Letter from the Editor Hello! My name is Kimia Kowsari and I am the Editor-in-Chief! You may remember from last semester. I am so glad to be back for the Spring semester. We wanted to expand on the Fall semester’s theme of identity. That’s where the theme connection comes from. We felt like Hamline lost its sense of identity, and therefore, its sense of community. COVID has disrupted connections and community. We needed people to be reminded about their community and where they feel they belong. This issue has been amazing to work on and I cannot wait to see what everyone thinks!
-Kimia Kowsari Editor-In-Chief
4 Crafting a Canvas for Creative Connection by Travis Whitt
8 A Springtide Retrospective by Alex Sirek
16 Growing: Because of the Circumstances by Taylor Lander
Art
7 Outlines
by Kivi Weeks
10 I Don’t Miss You
by Madeline Randall
14 Community
by Hanna Williams
17 Sphere of Existence
by Joanna Johnson
Musings
6 duel, duet
by Hodo Mohamed
12 My modern pillow book by Cathryn Salis
15 Please
by Kivi Weeks
Table of Contents . . .
Lifestyle
LIFESTYLE
Crafting a Canvas for Creative Connection Travis Whitt
T
eaching young people how to creatively write through the last two years has been a fever dream. Or nightmare, I can’t decide which. As a teacher and a coach, I pride myself on my ability to bring people together. When we left school in March of 2020, everything just stopped. All the momentum, all the excitement, all the creation, all the connection just ceased to exist. Though this was not a unique problem, it has certainly been the most crippling moment of my career.
“Everything just stopped. All the momentum, all the excitement, all the creation, all the connection just ceased to exist.” The repercussions of a year of loneliness are still vibrating through my classroom. I teach differently than I used to because my students learn differently than they did pre-pandemic. The act of teaching has lost the personability and connection that it used to have, at least for now. Students are not as willing to be open and build relationships because they’ve seen just how easy those connections can be severed. So, imagine my excitement when, for the first time since the pandemic, I sat down face-to-face with a brand new group of creative writing students and saw the fire in their eyes that has been missing from my classroom for far too long.
“
Sitting around a table in the middle of winter is one of my favorite things to do. Especially when those that share the space with you are just as hungry to create and connect with their community. This moment in my classroom was a catalyst for a nostalgic flashback that I am still far too young to yearn for. Nevertheless, sharing this table with a collection of the most creative kids I have come to know transported me back to the winter of 2016. In hindsight it is incredibly clear to me that I needed to lay off the caffeine. It was late, but I was fired up. Most likely coming from my favorite professor’s night class, I made an exasperated call to my editorial team with an invitation to a meeting in Anderson. For some reason, still unbeknownst to me to this day, they all showed up, notebooks ready for whatever I had to say. I didn’t realize it then, but those nights with my team were some of the most influential moments of my life. Cloe Gray, Sean Hanson, and Rebecca Higgins listened with open minds and were willing to do the work to change our publication, then Pipers InDepth, to something much different. When we took the magazine over that year it was established as an award-winning campus magazine, but it felt like a pamphlet created by the admissions department. It covered a ton of impressive people on campus, but to me they were not the people who made my dayto-day life on campus interesting. I wanted to shine a spotlight on the artists and weirdos that did all the cool stuff that motivated me to create. I shared this idea with my amazing editorial team and they were on board immediately.
I wanted to shine a spotlight on the artists and weirdos
4 | UNTOLD
I am incredibly proud of the publication we created together. However, I couldn’t tell you the details of a single issue or the story of a single feature we did. What I do remember is our late-night meetings and the hours of hard work with the shared goal of creation. We fed off each other’s excitement to shed light on all the things that made us love Hamline. All the great people doing super interesting things that we were lucky enough to share a campus with. It is easy to see now that my motivation to create came from the connection I had with my team. The joy that came with solving problems and making things with these amazing people is what defined my Hamline experience. Even in a post-pandemic world, when I sit down with a group of amazingly talented students, I am reminded how exciting it is to create things with other people. It is no secret that teaching through a pandemic is difficult, but it is connections like these that make the tough days palatable. When I sit down with a group of young writers or artists or musicians and bask in their potential for creation, I feel renewed in my profession. I am transported back to 2016 to that private room in Anderson at 1 am. I can smell the shit food wafting from upstairs, I can hear the voice in the back of my head contemplate using the last of my declining balance on another caffeinated drink, I can feel the energy that Cloe, Sean, Rebecca and I shared when we thought about the possibility of creating something together.
that did all the cool stuff that motivated me to create.
