Chanter Literary and Arts Magazine — Fall 2017 by Chanter Literary Magazine

Chanter Literary Magazine

Fall 2017

(noun): one who sings, or, the part of the bagpipe that plays a melody

Fall 2017 Macalester College Literary Magazine St. Paul, MN chanter@macalester.edu

Chanter would like to thank the following: All the amazing writers and artists who submitted their work Matt Burgess Jan Beebe The Mac Weekly The wonderful developers of InDesign at Adobe Daily Piper (RIP)

Cover art: Sister (Acrylic on cardboard), Lily Freemond

Editor-in-Chief: Zeena Yasmine Fuleihan Literary Editor: Claire Grace Associate Literary Editor: Julia Fritz-Endres Art Editor: Ema Erikson Associate Art Editor: Willie McDonagh Submission Manager: Theodore Twidwell Associate Submission Manager: Shine Chin Publications Liaison: Julia Joy

Staff:

Betsy Barthelemy Maria Bodansky Conor Broderick Zoelle Collins Maya Crowl-Kinney James Hartzer Benjamin LeBlanc Brooke Leonard Helen Meigs Hannah Staats Annie Sumpunkulapak

Writing •

Editor’s Note

Zeena Yasmine Fuleihan

‫( ﻻرﺑﻴﻊ‬Spring)

Diala Abboud

Cherokee Rose

Miriam Moore-Keish

Seemed hope 10

Bethany Catlin

Everything You Never Told Me 11 MENSA Application 13

Claire Grace Lily Sadowsky

The Call of the Running Tide

Isabel Taylor

He Got The Frenzies In His Eyes 15 Cargo 16

Annie Sumpunkulapak Roan O’Niell

9/22

Asher de Forest

iowa

Kyra Lickfelt

Untitled 31 the communist manifesto 33 Neg 34 Two Hells One Earth

get high 39

Janey Fredman Kyra Lickfelt Theodore Twidwell Kiante Miles Raven McKnight

Christmas Card

Carrigan Miller

sleep cartography

Jesse Claire-McKown

Art • Morning

Sister II 22

Wren Hess Lily Freemond

Rabbit

Manya Jacobson

Two Rats

Manya Jacobson

Winged Victory 24 Series of clothing 25

Clara Grayson Malini Basu

Untitled

Marissa Mohammed

Untitled

Annie Sumpunkulapak

Elena 28

Amy Pelz

Nightcrawler

Clara Grayson

Steve

Amy Pelz

Editor’s Note

In our 60th year of Chanter, I am humbled by the extraordinary vitality of creative work produced by Macalester’s student body. For sixty years now, this community continuously morphs and grows in a multitude of ways, yet a few things remain constant. One of the most significant is the dedication to the production of art in all its forms. This art is resistance. In today’s world, where openly hating, killing, marginalizing, oppressing, and lying for personal gain attempt to become the norm, the production of art refuses to condemn this world to ruin. Whether a piece of writing or a painting directly comments on political matters or simply exists as beauty and creative energy embodied, it pushes against the crumbling humanity of our society to present care, love, and vibrancy. All art makes a political statement: it provides a space to interrogate dominant narratives and to reflect on the way we perceive what falls around us. All human experience is subjective; art is the ultimate representation of this. As we struggle to find truth in this horrendous era, the art we create and share with each other helps clarify what it is to be human today. I am proud to present this issue of Chanter to you as a continuation of the legacy left by the inextinguishable creative energy at Macalester. With our words and our hands, we create art to keep living. This art will persist.

Zeena Yasmine Fuleihan Editor-in-Chief

‫ﻻرﺑﻴﻊ‬

Spring Diala Abboud

‫دﻳﺎﻻ ﻋ ﱠﺒﻮد‬

In the spring, life is born again A phenomenon, a miracle being realized All the world is witnessing this awakening The echo of the whale when he’s singing in the seas And in the desert, the camel starts his new journey And the blossoms of the trees meet my love He who owns a beautiful mind And moves swiftly like a gazelle His words are sweet, sweeter than honey How beautiful is the company of my darling It awakens the life in me just like Spring wakens up life in spring.

