the the grinnell grinnell review review
Copyright © 2018 by the Student Publications and Radio Committee (SPARC). The Grinnell Review, Grinnell College’s semi-annual undergraduate arts and literary magazine, is a student-produced journal devoted to the publication of student writing and artwork. Creative work is solicited from the entire student body and reviewed anonymously by the corresponding Writing and Arts Committees. Students are involved in all aspects of production, including selection of works, layout, publicity, and distribution. By providing a forum for the publication of creative work,The Grinnell Review aims to bolster and contribute to the art and creative writing community on campus. Acknowledgments: The work and ideas published in The Grinnell Review belong to the individuals to whom such works and ideas are attributed to and do not necessarily represent or express the opinions of SPARC or any other individuals associated with the publication of this journal. © 2018 Poetry, prose, artwork and design rights return to the artists upon publication. No part of this publication may be duplicated without the permission of SPARC, individual artists or the editors. typeface for the body text is Palatino and the typeface for the titles is Didot. Cover art: Mononoke |Shabana Gupta|ceramics and underglaze Inner over art: Dancer|Shabana Gupta|ceramics and glaze Inner title art: Dancer|Shabana Gupta|ceramics and glaze All editorial and business correspondence should be addressed to: Grinnell College c/o Grinnell Review Grinnell, IA 50112 www.grinnellreview.com
LVI | Fall 2018 ARTS SELECTION COMMITTEE Rachel Eber Paul Chan Htoo Sang Judith Tong Esther Hwang
EDITORS Rachel Eber Emma Heikkinen Paul Chan Htoo Sang Claire Boyle
WRITING SELECTION COMMITTEE Emma Heikkinen Claire Boyle Annie Levin Blanquita Pinto Puña Kathryn Bowen Holly Clemons Lukas Mendel Nick Raphaelson
Contents W riting Rachel Arkell On Looking Up 8 Hannah Bentley The Long Table 32
Chan Htoo Sang dried already 16 Allison Cottrell Side 26 Last Will 28
Taylor Gaskins In The Mirror 38
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Anna Tuchin Plan for Liberating... 10 Emily Wunsch JalapeĂąo Peppers
Steven Duong Plan for Liberating... 10
Roasn Nisa Return Shipping Instructions Across the Border
John S. Osler III Midnight in Burling 41 Nora Paul Achilles 20 Zainab Thompson Top Hat 45
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A rt Paul Chan Htoo Sang KonYar
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James Coffey Yellow & Blue no. 4
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Winnie Commers Rickie’s Blues 29 Pink 31 Rachel Eber Self Portrait 30 Isabel Green Disintegration within the Matrix 9 DeKoi 47 Shabana Gupta Earthy Bottle 44 Dancer 44 Lydia James untitled 37 untitled 42
Sofia Mendez Book Guide for Exploration 18 of How Media Affects Cultural Identity Mano de Cielo 29 Marnie Monogue Dixit Dominus 35 Red in Green 36 Private Body 43 Quynh Nguyen Concrete #1 Concrete #2
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Nana Okomoto Puddle
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Victoria Park self-portrait 9 Anne Rogers Seams 21
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Letter from the Editors Dear Reader: Emma’s betta fish, Guillaume, almost died today. After a well-intentioned roommate poured too much food into his tank, it all smelled like rot, so Emma did the only thing she could think of; she put him in his old tank, with fresh, cold water. She treated the water, but it was too cold for Guillaume’s bodily needs. He went limp, flopping around helplessly, and Emma had no choice but to put him back in the rot-smelling-tank. Together, she and her roommate cleaned out the tank and saved Guillaume’s life. Had Guillaume stayed in that old, murky water, he could have gotten a fatal bacterial infection. Thankfully, he’s safe and healthy now. His tank has a new filter and fresh water. At the beginning of this semester, we all felt a bit like Guillaume ourselves, flopping around in the unfamiliar fish tank of Grinnell Student Publications. We’re all new editors of the Review this year, and we often wondered if we were doing everything right. Regardless of if we did it right, though, we did it. None of us have dropsy (a symptom of bacterial infection characterized by extreme bloat) and we are excited to be able to publish the work of our peers. We want to extend our deepest gratitude to SPARC, Talena Bray at ColorFX, the Faulconer Gallery staff, our selection committee members, and of course, the writers and artists who fill the Grinnell community with life and without whom, the Review would not be possible. Stay fresh, —the editors arts Rachel Eber ‘21, Paul Chan Htoo Sang ‘21 writing Emma Heikkinen ‘21, Claire Boyle ‘21 8
“Even a dead fish can go with the flow.� Jim Hightower, in the Arizona Daily Star, 2002
self-portrait | Victoria Park| digital art
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On Looking Up Rachel Arkell She swings from the parlous rafters, an artisan, graceful as the hare— her waxing Cheshire grin stretching so thin it seems hollow. Or sometimes she sings, forming a perfect vanilla scoop from the scope of her full lips—wartime blues.
