The Olivetree Review No. 51 Spring 2012

theolivetreereview.com

OTR

Spring 2012 issue 51

Hunter College’s literary and arts journal since 1983.

OTR SPRING 2012 ISSUE 51

Alexandra Heidler Respite

THE OLIVETREE REVIEW SPRING 2012 Submissions are reviewed September through November and February through May. We consider submissions of visual art, fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, and plays.

The Olivetree Review is completely staffed by undergraduate students of Hunter College. All submissions are reviewed anonymously by Hunter College students.

Site: theolivetreereview.com Email: olivetreereview@gmail.com Visit: Thomas Hunter Room 212 Permission to publish the content in this issue was granted to The Olivetree Review by the artists and authors. These contributors retain all original copyright ownership of works appearing in The Olivetree Review before and after its publication. Copying, reprinting, or reproducing any material in this journal is strictly prohibited.

Spring 2012, No. 51 This journal is funded by Hunter College’s student activity fees and is distributed free to the university community. Š The Olivetree Review CUNY Hunter College 695 Park Avenue Thomas Hunter Room 212 New York, NY 10065

Managing Editor

ART EDITORS

Jennifer Jade Yeung

Jessica Astudillo Kimberly Pati単o Ana White

Senior Art Editor

Connie Salvayon FICTION & Non-fiction Senior Fiction &

EDITORS

Non-Fiction Editor

Jennifer Jade Yeung

Etinosa Agbonlahor Louis Gaudio Esther Ko Lindsay Mairanz Rubana Rahman Jason Sloan Teresa Soto Chireau White

COPYEDITORS

POETRY EDITORS

Esther Ko Christropher Torres David M. DeLeon

Munirah Quadri

Yoshika Agee Chelsea Alterman Priscilla Cruz Anjelica Enaje Esther Ko Susan Li Lia Manoukian Angely Mercado Connie Salvayon Vlad Velicu Ana White Chireau White

PUBLICITY MANAGERS

FOUNDERS

Kimberly Pati単o Jessica Taghap

Pamela Barbell Mimi Ross DeMars Adam Vinueza

Christopher Torres Senior Poetry Editor

David M. DeLeon Creative director

TREASURER

Melissa Williams VICE PRESIDENT

Sean Ricci SECRETARY

CONTENTS ART

Jennifer Jade Yeung

The Flow 42

Silver Lining 14 Dilapidation 18 Vertex 29 Natalia 45

Jessica Astudillo

POETRY

ART CONTEST WINNER

Jantsankhorol Erdenebayar

Ma Petite 37

Jantsankhorol Erdenebayar Who Knows Who? 24

Alexandra Heidler Respite 17

Gabriela Hernandez Father and Son 34

Shushanik Karapetyan

POETRY CONTEST WINNER

Cailen Jimenez

The Black Hole Speaks 30 POETRY CONTEST RUNNER UP

Alanna Wray

Seeing Eye God 41

Lucia Cappuccio When the Ark Doesn’t Come 9

Kiss of the Light 8 Rose Nap 39

R. F. Henrickson

Albina Khayrulina

Cailen Jimenez

House of Mirrors 26

Kimberly Patiño Eden 22

Connie Salvayon

WPIX Sunday Morning Movie 40

The Kinds of Conversations that Occur When One Becomes Aware of the Existence of Black Holes 27

May Mary Lynn

Cultivate 11

It’s Kind of Hard to Look at You and Feel 15

Shane Velazquez

Merryn Reis

Man-Made Landscape 38

Storm Warning 36

Connie Salvayon Terra Sigillata 23

Jason Sloan Engaged to Phineas 12

Jennifer Jade Yeung With Caution 44

PROSE FICTION CONTEST WINNER

Esther Ko One Magic Thing a Day 32

Rick Henrickson Tall Tale 19

COVER ARTIST Jantsankhorol Erdenebayar Jantsa was born and raised in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. He grew up during the Mongolian government’s revolution from a communist to democratic state.

As a child he used to vacation at his grandmother’s countryside home where he helped her with livestock and other rural duties. This brought him closer to animals, nature, and his Mongolian tradition. After his experiences, Jantsa found himself close to the spirits of animals, especially wolves—a very spiritual animal in Mongolian tradition. His art deals mainly with human and nature relationships.

FROM THE EdITOR When students ask how they can get more involved in the OTR, I hope they understand that getting involved is simply a matter of showing up. Sometimes it’s difficult to find eager and motivated students who will keep the journal going, so we like to see as many new faces as possible.

