Spring 2023 Issue

T he N or T hwes T P assage

Spring 2023

T he N or T hwes T P assage

Western Oregon University’s Student-Run Art and Literature Magazine Spring 2023 Issue

Editor in Chief

Quinlan Elise Editorial Board

Jude Bokovoy

Mikayla Coleman

Ian Kincaid

Abby Schrunk

Mnemosyne McKay

Website

wou.edu/northwestpassage

© 2023 Northwest Passage. All rights reserved. All materials and content within this publication are property of the Northwest Passage, for the duration of first publishing rights, a six month period, after which time all content submitted by the individual contributor reverts back to the author. All materials and content printed here may not be copied, reproduced, or distributed. Any other usage must follow the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialNoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

We did it! Welcome to the Spring 2023 Edition of the Northwest Passage!

I am so proud of what we’ve been able to do this year, setting record numbers of submissions and partipating community members each term (105 submissions from 32 artists this term). The Northwest Passage has been a wonderful opportunity for the Editorial Board and I to provide the talented artists, fine artists, photographers, and writers all included, of Western Oregon University the exposure and recognition that they deserve.

I am regularly impressed with the quality of work submitted for consideration, and I am so grateful and honored to be the one to put it together and share it with the world. Thank you to everyone for trusting the Northwest Passage with your work throughout the year, and I sincerely look forward to seeing what is created next year! Please continue to contribute to and support the Northwest Passage and Western Oregon Student Media- we depend on you!

I hope you enjoy the works in this edition and are able to find something that speaks to you. Art is one of the most powerful and beautiful things that people create; embrace it fully.

e TT er from T he e di T or s ubmissio N g uide L i N es

1. Submit work as attachments via email to northwestpassage@mail.wou.edu.

2. All WOU students, faculty, and alumni over the age of 18 are invited to submit their work.

3. We accept: art of any medium, photography, poetry, short stories, scripts, screenplays, creative essays, spoken-word, lyrics, music compositions, and recordings.

4. Submissions should include a title and be submitted without a name; this helps our editorial board maintain impartialty during the voting process.

5. A maximum of five submissions per creator will be published per issue, but additional submissions may be considered for future issues.

6. Due to space constraints, all written work has a word limit of approximately 1,700 words.

7. Art must be in digital format; please take high quality photos of artwork for best printing result.

8. Music and spoken-word is published in our digital album once a year, during Spring term.

-Quinlan Elise

I came into this world with all the cries of the women that came before me. My mother’s cry harmonized with mine, and in that moment we were one.

I discovered the world was a place that needed to be preceded with caution. My first steps were wobbly- I had trouble standing on my own for a long time. I was too afraid of falling. Of not being able to get back up again. I quickly learned not to be nervous to fall, because my mother was always there to help kiss my wounds goodbye.

Claire Phillips

When my hands touched the damp earth, I felt roots taking place in my fingers. Mother Nature was there to help me along as well. The outside world was no longer a place to fear.

My devout Catholic grandmother once said she liked the idea of God being a woman. Why couldn’t it be possible? Isn’t God supposed to be the creator of all things in Heaven and on Earth? Why wouldn’t She be a mother?

I kneeled and prayed to be cared for by my Mother.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve had unfortunate reasons to become wary of the outside world again.

I miss the carefree spirit I used to be. There are often many days that I feel so small on this great big spinning rock. All I want is to be held like a small child again. For all my worries to be kissed goodbye. Then I wash my face, and I see my mother and all the generations before her staring back at me in the mirror. I’m not alone.

I allow my body to reconnect with the earth

I take a minute to breathe

I look to the cerulean skies above

And I remember there will always be a mother watching over me.

Bubblegum Tea Set Nemi McKay

Snake Pot Nemi McKay

to it Aspen Petersen

Naturesque

Emelie Shay

Captivity

McKinzie McBride

Lifted, liberated, freed

From the prison where my own mind has been holding me captive

A cage built from guilt and self doubt

Locked away with hate

And buried in regret

A dark place

Sounds only of my voice telling me

You don’t have a choice

Do I remain a prisoner of my own thoughts

Or do I become my own savior?

Lifted, liberated, freed

Balloon Delusion

Delaina Soboloski

Fertile Soil

Aleta DeBolt

Precious flowers in this bed planted in worship, outlasting both sun and moon, roots sturdier than the sea. Our garden without blame, without slur, tended by passion and praise, is welcomed into the real world, and we with one language, one name, one tribe laying, always two together constitute the field.

Serenity

Ian Kincaid

Underwater Wonder

Mikayla Coleman

Watching the Fireworks

Lillian Axelson

A burst of color filled the sky, the resounding boom knocking Avery out of her thoughts. For just a moment, the small clearing was lit with greens, reds and pinks. The trees cast shadows and the mosquitos that buzzed around her face were brought into view. Stones littered the area. She grounded herself in the fireworks, the color, the sound, that sharp smell of gunpowder and copper in the air. Avery grounded herself in the view of the town from her small clearing on the hill; the lights seemed so far away from up there. And she grounded herself in the feeling of tree bark pressed against her spine, her sweater the only barrier between wood and skin. It was nice. It was nice to just be able to come up to her clearing. To get away from all the celebrations in town where she just felt like an outsider looking in.

