AMPERSAND Literary Magazine
-MASTHEADStaff, Writers & Contributing Editors
Publisher TCIS Ampersand Club
Juniors Minha Choi Julie Christine Chung Hoyeon Lim
Supervisor Ms. Katherine Tucker Editor-in Chief Minha Choi Julie Christine Chung
Alumni Jennifer Lee Grace Hong Soobin Yang
Graphic Designer Julie Christine Chung
Guest Artists Annette Chough
Art Director Julie Christine Chung Printer Chun Il Printing, Daejeon
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2018-2019 //
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Table of
Contents Kristina Erny Julie Chung Jennifer Lee Minha Choi Juie Chung Soobin Yang Julie Chung Minha Choi Jennifer Lee Grace Hong Hoyeon Lim Jennifer Lee Minha Choi Hoyeon Lim Minha Choi Soobin Yang
iv ‘&’ - Ampersand Preface 02 I’ll Waltz Taken 03 Self Portrait 04 IN THIS HOUR 05 Shards 06 Lost Battles 07 Memories 09 반딧불 11 Our solo dance 13 Gravity 16 You 17 Lethologica 17 We live in a society (Bottom Text) 19 To all the ones I loved - and left behind 21 Window 22 Not a Day's Gone By 23 starry-eyed fool 25 실종신고
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Jennifer Lee (Alumni)
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“An ampersand is, simply put, a symbolic representation of a sentence’s connective tissue, the conjunction, “and.” We write to make a mark. We write to interpret the world. We write to make sense. We write to say, to see, to experience, to comment, to judge, to create. We sew up the edges of ourselves, we let the inside come out, & we weave it all together again into a new creation. Writing is about connection. An ampersand is also about connection. The connection between sentences becomes the metaphor for who we are.” Kristina Erny Founder
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Jennifer Lee (Alumni) 1
Ampersand Magazine
I’ll Waltz - Prose Julie Chung (11) When you want roses to bloom from my mouth, I’ll drink - I’ll waltz with the devil under fluorescent lights; I’ll let thorns engulf me so they’ll scare you off - I’ll yearn for you underneath these scars.
Taken Julie Chung (11) She stole the flowers That bloomed in my heart Kept it in her pocket Left withered to die.
Poetry & Art
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Self portrait
Jennifer Lee (Alumni)
I am too much A flurry of emotions I am tenacious and stubborn A chaotic storm barrelling through the terrains Uprooting the trees that stand in the way I am powerful I feel too much Every tear that drops reverberates through my body Every laugh shakes my soulEven those that aren’t mineIt echoes I project I am not enough
I cannot even take care of myself I am riddled with self doubt and insecurities A slouched sapling unable to stand tall Refusing to announce myself and reveal fruit I am weak I don’t have enough love to give I overanalyze, I criticize the flaws I see I hurt people, I hurt myself I cannot spread joy with my smile all the time It is thin I am fatigued I am a contradiction Everything about me is false Everything about me is true I am still looking for balance But like the tide I rise and fall And that is my nature
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Jennifer Lee (Alumni)
IN THIS HOUR
Jennifer Lee (Alumni)
2:59 AM : : 3:00 AM : are you still awake? : it would be wise of you to sleep and wiser if you had slept long ago : this hour is for lost souls to wander the hour when you put down your defenses : maybe you are not lost but merely curious :
have you brought another individual to know this hour? : to open up your heart and mind and share yourself to them : or are you a lone soul looking for purpose in a blur of thoughts : maybe you are just trying to recover lost time : : 3:01 it would be wise of you to sleep and wiser if you had slept long ago
Julie Chung (11)
Poetry & art
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Shards
Minha Choi (11)
Our broken, lightless sky the fragments cut like glass This pain I’m shackled by, the sole proof of our past Once, you were my star— yes, once, you led my journey Downing spirits in your car; now I beg your ghost for mercy Hurt’s become my purpose I long for seasons lost Time goes in flat circles; my blizzard turns to frost Fragile shards, they’re rising Dancing, gray horizons You were mesmerizing I can’t stand the silence.
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Jennifer Lee (Alumni)
Lost battles
Julie Chung (11)
When I’ve woken from my slumber, hazy and slow to move Without any idea of where I am Without my bearings, confused and alone Unknowing of what time it is What day it is What moment I am living in Is this the past, the presentOr is it still all a dream It’s a bit like falling in love with you Confusing and unsure A battle I seem to always lose. 2
Julie Chung (11)
Poetry & art
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Memories i.