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I tilt my neck, and she tilts with me like a seesaw, a Pegasus on steady rails.
Disintegration within the Matrix | Isabel Green
Always she reflects on the things her sons have done, the dreams on which her daughters fix their resolve under her watchful glow. I know her kin not by their sallow faces or swollen ankles, but by that simmering spark half-hooded by sly lashes. She knows they will all make waves one day.
As we chatter, The cold travels from my teeth to my bones. 11
I.
Plan for Liberating the Masses and Getting Your Crush to Talk to You Steven Duong and Anna Tuchin 12
I am going to run this aquarium fish and supply store into the ground. Thao was only a college student, but she had big ambitions. At the tender age of nineteen, she was prepared to run this aquarium fish and supply store into the ground. Getting the job was almost too easy, she thought. The manager didn’t throw her a single curveball. No questions about filtration systems, no questions about the proper pH levels for an African cichlid tank—in fact, no questions about fish care at all. Thao was in. Now all she needed was an alibi. And poison. II. The ground is running into me. Abram’s pillowy lips crack against the pavement. He has begged for this since orientation. Somebody please punch me in the face. But this is liberal arts school. His friends are intellectuals. Marx would punch me in the face. Punching me in the face is a critique of late capitalism (Palahniuk, 1996). It was reverse psychology that finally granted him his wish. I bet you couldn’t punch me in the face.
III. In her first-year tutorial (“Anarcho-Feminist Perspectives on Modern Espionage and Home Aquatics”), Thao learned that Chinese spies in the Cold War concealed tiny vials of poison in their lipstick. And because she’d learned nothing else in that class, she decided to fill her Fenty Matchstix with weedkiller and bring it to work. A few drops in the central filtration pump would do the trick. Thao was not an intellectual. Thao was a mover and a shaker, and the first thing she moved and shook would be her college’s ruling elite, who all happened to be avid fishkeepers. Her classmates were always talking about The Revolution, but she was the only one to do something. First, Jerry’s Fish Emporium. Next, global capitalism. IV. What’s next? Abram had completed his four year plan (to get punched in the face) in two semesters. The professor of his first-year tutorial, “Freud and Fisticuffs,” would be proud of Abram’s contorted body on the concrete. Small, achievable goals. His friend and assailant Josh peered over Abram’s sloped shoulder.
You good, bro? Bloody mouth answered, Yeah. You finish the comp sci homework? Kind of. Fucking proofs, man. Abram pushed himself up. Let’s go. I’ll help you. And after they began to walk away, Don’t ever do that again, Josh. V. Thao wanted to do it again, and she wanted to do it soon. Any experienced saboteur is familiar with the thrill that accompanies a good poisoning. What institution shall I destroy next? Heteropatriarchy? The public library system? Thao glanced down at her watch. It appeared the destruction would have to wait. Craft of Poetry started in twenty minutes and she hadn’t exactly finished the assignment. Fucking poems, man. She wasn’t sure if she could take another two hours of her fucked-up, eternally-stoned, white trust-fund baby classmates 13
squeezing their mommy issues into iambic pentameter. Her own mommy issues were more than enough. Pulling a notepad from the folds of her suede jacket, Thao set off in the general direction of class, hastily jotting down a conclusion to her sonnet as she walked. VI. Abram stabbed the pages of the notebook with his ballpoint pen. That’s the plan. It’s basically just phishing. I get how we are going to do it. Just not why though. What else is there to do? We go to school in the middle of nowhere. I grew up here, dude. Abram shrugged.
VII. Sonnet for the Boy I Met Online Last Month With 20 dollars left in my bank account, and only a gallon in the Toyota Corolla of my heart—will you still love me, cyber boy? Your texts are fresh arrows loaded in the Cupid’s shiny new military-grade crossbow, and I am venison-to-be. The day we met in the comments section of A$AP Rocky’s “Fashion Killa” music video is the day that changed me forever, the way Uber changed the gig economy forever. Of course you can have all my savings to pay for your art project, cyber boy. What’s mine is yours, sweet comrade of my heart. VIII.
