Quaran-zine by Open Call Magazine

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JUNE 2020

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Front cover: Photo by Callie Wohlgemuth Inside front cover: Photo by Callie Wohlgemuth Models: Lucy James-Olson, Kate Turner

Dear friends, Thank you for reading Open Call Magazine. We ask that in lieu of paying for access to this issue — and the work of over forty contributors and editors who made it possible — you donate to support protestors taking action against police brutality across the country. Please, send us a screenshot or a receipt of your donation to a bail fund or organization providing direct aid to protestors right now (opencallmag@gmail.com). For more information on where to donate, see our website (opencallmag.weebly.com). • For donations of $20 or more, we will provide an artist spotlight for you and your work on our Instagram and our website. • For donations of $30 or more, we will mail a print of a two-page spread (selection listed on our website) from the Quaran-zine anywhere within the U.S. • For donations of $50 or more, we will mention your name as a backer in the next issue of our magazine, OR mail two prints from the Quaran-zine anywhere within the U.S. Thank you in advance for your support.

MISSION STATEMENT Our aim is to collectivize and distribute the voices and creations of a diverse and progressive community â&#x20AC;&#x201C; helping to curate and share the work of young, local artists, and cultivate a thriving Five College arts community. We mean specifically to uplift and promote the voices of POC and QTPOC in the Five College community, but any and all submissions are welcome.

Editors

Zoe Fieldman & Julia Smith

Managing Editor Arts Editors

Lila Goldstein Callie Wohlgemuth & Anais Quiles-Lewis

Writing Editors

Kate Turner & Maren McKenna

Layout Editors

Kate Turner & Callie Wohlgemuth

Editorial Directors

Julia Smith & Callie Wohlgemuth

Social Media Director

Ayu Suryawan

Events Coordinator

Juliette Harrison

June 1, 2020 Note from the Editors..... Thank you for clicking on this exclusive quarantine issue of Open Call, created in these Strange And Unprecedented Times. We aim to carry the same mission as our previous publication: to create a platform so that you, the reader, can cultivate community with and discover new artists and writers. We would like to acknowledge the land that we inhabit and on which this magazine was produced. Mount Holyoke College stands on stolen Nonotuck land bordered by neighboring indigenous nations, including the Nipmuc and the Wampanoag to the East, the Mohegan and Pequot to the South, the Mohican to the West, and the Abenaki to the North. Land acknowledgements do not exist in a past tense, or historical context. We stand with communities fighting against colonialism, police brutality, and the carceral state. We encourage our readers to research local mutual aid networks and engage in community care. During this time of grieving, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been easy to lose sight of support networks. With this issue, we wanted to create something that would uplift and remind us of the connections that are still strong despite distance. When we opened submissions, we were expecting to create a smaller online zine. We were astonished and honored by the breadth and quality of submissions we received. Much of this art deals with the seriousness of isolation and quarantine, but much of it is also colorful and joyous. Thank you all for sharing yourselves with us. OC

Callie Wohlgemuth vi

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Table of Contents

get me out of here! Sarah Dauer Building Utopia Casey Roepke

What you Might See in California Hare_after_Durer My Quintet Joseph Olisaemeka Wilson Art by: Emma Chaffee

6 8 9 10 12

3:07 Myla Brilliant LOSING Nadia Niva nostalgia Addie Art by: Lila Goldstein I am trying to give you the future Maren McKenna Art by: Maggie Sullivan The View Laura Dutilloy I am Pleased to Tell You Mira Rosenkotz Yellow Anna Nikolić Marina Zurkow, Body Bag for Birds (Polyethylene Terephthalate/PET) Sarah Dauer Art by: Callie Wohlgemuth

14 15 16 18

vii

19 20

The Roseate Spoonbill and the allure of domestic bliss Mariana Jaramillo GOODBYE SONG Nadia Niva

Photos by: Elisabeth Eappen

21 22 26 27 28 29 30 32 33 34 40 41

Transplanted Abbey Bufford

THE WINDOW Clara Callahan Art by: Soraya Abellard Apostrophe Anna Nikolić Untitled Self Portrait Olive Oswald CHARIOT Nadia Niva Girl and Gargoyle Kate Turner in a room of my own Sarah Dauer Two Parrots Joseph Olisaemeka Wilson ARTIST SPOTLIGHT Joseph Olisaemeka Wilson Noah’s ark (scene before food) Joseph Olisaemeka Wilson First Megan Hill

42 43 44 45 46 48 49 50 56 57 66 67 68 70 72

73 74 75 76 78 79

gardening for people who want Lainie LaRonde can you feel it? Callie Wohlgemuth tell me the one you pick: Allowance Mira Rosenkotz Photos by: Julia Smith red lipstick on aqua Demetrius Phofolos

entanglement Kate Turner Art by: Sophia Hess a word? Maren McKenna Photos by: Callie Wohlgemuth you are bird-like, in the morning Mira Rosenkotz Inkwell Daybreak Lily Reavis Seasons Verity O’Connell Sojourn Trinity Kendrick Quarantine Workout Routine Avery Martin Everyday sights Monica Geraldes Photo by: Emily Pollack Photos by: Emma Chaffee and Julia Smith boxed up Dewa Ayu viii

80 81 82 83 84 85 86

/SUNDAY NIGHT/ disco in the dorms Sarah Dauer my brain’s first day of spring Jillian Benham 7/1/18 Verity O’Connell [10] Teodoro Rodas Stretching Zo Brown We were not strangers Luce Brandt Embroidery by: Myla Brillliant a list of things i’m grateful for... Addie Art by: Madeleine Clément long time listener, first time caller Lucy James-Olson Photo by: Callie Wohlgemuth Poem by: Isabelle Muller Art by: Maren McKenna Chip cookies, Honey, 737 Natalie Kulak Photos by: Callie Wohlgemuth on divine feminity Ali Meizels a dream Lucy James-Olson Photos by: Callie Wohlgemuth

Sarah Dauer 3

Building Utopia Building Utopia We’re in the same place and it’s in our kitchen we’d put our fuzzy socks on (mine, with the sloths. yours, yellow) and spin ‘round like whirling dervishes in the last hours of the waxing moon; you’d cut both our hair (what else to do in a crisis?) but talk me out of bangs/you’d sit on the counter and plan our hobbies for the week — maybe i’ll take up knitting. maybe you’ll relearn spanish. we’ll have to make sourdough bread -- the starter is already loved by us; and we’d watch Claire Saffitz try to make gourmet cheez-its and i’d make you stand behind me and take the weight of my skull in your hands and tilt it sideways right-to-left until my neck popped like an eggshell; and we’d listen to “linger” by the cranberries and eat blocks of cheese past midnight and try to exercise kindness and spend way too much time on social media over-analyzing the lives of our high school classmates and you’d take my and i would read jane austen and cry and we’d do so much crying and i’d touch your and we’d discover new things about ourselves and we’d realize we know so much and so little at the same time about the world and we’d try to envision ourselves outside our bodies and we’d peer through the window whenever a dog walked past and we’d scroll through youtube’s recommended videos and i’d sleep until noon until i decide to wake up at 11am instead; you’d laugh at my attempts at making my grandmother’s german spritz cookies — (normally reserved for christmastime but if there’s anytime for out-of-season seasonal cookies it’s a global pandemic); and we’d go on daily government-sanctioned walks with bandanas wrapped ‘round our faces like the Céline Sciamma film. That’s what I’d do if I could: if you wanted,

Casey Roepke 4

What you Might See in California (above) Hare_after_Durer (below, left) My Quintet (below, right) Joseph Olisaemeka Wilson

A R T I S T S P O T L I G H T (on page 34) 5

Emma Chaffee 7

3:07

Myla Brilliant 8

LOSING LOSING Nadia Niva A thousand days with this beginning: Morning, in the house, on the bed with many windows, a crow without a face, in the rearview like a dark magician. Outside no moon. A bit of wind. To sit beside your shadow, wound in it. Sleeping with the open pour like a city in my palm. I come home again with words, a thousand days inside a window. Convinced to understand your country, The open moon inside my head. So this is waiting up for heaven, A little beam I lose for you.