When I first came to the OTR, I felt the same way every unfamiliar face does when he or she shows up at TH212: uneasy. but as an editor I spent increasingly more time in the office and all the unfamiliar faces became friends, characters, and mentors.

A year ago the graduating managing editor approached me and asked if I’d be willing to run for her position, since none of the current members wanted to take on the responsibility. After all, we’re an entirely student-run publication, and having active members is just the beginning. I went from being a regular editor to managing the entire journal.

Once I dived into production I found that getting involved offers students the potential to gain real skills as well as to build a community they can be proud of. I’m happy to say that working for the OTR has been a valuable experience and I hope future members will be up to the task of keeping this journal alive. And yes, we have the best open mics at Hunter.

—Jade

SPRING 2012 cONTESTS HUMANS ANd THE ENvIRONMENT Contemporary art plays an important role in communication, especially now that we are faced with climate change and the human impact on nature is becoming more pronounced. This contest invited students to explore how humans relate to the environment and to join in the global conversation through thematic commentary.

—Connie, Senior Art Editor

SCENE Students were challenged to create scenes where a single moment in time reveals truths about characters, not only about themselves but also their relationships with one another. “One Magic Thing a day” accomplished this task with a subtle scene expressing a very complex dynamic.

—Chris, Senior Fiction & Non-Fiction Editor

THE FUTURE We wanted to give writers a chance to put aside themselves and what they knew and instead to write outwards, towards the unknown, the future. The two poets chosen took this idea in very different and surprising directions: one is an ironic take on science and society, the other is a very earnest look at the limits of the soul.

—david, Senior Poetry Editor

Lucia Cappuccio

When The Ark Doesn’t Come By the third hour my fingernails had made significant dents in the bark.

Shards of wood extended sharply into my cuticles.

Discomfort kept me focused as the flood water rushed by strong—confidently flowing— nudging my legs away from the tree.

The water bubbled with debris and picture frames, plastic bags and clothes, fast food containers, soccer balls, the occasional human.

They tried to grab my branch too.

I watched their hands grasp the shallow air but

Shushanik Karapetyan Kiss of the Light Digital photography Cappuccio | 10

OTR

their contorted bodies continued floating down the street, arms thrust in the sky, palms open for deliverance, a long wave goodbye.

Connie Salvayon Cultivate Ceramic and mixed media 11 | Cappuccio

OTR

Jason Sloan Engaged to Phineas

Mr. G. got up and vomited; the effort of vomiting pressed out about half a teacupful of the brain, which fell upon the floor.

—Dr. Edward H. Williams, first physician to examine

I once asked Cupid To shoot an arrow At my true love’s heart.

But like any cordate arrow It flew off its mark.

Pierced her left eye Tunneled through her brain And poked from her cranium Like a sprouting rose In a torrent of tissue.

She is different now, But my love is not When I ask for a kiss It comes in a yell Just as wet on my lips And just as tender.

When I give her a hug, She returns with a blow, Just as soft on my skin And just as clutching.

I stare my affection Into her good eye And dab her wounds With disinfectant alcohol.

While I brush her hair 13 | Sloan

Phineas Gage after the incident

Around the crusty shaft She struggles with me And scratches indelible lines Of poetry into my skin Enduring as stanzas Of distilled passion.

I am thankful every day That the arrow went awry For had it reached its target She would now be still And cold and lifeless An object to love And not a person to hate.

Sloan  |  14

OTR

Jennifer Jade Yeung Silver Lining Gelatin silver print

15 | Yeung

MAY MARY LYNN

it’s kind of hard to look at you and feel it’s kind of hard to look at you and feel like I’m any good there are invisible marks inside my thighs expanding into white when I flex and you enter me thanking me ignoring me and there is a loll protrusion hanging from my belly burgeoning purposely if I breathe hard enough it will go away and there are flecks thoughtlessly scattered across my back like the genetic artist violently hurled paint onto a crushed canvas and there is dirt lodged underneath my chewed up nails I pick at it with a toothpick a mite of blood spreads I blot it with a tissue like you blot it with tissues and there are torn bubbles plaguing my palms like I’ve bathed them outside in the sultry sun forcibly overworked groping wet sweat and there is a birthmark a sickly spot on the edge of my wrist lurking taunting itching and there is dead skin dangling from these cracked lips the ones you kissed that night in the park the ones you looked at from across our table at the diner the ones you forgot about when you left me stranded in the library amid all those shelves of dusty books improvised walls between us I sometimes wish I could have inherited all that knowledge instead of pathetically floundering underneath wet sheets with you and there are tiny black beads embedded within the vessels of my crooked nose tilting my face at an angle so you don’t have to strain your neck to find something you’ll like and there are thick hairs deviating above Lynn | 16