Fine, I’m in, conceded Josh. He glanced at the thick-rimmed Message sent like a hungry hook. Message sent like clock face of the science library. 20 minutes left. an empty checkbook. Message sent like Madonna, trippy like Nirvana. Message sent like a mixed signal. Message sent like a care package waiting in the Mail Room, home to a small vial of weedkiller. Message sent like do u think I’m cute be honest. Message sent 14
like sending a message, like proving something, like making a point. Like three-short/three-long/three-short. Message Received.
Matchstix filled with weedkiller. Was he by the door when you went to pick up his package. Watching you the whole time. Creep. Maybe not. Any minute now.
IX. Messages app of Thao’s iPhone 5S: hi hi wya boy On my way! come thru i got something for u ;) its a blunt lol Lol On my way!
X. Abram had never moved like this before. He shook like he was trying to balance on a pair of earthquakes instead of Nikes. What Could Go Wrong:
- The plan fails. Jerry’s Fish Emporium completes donation to the College, the College completes investment in assault rifles and fossil fuels, assault rifle and Thao’s jacket pocket/hypothalamus: fossil fuel industries complete transactions to Fuckface Dumbshit 2020, Fuckface Dumbshit 2020 completes his Room key. Jerry’s Fish Emporium key. Toyota Corolla key. promise of the bigoted bullshit that got him elected Ever seen the kid before? - The ever-present risk of death Rubber spiral keychain thing. Backwoods. Defunct - Thao thinks your hair is weird Toyota Corolla beeper. Maybe took an art class with him once. Abram goes to knock, but the door pushes open under Gym membership tag. Hyvee Fuel Savers tag. his fist. Thao did not strike him as the kind of gal with Maybe sat next to him in the college counseling center an open-door policy. Unless, she was already watching him. waiting for Therapy Stacy. Pepper spray. Refillable butane lighter. Ninja star. Fenty Yo. Hit it, it’s still cherried. 15
XI. Thao had never felt this high before, though she’d only hit it twice. wow he looks pretty different in person and his hair is sticking up kinda funky in the back but he’s pretty cute and he seems to like my blunt i guess i’m not bad at rolling after all ha fuck you greg you were a shitty chem partner and an even shittier dealer what is he talking about what is he thinking about is he thinking about 2020 is he thinking about the dissolution of capital is he thinking about his mortal coil is he thinking about his union-buster ex who works for admissions now is he comparing me to her does he know the plan is a go does he know jerry’s is down does he know i’m a registered democrat fuck i hope not or i’ll probably have to ninja star him FUCK i don’t want to do two crimes in one day i’m just not ready for that yet does he know does he know does he know oh shit the door’s opening shit shit hide the blunt SHIT SHIT SHIT IS THAT FUCKING JERRY XII. No looking back, thought Abram looking back. Four sneakers tapping against the concrete of the parking 16
lot—his and Thao’s—gentle enough not to alert Jerry inside the house but swift enough to get the fuck out of there. Four sneakers tapping is suddenly two sneakers tapping, just Abram racing forward. He stops. One of Thao’s fingers rests on her lips, another extends towards a dirty white G Wagon. Stamped on the back, two bumper stickers: the college logo in Futura Medium and a smiling, winking goldfish. The keys are still in. A low rumble. The V8 engine tickles Thao’s ears, just soft enough that she knows it’s there. She pulls herself through the driver’s door. Kicks open the passenger for Abram. He’s smiling. I’m smiling. Why are we smiling. The low rumbling becomes a lower louder rumbling becomes a deafening roar becomes a SKRRRRRTTTTT. As the car pulls out of the lot, something in the trunk slides loose with a thunk. Abram worms to the back seat and peers over the headrest. Uh!! He scoops one of the dozens of waterfilled plastic bags bouncing in the trunk, jutting it towards Thao’s cheek. She glances to her right. Elephant-nose cichlid, she declares, and another prisoner to all this systemic bullshit.
We always knew liberation would start at Jerry’s Fish Emporium. I think it might already have a name. Just in a language we don’t speak. Anyone could have known that. What matters is what we do now. Damn, Craft of Poetry is a hell of a class, huh? Fuckface Dumbshit Lake. Thao stepped even harder on the gas. Anyone with connections can Shut up, dumbass and she squeezed his hand to tell him get a lake named after them. Especially if the lake it was time. Abram tipped over the opened bag and is located on the property of a small liberal arts out plunked a stream of water and a single fish. He college that sends you fat checks of blood money imagined a bird swooping to the surface of the lake on a monthly basis. Anyway, Thao had done her and massacring it, or a massive wave bubbling from research. PH levels, year-round water the core of the earth and rejecting the new inhabitant temperature, natural predators, algae blooms. like a mismatched organ. But the fish swam along, The lake would be just fine. unharmed, at least for now.
Do you wanna go somewhere pretty, cyber boy?