Nadia Niva 9

Nostalgia

Poem by Addie Art by Lila Goldstein 10

I am trying to give you the future I am trying to give you the future in a velvet chair full of persimmons stacked to the ceiling fan just starting to go sweet watch them roll off one another block the light in the doorframe. I am trying to give you the future equipped with four wheel drive at least five acres a willow tree peeling off her skirt what a long day it’s been. I am trying to give you the future wrapped in birch bark covered in barnacles exclaiming “look what the tide washed in, how did the ocean make this.” I am trying to give you the future like it’s a coincidence. I am trying to give you the future hurdling over her handlebars into the pavement look how excitable she got black eye split lip but just for the joy of it just for the joy of it. I am trying to give you the future calloused and finger picking and many tongued and multisyllabic. I am trying to give you the future feverishly, while drunk, against my better judgement look at all the belly laughs and metaphors in the bathtub keep count they’ll feed us until the tomatoes rust. I am trying to give you the future by the pound in the greenhouse blowing glass into pomegranates and pipes. I am trying to give you the future in simple words. I am trying to give you the future in memory and high heat and lavender fields for the honey bees to find. I am trying to give you the future and the future is trying to give itself a shower calling downstairs I’ll only be five minutes put your feet up get a glass of water this won’t take long.

Poem by Maren McKenna 12

Art by Maggie Sullivan 13

The View Laura Dutilloy 14

I am Pleased to Tell You I am Pleased to Tell You

After I am Pleased to Tell You by Mary Oliver

Mx. New York, I am pleased to tell you, people are still as in love with you as they have always been. They tell me more in the afternoon when the shadows of your buildings let them rest. Today people claimed to know you, promised that they could touch you. Listen, they said, and I wrote what they thought they heard. I sat and watched you permeate all of them, oblivious to your talons. Look! They say, pointing to your claws, I paid good money for these scars! The pigeons and I laughed. Occasionally they offer me your obituary, the pigeons and I watch them. You are not dead or gone. Square outline, reflection of a postcard in their eyes, city at night. They point. Where can we find this? Joy/free lunch. Do you know where this is? Music/fountainwater. Can you point us in the direction of this? Subway stations void of law enforcement. The pigeons and I stand hands over our hearts, shake our heads. Take your obituary from their hands, burn it in the bloody fountain. Leave before the cops come, oh, Mx. New York.

Mira Rosenkotz

YELLOW I learned english from my parents who were non-native speakers. Serbian has a lot of sounds I can’t tell you about. There were many words my mouth didn’t like. My mouth wanted to get them over with. The only two I can remember are yellow and hospital. There was more than yellow and hospital but I don’t remember them. Yellow and hospital were the hardest. They called it a speech impediment. My mom disagreed. I said it was because my tongue was too long. Watch it touch my nose. Then everyone would laugh, and I still couldn’t say yellow, or hospital. Yellow because my mouth was stubborn, crushing on serbian. In serbian there is a letter, љ. It sounds like the letter Y is crouching behind the letter L. It looks like a hospital. The lowercase is the same as the uppercase, a hospital with less floors. My mouth liked this letter. It already forgot serbian and it did not want to forget this letter. Yeљo. Yaylo.. Yell-yow. Yeahlo. Yleylo? Yeyleyo…?.,.... љeљlo?? љ !!!!!!! љ !!!!!!!!!!! My mouth was so lonely, it didn’t want yellow to leave. But it couldn’t stay. I didn’t understand how I was saying it wrong. It sounded right to me. The sounds were there. Why did it matter what order they came in. Or what sounds weren’t there. Or what language wasn’t there. What language wasn’t there? Hospital was less hard. Hopsital. Hopsital. Hopsital. Always the same. My mouth was trying to give yellow a friend so it would stay. I don’t remember when it relented. I don’t remember forgetting the wrong sounds and fixing the right sounds into my palate. But I did. Now I speak english perfectly. I speak less serbian every day. I don’t even speak serbian anymore. There are always more things to forget. That’s how much I don’t speak serbian. I always find more to forget. Here, I can practice. I’m drinking yellow wine. I live in a hospital. I’m drinking yellow wine. I live in a hospital. I’m drinking yellow. I live in a hospital. I’m drinking, yellow. I was born in a hospital. I’m drinking yellow where I was born in a hospital. I’m yellow wine and where I was, was born in a hospital. I’m drinking wine and where I was yellow was a hospital. I’m yellow wine and where was once a hospital was only drinking. I’m drinking and drinking and drinking wine and where I was yellow was once a hospital. I was once in a hospital and everything was yellow. I drank yellow in my eyes and nose and mouth and ears and feet until yellow was inside me. It was a hospital and I could look at it and not be scared because I had yellow. Yellow was with me, was holding me, yellow let me know I was not alone and the hospital was just a љ you could hide in. Where I was was in љ and this was a good letter, a letter 16

only serbians could say because they made it up. Serbians are special because we have this letter we made up and only we can say it so that we could find each other again when one of us said yellow. We made it up because we saw L and Y were lonely so we put them together so they could crouch in our mouths together and when we said љ it was one sound because they were holding each other. It’s the same sound, not two sounds, it’s two sounds making one yellow sound. And the љ was like a hospital because that’s where things are put together when they weren’t right in the first place, when they were dying of loneliness which is a real disease it’s a real disease which I have suffered from but not when I was born not when I had yellow and I had љ which is the first letter for љубав which is our word for love so my mouth wanted to hold on to љубав when they were trying to take it away from me by hiding it in yellow. I had all kinds of things and they were tucked neatly under my tongue because that was supposed to be safe. љубав was right in the under back of my mouth, under the tongue and farther back through the web that connects the tongue to the floor of the mouth, like the floor of the hospital, like yellow. And now that I put my two fingers in my mouth and searched around and plucked them out I can speak proper english. English so good it’s like yellow and hospital never existed, like yellow didn’t hold me when I was otherwise alone and hospital wasn’t holding both of us when we were both being made and it was hard to be made because then you had to make sure for the rest of your life that everything was set in the right way so you wouldn’t ever be alone again. Got it? Yellow yellow yellow. See, my mouth doesn’t miss anything because it forgot what it was missing. Truthfully I’m less confident about Hospital. I have to squint my eyes at it because that doesn’t look right. So I never say hospital and I always drink yellow. I learned right because I told my mouth I was in control. See, your mouth is directly led to the heart, where it feeds you the words. Sometimes the heart is stubborn and the mouth is in love with the heart. When you convince your mouth that your heart is stubborn then your mouth will learn to follow you. So I drink yellow wine and I don’t go to hospitals. I rarely say things I don’t mean and I never say things I do. It is a very simple way to live. I don’t look at yellow and I don’t go to hospitals. Life is so much better with a fluency in english. Read chapter two for next class. It’s on idioms. I know this is a first level english course but the first lesson is pretending, synonymous with fakery, synonymous with trickery. What does synonymous mean? Synonymous is when one thing means the same as the other thing but this is also a lie because if that were true, then why did љ have to leave me? The “rule of thumb” sotheysay about english is that most of the rules don’t feel right to you but you have to follow them or else you will be alone and you won’t be able to write poetry, weeping about the color yellow. I will see you next class. Anna Nikolić 17

Marina Zurkow, Body Bag for Birds (Polyethylene Marina Zurkow, Body Bag for Birds (Polyethylene Terephtalate/PET) Terephthalate/PET) by Sarah Dauer

plastic pursing inflated like a breath like an invitation unzipped and empty red and graphite pebbles its contents sewn stitched prepped white graphic spilling at the body the mouth the body a tenant a crow or a morning dove plastic plump like a life vest prepped for floating in blue sky or a plastic precursor this body bag for a once-been bird off the coast of somewhere

spill

Poem by Sarah Dauer

Art by Callie Wohlgemuth 18

Mariana Jaramillo 19

cat Elisabeth Eappen

GOODBYE SONG GOODBYE SONG Nadia Niva

It is five months of the thing inside my chest colliding with itself and thoughtfully expanding, I travel home with density and every night I dream of life between here and seeing her again. It is only in the mornings that I remember the feeling and my heart is like a window. A crackling inside my chest.