“I miss you,” she said. The sound of fireworks and the parties in town swallowed her words whole. That was fine, these were just for her anyway.

“I miss when we used to do this together.” The explosion was a shower of gold. “I miss when we used to come up here together… when we’d lean against this tree, and you’d lean your head on mine.” Someone set off another mortar in the distance.

“You’d talk about all the things we’d do together.” Red and pink. “Ice cream at the corner store. Horror movies on a full moon. Finishing school. Doing something… anything together.”

There was a break in the fireworks, the darkness was suffocating.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye. Kat…” A crash of red and yellow.

“Doesn’t make sense. People aren’t supposed to leave like that.” She slapped at a bug. This flash was bright enough for her to make out the marble slab next to her. She didn’t glance down, instead she looked out.

“You weren’t supposed to leave like that.” A car alarm went off alongside yet another bang.

Avery pulled her knees up to her chest, letting herself rest her cheek on them and look down at the slab. With the light of the fireworks she could almost make out the epitaph.

“...It wasn’t fair. Not to you.” The wind blew strong enough for

leaves to be knocked from the trees, and strong enough for the rustle of them to be heard over the holiday sanctioned explosives.

The bark pushed into her back a bit more as she adjusted how she sat. Her butt had gone numb awhile ago and her feet had pins and needles. She didn’t move, just stared down at Kat’s grave, ignoring how the flashes of light lit up the others in the cemetery. She’d always found it morbid that their spot was in a graveyard, but Kat had liked the view. Avery hated the irony.

“Guess you always did like the time we spent here, huh?” A leaf fell onto the headstone and she reached down to brush it off. She spoke softly, words carried in the wind and drowned in an explosion.

Lava

Lamp

Delaina Soboloski

I want to continue to watch clouds

Move above me, To see the ocean tease the sandbanks

Across edges of continents, To watch frozen treats accidentally melt In drops onto pavement, To feel the way warmth of a wood fire

Creeps into my marrow, To hear the natural violence of thunder wrack Itself across flattened land.

Let Me Thrive

S. McKenzie

To be alive again, to bear witness to the grand symphony that is existence.

Find Sun Through Shade

Jude Bokovoy

Jennifer Heather Green

hey hey lover you’re still burning

Steven Cummings

A red sun appeared

The men and women would break

They’ve scrabbled at it long enough

It’s too late

To pump blood back into the land

All crops fail one day

Can’t we just hang on?

We don’t know. We don’t know.

This here’s my country.

Where does the courage come from?

It’s a free country.

Where does the terrible faith come from?

When even hope is gone.

You won’t see. You can’t see.

You’re buying what will plow

Your own children under.

Who can we shoot?

Years of sun and wet and dust

We’re all that’s been

Maybe we can start again

This land, this red land, is us

We can’t start again.

That’s us until we’re dead.

How can we live without our lives?

This land is so much more than its analysis

But the machine man, driving a dead tractor

On land he does not know and love

And, oh, my God, it’s over.

There ain’t room enough for you and me

The houses were left vacant

And the land was vacant

The path of a people in flight

Running from dust and shrinking land.

Sun & Dust

Renee

a found poem from John Steinbeck’s TheGrapesofWrath

You Are Magic

Quinlan Elise

¡Soy Brenda!

Brenda Cruz

Tengo un nombre común como cualquier otro, mi madre cuenta que cuando era joven vio mi nombre escrito en un caja de zapatos le gustó y decidió llamarme así, Brenda, mi nombre es Brenda simple y sencillo al menos eso creía hasta que alguien tuvo la osadía de cuestionar mi nombre. Aparentemente, el color de mi piel y el acento marcado que tengo al hablar inglés no va de la mano con mi nombre. Para mí Brenda no solo es mi identidad, es una parte indispensable de mi ser, así que cuando alguien me acusa de haber cambiado mi “Mexican name” por uno que suena más “White” no solo es ofensivo sino doloroso. La primera vez fue muy difícil de digerir, pero ahora cada vez que alguien tiene la osadía de cuestionar mi nombre yo solo sonrío y contesto “yep, my name is Brenda, beautiful, huh?

I have a common name like any other. My mother said that when she was young, she saw my name written on a shoe box. She liked it and decided that would be my name. Brenda, my name is Brenda. Easy and simple, at least that’s what I thought until someone had the audacity to question my name. Apparently, the color of my skin and the thick accent I have when speaking English does not go hand in hand with my name. For me, Brenda is not only my identity, but it is an indispensable part of my being. So when someone accuses me of having changed my “Mexican name” for one that sounds “Whiter” it is not only offensive, but painful. The first time it happened, it was really hard to swallow. Now every time someone has the audacity to question my name I just smile and say “Yep, my name is Brenda, beautiful huh?”