Julie Chung (11)
My cracked lips stretch into a tentative smile forming into well worn words. “I love you,” Your eyes flicker up* and you don’t respond. Maybe you didn’t hear me so I repeat; “I love you.” And you just nod. “Hey-” A little louder this time. Now your eyes are confused And stories say Too many declarations of love will lose their meaning and render them useless. wellMy love isn’t worthless. Don’t you tuck away every syllable into a little box of memories? Why aren’t you looking at me? I open my mouth again. “I love you.” Here, have another memory. Tell me you’ll put it in your little box. Tell me, one day, you’ll open it; unprompted.
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Ampersand Magazine
ii. When the crickets sing broken songs. and we are dim shadows feigning unconsciousness; I hear you rustling out of bed. You’re pulling out your little box And I know, It’s full. Four more slips of paper are crammed in, soaked in persistent words. and I can hear you, Shutting the dusty lid.
Julie Chung (11)
It doesn’t close, really. There are too many memories. *I should have realised. How your eyes meet mine but Don’t flicker in recognition. How your cheeks stay cool and steady While mine bloom Little pink flowers.
Poetry & art
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반딧불 Soobin Yang (Alumni) 너는 반딧불인가. 처음에는 환영인가 싶다가도 어느새 풀 가닥가닥 피어난, 너는 이 길의 안내자인가. 나는 흔쾌히 그 길을 걸었고 칠년이 지나, 길을 잃었다. 너의 존재는 무뎌지고 무뎌져 내게 미신이 되었다. 마주쳤다. 너 없는 길을 헤매다, 부딪혔다. 내 꿈속에 그 모습 그대로, 너는 여전히 반짝였다. 너는 알까. 네 작은 몸짓 하나도 내게는 춤이 되고, 네가 내뱉은 조용한 말도 내게는 선율이 된다는 것을. 쳐다보지 말자고 했다. 욕심이 생기는 순간 하늘은 무너진다고 그랬다. 그래도 손을 뻗어본다. 언젠가, 너 또한 어둠 사이를 헤매고 있을 때에는 너를 비춰 줄 수많은 반딧불 속에 나를 알아보지 않을까 하고 9
AMPERSAND Magazine
Julie Chung (11)
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Our solo dance
Julie Chung (11)
We spoke with no intention, Lazily tossing out words Our laughter ringing through the night. Now, our sentences stumble, Worrying over a period Skirting around what used to be Natural. Our hesitant whispers echoing With a thousand different meanings Glances heavy with secrets.. Or do you mean what you say? Is there nothing to be uncovered? Is this all in my head? Somehow I would prefer Dissecting your expressions Agonizing over commas, Than know that it was A solo dance.
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Jennifer Lee (Alumni)
Annette Chough Poetry & Art
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Gravity
Minha Choi (11) i. these thoughts s w r i l around i n v a s i v e, like c o n s t a n t, frantic constellations.
am i strong-enough should i succumb can i hold-on will i succeed.
ii. she remembers, once a lifetime ago she had held shooting stars in her innocent gaze, so in awe of those spellbinding phenomenons of blaze and brilliance. she remembers those blissful days when she would see those wondrous works of art the streaks of light like molten gold, spilling wildly against the dark dreaming that maybe she, too, could surge into full glory, to symphonize galaxies with the beat of her heart. so really, it was c r u s H I N G when she stumbled upon the frigid truth— —that the ‘shooting stars’ were just meteors. just dark-dismal slabs of too-jagged rubble: lifeless reminders of collisions and destruction.
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Ampersand Magazine
iii. now against the dusky sky the light of the stars gleam— they’re spe c ta c u lar, a grand car i ca t ure of the striking duality between cruel overbearing Hopelessness and the luminous slices of wild-reckless Aspirations all harbored within the great unknown. so as she sat there, alone battleworn, from the throes of insomnia and regret and woe andheartbreaknostalgia she got carried away, thinking what if the dreams she’s chasing are simply a vapor-trail rapidly fading? that she’s too caught up in the slipstream of desperation steering too heedlessly close to the light —like Icarus who craved the warmth of the sun— only to fall from the sheer finality the crushing gravity of n o s e d i v
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maybe she’s burning out. maybe she thought her place was amongst the stars, but really, she was a broken fr a g me nt of aircraft condemned forever to be earthbound. so with inexplicable emotions too complex to express so with this supernova of dying stars imploding inside her Head so with all that she had known irreparably broken, she sat there quiet, afraid to hold on to anything to anyone anymore. -
Coda. [ iv. and yet mere hours later with the broken clouds signaling yet another dawn— once more she had become captivated, drunk on her inexhaustible hope for her tomorrows. ]
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You
Jennifer Lee (Alumni)
You walked on clouds and breathed the stars Like the night sky, swallowing the light and spitting out truths that you could not accept. You conducted the dark to leave me blind And left me to cry in suffocating emptiness. You looked down on me. stepped on me. Strangled me. Grinded me into the ground. Like I was the sun being stomped out of the sky. A screaming hot star waiting to die. I felt every flame within me flicker and disappear in smoke With every chilling breath you sighed. You dark endless night. You despicable shade of spite. You.
