Literati 11th Edition - Parallels (Teaser)

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Parallels 11th

2 Editor’s Note

We tried to pile up our plates this semester. Just looking at this thin teas-

er booklet would give you an inkling of how we did things a little differently with this new edition that marks our 11th effort. Parallels. At the close of last semester, it was evident that many from CATS would be diverging paths: leaves of absence, new commitments, study abroad, returns to home universities, graduation. Yet life goes on and the shared love for creative exploration swept in a new crop of bright eyed, energetic individuals forming a reinvigorated CATS Literati team. With dynamics as conducive as this to challenging past traditions, we broke with as many as we could.

Just how many ways can we do the same thing differently? Parallels..

We

anchored

ourselves

meaningful

experiments

learnt,

not

are

always

from

the

need found

beginning

their equal.

with

constants.

Lives

a

theme;

Parallels, don’t

run

for

all

as

we’ve

pari

passu.

Parallels lose their way and then they find themselves, at the right time and place.

Choosing to coordinate meetings with a webcam across campuses in two

cities transformed not just CATS’s demographics but, like ripples, spatially reconfigured our gatherings to give faces rather than words the center of attention. Indeed parallels present limits to intimacy, but as you would find in these pages, visual intimacy creates ripples of meaning that can only emanate from the borders of some separation. The world is richer than we know in ideas and emotions and oftentimes, it takes just a nudging expectation to transform reading and also seeing.

A

big “Thank You” to all our contributors and a pat on the

back for every member of the Team for pulling through. I invite you, dear reader, to delve into the folds of the Literati 11th Edition. When you put it back down, tuck it away gently to one day discover it anew.

Kaiying Fu P.S.

Don’t

forget

to

check

out

the

full collection

on

our

website!

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Table of Contents Of Collecting the City by Yeakyung Kim............................................................6 The Staff of the Wanderer by Brandon Marlon............................................7 Layers by Jina Kim.......................................................................................................................8

Pointed Universe by Clare Shin..................................................................................9 A View by Cana Fallon.......................................................................................................10 To Trade a Thing of Beauty by Cana Fallon...................................................11 Elevator by Alyse Brower................................................................................................12 The scary tree by Jia Gen.....................................................................................................13

A Darker Peace - Clare Shin.........................................................................................14 Brigde by Jina Kim.....................................................................................................................15

Under Watch of Arthur Ganson’s Machine with Oil

by Hedgie Choi.........................................................................................................................16 Quixotic by Mike Ruiz..........................................................................................................17 Staircase Elevator - Jia Gen.........................................................................................18 Three Great Towers - Jia Gen.....................................................................................19

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Member’s choice Gene, portriats of luminescence - Portraits of Luminescence eloquently translates the art of photography into words and emotions. This piece gives us a vivid glimpse into the lives of the author and his family. As a photography enthusiast, the essay gave me a new perspective on the process behind the making of a picture.

Ji young, Gender Divergence - In the photo of the boy and the girl sitting back to back to each other, a hourglass shape appears between them due to the the light that shines from behind. The cup shape on the top and the triangle on the bottom reminded me of the chalice and blade symbolism in one of Dan Brown’s novels. According to the book, the chalice and blade represented woman and man, respectively. The unintentional representation of male and female made me feel that perhaps such symbol was imbued with such meaning because it was a naturally created picture.

Maple, Under Watch of Arthur Ganson’s Machine with Oil. Hedgie - The poem is strange but humourous with its barely veiled implications of bedroom time. It is almost sexy: Get sticky with us, yet the image is too particular to become crude. And who is being watched really, the couple with their supple sheets, or the machine’s oil covered body that seems to imitate their activity?

Kimberly Yu, Flower At Sea - This poem is full of vivid imagery and fluid language. The rhythm of the poem hits you like waves and images of sea are surprisingly and brilliantly grounded in everyday objects. The abstract “them” keeps you distant, but the intimate details we’re provided with and the use of “you” and “we” in the poem draw us in.

Kaiying, Of Collecting the City - I really enjoyed this poem! Her words are gentle as they are draining – creating a sense of adventure that tries to empower but winds up isolating. I was drawn to the sense of displacement invoked by her use of imagery already divorced from the typical mental picture of a ‘city’.

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Parallel 11th Edition of Literati

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6 Of Collecting the City

by Yeakyung Kim

Your eyes well up burning sand because the winds have no rhythm.

The night is freckled and pulls blissful at your locks, yet you heard not a crisp of the epilogue of summer. There is a call to you that echoes in clouds Shadowing these carmine hills.

Inhale the brume and sip slowly the rustling of oaks in the pathless.

And when your lover beckons at a place where shores roar lonely, forget not your bareness gone and the slow-dancing stars.

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7 The Staff of the Wanderer

by Brandon Marlon

Stars escort the moon at night as compelled migrants traverse mysterious vastnesses.

Ancient trails bridge strange lands, meandering amid void expanses foreign and menacing to drifters.

Desert air chills anxious sojourners gazing upon their pathless waste layered with rock and darkness.

Parched exiles gasp heartfelt relief upon first discerning scarce wells storing the precious source of life.

Unnerved by the diurnal strife natural to nomadic existence, wayfarers seek refuge in faith.

Overnight weeping dissipates, receding before dawning hope, a foretaste of serene horizons.

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Layers - Jina Kim

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Pointed Universe - Clare Shin

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A View

by Cana Fallon

A simple cup on my bookshelf, The blinds catch the breeze from the mountain The scent rises of unidentifiable trees.