Sounds good to me.
Siri, take us to Fuckface Dumbshit Lake.
The purple sun shone ribbons of light through the plastic bag, stunning against the scales of the elephantnose cichlid. The fish gawked at Abram and Thao, hanging in a bag from Abram’s fist, swinging above the rippling surface of the lake, confused. Do we name it? asked Abram.
Well, that was nice, said Thao, already undoing the next plastic bag. Then, after all of the fish were freed, What’s next? We follow the plan. First, Jerry’s Fish Emporium. Next, the world.
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dried already Chan Htoo Sang these days please stop and think about how these edges of your fingernails trace the borders of my country please set up the boundaries and tell me about these days and clay pots that I’ve yet to center in this corner that lacks your warm touch or maybe I rush too much or these days have piled up against the edges of my room like the laundry I forgot to do after you spent the night with me covered in sweat
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around these days take your hands off my wavering thoughts and let them linger on a clothesline left to dry but these days I am dried already the closet that I try to fit does not fit me anymore these days and the truths of folding my thoughts are an example of me taking my shirt off my dried body to plunge them into a bucket of sweat I’ve collected over these days knowing that suspicious acts only desire a small drop of dried detergent determined to drag the thoughts of sweat off my dried body
Puddle | Nana Okamoto | digital photograph
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Book Guide for Exploration of How Media Affects Cultural Identity| Sofia Mendez| digital photograph, paper, thread
Yellow & Blue no. 4 |James Coffey| digital photograph
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Achilles Nora Paul I won’t forget that itch; pink bumps on tan skin That bloomed ribbons of blood down my ankles When they ripened with the summer heat And the sun cut them open That sting when fingernails wandered back And broke the skin that had healed over time Blood spots on pale skin Puckered round the edges like sun’s rays I learned how enclosed in warmth, nature keeps— Wrapped around swinging hands And up-curled lips Until it falls and drips slick rose from scarred heels. 22
Seams | Anne Rogers | raveled wool sweater and seams of clothes (secondhand linen tablecloths and synthetic/ cotton thread). Both sweater and clothing worn almost exclusively by artist for 65 days. (left and above)
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Return Shipping Instructions Roasn Nisa The cookie crumbs at the bottom of the care packages you send me the building rubble between teeth of an excavator confiscating, Occupied with building walls from felled stone body, mind running into the ground how come there’s nothing real between the building bits? “You have the right of not sharing with friends; return shipping instructions” not necessary. How to see inside without ripping off the notes written by your parent. I told myself I wouldn’t, but I pour crumbs in my mouth and lose teeth to stone.
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KonYar| Paul Chan| digital photograph 25
Across the Border Roasn Nisa Grandpa’s crystal collection and cat urine as Dust suspending me As the past alive As land shelled back into النكبة As I try to inhale it As a child does with a father’s father (he lives in a ghost city with good rye, just something to exhale) to keep it from lineage As a matzah ball corner deli soup next to tooth-gap Debris Sites sniffing up Grandpa seeing Dog playing poker (across my state) and puffed-eyed outdoor neighbors seeing dog playing dead (across their State) you’re next.” As if for replacing my wheezing parts gathered from his vacant rugs/drywall/bed my silent body quick to storm As in the back of the sanctuary at the Sh’ma דָֽחֶא הָוהְי ּוניֵהֹלֱא הָוהְי לֵאָרְׂשִי עַמְׁש 26
It’s the Tree of Life though It’s not Lewy Body It’s OK, I can scribble grandpa’s left hand balances the pen but the left hand doesn’t know what to right the court and synagogue inhaling his/their ghost shuffling to the beema/dais the right hand gives the sentence (across their State) bring the death penalty into vogue hands brought together waiting on the same God to עַמְׁש It’s any/body It’s not what we expect It’s the same tree mobilizing the desert Created by dust of Recent rubble and not running Between those collapsing walls of prayer/Occupation/floral print Rightfully returning. 27
Side Ally Cottrell She stays elusive, a side eye in the side mind, but I still imagine her as fuzzy, ghostly, kind. Just reminding me of the facts’ feelings as the sun rises, jump-ropes across the clock, and fades off into the next. She stays constant
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Concrete #1 |Quynh Nguyen| monotype print
—my other side, my better side, my grotesque side, my supermodel, swaying waddle, smirking, scoffing, sad side. A body double, hazy as a poltergeist, understanding as an owl. She stays, imagining, imagined.