Poem by Nadia Niva

me Elisabeth Eappen

Transplanted

Yellowed tree leaves peel like bruises across this Shuttle window my skin is littered with yesterdays You taught me to ask for help but not to say goodbye & Now Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m grasping at stray hairs Blades of grass between my knuckles I will not Rip it all out and start over I will be transplanted with roots intact Spiders between the bridge slats watch us Stumbling back home at 2AM when did this Empty white room become home We made it ours stuck paintings to walls with poster tack we Hold each other together Poem by Abbey Bufford

mei Elisabeth Eappen 21

THE WINDOW Radio play by Clara Callahan Scrape of a window opening. Voice: She often sits by the window. Her window, she says. What else does she have to do? Not much. Low voice of a woman, numbers whispered on slow alternating inhale and exhale: One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. Sound of woman breathing. Whoosh of a light breeze begins. Sharp intake of breath. Hold. Long exhale. Inhale-exhale pattern continues. Voice: Sometimes she likes to sit by the window and smoke. The smell clings to her clothes and sheets long after she finishes ashing it out her window. High pitched ringing, a faint eeeeeee, bright, metallic, growing louder. Voice: She doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mind. Hum of a car engine, low, muffled in the distance. Grumble of a car radio.

All growing louder. Voice: She has no one else who would mind. In mind. As the car approaches, engine sound becomes clearer. Radio slowly changes from incoherent rumbles to a voice, in the style of some NPR-like program, a very matter of fact speaker, as if talking about the weather: Bathing in sweet teal heat, lemon berry poison is a sticky blithe beast. The stable creep of wind will cease to bother us as we seek our sheets. Car engine and radio disappear back into incoherent rumbles. Only the faint ringing and the breeze remain. Voice: She often listens to sounds coming from the street outside the window. Her window. The world of sound. Her world of sound from her window. Womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s breath changes. Low, wheezy. Creaky voice (vocal fry): One. One. One. Plastic garbage cans scrape on concrete in between words spoken. A manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s voice, as if under tremendous physical strain: No easy ride........... From the........... Humidity.......... Yet we find that.......... Freezing slush.............. is................................ The unthinkable crime. Scraping stops.

I often see a figure from the corner of one eye. Footsteps on a creaky porch. Screen door slam. The ringing and low breeze continues. Voice: Sometimes she tosses the filter out her window. She tries to watch it but she never sees it land on the ground, never sees it become litter. She only knows it must fall. All that is tossed into the air must eventually fall. Loud insect buzz starts pulsing in and out. Mourning dove call starts nearby. Repeats a few times. Black capped chickadee call starts nearby, in between mourning dove calls, slightly overlapping. White noise in the distance. Shallow breathing. Growing louder throughout. Low clatter, very far away. Grows louder with breathing. Insect buzz becomes sharper. Breathing shortens, intensifies. Running footsteps outside. Travels left to right. Briefly. Loud cat meowing. Briefly. *White noise evolves into the roar of a plane engine. *Clatter becomes clearer; into the sound of a train crashing on tracks. *Windowpane rattles at intense buzz-like speed from the train passing. *Train whistle. Like a high pitched scream. *Breathing turns into distraught hyperventilating. [* all happen simultaneously]

Train turns back into a faint clatter. Plane engine decreases, fades back into white noise. Hyperventilating subsides. Flutter, rustle, birdsong fades away. Loud, intermittent insect buzz and breeze continues. Scrape of a window shutting. Insect buzz stops. Breeze whoosh stops. High pitched ringing sound intensifies. Voice: Eventually, all that is thrown must fall. To fall, to fall. To fall. Fall. Soon the summer heat will turn to fall. And everything will continue. To fall. Ringing stops. Low voice of the woman. One. Two. One. Two. Her voice fades out.

Soraya Abellard 26

Apostrophe My inner clock is a sundial in the dark. I’m eating off of nazca plate. Bone density is a litmus test for thrashing. Everything thrashes or else runs the risk of not spinning. Spinning is also thrashing. As well as revolving, rotating, balancing, and other forms of play-pretend. (Thrusting is lateral thrashing). My preference is to watch myself as I cry, or it won’t do. I briefly dated someone who left me for a woman with my mother’s name, which he knew. The way I see it, things are either funny or they are not funny and more things fall in the first category than you or I would care to admit or notice. The paunches of my eyesockets fit the moons of your palms perfectly, though you wouldn’t think of it that way, or in any way. Only I would think that of it and I suffer for it as a consequence. As for me I’ve read the bible in three or so colors. I don’t care for cigarettes but I care less for not having one. That feeling of something missing is typically cigarette-shaped, or else can be disguised as one. I wish your fingers could enter my body sideways through the abdominal region, following the same route a bullet would if the bullet trusted in its course. You can’t convince me bullets don’t have hunches. But holes can only go up or down in the human body. Have you noticed that? If I were an animal I would be the burrowing-kind. Nothing else about me would make for a faithful translation. I doubt I would transform much, anyway. I can count on my hands but not much else. Surely not yours, don’t blush. It’s sentimental and you are not. I would rather deal with everyone as a whole set than make my way loving each person one at a time. But if that’s what it takes, then so be it. I know it is, but it’s sad when you put it like that. So you better put it like that. I’m really going to miss you, even when I am with another person I will come to miss. Every person I ever meet I will one day come to miss and I can’t stand that. But I have to, in order for this to mean anything. And come labor day, we’ll all be dressed in white linens like dead californians. Anna Nikolić

Untitled Self Portrait Olive Oswald

THE CHARIOT CHARIOT Nadia Niva

saturday, her hands were bled in sounds and waves, early morning, things were rising with the day, against the blanket sky like a dream where we crouch at opposite ends of the hallway, the memory of the fuzzy cardinal sun hangs to dry over there through a window secret secret, a pocket of leaving clouds. saturday, in the chariot, were they waving back to you? Nadia Niva

Girl and Gargoyle

When the rain became filled with chemicals, it did strange things to the stone. It did strange things to everything it fell on, but the stone is the important element to remember here. It had rained for three days and three nights, and Leen, who was the youngest of eight children and whose mother said she was a holy terror, had escaped from home. She knew that her mother, more than occupied with the other seven, would not be able to chase after her; her father, ironically, had drowned long before the flood. Leen was five years old and a force to be reckoned with. She scooped her mother’s green-and-yellow industrial strength paisley umbrella from the hook on her way out the door, flipped it upside down as she stood poised on the threshold, then stepped into it and simply floated away. The gargoyle didn’t have a name. It was also just becoming aware of itself as an entity apart from the blocky stone cathedral on which it had always stood. It learned that it could move when the rain dripped into its eye, and, reflexively, it blinked. Stone becoming animal. The gargoyle couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss, though it couldn’t remember what it was so concerned with losing. Below it, the river which had once been a street flowed, swollen with water and oil and all sorts of incongruous household things: half a sofa, a bobbing car tire. A little girl in bright yellow rainboots with a determined expression, cradled in the curve of her mother’s wire-lined umbrella, bobbing along.

Disaster: collision with the jagged, broken edge of the wire fencing and the umbrella started taking on water. Leen, who knew from watching pirate cartoons that she must bail the water out, cast her eyes around for a bucket, which in the cartoons always helpfully appeared the moment you needed one, but found nothing. The rip in the umbrella widened ominously and water continued to pour in. Leen did not precisely think she was going to die. Small children rarely do. Instead, she thought, with the panic of her heartbeat pounding in her throat, Someone is going to rescue me right now. And at that precise moment, because sometimes the universe is kind, a stony, lichen-covered claw reached down and scooped the little girl up by the scruff of her neck. That is the story of how the girl met her gargoyle, and how the gargoyle met its girl. Leen and the gargoyle, which would eventually acquire a name, went on to have many long and wonderful adventures together. But thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a tale for another time.

Story by Kate Turner Art by Dewa Ayu

in a room of my own the sneetch was singing, he was classically trained, & he got in by crawling through the mesh hole i cut with safety scissors when  i was ten. yes, he squeezed his star belly, spun around & down my lamp pole, plopped onto my unkempt carpet & kicked my mattress to the floor. he coughed up window sill dust & hacked out a jolly spit & song, said now follow me to the sink drain  across the hall but the floor is lava. so i held my breath & did a routine of cartwheels & high kicks to reach the faucet, & the sneetch was real impatient. but i told myself i would apologize to no one, so i was sucked down in to a raging river of electrolytes  and hydrochlorothiazide, my favorite. how did you know?  i asked the sneetch, & he began to melt. he oozed into an iridescent puddle formerly known as a sneetch, & the boat became a fizzing dripping container of pills. i was spinning, whirling back into my new jersey address, my own four walls lacking in yellow birdbear creatures. what a horror to imagine anything other than this, ignoring whispers from the book  shelf, the hum of a fly shocking  itself on a curling bulb, the spring  coil as i twist and turn.