‫ﰲ اﻟﺮﺑﻴﻊ ﺗﻮﻟﺪ اﻟﺤﻴﺎة ﻣﻦ ﺟﺪﻳﺪ‬ ‫ ﻣﻌﺠﺰ ٌة ﺗﺘﺤﻘﻖ‬،ٌ‫ﻇﺎﻫﺮة‬ ‫اﻟﻌﺎمل ﻛﻠّﻪ ﻳﺸﻬﺪ ﻫﺬا اﻻﺳﺘﻴﻘﺎظ‬ ‫ﺻﺪى اﻟﺤﻮت و ﻫﻮ ﻳﻐﻨﻲ ﰲ اﻟﺒﺤﺎر‬ ‫و ﰲ اﻟﺼﺤﺮاء ﻳﺒﺪأ اﻟﺠﻤﻞ ﻣﺴريﺗﻪ اﻟﺠﺪﻳﺪة‬ ‫و زﻫﺮ اﻷﺷﺠﺎر ﻳَﺴﺘﻘﺒﻞ ﺣﺒﻴﺒﻲ‬ ً‫ﻫﻮ اﻟﺬي ميﺘﻠﻚ ﻋﻘﻼً ﺟﻤﻴﻼ‬ ‫و ﻳﺘﻨﻘّﻞ ﺑﺮﺷﺎﻗﺔ اﻟﻐﺰال‬ ‫ﻛﻠامﺗﻪ ﻋﺬﺑﺔ أﻃﻴﺐ ﻣﻦ اﻟﻌﺴﻞ‬ ‫ﻛﻢ ﻫﻲ ﺟﻤﻴﻠﺔ رﻓﻘﺔ ﺣﺒﻴﺒﻲ‬ ‫ﺗﻮﻗﻆ اﻟﺤﻴﺎة ّﰲ ﻛام‬ ‫ﻳﻮﻗﻆ اﻟﺮﺑﻴﻊ اﻟﺤﻴﺎة ﰲ اﻟﺮﺑﻴﻊ‬

Cherokee Rose Miriam Moore-Keish My great, great, more greats, grandmother buried the family silver in the pig sty and pushed the surrey into the woods when Sherman’s army came through, she watched the flames tickle the sky, staining clouds to fire and blackness. My mother says she was a strong, independent woman. My father’s stepmother is related to Sherman and he asks her not to say that so loudly in public and out to dinner because people slow motion around and spit flames from their eyes, like my ancestors’ burning plantations. My great grandfather wrote letters to his “Preciosísima,” my bisabuela, from his havana sala to her Georgia front porch while a woman named Elmena cooked his supper. There is a confederate monument a mile from my front door but all I remember from third grade Georgia history is that the state flower is a Cherokee Rose.

Seemed hope Bethany Catlin It is quiet in my room. Resonating, your thought rebounds and compounds, keeping time in tocking to the keep I hold you to, whole, in my head. Sequestered in the sentimental closed concert of our talk I feel the finding of love and find the feeling unfairly sweetly felt — yet you are going to be gone, the choice is had and done. Song: long, but already sung — we go out, it goes on. I pin my heart on the weather, pockets of air and out, bones minding the shifting colds I miss answers we did not have and minimal winds press me to things I thought of you. I will not hear from you, this we chose before but I wish when the rain clears up it would look like hope

Everything You Never Told Me About Being Old Before You Forgot Claire Grace an ode to alzheimer’s I tried being older this year, and smarter, and more yes please and no sir just like you always told me, but it always came poorly stitched onto the wrong kinds of questions, packaged neatly in a box I forgot to tape, sent jettisoning between places called home. Sometimes when you’re old, it still feels like bits of you are always in freefall. You never told me that. And when you’re old, sometimes you forget. To get gas, to turn in timesheets, to turn the lights off when you carry yourself to bed because the husband who left you thirteen years ago for a woman he met on his way home to wake you from the couch hasn’t been back since. I taught myself to be old this year, but mostly I only learned new. The first time I heard you was when you stopped telling me to let him go. I learned to draw back the curtains and turn down the bed for myself, because sometimes nothing feels quite so grown as having a bed to turn down for yourself. You never taught me to leave the blanket in the closet, 11

even though when you’re old you’re supposed to find warmth in someone else, somewhere between experience and a way to feel less all-alone. Sometimes, now, you call me into your room before bed, call me “Babydoll” and sing me Nora Jones, and we both hold our baby blankets and sit, foreheads touching, and I can’t remember who sang who to sleep first. Sometimes I’m so mad I could scream because there’s so much you never told me before you forgot, like how to say no and to count notches in bed posts before I let someone touch me and to slow down my words or I’ll make people dizzy. Your voice still rings, every time I try being older, though. I think maybe your whisper lives in the lavender dishsoap I use because you do, or in the way you grip my twenty-year-old hand now to cross the street or when we’re in bed, forehead-to-forehead-knee-to-knee and every whispered song is an answer to how to age with grace.