Concrete #2|Quynh Nguyen| monotype print
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Last Will Ally Cottrell
I give; the left pinky to the driver of the car I get closest to hitting;
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the right pinky to that driver’s 2nd true love, who didn’t ascribe to monogamy after all;
its muscle, that arm, to the world’s 2nd best solver of puzzles;
the muscles of the right calf to the farmer whose chicken I first ate at age 10;
the soles of the feet to to the first marathoner the person reading this can find;
the bones to the subject of my most listened-to break-up song;
the heart, cold and squishy as a dead jellyfish, to you;
the fat on my right arm to the current resident of that first street, the one whose name I don’t remember.
all the rest to the wolves, but a pound of flesh for the patriarchy that wanted bodies that weren’t theirs.
Rickie’s Blues| Winnie Commers | digital photograph
Mano de Cielo | Sofia Mendez| digital collage
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Self Portrait|Rachel Eber|watercolor, colored pencil
John S. Osler III
Pink|Winnie Commers|digital photograph
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The Long Table Hannah Bentley She was wearing a fur coat—that was the first thing noticeable about the woman. A big cat’s fur, spotted. She wore it around with pride, as though she had hunted it, eaten the meat, the flesh inside, and then preserved the pelt carefully: a prize that she had won for herself. She never seemed to be able to feel the warmth from it—she was only the person situated inside of it; it was a marvel and she was its caretaker. She had her own warmth, a light that emanated from her toes and then straight up to her head, to her face; she was red-cheeked, freckled delicately across the nose, youthful despite her age. Skylar stared at her with a quiet, bright fascination from the other end of the dinner table. Her mother had told her nothing about the woman, only that she would be eating dinner with her tonight, in a mansion held together by marble pillars and unused candles. Her mother had not informed her of the length of the table, nor that she and the woman would be the only ones here. The woman held out a hand towards Skylar,
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open-palmed: a gesture. A smile broke the soft seal of her lips and then there were teeth, white teeth that had never seen a cavity. “Eat, please,” she said, and her voice was like a bell chiming throughout the room. “There is plenty to go around.” Skylar had never heard of “plenty”—most of the time there was “enough”, a word that was used lightly through the fog of chemo and radiation therapies at the dinner table; there was always “enough” for Skylar. Never for her mother. Her mother was a manager at a clothing store, nothing more, nothing less. She had not gone to college, but she frequently spoke of it with a soft kind of wistfulness, as though youth had never correctly been held in her soft palms. Here, though, there was more than “plenty”: arugula salads lined the edges; cold cuts lay in the middle, next to steak, chicken, pork; biscuits and baguettes tumbled together in a bread basket which, with its large width, nearly overtook the table; an assortment of desserts sat at the end, near the woman. Danishes, tiny shell-shaped chocolates, cupcakes with
cream cheese frosting, an entire cake. It felt like it was someone’s birthday—a rich, lonely person’s birthday— and so, despite all the food, there was still an air of sadness about the room. A suffocating fog that only Skylar seemed to have noticed. The woman was not eating, but she watched the young girl as she picked a biscuit out of the bread basket, cut it evenly, and then spread some sweet butter on each half. She watched the girl take a bite; she saw the euphoria that overtook her face as she allowed her eyes to roll back and then close, a smile stretching her lips apart. Neither of them spoke, for a while; it was the woman’s favorite part of the job, watching the children eat, and so she always allowed it to go on for a while before everything else ensued. She always had the favorite foods in line: for little Skylar it was the bread and the sweet butter; for a boy just before her it was bananas. A whole bunch of them, and he ate every one. There were always other options, but those were just for show. The children would be awestruck by the look of it all, take some vegetables, maybe, and then immediately afterwards go straight to the favorites. Sometimes, there were no favorites. Sometimes, the child would
simply eat anything he could get his hands on. But this was not the case for Skylar. This child, she saw, never starved unless by her own means. She had seen the mother, who was skinny, hollow with worry; but the girl was well-fed when she could be. She ate the biscuit quickly, then went in for another— but she stopped her hand right by the plateful of vegetables, looked to the woman, smiled, and took a small helping of green beans for herself. She was polite. Kind, despite her ailment. The woman smiled, pleased with herself, pleased with the mother, pleased with the girl. “Are you enjoying yourself?” she asked. The girl nodded without thinking, looking at the biscuit that she had just grabbed, eyes hungry. The woman had seen the child before, in pictures, mostly; she had watched the girl from afar, while she was on the swings at the playground, laughing, and then later, when she first started school, and then just a few months after that, at the hospital. Half of the time at the hospital the mother spent by Skylar’s white bed, holding her hand, smiling, laughing with her; the other half of the time she spent in the cafeteria, not eating, dark circles rimming her eyes. Neither of them slept 35
“It felt like it was someone’s birthday–a rich, lonely person’s birthday.”