“
That, to me, is the value of an education. Not the individual skills and facts learned along the way, but the possibility of connection. The opportunity of shared creation. The experience that can later be shared with others. The hunger to do it all again and again and again.
SPRING 2022 | 5
MUSINGS
duel,
Hodo Modamed
to the qurac tree who stretches its limbs, standing still to the wind of dead voices, arguments of the living its forgotten tune– oh, how long silence reigned. its branches hug, strangle, count the blessings and holes dug, while feet dig in, rooted-- it cannot stand the hush, the tiptoe– do not be afraid to snap the twigs, to disturb the quiet. why do you pause under these shadows, drag the war and set it down here-camels and tanks, bones and bullets, find their place, under the qurac trees’ shade, caravans unable to carry dead weight. the roots have not let go, despite the distance of seas, the notes of its’ remembrance burrow in, lift, and swing, calling out for resolution, a finality, the silence deafening, a forgotten piece of my soul left amongst the many, the Qurac tree, listening, “I cannot explain it all, but I have sat here waiting to reconcile with the two halves of me.”
I must be emitting at a frequency that others cannot understand. why do you furrow your eyebrows-- today, the letter of the day was h and I smiled, my mom teaches me the buraanbur, delighted by the drums, happy as my feet transverse realities, dancing alone to two different beats, stumbling and laughing throughout in a daze, a reckoning– a murmur, a call, a remembrance– although, I do not understand if anyone has gotten lost, found their way, and tuned into this channel; I keep losing the connection, shoved in an apartment, a status report in an overwhelming static of death: an evening news report, five dishes long, surely, is not enough. i wander aimlessly through a land of overturned clothes, an overflowing sink, my parents wandered, questioned, worried, threatened, thrown to other lands– and I have found myself here, growing in soil that is far from a home, far from the footsteps of my ancestors, far from the sounds heard by my parents, and their parents, and their parents, and their parents– “and i am afraid to disturb this quiet, to sit under the shade, where my forefathers’ sat, and converse with the other, the confused, the shuttered-and-closed– myself. these roots take long to grow, to uproot– i cannot– to sing, to stand in silence, sitting in remembrance of two halves that have both danced, recited poetry, attempted to shout above the howling winds– my grandfather’s handwriting looks like my own– a duel, duet– in the shadows of a meeting place i have not fully known.
6 | UNTOLD
ARTWORK
Kivi Weeks SPRING 2022 | 7
LIFESTYLE
A Springti
A Springtide Retrospective B
arefoot, I stood with my feet shoulder-width apart, digging my toes into the snow blanketing my front porch. “I am here. I am real.”, a voice said. Only seconds later did I realize that voice was my own. Consciously, I recognized that voluntarily exposing my appendages to sub-zero temperatures could give me frostbite but at that moment all I could think of were the words of my painfully cheerful dialectical behavior therapy group caseworker, “Next time that dissociation of yours gets really scary, try standing outside! Maybe the cold air will bring you back to the present!” So I did. When I looked down at my hands, questioning whose they were, I was struck with the realization that this feeble attempt at grounding was not working. Not only that, but I could see my fingers and toes turning crimson. Once I hobbled inside, I could not help but pace around my bedroom in an attempt to calm myself down. Like a zoo-animal with too little enrichment, I walked back and forth aimlessly for what felt like hours. I soon noticed that my perception of time had dramatically shifted. Seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to millennia. When I looked at my phone, I expected at least an hour to have passed. In reality, ten minutes had elapsed since my severe spiral of depersonalization had commenced. That was when true panic held me in its grasp. I was now too struck with fear to even continue to pace. For as long as I could remember, I had experienced the occasional bout of mild dissociative symptoms. After all, dissociation is a vital function of the limbic system. However, this time was different. Past episodes of derealization were relatively mild and typically resolved themselves within a matter of a minute or two. Yet for ten full minutes I had been endlessly self-soothing in an attempt to convince myself of my own reality. Needless to say, I had no luck in convincing myself. The harder I resisted my delusions the deeper I fell into the bottomless pit of unreality.