Sarah Dauer

Two Parrots Joseph Olisaemeka Wilson 33

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Joseph Olisaemeka Wilson

Joseph was born in Los Angeles in 1999 on the same day and in the same hospital as Larry King Live’s penultimate son. His father is from the United States and his mother was born in Nigeria. He spends most of his time painting, drawing, making sculptures, and taking pictures. He lives and studies in New York City.

Self Portrait with Armadillo

Joseph usually looks first to create a beautiful picture where the conditions satisfy him visually. As far as painting, he believes a picture is most fairly judged by its physical beauty and graphic strength. A certain visual, physical (or vibrational) stimulus could be the only rule of art. His paintings don’t work to get any particular point across or “something” done. Text from: olisaemeka.com

A Stand-off between Two Opposing Sides This informal interview with NYC-based artist Joseph Wilson was conducted by Zoë Fieldman and Anaïs Quiles-Lewis on March 24, 2020. Can you tell us about yourself? JW: My name is Joseph, Joseph Wilson. I’m actually at NYU, halfway through my junior year. I’m at the Gallatin school. I sorta get to study whatever I want. I just paint in my free time. I’m in New York right now. But I’ve been able to focus on the work, you know, while on hiatus from school. Can you take us through your journey so far? At what point did you realize that you wanted to be an artist and stuff like that? JW: I was born in West LA, Venice Beach. I was raised by my mom in LA. That’s where I feel is home. LA, that’s where I know the streets, you know? I guess it was pretty late maybe, compared to what you hear in books and stuff. But I wanted to be a soccer player until I was like 15, or you know maybe 14, something like that. I stopped playing sports that much even though I still, I love sports for some reason. I stopped focusing on sports and then was into clothes and things like that. And music, you know, making beats and weird stuff. When I was 16 or 17, I was in my

high school art class, just cause that was a fun class to be in. I was always into drawing. My teachers were always encouraging me to draw and to commit more. I was just such a little asshole when I was young. They were telling me, you could do this for a living. Then in the last two years, I’m 21 now, I’ve been going really, really hard. Like it’s competition, trying to beat everyone, you know. You have a really interesting way of engaging with your different subjects. What are your motivations? What drives you to things, especially in painting?

Crawfish or Lobster (on a broken plate)

JW: I really appreciate those words. I guess that’s one of the reasons I do it. At the end of the day, just to show other humans what’s going on in my mind. But deeper than that, it’s sort of a competitive thing. I wanna eat and consume and shit out, you know? To put together as many things as I possibly can. I love putting something together on a canvas and being like, wow, I think this looks great. But, I also love trying to beat other artists. My dad was putting me onto Picasso in a Richardson biography—it’s like a really good biography—it just shows how much Picasso was putting out. That sort of really inspired me. The competition of it all, I don’t know if it’s healthy. Like I’ll be in bed doing some dumb shit, or I could even be doing something people might call productive. And then I’m like, no legend would ever be doing this. So, I put it down and start painting ASAP. It works. I complain about everything, but with painting, I can tolerate it in a way that I can’t anything else. Do you know where that urge to start creating comes from? JW: I would call it an angry feeling or an anxious feeling. I guess this was what I was going to get to, the fear. You know, knowing, not knowing, just being so confused and scared about life, just how everybody should be. It’s this weird fear and anger then it ends up kind of resolving hopefully in a painting that I could then show someone then, maybe make money or impress someone or impress myself. 36

When going through your submission, one thing that our team noticed about your work is that you have a very specific style. Your work is all very connected visually. At what point, either a moment in your life or even a specific piece, were you able to establish this style for yourself? JW: I really appreciate that cause I don’t even know if I have one. It’s one of those things that I have been pretty nervous about, always tweaking about and thinking about. I’ve always drawn in this weird way, like line scribbling. I can make cool paintings, but I could never translate it. I was super nervous about where my style was. I could see glimpses of what I would like to do, I can imagine them looking like this. I always had an idea, but I was never able to do it until like pretty recently. Like this year. I’ve started to figure out how I want to make marks and how I want to make figures. I think that only comes from going crazy with output, making as much stuff as possible. Some of them are going to be great and some of them are going to be shitty. But, the shitty ones need to exist. I’d love to be doing something that wasn’t 2D. I’d rather make things that curve and fall forward, be made out of glass and shit. Have you found that there are any connections between yourself and who you are and your paintings? JW: I think it just comes naturally to any artists, like whatever you’re choosing to. The way I put it, when I was writing about it, was like the subjects are just things that I like to talk about, you know, and like things that I’d like to argue about or things that I like or I’m scared of. It’s probably less likely to be something I’m scared of, you know, cause I’m scared of it... and I try not to have a filter, you know, it’s like whatever gross, earthy things have to come out—I’ll do it, even if it’s like a fucking weird,

Bystander with Telescope 37

genit—just a big penis, just cascading across the paper... sometimes it just needs to be there, you know? Do you have a specific way of finding and choosing subjects that you want to talk about? JW: Yeah, it’s like a lot of the stuff that I grew up on, first of all. So that would be American folklore, and then sort of African folk... my mom is from Nigeria... she can put me on to just endless stuff. And shit that I just eventually stumbled upon, thanks to school and other people. I’m really into archeology for some reason. I don’t know anything about it and [I’ve] been really into space travel for some reason always into colonial stuff. It’s just a combination of my history, world history and interests. Conversation points, pretty much anything that we’d want to talk about. How has quarantine been for you? How has it affected you either artistically or personally? JW: I have to start by saying I’m in the luckiest position possible. I’m just so lucky compared to whatever just disgusting percentage of the world. Everyone else has to deal with this crazy thing on a level I can barely imagine. It’s just so brutal and reading about the black community in America—reading about the percentages— it gives you such a weird feeling. It’s like any other horrible thing you read on the news that you feel like how, how is this possible?

Portrait of the Perserverance Rover

Obviously this thing affects people differently, but for my experience it was incredible. I made more work than I’ve ever made in my life and I thought it was pretty good, compared to what I had been making. I’ve never been this busy with art. It doesn’t feel like a job, I can wake up and start doing this stuff. This quarantine has been so lucky for me, so it has been good it has been incredible to be honest. You do get sick of being inside, but not so much when your whole thing is inside, you know? 38

Do you find that the art you’ve been creating this past couple months has felt any different because of what’s going on? JW: That’s another thing where it was a blessing for me. I had time to think, one, and, two, I was taken out of my spot like everyone else. I was doing a lot of shitty portraits and that stopped, luckily. I started looking to other places for cool shit, like references. The whole time you feel a duty to be aware at the very least of what other people are going through. Seeing that this moment, especially within the art community, is stagnant and also life changing: do you have a prediction for where art might go after this? JW: I’m not sure, it’s interesting to see how much everyone’s putting Idol with Cats out. I have been reading about the galleries losing power which is sort of decentralizing the art world which could be good for people like us—put stuff in my own hands. We’d like to see [an] underdog sort of upset... giving everyone else a chance as well. I mean it’s only fair. Is there anything that you hope for or want to see happen because of this? Any direction you want to see art in our world take? JW: One of my classes was about green design and green architecture and that’s always been interesting to me. I want to see some professional work that’s made from shit... there’s no reason to buy. I like to see recycled shit— repurposing of plastic and keeping it out of baby seals’ eyes. Is there anything you want to add? JW: The one thing I don’t think I mentioned is I like to work fast. I think I make more paintings than any painter and I’ve worked faster than any painters. So if there’s any reason to come see something, check in. 39

Noahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ark (scene before food) Joseph Olisaemeka Wilson 40

