breaking out into raw red sores. But worst<br />
of all, the three letter acronym stands for sitting in an ugly blue sofa-chair<br />
for one year with nothing to do but memorize the shapes of the blemishes<br />
on the wall. At least, this is what it means to my abuelita.<br />
IV. A Routine<br />
We go to Abuelita’s house almost every day: after school, on the<br />
weekends, always during the holidays. Only the ritual’s changed now.<br />
When we arrive, there are no lively greetings, just a quick hello then off<br />
to work. Before I see my abuelita for the first time, I’m not sure what to<br />
do. Wave? Give her a kiss? A hug? I awkwardly make my way past the<br />
hospital-like-bed and grey portable potty to her chair. She doesn’t look at<br />
me—she can’t, so I stand off to the side and try to smile. Mom’s already<br />
sitting next to her, rubbing her back and hands to make the blood flow. I<br />
feel guilty for holding back a gag, but the room smells like a disinfectant<br />
someone scrubbed a million times to get rid of the smell of chilies. There’s<br />
13
something strong that makes me want to sneeze, too. Probably some<br />
medicine. Mom glances at me and nods her head, so I grab Jane’s hand and<br />
try to situate myself on the large armrest. As I reach down to hug Abuelita,<br />
she starts as if she were going to talk. But I know she won’t, so I burrow my<br />
head into her braid and whisper.<br />
Afterwards, I back away towards the kitchen, the perfect view, and<br />
pretend I’m minding Catalina playing with our cousin on the floor. Mom’s<br />
giving Abuelita a rinse now. She dips the<br />
rough washcloth into a bowl of hot water<br />
and rubs it onto her twisted arms. Mom<br />
laughs, telling Abuelita about the time<br />
Catalina threw a fit at Target because she<br />
saw a girl wearing the feathered tiara she<br />
wanted. Even though I know Mom wants to, she can’t cry. Abuelita will see<br />
her. I walk to the refrigerator, open it, feel the rush of cool fall over me, and<br />
cry for her instead.<br />
V. You Are My Sunshine<br />
I call Mom’s cell frantically, wishing she would pick up her dumb phone.<br />
She’s been gone all night—on New Year’s Eve, too. Jane, Catalina, and I sit<br />
on our knees next to the window and peer through the blinds, watching the<br />
fireworks in an attempt to entertain ourselves.<br />
Catalina hears the rumble of the garage door first, and we all sprint down<br />
the stairs. “Where were y—,” Catalina starts irritably as the door opens, but<br />
I shush her. Mom’s holding a small mountain of tissues in her hands. There<br />
are deep nail marks on her arms, as if she’s been clutching herself, and sticky<br />
tearstains on her cheeks. We follow her quietly to Catalina’s room, and the<br />
bolt clicks when Jane closes the door.<br />
“Did she…?” I falter, before I see Jane’s glare. Mom gives a half-nod and<br />
doesn’t bother wiping the tears that are starting to run down her face again.<br />
Her body gives a massive heave, and she speaks with a halt. “She died crying.<br />
She died crying! Ay, dios mio, oh my God, oh my God.” My vision blurs, and I<br />
lie on the floor, mimicking my mom with soft shudders. Catalina doesn’t<br />
know what is going on, so she pets Mom’s head, her small fingers running<br />
through the stiff knots. I can’t breathe; my tongue feels heavy and there’s a<br />
kink in my throat. “Mommy,” I plead and turn to face her. “Mommy, maybe<br />
it was better for her to go. She was suffering so much and—and, now she<br />
doesn’t have to.” I don’t think she hears me.<br />
VI. A Nap<br />
Everyone around me is praying, fingertips touching their lips, mouthing<br />
Ave Maria in unison. I clasp my hands together, but don’t say anything. I<br />
just listen to the soft Spanish tongue cradling my abuelita as she sleeps.<br />
14<br />
Even though I know Mom<br />
wants to, she can’t cry.<br />
Abuelita will see her.
jessica byrne<br />
carlisle, cumbria, uk<br />
country lane | traditional black and white photography<br />
15
tsuruyama yuka<br />
japan, kumamoto<br />
16
taylor nicole marlow<br />
norman, oklahoma, usa<br />
fISh-fry<br />
Grandfather pulls the white glass plate from the fridge with a swish.<br />
He walks out the back door—through the kitchen and into the<br />
garage pantry hallway.<br />
Atop the massive deep freeze filled with frosty<br />
quail pastries hamburger<br />
he builds his station—<br />
a plate of fluffy flour, corn meal, and crimson spices<br />
a vat filled with already crackling oil<br />
and<br />
the crappie<br />
caught fresh from Uncle Tony’s pond that early morning.<br />
I sit on the step behind him, the heavy concrete floor beneath me.<br />
My hands on my bony seven year-old knees, I lean forward to watch him<br />
dip pat sprinkle<br />
the powder onto each thin filet.<br />
He is quick but skilled as he lays the fish into the<br />
pop and sizzle<br />
with his freckled leather hands.<br />
He<br />
batters fries retrieves<br />
until the stack of golden brown is high enough for eleven hungry mouths.<br />
Behind me, I hear the<br />
chime and twinkle<br />
of glass-wear and silver touching tablecloth.<br />
I hear the<br />
laughter and happiness<br />
flowing from the nine other bodies.<br />
It is almost time as Grandfather turns around to find me<br />
the youngest<br />
watching patiently, my eyes wide and excited.<br />
Hey, baby Taylor, ready to eat?<br />
He chuckles heartily and wraps me up in his bear arms as I stand.<br />
Then, I open the door to the rest of our family.<br />
The rest of Thanksgiving.<br />
18
sophie howell<br />
carlisle, cumbria, uk<br />
sunflower city | acrylic on canvas<br />
19
jonathan o’hair<br />
norman, oklahoma, usa<br />
PSyChology<br />
Everything psychological is simultaneously biological. In our bodies,<br />
there are chemical reactions to literally every single emotion we have.<br />
Pain, frustration, anger, boredom, anticipation, joy, relief, empathy, and<br />
wrath are all triggered by a biological gun. Science can’t tell us all of the<br />
secrets of the mind, but it can shed some light on the mystery that is our<br />
very own emotional balance.<br />
What most people don’t know is that there is a steady truce between<br />
the biological functions of the body and the mental responses of the<br />
mind. Even though I hate scientific explanations as much as the next<br />
guy, I paid close attention to what that balance literally means in<br />
common language. That balance is the main driving force in whether you<br />
are happy or sad. Even though we can’t literally measure those levels of<br />
happiness, science can still pinpoint one of the main outlets of function<br />
starting at the different nervous systems. If you’ve ever played a sport,<br />
been in a car wreck, or even pumped yourself up for a job interview,<br />
you’ve experienced the effects of the sympathetic nervous system. You<br />
know when your heart rate speeds up and your blood pressure rises,<br />
time literally slows down. And if something alarms, challenges, or<br />
threatens you, the sympathetic nervous system is there to allow you to<br />
be at your best physically. Unfortunately, going back to the balance,<br />
there also has to be a physical reckoning for every action our mind takes.<br />
The parasympathetic nervous system is that tired feeling after your<br />
sympathetic stress. The crash at the end of a sugar rush, if you will.<br />
But what does that have to do with our emotions, and our happiness<br />
level. Sadly enough, the basic principal used in the sympathetic and<br />
parasympathetic systems is used in our emotional outlets. With every<br />
single feeling of happiness, there will be a different but proportional<br />
feeling of sadness. So the true culprits behind the frustration at<br />
stoplights, the anxiety in airports and elevators, and the anger at an<br />
insult is not the outside stimulus so much, but rather that our bodies<br />
are compensating for previous emotions. It is the same when you laugh<br />
at something you didn’t think you found that funny or when you enjoy<br />
a movie you know you don’t like. If external conflicts are a fire, then our<br />
biological functions are the match, and the phrase “Don’t let that bother<br />
you” never seemed so impossible.<br />
20
worapan kongtaewtong<br />
bangkok, thailand<br />
retrospective | colored pencil on paper<br />
21
jake ross<br />
greenville, south carolina, usa<br />
WorKer bee<br />
The way River walked made me have to cross my legs sometimes, if<br />
you know what I mean, and I think you do. She wasn’t like most girls,<br />
with dark denim jeans hugging like a second skin and over-exaggerated<br />
mosquito bites pressing out of low-cut polo shirts. River was different;<br />
she was – what’s the word? – unconventionally sexy, like straight out<br />
of the movies, with her flowing skirts and tennis shoes made out of<br />
recycled tires and bouncing,<br />
brick-colored hair that fell<br />
down to where I imagined<br />
the crack of her ass to start.<br />
That may not sound so hot to<br />
you, but I swear it’s the way<br />
she walked that got me going.<br />
That walk, it could kill a guy.<br />
She walked real aggressive, like if you got in her way she’d slam<br />
you against the lockers and verbally assault your character until you<br />
realized you’d been wrong all your life. She was a real hippie, see, but a<br />
smart hippie, up on all the current events and all that. River was fiery,<br />
and she openly hated stupid people. She regularly destroyed dunces<br />
and left them floating in her wake. Once, in history class, Football<br />
Bobby made this comment in favor of the president, but he didn’t have<br />
the facts to back it up, see, so River took him out in front of the whole<br />
class, proverbially tackled him on the fifty-yard line of Debate Stadium,<br />
knocked his helmet off and left him for dead. For the rest of the year,<br />
Bobby was real quiet in history class.<br />
But maybe that was a bad example; maybe a better example would<br />
be Fresh Out of Home-School Susan, who felt the need to give her own<br />
opinion on stem-cell research in the middle of a biology lecture, and even<br />
Professor Whitaker couldn’t quiet River down then; she stood up and<br />
yelled until Susan shrank into her turtleneck like, well, a turtle, a few<br />
wires anxiously escaping her normally perfect brunette bun. After that,<br />
Susan moved from the front row to the back one. She knitted. Sometimes<br />
River would shoot Susan a look, and Susan would start knitting like the<br />
craziest son of a bitch I ever saw. Her face would scrunch up and redden<br />
out of anger and she would start knitting so fast that you could hear her<br />
22<br />
River was different; she<br />
was – what’s the word? –<br />
unconventionally sexy, like<br />
straight out of the movies.
little sticks clanking together from the front of the room. You know,<br />
those little sticks girls use to knit. I don’t know what they’re called.<br />
How can you expect me to know what those stupid things are called?<br />
Anyway, it was the walk, I swear to God it was. My words can’t even<br />
do it justice. That strong, powerful walk in contrast with all those<br />
flowing dresses and that flowing hair, it was just beautiful. All that<br />
contrast, it got me excited. Shut up, you know what I mean. Maybe you<br />
don’t. Whatever.<br />
Me, I’ve never been savvy like River was, but I wanted to be on that<br />
like a duck on a June bug, so I figured maybe I could trick her into<br />
thinking I was smart just long enough to get that flowy skirt up over her<br />
head. I don’t think she really noticed me, see, it’s easy for me to hug the<br />
wallpaper, and our eyes would never meet even if I stared at her for a<br />
whole class period, even if I sent all kinds of vibes her way. I was always<br />
on the lookout for something interesting I could say that would make me<br />
look smart in her eyes, in those fiery green eyes that she batted when she<br />
did that strut. Hot damn, that strut.<br />
I knew I’d found my chance when I called Time and Weather one<br />
morning. Time and Weather is free, you know, or at least it’s free where<br />
I live, and before they tell you the time and the weather they always<br />
play an advertisement, usually for a chiropractor or Meals on Wheels.<br />
It’s in my interest to know the time and the weather, because I’ve got<br />
to ride my bike to school and back, come hell or high water. But when I<br />
called on this particular morning, the ad was for Bill Maloney’s Custom<br />
Honeybee Removal. Hold on, let me think of what it said. Got bees in your<br />
Apparently, because we<br />
pollute the air, the worker<br />
bees can’t smell right anymore,<br />
and they get lost and die in<br />
the woods or whatever.<br />
trees? That was the first part. And<br />
then: When it’s warm, those bees will<br />
swarm! Call today! Real cutesy,<br />
real stupid, but that was my<br />
chance.<br />
All the honeybees are dying,<br />
see. A third of them are already<br />
dead. We studied them in<br />
biology, after the River-Susan Battle Royale. Apparently, because we<br />
pollute the air, the worker bees can’t smell right anymore, and they get<br />
lost and die in the woods or whatever. And because the worker bees die,<br />
the rest of the hive dies, including the queen. This is some kind of big<br />
deal, because honeybees pollinate our food, and if they go extinct we’ll<br />
have to do it ourselves. Some kind of suck job, huh? With my luck and<br />
my grades, that’s probably what I’ll wind up doing – squirting pollen<br />
onto buds, or however the hell that works.<br />
So I called the guy. I felt like a regular secret agent then, and maybe<br />
23
I got a little too excited; you know how I get sometimes. But I was real<br />
good about it; I got control of myself and caught my breath, and when<br />
the guy said, Hello? I said, Is this the bee man? and he said, Yes, and I said,<br />
My granny’s got a bee problem, how do you get those bees down, do you cut down<br />
the hive and then transport them somewhere? and he said, No, we just gas them;<br />
they drop dead within twenty-four hours, guaranteed, and I said, Isn’t that bad<br />
for the environment? and he said,<br />
Son, which do you care about more, the<br />
“environment” or your granny being<br />
stung by a bunch of insects? and when I<br />
didn’t say anything, he said, Where<br />
does your granny live? and then I got<br />
nervous and hung up.<br />
That may sound like a failure<br />
to you, but I’m not James Bond, so<br />
get over it. There are other ways<br />
to find out about honeybees. On<br />
the internet, I found out about<br />
the worker bees. They do all kinds of stuff you wouldn’t guess, using<br />
processes you wonder how they set up without talking to each other,<br />
without signing a constitution. The worker bees are the sexual misfits.<br />
Some of them go on errands, some of them guard against intruders, some<br />
of them tidy up the hive before the queen does room inspection, some of<br />
them carry out the dead and injured. They’re all little humans in little<br />
palaces, and I guess we’re killing them all, and I knew that would set<br />
River ablaze.<br />
I made my move before history class started. I didn’t want to do it<br />
in front of the chemistry teacher; I just knew that crazy Whit would<br />
overhear me and compliment me for being “well versed,” or some crock<br />
like that, make me sound like a geek, a bozo. I knew the history teacher,<br />
a coach who didn’t know the difference between Cleopatra and Reagan.<br />
I knew he wouldn’t give a rat’s tail. He was the kind that went home and<br />
learned from the textbook along with us, and if you asked him a question<br />
he didn’t know, he’d go into a class-long rant about Bonnie and Clyde,<br />
just to avoid answering. He said that when they robbed all those places<br />
during the Great Depression, Bonnie never fired a shot. Did you know<br />
that? During the shoot outs, Clyde fired and Bonnie loaded.<br />
Anywho, that day I took a deep breath and dove in with both feet;<br />
I marched straight up to River and told her about the bees and Bill<br />
Maloney. I could tell this surprised her enough to quell her rage some,<br />
but I realized I needed to have a reason for striking up a conversation, so<br />
I said, Wouldn’t it be funny if we found out where this guy lived and, say, egged his<br />
24<br />
On the internet, I found<br />
out about the worker bees.<br />
They do all kinds of stuff<br />
you wouldn’t guess, using<br />
processes you wonder how<br />
they set up without talking to<br />
each other, without signing a<br />
constitution.
house? and I could tell that was the turning point, where she would either<br />
take the bait or bite my head off, and holy mackerel did she ever take<br />
it. She said, I like your style, and her slender white fingers slithered down<br />
into her blouse and emerged with a slip of paper that had her number on<br />
it, like it had been waiting for me there, since forever. She said, Call me,<br />
we’ll talk.<br />
We talked. Our conversations were pretty one-sided. River would<br />
cram information into my ear about politics and the “E.P.A.” and some<br />
bunch of yahoos that protect animals, “Petta” I think it was, as in “to<br />
Petta dog,” I’m guessing. Sometimes I’d have to think of hitching that<br />
skirt up, just to keep sane. Her pet name for me was Honeybee, which<br />
made sense and wasn’t so bad. It was just her talking non-stop, and<br />
when she’d go hoarse, she’d ask me a question. Once it was, How do you<br />
feel about nature, Honeybee? and I almost groaned out loud. I told her about<br />
the big oak in the forest behind our double wide, how it used to be nice<br />
but now it’s infested with all of these little white bugs that attack you<br />
when you go near it, fly at your eyes and mouth and nose, like little space<br />
ships protecting the Death Star. She didn’t say anything, and I said, I<br />
don’t know, nature is kinda just a backdrop for the rest of life. And she said, No,<br />
you’re such an idiot, life is just the backdrop for nature; humans are just reckless,<br />
unstable weaklings teetering on top of magnificent organic and non-organic processes,<br />
or some crap like that, and then<br />
But now it’s infested with all<br />
of these little white bugs that<br />
attack you when you go near<br />
it, fly at your eyes and mouth<br />
and nose, like little space ships<br />
protecting the Death Star.<br />
she hung up.<br />
I thought that was curtains for<br />
me, but it wasn’t. River called<br />
back and apologized, and a few<br />
weeks later, she invited me over<br />
for dinner with her father. She<br />
picked me up in her white van<br />
and drove me to their cottage<br />
in the mountains. There was<br />
wilderness everywhere, but it wasn’t po-dunk or anything. It was<br />
classy looking, it had electricity and running water, and there was some<br />
expensive furniture inside.<br />
Before going inside, we ran around in the woods, chased after each<br />
other and then collapsed in a random spot. She was panting, and I would<br />
have been panting too, but I was too focused on her heaving chest to<br />
make a sound. There was silence, and I thought, Is this it? Is this the day?<br />
but no, she started talking. She said, You know Honeybee, everyone in the<br />
world is stupid except you and me. Maybe my father, but he’s gone soft. Everyone<br />
else, they’re destroying the world, and it’s not even on accident anymore. I said, I<br />
don’t know, it seems to me that maybe God and the earth are going to do what they’re<br />
25
going to do, and I instantly wanted to catch those words and stuff them<br />
back in. She turned all the way over and I could see her coiling up, about<br />
to strike, but she stopped herself. She smiled and patted my head like<br />
a dog’s. That’s cute, she said, but you trust me that I’m right, don’t you? and I<br />
nodded, of course. I realized that it must be pretty lonely for River, up<br />
here on this mountain where she knows everything and the view looks<br />
down on the people who don’t.<br />
Before dinner River ran up to her room to check her email, and I<br />
followed her upstairs to size up her bed. I noticed that she had to<br />
use a lot of passwords to get on to her computer, which I knew was<br />
weird, because I’d used computers in school before and they weren’t<br />
that complicated, weren’t that secretive. I didn’t say anything about it<br />
because I didn’t want to sound simple. The conversation at dinner was<br />
pleasant; River’s father, Wayne, was a nice guy, even though he was<br />
divorced.<br />
After dinner, we sat in front of the television in the living room and<br />
watched an old episode of Wayne’s TV show, Wayne’s Wonders. It used to<br />
be on public television, apparently, and it was a show about nature, big<br />
surprise. Wayne explained that the show used to focus on local<br />
scenery, but when the show got more funding the crew went on more<br />
exotic trips, like to the Grand Canyon. On the screen, a much younger<br />
Wayne and a woman stood beside a bush and talked. The cameraman<br />
slowly zoomed in on the bush until you could see a praying mantis<br />
perched between the leaves.<br />
River went up to her room again, to check something on her<br />
computer. The tape ran out. I asked Wayne why the show was canceled,<br />
and he said, Aw, people just don’t care about that stuff anymore, and most people<br />
didn’t care even then. His eyes kind of<br />
lost focus then. I’m not a relationship<br />
expert, but I couldn’t help but wonder<br />
if the woman in the show had been<br />
his wife; she struck a keen likeness<br />
to River. Maybe she’d left because<br />
Wayne got too caught up in his work; maybe it’s possible to love nature<br />
too much and a person not enough.<br />
River came back downstairs with an unnatural smile on her face. Pops,<br />
I’m taking Honeybee and we’re heading out, she said, and I mouthed, We are?<br />
and she punched me in the arm. Wayne laughed. Watch out, my River is a<br />
firecracker, he said, and I said, Yessir, how I know it, and we left the cottage.<br />
River walked me to the van, and we got inside and drove for a long time.<br />
I could tell she wasn’t taking me home, or to the movies, or anything<br />
like that, but every time I tried to ask about it she would turn up the<br />
26<br />
Maybe it’s possible to love<br />
nature too much and a<br />
person not enough.
