IMAGES
FORT LEWIS COLLEGE’S JOURNAL OF LITERATURE, ART, AND MUSIC
SPRA Editor-in-Chief Benjamin F. Brewer Design Team Lead Meg Langhoff Public Relations Lead Rachel Lee Workshop Coordinator Kat Pamplin Radio Producer Brendan Ressler ABOUT IMAGES Magazine is Fort Lewis College’s journal of writing, art, and music. Please visit our website flcimages.fortlewis.edu for more.
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
AWL HONORABLE MENTIONS
POETRY ART PROSE MUSIC BIOS
03 05 09 13 15 17
HONORABLE MENTIONS
by Megan Brand
by Ian Smith
WINNERS
THIRD PLACE WINER
by Xaver Johnson NOT YET, NOT NOW, NOT EVER Forever you’ll stay, caught in the wind-sway The shaking Goliath, gold Sprawling Spilling Filling the world to the point of bursting Infinite tides of pale-yellow husks Walk, brushing red crusted stalks of crested wheatgrass And swallow, make, just a little more hollow True infinity, bending Everlasting Spreading over the boiling hills Through the frothing valleys Between the crashing mountains See the golden seafoam fibers rain Gain past years of pain And The Field grows longer And taller Longer And taller Yet taller Taller still Till Nothing remains But the scent of gold haze On the great horizon
SECOND PLACE WINNER
Sprawling like my stuff in bins through security Like the flights between states make me believe home Isn’t in one place. Sprawling as a dead cat’s guts on highways Highways crossing states and by Utah we forgot To count the roadkill. Sprawling my body between masses of movement That aren’t driven by me Trusting in someone to navigate The whole of myself.
by Barbara Edwards
FIRST PLACE WINNER
black widow spilling into crib fridge dead, no milk, the baby is a fire alarm a thick thumb on a chained fence, empty bottle of gin molasses days have not ate all day, don’t get into the backseat the grope of knee bone truck stop sinks lips on the stop sign. her lip stick stain kills in the heat of vulturelust baby cry baby discarded ditch, dirt & dry dirt under nails, under hair, underwear what a missing woman has in common with a stray dog
by Shalee Rowley
WINNERS
THIRD PLACE WINER
by Veronica Johnson
SECOND PLACE WINNER
by True Newsilver
FIRST PLACE WINNER
by Madi Brunetti
WINNER
YOU CAN’T CHOOSE by Megan Brand
Remember when you got the news. When you thought he was going to be okay, but he had somehow gotten worse since you last heard. “Hospital” echoed in your brain over and over until you cried yourself to sleep, trying to find hope. Remember the ringtone that played every single time the hospital called to give updates--never good. Even when the hospital no longer had reasons to call, your heart sank upon the first notes. Remember the texts you sent trying to send positive energy, but you never got a response. Remember holding your mom’s hand sitting in the abandoned hospital waiting room, staring at the textured wall behind the empty coffee pot, tears streaming down both of your faces. Remember the second hospital’s waiting room with the too-loud TV blaring horrendous news while your life crumbled in front of you. Remember the plastic PPE that trapped every emotion and scream within you until you couldn’t take it anymore, so you left. Remember the first song you heard after your father took his last breath, but remember to laugh about it later. And three sad faces gather ‘round Mama, They ask her when Daddy’s comin’ home.
WINNER by Elijah Emmit
My original song “Flightless” is a Neo-Soul/R&B-inspired tune. During the recording process, I used my Fender SG as a foundation and then layered samples from Abelton to create texture. I used a sample from Abelton to create the bass track and a good friend of mine laid down the drum track to finish the recording. The inspiration for this song came from a relationship I was in at the time and encompasses emotions that occurred during some intense moments in this relationship. I decided to use the metaphor “Flightless” to embody the feeling of being lost, and not knowing what the next move should be. Some musical inspirations for this song include artists like Stevie Wonder, Leon Bridges, Hiatus Kaiyote, and many other artists spanning a wide array of genres. I was primarily inspired by the jazzy elements of neo-soul and the vocal styles of classic R&B singers while creating this track.
MEGAN BRAND
MADI BRUNETTI
Megan Brand is a Writing major who grew up in a small town in Texas. When she isn’t in class or working, Megan loves to journal, play with her dog, Boomer, watch movies and tv shows, and craft.
I’m a Studio Art major from Denver, Colorado. My current work combines my interest in lepidopterology with colorful distortion of the human form. I work in a variety of mediums including oil paint, oil pastels, and hand embroidery.
BARBARA EDWARDS
My name is Barbara Edwards and I am a poet studying English and Journalism at Fort Lewis. My last semester here has been discombobulatingly incongruent.
VERONICA JOHNSON I’m Veronica Johnson, and my preferred medium is collage or digital art. I use lots of words/song lyrics in my art, which I feel is a visual representation of my thoughts, as I have OCD and Autism. My major is Gender & Sexuality Studies, and I’m minoring in Studio Art.
XAVER JOHNSON My name is Xaver Johnson. I am an Anthropology major here at Fort Lewis and I am currently in my sophomore year.
TRUE NEWSILVER My name is True Newsilver and I am 18. I am a sophomore majoring in Chemistry. I sometimes take pictures.
SHALEE ROWLEY My name is Shalee Rowley and (currently) I am fond of lengthy rain walks, expensive coffee shops, audiobooks, and Korean cuisine. I am in Fort Lewis’ Master’s of Education program and student teach at an inner-city high school in Indianapolis, IN.
IAN SMITH I am a hobbyist photographer that enjoys sharing my work with the world. I enjoy hiking, photography, and camping. I am also a Psychology major here at the Fort and I intend on becoming a counseling psychologist.
EDITOR’S NOTES How much meaning can be contained in a single word? A word, by itself, can not encapsulate the sheer breadth of lived experience here on campus, but perhaps “SPRAWL” comes close. For this very reason, I was ecstatic when we chose this theme because I believed that the submissions our staff received would not conform to a single note, form, or structure. On November 6th, my intuition proved to be correct when I opened my inbox. In this publication, no work is truly like the others that precede or come after it. Together, however, they form a cohesive whole. These pieces of music, art, prose, and poetry are truly something that we here at IMAGES Magazine are proud to publish. More importantly, though, they are all unique reflections of the creative diversity here at Fort Lewis College. I hope that, in some way, they reflect the very person who turns these pages. Wa do, Benjamin F. Brewer IMAGES Editor-in-Chief