MENSA Application Lily Sadowsky

Do not use a #2 pencil.

Mensa Application

Page 1 of 1

1. Name 8. Imagine the following scenario: you a. Jerry steal Mr. Raven’s cheese. Now, how do b. George you rub it in? c. Elaine a. “Mon bon Monsieur, 2. Gender apprenez que tout flatteur vit a. Old man playing the accoraux dépens de celui qui l’écoute. dion Cette leçon vaut bien un fromb. Man in a turtleneck playing age sans doute.” the accordion b. “Nevermore, motherfucker!” c. Old man in a turtleneck c. With kindness playing the accordion 9. Which metaphor best captures life as 3. Native language intellectually superior? a. Applied mathematics a. Every exit redirects you back b. Pure mathematics to the perfume department. c. Violence b. Finishing a glass of water 4. Fertility status a. Honorably discharged because we’re in a drought and b. Dishonorably discharged that’s what you do when you’re c. Active in a drought, only to have the 5. Veteran status water refill it furtively about 42 a. Impotent seconds before your anticipated b. Barren departure. c. Active c. The Bee Movie 6. How do you spell endorphins? 10. What rhymes with crépes? a. Endwarfins a. Raisins b. Indoorfins b. Grapes c. Endorphans c. Omar Epps 7. Mandy Patinkin: a. There’s a guy who’s really 11. Communism is bad because. . . (Select thinkin the most compelling argument.) b. Kept the United States a. It is run by the MILF (Menfrom shrinkin struation Is Liberation Front). c. Saved the ship of state from b. It eliminates the market for sinkin Nicolas Cage buttplugs. c. I was a proletarian before it was cool. 13

The Call of the Running Tide Isabel Taylor The salt on the wind whispers soft on the skin: Come risk the ripple and gale. Come down to the smell of resin on the wood and the rip of the rope to the sail. Come down to the daylight piercing slow, like a bow through waves of mist; And the whip of the deck beneath bare feet and the tip and the wobble and list. Come down to nights silent excepting the sea as the sky starts to fainten and dim; And the dog star blistering brighter before it falls silently over the rim. Come down to the swift and the salt and the sail as sun-bleached and white as a bone; Shadows on the water - and silence in silver - and hours spent drifting, alone. The crash of the waves is calling my name: Come feel the rain on your hand. Come to where the day lies upon the horizon in a white and burning band. Come to where the gray waterspout casts mirages across the innocent sky; And a faraway storm breaking soft on the surf sings a sailor’s lullaby. The salt on the wind whispers soft on the skin: Come risk the ripple and gale. Come down to the smell of resin on the wood and the rip of the rope to the sail. Come to where the sky is wide and dreams run fresh and free; Come down, come down, come drink and drown; come down to the siren sea.

He Got The Frenzies In His Eyes Annie Sumpunkulapak these are the trees. why? first painted two. maybe our home was a little bit too sweet, a window lights up and a face stares at me. yes i do. i was on the river, don’t step in my brother slept with us, but it was always the same body. i screamed tenderly, (i don’t know). and these are the rivers i wish i was blind when i saw him. the palm trees looking down at us do you think it’s okay to sleep with someone before marriage? the river lit up. he held my hand. the truck forgot about the one way road. at a faceless concert he painted on himself. the tropical wood held us together. we were in a jacuzzi tub in the bedroom and he drew burnt lines on my skin. a double back-flip, flew away across the sky. my feet ran to hide under the sofa his eyes lips nose and smile still the same. he used a cigarette as his paintbrush. we went skinny dipping like four five six again. no it doesn’t hurt. another truck drove into us on top of the edge. shorts half falling off. He got the frenzies in his eyes. do you want a puff of heaven? house becomes an alligator. i got up. hands cuffed at the back seats, pain was secondary. jessie. i ran away. yellow tulips staring. 15

Cargo Roan O’Niell Leaving the strait, Into a sea unfamiliar I see the rattled and rustled The Hearty floating, waiting For shout, scream, whisper To go under the bridge With an infection of blind trust Over, under on. 15 Temmuz Destanı: One man leads all.

