What the Hell, Dante?

What the Hell, Dante?

By Simone Southers Fantasizing about reading classic literature was (and still is) one of my favorite pasttimes. So, when I got the opportunity to read works like Homer’s Illiad and Dante Alighieri’s Inferno with Professor Merkel, you could say that the dark academia wannabe in me was excited. Reading works like these were required for a class called “The Devil, the Hero, and God,” which looked at literature that had these interactions. Inferno shows the more obvious interaction out of…

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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

By Abby Gross When I was applying to college, I struggled to write my common application essay. It took multiple meetings with my English teacher, tearful conversations with my mom, and many stubborn hours sitting at my computer before I finally settled on what I wanted to write about. I wrote about the different career paths I considered growing up and how I finally decided I wanted to be a teacher. I knew I wanted to impact the lives of…

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Time is of the Essence

Time is of the Essence

By Faith Brammer When I have fears that I may cease to be    Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,    Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,    Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace    Their shadows with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,    That I shall never look…

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Unintentional Intentions

Unintentional Intentions

By Ash Moen Sometimes a writer will write a story or poem and to them it is fairly simple and straightforward. They don’t think much into it. But oftentimes there are underlying meanings we weave into our words unintentionally. Thus, different readers can interpret the work in different ways and find all sorts of hidden meanings that the writer did not intend. It is an amazing part of poetry and writing–the ability to find new meanings in stories and poems….

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A Cycle of Understanding

A Cycle of Understanding

By Halima Elmajdoubi Even before I learned how to read, I was an avid lover of story. Some of my earliest memories involve being lulled to sleep by books, planting in me an early passion for the written word that has only grown stronger over time. However, while I have always loved to read, there is an undeniable line drawn for me at poetry. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t as though I dislike all poetry. On the contrary, I’ve been…

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“I am very bothered” is the perfect combination of all the things about poetry that don’t bother me

“I am very bothered” is the perfect combination of all the things about poetry that don’t bother me

By Isabela Bernstein I am very bothered when I think of the bad things I have done in my life. Not least that time in the chemistry lab when I held a pair of scissors by the blades and played the handles in the naked lilac flame of the Bunsen burner; then called your name, and handed them over. O the unrivalled stench of branded skin as you slipped your thumb and middle finger in, then couldn’t shake off the…

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God Is Love

God Is Love

By Erin Ross “Love’s As Warm As Tears”  Love’s as warm as tears, Love is tears: Pressure within the brain, Tension at the throat, Deluge, weeks of rain, Haystacks afloat Featureless seas between Hedges, where once was green.  Love’s as fierce as fire, Love is fire: All-sorts-Infernal heat Clinkered with greed and pride, Lyric desire, sharp-sweet, Laughing, even when denied, And that empyreal flame Whence all loves came. Love’s as fresh as spring, Love is spring: Bird-song in the air,…

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Bar Napkin #11

Bar Napkin #11

By Ethan Brooker “Bar Napkin Sonnet #11” Things happen when you drink too much mescal. One night, with not enough food in my belly, he kept on buying.   I’m a girl who’ll fall damn near in love with gratitude and, well, he was hot and generous and so the least that I could do was let him kiss me, hard and soft and any way you want it, beast and beauty, lime and salt—sweet Bacchus’ pards— and when his…

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Loving Blindly

Loving Blindly

By Miranda Miller somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond any experience,your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose or if your wish be to close me,i and my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly, as when…

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The Chimney Sweeper

The Chimney Sweeper

By Kasey Ackert “The Chimney Sweeper” When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry ” ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep!” So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep. There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved, so I said, “Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white…

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