my ngoc to<br />
lilburn, georgia, usa<br />
radio, even<br />
if it was a<br />
mindless<br />
song I<br />
knew she<br />
didn’t like.<br />
After<br />
awhile,<br />
River got<br />
this look<br />
on her face.<br />
She was<br />
squinting<br />
in the dark,<br />
trying to<br />
read the<br />
street<br />
signs, being<br />
real careful<br />
of where<br />
we were<br />
going, like<br />
it was some<br />
secret.<br />
Wouldn’t<br />
it be funny<br />
if we had<br />
wound up<br />
on McBee<br />
Street, or<br />
some crap<br />
like that,<br />
but no, we<br />
were on<br />
transcriptions in time | pencil drawing<br />
Wilkinson<br />
Avenue, on the opposite side of town from where I live, and on the<br />
opposite altitude from River’s cabin. We parked and River killed the<br />
engine and the headlights and everything fell dark, and I thought Holy<br />
mackerel, this is it, this is it. She climbed into the back of the van and I<br />
jumped back there like a bullfrog, and I was kissing her and I grabbed<br />
27
her thigh. But I guess I was biting her lip and maybe I was grabbing<br />
a little too hard, see, you know how excited I get sometimes, and she<br />
pushed me off and wiped her mouth and said, No, Honeybee, that’s not<br />
what we’re doing, and I realized we were sliding around on something<br />
uncomfortable. She lifted up a canvas sheet and lit up a flashlight and<br />
shined it on a bunch of metal canisters.<br />
I said, This doesn’t make much sense to me, and she said, This is the stuff<br />
Maloney uses to kill the bees; his house is<br />
right there, and I said, I don’t follow,<br />
but by then I figure she’d already<br />
left me behind, in her head at least.<br />
She pulled her skirt up over her<br />
head, but not in any way that I liked,<br />
because she was wearing black<br />
sweats underneath. She whipped out<br />
this black knit cap and slid it over<br />
her face, and every bit of that brickcolored<br />
hair disappeared. It wasn’t<br />
two seconds before she had gloves<br />
and a ski mask on me, too. As we walked up to his house, it seemed to<br />
me that it didn’t look like the house of anyone evil. River walked around<br />
and looked in all the windows until she found the bedroom, and she<br />
jimmied the window open real quiet. She walked over to me and handed<br />
me the canisters and said, He’s in there asleep, throw them in, and I said, No, I<br />
can’t… your walk is different, and she said, What are you talking about? and then<br />
she said, Never mind, just throw them in. You want me, don’t you? Throw them in.<br />
Even in the dark, even through the slits in her mask I could see those<br />
green eyes, so I figured there was some hope. I pulled the tabs on the<br />
bombs and started throwing them in, one by one. Those things don’t<br />
explode, you know, they just fog up the place, so we had to stand there<br />
for a long time and wait. I started getting nervous. We have to stop it, I<br />
said, he’s asleep and he’ll just breathe it in until he’s dead. She said, Shut up, and<br />
not much after that the upper half of Bill Maloney exploded out of the<br />
open window, red-faced, drooling, wheezing, sputtering. River grabbed<br />
my arm and said, Let’s go, but I didn’t follow her. I looked straight into<br />
the face of Bill Maloney as he hung there. I don’t know who he reminded<br />
me of, maybe Wayne or my own father, maybe the coach or Professor<br />
Whitaker, but he certainly did not have the dead eyes that a murderer<br />
should. On the contrary, his eyes were teary and wild, like something was<br />
being robbed from him but he couldn’t comprehend what. I walked over<br />
and hauled Bill Maloney safely out of his house, and I had to run all the<br />
way back to my double wide on foot, see, because River was already gone.<br />
28<br />
She whipped out this<br />
black knit cap and slid it<br />
over her face, and every<br />
bit of that brick-colored<br />
hair disappeared. It<br />
wasn’t two seconds before<br />
she had gloves and a ski<br />
mask on me, too.
I guess I blew it on that one.<br />
Maloney didn’t die. I think the police went to his house, but nothing<br />
came of it. He picked up and moved further south, and I felt sorry for any<br />
man who has to move constantly to make a living, one step ahead of the<br />
knowledge that’s trickling down, state to state. River left, and not even<br />
Wayne knows where she went. He hired some geek, some bozo to crack<br />
open her computer and under all those passwords he found out River<br />
had joined some kind of organization, a bunch of<br />
Even if she’s<br />
in disguise, I<br />
can spot that<br />
walk from a<br />
mile away.<br />
environmental freaks with their morals in the wrong<br />
place.<br />
I reckon that’s the most interesting thing that<br />
happened to me all year, what with bombing a guy<br />
and finding the love of my life and all. I don’t have<br />
the money for a car, but every weekend I search a<br />
different area with my bike, like a detective, looking<br />
for River. You can come help me look one day, if you want, but I’m the<br />
only one that can spot her. Even if she’s in disguise, I can spot that walk<br />
from a mile away.<br />
See, I’ve got this feeling she’s in the wilderness.<br />
29
jake ross<br />
greenville, south carolina, usa<br />
IntervIeW mAy 2009<br />
Jake Ross was one of those persons who stuck out right from the beginning.<br />
On our first Sunday workday, we lounged around reading piece after<br />
piece of writing when we happened upon Jake’s story “Worker Bee.” At<br />
first, we didn’t quite know what to make of it. Hesitant giggles escaped<br />
our lips as we tentatively read the first few pages. We decided to call in<br />
reinforcements. Katie, the editor, was outside the room at our computer<br />
lab, so we called her into the classroom. She sat on the table, and as her eyes<br />
scanned the pages, a smile spread across her face. She proceeded to read the<br />
whole story aloud. Belly laughs erupted when Katie got to the parts where<br />
the narrator described River’s walk, the way her hips swayed, the narrator’s<br />
quirky descriptions and the truth of being in love with someone who just<br />
doesn’t love you back. River may not deserve it, but we were all just as<br />
smitten with her as that blindly loyal and sexually frustrated narrator. We<br />
found ourselves quoting it in class daily. We knew we had to meet the man<br />
behind the story. So, without further ado, Jake Ross.<br />
-hannah halland, art editor and ryan casas, website editor<br />
AI: We noticed right off the bat that you had a very particular tone of voice in your<br />
writing. Can you give us a little information about how you developed that voice?<br />
Have you always been set in your style and known that was your voice? Or did it take<br />
time to develop?<br />
JR: Everyone likes to talk as if they understand it, but the concept of<br />
“voice” is pretty elusive. My teacher defines it as “a stew of everything a<br />
writer has read.” I have no idea how to describe my voice, but my advice<br />
to anyone trying to develop one would be this: read a lot, but read what<br />
you know is good. When a famous writer says, “I used to read anything<br />
I could get my hands on,” I don’t believe him for a hot second. What was<br />
he reading? Travel brochures? Dr. Seuss? Twilight? If someone stewed<br />
those together and wrote a novel, I wouldn’t want to read it. Surely, to<br />
develop a respectable voice, you have to focus on quality literature.<br />
Tone, in comparison, is simple. When I start writing something, I<br />
think: Would anyone take this situation seriously? If so, I forget about<br />
punch lines and tell the story. If not, I work in some humor. I switch<br />
back and forth, but I do get a kick out of making someone laugh. Besides,<br />
a good joke can make people pay attention. They want another joke.<br />
Even if you don’t give it to them, even if your story or essay ends on a<br />
serious note, at least they’ve paid attention.<br />
30
AI: What are some techniques you use to develop plots and characters in your short<br />
stories?<br />
JR: I revise constantly as I write, because I’m always asking myself<br />
questions. How would he describe this? How would she react to that?<br />
Whenever possible, I take out something generic and replace it with<br />
something unique. I was almost laughed out of the writing room when<br />
someone looked over my shoulder and read the first line of Worker Bee,<br />
but eventually everyone understood that I was writing the way my narrator<br />
might talk. I imagined this sexually repressed country boy who<br />
was still humble enough to devote his entire life to an undeserving girl.<br />
It was fun. I got to use those weird colloquialisms.<br />
Again with my teacher. He quotes James Joyce: “A writer should<br />
know how much change a character has in his pockets.” I think this is a<br />
little ridiculous – after all, I keep my change in a jar on my desk. And I<br />
firmly believe the penny should be taken out of circulation. The nickel<br />
could be the lowest denomination if we changed the pricing system a<br />
little bit. The penny, after all, is annoying and useless. Just think of all<br />
the natural resources – and time – we would save. I used to work in retail;<br />
I know how long it takes to count out pennies, then pick up the one<br />
you inevitably drop.<br />
But anyway, I’ll shut up; I guess I’m revealing character.<br />
AI: What made you write this story? You mentioned it began with an insect-removal<br />
jingle. Could you elaborate on this? Are you particularly concerned with decline in<br />
honeybee populations around the world?<br />
JR: Just like the narrator in “Worker Bee,” I called Time and Weather<br />
one morning and heard the Bee Removal advertisement. I called over and<br />
over, trying to get the same ad to play, but I never got it again. So I wrote<br />
down the jingle and telephone number as best as I could remember,<br />
then called. I got the guy’s answering machine. Later that day, he called<br />
back and left a voice mail. I remember he called me by my first name,<br />
which he must have heard on my greeting, but it was still kind of creepy.<br />
I assumed a full conversation would just result in an argument about<br />
conservation, so I dropped the notion and started writing about him<br />
without any further investigation.<br />
Yes, the honeybee decline scares me, if only from its sheer rapidity.<br />
Because we sit around and argue about everything, most environmentrelated<br />
issues seem to have left us in the dust, outpaced us. Interestingly<br />
enough, the suspected cause of Colony Collapse Disorder (the bee<br />
problem) has shifted a few times since I wrote Worker Bee – from air<br />
pollution to global warming, then to runoff of super-pesticides, then to a<br />
particularly potent virus.<br />
31
AI: What are some other concerns you have for the world? Are there any world<br />
issues or beliefs that are particularly interesting to you? (i.e. issues/ideas that are<br />
political, environmental, religious, ancient, philosophical etc.)<br />
JR: There’s a recent article in the New Yorker. Apparently, animals in<br />
Florida zoos escape every time there’s a hurricane. Most of them are<br />
rounded up or killed, but a large population of exotic reptiles consistently<br />
avoids capture. The boa constrictor, especially, seems to have adapted<br />
well to Florida as a natural habitat and is multiplying rapidly. According<br />
to some experts, boas will inhabit most southern states within a few<br />
decades. My mother is terrified of snakes. I think this prospect scares her<br />
more than the duck-and-cover drills she did as a child.<br />
We like to think that, if we all got on a space ship and left Earth alone<br />
for a while, the planet would heal itself. And it would, but it would<br />
look different from the way we found it. After all, we have caused the<br />
extinction of many species. We have imported foreign plants and animals<br />
that killed native plants and animals. I don’t think most people realize<br />
how far we’ve already overstepped our ecological boundaries. For further<br />
reading, I recommend The World Without Us by Alan Weisman.<br />
So yeah. I think about that too much.<br />
AI: In Montana, many of us go on hikes in the mountains or walk by the rivers to get<br />
in touch with nature and fuel our creative fires. Do you ever do anything like this? If<br />
so, where are some places in South Carolina that you go to do this?<br />
JR: In this, I envy Montanans. I know there are plenty of cool nature<br />
spots in the rural areas of South Carolina, but not so much in a city like<br />
Greenville. Our campus at the Governor’s School does overlook a<br />
beautiful park that we spend a lot of time in, but the river that runs<br />
through it – the Reedy – is polluted to the point of Swimming Advisory<br />
signs. In other words: look at the pretty river, but don’t touch.<br />
AI: You mentioned doing a research paper on Pablo Neruda and that you read<br />
too much of his work for your own good. Who are your favorite poets or short story<br />
authors? Why?<br />
JR: I don’t read as much poetry as I should, but overall, Neruda is a<br />
front-runner. I’m not a fan of his love poems, but his odes to everyday<br />
objects are amazing. Plus, the man took so many risks for his beliefs and<br />
his writing – you’ve got to respect that.<br />
Fiction: Flannery O’Connor is the supreme. Charles Baxter, also great.<br />
My favorite short story to date is “Hidden Meaning: Ain’t Gonna Bump<br />
No More No Big Fat Woman” by Michael Parker. Nonfiction: writers like<br />
Tobias Wolff and Susan Orlean are staples. I’m interested, obviously, in<br />
environmental writing, so Rachel Carson, Lewis Thomas, Rick Bass, Bill<br />
Bryson, and Barry Lopez are all currently being added to my “stew.”<br />
32
AI: Before attending South Carolina Governor’s school, what did you want to be<br />
when you grew up?<br />
JR: We had to answer this question in kindergarten, and on my slip<br />
of paper I wrote “ventriloquist.” It would probably take a psychiatrist<br />
to figure out why. Other than that, I thought seriously about being a<br />
marine biologist. Then a lawyer. Then anything but a lawyer.<br />
I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. My ideal:<br />
someone walks up to me and says, “Hey there, kid, we would like to pay<br />
you money to travel around and write about the environment, and maybe<br />
some other stuff, too, if you get the urge.”<br />
If you know anyone like that, call me.<br />
AI: In Montana, we have no schools that are dedicated specifically to the arts. What<br />
is it like to go to an art school? What is the atmosphere like? How are your classes<br />
structured? Do you prefer going to an art school, if so, why?<br />
JR: As conservative as South Carolina once was, it’s a miracle that any<br />
old philanthropist thought to give money to the arts as opposed to, say,<br />
the Governor’s School for Hunting Woodland Creatures, or the Governor’s<br />
School for Absolutely No Gay People. Luckily, by some freaking miracle,<br />
Greenville wound up with a few really great art schools. I’m not really a<br />
self-made writer; I’ve been in creative writing classes, in some form or<br />
another, since seventh grade. Each consecutive program has been more<br />
intense than the last. I don’t take the opportunity for granted.<br />
The South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities is<br />
a state-supported school. Kids from all over the state audition, and they<br />
take the best ones for each department. You live on campus. Unlike most<br />
residential art schools, there is no tuition; we have a whole team of people<br />
who are always trying to get money to keep the school alive. A student has<br />
academic classes until lunch, followed by arts classes (dance, drama, music,<br />
visual art, writing – whatever you auditioned for) until four thirty.<br />
Yes, I prefer my school to a normal high school, because it serves as<br />
an example of what every school should be like. My school is both a<br />
prototype and an endangered species.<br />
AI: Your bio states that you enjoy “wearing sweaters designed for old<br />
men.” Is this a new fashion for you? Is a fluke or will old man sweaters<br />
continue to be must haves in your wardrobe for years to come?<br />
JR: Just today, I was sitting across from one of my friends at dinner<br />
when I realized something. “If I go to college in California,” I yelled, “I<br />
can’t wear sweaters anymore! It’s too hot there!” It was a devastating<br />
moment. There will, I believe, come a time when I have to choose<br />
between my sweaters and my future. Who knows what will happen?<br />
33
allison lazarus<br />
terrace park, ohio, usa<br />
ImItAtIng KerouAC In the SummertIme<br />
1. there are a lot of halves of me floating around as specters where would they go<br />
would they live in gardens and adorn themselves for parades?<br />
i think that they would like what i do they would eat spaghetti<br />
and throw pebbles and go to amusement parks<br />
but then they would go back home and throw up because specters and ghosts<br />
can’t eat and they can’t keep pretending that they’re more than half of anyone<br />
2. i think like salt when you pour it into the shaker and it kind of tumbles over<br />
itself in a race to fill the corners—the desired spots.<br />
i remember when we went on vacation with dad to Michigan and we climbed on<br />
the world’s biggest sand dune i don’t remember the name now but<br />
it was beautiful and there anytime you stepped the sand rushed to fill your<br />
abandoned footsteps and i wondered why<br />
it didn’t just keep going the whole dune with the same<br />
eagerness and make<br />
a whole new mountain right where you had stepped because it<br />
was so excited its piling just disrupting the laws of gravity and<br />
physics because it wanted to touch you even if indirectly for just a second<br />
34
sarah stern<br />
lawrence, kansas, usa<br />
the road ahead | digital photography<br />
35
ayna kuliyeva<br />
ashgabat, turkmenistan<br />
one dAy In future<br />
In far future when I am 30<br />
I will remember the thing that I wrote on this paper.<br />
Maybe feelings that I have now and there is good weather over the<br />
window.<br />
Maybe the bird singing and it is wonder magnificent landscape in my yard.<br />
Maybe the dog who is barking over the fence,<br />
And my mother who is cooking delicious food in the kitchen<br />
Maybe sound of washing machine.<br />
And the program that I’m watching on TV<br />
Maybe only leaf, which occasionally fell in the window-sill<br />
Who knows maybe I won’t remember anything<br />
And it will be a simple day<br />
If it’s there I will be happy to have every day.<br />
36
ella carruthers and hollie milburn<br />
carlisle, cumbria, uk<br />
old and new | mixed media on paper<br />
37
obaid syed<br />
norman, oklahoma, usa<br />
the Army<br />
It was getting late, Nimbuk observed, as the sun reached its<br />
destination on the horizon. “Goodbye, friends,” he said to his teammates,<br />
and began the race against the sun. He ran through fields where farms<br />
should have been, threatening the sun from going farther with his stare.<br />
At least the wind was supportive, he thought, as it blew in his direction. He<br />
almost enjoyed the rush invoked<br />
by his procrastination, because<br />
it made him feel like his energy<br />
was being channeled throughout<br />
his body, giving it the ability<br />
to produce whatever action he<br />
willed it to produce.<br />
He reached the depreciated<br />
apartment building and sighed<br />
in relief. He wasn’t going to be too<br />
late. He walked toward the house, climbing the torn stairs skillfully,<br />
remembering which plank was safe enough to step on. He knocked<br />
firmly, and waited. The usual welcoming creek of the door was absent<br />
today, it seemed. He resorted to plan b, which required him to jump on<br />
the side railing, hop on to the wide windowsill two floors in the air and<br />
carefully slip the thin metal plate inside to open the lock. He tumbled in<br />
with a crash loud enough to wake anyone in the house. Yet no one came.<br />
He found no signs around the house explaining his parents’ sudden<br />
departure. This never happens, he thought. They always inform me before they<br />
leave. He looked more closely at everything around him – the sofas sat,<br />
the ornaments hung, and the books lay the same way as they had this<br />
morning, before he departed. His eye fell upon something he had given<br />
little importance to earlier – the carpet bristles were inverted, making a<br />
path pointed toward the door. Immediately, he left the house, planning<br />
to ask his neighbors. His plans changed, however, as he saw five grey<br />
overcoats and one outstretched hand, displaying a police badge.<br />
“Where are my parents?” Nimbuk demanded, knowing to be direct<br />
with these officials.<br />
“All I can say is this: your parents are traitors against the sovereignty,<br />
and must be punished accordingly. Be quiet and come with us. Asking<br />
questions would only make the situation worse for you and your<br />
38<br />
Immediately, he left the house,<br />
planning to ask his neighbors.<br />
His plans changed, however,<br />
as he saw five grey overcoats<br />
and one outstretched hand,<br />
displaying a police badge.