Poetry & Art
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Julie Chung (11)
Lethologica
Grace Hong (Alumni)
Standing in front of blank canvases, we paint images of experiences with different palettes attempting to describe colors the other does not have
we live in a society (bottom text)
Hoyeon Lim (11)
In the morn, I hear what you have to say. But before dark your words have seemed to change. All the noise is all the same nowadays. Do we know what’s real? Or is that subject to change? If the world spoke for itself, would we see peaceful days? When the love of truth trumps the lust of greed. Will we be what we meant to be all along? Two pillars cut from same stone, the truth of man has come and gone. Upon this rock we feel at home, we strife as king and pawn. Young and old, forgo the brave and bold, If the world spoke dirt for dirt and gold for gold.
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When the love of truth trumps the lust of greed. Will we be what we meant to be all along?
Hoyeon Lim (11)
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To all the ones I loved- and left behind Jennifer Lee (Alumni) To all you beautiful hearts that swelled with kindness, Who swayed to the music of hope and stomped to the beat of resilienceEven when gravity was stronger and the sky closed in With tired eyes you looked up and dared the world to do its worst and I saw you rise.
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Ampersand Magazine
I want to tell you Thank you But also I’m sorry. You’ve given me gifts of strength and also vulnerability. I hope I have given something in return, I hope your hurt has healed. I feel empty Sometimes Knowing that there will always be a space you have left behind. Always, I miss you.
Jennifer Lee (Alumni)
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Window
Minha Choi (11)
Our soft-spoken discourse Echoes inside the walls of our two-bedroom duplex, the back-and-forth of our laughter constrained within this place, our cramped little galaxy. —With the small window out front being the only passageway from the outside world to get a glimpse into our lives, just a flicker of light illuminating our narratives. Soon, it’ll be winter When families decorate their windowsills with grandiose lights and lavish ornaments— in their festivities, chancing to show off their abundant lives, bursting with plain-to-see opulence and joy while those less fortunate draw up their curtains, Afraid to let the light in. Somehow we share this space called earth yet know little to nothing of each other’s worlds The glass fogs up, now; Opaque mist once again obscuring our lives from view. 21
Jennifer Lee (Alumni)
Junghyun Kim (11)
Not a Day’s Gone By
Hoyeon Lim (11)
You’ve bent your notes so far to reach us, the rabbis and lords and the preachers No thought of ours went through ya, we played ball while you sat in the bleachers. We mourn for the ones that we lose but never learn from it why? Since the day that we felt you and lost you, not another day’s gone by.
To see right we don’t need our two eyes, To listen we don’t need our ears. What we need is for us to stop mouthing. And somebody who sees past the tears.
Children; they’ve swallowed their sorrows, Politicians have wielded their fears. They day you shut us up and we listened, Not a single day passed through the years. Now the district is up in their boots. Poor in rags, rich in their suits. Never really understood us could ya, come to think that we couldn’t too. We would never accept your gifts, but we can sure as hell try. Since the day that we felt you and lost you, not another day’s gone by. 22
starry-eyed fool
Minha Choi (11)
you’re so blinding— the way your eyes like to shine, hurling me up off the ground. you mesmerize me— and i don’t even mind, when you get me so weak i break down. intoxicate me with every word that you breathe your exquisite laugh—it’s so cruel
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but now i see i won’t ever be free; i’m your starry-eyed delirious fool.