First I woke up first. My body tried to hold the little heat trapped by your thin comforter unsuccessfully. My skin prickled and puckered. I looked at you, still sleeping. You looked warm. I could have reached out and touched you. I looked around your room. It was dipped in blue; your navy curtains gave it a pallor. Your room was a mess, love. Haphazard piles of clothing led away from your bed; our clothes were on the floor but in their own little piles. Boxes half full and bins half empty waited for you to fill them. You were still asleep. Your blonde hair was tousled, a mess. I could have fixed for you, gently, so when you woke up no hair would be in your face. I slowly sat up and pulled my knees into my chest. Your room looked like it was under the ocean, blue, with the white light streaming in above us, just out of reach, as we sank to the bottom. I could have drowned, right then and there, never again cresting the surface of the deep blue waters. Your comforter was threadbare, but it didn’t matter. I was cold but you were warm like the warmth was diffusing out of me and going to you. Your room smelled like nothing. It had been awhile since I’d been able to smell it. I remembered that it smelled like laundry detergent and dryer sheets, but then, when I inhaled, I only could smell the chill. I wished we could go back to when we didn’t know each other as well, to when I could smell your room and I didn’t know what all of your expressions meant. It’s early. I didn’t mean to wake up so early but I hadn’t been sleeping well. I didn’t want to wake you. I wanted to keep floating in your ocean, in that moment where I was suspended in the waters, or maybe I was sinking. It didn’t matter. I was cold. I sighed but I must have sighed too loud because I felt you stirring. You woke up reluctantly. Maybe you wanted to sink too. But I watched your eyelids slowly give in and your green eyes adjust to the white light. You looked at me. “The love is gone, isn’t it?” I asked. You looked at me and I felt myself coming up for air. Megan Hill

gardening for people who want mouth into hands mouth is a stomach. I chew every fruit pit to pulp no I cannot tie the stem into a bow, no

I cannot tie my words into ripe blooms into clementine peel into anything but deep blue breath. meaning goes belly-up and my tongue unfurls, settling into the quietest soil. I am sitting under the thick of hydrangea in the yard she holds me softly in my pollen mouth. how is the cornered animal of your self doing these days? belly-up I think of fistfuls of cherry and chive rust palms, teeth stain. hungry, I think. the quietest kind. Poem by Lainie LaRonde

can you feel it? by Callie Wohlgemuth Full film: opencallmag.weebly.com 42

tell me the one you pick: Allowance

tell me the one you pick: A nod to Stacie Cassarino’s Summer Solstice tell me the one you pick: Allowance Allowance A nod to Stacie Cassarino’s Summer Solstice

I am citrus, slice & rind, sting & teethcoat, slip sugar steeped into hot water & dissolve, forthright, impetuous. I am citrus, slice & of rind, sting & teethcoat, There is a covenant acid, slip sugar steeped into hot water & dissolve, meltandburn, meltandburn, for once, it is us, forthright, impetuous. rootsap & treebone veins reeled in tight, wound & bound to sand & dirt, stack There mortar, is a covenant of acid, brick, lambheart, wade in & whole again meltandburn, meltandburn, for once, is their us, plangent pleas let length be swallowed by marsh frogsit in 1 rootsap &have treebone in tight, wound & bound to sand & dirt, stack you don’t to goveins far toreeled find ghosts brick, mortar, lambheart,barnmusk, wade in & whole again childstreets, peartongue, let length be swallowed by marsh walk sink swimline of sustain & letfrogs & letin&their let, plangent pleas 1 youme don’t to go far Allowance. to find ghosts tell the have one you pick: childstreets, peartongue, barnmusk, Neighbormoon, hands cupped, heating calendula and flowered rosemary to findsink bitter outside of ‘green’ is to is to walk swimline sustain & plead, let & let & hunger let, for histories in new tell oral me the one you pick:colloquialisms Allowance. what is left, whathands is flee,cupped, what isheating wander calendula and flowered rosemary Neighbormoon, press wring to findand bitter outside ‘green’ is to plead, is to hunger your desert cusp, the edgecolloquialisms of wellwater, for oral histories in new something shieldis against sandstorm, the ceramic egg balancing on tongue, what is left,towhat flee, what is wander the endand of wring fleeting running rest. press

your desert cusp, the edge of wellwater, Poem by Mira Rosenkotz something to shield against sandstorm, the ceramic egg balancing on tongue, the end of fleeting running rest. Photos by Julia Smith 43

red lipstick on aqua Demetrius Phofolos 44

entanglement entanglement we are all that we have, said the witch and we are all that we are and the moon with horns and feathers and its petals of stars i don’t know exactly what a prayer is. i do know how to pay attention.i there is a cup with a chip on the rim in my childhood home, which knows just what it is to be filled with warmth and sweetness, to be held. (cupped: the act of holding with purpose, with both hands.) and a spot at the top of the stairs which has become familiar with black dogvelvet paws dangling over it, into the slant of the sun. the cup draws your hands around it. naming something is also a spell. we say the morning breaks when we mean that the earth has tilted close enough to the sun to put a crack in the sky. this crack then expands into the palest and most astonishing kind of light. the moon fades. light tips over everything. we are all that we have. it is imperative that you pay attention. entangle: (v), to wrap or twist together / interweave / to make complicated / to involve in a perplexing or troublesome situation. tiger lily bursts against the redbrick path, and the gentle spread of rhododendron green across the sky, and the creak of the rocker, which is covered in lichen, which is the softer twin of copper left out in the air and rain i

Oliver, Mary. “The Summer Day.” Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, Penguin Books, 2017.

Kate Turner

Sophia Hess

aa word? word? hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have yellow and broken blue like highways like headlights like one good honest kiss or another do you think in sentences or fragments? in big or blooming? my body is the roof of your mouth a chapel the fig weeping wasping into stained glass velvet grin in spring she’s busy bringing all the orchids back to life the hanging gardens clustered with them the air a haunt again what is the difference between love and want? what is the difference between a word and a word? between gasp and beg all scarlet writhe for it all spit and ache show me where all your teeth come from haze make of us a portrait linen burning, big blackeyed iris rushes when you light the hearth my toes climb back into their shoes to follow you home i am building you a word house to fit the fire in every moon is a door every ocean is a door every hand is a door come in take your words off that’s quite a word you have don’t mind the words i word you i’ll pick up if you call

Maren McKenna 48

you are bird-like, you are bird-like, in the morning in the morning

Photos by Callie Wohlgemuth

sinkline tongue & twitch n what u want n u want I know is me and you pressed flat, iron style can you heat us and crease no more again &again& hands and workwords with your tongue like youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to work my tongue sing, both the floor and a guitar in your hands how do you hold all that at once what is close is really just beddrunk on any given day you ocean, you pastel and pleat, you power and press (iron style) you with the HoneyWire soundtrack pressed flowers between your cheeks (iron style) and called bird-like into the morning

Mira Rosenkotz 49

Excerpt from

Inkwell Daybreak Chapter One There were only three moments of Jane Beckett’s life during which she remembered feeling completely alone. Once, when she was seven or eight, she had run away from her governess and climbed a tree to hide during a particularly boring arithmetics lesson. Mrs. Beckett thought she had certainly met some sort of awful fate, but her husband brushed off her tears as childlike over-exaggeration. Eventually, the thought of the pack of coyotes which had recently made the estate their home a missed supper scared Jane back inside. Another time, Dr. Beckett had been stopped on his travel back into England and her mother drew a carriage to help him, loading it with bread, legal documents, and a few jugs of wine for the road. Jane didn’t know she would feel alone until two days later, when she walked downstairs in the middle of the afternoon to find no governess, no maids, and no mother keeping her out of the kitchen or asking her to fetch the post. Both occasions had shown Jane a different side of herself and her family. Everyone seems to worry about a young woman being left alone until it happens, she figured. Now, Jane found herself in a strange position. The carriage was manned by a driver and her childhood governess accompanied her on the trip to St. Anne’s, and the air was quotation marked with a sentence from the past. Soon, she felt everyone thinking, Jane would say goodbye once and for all; Ms. Quimby would be fired, no longer charged with a child to care for, and the driver would return the carriage to the estate. In her parents’ eyes, Jane would transform from a lanky, blonde, tree-climbing nuisance of a girl into handwritten letters 50