parents,” the one on the left replied.<br />
He stayed quiet, no matter how much curiosity clawed at him. He was<br />
put in an old van containing other children, mainly from the lower class,<br />
all of whom where just as inquisitive and terrified as he. “Do you guys<br />
know anything about this?” he asked.<br />
A skinny boy on the right looked at him. “Do you know about the<br />
Army Expansion Resolve?” he asked. He received only blank stares.<br />
“Well, it is something passed by Jinba, our dictator. He wanted to<br />
challenge other nations, so he decided on building an army twice its<br />
original size. Due to the lack of adult recruits, he resorted to a cruel but,<br />
for him, effective method – an army of children,” he ended, with a solemn<br />
sigh on his face.<br />
“Are you suggesting that he wants to make us part of the army?” the<br />
boy of the left asked. Nimbuk immediately recognized him – Tink was<br />
his charismatic classmate.<br />
“You must be kidding me. I know he’s dumb, but I didn’t know he<br />
was that dumb,” Nimbuk said.<br />
A few hours and a few children later, they reached a debilitated<br />
building complex labeled “Army Training Center.” The 42 kids stared<br />
at the barren gray walls and wondered how long they would remain<br />
inside its parameters. Every muscle in their bodies instinctively resisted<br />
“Are you suggesting<br />
that he wants to make<br />
us part of the army?”<br />
the boy on the left asked.<br />
heading toward the place, but the<br />
atmospheric pressure, shaped by<br />
threats and orders from the angrylooking<br />
men, overruled them. They<br />
took their shoes off at the gate,<br />
following an order from the gate<br />
guard, and continued walking on the hot concrete until they gave up<br />
restraint and ran to their destination to keep their feet from getting<br />
burnt.<br />
The inside smelled of sweat and felt like a stove, most likely due<br />
to the lack of windows. The ceiling allowed in some refracted light<br />
through which objects were given surreal forms, like when one looks<br />
at the sky through 50 feet of water. The new members walked in a<br />
broken up line to their assigned sleeping spots. They found a huge<br />
room assigned to them, the size of an auditorium, piled with thin<br />
mattresses and wispy blankets along the walls, reminding them that it<br />
was heavily shared. Dropping off the little they had there, they joined<br />
everyone else at dinner, observing the food to be just as bad as the rest<br />
of the dreary place. Nimbuk tried to inquire the kids around him, but<br />
received no more answers deviating from what the boy had said earlier.<br />
He eventually gave up. His parents were in god-knows-where, he was<br />
39
alone in this prison, and he knew things were just going to get worse.<br />
His thoughts pained him. Sitting on the rock bench, he ate the supply of<br />
what was called food and headed to bed, trying to get his thoughts away<br />
from him.<br />
He woke up the next day, surrounded by hundreds of people lying<br />
around him, some asleep and some unable to sleep. The training had<br />
begun.<br />
They woke to run miles, to practice combat, to do assigned labors,<br />
ranging from washing dishes to manufacturing explosives in the nearby<br />
factory. Every day, they mechanically went through the same routine. At<br />
least, they thought, they were alive.<br />
The physical movements within themselves weren’t harsh, but the<br />
fact that they were doing them against their will made them feel as if<br />
they were less than human. On every push-up, every gunshot, every<br />
mile, they were burdened with the knowledge that they were being<br />
manipulated. Yet they continued on,<br />
doing what they could to pass the time<br />
with as little pain as possible. As the<br />
beads of sweat fell from their faces, the<br />
hope for a better future became bleak.<br />
Water. Never before had it been of<br />
greater value to Nimbuk than now.<br />
Food. What an imaginary concept!<br />
Free will. There is no such thing. The<br />
colors became undefined, the people indistinct. Life retained no meaning<br />
but to war. Everything he was taught made him a tool to be used of and<br />
disposed at war. He called out for war, if only to break the monotony,<br />
and, to his horror, war heard his call.<br />
The dictator Jinba, in the all too common quest for power, decided<br />
to take over his neighboring country, Maylei. “For the defense of the<br />
nation” he went on an offensive that called all the training institutes to<br />
release its children to go to war.<br />
Nimbuk and his friends went there, via rusty school bus, loaded with<br />
weapons and harmful intentions, but glad to finally have some change in<br />
their schedules. Upon reaching the area, they passed by an army of men<br />
looking warrior-like, and the army of boys,<br />
looking like sheep to be slayed.<br />
Weapon ready, Nimbuk started the march, almost excited, for<br />
reality to bear too much horror if confronted. Around him was a<br />
similar attitude, arising from the fiery spirit of war. They marched on,<br />
awaiting battle, until they reached the capital of Maylei – the City of<br />
Reuk. Looking upon the massive wall that bordered its surroundings, a<br />
40<br />
On every push-up, every<br />
gunshot, every mile, they<br />
were burdened with the<br />
knowledge that they were<br />
being manipulated.
alex welcher<br />
lawrence, kansas, usa<br />
grim attitude<br />
overtook<br />
the warriors<br />
and children.<br />
They realized<br />
the sacrifice<br />
necessary to<br />
even get close<br />
to the fortress<br />
walls would<br />
be too great.<br />
Confirming<br />
their fears,<br />
the dictator,<br />
as chief<br />
commander<br />
of the army,<br />
announced<br />
that the battle<br />
must go on.<br />
He said the<br />
‘little warriors’<br />
should go first.<br />
Anger<br />
spread through<br />
the group of<br />
‘little warriors’<br />
like brush fire,<br />
but compliance<br />
was necessary.<br />
They began<br />
their death<br />
march, being<br />
drowning dreams | traditional black and white photography<br />
open to the<br />
arrows and gunshots of their enemies. At first, it all seemed customary,<br />
since they were told of death and trained in ways to deal with it on the<br />
battlefield. However, when the first boy, who was a good friend to all,<br />
was shot down, chaos spread through the group. They suddenly came<br />
back to their senses, after months of getting them dulled by the institute,<br />
and remembered the atrocity of which they were to partake.<br />
41
There were few options available to them though – defying Jinba’s<br />
orders was instant death for the dissidents, no matter how many there<br />
were. So they did the only thing they knew: they kept marching on,<br />
looking at their friends die beside them, and awaiting death themselves.<br />
Blood gushed everywhere; the field had turned red. The army protocol<br />
was still followed.<br />
Nimbuk had just about had it. He lost his parents, he was forced<br />
into training, and now this. He wanted something to be done. He<br />
turned around in a semi-circle from the marching warriors, something<br />
that soldiers were taught not to do in any situation, and he located the<br />
dictator, sitting in his plush tent. He ran against the flow, hidden in his<br />
chosen path, and reached the army’s base line again. Jinba had built an<br />
impressive army – it easily spanned a few leagues. He shuffled through<br />
the crowd like a lion running through the forest, skillfully dodging all<br />
the armed battlements, until he reached the spot where the dictator<br />
should have been. The tent had no one inside now; the surrounding<br />
people had no information about his location. He decided to wait in the<br />
tent with his weapon ready. A few hours passed, and each minute, he felt<br />
the pain his friends experienced on the field. Yet, he could do nothing<br />
about it…yet.<br />
Jinba arrived. He along with three guards, armed to the teeth, walked<br />
into the tent. Nimbuk realized that these might be the last moments of<br />
his own life. I’ll take one for the team, he decided. He leaped out from<br />
underneath the table, simultaneously driving his knife into Jimba’s heart.<br />
Yet, they both felt the pain. Nimbuk’s grip on the knife slipped, and he<br />
let the light enclose him and carry him to his parents.<br />
You have made us proud.<br />
42
hAIdA StAtueS<br />
Totems stand tall with great depression<br />
Because they’re so tired and old<br />
Each animal has a spirit that never dies<br />
But worn colors, cracks, and crevasses<br />
Of the eagle, raven, frog, and bear<br />
Are signs that nature never rests<br />
They tower over us with respect and pride<br />
But day after day as time continues<br />
We go about our business<br />
These totems feel no appreciation<br />
Someday someone will stop to glance<br />
And that glance will last forever<br />
marquette patterson<br />
hydaburg, alaska, usa<br />
43
shapovalova victoria<br />
russia, tatarstan, kazan<br />
Зима<br />
Кругом зима.<br />
Шумит метель; хрустят снега<br />
И ель своею красотой пленит.<br />
Шумят ветра,<br />
Лишь только слышен треск огня,<br />
Пылающего вдалеке.<br />
Сижу я тихо у окна,<br />
Любуясь молча на узоры,<br />
Что тонко лежат на холодном стекле.<br />
Давно не веря в Дедушку Мороза,<br />
Жду с нетерпеньем я тот час,<br />
Когда все стрелки на часах замрут,<br />
Шепча, что полночь наступает,<br />
Что новый год свои владенья обходя,<br />
Дарует радость нам.<br />
И обо всем вдруг забывая,<br />
Из дома выбежит народ.<br />
И фейерверки зажигая,<br />
Любуясь на небесный свод,<br />
Все люди вспомнят уходящий год,<br />
И не броня его, без зла - проводят.<br />
И встретят с радостной улыбкой на устах<br />
Год приходящий, новый, долгожданный.<br />
Лишь только малыши,<br />
В кроватках засыпая, не заметят,<br />
Что старый год уже прошел,<br />
А новый только наступает.<br />
44
WInter<br />
victoria shapovalova<br />
kazan, tatarstan, russia<br />
Winter is everywhere.<br />
The blizzard rustles; snow crackles<br />
And a fur-tree captivates with its beauty.<br />
Rustle the winds,<br />
And only the crash of fire flaring in the distance is audible.<br />
I`m sitting silently at a window,<br />
Admiring silently the patterns<br />
Which are on a cold glass.<br />
For a long time without trusting in the Father Frost,<br />
I`ve been waiting impatiently for that hour<br />
When all hands of the clocks will stop,<br />
Whispering that midnight comes<br />
That New Year its possessions passing by,<br />
Grants pleasure to us.<br />
And suddenly about everything forgetting,<br />
From the house the people will run out.<br />
And fireworks lighting,<br />
Admiring a heavenly arch,<br />
All people will recollect the expiring year,<br />
And without harm will accompany it.<br />
And also will meet with a joyful smile on lips<br />
The Year coming, new, long-awaited.<br />
And only kids, in beds falling asleep will not notice<br />
That old year has already passed,<br />
And new one only comes.<br />
45
michele corriston<br />
allendale, new jersey, usa<br />
ColorIng you<br />
The air above my bed<br />
whispers lies;<br />
it flows into my ear<br />
and paints you.<br />
They say we dream<br />
in black and white,<br />
that our minds put<br />
color where color belongs<br />
when we awaken,<br />
but you were red last night<br />
and I was blue-green and<br />
we were all soft and<br />
and iridescent.<br />
We had texture and shape and heat,<br />
oil, water, form, contrast,<br />
glaze, symmetry, and rhythm—<br />
the beat of each stroke<br />
against cold canvas.<br />
Last night,<br />
I saw you in full chroma,<br />
a glittering lie.<br />
46
laura elder<br />
carlisle, cumbria, uk<br />
decorative glory | textile and mixed media<br />
47
hannah lodwick<br />
lawrence, kansas, usa<br />
48
the naked lunch | painting<br />
49
alexandria kim<br />
allendale, new jersey, usa<br />
fISh<br />
During a time of turmoil on a small peninsula in East Asia, before it<br />
was crowned a country, there was a shanty. In its single room, a mother<br />
peered over the half-empty, splintering bowl of rice. She sucked in air<br />
with relief. Her three sons, however, impatiently pounded on the<br />
furnace, demanding, What about the pan-chan*? and rattling their<br />
empty plates.<br />
Their mother blew out despair and pulled out a bony flounder. Its<br />
frugal aroma carved famish already engraved in the boys’ stomachs.<br />
They cried with excitement. But the mother shushed them and walked<br />
to the center of the room, carrying the toasted fish. She stepped on<br />
a stool and with a long piece of thread, tied the fish to a hook on the<br />
ceiling. The flounder swung back and forth like a child pushing on the<br />
swings, swinging steadily like a pendulum in a grandfather clock. The<br />
fish seemed to mock the mother with its steadiness. The mother quickly<br />
stopped the swaying piece of light meat.<br />
My sons, this is how to eat a meal.<br />
The mother ordered her children to sit around the table as the fish<br />
quivered with each of the boys’ steps. She backed away, observing her<br />
giggling boys who were jumping and reaching for the fish, like Jindo<br />
dogs anticipating a tasty treat. She blinked back despair and set the halffull<br />
rice bowl to the table. The mother pointed upwards.<br />
After every spoonful of rice you eat, you will look at the fish and imagine that you<br />
ate a piece of fish with it.<br />
So the boys ate like this until the fish decayed in a week; the gnats got<br />
to it first. These three boys who ate the tepid, stale grains of rice dreamt<br />
of silver slivers of smoking flounder dancing on their tongues. The taste<br />
was so close and the smell was so alluring, but the children would<br />
eventually learn that satiation was a luxury fit for an emperor.<br />
* pan-chan: a Korean term for the side dishes eaten with rice<br />
50<br />
James Welch Fiction A w a r d W i n n e r
olivia dykes<br />
lawrence, kansas, usa<br />
table top stain | traditional photography<br />
51
alexandria kim<br />
allendale, new jersey, usa<br />
hoW to mAKe KImChI<br />
Go to the cheapest market you can find<br />
and ask for the crispiest cabbage.<br />
Then don’t believe the sellers’ words;<br />
instead, open the cardboard box<br />
and look for brown colors –<br />
aged spots and soft bruises.<br />
Wash the cabbage tenderly;<br />
fingertips for sponges,<br />
kosher salt for soap.<br />
Mix a scarlet sauce of<br />
scallions, onions,<br />
and pepper powder.<br />
More pepper awakens<br />
the taste buds.<br />
Spread the sauce on each leaf<br />
evenly and lightly.<br />
Fold the cabbage into a tight ball<br />
and compress them in a bowl<br />
with marble.<br />
Keep it away from<br />
the scathing sun.<br />
Let the leaves soak in spices<br />
in damp air.<br />
Wait for a day.<br />
Then<br />
Unwrap<br />
Unfold<br />
Cut.<br />
If the kimchi pricks your tongue,<br />
if its tang tickles your nose,<br />
and if its painful taste is soothed by rice,<br />
you made it right.<br />
52
the tWo SIdeS of A nAme:<br />
AlexAndrIA Song hWA KIm<br />
Song-Hwa:<br />
Vowels of the English alphabet are novice.<br />
Humored foreigners do not understand the<br />
rich, tunneled “oh” and the lingering roll<br />
of the tongue, emphasizing on the exhale<br />
with a tickle on a quick widening of the lips.<br />
The blow on the “h” masks a precise, tidy<br />
whisper that precedes the tidal wave of<br />
a satisfied “ah.”<br />
The two syllables connect in one breath.<br />
Names represent the beauty of sound that<br />
is reserved for distant brothers and sisters.<br />
Alexandria:<br />
But here I am defined by accomplishment,<br />
a name used to label passports and bank cards.<br />
The name is a jigsaw piece that was<br />
wedged into the wrong grooves;<br />
I am drowning in this melting pot.<br />
My mother does not know how to spell it,<br />
(let alone pronounce it),<br />
unable to find the rhythm of this name<br />
of forbidden five syllables and dribbling English,<br />
like raw grease dripping onto her lap from<br />
under cooked, bleeding Big Macs.<br />
My mother was dust in the tumbleweed<br />
of desperate dreams –<br />
masking identity, embracing<br />
“ass-imilation,”<br />
fleeing in shame when they<br />
scurried on the streets of gold and dollar bills.<br />
53
jamie piscotta<br />
layton, utah, usa<br />
We Were So WISe<br />
I wish I could go back<br />
and not just to my childhood<br />
I mean all the way back<br />
to that day we reached the moon<br />
and came back for a lunch picnic in the forest<br />
and after we built a castle<br />
then chased the clouds<br />
but just before it all ended we found Africa<br />
and we stopped at the watering hole<br />
we squished the dark mud through our toes<br />
of course we made mud pies, and we sold them to the zebras and giraffe<br />
with our skin still covered we climbed out and laid on the driveway<br />
you said you liked the way it felt as it dried<br />
the way it got hard and tightened like armor<br />
I liked the way it looked<br />
you seemed 100 years old<br />
(and I believe you had the wisdom to match)<br />
with skin like the elephant, baked in God’s oven<br />
the African savanna<br />
we found the fountain of youth that day, too<br />
the green hose washed away our cracks and wrinkles<br />
but we were still wise<br />
we knew the meaning of life<br />
we traveled the world<br />
our castles were made from blankets<br />
and were still strong enough to keep out dragons<br />
a steep hill was the only rocket fuel we needed<br />
and a good pie would only cost two smooth stones<br />
54
evelina shakirova<br />
kazan, tatarstan, russia<br />
loneliness | photography<br />
55
nadia qari<br />
allendale, new jersey, usa<br />
dubAI<br />
If mangos suddenly started to grow on these big metal pillars in the airport<br />
and thick grape vines wrapped all over the doors and signs<br />
and there were red birds sitting on every newsstand;<br />
everyone’s phones were oddly replaced with green and yellow bananas −<br />
maybe the wrinkles on this city wouldn’t be so heavy.<br />
56
déla breyne<br />
lawrence, kansas, usa<br />
windmill | digital art<br />
57
deborah gravina<br />
allendale, new jersey, usa<br />
he breAKS Another bottle, I go for A WAlK<br />
White glass shatters differently than clear glass;<br />
clear glass scatters into tiny, invisible pieces,<br />
while white glass breaks into frosted chunks.<br />
A sword gets pulled out of a stone by a flimsy boy,<br />
and the girl made out of stone falls in love.<br />
Cows walk on just their two back feet when farmers aren’t looking.<br />
They play chess, and read novels on split tree trunks.<br />
Book discussions occur on Sundays.<br />
There’s a partridge in a pear tree by the bus stop where I wait<br />
for the sunset to drown arrogant trees<br />
and wonder what lies under the orange seam,<br />
and how exactly I can get there.<br />
58
paul edmondson<br />
carlisle, cumbria, uk<br />
present | pen ink drawing<br />
59
maria nelson<br />
helena, montana, usa<br />
eChoeS of AlexAndrIA<br />
I would have found you.<br />
Too-old and not-so-young and flame-flickers-nearer person. A<br />
mistake of the refractions of light. Superconductor. Misplaced<br />
moralities, realities, neutralities.<br />
Would you have heard me?<br />
Too-quiet and not-so-loud and<br />
purple-blue-any-color fingernails,<br />
person glowing in afternoon light.<br />
Reality that flickered with<br />
uncertainty and things that were<br />
never near and could never be<br />
reached.<br />
Walking away is so easy to do,<br />
easier still to walk away from you,<br />
to tell me and myself “I never really cared,” when caring is all that I hold,<br />
when the signs I used to read in the sky can only tell me how wrong I<br />
was and have always been, how waterfalls cannot be made of fingers,<br />
how your eyes can never have brimmed with things nearer to life than<br />
tears.<br />
You can’t cross bridges without looking twice, without thinking of<br />
Billy Goat Gruff, without looking for demons under the bridges-youreally-will-never-cross.<br />
Umbrellas will keep the water off like raven’s<br />
wings, but you’ll never know the warmth--as long as there’s no focus, or<br />
determination, or glow in your eyes (glows like you’re not-good-for-theenvironment<br />
bulbs) like mercury that broke in chemistry--silver rolling<br />
on the floor (sweetness that may never be broken). Your world is the<br />
same, and it’s always the one of falsehoods and “I’m all rights” and “it’s<br />
okays” and perfect faces, being perfect, burning memories to the ground,<br />
polishing silver in the dead and the heat of the night, pretending that<br />
there are prophesies written on the mountains outside your front door.<br />
It’s a total lie that I’m telling myself, that the world is, was, real and<br />
that I ever knew that colors danced in the northern sky, that colors<br />
danced in the crowded gym of drunks and adolescents (was there a<br />
difference?), that colors danced on the beach on the day the sun<br />
drowned. Who saved the sun? Nobody. So who was there to save you?<br />
60<br />
When the signs I used to read<br />
in the sky can only tell me how<br />
wrong I was and have always<br />
been, how waterfalls cannot be<br />
made of fingers, how your eyes<br />
can never have brimmed with<br />
things nearer to life than tears.