Chicle Liz

Slip Teapot

CJ Hawker

CJ Hawker

Glass Skull

Brown Teapot & Cups

CJ Hawker

Hansel & Gretel

Heather Green

Color of Spring

32

Sarah C. Wolfer

A good little military Gf A.

Praudins

Send letters, texts, and care packages, but not too many.

Tell him how much you miss him, but don’t overwhelm him, but also don’t forget to remind him of your love, but don’t sound needy, be supportive, but tell him how you feel, but not exactly how you feel you don’t want to make him feel bad for his choices,

Tell him you’re doing just fine at home, but be honest about the distance, but don’t talk about the distance too much for he’ll fear you’re drifting,

Tell him his family misses him, but not too much for he’ll feel bad for his choices

Tell him you want to talk, but not too much because he needs time with his brothers, but also tell him he needs to make time for you, but actually you need to be independent.

Just tell him...

Sarah C. Wolfer

Ix Chell February

How to Beat Writer’s Block

Jasper Beck to Death

the boy wrist pounding out

poetry with dead lines

upsidedowns his spiral with left hand pen strokes to get his juices flowing hot

yet Nothing comes so he writes that he’d fuck with suicide (n.) if it meant a good idea.

Beluga & The Oak

The Hoover Family

Campbell Hall Second Floor

Emelie Shay

Campbell Hall Side Nook

Emelie Shay

Cherry Stems

Ayla Adkins

Some people tie cherry stems into knots

Timing themselves and taking bets

The fastest knot wins

The tightest knot means extra points

Your reward is the title of ‘best kisser’

Congratulations

Those with trauma have a similar game

We yank the words from our throats

Putting the puzzle together in our mouths

Trying to taste each piece

Cutting our tongues on the sharpest edges

We win by making a resemblance of a picture and spitting it out

But instead of being crowned ‘best kisser’

We just know who’s been going to therapy regularly

For I may know the language of men

But a woman’s tongue is not one I am fluent in So forgive me if I stumble

My darling

Please do not misunderstand my caution

For lack of interest

My heart is already slow

Having to peel its own scales off one by one

To make the space for the emotional commitment

I crave to give you

Even if the language you live by Is one I am still trying to master

Give me time

One day I will speak it so fluently

That you will think it’s my mother tongue

Fluency

Ayla Adkins

Freeway

Jasper Beck

In spite, I love the freeway: the voice of asphalt buzzing through 10 and 2, falling in with tetrised semis

and bugs, all of us like being in transit, straight lines across empty americana, barb-wired grass in nothing lots, the feeling of progress towards concrete places, the mapped-out world, flat, after all.

Is This What We Call Sisterhood?

Ayla Adkins

Keep your pity

She doesn’t want to see the sympathy that drapes your eyes.

Keep your pity

She doesn’t want the coddling that you so willingly provide.

She did not speak her horrors so you could pity her existence. She did not inform you of her pain so you could come to her assistance. No

This is not for you

So don’t look at her like that No

This is not for you

So stop that

Stop spitting vile lies from your tongue

When your ego experiences deprivation

She doesn’t want your pity

She isn’t looking for your attention

Don’t mock her pain

Because this isn’t for your entertainment

This is for her

Because she survived and that is her attainment Author’s Note

My stolen line, “Keep your pity”, from the following citation:

Nikita, Gill. “Cora Doesn’t Live Here

Anymore.” Your Heart is the Sea, Thought Catalog Books, 2018, p. 141.

Sometimes I felt unworthy of the sun shining on me. Back in times where I didn’t want to see the light because it reminded me of who I was becoming.

Something different, unsure of what that would look like I became grey. I was content to disappear in the darkness of my room. Till I became like the ghosts who used to haunt me. Always there, faint, but could catch your eye even just for a second. For a moment before you brushed it off and pretended not to see. I was content with not becoming happy in life during a time where I stayed up so late so that I could never bear witness to the sun rising again. Pushed myself in darkness to forget about the things that were once important. Just a spirit floating endlessly on earth. Lost to a feeling that words couldn’t describe..

I’m not sure what changed me one day.

I was tired of hiding the sun that ran through my veins. Tired of the porcelain mask that had started cracking, chipping..

Tired of being friends with people who saw me as an opportunity and not a person.

Something to manipulate.

I had beaten myself down into an empty husk. Had turned myself to ash amongst earth.

I was born again into something greater.

Something that can not be broken.

El Macs

Campus Bluebells Claire Phillips

43

Where in Hell?

Lucas Montpart

I was told Hell is like a desert, A cold, desolate environment, Shivery dunes and dust, A far, never-ending stretch. Embers light the horizon, But only just a dim.

Bright white, a distant sun, You can look up and see heaven

Growing Tall Ian Kincaid

Disco Danger Penis

Nemi McKay

Where’d All The Time Go?

Mikayla Coleman

Thanks for reading!

Spring 2023