Ampersand Magazine
Julie Chung (11)
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실종신고 Soobin Yang (Alumni) 간절히 바래도 이루어질 수 없는 꿈은 악몽이라고 한다 내가 키운 민들레 열매는 후, 하고 불면 사라져버린다고 한다 가끔은 꽃밭을 거닐며 한참 나른해지다가도, 눈떠보면 가시가 내 발을 찌른다. 그래서 이 꽃인지 가시인지 모를 씨앗 덩어리를 가슴 아주 깊은 곳에 숨겨 두면 결국 무엇이 진실인지도 헷갈리게 되겠지만, 그럼에도 내 심장이 기억하는 이 꿈은 신이 내게 선물한 벌이라고 한다. 아니면, 결국 그 안에 빠져 헤어나오지 못하다가, 어쩌면, 내가 물고기인 줄 알고 열심히 헤엄쳐보다가, 낚싯줄 끝에 별이 있는 줄 알고 들떠 있다가, 세상 밖에서, 나의 집에서 죽어버릴수도. 어디로 가나
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Jennifer Lee (Alumni)
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아, 그 전에 환멸을 느끼게 되겠지 하늘의 별들이 땅끝까지 떨어지는 걸 바라보겠지. 자정이 되어 모든 마법이 풀렸을 때, 그때가 오면 나도 깨닫게 되겠지, 그곳에서 춤추던 사람은 내가 아니라는 걸. 유리구두가 벗겨진 건 내게 안 맞는 구두였기 때문이라는 걸. 꿈이 나를 붙잡는다. 내가 꿈을 붙잡는다.
이건 죄책감일 뿐이니깐 떨쳐버려야 한다고, 신기루에 미쳐버린거 뿐이니깐 깨어나야한다고, 지금은 밤이고, 밤은 어둡고, 길이 보이지 않아서 힘들지만, 언젠가 해가 뜰 테니 견뎌내라고 한다. 그러면 내 별은 어디로 가는가 나의 민들레 열매는, 나의 유리구두는, 나의 꽃밭은, 나의 꿈은 어디로 가나
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Sheer Curtains
Grace Hong (Alumni)
She abashedly conceals darkening skies behind sheer curtains; foolishly confident of the masquerade She cannot – she doesn’t need to – block out the flooding sunrays; light
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But the curtains are sheer
The curtains are sheer
Ampersand Magazine
Jennifer Lee (Alumni)
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-Final-
Open Submission: We accept creative writing* and visual art**. No fees apply. There are no restrictions to the number of pieces you can submit; however, in the case of written pieces, especially prose, we request that you keep the word count below 2500 words. If your piece exceeds the limit, we ask you to consider submitting an excerpt instead. *Creative writing consists of any poetry, prose, short story, script, or novel excerpt. **Visual art consists of any 2D drawing, painting, illustration, portraiture, or photography.
Editors’ Prize Writing Grace Hong
v.
Minha Choi
Art
Jennifer Lee
Julie Chung Ampersand Magazine
Submissions must be sent via email to chungj2021@tciscommunity.com The body of the email must contain your Full Name: Grade: Type of piece: (Prose, Poetry, Visual Art, etc.) Title of piece: (Optional) Writer’s Note: Please include your work as a .docx ATTACHMENT and NOT pasted in the body of the email. Visual Art is preferred scanned at minimum 600*600 DPI. Photographs must exceed - at minimum - 1000 pixels for both length and width. Submitted photos should be greater than 2 MBs in size. Raw files such as .tif, .cr2, .dng, .nef, .crw, etc. are preferred over compressed .jpg, .png, and .gif files. Any questions or other messages should be sent to chungj2021@tciscommunity.com or communicated to the current supervisor [tuckerk@tcis.or.kr]
Ampersand Literary Magazine is a student-led club at Taejon Christian International School. Through writing, students learn to become fluent in the language of emotions. By sharing personal pieces, students become aware of the diversity of stories which people hold. Ampersand also hosts peer-revision workshops where students build themselves and others into critical analyzers of literature. Overall, students learn to accept themselves as who they are and find beauty in both their flaws and strengths. Ampersand’s value for creativity extends beyond literary pieces, as photography, mixed media, and paintings, submitted by talented student and teacher artists, bring this magazine to life. This year’s published magazine marks Ampersand’s second year return from a twoyear hiatus. During this time, our new members have learned about writing, design, and themselves. It was a time of healing; we transferred emotions onto paper and shared our hearts with this group of passionate writers that felt like family. Thank you TCIS, Mr. Sanabria, Mrs. Gudenrath, Ms. Tucker, Ampersand, and you, our readers, for a wonderful adventure. We hope that you will join us again soon.
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