Who indeed. The sun had already died, and we could not see to find you.<br />
Perhaps that’s the end then? That you seclude yourself in yourself, that is<br />
to say the yourself that you will never show.<br />
You’ve never seen your own beauty, painted in paints of every color<br />
imaginable, paints that bleed out in the water, swirl against silver then<br />
drown in the sun. You know themes of madness painted in hues<br />
unimaginable and you’ve never seen my eyes to touch the themes I hold.<br />
Chinese food-corset-quetzal-Buddha girl lost in the smokes of divinities,<br />
You’ve never seen your own<br />
beauty, painted in paints of<br />
every color imaginable,<br />
paints that bleed out in the<br />
water, swirl against silver<br />
then drown in the sun.<br />
incenses and distillations of<br />
never-really-happened dreams.<br />
Keep loving your love that has<br />
never loved you, in the way that<br />
friends could love you more, in<br />
the way that a simple flower may<br />
conceal grandeurs greater than<br />
known in Xanadu, that place<br />
you and us and we and they and<br />
everyone may never see, and will never see. Starbursts of color flashed<br />
before your eyes, you saw your soul given up to eternity hundreds upon<br />
hundreds of times but you never saw the realities of those visions, and<br />
with every foretelling you etched that<br />
writing deeper, gave of yourself further, fell into madness faster.<br />
And faster faster faster faster faster.<br />
Now there is nothing left. Do I have to be with you to know you in the<br />
ways I never really knew you, or can I see the end of your final memoirs<br />
in the light behind your eyes, the lack thereof and the blue thereof. Short<br />
white dresses, chunky orange shoes and camouflage jackets that you cast<br />
away as you cast away yourself in the ways that you are not seen and<br />
cannot be seen, and the veils that swirled to the floor when you danced.<br />
Nothing left. Because the soul dies a slow death, and you have to only<br />
stoke the fire, higher and higher, until it is so great that the very ghost<br />
of the sun has been extinguished and you no longer see into the eyes of<br />
those who once cared, cared beyond imagining and beyond hope, cared<br />
for and about you until they were left after the storm, trampled into the<br />
pavement like petunias secluded in their terra-cotta pots.<br />
Ensconced in gold, you’re a nightingale of the river, ragged and<br />
tousled with fading gold plumage, nearly white with harsh and flashing<br />
lights.<br />
I would have found you.<br />
I would have walked through the snow you threw to blind the<br />
heaven’s eyes, but I could not see through the shield of yourself, and<br />
now there is left only adjectives to describe you: just a little too mad for<br />
61
a world of sanity, lonely beyond imagining beyond feeling beyond hope,<br />
hopeful beyond the abilities of children whose huge eyes pierce through<br />
paper to enter the hearts of those who never knew a thing at all of<br />
starvation or deprivation or need.<br />
I cannot be what you need. I<br />
fear nobody can. I fear the wolves<br />
at the door who howl for your<br />
soul and your health and your<br />
heart, the wolves you go with and<br />
dance with and burn with and<br />
twirl with. So twirl, twirl through<br />
whatever you ever knew. Twirl<br />
past those who once knew you.<br />
I know you are losing control. I know you are losing me, and you<br />
never even held me with your soaked, pale fingers. I know I am losing<br />
you and I never really had you, I never really knew your beliefs.<br />
So now what are we left with? The ones who would know you and<br />
care for you; the ones you push and rail against and tear with your<br />
sharpened words.<br />
We are left with an echo in the corners of minds that dreams and<br />
hopes will never fill; an echo in those parts of our minds reserved for<br />
ideas and imaginings of what you had the potential to be. And that’s an<br />
echo of a name you never became, and a dream that you never believed.<br />
Destruction is the echo that rebounds within our minds; fires, like the<br />
ones to ravage your namesake, to destroy that knowledge of all the<br />
knowledge carefully destroyed by the ramblings in the dark, by the slots<br />
in your sunglasses, by the kites you speak of when you are lost to us and<br />
you speak of nothing else.<br />
You are lost to us,<br />
you and your echoes of Alexandria.<br />
62<br />
Hopeful beyond the abilities<br />
of children whose huge eyes<br />
pierce through paper to enter<br />
the hearts of those who never<br />
knew a thing at all of starvation<br />
or deprivation or need.
gabriela otero<br />
lawrence, kansas, usa<br />
killing beauty | traditional photography<br />
63
natasha joyce weidner<br />
san francisco, california, usa<br />
ConverSAtIonS About love<br />
1.<br />
Graham sells<br />
lavender and strawberries<br />
at the farmer’s market.<br />
One day he told me<br />
he planned to drive<br />
a diesel-powered RV<br />
through all the national parks<br />
because that was his dream<br />
and dreams<br />
are the best plans.<br />
I replied,<br />
my heart is a silent<br />
redwood forest,<br />
growing upwards in my chest.<br />
And I don’t know what it wants.<br />
2.<br />
Why am I not in love?<br />
I asked Naomi.<br />
I mean, I might be<br />
a tender nectarine<br />
almost past ripeness.<br />
Natasha, she said,<br />
your skin is not the limit<br />
of your self.<br />
There is love<br />
in other places.<br />
You are inhaling it.<br />
You are growing it<br />
in your garden.<br />
The two of us<br />
proceeded to make calzone<br />
in the warm<br />
pink shell<br />
of our home,<br />
while outside,<br />
cold rain fell<br />
fondly<br />
on the welcoming black earth.<br />
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3.<br />
When my grandma asked<br />
what she should buy me<br />
for Christmas<br />
I said,<br />
how about<br />
a cowboy<br />
on the back of<br />
a horse<br />
riding endlessly over<br />
a flat country<br />
so I can hold on to him<br />
and let myself be carried<br />
in pouring sunshine and under<br />
full moons and through<br />
flat fields of wheat?<br />
To which she replied,<br />
that is not a thing.<br />
I want you to ask me<br />
for a real thing.<br />
4.<br />
I have been told<br />
the ocean is dangerous.<br />
I have been told<br />
to balance carefully on the shore<br />
in pretty, airtight shoes.<br />
But I have also<br />
dived off a fishing pier<br />
to feel my skin shrink<br />
against my bones<br />
and let the salt settle<br />
in my lashes<br />
and let my blood<br />
race bluely through<br />
its riverbeds.<br />
In conclusion, I have<br />
the white foam in my hair.<br />
I have<br />
the curling current in my stomach.<br />
I refuse to fear anything<br />
I do not understand.<br />
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5.<br />
I am putting myself<br />
in the cold blue light<br />
of my kitchen,<br />
near the teapot.<br />
No one is in the house;<br />
the ground outside<br />
is green and swollen<br />
from rain.<br />
I am putting myself<br />
into the bed<br />
of a pickup truck<br />
on a Hawaiian highway.<br />
In a jar<br />
of honey,<br />
slow and golden.<br />
In a tidepool.<br />
Where I really am<br />
is unmentionable;<br />
let us only say<br />
I am curled behind a desk,<br />
cold-boned and meek.<br />
Naomi<br />
sits at the desk<br />
in front of me.<br />
To the back of her head<br />
I whisper,<br />
I am putting myself<br />
on the hot slats of the pier<br />
where we once lay<br />
our wet bodies<br />
and grew golden watching<br />
the dudes<br />
ride their bicycles into<br />
Lake Tahoe.<br />
She says,<br />
You are so fortunate;<br />
you are in the exquisite condition<br />
of desiring.<br />
66
chase hoag<br />
lawrence, kansas, usa<br />
i wish | digital photography<br />
67
kelsie corriston<br />
ho-ho-kus, new jersey, usa<br />
SPeeCh<br />
When I was a child I lost<br />
my r’s, th’s, sh’s,<br />
and so my tongue hung<br />
loose inside, as I spoke too fast<br />
in a British accent –<br />
or so they told me –<br />
and walked the halls<br />
with lips that would laugh<br />
but not speak or sew sounds–<br />
and so I molded my tongue,<br />
tight into a boat,<br />
the way I’d squeeze my fists<br />
to catch the R-AIN off my hair,<br />
in TH-E SH-OWE-R<br />
in which I scrubbed off the DI-R-T,<br />
because I couldn’t pronounce it<br />
or count the days that passed<br />
like SH-EEP<br />
as flashcards whipped<br />
and tore me from first grade math<br />
to play a game of Chutes and Ladders,<br />
neither of which I could say<br />
and not spray,<br />
or even say at all –<br />
say car, say race, say the, say them, say they<br />
who I make crave to lack what I lost<br />
on the roof of my mouth, in the hole in my tongue,<br />
in between my loose lips<br />
that they say couldn’t keep a secret,<br />
but what could I tell<br />
with no verbal coordination<br />
to SH-A-R-E a R-UMO-R<br />
but what if I could, what if the tale<br />
I heard could be spun<br />
without the forbidden consonants –<br />
if you were allergic to strawberries,<br />
and left alone,<br />
would you squeeze the squishy juice<br />
68
on your tongue<br />
to not taste but to feel<br />
the forbidden motion<br />
that must be good<br />
like the way my tongue learned<br />
to lift itself<br />
and touch the roof of my mouth,<br />
sculpt around a word<br />
that I can feel<br />
now and forever<br />
I keep my consonants close and ask<br />
shoot, car, race, the, they, them<br />
Listen –<br />
did<br />
I<br />
stutter?<br />
69
iida lehtinen<br />
sauvo, finland<br />
the 4 o’clock tea at covent garden, london | traditional black and white photography<br />
70<br />
Lee Nye Photography A w a r d W i n n e r
emma lucy bay pimentel<br />
jacksonville, florida, usa<br />
Norman Maclean Nonfiction A w a r d W i n n e r<br />
dreSSed In nAvy blue<br />
Thirteen long years of frittered experience and unrequited kindnesses<br />
had unraveled themselves behind me when I met Jane-Ann and was<br />
introduced to her cause. We had recently moved for the fifth time in my<br />
life, to the third continent I’d ever been on. Having sneaked past<br />
calculating Sudanese officials in<br />
Jane-Ann was a sweet little<br />
lady in her forties, who had<br />
devoted her life and her own<br />
personal farm to what she<br />
called “hippotherapy.” Two<br />
days a week, children from<br />
underfunded hospitals enjoyed<br />
the open air, horse riding,<br />
and the love the volunteers<br />
showered upon them.<br />
Cairo who had denied us visas, we<br />
somehow managed to gain access<br />
(after, that is, quite a bit of money<br />
had changed hands) to a smelly<br />
airplane destined for Khartoum’s<br />
diminutive, three-gate airport. It<br />
was summer, hot and dry in the<br />
Sahara desert, and we had covered<br />
most of our bodies in deference to<br />
Sudanese culture. It was<br />
sweltering. Yet in the early hours<br />
of dawn that first morning before<br />
the sun had hit the peak of its<br />
arch, when the whole world seemed<br />
so bright that even shadows could find no place to skulk, we got up and<br />
walked down dusty dirt roads and under parched palm trees to Jane-<br />
Ann’s. Jane-Ann was a sweet little lady in her forties, who had devoted<br />
her life and her own personal farm to what she called “hippotherapy.”<br />
Two days a week, children from underfunded hospitals enjoyed the open<br />
air, horse riding, and the love the volunteers showered upon them.<br />
I remember most the tortured appearance of the children. Most were<br />
diseased, and many were missing body parts. They lacked even the will<br />
to brush away the flies that whined around their ivory eyes and rested<br />
on their bristly hair. These children were silent, terribly silent, empty<br />
shells next to my rambunctious two-year-old sister. They sat, a few<br />
crying softly, but none expected comfort. On my first visit, the disgust<br />
and horror of the sight nearly overcame me. I looked around and saw<br />
innocent children in pain, helpless children hurting, undersized infants<br />
who did not know affection. I had absolutely no idea what to do; such a<br />
sight was so far beyond my ken that I found my heart beating out a<br />
solemn rebellion against its very existence. Jane-Ann saw me at a loss<br />
71
and placed a reassuring hand on my trembling shoulder. “Just pick them<br />
up and love them,” she said with an encouraging smile. “Just pick them<br />
up and love them.”<br />
Gathering the tattered shreds of my spirit, I nodded and scooped up<br />
the nearest child, a faintly whining<br />
little boy, dressed nearly in rags, ribs<br />
protruding from his stained, navy blue<br />
shirt. He fastened to me like a barnacle,<br />
his tears and mucus running together and<br />
soaking through the sleeve of my white<br />
shirt, coating my shoulder with a thin,<br />
liquidy goo. I held on though, rocking and<br />
soothing and crooning simple songs. It<br />
was as if I had finally grown into myself.<br />
A fullness enlivened my spirit, and I felt<br />
a completeness that I had never before<br />
experienced. I knew that these children needed me. I looked around at<br />
the tiny, underdeveloped boys and girls. Most of them were destined for<br />
an early death. Others would be hurt and abused beyond comprehension.<br />
But, in that moment, I was helping them, and perhaps just a few would<br />
be bolstered by the memory of a strange, pale-skinned girl who had held<br />
them in her arms and sang to them in a language they could not<br />
comprehend.<br />
A haboob roared its thunderous way to our sanctuary one day, and we<br />
all clustered on the reed mats under the makeshift shelter of old, patched<br />
tarps and bent metal poles. Dust storms, or haboobs, are common in<br />
Sudan, the fierce wind stirring up the brown-orange dust that coats the<br />
entire country and whipping the sky a dirty orange. Breathe too deeply<br />
in a strong haboob, and the dust will rob your throat of liquid coating<br />
and close off your voice for a week. The dust tears at your eyes, invisible<br />
but present, suspended in the air as if part of some giant science project.<br />
The children showed no reaction to the change, pale ghosts haunting<br />
their deserted eyes as if they were cemeteries, already losing their faith<br />
in life. Jane-Ann fretted, though not about the storm, instead worried<br />
that they would not have the emotional release we usually provided in<br />
the form of small trips on horseback. Every week, the gentle, long-haired<br />
horses trotted obediently over hoof-hardened dirt, past the<br />
multi-colored, wheel-less, decrepit remains of a minibus and over the<br />
single patch of yellow grass that still waved under the dehydrated gusts<br />
of air that swept mournfully across the desert. I was at home here,<br />
though the sun beat at my back and the dust cloaked my form. I found<br />
children who needed me, and for the first time I realized how much I<br />
needed what they taught me about love.<br />
72<br />
It was as if I had finally<br />
grown into myself. A<br />
fullness enlivened my<br />
spirit, and I felt a<br />
completeness that I had<br />
never before experienced.<br />
I knew that these<br />
children needed me.