9/22 Asher de Forest It is so hot in my room It has only been a few weeks, but I have already lost count of the number of times I have cried in this room alone alone or on the phone thinking of home Some of my Dad’s ashes were buried with my Nana’s ashes when she died five months after he died one week and one day after I lived to the age of eighteen and today it has been nine months since he collapsed on the plane four days after I lived to the age of eighteen I know I will live to the age of nineteen and for some reason, in the last nine months I have become obsessed with counting, and I know the reason because first it was days, and then weeks, and then months, and then four days after today three quarters of a year and then it will be a quarter of a year until it will be a year and I will be nineteen I was never good at math, or rather, I worked hard at math in high school 17

so I could do well at math in high school so I could never have to do math in any school ever again One of my friends back home, who is now not back home, but reveling in the abundant lesbianism at Smith College, is studying so that she can become an accountant In high school, she won departmental honors for math I won for performing arts I wanted to work a brag into this poem because I’m not all depression grief trauma thinking you’re watching your father die not knowing if you’re watching your father die knowing you’re watching your father die watching your father die I won for performing arts because I acted and I played viola, apparently well, or at least committedly I got to college and I was stiff in a callback and I picked up my viola twice in the last four weeks and I want to be committed to something God Dad I’ve jerked off thrice and I’ve done my laundry once I threw my sins in the river via bread and I cried at the river salt water bread water and I cried on the airplane and I prayed on the airplane 18

and I prayed in Rosh Hashanah services God Dad I was never good at math or faith, or rather, I am studying faith in what I can count and what I am afraid of losing count of

iowa Kyra Lickfelt comfortingly listless the plains through the passenger window scanning farm barcodes, catching a row and watching it stretch back acres in a passing instant intimacy issues and sunlight making murky lakes sparkle blue irrigation and no scarecrows, pesticide flavored plants the intention between neck and collarbone in a creek winding and to the east brown train car after brown train car after brown train car following the orange engine easing slowly towards the horizon i want to be caressed by corn stalks as i run west for miles, miles, miles fingertips grazing green until i reach a fallow field and lay until my body sinks into soil a lone windmill missing several spokes stands still in the distance, and beyond her my mind rests in the shade of a silo, lazily spilling thoughts into the dirt until the ground becomes so insecure that i feel the roots beneath me clench like my telltale teeth

Morning Oil on prescription information sheet Wren Hess

Sister II Acrylic on cardboard Lily Freemond

Rabbit Clay and watercolor Manya Jacobson

Two Rats Clay Manya Jacobson 23

Winged Victory Graphite Clara Grayson

Series of clothing Khadi, a handloom textile from India Malini Basu

Untitled Ink and sharpie Marissa Mohammed

Untitled Photography Annie Sumpunkulapak

Elena Oil on wood Amy Pelz

Nightcrawler Oil on canvas Clara Grayson

Steve Oil on wood Amy Pelz

Untitled Janey Fredman This is falling in love and coming up just under even I exchanged my cash for hope somewhere in oregon Hope in this case meaning some amount of hope just under the amount i needed If i am in fact pregnant I will hope the baby swallows the whole world Let it tear open the unbreakable and yet fatigued The jaded and yet still young parts of my body Let it write the rest of these flu season poems My body is a host to all things uncertain All things bated breath All things waiting for a software change A change in power or tide or force Let it break even in this world I have worn my body in so many different countries and ways and measurements Space and distance and time are only different in these moments Moments in which wanting you does not float Does not have a backyard And address at which mail can pile up I have been told to stay here in minnesota to grow things with my mind As though i can clear the room of weeds and overgrowth for something new You lay down with the earth in a language you speak so often it is a body now Plants cannot survive on salt water and yet the ocean reaches, and reaches The ocean is a Man who cannot build his own house so he will build one on me The ocean wants to swallow the whole world My child who does not likely exist is male He has build a boat on his stomach and a volcano in his throat He spits lava onto my soil so the things that grow please all fathers