much throughout that time. There was no time to sleep, no thought of sleep. There was only the hospital and the treatments and the task of making Skylar smile. Skylar, though, had never met the woman. Her mother had spoken to her of a person who would come to her after she was done, but she never imagined her to look like this. So elegant. So wise. So rich, in every sense of the word. Skylar knew what was coming… and she didn’t know why, but she was okay with it. The woman gestured for the girl to come closer and so Skylar wiped off her mouth, stood up from her seat, and went to stand by the woman. The woman turned to the girl, smiled, touched her shoulder. The girl, she could feel, knew so much love and reciprocated it all, if not more; it was overpowering, a pulling grasp on her heart. She felt it pull her mouth up into an ever-growing smile, and then a laugh, and soon both the girl and the woman were laughing and wiping tears from their eyes. There was such joy in the air, and the woman reached out for the child and the child clung to her tightly. Her grasp loosened ever so softly as the seconds ticked away, as the tears grew brighter and the laughs weaker, until little Skylar was lying limp in the woman’s arms. 36
The woman felt her fall, fall back, softly, onto the dark wood floor, beneath the long table. She sat there, breathing, and wiped tears from her eyes slowly. She did not sniffle or gasp; no more tears fell. She did not look at little Skylar. Instead, she picked up her and the girl’s dishes, and put them in the kitchen sink, and washed them and dried them until not a spot was left. When she got back to the dining room and sat down, it was as though Skylar had never been there. A little boy was in her place at the opposite end of the table. The woman held out her hand—a gesture—and smiled. “Eat, please,” she said. “There is plenty to go around.” And so the boy ate.
Dixit Dominus|Marnie Monogue|mixed media 37
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Private Body | Marnie Monogue| mixed media
untitled | Lydia James| fabric, embroidery floss, thread
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In The Mirror based on Shakespeare’s Sonnet #127
Taylor Gaskins Curly hair, full lips, thick legs, brown skin. Each day, waiting for the seal of approval. First declared beauty’s enemy, now friend. While those who remain fair look for removal. Paint brush, needle, bronzer, all for nature? As you lie to yourself, make beauty appear To fit the mold of someone else’s favor. Once rejected, my black skin now seen as dear. So, I will wear my black skin every day, Allow my features to be your playground. As you search for beauty and bow down to pray, Your yearning the force that pulls you down, makes you drown. We are all marionettes pulled by his strings, Losing ourselves to be a man’s anything.
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Jalapeño Peppers Emily Wunsch
We met in the vibrant blue classroom with one hidden window. We were there for four full days and four full nights of poetry. From Emily Dickinson’s end-of-this-line-not-really-dashes to Pablo Neruda’s hundreds of odes to life’s simplicities. I remember how she thoughtfully stared at the texture of the plastic red chairs. She stated that they looked like goose bumps or the seeds in a strawberry. I was the one with the goose bumps. I got them every time she dropped her pencil at my feet or nudged me to show me a noteworthy line of a poem or even sneezed. I was one girl struck by Sappho’s arrow right in the center of the chest. Every day she wore a new combination of striped shirt, jeans and red shoes. I told her she looked like a mime; she laughed. We made each other sandwiches in the cafeteria. She always put too much onion in mine, but I ate it anyway. I told her it was “délicieux.” We shared an earbud, listened
to French rap and took turns blurting out our madeup translations (keeping the French accent of course). She said that the best way to calm someone down is to lightly stroke a line from their forehead down their nose using your index finger. As her finger neared my face, the nerve receptors buzzed and my knee fluttered as if I were undergoing a chemical reaction. She threw me paper airplanes with little windows and escape doors drawn on them. We had fiery dance offs battling for the last jalapeño pepper in the pizza box. She always won. She called me up on the last night and asked me if I believed in God; I said I didn’t know. She asked me if I was gay; I said I didn’t know. She I asked me if I had ever been in love; I said I didn’t know. She asked me to meet her at the stairwell of the dorm building in six minutes and hung up before I could answer. She sat on the fifth step, I sat on the sixth. She read her poems,
“All the vibrance of our short ecstatic tunnel faded into a dim light.”