Often I wondered what sort of parents would abandon their child to<br />
a terrible life such as I was seeing. I knew the children were maltreated<br />
and starved. I knew that there simply were not enough hospitals to<br />
support the demand of the community, and not enough orphanage<br />
workers to give the basic emotional support every young child needs. It<br />
was not self-righteousness that spurred me, but the stirrings of a perfect<br />
sorrow that<br />
convinced me to<br />
help these<br />
children. I<br />
always had the<br />
choice. No one<br />
dragged me<br />
out of bed each<br />
morning, forced<br />
me to travel<br />
mile after mile<br />
to the deserted,<br />
harvestless farm<br />
and teach these<br />
children<br />
humanity. Yet<br />
twice a week all<br />
that summer I<br />
found that I was<br />
awake, dressed<br />
and aching to<br />
aid the poor<br />
unfortunate<br />
souls, my<br />
spiritual<br />
brothers and<br />
sisters who had<br />
no parents to<br />
hippotherapy | traditional black and white photography<br />
love them, no<br />
relatives to raise<br />
them, no friends<br />
to accept them. I knew that Fate could just as well have chosen me to<br />
be in their place, all the sparkle of youthfulness drained by a childhood<br />
that was not childhood but a life of misery and pain and little chance of<br />
survival.<br />
I learned more about love and humankind that summer than I ever<br />
have before or since. It was a rude awakening, a cruel reminder that<br />
73
privilege is not universal. A few months later, a Sudanese friend of mine<br />
was questioned about his opinion of Sudan’s overall state of being. He<br />
responded in honest belief, his wealthy head resting on hands the exact<br />
same shade as those of the orphans, “Everyone in Sudan is rich.” I saw<br />
then the ignorance of humankind, the denial we entertain despite the<br />
obvious suffering surrounding us. Before that moment, I had not noticed<br />
the maturing effect hippotherapy had on me. No other experience<br />
I learned more about<br />
love and humankind that<br />
summer than I ever have<br />
before or since.<br />
74<br />
could have taken me past that awkward<br />
phase of life characterized by extreme<br />
embarrassment and self-consciousness<br />
than this. Those children taught me that<br />
self-actualization comes only through<br />
others. I can never again be satisfied<br />
with my own accomplishments but with<br />
generosity and the way I affect the lives of others. I want to be a savior to<br />
a people who have never before understood deliverance. I want to show<br />
them the goodness of a human heart and most of all I want to see these<br />
children, young and silent, almost inhuman in self-perception, become<br />
the backbone of their land, the strength of their country and the pride of<br />
their own lives.
IntervIeW mAy 2009<br />
emma lucy bay pimentel<br />
jacksonville, florida, usa<br />
We received Emma’s first submission early in February of this year.<br />
Like all of our submissions, her work sat in our filing cabinet while<br />
we prepared for our annual fund raiser. We finally started reading<br />
submissions on a quiet Sunday morning, each of us at a table with a<br />
stack of poems, fiction and nonfiction. I happened upon her poem which<br />
immediately set off my good-poem-sensor. After reading it, I flipped<br />
to her bio. All I could utter was an astonished “Woah...” I immediately<br />
wanted to know more about Emma’s childhood and about her travels. I<br />
hopped onto our email and fired off a few questions. A week later, the<br />
answers to my questions were waiting for me as well as the essay, “Navy<br />
Blue.” She described living in Bosnia and walking across a minefield.<br />
She talked about living in Cairo and about her favorite food, “Koshari.”<br />
She discussed being proud of her younger sister’s attempts to prevent<br />
malaria. Needless to say, her writing charmed us and her life beguiled<br />
us. We thought her story was important to include in the pages of our<br />
magazine. A few emails and a couple weeks later, this interview was<br />
aching to be read.<br />
-Katie DeGrandpre<br />
Editor of <strong>Aerie</strong> International<br />
AI: Why did your parents decide to move to Bosnia when you were little? Do you<br />
remember feeling any specific way about the move? Once you were there, why did your<br />
family decide to move again to Romania and the Netherlands?<br />
ELP: At the age of seven I already considered myself a seasoned traveler:<br />
I had lived in three different states and visited relatives in a few others.<br />
Moving to Bosnia wasn’t a step I was quite prepared for, especially on such<br />
short notice, but, as a second grader and the fourth child, I didn’t have<br />
much say in it. My father was offered a short-term job he hadn’t applied for,<br />
assessing the needs of post-Communist courts in Bosnia, and our family<br />
packed up and moved out, leaving all of our furniture as well as our dog<br />
behind, the former in the care of a storage unit, the latter with relatives. At<br />
the time, we thought it was for just three months. It was a chaotic time for<br />
me – while excited to ride in an airplane and live overseas, I hated the idea<br />
of leaving my comfort zone. At that age, I hardly knew that Europe existed,<br />
75
and Bosnia itself seemed the equivalent of Narnia or Neverland to me. In the<br />
end, though, I decided that having a great experience to lord over my friends<br />
was worth it and promptly tried to pack all of my stuffed animals into my<br />
suitcase. By the time my father’s contract had extended to nine months,<br />
my whole family began craving the taste of travel, and job searches became<br />
more extensive, leading us to Bucharest, where my father worked with a<br />
nonprofit judicial reform organization, to the Netherlands, where he worked<br />
for the War Crimes Tribunal, and finally to Sudan, where he was with the<br />
United Nations Mission. My mother was a stay-at-home mom of four, then<br />
five, then six children. Of course, “stay-at-home” is not at all descriptive of<br />
her life, or ours, during these years.<br />
AI: How did you learn to speak the Bosnian language and languages like Arabic when<br />
you did not even have a teacher that could speak your language?<br />
ELP: Our family always hired local tutors who spoke English to teach us<br />
privately in our home, but that wasn’t necessarily where we learned the<br />
most. Bosnian was the language I learned best, maybe because I was so<br />
young and my mind was still close to the stage where it soaked up language<br />
and made it usable. A tutor came often to our house to teach my siblings<br />
and me nursery rhymes and short Bosnian songs, but mostly I learned out<br />
of necessity. I attended a Bosnian school with children too young to speak<br />
English (my older siblings at least had friends who spoke their language)<br />
and had to learn to understand my teacher, who knew little more. Day after<br />
day, arriving at school, the other children would practice their English on<br />
me. As we untied our tennis shoes to put on the slippers we wore inside<br />
the classroom they would ask me over and over again my name, my age,<br />
and my state of being. I would respond to their English questions with the<br />
few Bosnian words I knew and then the next child would arrive and I’d tell<br />
them again my name. There was one memorable moment when the class<br />
bully tried to blame one of her pranks on me. Incapable of responding to<br />
this accusation in a language my teacher understood, I repeated again and<br />
again “ne, ne, ne.” I think it was at that point that I decided I would become<br />
expert at the Bosnian language. A few weeks later, I realized that I knew the<br />
word for “sun,” without ever consciously learning it.<br />
Learning Arabic was a very different experience. I was much older, and<br />
I didn’t understand the Arabic alphabet and the sounds that accompanied<br />
each letter. My family bought a computer program designed to teach Arabic.<br />
I painstakingly memorized the name, sound, and shape of each letter, which<br />
I promptly forgot when I moved on to the next. I learned short words<br />
and phrases – how to say hello, how to introduce myself, and how to use<br />
numbers. These last were the most important, as I’d use them when buying<br />
produce from the outdoor food stalls that swarmed with flies. I learned that<br />
the most important thing in speaking Arabic was knowing their slang and<br />
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their common sayings. My older sister, the language prodigy in the family,<br />
when buying bread, pronounced perfectly the side comment used often with<br />
greetings or farewells: the Arabic equivalent of “God bless you.” The man<br />
across the counter looked up in shock and proclaimed in quick, loud Arabic<br />
that she spoke better than his grandmother.<br />
AI: You recently mentioned becoming a part of wherever it was you were living. Have you<br />
taken a part of all the countries you’ve lived in with you? If so, how does this translate to<br />
your everyday life in the United States?<br />
ELP: While leaving America was hard, coming back was harder. I had<br />
shed that skin of stereotypes and generalizations that so frequently clothe<br />
the American race and understood more about other countries than about<br />
my own. Bosnia, for instance. left me with a stubborn paranoia of walking<br />
across open grass. My family had once walked inadvertently through a<br />
minefield, managing to make it back to safety by following a path my dad<br />
said he saw but which was invisible to my eyes, and the memory has stayed<br />
with me. The sense of adventure and success that comes with experiencing<br />
new things enfused my soul until it was more a part of me than my original<br />
patriotism. All the places I lived slipped memories into thin sockets along<br />
my flesh until I felt as if my skin was made of the dust storms of Khartoum,<br />
and my soggy clothes after a rainstorm seemed to be soaked by the drizzles<br />
of Holland and the icy puddles of Romania. When I taste a food, it recalls<br />
meals I’ve had overseas. When my family went to an Outback restaurant,<br />
we hung around outside chattering in a strange mixture of all the languages<br />
we knew and chortled internally when a man remarked in a Southern<br />
accent to his friend as they passed by us that he “thought it was Chinese<br />
or sumthin.’” To this day, I find myself using a phrase of Dutch or French<br />
in my conversations without realizing those around me won’t understand<br />
it. When I walk the streets I hear people chattering in English and my<br />
first impulse is to whip around and point them out to my family – we<br />
had become used to singling out Americans in crowds, as seeing other<br />
Americans in some places was very rare.<br />
AI: Why did you and your family decide to go to Africa?<br />
ELP: There’s a certain rite of passage within the United Nations: to<br />
spend at least a year in a “mission.” When my father got the opportunity to<br />
take the mission in Sudan, helping to structure the legal system of newlyautonomous<br />
South Sudan, he snapped it up. Africa was a place of great<br />
mystique to me. Even after having mental image after mental image smashed<br />
during my travels, I hung pig-headedly onto the vision I had of my family<br />
living in a tukul (a small round hut) in a small town stranded in the Saharan<br />
desert. Khartoum, of course, was nothing like that. We didn’t get to travel<br />
much within Africa but the time we spent in Egypt and in Kenya were great<br />
awakenings for me. Although our initial reasons for going to Sudan may<br />
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have been purely job-oriented, its repercussions reached into every corner<br />
of my life and scraped it bare so it would have room to reshape my existence.<br />
AI: You mentioned riding a felucca down the Nile in your bio. What is a felucca and why/<br />
how did this occur?<br />
ELP: Feluccas are small sailboats that are frequently used as a tourist<br />
attraction in Cairo. My family took the opportunity when we were stuck<br />
there for nearly a month to visit the sites, and the Nile, of course, was one<br />
of them. We paid a small fee and a grinning Egyptian spun us away from<br />
shore. The river is beautiful there, reflecting the sky into itself and turning<br />
everything a rich, thick blue that looks like you can sink your teeth into it.<br />
It was a warm day, and the cool breeze was refreshing when the sail would<br />
whip around to catch the wind. It was a short ride, and not as majestic or<br />
awe-inspiring as the pyramids or the Sphinx, but it was a beautiful moment,<br />
one that has stuck with me over the years.<br />
AI: What is your favorite memory from living overseas?<br />
ELP: In Europe the countries are so close together that it is quite<br />
common to take a day trip to France or Germany. My family frequently<br />
took advantage of long weekends and empty Saturdays to explore the<br />
continent, and these travels often took us up in latitude. My father is a<br />
skier and insisted on taking the family skiing quite regularly. We may not<br />
be particularly proficient at it, but at least we enjoy it. Although it is hard<br />
to choose a favorite, one of the happiest moments of my life was also one of<br />
the simplest: a three-day skiing trip in the French Alps. We rented a tiny<br />
apartment (we needed one, to house my entire family), and we’d spend<br />
all day on the snow, crisp edges biting nicely against our skis. Soon after,<br />
we’d make the daily hike to the local boulangerie for fresh croissants and<br />
baguettes. It was a great family bonding time, and the hours we spent<br />
closeted in the apartment were so full of fun and joy and games I frequently<br />
felt as if I might have all the breath squeezed out of me. Despite the fact<br />
that I spend so much time with interesting people in interesting places<br />
doing interesting things, the best times of all were when we took the<br />
extraordinary qualities of a place into stride and enjoyed each other as a<br />
family.<br />
AI: You mentioned eating camel in your bio. How did you adjust to eating strange foods?<br />
What is the grossest food you ever ate? What was the tastiest food you ever ate?<br />
ELP: I have enjoyed a wide variety of food from my travels, including<br />
certain ethnic meals besides the typical fried squid rings and alligator.<br />
Eating other foods has never really bothered me; I have always been able to<br />
stomach everything I’m given and find its good qualities to focus on. There<br />
are only two exceptions to the rule, both of which may be surprising in their<br />
simplicity. The first is cevapi, a small sausage served with pita bread, onions,<br />
78
and a thin yoghurt-like drink. The rest of my family adored the cevapi, and<br />
ordered it often in restaurants. When that happened, I would take a tomato<br />
salad and pick at my fresh mozzarella while my family dug into their meat.<br />
The other exception is an unnamed stuffed pepper that was served to me<br />
when my family was having dinner with our landlady. Having been raised to<br />
eat everything on my plate, I managed to get the entire, spicy, painful pepper<br />
down my throat. Seeing I had finished, I was promptly furnished with a<br />
second. Needless to say, I ignored the eat-all rule and didn’t touch that one.<br />
Visiting a Parisian café, no one in my family could pass up the chance<br />
when we noticed escargot on the menu. It came in a circular orange<br />
container dotted periodically with holes. In each a snail floated in garlic<br />
sauce. Except for a certain chewiness, they were delicious, and are by far<br />
both the most outlandish and the most delicious meal I had overseas. Of<br />
course, I may have been predisposed toward adventurous eating. When we<br />
lived in Louisiana before going abroad, I, at the age of six, was one of the<br />
few in the family who took to raw oysters with horseradish and Tabasco. It<br />
was a point of pride with me that I had managed to down six or so in a row<br />
when grown men beside me couldn’t swallow a single one. I suppose the<br />
snails may have reminded me of shucking and sucking raw oysters down on<br />
the bayou.<br />
AI: In reading your non fiction piece, “Navy Blue,” some of us had feelings of guilt for<br />
being unaware of other people’s suffering or of being born privileged. Do you deal with<br />
guilt on a daily basis? When you returned from your travels back to the U.S. were there<br />
any overwhelming feelings that existed for you?<br />
ELP: Living in war zones was by far the most unsettling thing I have had<br />
to do. As I mentioned before, I attended a Bosnian school for a few hours<br />
every day as a second grader. To get to school, I’d go down our street, notice<br />
the bullet holes in our wall, cross a Sarajevo rose or two (the imprints of a<br />
mortar shell explosion that was later filled in with a red paint or resin as a<br />
memorial) and pass the remains of a bombed building. My family walked<br />
through the tunnels that the Bosnians dug in order to receive supplies when<br />
they were under siege, and returned home to listen to our landlady tell us<br />
stories of going down that tunnel nine times, each time loaded down with<br />
50 kilos (110 lbs) of basic survival supplies on her back..<br />
In Sudan it was even more direct. All around me I saw beggars in<br />
the street, people making do with nothing. My brother always tried to<br />
give money to every person he saw was in need, but when we moved to<br />
Khartoum, if he took out a coin he had twenty children under the age of<br />
eight clinging to his pant legs, pleading with him for food. Walking home<br />
from school, we’d kick dust up into our eyes, pass a monkey tied to the<br />
stunted palm tree across the street, and wave the flies away as we entered<br />
the yard. We bowed our heads while we entered because soon after we<br />
79
moved in there was a death in the landlord’s family and a several-day-long<br />
funeral was being held in the front yard. We’d step out onto the balcony<br />
and hear the women keening below us, decrepit buses trundling past on one<br />
of the only paved roads in the city, and the squabbling of shirtless children<br />
from around the corner.<br />
That was part of the reason that moving back to the United States was<br />
so difficult for me. I could not believe the smug indifference of the people<br />
around me. It felt unnatural to walk into a sterile supermarket because no<br />
disease-carrying insects swarmed around the produce. I tried not to breathe<br />
when I crossed the road because I was used to inhaling sand if I did, and I<br />
hated that there was nothing to worry about but gas fumes. There is always<br />
that something that reminds me how forgetful we as humans are, and how<br />
uncaring. After a couple of years back in the U.S. I find myself lapsing into<br />
that complacency, and I have to remind myself to care about the things that<br />
happen around me, whether or not I can do something about it, whether or<br />
not it affects me. I like to think that that is the reason that the human race is<br />
dominant in the world – not because we were smarter, or fitter, or stronger<br />
—because we knew how to care for each other. Ignoring those who suffer—<br />
worse, blaming the poor, the illiterate, the immigrant, for their problems—is<br />
so offensive, yet so easy in the typical American life of ease and privilege<br />
(and believe me, the poorest of Americans is highly privileged compared to<br />
the Sudanese). I refuse to believe that we can so easily forget to love and<br />
protect the people around us.<br />
AI; Why is writing special to you? What do you get from writing poetry and non-fiction?<br />
ELP: I was five years old when I got my first cello. It was an eighth size,<br />
barely bigger than a viola. I played for nearly ten years, every year improving<br />
and beginning to put more of myself into it. I found that when I was upset,<br />
I could play a slow, mellow song on my cello and restore peace and order<br />
to my world. I was in fourth grade when I complemented my music with a<br />
second art. My teacher told me I could write, so I did. I wrote all the time.<br />
Now I can find that same peace by writing a melancholy poem or a sad<br />
scene in whatever narrative I’m currently focusing on. Of course, I was a<br />
storyteller even before I was a writer – with myself as my only audience.<br />
As long as I can remember, I’ve told myself the story of my life in my head<br />
while it happened. I’d make myself a peanut butter sandwich, and through<br />
my head would come the narrative: “Emma Lucy made herself a peanut<br />
butter sandwich, with just a little too much peanut butter because she likes<br />
it that way.” Writing lets me take my emotions and those thoughts and<br />
express them so that I can learn to understand what I’m trying to say. In the<br />
end, I suppose it’s little more than basic instinct: a survival technique on a<br />
raw, caveman level, a level that insists I recognize what my being tries to<br />
express, When my stomach snarls at me, I eat. When my throat scratches<br />
80
me, I drink. When my brain turns into a slushy pudding of mixed emotions,<br />