on crisp white stationary pages. Her sharp tone would no longer be criticized, her skinned knees no longer observed by Mrs. Beckett. As far as Jane was concerned, this aloneness meant rebirth — at this moment, she would reframe herself into the confines of a modern young lady, but reserve this new self for the letters addressed to South England. Jane spent the ride studying how her fingers intertwined with themselves in her lap. She’d recently obtained a thin red cut across the top of her right hand, though she had no idea where from. The skin on her inner knuckles was always raw and blistered; she took care to tuck them on top of each other in the presence of Ms. Quimby, who would certainly have something sharp and pointed to say about Jane’s rough edges if she saw. St. Anne’s was not Jane’s idea, much as she looked forward to the change of scenery. Mrs. Beckett’s piano instructor had told her during a recent lesson that her neighbor had sent her daughter to the school. The girl, a lanky 15-year-old with tears in all her best dresses, returned two years later with the manners of a debutante, the teacher enthused. Six months later, she was engaged to be married to Richard Thornberg, a strapping young fellow who built them a cottage on the banks of the River Test. Jane pictured the telegram detailing the announcement of their new son in her mind now; how proud her father seemed, how overjoyed Mrs. Beckett was as she drafted a response. Jane was on the school’s waiting list the next morning. She asked herself to think positively of the change. At the very least, she ought to have a few more moments alone. At the best, she thought briefly that she might make a friend — one like those she had read about at the estate. She blushed at the idea of sneaking around with a candle after curfew, gossipping about boys she had seen on the school’s green, even discussing life after St. Anne’s with her yet-to-be-discovered best friend. The idea made her giddy and ridiculous, and she pushed the thought out of her mind before she could feel properly embarrassed. The carriage stalled to a stop as Jane pulled herself from the daydream. Out the window, she saw the white stone face of the school’s main building, camouflaged by black iron gates and a mosaic of late September greenery. She had never actually laid eyes on St. Anne’s before, and the exterior felt colder than expected. She wondered if she would be allowed to light a candle inside, surrounded by the cold stones that appeared to make up the building. An attendant approached the buggy as Ms. Quimby told Jane to lay her hands 51

flat in her lap. Even with her acceptance letter and the velocity of her last name, she couldn’t help but feel that she wasn’t welcome inside the gates. For the first time since Mrs. Beckett brought up the idea of Jane’s move, she felt a twinge of regret. Surely her mother didn’t expect her to succeed in a place so purposefully against modern society? *** The air outside of the school bit at Jane’s forearms as she stepped from the carriage. Her shawl, which had been a gift from her mother, was better suited as a mid-degree wrap than as protection from the cold. Much as Mrs. Beckett tried, she was never very good at knitting, though Jane pretended not to notice the loose stitching. A young man adorned in dress clothes and with an oddly out-of-place pocket watch in his hand came running from the stone facade of the main building, motioning Jane away from her case, which the driver was attempting to hand her. “Excuse me,” he said, out of breath as he approached the group. “Excuse me, who are you?” “This is Ms. Jane Beckett,” the driver motioned to the girl, who now felt both cold and useless outside of the carriage and under the young man’s scrutiny. “She just received entrance to the school. The gate-keep let us in.” The man, who shortly introduced himself as Adam, looked over Jane scrupulously before responding. She felt her hair rise with his glance, beginning at her ankles, where she knew her stockings were bunched instead of folded, up her legs and over her corset. She looked to the ground as she felt the man’s eyes on her chest and rising over her neck. Before he met her eyes, she raised her chin, meeting his grey-blue stare with her own chestnut seriousness. After a few seconds, the man broke the inquisition and retreated his view to the driver. “And her acceptance?” he asked, almost daring the man to prove that Jane was allowed to be on St. Anne’s grounds. Nervously, the driver searched his clothing, eventually drawing a single sheet of folded yellowing stationary from his inside breast pocket. Taking the letter, which was crumpled and slightly discolored from the previous several hours, Adam marched back into the building, letting the large chestnut door fall closed with a resounding echo behind him. Jane was unsure whether she was meant to follow. She thought, for a moment, 52

that she might as well retreat inside the carriage and head south again, an exclamation mark stab of a practical joke over her head until she once again reached her childhood bedroom. Adam returned before she could imagine Mrs. Beckett’s face if she returned without meeting a proper man. “Right, this way,” he said, nodding to the girl and turning back around expectantly. Jane glanced to Mrs. Quimby with a sudden awareness that she did not know how to say goodbye. There had always been a see-you-later implication between the two of them; never in her past twelve years had Jane woken up to anything but the woman’s shrill voice announcing the proper deliverance of bread from the oven or eggs from their chickens. Jane wondered if she even knew how to cook breakfast by herself, nevermind take care of a henhouse or perhaps even wake up at the proper time. Ms. Quimby did not take notice of the girl’s pallor or wide eyes. “Put some chalk on your hands before you climb,” she said. “It’ll hurt less.” Then, turning away as though she had just dismissed Jane from her lessons for the day, she climbed back into the carriage and resumed her placement in the backwards-facing bench. The driver closed the door with a click, sent a quick nod to Jane, and stepped up the small ladder to his own seat. Ms. Quimby did not look up. The sharp note of the horses’ reins pierced the air and Jane watched as the carriage started back in the direction it came from. She wanted to watch it disappear into the woods; she felt that this all must be an elaborate prank at her expense. Any second, the driver would pull his wrists to the side and the horses would steer back to St. Anne’s, Ms. Quimby doubled-over in laughter and beckoning her to come back from the inside. *** Adam cleared his throat in a way that made Jane jump. She tore her eyes from the carriage and straightened her skirt. “Don’t bother with the trunk,” the boy said, interrupting her reach for the handle. “Someone will be out for it soon.” With this, he started walking toward the school’s entrance again. Jane thought that he had quite the way of demanding people follow him without actually telling them to do so. She focused on his back as they walked, wondering if he 53

slept as straight as he stood or if it was a trick to make himself seem taller. They went in the large wooden door, revealing an interior nearly as cold and stony as the outside. Adam continued forward in his long stride, leading Jane, who wished she had a second to look around, through the entrance foyer and down a hallway, which was lined with wooden-framed portraits of men in suits. Jane felt their eyes watching her from behind their decades’ worth of spectacles as she followed Adam. Under each frame was a year, pressed in gold and conjoined with the wall. As they walked, the years moved backwards in time, a fact that was underlined by the continuous growth of the mens’ mustaches and shirt collars. At the end, marched by the year 1512, Adam took a sharp right turn. Jane felt she was running to keep up, unsure she could find her way back outside if she lost the boy. They continued down the hallway, up a flight of stairs, and down a new corridor, this one narrower and flanked with candle sconces. The portraits were here replaced with a neat row of doors, each painted white and with a small number over the frame. Just as abruptly as Adam had started their journey into St. Anne’s, he now stopped and swiveled on his heels to Jane, who nearly ran into him, having no time to dissipate the speed his gait had required her to muster. “Number 36,” he said, pulling two silver keys from the same pocket his watch was in and placing them in Jane’s now-outstretched hand. “One for your door, one for your tuck box.” With that, Adam disappeared back down the hall. Jane listened for his footsteps to turn, clunk down the stairs, and disappear back into the maze of the building. The keys felt foreign in her blistered hand, as if she’d just been handed a cup of too-hot water without a stable surface to set it on. She thought, if she never put the key in the lock, if she stayed in the hall, how long would it be until someone else came upon her? Would they ask whether she knew how to work a lock? Would they recognize that her hands were burning almost as painfully as her chest, or that she didn’t feel certain she knew where her ankles stopped and her legs began anymore? She wondered where the carriage was, and if Ms. Quimby wished she had looked up before she left. Would she be able to find more work after staying so long with one child? Being a governess is an awful job, Jane thought. How could a woman be expected to raise a child and lose them just for doing so properly? 54

She wondered why Ms. Quimby never seemed to be upset. Jane wondered where her luggage was and what a tuck box was and whether she was being childish, standing in the dark corridor in the new school alone with no belongings and no clue how to get out again. Pushing the looming heaviness of those thoughts away, Jane put the larger of the two keys in the lock of room number 36 and turned the glass handle. The door clicked open to a small room, much lighter and more cramped than the corridor. Four beds stuck out from the walls, facing each other two by two and divided by small matching tables on either side. A single window stood open on the wall opposite the door, the curtain seemingly retired to the floor. A long shelf lined each wall, filled with books and leftover biscuit tins. Each bed was made with a matching cream-colored blanket and a single pillow, and a trunk stood unopened at each footboard, except for that of the far bed on the right side. Jane figured this one must be meant for her, and sat on the end of it. The roomâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s silence felt at once calming and suspicious to the girl, who had to remind herself that no mother or governess would call to her here. She was relieved to have the space to herself, and pushed the thought of living with three other girls out of her mind, just for the moment. She thought of how she owned keys and a blanket and, somewhere, the contents of her trunk. The seriousness set around her shoulders in a comforting pressure, similar to the joy felt by young children when hiding in too-small corners for full-grown bodies. There, in her school-commissioned bed in her empty room in the cold and grey main hall at St. Anneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, Jane Beckett found herself alone for the fourth time. She blushed as she counted the occasion off on her fingers. Lily Reavis Read more: opencallmag.weebly.com