They tell me to stay the course like staying ever did a woman good My mother would laugh, in the regalia of all things unrealised, as no matter when you read this she will leave next year Gotta move so fast i get vertigo If we spend our whole life paycheck to paycheck Hope to hope What do we we when the hurricanes come again? If home is the gulf line where do we go when the men come? I give my child spoons of their salt and hair of my hope All the while praying this figment leaves, if only to slay his father

the communist manifesto Kyra Lickfelt white tee shirt love. sanctuary. palpable and sticky. i want a love where no one asks questions. holes worn in cotton sheets and turned keys. song rising with shower steam and bumping into each other. no ripped off bandaids, no deep cuts. reading the communist manifesto together

Neg Theodore Twidwell Intimacy without death is, according to Health Care Professionals, a ruse. Executioners gripping their guillotines the blade an onslaught of statistics: “And to the cursed, let us hope you are not the 1 in 5.” So your first time is scrambled is secretive, fear guarding a shame too deep. You’re spurred by intoxication Professionals cry, “This! is intoxication!” A mortified and empty bottle of lotion slain at his feet. He is haphazard, dangerous, lost, the protection your parents gave you left on a bedside table one world -side away, the torture his parents gave him locked within his teeth: “We’re worried sex will kill you.” (Bullets from the firing squad they mean: “We’re worried he will kill you.”) Tonight, thinking 34

is for the blessed. La petit mort, qui vivra verra. Tonight, luck lays hidden in lust, Professionals proclaim, “You both shall live.” Negative. But Reagan is a monarch in flames, one-fifth does not die; so with a gritted smirk, you realize walking must there be survivors among us.

Two Hells One Earth Kiante Miles To the mixed and black kids from some Oklahoma town like me,

The locker room smelled of axe, sweat, and what other fumes middle school boys like myself put off. The red lockers hugged the walls. They never did their job. If you’d jittered them long enough with the right grip you could pop someone else’s open. My valuables were in the security of my bag like always. But for once I wish those damn lockers would do their jobs. My locker was smeared with soap, a pencil stabbed in the bar. My cocoa butter was squirted on the locker handle. All the eyes were looking at me waiting for a reaction. “Now why’d you have to go and do that man?” A white boy said and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Did your momma not teach ya how to be clean?” Laughter erupted. I pushed through the crowd, trading blows with shoulders and grabbed some paper towels to clean up the mess. The boys cleared out of the area. The smell of the axe and body odor still lingered, and it was still suffocating. After, I went to relieve myself in the bathroom. I stood at the urinal and felt a push on my back. Someone forced up my shirt and a dry substance smeared on my back. I turned. It was one of the boys, with dark jeans and a white t-shirt. The reflection of his confederate belt buckle glared at me. He held a stick of deodorant in his hand. Another one, taller and tanner, stood behind him, smiling. “We thought we’d just try and rub some of that black off for ya.” “Yeah we’d thought we try to add some more white to ya too,” the second one says. I pushed I...I froze. Tightening my fists to fight the tears rather than the boys. I still didn’t move. Released my grip. Pushed through them, found my bag, and exited the locker room. Why didn’t you kick their asses? Because you were outnumbered? Because I always am. Plus what would violence solve? On my way out, I walked through the school’s basketball court. A JV game was about to start. I dug in 36

my pocket to find my phone. A text from my mother. “Hey honey hope you’re doing ok. Be at the school in 30 to pick you up.” I look to the crowd to find refuge. “Thirty minutes” I said to myself. “Thirty minutes.” There’s a pack of my football teammates seated in the bleachers. Do I sit? They were in locker room. But this school also knows you. Knows you because no one looks like you. Some teacher will find you sitting alone, they’ll ask what’s wrong. They’ll say you’re never by yourself. You’ll tell them. They will say from their white lips, “Sometimes you just have to not let words get to you. What’s that slave saying? Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?“ “Hey guys, mind if I sit here?” The two boys had made their way out of the locker room by now. They called after me. “What makes you think they want a nigger to sit by them?” I looked at my teammates. Some sat silent, others bit their lips to hold back laughter. The North is supposed to be a refuge. Slaves died trying to make their way to a free land. Where they had a chance. I guess when it came time for me to move to college I did the same. For the first few weeks I loved it. The word “nigger” never touched my ears, not even when they were listening to our music. They seemed to care up here. And they voted for Obama. They’ll tell you at least three times. Then I realized that this “free land” just buried the chains inches below the surface. Emails flooded my inbox. “We’re looking for POC’s...” Siri, what the hell is a POC? “Person of color. Someone who is not white.” I’ve never heard “other” sound so polite. You see, they clump you up here, mix you in the with all the colors. The thing is when you mix colors together you don’t see the bright tones in each, no they make that ugly brown that everyone knows too well. They like to see us like that up here. See us on our knees begging for their help... 37