I write.<br />
AI: Do you have any advice to give to students who wish to travel?<br />
ELP: To students who wish to travel, I say enjoy yourself. If you’re<br />
hankering after museums and tourist sites, by all means follow the crowd up<br />
to the Louvre or Stonehenge. As a traveler, however, I like to venture off the<br />
beaten path, actively seeking an encounter with the culture. I like the rural<br />
and suburban areas. Instead of taking the Sound of Music Tour in Austria,<br />
I wandered through a neighborhood and walked along the river. When<br />
visiting the tiny fishing villages of Cinqueterre, I enjoyed the scenic hike<br />
that sweating tourists swarmed along, but I loved sitting in the middle of<br />
the town square and watching the little children from a local school conduct<br />
their Carnavale parade. Do what you will enjoy, but don’t cheat yourself of<br />
the real country. There is more to France than Paris, and there is more to<br />
Paris than the Eiffel Tower.<br />
AI: What is one thing that traveling has taught you about the world?<br />
ELP: The world is going to look after itself. Whatever we do, the world<br />
will straighten itself out. What is important is not saving the world, but<br />
saving ourselves. When you see a recycle bin, throw your Coke bottle in<br />
there, not because it will save the environment, but because it’s one step<br />
closer to you getting where you want to go, to being who you want to be.<br />
Traveling, I’ve seen third world countries and I’ve seen the world powers,<br />
and, from what I can tell, the main difference is the kind of humans that live<br />
in them. Of course, there are other factors. There’s technology availability,<br />
and resources, and all of the history book answers that will get you a five on<br />
your AP. But beyond that, there is something with human nature that makes<br />
us want to improve, and the best way to improve ourselves is to improve the<br />
things around us.<br />
81
daniel alexander gross<br />
long beach, california, usa<br />
greenWorld #1<br />
There is this place I know,<br />
he tells me, where<br />
you tread on tree roots,<br />
not concrete,<br />
and you count flowers,<br />
not miles,<br />
not dollars.<br />
In my eyes<br />
he reads my curiosity.<br />
It lives on love,<br />
he says.<br />
The words you speak there<br />
are pure poetry.<br />
There is something magic<br />
in the landscape.<br />
A tender canopy,<br />
a green glass sphere,<br />
where the delicate form<br />
of the pain you cradle<br />
falls from your shoulder,<br />
and you are encircled –<br />
not by walls,<br />
but by branches.<br />
I know this place,<br />
I say, though<br />
I don’t know where it is.<br />
Well,<br />
he tells me,<br />
you can find it<br />
on midsummer’s night,<br />
among the fairies<br />
and the fireflies,<br />
or, he says,<br />
you can find it<br />
riding a bicycle<br />
to a far-off horizon,<br />
with a pretty girl<br />
and a weightless heart.<br />
82
erin eifler<br />
lawrence, kansas, usa<br />
a midsummer night’s dream | traditional black and white photography<br />
83
melanie brown<br />
centennial, colorado, usa<br />
An ImmIgrAnt’S guIde to ColorAdo<br />
I was promised horses. I remember this distinctly.<br />
My dad knew as well as I that moving isn’t easy, especially to a place<br />
so very far away, so he would cushion it with promises such as these.<br />
Thoughts of horses and mountain ranches made the process of tearing<br />
away from my homeland all that<br />
more bearable, so I complied. My<br />
visions were of a log cabin situated<br />
on the hips of the foothills, with<br />
gentle mares that would lean their<br />
heads in my window in the heat of<br />
summer mornings. Of dirt roads<br />
and tractors, of cattle and barbed<br />
wire. But mostly horses, of course.<br />
Colorado is not all horses and<br />
ranches. Our house turned out to squat in a quiet patch of suburb that<br />
seems a subtle copy of the very neighborhood from which I had come.<br />
It is a pale ivory and not made of logs, and the grass lives in trim, green<br />
patches like quilt squares, not in long stalks that whisper to my elbows.<br />
And the mountains? Well, I see them. They loom in the distance like<br />
storm clouds held forever at bay. They are dark and brooding as they<br />
sit there, their tips just visible above the houses in front of ours, and I<br />
wonder daily if they might be up to something.<br />
There are no horses in suburbia. As I dreamed on our migration west<br />
of this new home, my head vibrating against the window as plain after<br />
great plain slid by, I could see horses trotting even through<br />
neighborhoods, even through towns and cities. I imagined taking my<br />
gelding to school to pick up groceries. Who needed a license when I<br />
could ride The Black Stallion, Strider, Trigger? Hell, even Mister Ed<br />
would have worked. But there were no horses, no such luck. It was not<br />
the Colorado I was promised. The wilderness, the cowboys, the romance<br />
of wind and weather—where were they? The rivers of concrete, the<br />
herds of houses and brittle street lamps had herded them off, perhaps<br />
into the folds of mountain. Beyond my sight, in any case. I received a<br />
bundle of letters from my old Girl Scout Troup asking what I had named<br />
my horse, what color it was, how fast it went; they had been well<br />
84<br />
My visions were of a log<br />
cabin situated on the hips<br />
of the foothills, with gentle<br />
mares that would lean their<br />
heads in my window in the<br />
heat of summer mornings.
informed of my fevered excitement. I didn’t write back.<br />
Clouds hang in the sky with that awkward presence of not belonging<br />
and knowing it. They have stretched themselves at breaking points into<br />
feathers. You always expect the sunlight to burn them away, but it can<br />
never succeed. They have been prophesized by farmers and weathermen<br />
to always drift in feathery complacency from sky to bleached-blue sky.<br />
If I press my cheek against my window and look to the side, I can see<br />
Denver hunched in the distance, stewing in the crowd of brown smog<br />
that sticks to the tips of building tops. We have two great pine trees<br />
in our backyard, and I used to climb up and whisper to them that they<br />
might perhaps work harder to make the air clean, because the brown is<br />
rather ugly.<br />
And yet… There are no horses, no ranches, no cowboys or ragged cliffs<br />
on my way to school, no romance of logs and tumbleweeds and wolves<br />
like smoke, but that does not mean that the wild has not found its way<br />
into my home.<br />
We have two great pine<br />
trees in our backyard, and I<br />
used to climb up and whisper<br />
to them that they might<br />
perhaps work harder to<br />
make the air clean, because<br />
the brown is rather ugly.<br />
In winter, when the snow<br />
gathers the nerve to crawl in<br />
battleship clouds from their roosts<br />
in the mountains and blast at our<br />
houses, I can feel the warmth and<br />
rush of nature pressing flush against<br />
my bones. It drifts and packs<br />
against the deadened blades of grass<br />
and concrete rivers so that one<br />
cannot discern what is of man<br />
and what is of nature, what has been poured from trucks and what has<br />
crawled up through the dirt. Some days, when I am alone in my<br />
beautiful beast of a car, I pick up speed and grind the brakes so I slide<br />
along the snow-packed road just to surrender to the power of ice and<br />
snow for a handful of small moments. Come spring, when the wind<br />
begins to get a hold on its fury and sends jet streams and gales to gasp<br />
and roar between houses, and I lean into them like the arms of a lover. It<br />
streaks in from the plains and yanks at my hair, my jacket, howling in my<br />
hears that I am small and unaware of most things. By the time summer<br />
rolls over and up against the mountains, the ice has melted away from<br />
the street, leaving gouges in the asphalt that bounce us out of our seats<br />
and test the reliability of seat belts. On one hotter day, I spent a whole<br />
three hours at a friend’s house watching a mother hawk find food for her<br />
children, and the bear sightings get closer and closer with each summer.<br />
When fall reasserts herself, she grips flaming fingers around the land<br />
and washes saplings and giants in reds and yellows. On mornings, it<br />
85
is not cool, but bitter and invasive of even the finest, state-of-the-art<br />
coats. These seasons crash together, quarreling over whose time it is to<br />
go, fleeting by and bleeding together with all the beauty and violence of<br />
time, all the wild rush of horses.<br />
And that is how my people and I live, in this balance of nature and<br />
man, of summer and winter, of wilderness and<br />
the cool calm of suburbia. We will never<br />
stop trying to do our righteous battle with<br />
the miraculous aspen saplings that find their<br />
ways into the creases of sidewalks, with the<br />
snow that pays no heed to grass or street,<br />
with deer that pace in and taste at the leaves<br />
of rose bushes. We push Nature, and she<br />
pushes us, and we hang there together,<br />
suspended and whole in conflict and unity.<br />
There are few horses here. But I think I will ride out my life between<br />
mountains and city just as well, watching the wilderness trickle through<br />
the concrete cracks.<br />
86<br />
We push Nature,<br />
and she pushes us,<br />
and we hang there<br />
together, suspended<br />
and whole in<br />
conflict and unity.
sumi selvaraj<br />
lilburn, georgia, usa<br />
if only | digital photography<br />
87
wynne hungerford<br />
greenville, south carolina, usa<br />
CAretAKer<br />
My grandfather’s afterthoughts are slung over the fence, his damp<br />
laundry forgotten<br />
as he begins to plant another crop of Japanese Maples behind his house.<br />
Using rusted<br />
tools, he turns the earth again and again. Splinters from the shovel's<br />
handle burrow<br />
deep into his skin and no amount of plucking retracts them. That's just<br />
how stubborn<br />
some things can be. He tells time by the amount of sweat soaked into his<br />
shirt<br />
and the shape it takes. A ring around the collar is mid-morning, a<br />
triangle suction-cupped<br />
to his back marks noon, and winged stains wrapping around his body<br />
like birthmarks<br />
signify quitting time—that hour when things are left in places they don't<br />
belong,<br />
shoes under the porch, sun behind the curve of the earth's back and<br />
shovel on the dining room<br />
table beside tarnished heirlooms. Loose dirt falls into a pyramid on a lace<br />
placemat<br />
that his mother once adored, yellow stains where perfume rubbed off<br />
her wrists still<br />
reeking generations later. Because of his refusal to prick blisters bulging<br />
on the pads<br />
of his fingers, my grandfather wakes before dawn to pray for calluses,<br />
nourished roots,<br />
and light frost, tipping his hat to enemies. He spends hours dousing each<br />
plant to its<br />
88<br />
Richard Hugo Poetry A w a r d W i n n e r
temporary content with a snake-hose writhing in his grasp, and learns<br />
hydration is a rumor,<br />
how twilight colored saplings can be heard gulping insatiably, not a<br />
phase grown out of,<br />
but into. I wonder if he waters the plants or drowns them, how easy it<br />
would be<br />
to deceive the trust between root and rain, how all caretakers are merely<br />
proof of<br />
another thing's existence. Rebelling against gravity in perfect rows, the<br />
comrades sprout,<br />
lurch, and shake their leafy fists, nature never content with the length of<br />
its own neck.<br />
rachel cin<br />
lawrence, kansas, usa<br />
delicate life | traditional photography<br />
89
annie chang<br />
norman, oklahoma, usa<br />
the mIlKmAn<br />
Mom and I were at Wal-Mart, otherwise known as an Asian woman’s<br />
paradise. It was just another one of those lazy days during which I had<br />
nothing better to do than to shop for groceries with my mother. As<br />
always, her inherent money-saving skills had brought us to the<br />
Wal-Mart on Interstate Drive. “Their selection is better,” she would say.<br />
Mom had heard from Oprah and Dr. Oz that soy milk was better for<br />
one’s health than regular milk, and was therefore convinced that the<br />
Chang household should only drink soy milk in order to stay cancer-free.<br />
I, for one, could not stand its taste. So, when we approached the milk<br />
cooler, I decided to put up a fight.<br />
“What are you doing? Grab the vanilla soy milk. No, not that one. The<br />
soy milk,” Mom persisted.<br />
“Mom, no. I refuse. I refuse to drink that stuff. It is disgusting,” I<br />
snapped from the open cooler door, grabbing a glorious and<br />
much-desired half-gallon of two-percent.<br />
“Annie Chang, you put that milk right back where you got it. We only<br />
drink soy milk now.” She continued to rattle on about its many health<br />
benefits, and then we began to bicker at a level that only a Chinese<br />
mother and daughter can, in a noisy “Chenglish” spat. Middle-aged<br />
passersby glanced at us and nodded in sympathy for my mother.<br />
It was after a few minutes of arguing with my mother that I began<br />
to hear snickering behind me. Fearing that the milk had suddenly come<br />
alive, I whipped around to find there was someone behind the shelves of<br />
milk, on the other side. He was struggling to stifle his laughing while he<br />
loaded cartons of chocolate milk onto their shelves.<br />
I was absolutely appalled at this gentleman’s eavesdropping and<br />
had half a mind to tell him so but then realized that he was not terribly<br />
unfortunate-looking at all, and probably not too much older than I was.<br />
Milk Guy looked me in the eyes and smiled. His teeth gleamed with<br />
an impenetrable whiteness that I could only guess came from the strong<br />
calcium found in milk. My heart burned with an immediate and<br />
undying love for him. Never mind the fact that he worked at Wal-Mart<br />
and I didn’t know his first name. These things would all be worked out<br />
during our three years of dating and one and a half years of engagement,<br />
followed by a beach wedding in North Carolina.<br />
“Hi, how are you?” he asked, still trying to stop chuckling. His voice<br />
was soothing, like a mug of warm hot chocolate on a winter’s day.<br />
90
“I’m…I’m fine, and how are you?” I replied in a way that I hoped was<br />
calm and collected but probably wasn’t.<br />
“Kinda cold.”<br />
“Oh.”<br />
And then the conversation died.<br />
“Well… have a good day,” he said, tipping his hat in a chivalrous way,<br />
causing me to have a slight heart attack of passion.<br />
Sadly, I closed the cooler door and turned to look for my mother, who<br />
had begun calculating just how many cents we would save by buying<br />
a six-pack of yogurt rather than buying two three-packs. She seemed<br />
oblivious to the fact that I had just walked away from a potential great<br />
love. As we left for fresh eggs, I tried to go back to him.<br />
“Mom, let’s get some chocolate milk. Oprah likes chocolate,” I added<br />
hopefully. She stared at me wordlessly before pushing the cart past me.<br />
I gave one last, longing look towards the milk before following her, my<br />
heart ripping further like a paper milk carton with every step.<br />
The next morning, my family sat down to breakfast.<br />
“I think I need a little bit more milk in my coffee,” my mother said,<br />
rising from her chair to open the refrigerator.<br />
“I’ll get it!” I cried, springing from my seat and swiping the keys off<br />
the counter. The garage door had never creaked open more slowly.<br />
Every traffic light was red and there seemed to be twice as many stop<br />
signs that day. I finally pulled into the parking lot of the Wal-Mart<br />
Supercenter and spilled out of the car.<br />
Trying not to look too desperate and perhaps even a bit nonchalant, I<br />
decided not to sprint to the milk cooler and settled on a light<br />
power-walk instead. As I made my way to the lactose lounge, adrenaline<br />
and romance made my heart beat at an unhealthy pace. Can you believe we<br />
met in the milk aisle? I would say sweetly at our wedding, before bursting<br />
into blissful laughter with a flute of champagne between my fingertips.<br />
I flung open the sticky, glass doors vehemently. “Hello?” I called in a<br />
way that I hoped was demure but probably wasn’t. “Anyone?”<br />
The shelves of milk were silent.<br />
I held the cooler door open for ten minutes before realizing I could<br />
no longer feel my face. Sadly, I shut the door and accepted the fact that<br />
I would probably never see Milk Guy ever again. I played all of our one<br />
memory in my head again and again; I recalled all the good times we had<br />
had.<br />
It was time to let go.<br />
As I walked out of the Wal-Mart on Interstate Drive, I realized that<br />
other great loves would come along. Like that guy pushing carts down<br />
the parking lot.<br />
91
harriet milbourne<br />
walton, cumbria, uk<br />
92<br />
lanercost priory in the evening | ink emulsion on paper
SKy<br />
amelia parenteau<br />
north stonington, connecticut, usa<br />
The first time I saw the Milky Way I was at a slumber party with my<br />
three best friends. We had just learned about identifying<br />
constellations in science class, and I was proud to be able to pick out<br />
Cassiopeia without a moment’s hesitation. The grandeur of staring into<br />
the Milky Way struck me and all of a sudden I grasped the infinity of the<br />
universe. I was truly looking out into space, and wondering what my<br />
significance could possibly be as I sat here, upon this earth, one<br />
The grandeur of staring<br />
into the Milky Way<br />
struck me and all of a<br />
sudden I grasped the<br />
infinity of the universe.<br />
fourteen-year-old girl among a<br />
preponderance of stars?<br />
My next interaction with the Milky<br />
Way came when I was visiting Crater Lake<br />
in Oregon with my family over a summer<br />
vacation. We had read the guide books’<br />
accounts, certainly, about how magnificent<br />
the stars were at Crater Lake, but we had<br />
no real concept. After dinner, we stepped out onto the balcony at the<br />
lodge, and it was like stepping out of a space shuttle into the cosmos. It<br />
sucked the breath out of me. The stars were so bright, so perfectly white<br />
and brilliant and twinkling and dense that I was too overwhelmed to<br />
think of anything besides their blinding array. There it was again, the<br />
Milky Way, cradling me in this net of a universe.<br />
All the stars have stories behind them. Greek and Roman mythology<br />
lend greater meaning to the twinkling heavens. In my studies of Latin,<br />
I have internalized these stories so that viewing the splendor of the<br />
constellations from my backyard is akin to returning to the pages of a<br />
well-loved child-hood book. The stars map eternity. What will my story<br />
be, my contribution to the sweep of the stars?<br />
The sky does not only speak to me at night. It is equally splendid in a<br />
richly colored sunset or sunrise. I witness these on evenings at the beach,<br />
or across my snow-filled yard, when the last rays of daylight streak the<br />
glittering vastness before me, a dazzling tangerine and pomegranate and<br />
raspberry sunset. Language can hardly document the celestial display,<br />
but the enticement of a sunset makes it impossible not to try. The<br />
science is lost on me – I do not need calculated explanations for the<br />
array before my eyes. The sky conjures words, not equations. Poetic<br />
93
inspiration pours from the heavens.<br />
Dramatic late-afternoon light offsets the movie set facades of<br />
buildings, the quivering leaves, the<br />
birds’ silhouettes. Clouds swirl in and<br />
out, a panorama of theatrical drama.<br />
Dark, light, puffy, and ominous, all<br />
types scurry through our atmosphere<br />
as the cycle of life marches on. The<br />
arching, radiant beauty of the sky<br />
reminds me of my doll-sized proportion<br />
to this enormous earth. No matter<br />
what ails or excites me today, there are<br />
millions of other players on the stage<br />
of life marching about their everyday business, without an inkling of my<br />
existence.<br />
This is the same spread of a sky that our ancestors gazed upon in their<br />
finest moments, in their tragic moments, in their poetic moments, in<br />
their vehement moments. Jane Austen, Eleanor Roosevelt, Shakespeare,<br />
Berthe Morisot, Harper Lee all gazed out upon this very same expanse. I,<br />
too, want to make my mark beneath this sky. The ether quietly shines on<br />
above, promising something more just out of reach. It lends ambition, it<br />
crowns the earth. The sky is a limitless limit.<br />
Yet, there is versatility, adaptability. The sky knows how to change,<br />
how to adapt itself and put on its finest array on any occasion. I too,<br />
know how to live, to adapt. Or at least, I am learning. Looking towards<br />
the sky, with my head in the clouds, there will be no stopping how far I<br />
can go.<br />
94<br />
Jane Austen, Eleanor<br />
Roosevelt, Shakespeare,<br />
Berthe Morisot, Harper<br />
Lee all gazed out upon this<br />
very same expanse. I, too,<br />
want to make my mark<br />
beneath this sky.
