Sonnet by Sally Elhennawy Art by Luiza Ortiz If I could show the world my love for you,I’d speak my truth a hundred thousand times.My wary heart would start to love anewAnd our passions would constitute no crimes.If our tale of love was acceptable,I’d sweep you away in the city streets;We would no longer be
Recent
Trees, Tripods and Trying Times
Multimedia by Forrest Berman-Hatch I took this photo at Ada’itsx, or Fairy Creek, last August on the unceded territory of the Pacheedacht and Ditidaht Nations. It was taken after the heat dome and wildfires, but before the floods. Deeper in the Anthropocene than anyone truly knows, we are situated in time by disasters. High in
Cyborgs, Simulacra, and the Male Gaze: Deconstructing the Female Body in Yukito Kishiro’s Battle Angel Alita
Essay by Kaleena Ipema Art by Athena Li The cyberpunk comic series Battle Angel Alita introduces its female protagonist in the form of a detached cyborg head, fractured and abandoned in the dystopian landscape of the Scrapyard. Although bodiless, her chipped facial features and fragmented torso deliberately reveal enough femininity to identify not just a
Come and See
Poem by Luka Poljak Art by Aiza Bragg Come and See Content Warning: Mentions of war, genocide, violent imagery, and animal cruelty A boy and girl starving in a butchered village Digging up anything so he can Feed me. Feed me. The mutilated house they find with wooden hard hands Their tongues molest an empty
The Consequences of Technologized Relationality in Klara and the Sun and “The Perfect Match”
Essay by Colby Ballingall Art by Amy Ng Human connection is defined as a “person’s subjective sense of having close and positively experienced relationships with others in the social world” (Seppala et al. 412). Psychologists argue that this connection is essential for health and survival (Seppala et al. 411), building on Maslow’s famous theories that
Conrad and Kincaid: Narratives of Dehumanization and Resistance
Essay by Carson Lamont Art by Luiza Ortiz This essay concerns the representation of the colonized in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the response of the colonized in Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place. To what extent does Kincaid in her contemporary vision repel the antiquated settler colonial gaze of Conrad? We are to believe
Some Birds Sing at Night
Prose by Corey Morrell Art by Aiza Bragg Mrs. Adney lived on her own in a small farmhouse, not ten minutes down the road from us. In the spring she had become ill, and by the time summer came around she was mostly bedridden. Her pain was so bad we could hear it from the
Postcard from Vancouver to Home
Poem by Rachel Helwig-Henseleit Art by Amy Ng Vancouver is turning my skin porcelain.There is sun here—between the rain spellsbut, I spend most of my time at home. Outside, the wind blows through holesin my sweater—it’s a kind ofintimacy, like the city itself is holding me. Honestly, I miss your hugs the most.
The Angel of Death: Analyzing Departures from the Chronic Mode of Suffering in David Wojnarowicz’s Close to the Knives
Essay by Audrey Castillo Art by Aiza Bragg Close to the Knives by David Wojnarowicz is an example of “AIDS literature” (Bradway 256) that traverses the queer consciousness during the American AIDS epidemic. It contains the disembodied voices of a population neglected by its government and murdered through the “internaliz[ation of] society’s hate” (Wojnarowicz 179).
In Variation
Poem by Dax Avery Hamouth Art by Amy Ng in twists and knotsthe willow treebirthsa sighstretched out into eternity: biological processesmimicked overandover,named Miracle,dressed in red twine bindings, and cell tide mindings; fingers crossingcaught boundin incorrection to one letter wrong skin stretches overmuscle and fat:canvas over easel wood– am Ipainted wrong? details of my geometryclashing with tastesof different
at the bus stop, a tired boy speaks to death
Poem by Kayla Wilford Art by Karen Zhang the boy is barely a man, black clothes veiling frail bonesand a victorian disposition under moonlight and mist.he sits on a sad corner street under neon lightand butchers meat and wonders where to go. but the concrete is cold, frozen feet tucked underthe dim gold of bus
Bittersweet Corners
Prose by Samhita Shanker Art by Luiza Ortiz “Are you ready? We can’t be late for our anniversary!” “Two minutes!” Dilip calls, pushing through loose coins and memories in his closet searching for his cufflinks. His fingers brush aside some dust and instead, find gold glittering in the corner. He reaches in, clasping an errant
When her “skin dissolved under that gaze”: Reclaiming a Remedial Look in Beloved
Essay by Cicely Williams Art by Miranda Yee As bell hooks notes in her scholarship on the Black gaze, “The politics of slavery, of racialized power relations, were such that the slaves were denied their right to gaze” (115). Quite literally, enslaved persons were often “punished … for looking,” and accordingly, she believes that this
“How vain, without the merit, is the name”: Proper Name Usage Invoking Asian Diaspora in Souvankham Thammavongsa’s How To Pronounce Knife
Essay by Aimee Koristka Art by Amy Ng Proper name usage—both in literature and in real life—creates a clear sense of identity for an individual, allowing for distinct separation from one person and another. They are the manner by which an individual is known. Hence, “[p]roper names can be considered as an interface between individuals
Collage
by Elise Juncker Artist Statement Parts of this piece are strangely menacing to me. The man in the bunny costume invokes an almost forgotten childhood horror. But what we once found strange or menacing, may now just be a part of life. This collage is scrapped together from both the actual content, but also the