OTR

my brows too thin nothing a mirror clamp tug ouch can’t fix and there are purple holes underneath my eyes boring brown look into them like a cheap hypnosis get drawn into them it’s funny if you fall into a trance they are so dull I am so dull

Alexandra Heidler Respite Acrylic on canvas 14”x9” 17 | Lynn

R. F. Henrickson Tall Tale

H

e couldn’t possibly have the nerve to do it again,” muttered the shirtless man, bounding along the sidewalk in unlaced canvas sneakers, shorts a size too tight. His afro, an unflattering staple of the 1970s white middle-class male, spread fungus-like down the back of his neck, across his shoulders, and over his chest and abdomen—a suburban sasquatch.

“I’ll admit I laughed the first time I shadowed the little culprit,” he snickered, pointing towards the string of new houses and empty foundations on the block.

“I watched him, all of four years old, lift a rock half the size of his head, spin his forearm like one of those kids from the Our Gang comedies—a calculated triple fan sweep, pause,” the man reenacted the maneuver, “then chuck the thing at a neighbor’s basement window! Little sonofabitch smashed it to bits!”

The boy waddled past a row of somber bulldozers, belly bump leading the rest of his toddler parts. Mounds of excavated earth endowed the air with a tangy scent of awakened clay.

“It was all I could do to stop myself laughing, but you must understand. It was the conviction of the bastard that struck me as funny.” The man raised his glance toward the sun-streaked sky like an astronaut, lit a cigarette, then ducked behind a tan-gold Buick with eggshaped backseat windows.

“The kid was on a mission, you know,” he whispered, “whatever the hell “

“The kid was on a mission, you know,” he whispered, “whatever the hell kind of mission it is that lurks in the melon of a fouryear-old.”

Jennifer Jade Yeung Dilapidation Gelatin silver print Henrickson | 20

OTR

kind of mission it is that lurks in the melon of a four-year-old.” Stealing a peek at the boy’s progress, the man’s knees cracked as he stood up halfway from behind the car. The sound was so startling, so clear in the still, summer ether, that he thought every living creature on the horseshoe-shaped block had heard it. Crouching again, he spit with frustration and shook his head. But the boy carried on without missing a beat, sizing up a pair of bay windows well beyond his reach. Palming the trunk of the Buick, the man eased himself erect, fighting off a slight dizziness.

“Now he’s at it again. Probably make a good soldier. Damn good soldier at that! How the hell am I supposed to convince this little ball-buster that breaking windows isn’t right, that destroying private property is bad?”

He flicked his cigarette onto a pile of dirt, kneading it with his foot for an unnatural amount of time.

“I don’t want him turning into some kind of pussy, you understand.

He’s got some fucking initiative, god damn it!”

The man tapped his sneaker against the curb, knocking off bits of mud.

“I mean, I don’t see any of the other peckerheads around here taking it upon themselves to make their mark or stir the shit.” Tap, tap, tap. “My boy here is an all original! So what if I have to shell out a few bucks for a busted window or two?” Tap, tap, tap.

“Some of these joints haven’t even been moved into yet.”

Lifting his ankle toward his backside, picking residual dirt from the sole of his sneaker, he thought of his wife, the one he called “The Mouth,” who would harass him for days if he didn’t do something about “Your son’s habits!”

He grit his teeth, blocking the image of her from his mind.

“I could take the kid for a drive in the back of the patrol cruiser,” he chortled, his eyes glazing over. “Tell him this is what happens when you break things that don’t belong to you, that you go to jail and have to live with big, nasty niggers and never see mommy and daddy again.”

“Or…,” his face flushed with excitement, “I could take a brick and crush

“I could take the kid for a drive in the back of the patrol cruiser,” he chortled, his eyes glazing over, “tell him this is what happens when you break things”

21 | Henrickson

one of his Tonka trucks. Ask him how he likes that!” His train of thought was interrupted as he watched the boy initiate a practice throw at a bale of unused, sun-scorched lawn.

“Damn, but he’s got a helluva throwing arm! Sign him up for little league right now is what I should do! Maybe if I just make sure he doesn’t hit the Jew’s house nobody will notice anything.”

The man ran his fingers through his afro, then scratched ferociously as if trying to rid his head of thousands of insects.