<strong>Aerie</strong> International<br />
is published by the editors and is printed<br />
in <strong>Missoula</strong>, Montana, USA<br />
by Gateway Printing<br />
95
ContrIbutorS<br />
dela breyne, 17: I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1991. My dad, a nuclear<br />
systems engineer from Aurora, Illinois, served in the Peace Corps in Liberia following<br />
college. My mom was a public interest lawyer for the state who<br />
grew up in a small oil town in South Louisiana. I spent my early<br />
years being cared for during the day by my step grandmother, a<br />
loving but no-nonsense woman from the hills of West Virginia.<br />
In 7th grade, our family needed a change of pace and we moved to<br />
Lawrence, Kansas where I attend Free State High School.<br />
melanie brown, 18: I lived the first half of my life in Richmond, VA, and am spending the<br />
second half thus far in Denver, CO. People really do drive cars here, but during our Western<br />
Stock Show, they parade herds of longhorn cattle through the middle of the city just to keep<br />
things wild. I spend my days plowing through high school, crocheting hats, laughing with<br />
my dearest friends, and writing words and phrases in the margins of my math notebook.<br />
I am a writer, a musician, a conductor, a runner, a driver of loud and rusting trucks, and<br />
above all things, a creator. My writing is always inspired by truth.<br />
I have learned that only when I write about things I know do my<br />
words live, so I make a point of finding inspiration in each day. I<br />
write about my joys so I may cherish them, my uncertainties so I<br />
may understand them, and my fears so I may conquer them.<br />
jessica byrne, 18: My home life has contrasting influences of rural and urban shape.<br />
I live in the outskirts of Carlisle; buildings spring up in clumps and are surrounded by<br />
countryside. In my photograph, “Country Lane,” I have captured<br />
the tranquillity and stillness of Cumbria. “Country Lane” shows<br />
soft curving lines in contrast to the linear shape of a city street.<br />
Carlisle depicts an idyllic atmosphere with the influence of man in<br />
the form of structure. This is the place I call home.<br />
ella carruthers, 13 and hollie milburn, 13: We got the idea for our picture from the<br />
place we live, Carlisle. The centre of our picture is Carlisle castle. We<br />
chose this as the centre because it reminds us the most of home as we<br />
pass it on the way to and from school every morning and afternoon.<br />
Carlisle castle is one of the oldest buidlings in<br />
Carlisle, along with the cathedral. Carlisle is a<br />
border city, near the Scottish border, and it was<br />
constantly in the middle of battles and wars fought<br />
between England and Scotland. It is full of history<br />
and Mary Queen of Scots was held here once. As you<br />
can see we created a border around the castle for our<br />
interests and life today.<br />
96
achel cin, 18: With English my second language, I often<br />
have a hard time describing myself. By taking photography I<br />
can describe my feelings without having to say a word. I am<br />
usually shy and Ms. Perkins, my art teacher, calls me the quiet<br />
creator, because I have difficulty writing or speaking my ideas.<br />
Since last year, I have gained a lot of confidence and now talk to<br />
people who I would never have talked to before.<br />
annie chang, 18: Both of my parents are from Taiwan, but my brother and I were born<br />
here in the United States. As a result, my personality and character<br />
have been strongly shaped by the Chinese and Taiwanese cultures.<br />
It is interesting to be an Asian-American living in central Oklahoma,<br />
where just five minutes from my home are real cattle farms and horse<br />
ranches. The two cultures seem to contradict each other, but I have an<br />
amazing life that can only come from the welding of two such different<br />
places. I speak Mandarin at home and I love country music. I teach<br />
Chinese folk dancing lessons, and I am also a member of the Norman<br />
Ballet Company.<br />
kelsie corriston, 17: I live in Ho-Ho-Kus, the only town in America to have two hyphens.<br />
I have a twin sister. Sometimes I hate her, but she’s my best friend.<br />
Every weekend during the summer we go to my grandparent’s<br />
house at the Jersey shore. The house is right on the beach of the<br />
Matedaconk River. Often we go tubing or crabbing. Mostly I<br />
just read on the deck that overlooks the beach, an iced glass of a<br />
Stewart Root Beer on the floor next to me. In the evenings we sit<br />
outside and have appetizers. Perhaps the best taste in the world<br />
is a fresh crab dipped in mustard and mayonnaise sauce.<br />
michele corriston, 17: My name is Michele Corriston. That’s M-i-c-h-e-l-e. One “L.” A<br />
few weeks ago, someone told me he “didn’t know if I could rock the one “L.” I told him I<br />
try. And I do. I try to meet the expectations I set for myself. I try to make myself known in a<br />
school where anonymity is heresy and new people approach me everyday, calling me by my<br />
twin sister’s name. I try to break out of my shell, crack by crack, line by line.<br />
olivia dykes, 16: I’m the daughter of parents with rhyming names and the older sister<br />
of a set of twins. Make that two sets of twins if you count the dogs. My grandparents<br />
have to be the cutest couple I have ever seen and when I get older, I would kill to have a<br />
relationship like that. Not to mention, go parasailing off the coast of Bermuda and visit the<br />
moon someday. Sometimes I can be too concerned with my image and I can be indecisive.<br />
I’m really quiet when you first meet me, but if you get to know me, that will change very<br />
quickly.<br />
97
paul edmondson, 17: My student life at the moment is spent between two cities, Carlisle,<br />
where I was born and have lived all my life, and Glasgow, where I would like to move to<br />
attend university. Up until last year I have always considered Carlisle to<br />
be where I “belong,” but after some friends moved to Glasgow to study,<br />
my regular visits on the train have made me challenge that. The piece I<br />
submitted is the outcome of my architecture project based on that idea. While<br />
exploring different viewpoints, I decided to observe an older, historic part of<br />
my school through the window of the school dinner hall, showing some of the<br />
interior of the dinner hall and also the façade of the old Devonshire Hall. This<br />
piece shows my ties to Carlisle.<br />
erin eifler, 18: Hi! My name is Erin Eifler. I have spent most of my 18 years traveling the<br />
world with my family while my parents do their biology research. Nature<br />
is important to me, and I enjoy it through scuba diving, hiking, mountain<br />
climbing, and photography. Mangoes are the most delicious fruit in the world,<br />
and The Lion King is the best movie I have ever seen. I am my daddy’s little girl.<br />
Before I start college this fall, I will go skydiving. Speaking Spanish is really<br />
fun, but sometimes I forget and mix Spanish and English together when I talk.<br />
98<br />
romanius eiman, secondary school: I submitted a poem that I wrote<br />
after some huge changes in my life. I lived on the street, just as in my poem,<br />
from about age 7 to 12. I was then taken into an orphanage, where Auntie<br />
Muriel helped me turn my life around. I am now working hard to make it<br />
up and hope to go to college and help put an end to HIV/AIDS. I wrote this<br />
poem in order to deal with all the memories from that time. The picture<br />
shows me as I am now at the bridge we lived under. There were about 25<br />
of us.<br />
laura elder, 18: I worked from a photograph of a recent trip to Prague to create a textile-based<br />
piece focusing on ornate carved columns. I used a range of media- mono print, paint, gutta,<br />
appliqué, hand and machine stitching to create a vibrant, rich representation<br />
of the textures and details within the architectural details, but using unusual<br />
colours and materials to bring life to these columns. This was something which<br />
I first noticed and appreciated in my local Cathedral and town buildings of<br />
similar style, and became the inspiration behind my project.<br />
mackenzie enich, 16: I was born in Minnesota and moved to <strong>Missoula</strong>, Montana when I<br />
was five. I have pursued many sports and activities, but found my true passion lies in the art<br />
of photography and filmmaking. The natural beauty of Montana<br />
has inspired many of my photos as well as the people around me. I<br />
recently had the opportunity to experience a photographer’s dream,<br />
traveling with my family to Africa. Many people travel there to<br />
experience the wildlife of Africa, but I found the Kenyan people more<br />
interesting. I found myself inspired by taking photos of the people<br />
and culture, and the everyday life in Africa.
myrah fisher, 17: Myrah lives in the ultimate state for biking, (the ever-sea-level Florida), and<br />
greatly enjoys going on rides during the hours when most decent folk are dead asleep. She also<br />
likes procrastinating, baking, listening to bad music, and, of course, referring to herself in third<br />
person. She dislikes people who are unnecessarily loud, hates having her name misspelled/mispronounced,<br />
and is really bad at staying angry. Myrah Fisher is a firm believer<br />
in the wisdom of “write what you know,” though she does think it is fun to<br />
learn new things. Her favorite poets include Charles Bukowski, Billy Collins,<br />
and Jeffrey McDaniels because they tend not to hide their intents under fancy<br />
words and flighty symbolism. Myrah Fisher also admires David Sedaris, but<br />
she has no hope of pinning down a list of favorite fiction writers that wouldn’t<br />
be the length of her intestines stretched out.<br />
jennifer giang, 16: I live in the small suburb of Lilburn, GA. There, I immerse myself in my<br />
multiracial roots while listening to stories about my dad’s native Cambodia and my mom’s<br />
Mexico. Along with writing in my notebook, I also take photographs of random things and<br />
landscapes. When I’m not writing blurbs, I enjoy talking with my<br />
friends at the local Pizza Café. My grandmother’s year and a half<br />
fight against ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, inspired<br />
my piece. Although these events occurred four years ago, they are<br />
still fresh in my mind. Initially, my essay was a struggle to write<br />
because of the emotions that I thought had tempered with time. In<br />
the end, I was able to craft this small memoir in honor of her.<br />
deborah gravina, 16: My name is Deborah Gravina, and I live in small town Allendale, New<br />
Jersey. Allendale is a total of one and a half square miles and has three<br />
schools, a library, a lake, and a town hall all on one street. Nothing happens<br />
here. The town joke is calling it Actiondale. We do have a center of town,<br />
on the “other side of town” that has three nail salons, two coffee houses (one<br />
taken over by all those over the age of 50 and in order to really spend time in<br />
there you must be a regular, if not you can go when it’s empty), three Asiantype<br />
food places, two fast food places, two fancy restaurants, two laundry<br />
mats, two gas stations, and four churches of the catholic faith. My parents<br />
and I used to change it up and go to a different one every Sunday, life on the<br />
edge.<br />
daniel alexander gross, 18: Daniel is a high school student in Los Alamitos, CA, who likes<br />
to be nice to people. He dreams - which will someday become reality!<br />
- of bicycling down the coast of California and living somewhere far<br />
away. The concept of a “green world” refers to a literary setting named<br />
by Northrop Fyre - a location originally from Shakespearean comedy<br />
in which things can happen that would, in society, be impossible.<br />
Especially love. He writes: “Shakespearean comedy illustrates, as<br />
clearly as any mythos we have, the archetypal function of literature in<br />
visualizing the world of desire, not as an escape from ‘reality,’ but as the<br />
genuine form of the world that human life tries to imitate.”<br />
99
kathleen harm, 17: My name is Kathleen Harm, 17, (my family calls me Kat), and I’ve lived<br />
in New Jersey all of my life. Currently, I’m living in Ho-Ho-Kus, which is<br />
the smallest town ever; many people don’t even believe that it exists. There<br />
isn’t much to do, so I find myself reading and watching TV a lot. So many<br />
solo activities have made me a tad loony, which would explain my udderly<br />
odd poetry.<br />
chase hoag, 18: My name is Chase Hoag. I was born in Lawrence, Kansas in the United<br />
States on September 22, 1990. I have lived within the same square mile of area pretty much<br />
my entire life. I started school when I was six and plan to continue on at the college level. My<br />
grandmother was really the one who got me into art; she is a magnificent artist. My junior year<br />
of high school I really started getting into the arts, and I took a class called Humanities, which<br />
is where I draw much of my artistic inspiration and knowledge from. I am now an Advance<br />
Placement Art student in my school and love being involved with the arts.<br />
sophie howell, 17: I live in Carlisle and have been at Trinity School for 5 years. I am lucky to<br />
live in such a green city with two beautiful parks close to my school; one has<br />
sheep and cows wandering around the entire stretch of the river on one side<br />
and the other park is very cultivated with special garden areas and walks.<br />
My friend Bethaney and I go for picnics in the parks and enjoy the summer<br />
sun. I love sunflowers. It is a sunny, happy flower and that is how the parks<br />
make me feel.<br />
wynne hungerford, 17: My name is Wynne Hungerford and I am from Greenville, SC. I<br />
attend the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities for<br />
creative writing. Living at school is great because it only takes a few minutes<br />
to walk to class, and I really get to focus on writing. I enjoy whitewater<br />
kayaking, Woody Allen films, and reading. I normally begin writing poems<br />
with an image in mind or a single event. Jorie Graham and Martin Espada are<br />
great influences. In my poetry, I try to present specific scenes or characters<br />
that lend themselves to larger ideas. I challenge myself to show natural<br />
images in an eerie light.<br />
alexandria kim, 18: My name is Alexandria and I am from Allendale, NJ, a very small<br />
suburban town. My town is a little boring sometimes so I like to drive to the<br />
mall and watch a lot of movies. I am a seventeen year old Korean-American<br />
and a senior in high school (I am excited to go to college). I enjoy reading<br />
on Sunday mornings and sketching portraits of famous people. I spend a lot<br />
of my time tutoring middle school students in English, math, and spanish.<br />
worapan kongtaewtong, 17: Sawasdi Kha! This means “hello” in Thai. Worapan<br />
Kongtaewtong is the name of a 16 years-old girl who lives in Thailand – that’s me! My nickname<br />
is Bew. My family consists of my dad, my mom, my older sister (Bim), and me. We live a very<br />
simple life. I am a Mathayom 3 (Grade 9) student at Yothinburana School. My hobbies include<br />
reading comics and novels, playing sports, and creating artwork. Sometimes I feel<br />
joy when watching the sunset or listening to good music. About my piece: It is<br />
a common experience for all humans to be sensitive to the sounds and sights of<br />
their memories. We acquire them naturally and we all have them. Unlike so many<br />
things, the possession of memories doesn’t divide us into different classes, age<br />
groups, or positions. The beauty of our memories is that no one can steal them.<br />
In some ways, memory is the water that maintains one’s life until the last breath.<br />
100
allison lazarus, 17: I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and continue to reside<br />
here, though I hope to move abroad when I’m older, probably to either France<br />
or China. I love playing tennis and rowing. Beyond that, I love to read, and feel<br />
that I’ve been most influenced by Hemingway, Marquez and Tolstoy, but you<br />
could just as easily find me reading Seventeen magazine. At my school, I am the<br />
editor of a page in the student newspaper, a co-editor-in-chief of the literary<br />
magazine, InWords, and my class’s representative on Honor Council. Outside<br />
of school, I have been learning Chinese for three years through a tutor, and<br />
teach preschoolers at my synagogue every Sunday.<br />
jennie lee, 17: I was born in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans. I moved to South Korea when<br />
I was two, then came to Norman, Oklahoma at the age of nine and entered<br />
the fourth grade. Differences in cultures and acceptance are abstract to<br />
explore, and are difficult work for anyone, especially a child. These issues of<br />
differing values, expectations, and appearances among societies are a part<br />
of my life. In “The Watermelon Defeat,” I describe my young self being selfconscious.<br />
When I was little, I didn’t understand that that uncertainty was<br />
not because of a dress, but because of my identity as a foreigner to others.<br />
It’s a hard and ongoing struggle, but not impossible to overcome.<br />
iida lehtinen, 16: I’m Iida, a 16-year-old high school girl, who lives with her mom in a quite<br />
small town in southern Finland. I’m in art oriented high school in Turku, where you can study<br />
media (photography, radio, video, journalism) and theatre among<br />
the normal high school studies. In my spare time, I photograph,<br />
write (mostly in Finnish), watch much movies, draw and paint<br />
and blog. (http://running-from-the-rain.blogspot.com) The biggest<br />
influence in my work of any kind is people, movies, music and<br />
the life itself, especially like black and white photographs with<br />
a soul and story to tell. I photograph mostly people and I love<br />
photographing kids, because they’re so changing and you can ever<br />
know what they are doing next. Fortunately I’m an auntie for four children, so I’ve pretty many<br />
child models to use. I like staged photographs as much as unstaged ones, so personally I do both.<br />
ayna kuliyeva, 16: My name is Ayna. I’m 16 years old. I’m studying at school. This is my last<br />
year here. I live in Ashgabat. It is a capital of Turkmenistan. It is a very<br />
beautiful city with luxuriant green parks and high marble buildings. In my<br />
free time, I like listening to all kinds of music, watching movies (especially<br />
comedy and fantasy), writing poems, and reading books. I have a big family.<br />
It consists of five members: me, my mother, father and two old brothers. I<br />
think that I have a really friendly and harmonious family.<br />
hannah lodwick, 18: I’ve lived in Lawrence, Kansas my entire life and I<br />
feel that much of my work embodies my surroundings. I recently created<br />
a concentration on William Burroughs, a beat writer who lived in my<br />
hometown. His abstract work has influenced my style and made it looser. I<br />
spend my free time outside, exploring the country and taking photos. The<br />
flat horizon line enters into my work through background and composition.<br />
101
taylor nicole marlow, 18: I was born and raised in Norman, Oklahoma. There are two high<br />
schools in my town; each school has around two-thousand students. Here<br />
in Oklahoma, the horizon is incredibly flat, which makes the sunsets<br />
absolutely breath-taking. I love the state I live in because it is always<br />
changing, but still always the same. My poem was inspired by a memory<br />
from my childhood. I write about my grandfather often because he was<br />
such a dynamic individual. Also, the topic, cooking fish for Thanksgiving,<br />
is not very common. It is a tradition in my family and I wanted to share it<br />
with others.<br />
harriet milbourne, 17: I live in a small village called Walton. It’s just me and my mum at home.<br />
We have a cat and a hamster called Bella and Napoleon. We don’t have a<br />
television so I like to read a lot, we also like to go on walks and swim. When<br />
I leave for university I want to take a course in teaching and eventually<br />
become a teacher. My piece, “Lanercost Priory in the Evening” is based on<br />
the priory in the small village of Lanercost which is just down the road from<br />
Walton. This is where I spent a lot of time when I was younger as my dad<br />
held toy train meetings in the small hall attached to the priory. It was here<br />
that my dad’s funeral was held, so this also has a special meaning for me.<br />
mercy ndambuki, 17: I was born and raised in Kenya and moved to the United States<br />
when I was fourteen on December 24, 2004. I speak four languages:<br />
Kiswahili, Kikamba, French and definitely English. On a typical<br />
weekend, I play tennis, go to Edmond to visit my family friends, do last<br />
minute homework and watch a lot of television. My favorite hobby is<br />
drawing because it gives me the chance to express my emotions and<br />
imaginations through pictures and color.<br />
maria nelson, 17: My name is Maria Nelson, and I am a junior in Helena, Montana. I grew up<br />
in the mountains near Yellowstone National Park. I had a huge imagination as a child, some<br />
of which has stuck with me as I grew up. I believe that there is no greater way to express<br />
oneself than through writing or the arts. “Echoes of Alexandria” holds great<br />
personal import for me. While it is now a fictional cross-section of lives<br />
and relationships, of hope and hopelessness, of drifting and loving and<br />
dancing in the haze of adolescence, of the secret maturity that hides itself<br />
in the minds of the young and can be interpreted in several ways, it began<br />
far differently. I have lost friends to drugs and alcohol. Not by death, but<br />
by their choice, by slow erosion of ideals. I have felt a need to save these<br />
friends, to save them from themselves, and this feeling led to one of the<br />
hardest realizations of my life: that I cannot protect anybody from herself,<br />
that life has twists that nobody can see or foretell.<br />
102<br />
austin noll, 17: My name is Austin Noll and I was born in Lawrence, Kansas,<br />
where I have spent all seventeen years of my life. My first artistic aspirations<br />
began at age two with my life size Clifford drawing and I have been drawing<br />
ever since. Past Clifford, I am now inspired by Lucian Freud, Vincent Van<br />
Gogh, and Sebastian Kruger. When I am not drawing or painting, I like to<br />
play music, basketball, watch movies, and eat cereal (preferably Cinnamon<br />
Toast Crunch.) While I plan on being an artist and attending art school, I<br />
would also like to play in a band, and learn how to surf.