8 | UNTOLD
Alex Sirek
While I do not remember much from the remainder of that night, I do remember thinking that I was going to die. I did not want to. I just thought it was a plausible explanation for what was happening to me. My fifteen-year-old self had no way to comprehend what had overtaken me. Even in my adulthood, I still do not quite understand. My mind was slipping away from my body, and I had assumed this would cause my consciousness to cease. Eventually I fell asleep, with the hope that it would all be over when I awoke. It was not. I had to attend my intensive outpatient therapy group that morning. One might think that a therapeutic setting could bring a recently traumatized person a grounded sense of peace. However, when I attended and heard my peers lightheartedly discussing depression and anxiety this brought about intense feelings of isolation and detachment. They conjured up experiences that I was all too familiar with, but these mental health conditions were relatively straight-forward and easily understood. When I spoke on what had happened the night before, and how it persisted, I was looked at as if they thought I should be placed in a facility akin to the infamous Pennhurst Asylum. Noticing the tonal shift of the once convivial therapy session, the catastrophically bubbly caseworker momentarily pulled me from the group. The overly optimistic therapist had me complete a set of deep breathing exercises. Apparently, simply breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth would snap me out of this dissociative spiral. Seemingly proud of herself, she remarked to me, “Now doesn’t that feel better?” It clearly did not.
ide Retrospective I stopped attending high school that week. The district was under the impression that I had decided to finish my sophomore year online. I did not and had no intention to. I was so hyperfocused on surviving with my newly acquired condition that I was utterly unable to be productive in any way, shape or form. Two weeks later I stopped attending group therapy. Not only was it incredibly pandering and unhelpful, but every time I attempted to leave my home I began anxiously dry heaving and gagging in my driveway. For seemingly no reason, I was absolutely terrified of leaving my home. So, I didn’t.
“Recovery is a difficult and confusing process. Mine began with a simple trip to the zoo and a girl who was not afraid to push me when she knew I needed it.” For a period of three months I confined myself to my bedroom. All of my time and energy from this period was expended on trying not to let my condition worsen. I did not speak to any of my friends, even though I cared for them deeply. At the same time, I was unbelievably unwell and felt undeserving of help. My illness had caused me to sever my most vital connections, both with loved ones and internally. Looking back, I speculate that I was deeply ashamed of myself and what I had become. Recovery is a difficult and confusing process. Mine began with a simple trip to the zoo with a girl who was not afraid to push me when she knew I needed it. “I’m going to the zoo with some friends and I want you to come with me. Nobody has seen you in months and I’m worried about you. For the love of God, get out of bed and come look at penguins with me.” I did. It was wonderful.
As we wandered around the zoo together, we came across a leopard who was pacing back and forth in his enclosure. “Damn, that’s depressing.”, my friend remarked. I chuckled in agreement, not noting that I spent my time very similarly up until that point. I missed my friends and the world around me, more than that I missed myself. I did not want to hide myself away, but something inside of me forced me to. It took a long time for me to get comfortable existing inside my body and inside the world as a whole. I learned to. I had to. In the present, I am not entirely free of my derealization and occasional depersonalization. Far from it, these symptoms still remain a daily struggle for me to manage. But with time and effort, it gets much easier and much less frightening. Miraculously, I am wholly able to comfortably interact with my surroundings in a manner free from catastrophization and self-destruction. With ample self-compassion, I have gotten to a point of reconnection with myself and the greater whole of my world.
“
It took a long time for me to get comfortable existing inside my body and inside the world as a whole. I learned to. I had to. SPRING 2022 | 9
ARTWORK
< < < left:
I I Don't Don't Miss Miss You You Madeline Randall
SPRING 2022 | 11
MUSINGS
My modern pillow book Cathryn Salis Poetry from a past life inspires modern writers to slow down and honor the simplicity of lists.