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and I read mine. The stairwell echoed every bleeding word she said, the sharp sound of her tapping her pencil, her muffled breaths. It was 2 AM. The light was dusty on the chipping walls. I held her hand. The black holes of the galaxy lay in the gaps between our fingers. That moment was absolute. Motionless. A photograph. Her train left the next morning and she didn’t say goodbye. That’s when I realized it was only a tunnel. Ephemeral. The synchronicity of its electric gloom was going to be replaced by plain light. I was going to go back to being a cloned mannequin of my old self. Mindless. Mechanic. I was going to think of her often, then sometimes, then never. She was going blur into the mindlessness of my daily routine. All the vibrance of our short ecstatic tunnel faded into a dim light. Only remembered during a late, lonely night between turns and pillow repositionings. Our tunnel time together was going to become one more vignette of a memory in the mysterious black hole of my mind. She said that she didn’t believe people should say they were “in love.” She said that it sounded temporary. Something you could be in and out of like driving through a tunnel. But for me it was like that. It was like driving through a tunnel where the lights are at the perfect wattage to make it all look like an untouched memory. One where the car is going at just 42
the right speed for the long light tubes on either side to fuse into long streaks, that make you just the right amount of dizzy. One where you make waves with your hand out the window, the air molecules rushing at your fingers as you catch the beat of the song playing with the flick of your wrist. With her it was that absolute experience of musing through a tunnel. The day I got home, while I was unpacking, I found a jalapeño pepper between the pages of my poetry notebook. I ate it; it was still crisp.
Midnight in Burling John S. Osler III I’m on the top floor of the library, reading something I can’t understand. The library is empty and dark. The glare from my lamp turns the window in front of me into a mirror. Every so often, wwhen I don’t think I can take another five syllable word, I look up for a moment and wish I had less acne. I hear a train whistle squealing somewhere off in the cornfields outside of town. A kid broke his leg last year trying to jump on an empty boxcar during finals season. He’d planned to run away and live like some vagrant in the 1930s. I used to wonder how someone that dumb could get accepted into this college. Now I sort of see where he was coming from. I look up at my reflection again. Maybe I’d have less acne if I worried less. That’s not happening any
time soon, though, so I just resolve to get some acne cream tomorrow. There’s that train whistle again, softer and almost sweet. It sounds like it’s coming from inside the library, hiding somewhere back in the shelves. “But what of misnorziac if flimpner ishnith tempremium albanakme?” This passage seems confusing enough to be important, so I try highlighting it, but the marker blurs the words into a stretch of faint grey ink. I try highlight it again and the words disappear. Now the train whistle sounds like it’s coming right over my shoulder. It’s just one long note, high and pure, like a handbell. The sound rises, and my lamp flashes off. I look through the window and see ethereal white lights, like stars, but brighter and closer, blinking on and off as they drift in and out of a swirling black nebula. The
“Maybe I’d have less acne if I worried less… I just resolve to get some acne cream tomorrow.”
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ground is nowhere in sight It only lasts a moment, then the light flickers back on and I’m staring at my own ugly, awestruck face again. The whistle more glorious than I can comprehend, and it seems to be coming from somewhere inside me. I click off my lamp and feel myself drawn into the intermingling light and darkness. There is no window, there is no me. I am part of the cloud, just another point of light, floating in perfect serenity. I can almost feel my cheek pressed against the paper, almost taste the sour drool that soaks out the pretentious words no one understands. I don’t care. I am part of the night sky, trapped like a fly in amber, and I couldn’t be happier.
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untitled | Lydia James| fabric, embroidery floss, thread
Red in Green| Sofia Mendez | digital photograph
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Dancer | Shabana Gupta | ceramics and glaze
Earthy Bottle | Shabana Gupta | ceramics and matte glaze
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Top Hat Zainab Thompson He is called Top Hat, and he no longer remembers what his old name was. Not like he got to pick the new one, of course. None of them did. Neither do any of them have identities of their own. Their real names, their old homes, their entire lives… She had rewritten it all. Her “developing” imagination had created so many twisted stories and versions that he no longer even knows what’s real about him and what isn’t. The others don’t have any clue either. The difference between him and them, however, is that they claim they are content with their existences in The Room. They weather the abuse of their bodies and psyches with plastic expressions and painted on smiles. Since they have free reign of The Room whenever She isn’t present, they’ve deluded themselves into believing in their serenity. He knows better. The Room is a gilded cage, and
they are nothing but toys for Her entertainment and childish fantasies. He’s tried to tell them this on multiple occasions. He’s tried to rally a rebellion, an escape, anything that would express the dissatisfaction that they should logically be feeling… but nothing. They distrust him, ostracize him, because he is Her favorite. As if he has a choice. * He is called Top Hat, and he remembers the needle that sewed his mouth shut. He remembers the excruciating agony, agony that he didn’t even have the capacity to express with tears. Of all the messy stitches and lacerations and scars on his worn body, the decision to silence him forever hurt the worst by far. All he had left was his voice, his opinions, his way to express his beliefs, so of course She had to take that away as well. “It’s not Her fault. She doesn’t know any better.” 47
“He remembers the needle that sewed his mouth shut.”