jonathan o’hair, 18: Hello my name is Jonathan and I am a senior at Norman North High<br />
School. I do competitive debate at contests, as well as recreational golf and basketball. My life<br />
is pretty ordinary but one interesting thing about myself is that ever since I was nine I have<br />
tried to learn a skill every year that I could take with me throughout my life. This year happens<br />
to be guitar.<br />
gabriella otero, 17: I wake up in the morning and get ready for school. I only make it through<br />
the day because it leads to fifth and sixth hour, which of course is photo. After school, I<br />
sometimes stay for soccer which is something completely new for me! Or I go home where I<br />
enjoy taking pictures, reading, or eating. I eat Mexican food everyday. Lucky!? I think so, but it<br />
may also be because I’m Mexican. I was born in Chihuahua, no not the dooog. When I was five,<br />
I came moved to OOOOOOOOklahoma, and then when I was thirteen I moved to Kansas. After<br />
doing what I need to do everyday I go to sleep and have the weirdest dreams.<br />
amelia parenteau, 17: I am a seventeen year old senior at the Norwich Free Academy. I<br />
live with my parents and my younger brother in a rural town in<br />
southeastern Connecticut. I am involved in the theater program and<br />
the newspaper at my high school. I love to travel and I bake excellent<br />
chocolate chip cookies. I will be attending Sarah Lawrence College in<br />
the fall. I wrote my essay when I was on the long path to composing<br />
my college essay. It was one of many that I discarded. However, I<br />
enjoyed the imagery and language in this piece very much. The sky<br />
continues to captivate me.<br />
marquette patterson, 16: I was born and raised in Southeast<br />
Alaska from Juneau to Hydaburg. I care deeply about my cultural<br />
background (I’m Haida and Tlingit). Haidas were known to be one of<br />
the toughest tribes of the Southeast and sometimes had confrontations<br />
with the Tlingits. That makes it difficult for me now, dealing with my<br />
inherited double identity. In my spare time I like to play basketball,<br />
read, and surround myself with family and friends. When I’m older<br />
I want to pursue a career in studying different cultures and travel.<br />
emma lucy bay pimentel, 15: According to the law and my birth certificate, I am a Californian.<br />
Whether you choose to take that to mean beach bum, blonde, or surfing chick is your choice,<br />
though I can tell you right away you would be wrong on all accounts. I left<br />
California when I was three, traveled around the United States until I was<br />
seven, then moved over to forge new territory overseas in Bosnia, Romania,<br />
the Netherlands, and Sudan. I have studied seven languages, lived in war<br />
zones (in constant peril of my life, whether the death stroke be that of a land<br />
mine or a mosquito), and eaten camel - stringy stuff, can’t recommend it. I<br />
have attended music camps in Austrian castles and ridden a felucca down<br />
the Nile. I have swum in oceans from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Sea,<br />
and skied in the Swiss Alps. Needless to say, I stopped thinking of myself as<br />
inherently American years ago.<br />
jamie pisciotta, 18: Jamie was born in California and was raised in Utah.<br />
She is a senior in high school and is the Editor-in-Chief of Judge Memorial’s<br />
literary magazine Catharsis. She used to make art in the form of visual<br />
mediums, like painting and sculpture; this is her first year using the written<br />
word as her medium. She plans to attend college at the University of Utah<br />
and graduate with a major in Chemistry and a minor in English.<br />
103
nadia quari, 17: My name is Nadia. I’m Pakistani-American and my parents immigrated to<br />
America 25 years ago, but my dad still gets lost when speaking in English sometimes. I speak<br />
fluent Urdu and by now I’ve watched so many Bollywood movies that<br />
I am also confident in Hindi. I like to drink chai with my mom and we<br />
always joke about how I have to marry a rich Arab sheikh to pay off<br />
my student loans after college. I listen to classical sitar ragas and I like<br />
to read translated works by Farsi and Arabic speaking poets. I always<br />
remember my dreams and I’ve recently acquired a taste for spicy tuna<br />
roll sushi, it’s delicious.<br />
jake ross, 17: Jake Ross is a junior at a residential high school for the arts<br />
in South Carolina. Jake Ross enjoys reading, writing, watching good movies,<br />
and wearing sweaters designed for old men. Jake Ross is not actually sure<br />
whether or not he was supposed to write this biography in the third person.<br />
Often my stories are the product of my noticing an interesting detail in reality,<br />
something that would be fun to work characters around. I heard the jingle for<br />
an insect-removal company, and “Worker Bee” spiraled outwards from there.<br />
sumi selvaraj, 18: My name is Sumathee Selvaraj, but I prefer to go by the name of Sumi, which<br />
I will probably end up legally changing my name to one day. I am South Indian (from India), and<br />
I was born and brought up with South Indian traditions in Atlanta. I am currently a senior at<br />
Parkview High School in Lilburn, Georgia. I enjoy singing, taking photos, and dancing. Unlike<br />
most dancers, I learn a classical Indian art form called Kuchipudi.<br />
104<br />
evelina shakirova, 15: My name is Evelina. I am fifteen years old. I live in<br />
Kazan. I love my city very much. I like to photograph, to sing, to dance and to<br />
study English language! I think, I’m very cheerful and nice! In my future I’m<br />
planning to learn French and German languages.<br />
victoria shapovalova, 14: Hello! My name is Shapovalova Victoria. I’m 14<br />
years old. I live in Kazan (Tatarstan, Russia) and I love my city very much.<br />
My hobby is music and I love to sing very much.<br />
sarah stern, 17: I am Sarah Stern, age 17, born and raised a Kansas girl. I have a huge mane of<br />
curly blonde hair and a laugh that can be heard a block away. I’m a shrewd bargain hunter and<br />
a passionate photographer. I started my own business at fifteen and<br />
enjoy spending time exploring fields in warm weather. I love to salsa<br />
dance and play classical piano music. While I know I’ll be attending<br />
college in the fall, my only other definite plans include joining the Peace<br />
Corps upon graduation from college.<br />
alexaundra swann, 17: I am from Atlanta, but when I was very young I moved to Texas: I<br />
spent five years of my life there, learning and growing up. I began my poetic expressions in the<br />
first grade. I live with my mother, father, sister, and brother, and our<br />
pride is in our family values. I write simply to let out feelings that<br />
would stay bottled up otherwise. Freedom is my greatest possession<br />
when expressing exactly how I’m feeling. My piece “Roses” is meant<br />
to portray the innocence of young girls. It is actually a true story of<br />
my best friend and me walking on a lake in the back of our apartment<br />
complex.
obaid syed, 16: Ever since I opened my eyes to the world, I have been riding a cultural roller<br />
coaster. I was born in Karachi, Pakistan. When I turned four, I was living in<br />
Saudi Arabia, learning to read and write Arabic. At age nine, I was required to<br />
take Gaelic in my school and all of my friends were Irish. At eleven, I made an<br />
A in Texas’ history. By the time I was thirteen, I had moved nine times, living<br />
in four different countries on three different continents. The main inspiration<br />
for my story is Ugandan children who are forced to join the army. As we sit in<br />
comfort, people suffer in extreme distress. I hope that raising awareness for<br />
these crimes against humanity would help resolve the issues on this planet.<br />
my ngoc to, 17: My name is My Ngoc To, and I am a seventeen year old junior at Parkview<br />
High School. I was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the United States with<br />
my family in 1993. I visited Vietnam in 2005 and returned to America seeing<br />
my life in a completely different perspective. Until then I had I never really<br />
appreciated the daily parts of my life, such as having multiple working toilets<br />
in the house. I am very proud to be a Vietnamese American because in learning<br />
to grow up in two different worlds I have developed a very unique way of<br />
thinking, of piecing things together, and I like to carry this thought process<br />
into my writing and my art.<br />
yuka tsuruyama, 17: I live in Kumamoto, Japan. I go to Daini SHS. I belong to the school brass<br />
band. I’m very interested in English and Japanese. My piece is about Obon, which is a Buddhist<br />
festival for the deceased that is celebrated in Japan every summer. We visit a family tomb during<br />
this period and light paper lanterns in front it. Then we return home<br />
carrying the burning lanterns with us. It is said that the light of the<br />
paper lantern guides the souls of the deceased. In this way, we invite<br />
our ancestors into our home. The lantern light always reminds me of<br />
happy times with my grandfather. The light warms my heart and brings<br />
me joy. I wrote this Haiku when my heart was filled with the warmth of<br />
the lantern light.<br />
natasha joyce weidner, 17: Natasha is a senior in the Creative Writing Department at the<br />
San Francisco School of The Arts, a public high school. Her poetry<br />
recently won acclaim from the California Coastal Commission and the<br />
National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts. As well as being<br />
an avid reader and writer, Natasha is a classical guitarist, samba dancer,<br />
open-water swimmer, camp counselor, yogini, and aspiring sustainable<br />
farmer.<br />
alex welcher, 17: My name is Alexandria Welcher but I go by Alex. I am very shy unless you<br />
talk to me first. I love to laugh at silly things. I think of myself as being sweet. I hate thinking of<br />
new ideas, because I suck at it. I get easily confused. My family is my world; I love hanging out<br />
with them more than anything. My mom is my hero. My favorite color is red. I am super duper<br />
loud, well I can be. My new favorite word or saying is super duper. I chew gum every second of<br />
my life. I would love to travel the entire world but would be afraid of the different environment.<br />
I have a dog named Odie. My favorite number is two.<br />
samuel j. willger, 18: I grew up in a small town in Iowa that had only<br />
had one stoplight. Later my family and I moved to Kansas while I was<br />
in middle school. I feel that Lawrence is an accepting town that made<br />
the transition for me very easily. After moving I quickly joined the track,<br />
cross country teams, and a variety of clubs. My step father and sister are<br />
both in the creative field and I hope I can do the same.<br />
105
Thank you, Teachers and <strong>Schools</strong><br />
If I’ve learned anything in my tenure as a board member and advisor to several<br />
literary magazines, it is the critical role of the teacher. Should anyone wonder, many<br />
of the students represented in these pages share the same teacher. The students may<br />
have been gifted writers or artists at the outset, but after many years of reading and<br />
enjoying student submissions, it is clear that there is a force behind the best students.<br />
At the core, teachers are urging, supporting, perhaps cajoling, and likely pushing<br />
students beyond their comfort zones. Those teachers are involved in their students’<br />
work at a dynamic level, offering them new ways of viewing the world and new skills<br />
with which to render what they see. In a time when teachers, particularly teachers of<br />
the arts, live too closely to the vacuum that can become standardized testing, please<br />
applaud schools, administrations and teachers who understand and validate the<br />
absolute need for the arts in our young people’s lives. This magazine exists, certainly,<br />
because of students and their work. It would exist in a far different way without<br />
the teachers who foster, guide and give voice and substance to that work, and the<br />
administrators and schools that make it possible. Thank you. LEL<br />
Students of the following teachers were selected for inclusion in the 2009 <strong>Aerie</strong><br />
International.<br />
Angelia Perkins of Lawrence High School, Lawrence, Kansas<br />
Anna Grehova of American Councils, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan<br />
Anna Skinner of Yothin Burana School, Bangkok, Thailand<br />
Brenda Graham and Jane Giles of Trinity School, Carlisle, Cumbria, Great Britain<br />
Carolyn Berry of Lawrence Free State High School, Lawrence, Kansas<br />
Ealene Anderson of Otjiwarongo Secondary School, Otjiwarongo, Namibia<br />
Fujiwara Masayuki of Daini Senior High School, Kumamoto, Japan<br />
Geoffrey Serra of Norwich Free Academy, Norwich, Connecticut<br />
George Singleton and Mamie Morgan of South Carolina Governor’s School for the<br />
Arts and Humanities, Greenville, South Carolina<br />
Heather Woodward of San Francisco School of the Arts, San Francisco, California<br />
Jackie Jones, Liz Flaisig and Will Napier of Douglas Anderson School of the Arts,<br />
Jacksonville, Florida<br />
Janine King of Los Alamitos High School, Los Alamitos, California<br />
Jean O’Connor of Helena High School, Helena, Montana<br />
Joel McElvaney of Roswell High School, Roswell, Georgia<br />
Judy Nollner, Mary Lynn Huie and Susan Henderson of Parkview High School,<br />
Lilburn, Georgia<br />
Kathy Woods of Norman North High School, Norman, Oklahoma<br />
Kelly Hammond of Cincinnati Country Day School, Cincinnati, Ohio<br />
Kim Lucostic of Big Sky High School, <strong>Missoula</strong>, Montana<br />
Lary Kleeman of Arapahoe High School, Centennial, Colorado<br />
Linda Simpson of Judge Memorial Catholic High School, Salt Lake City, Utah<br />
Nataliya Yegorava of Secondary School 40, Kazan, Russia<br />
Stuart Merchant of Hydaburg High School, Hydaburg, Alaska<br />
Svea Barrett of Northern Highlands Regional High School, Allendale, New Jersey<br />
Ulla Kudjoi, Juhana Herttua High School, Turku, Finland
<strong>Aerie</strong> International<br />
announces<br />
Richard Hugo Poetry Award of $100<br />
James Welch Fiction Award of $100<br />
Norman Maclean Nonfiction Award of $100<br />
Rudy Autio Visual Arts Award of $100<br />
Lee Nye Photography Award of $100<br />
deAdlIne: 1 februAry 2010<br />
Please include no more than 5 pieces per individual per year. Submitting<br />
student must be 13-19 years of age or in secondary school at time<br />
of publication. All submissions will be considered for our awards.<br />
Examples of the kind of work we hope to receive can be viewed, along<br />
with full submission guidelines, at www.aerieinternational.com. Look<br />
for <strong>Aerie</strong> International under the publications link. Contact us at<br />
aerie.international@gmail.com.<br />
subscribe to:<br />
<strong>Aerie</strong> International<br />
one year/one issue<br />
$12 – U.S. Subscribers<br />
$15 – Friends Outside the U.S.<br />
Name: ______________________________________________<br />
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Amount enclosed: _____________________________________<br />
Please make check payable to <strong>Aerie</strong> International.
allendale, new jersey<br />
ashgabat, turkmenistan<br />
bangkok, thailand<br />
carlisle, great britain<br />
centennial, colorado<br />
cincinnati, ohio<br />
greenville, south caolina<br />
helena, montana<br />
ho-ho-kus, new jersey<br />
hydaburg, alaska<br />
jacksonville, florida<br />
kazan, russia<br />
kumamoto, japan<br />
lawrence, kansas<br />
lilburn, georgia<br />
los alamitos, california<br />
new orleans, louisiana<br />
norman, oklahoma<br />
north stonington, conneticuit<br />
otjiwarongo, namibia<br />
roswell, georgia<br />
salt lake city, utah<br />
san francisco, california<br />
sauvo, finland