Seasons And in these moments As the sun goes down The ghost of Rimbaud wanders Back alleys looking for Some poison to hit the spot The blood is thicker Than the body can bear Bursting in scenes of utter despair Libra finally got his wish for an empty world But now knows why people travel Each year to see the cherry blossoms Verity Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Connell

Sojourn Trinity Kendrick 57

cat in quarantine by Elisabeth Eappen Full film: opencallmag.weebly.com

Quarantine Workout Routine To be completed while stoned, drunk, and/or crying. Warm Up -10 minutes of research. Try wombat mating habits, the history of the pantone color of the year, or how to install a wildlife camera. Nothing related to school or your hobbies- focus on the workout! -1 squat, then sit on the floor. Workout: Round 1 Do four sets of 10 reps of each exercise - Pick up a textbook, as if you were going to read it. Put it back down. - Flex a muscle you don’t think about much. - Calf raises: at the top, pretend to do ballet! Modification: if you already do ballet, pretend to be a flamingo. - Add one piece to a puzzle. Modification: if you don’t have a puzzle, draw a tally mark on your toe Round 2 AMRAP: As Many Reps As Possible. 1 minute per exercise, twice through. - Think about what color you might dye your hair. - Compose a text to your ex. - Scroll mindlessly through your friend’s friend’s friend’s twitter. - Send a friend a (consensual) tasteful nude Cool Down - Take a shot - Cry Congratulations! I hope you enjoyed this Quarantine Workout! Don’t forget to like and subscribe below!

Avery Martin

Everyday sights Monica Geraldes

Emily Pollack 69

Photos by Julia Smith and Emma Chaffee

boxed up Dewa Ayu

/SUNDAY NIGHT/ disco by Sarah in Dauerthe dorms click huhmmph buh bum buh bum buh bum clink riiiiiiiing ssssss buh bum buh bum buh bum thud huhmmph huhmmph *knock*wah wah wah wah *knock* x3 *knock* *knock* clink clink tick buh bum buh wahwahwahwahwah bum buh bum will you sssssss buh bum buh sssssss radiatorbum buh bum huhmmph huhmmph huhmmph uh huh huhmmph slam clink tick *knock* *knock* slam thud sssssss *knock* x2 *knock* will you sign this *knock* rrrrrrrrriiiiiinggggg click ssssssssssssss huhmmph huhmmph huhmmph duh duh duh huhmmph click click buh bum buh bum buh will you sign this petition riiiiiiiiiinnnnnggg riiiiinnnggguhhh buh bum buh bum wahwahwahwahwah sssss clink

Sarah Dauer

my brainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first day of spring Jillian Benham 74

7/1/18 trying to find the best freckle on our bodies the darkest one most round perfect circle you have a really good one on your left arm near the indications that didn’t just appear like the little brown dots white scars that I try to forget do you remember the day when you first noticed that freckle on your skin do you remember the scar circumstances and pain certain things of the flesh you can’t erase do we really know each other maybe by our games Verity O’Connell

[10] By Theodore Sofia Miele Rodas

[10]

The boy is getting ready for a party Teodoro Streamers are hung and his friends are downstairs laughing And he is still curling his hair The boy is getting ready for a party with a feeling in his ribs like the wrong person is going to text him at midnight and he’s not allowed to start drinking until seven, but it is only six. The boy is alone in the mirror and there is no music playing yet. The disposable camera upstairs is already full but there are two more downstairs that haven’t been used yet The boy is burning his split ends and: 8 The girl in the kitchen is telling him to come downstairs and meet her best friends. She is smiling and his hair is half curled but he can hear it in her voice, So he comes downstairs and the beautiful person standing next to the girl in the kitchen leans back when they shake his hand. The girl laughs when he almost forgets his name and he doesn’t know if she can read it in his blush. Everyone is sitting on the kitchen floor she is opening bottles of wine: She is pouring his first glass of the evening, he is sitting in the corner next to the person in the long skirt that twists gently when they move wishing he could feel their palms again– 7 The person with the warm eyes is sitting on the rug and I cannot stop looking at them. The person sitting on the rug is laughing with their friends and I wish I had come into the living room earlier so maybe I could have sat next to them. They smile like they don’t know that I’m looking and maybe I could stop if I’d had one less glass of wine; They smile like it doesn’t bother me that I can’t ask them to kiss me at midnight.

6 The boy is the only one counting down to midnight (and) The boy should be in the photo with his friends but instead he is reading a text from the wrong person at midnight (and) The boy should be laughing on the crowded sofa but – instead he’s taking photos of the person with a smile he doesn’t want to stop thinking about; pretending they’re for the girl dancing under the streamers (and) The boy should be drunk, factually, he’s three and a half glasses of wine into the evening but reality is sobering (and) he’s been daydreaming all night — and He’s realizing if he doesn’t like the bed he’s been sleeping in maybe he needs to share it with someone else. 5 76

you are looking at the stars and stubbornly not thinking about how you are walking home alone

Rodas

and He’s realizing if he doesn’t like the bed he’s been sleeping in maybe he needs to share it with someone else. 5 you are looking at the stars and stubbornly not thinking about how you are walking home alone and the person with the nice hands from the party a month ago would probably hold your hand if they were walking with you but they’re not because they are far away and they are not yours and they are not the person who texted you at midnight on new years eve even though you didn’t really want that person to text you were just tired of telling people what you wanted because they never listen they didn’t listen you wish they had but you didn’t expect them to so you guess it’s probably okay even if it still stings a little it wouldn’t have stung if you were actually used to it which means you just need to try a little harder 4 The boy is going to sleep in full darkness and thinking about how he is a coward. The girl is finished taking down the streamers before everyone is fully awake. The boy is hungover the next morning and too afraid to ask for the person’s number. from the girl, who he knows would give it to him— 3 The beautiful person I’ve been texting for a month is leaning back On my pillows and I don’t think I’ve ever liked the way my bed looked so much When they are done leaving kisses on my jawline They let me look at their tattoos and it – Becomes Easy to talk to them as they trace circles on my arms The next morning I wear my lowest V neck and tell them I will not be late to Spanish If I walk them back to their friend’s room because I know they will kiss me goodbye It is worth it to see them smile just for me. 2 the boy finished curling his hair/ responded to the wrong person at 12:02/ lay down in a bed with three other people/ forgot if he said goodbye to the person with the perfect laugh in the morning and regretted it more than he wanted to 1 The boy is writing less poetry because he is running out of ugly things to make pretty. The girl keeps the disposable cameras in her car, someday she’ll get them developed and give me the photos of someone made bright by their warmth. The person who kissed my palms and made them hallowed ground is states away, I wish they were here so many times a day that it becomes a prayer as I wash my hands. You have stopped texting the wrong person first. I am getting used to dreaming about nice things like strong arms and blueberries

Stretching 78

Luce Brandt

We were were not strangers not strangers We Our lives touched for the briefest of moments Unfurled in bloom along our fingertips The curve of our embrace Fading. Always fading. And what you held Something lush. The briefest, softest touch. Traced in soft curves, Time with a match, The spark swallowed whole. Our lives brushed, Shuddered And spilled in a pool at our feet. Our pieces Our petals.

Embroidery by Myla Brilliant

And as we reached For what was ours In the briefest of moments our sentence caughtâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Fragmented With hands full Of strawberry light.