S
ei shonagon’s lists were never intended to be the blueprint for a form of collection poetry, but as she wrote her thoughts, observations, comments and complaints in her eventually published pillow book, the concept was immortalized and cherished as an exemplary piece of history and art in literature. Pillow books mirror modern-day journals or blogs and were not an uncommon form of communication between court ladies during the time period that Shonagon lived in (966-1017). As a lady-in-waiting serving Japanese empress Sadako, she and the other women in her circle participated in the swapping and reading of each other’s pillow books as a form of gossip. In a life so sheltered and different from the ones the majority of us live, Shonagon’s pillow book lends us insight into a time that we have little other record of. However, her lists are what captures the attention of most readers. Poetic, simple and largely unstructured, her lists contain gentle but not fragile depictions of the world around her. The lists are beautiful. Poems with titles such as Disconcerting Things and Nothing Can Be Worse capture details that are enticing when singled out in such a way. Poets and writers mimicking the style of these lists has led to the birth of Shonagon’s own genre of poetry. Shonagon’s list poems are characterized by a prompting title and a collection of nouns that respond to the prompt. Simple and striking, this form of list poetry brings alive the little things in life; reminding readers that certain things will always be valued by mankind in this way.
Following are my attempts to create collections of meaningful moments and concepts. I urge you to use this as a writing practice in your own life, perhaps it will help foster your wonder and amusement in the mundane, as it has for me.
12 | UNTOLD
Things that should be short My younger brothers. Trees with fruit on them. High school sophomores. Political debates between stubborn people. Weddings. Bad days. Math tests. Proximity to a bathroom at all times. Height restrictions on carnival rides. Pep talks. Things that make me feel free Dancing in the headlights of his car. Biking through the rain. Singing at the top of my lungs. The last day of school. Driving with the windows down. Barefoot hikes in the mountains during summertime. Telling the truth. Getting away with a lie. Smashing something made of glass. Following my intuition. Things that cloud my judgment Anger after an argument with someone I love. Humidity. Fear of losing someone. Stubbornness. Spiders. Other people’s opinions. Feeling rushed. Unhealthy attachments to people. Cool shoes. Hunger. Exhaustion. The way the afternoon sun falls on her face. My upbringing. Lack of balance.
Things that are inevitable Technological advancements. Death. Taxes. Mistakes. Heartbreak. Love. Holes in your socks. The slow march of time. The need to eat. Puddles. Encounters with the Devil. Country music.
Things that terrify me The sound of an alarm over the loudspeaker. Making the same mistake twice. Being on the top of a really tall building. People running in the halls during my class. Places where the entrance is the only exit. Walking alone at night. Being caught in a lie. The knowledge that my little brothers are growing up. Being in a classroom with big windows and nowhere to hide. Public bathroom doors that don’t lock. Unfamiliar men.
Things that shouldn’t last forever Plastic. Anything edible. Perfection, or as close as it gets. Doubt. Clarity. Dreams. Scary movies. Nighttime. Unquestioned faith.
When I’m grateful I’m human The first sunny day of spring. When I realize something doesn’t hurt as much as it used to. Flights to go home. Being at a concert, making eye contact with people in the crowd. The last day of work at a really shitty job. Realizing your best friend used to be a stranger and now you’re closer to them than anyone else. Finally being able to hug someone I’ve missed for the first time in a while. Driving down an empty street, screaming my favorite song with my favorite person. Being able to help a stranger. Saying goodbye to someone you love and realizing how much their absence is going to hurt.
Things you don’t know about me since we don’t talk anymore Tequila is my drink of choice. I have a scar on my leg because of an accident this summer. I got my nose pierced, twice. I broke someone’s heart. I published that poem I wanted you to read but you never did. My dad and I are rebuilding our relationship. I want kids. I live above the coffee shop you recommended to me. I don’t listen to the music you showed me anymore. I started going to therapy. I met a few someone’s, had a great time with them. The carpal tunnel flares went away. I look for your car sometimes when I walk by your normal parking spots.
Things that influence my decisions Internalized male gaze. Authority figures’ perceptions of me. Trends. My current crush. Social media. Money. Consumerism. Job opportunities. Art. Self-respect. The weather.
SPRING 2022 | 13
ARTWORK
Community
Hanna Williams 14 | UNTOLD
MUSINGS
lease.
Kivi Weeks
The word Please is delicate. On spindly grasshopper legs so easily yanked From their placed flesh by senseless toddlers.