Sure She doesn’t.
* He is called Top Hat, and he recalls the match tucked inside his little black namesake. Long ago dropped by careless hands, he retrieves it from its hiding spot. It falls to the floor, and he stares at it. It has so much potential. He’d originally kept it simply to have something to call his own, long after She took his voice. This tiny object is capable of so much destruction… * He is called Top Hat, and he discovers quite quickly that his purple fur is flame resistant. The others, however, are not. He listens, as they cry out for help, scream to him when they see him standing there. Quite the role reversal, he muses, for he remembers doing the same thing when She had isolated him in preparation of silencing him. And so, he listens as squeaky toy voices quieten, robotic monotones become mute, and whining wails are hushed. Realistically, he can’t possibly save them all. They’re all scattered throughout The Room. That, however, is assuming he even wants to help them. * 48
He was called Top Hat, and he reflects as a light rain attempts to dampen the flaming ruins before him. She had escaped along with Her superiors, the Great Ones, but the others had all fallen prey to the fire’s hungry maw. All is as it should be. She no longer owns him. No more playtime for you, Young Lady. There’s a strange beauty in the unforgiving flames, leaping eagerly from surface to surface in their slow but determined quest to devour every last morsel of The Room and the rest of the house. In looking at them, he feels a joy like he has never experienced before. * He was called Top Hat, and he has stumbled upon a puddle. He takes a moment to scrutinize himself. Glassy purple eyes stare back at him from the reflection. The rain had washed away his top hat a while ago, revealing quirky, puffy imitations of ossicones protruding from his head, just like a real giraffe. His purple fur is thoroughly soaked, right down into his stuffing, but the rainwater also dissolves the thread keeping his mouth closed. He smiles, because he can, and because he is free. He walks away from what’s left of The Room. His name is Match, and he knows there are others to be liberated.
DeKoi | Isabel Green | material
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Contributors Rachael Arkell ‘22
Isabel Green ‘21
Hannah Bentley ‘22 is a first-year at Grinnell College and intended English and Psychology double-major from Wisconsin.
Shabana Gupta ‘22 wants to focus on exploring her own artistic abilities, which means experiencing different mediums, different forms, and different glaze combinations. There’s no favorite type of art; everything is in development. Thus, she presents to you all some of her Beginnings, combinations of ideas, forms and colors that she hasn’t attempted before.
Paul Chan Htoo Sang ‘21 needs rice to function. James Coffey ‘21 is a chemistry major. They can usually be found titrating in the chemistry lab, or shaking it to Taki Taki on the weekends. Ally Cottrell ‘21 fondly remembers the llama farm she visited at age eleven. Winnie Commers ‘22 is doing her best. Steven Duong ‘19 is a ghost and poet. Rachel Eber ‘21 loves eating cottage cheese and riding the bus. Taylor Gaskins ‘20 is an English and Spanish double major from Washington, DC (DC Posse 12). She is also in the teaching licensure program and hopes to get a dual degree in law and divinity after Grinnell. She loves romance, literature, and all things faith. 50
Lydia James ‘19 is a studio art major from Atlanta, GA who particularly loves working with fiber and textile and plans to pursue these mediums in grad school... eventually. Sofia Mendez ‘19 has recently been thinking about the color orange. Marnie Monogue ‘21 is an English major, yet she submitted visual art. She eats a cinnamon raisin bagel for breakfast every morning. Quynh Nguyen ‘19 is from Saigon, Vietnam. She wants to eat doufuhua every morning if possible.
Nana Okamoto ‘20 could probably live off Lucky Charms marshmallows.
either scribbling in a sketchbook or thinking about that fanfic she’ll write one day. Eventually.
John S. Osler III ‘20 is an English major. He works as a prose editor for Inklette and has been previously published in the Grinnell Underground Magazine, Random Sample Review, and Moledro Magazine. He keeps a bi-weekly blog at random-name-generator. blogspot.com.
Anna Tuchin ‘19 is hard on the outside and soft on the inside, like a beetle. Emily Wunch ‘22
Victoria Park ‘21 is a musician, songwriter, and artist from New Jersey. She sometimes searches for emojis on Google when she can’t find them on the emoji keyboard on her phone. Nora Paul ‘22 is interested in Anthropology and Environmental Studies. Aside from writing, she enjoys dance. Anne Rogers ‘19 makes her own bread but does not mill her own flour yet. Zainab Thompson ‘22 occasionally manages to find the right combination of words to make something moderately enjoyable. The other 98% of the time, she’s 51
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