their pity. They’re too afraid to say they see color or, better yet, afraid to call you the wrong thing. When you’re in class they’ll say hesitantly “African American,” look for your approval. Say “Black,” look for approval. Say “Person of color” and then are confused by the rage in your eyes. Person of color, a phrase invented in the past by a black male so that people would at least have to call us a person. I thought times would be better now. But back home we’re still oppressed, and here we’re tokens. The college wants to show us off. On campus they ask us to host perspective students before asking anyone who’s white. I personally don’t because our school has less black people than our little southern town, you become a token not a person. We cover posters of our campus but don’t make up even a fraction of the black people in our southern town. I guess this is the “gold standard.” Turning black to token. Token is the new black. There’s two hells on this earth. The one you’re currently living and the one the whites say is better. No matter what, they won’t know what it’s like to be us. They’ll either attempt to know what it’s like and pity us, or not give shit and oppress us. We have to find which Hell our skin is thick enough to absorb the heat. There is no “safe space.” Just the space in between our skin and their checked off boxes, between slurs and our humanity, between the bullet and us––and yes, black folks get shot up here too. Stay safe. Well, as safe as you can make it for each other. No one else will.

get high Raven McKnight lipstick skin stuck to kisses with 2-scoop icecream afternoon & a mile long walk thru melting sun bellies full licking lapping sunset searise birds of prey on a lungful updraft get high, get so high it’s dripping peach juice from the sky, now beach party on the tongue-touch, less sand more points no point but this point: me&u, point blank, period. Point me to the full moon, to the wet skin freckled dewdrops, to the rubber sole melted tarmac, that’s a family story, that’s a run-away-with-me story, that’s a needlepoint fingerpainting, paint me like a fruit bowl, lead paint poison paint, paint 4leafclovers on ur lover’s zodiac sign & get high now, get so high

Christmas Card Carrigan Miller I was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck, kicking and pissing and red. My father laughed and my mother cried and the doctors snip snip snipped. And you were creating new geographies of jointless limbs, red pins and strings on a map of the United States where each city is a character. You were speaking a new body language, useless like falling snow that melts as it touches the pavement, and you were dancing physical metaphors, emotional synesthesia. You spoke nonsense with conviction and hated us for not understanding you. I stayed up all night to watch the snow fall, 40

flakes spinning under streetlights like constellations framed in the lenses of telescopes. I have a hunch. I think you were also born with an umbilical cord around your neck because you were kicking and pissing and laughing and crying, because I don’t think people like us ever lose that first sensation.

sleep cartography Jesse Claire-McKown last night i dreamed about two mean dogs in the back of a house. tall grass and burrs, savanna bramble, gold and dust and dappled light and someone’s father and his wife who wears running shoes and teeth. last night i dreamed about a neighborhood i could have lived in once but wasn’t sure. either way it felt like marmalade or valley oak in evening, barefoot on gravel on asphalt on gravel on asphalt on the way home from school that year. last night i dreamed about what looked like Pasadena if Pasadena were a desert: squat, square pastel houses i miss only when i’m far away. like here i am missing strip malls. or maybe i am missing a dead self that missed strip malls (and bought shitty nylons before her First Real Audition and threw them away in the trash at the Starbucks and ignored every single phone call she received and slept in the car in one hundred degrees and kissed her lover on the street and and had to relocate eventually) last night i dreamed about nothing. maybe my brother was there and maybe 42

he wasn’t. maybe the dogs were gentle and only guarding home. maybe we lived in the same house and were frightened for no reason. maybe we got lost and didn’t realize. maybe they loved us, and we couldn’t read the map.

Chanter Literary Magazine

Fall 2017