Please is crystal stemware that might shatter in the undiscerning hand To whom all wine tastes the same. Please is naked flesh and salt, kneaded into the hands like bread dough. and Please is a throaty cry of crazy eye rolling need The pig struggling against the butcher’s block Screaming it again and again as the ax is raised and;
SPRING 2022 | 15
LIFESTYLE
W
hen I was younger I believed my identity as Asian was simple, it was an unimportant aspect of myself that others would ignore and during my early years I treated it as such. I grew up with a distaste in my mouth for my own identity, and I began to hate my culture for the way others treated me because of it. They threw me in lockers and trash cans all whilst putting post-it notes on my backpack that reminded me that I was exactly what they saw me as; less than. As an adult, the images and experiences I had as a young Asian girl seem to have manifested itself in the big scary adult world as intense violence and intimidation. They beat our grandparents, target and kill our sisters, and shout hate at our community. We are constantly filled with images of struggling people in our communities who are simply trying to live in a world of hatred against them. News reports with graphic videos of deaths, attacks and screams fill our brains. They remind us that the world can be a scary, unforgiving place for people who look like us. We are never allowed space to love, or love each other for the things we have been told to hate about ourselves.
Taylor Lander 16 | UNTOLD
Growing: Because of the Circumstances
Content Warning: brief mentions of violence and death
I want to love myself. I want to love my culture. I refuse to let what others believe define who I am and what I can be. My experience as an Asian woman is limited and I can’t nor do I wish to speak for people I don’t represent. What I do know is that we are all worthy of happiness. We are all deserving of love. Most BIPOC communities have found that knowing we are worthy is inherently different from feeling worthy. It is anything but easy. I am in a constant battle between the socialized image of “deserving” as being things I will never be, or having a strong craving to feel that worthiness others deny me that I know I am deserving of. This is a battle I don’t know if I can win, but I believe has immense worth. I pass this on to others who resonate with these feelings, and have a simple message; You are growing, and that is beautiful. You are growing in a way that no one can take away from you, and in a way only you can see or understand. Push past the messages that self-love is an end goal, and instead see your journey as exactly what it is and not what it should be. You are deserving of love on days where you feel your best. You are worthy of love on days at your worst, and this is because all of these thoughts and feelings are what makes you who you are. And you are growing, not in-spite of, but because of these circumstances.
ARTWORK
Sphere of Existence Joanna Johnson
SPRING 2022 | 17
What is Untold? Untold Magazine tackles the underground and under-discussed stories of Hamline. We are storytellers inspired by many forms, from feature writing to memoir and zines to collage. We aim to tell the strange and the serious about our community in equally strange and serious ways. Untold releases a print issue in fall and spring semesters. We also publish digital content on our website at hamlineuntold.com. Want to get involved? Current students and alumni are invited to pitch their ideas when we announce the issue at the start of each semester. We welcome new voices and will support contributors through the editing and publishing process. Untold publishes original written, visual, and digital work in print and online, and we pay contributors per piece published with us. If you have an idea you can’t wait to share, send us an email at untoldmagazine@hamline.edu.
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Check out our website at hamlineuntold.com:
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staff profiles above, from left to right: Max Ridenour, Michael Horton, Joanna Johnson
Contributors: Travis Whitt Hodo Mohamed Kivi Weeks Alex Sirek Madeline Randall Cathryn Salis Hanna Williams Taylor Lander Joanna Johnson 20 | UNTOLD
below, from left to right: Manisha Ram, Kimia Kowsari, Coby Aloi
EDITOR IN CHIEF Kimia Kowsari MANAGING EDITOR Joanna Johnson
Sena Ross
CHIEF OF DESIGN Max Ridenour SECTION EDITORS Manisha Ram - Lifestyle Sena Ross Art Michael Horton - Musings COPY EDITOR Coby Aloi
Austin Malberg
SOCIAL MEDIA & WEB MANAGER Austin Malberg PHOTOGRAPHER Allison Stanke FACULTY ADVISOR Jen England
Allison Stanke
contact us:
email: untoldmagazine@hamline.edu social media @hamlineuntold
SPRING 2022 ISSUE - CONNECTION