Campus Culture

Nina Oil on board

Ansley Pearson

Collage: A Journal of Creative Expression is a biannual publication of the Middle Tennessee State University Honors College. Each semester the Collage studentled committee receives entries of creative work, such as art, photography, short stories, essays, short plays, song lyrics, poetry, audio, and video from students and recent alumni. The publication is available at mtsu.edu/collage.

Poem for My Former Niece by Amie Whittemore

Soon it will hurt less to remember your hair in my hands, softest foxtails.

Or your voice as you kicked your feet in the bath. Your five-year-old insights, zinnia-bright.

Being your aunt is winning summer, warm rain, and a tap-dancing unicorn.

It’s chocolate cake for breakfast and a tea party with panda bears— please, draw that for me. That’s what I would have asked before the divorce. Now, in this new land, I treat you

like a unicorn. Sugar cubes in my hand, soft whistle in my throat. There’s no word for “former niece.” I’d rather eat

500 pickles than invent such a term. I hope you laugh about those pickles. Rare egg, trust your shine. Know I tend a bouquet for you.

English Lecturer Amie Whittemore's debut poetry collection, Glass Harvest, focuses on our intimate connection to the natural world and how it shapes us. The book explores the struggle of relationships changing (or ending) and how we come to understand and accept our past. Anyone prone to nostalgia and anyone who celebrates the smallest aspects of our everyday world will love Whittemore's work. This poem was featured in the Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor Feb. 28, 2019. Loneliness Is a Lie Gouache painting with string

Maggie Strahle

Infinity Digital photography

Niki Yonkov