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To Trade a Thing of Beauty

by Cana Fallon Mornings are exquisite with sounds never heard and sights anew the birds conference excitedly, the cars begin their race, trees stretch and colours parade. Water moves up as stars step back – for all to see the world is alive in a way unique to time, but I am tired, so let me sleep.

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12 Elevator

by Alyse Brower every third or so time I meet your horrified eyes I am déjà vu and anxiety or a monster the midday locked door a right place - wrong time to maybe move on already your feelings are feelings and me cheating you yes I slept with him. and liked it three or four times a month maybe I dream of an elevator that doesn’t know it’s ceiling helium-filled metal Rising higher and higher passing the last floor knowing I have to jump I look like you every third or so time you see me.

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The Scary Tree - Jia Gen

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A Darker Peace - Clare Shin

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Bridge - Jina Kim

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Under Watch of Arthur Ganson’s Machine with Oil

by Hedgie Choi

The liquid is the kind of luscious that doesn’t ripple when something foreign dips through it.

The tin bucket emerges from it dripping, swings to the pinnacle and tips 70 weight motor oil over its body, still wet from the last rotation. We watch the determined gears grinding against themselves.

We whisper confidentially to the machine, Get sticky with us. We do not last so long in bed but our sheets are supple, with thread counts over 200.

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17 Quixotic

by Mike Ruiz

Right now Hayley Atwell’s around eighty something And stars are exhumed from coffins of ice Ask them, what is it that doesn’t feel right?

Twenty-something always proper and prim Blond hair and blue eyes outshining lense flares Draped in star spangled banner held aloft Tied to fists that have knocked down old Adolf No one needs to tell you life isn’t fair Go and just throw it away, who won’t yield?

Besides your single room apartment bed And the dance she promised stuck in your head Crack another skull on your star and shield But at night, try to forget that you’re sore None to ask, “who are you without your war?”

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Staircase Elevator - Jia Gen

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Three Great Towers - Jia Gen

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20 ABOUT THE AUTHORS & POETS & ARTIST & PHOTOGRAPHERS

John Patrick Allanegui is from the Philippines. He is currently engaged with the public sector and is the managing editor of Verstehen, a social science publication based in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of the Ateneo de Manila University. His works have appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Dagmay, Sun Star, and GMA News, among others.

Hedgie Choi is a junior majoring in Information Interaction Design.

Wow!

Cana Fallon is currently an exchange student at Yonsei University, but from Toronto, Canada, where she is completing her International Bachelor of Arts at York University. She is an ESL teacher, traveler, photographer and writer trying to see the world in new ways.

Jia Gen Raised in Singapore, Jiagen has always dreamed of travelling across the world. After graduating from high school at the age of 16, Jiagen discovered his passion for photography on a solo trip to Myanmar.

He has since continued capturing unforgettable moments on his travels, always bringing a different flare to every photo he takes.

Jina Kim once described herself in a college admissions essay: “I am an Oriental Rose blooming in an African jungle.�

Pamela Seong Koon, like most twenty-year olds, has no idea of what to do with her life. She laments about this in her spoken word poetry and while video gaming for twelve hours at a time.

Yeakyung Kim is currently a CLC student, class of 2014. She was born in India, grew up in South Africa and studied classical music in the Berlin University of Arts before she moved to Korea. She has always had great appreciation for creativity and good cheese.

Brandon Marlon is a writer from Ottawa, Canada. He received his B.A. in Drama and English from the University of Toronto and his M.A. in English from the University of Victoria. His poetry has been published variously in Canada, U.S.A., England, Ireland, Greece, Romania, Israel, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Australia, South Africa, and Nigeria.

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Mark Antony Rossi’s poetry, criticism, fiction and photography have appeared in The Antigonish Review, Another Chicago Review, Bareback Magazine, Black Heart Review, Collages & Bricolages, Death Throes, Ethical Spectacle, Gravel, Flash Fiction, Japanophile, On The Rusk, Purple Patch, Scrivener Creative Review, Sentiment Literary Journal, The Sacrificial ,Wild Quarterly and Yellow Chair Review.

Clare Shin Clare is a Junior in the CLC department. She loves to travel, take photos of weird people, and make even weirder props. Her favorite food is lasagne.

Jiyi Um is a junior student in CLC major. She has read and written poems in Korean most of all her life and started writing in English from this year. The poem presented in this issue is one of her favorite pieces of her own.

Cheong Jun Hong is a design thinker by training in Singapore, but practices photography in his free time. He hopes to combine these skills to create art that raises awareness on relatable issues, and eventually address them through problem solving.

Hansol Kim sees colors when he hears music. As ridiculous as it sounds, it is actually a legitimate medical condition. Hansol’s friends often worry that he will one day cut off his left ear and move to southern France.

Mike Ruiz is a wanderlust filled college student currently living, studying and working in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. But still waiting to see the rest of the world.

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Sponsors Yonsei University Underwood International College Judy Heflin Special Thanks to The Team X CATS Literati Design Division: Cyan U, Damian*, Wenson Editorial Division Dohwa Jina Kim, Kimberly Yu, Maple Ip, Ji Young Kim* Productions Division Gene, Matthew*, Rosa Chung, Yoonjo Lee Public Relations Division Allyssa, Kaiying Fu*, Kieu Anh *Division leader

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Contact catsliterati@gmail.com yonseicats.wordpress.com Online magazine - Full collection literatimagazineblog.wordpress.com For future submissions literatisubmissions@gmail.com

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