Luce Brandt

Addie 80

Madeleine ClĂŠment

long time listener, first time caller long time listener, first caller (a poem made from the titles time of my friends’ spotify playlists)

(a poem made from the titles of my friends’ spotify playlists) harvest a longing / silently, wildly / flourish, spoil tall trees, big sky, songs, seagulls, cactus trees, mountain moans / all the miles in between anxious in the bloom, light in all our skinless dreaming i exist as i am right now, faint // highly exposed human emotion / human behavior / human warmth / like that renaissance, bathed in light, folding flower sheets, one more kiss maybe next time 80s music will cure this longing… i think i’m having fun (i worry about you dearly, just a dance before you go?) please feel this joy with me! (joy is not made to be a crumb!) sing us your love song / sing really loud! (like this)

Lucy James-Olson

lucy james-olson, 2020

Photo by Callie Wohlgemuth 82

Poem and playlist by Isabelle Muller

Art by Maren McKenna 83

Chip cookies, Honey, 737 I once hated honey, as a child Alongside the voice of Robert Plant and cuffed sleeves; My vendetta was shallow, brief The color pink dancing at its edges, tempting my anger It remained, in doses smaller than the insulin shots stuck into my thigh A trail of bruises reminding me to be tough, to bite My tongue instead of cry; oh to be seven When hate was the worst thing I knew, and Honey was for grownups to drizzle in their tea And taste on the lips of another, as I Unbutton the jeans rolled tight around my ankles and We fall asleep to the Rain Song, sweet Gold in our mouths. Natalie Kulak

Photos by Callie Wohlgemuth

on divine femininity On days when I make bread, my body smells like yeast and milk, like sweet dough rising in the square of sunlight by my windowsill. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s something there but Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not sure what it is, divine femininity, sacredness in domesticity. My fingers in the dough, back and forth. I am discovering power in my softness. I am feeding myself and my body, those which are two different things and the same. I am making a home for myself within myself. I am making bread and failing, and failing, and failing, and I eat the bread sometimes burnt on the bottom, and I lick my fingers clean. I am gentle with myself now.

Ali Meizels 85

a dream

the witch from the salt marsh swims me back to the sea and i ask her if she will wait until the tide goes down because my arms are tired from holding everything i haven’t yet found a place for and she says aren’t your legs tired from holding you up and up and up and i realize that she may be right so i drop everything i am holding (a book and a field guide and a notebook and some unfinished poems and everything i’ve learned and everything i fear and the happinesses and hopes of my friends and some pocket lint) and follow her / out to the sea where i turn around to suddenly find the witch is gone and i want to yell “why did you bring me here why did i have to drop everything and come with you why are my legs so heavy why won’t you just tell me what i’m supposed to be what am i supposed to be” but she doesn’t answer me because she has vanished (back to the marsh presumably, maybe to feed the loons and herons or to bring the sandpipers to the sea like she brought me to the sea) Lucy James-Olson

Photos by Callie Wohlgemuth 86

Artist Statements Soraya Abellard Rockaway, New Jersey This piece represents the feeling that being stuck inside has given the artist – as if no longer a part of the world, fading into the unseen. Addie North Yarmouth, Maine Dewa Ayu Southern New Hampshire / Portland, Maine Dewa Ayu, who normally goes by Ayu, is a qtpoc multimedia artist based out of New England. Lately, their art has depicted stark black and white drawings done with pen ink and sharpie. They currently go to school at Mount Holyoke College studying film studies and psychology. Jillian Benham Seacost, New Hampshire Previously a portrait and fashion photographer, Jillian has taken quarantine as a chance to slow down and create things that are more personal and not so quick to be made. After producing a series of poems over the winter, she says she wanted to try using collage to make images that evoked a feeling, much like a poem would. “I can never make up my mind about whether I want to be a visual artist or a writer so I’ve tried to begin doing both.” Luce Brandt Mount Holyoke College Myla Brilliant Wilmington, Delaware / Western Massachusetts Zo Brown Mount Holyoke College Abbey Bufford Clara Callahan Boston, Massachusetts 88

Emma Chaffee Mount Holyoke College / Burlington, Vermont Madeleine ClĂŠment Mount Holyoke College / North Shore, Massachusetts Madeleine is a student at Mount Holyoke from North Shore, Massachusetts. Throughout the last year, she has made an effort to capture as many moments as she could on 35mm. After arriving home from school due to the pandemic, she was able to revisit many of the memories of life before through the photos she had taken in the months leading up to this Her collage is a reflection of the many things she misses including friends, places, objects from her room at school, and so many more magical moments. Sarah Dauer Lawrenceville, New Jersey Sarah Dauer just graduated from Mount Holyoke College. During quarantine, she is getting over her fear of virtual reality by playing the Sims. You can find her poems in Cosmonauts Avenue, seafood mag, and tenderness yea, among others. Laura Dutilloy New York City, New York Elisabeth Eappen Mount Holyoke College / Weston, Massachusetts Monica Geraldes Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Monica is a biology major at Mount Holyoke College, born and raised in Santo Domingo. She likes food, crying, corals, shades of orange, and her friends. Lila Goldstein Mount Holyoke College Sophia Hess Glendale, California Sophia studies Studio Art at Mount Holyoke College (â&#x20AC;&#x2122;22). She enjoys working with collage to explore themes of displacement and fragmentation in her life. 89

Megan Hill Syracuse, New York Having graduated summa cum laude from Le Moyne College in 2019, Megan moved near New York City to spend two hours a day reading on her Long Island Railroad commute, work in a skyscraper, and ardently search for the finest bagel. She has been selected as an alternate for the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Program in Athens, Greece for the 2020/21 season. Megan is an actor, writer, artist, and teacher of English as a foreign language. She is currently back in Syracuse, hanging out with her family dog, Izzy, and trying to remember to drink enough water. Lucy James-Olson Massachusetts Lucy makes art about birds and the revolutionary power of joy. They send their thanks to Open Call for creating space for artists and makers during the quarantimes. Mariana Jaramillo Miami, Florida / Mount Holyoke College During her sophomore year of high school, Mariana decided that she would be an artist. She wishes she still felt the confidence in her work that she felt then. That year she transferred to an art high school where she was no longer the best and began the cycle of teetering between thinking of herself as an artist and not. The biggest question she yearns to answer is what is her medium? At Mount Holyoke she found that she enjoys working with her hands the most, feels fueled from collaboration, and loves the philosophy of entrepreneurship. Trinity Kendrick Houston, Texas Sojourn is a handmade book about some of the places I&#39;ve traveled that are important to me/feel like home. It was especially weird writing it being stuck in my childhood home and having the desire to travel more than ever, but it also helped me slow down and appreciate even more the places I’ve been. It’s handwritten/drawn on handmade cotton paper and recycled materials. Natalie Kulak Upper Gwynedd, Pennsylvania

Lainie LaRonde Manlius, New York Lainie is a not-quite-student/not-quite-adult from New York. These days, you can find her longing for the morning when she’ll be able to eat breakfast with her friends in a crowded diner. She thinks about writing poetry all the time while baking copious amounts of bread and, once in a while, actually writes it down. Avery Martin Mount Holyoke College Maren McKenna Mount Holyoke College Maren McKenna is a student and poet from Southern Maine. They are a Senior studying Anthropology and Environmental Studies at Mount Holyoke, and are passionate about food justice, birds, independent radio, sustainable agriculture, and color coordination. Maren’s poetry often discusses queerness, family, and world-making. Ali Meizels Mount Holyoke College Isabelle Muller Nadia Niva Mount Holyoke College Anna Nikolic New York City, New York Verity O’Connell Mount Holyoke College Kate O’Donnell Saint Paul, Minnesota Olive Oswald Mount Holyoke College Demetrius Phofolos Barrington, New Hampshire 91

Lily Reavis Mount Holyoke College / Colorado Lily is a rising senior at Mount Holyoke, where she splits her time between the newsroom and the library cafe, and is rarely seen without a coffee cup in hand. Inkwell Daybreak is a novel-in-progress, which she began writing while in quarantine. It is meant to explore feelings around isolation, enclosure, and how it feels to grow up as a woman. Teodoro Rodas Yarmouth, Maine Casey Roepke San Francisco, California Casey wrote this piece while going stircrazy in her childhood bedroom during California’s shelter-in-place COVID response. She would very much prefer to be back at Mount Holyoke with her friends, where yearning was a communal effort and not a boring solitary action. Mira Rosenkotz Bainbridge Island, Washington Julia Smith Hawai’i, Hawai’i Maggie Sullivan Mount Holyoke College Kate Turner Barrington, Rhode Island / Mount Holyoke College Kate is a student and writer from Rhode Island. She studies English Literature and Critical Social Thought at Mount Holyoke College, and is passionate about cooking, chocolate, and the transformative power of stories. Her writing often explores family, queerness, and magic of all kinds. Joseph Olisaemeka Wilson New York City, New York Callie Wohlgemuth Rockaway, New Jersey / Mount Holyoke College Callie likes drawing, broccoli, and also drawing broccoli. 92

Contact opencallmag.weebly.com Mail: opencallmag@gmail.com Instagram: @opencallmag Facebook: @opencallmag Venmo: @opencallmag Now accepting submissions for our fall 2020 issue. Theme: ANTHROPOCENE

Inside back cover: Thank you by Kate Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Donnell Back cover: Collage by Lucy James-Olson