“Fucking racket that guy would make! Probably try to get me to pay for the window and emotional distress! Meanwhile, his two heebie-jeebies already look like those Jew diamond dealers on 47th Street with those black suits and hats. God damn five-year-olds! My little man…?” He puffed out his chest, arms akimbo like a Superman sasquatch. “Pair of white Fruit of the Looms, a rock, and that’s it! Just as it should be.”

The man wiped his sweaty forehead with his hairy forearm.

“Christ, it’s hot out here! I don’t know how that little strunz manages to keep going in this heat. Where the hell did he go?” The man checked his watch as he untangled the crucifix from his chest curls.

“I’ve gotta get in the fucking shower if I’m going to make it to roll call.

Shit, shower and shave, eh? I should bring the kid in with me, show him the ropes, the way to handle a straight razor. Show him how big his prick is going to be one day.” The man contorted his tongue between taut, thin lips and a piercing whistle sliced the mid-morning air like the shriek of a great, predatory bird.

“Going to turn out fine, that little bastard,” he declared. “Just like his old man. You follow?” He lowered his gaze toward his companion.

“Knock it off!” he barked.

The man’s daughter stared up at him, picking her nose.

Henrickson | 22

OTR

Kimberly Patiño Eden Acrylic on canvas

23 | Patiño

Connie Salvayon Terra Sigillata

You drew a circle and a human eye, sgraffito language on the skin of clay.

A warning.

Seven humid nights rubbing with a corn cob to get the texture right.

Coil pots of ribs smoothed, released from human likeness.

The fire a means of preservation, fossilization of a feeling, branding three-dimensional space.

And I know what you are thinking ripping red clay from the earth.

Next time, you will grind human teeth to bone ash to solidify your pottery.

Salvayon  |  24

OTR

Jantsankhorol Erdenebayar Who Knows Who? Ink, ink pen, collage 11”x14”

25 | Erdenebayar

Erdenebayar | 26

OTR

Albina Khayrulina House of Mirrors Digital photography

27 | Khayrulina

Cailen Jimenez

The Kinds of Converstations that Occur When One Becomes Aware of the Existence of Black Holes So there’s this girl, right?

Right.

And her head’s like, blank.

Okay?

I mean, blank-blank. Nothing’s going on in that dome—no dances, no songs, no pretty words, no nothing. It shows in her eyes—like they’re circle-shaped pools of sludge and potential-less-ness. ...Okay?

It’s such a goddamn shame. Cuz she could be wonderful. Her fingers could be magic & her lips could be sparkling & I should tell her her neck doesn’t have to hurt.

[Takes out cell phone & begins texting] And her hair is curly spindly charcoal smudging the air around her head keeping the light from coming in. Shade, shadow. It’s like she’s her own limit.

Keeping light out all the time. No wonder she’s been sleepy.

Yeah… Uh, hey, Kevin wants to grab something to eat.

You in the mood for pizza?

Dude, I don’t want pizza, I’m hungry. This girl’s driving me up the wall. Up the roof. Up to Planet Far-Away. She’s like a spiral bound up in a tight coil, or an explosion stuffed inside a tiny lead box. Galaxies in a drop of rain. But her Jimenez | 28

OTR

bones are creaking & her wrists shake when she tries to make words happen.

Her brain doesn’t trust her shoulder doesn’t trust her ribs don’t protect her heart & lungs are peeling away in parched, dusty layers scattered on the floor where her stomach is & she tripped on it and it bit her heel like that snake in that Book & her lips are chapped from arguing with them so she cemented her throat shut. I could open it up. That girl needs sex, dude. Crack those ribs, part those legs, ice cold bucket of water right to the teeth. I wanna hear them chatter. I want to hear the scream that’s been wrestling with her hipbones & intestines. And she has to wake up out of her charcoal-dust-daze and let her eyes be brilliant & her jaw relax. She needs a glass of whine. She needs to give names to those little gnats frenzying on the lobes of her ears & then let them go... You listening, man? That girl needs some.

Um, Kevin’s already at the place.

Are you coming or not?

You weren’t listening.

Well, I don’t really even know what you’re saying.

Because you weren’t listening.

Why do you care so much?

I...

I don’t know, man, I think...

She’s a mirror.

She’s a fucking mirror.

Okay. [Shrugs] I’m going, all right?

I’ll see you.

[After he’s gone] No. You won’t.

29 | Jimenez

Jennifer Jade Yeung Vertex Gelatin silver print

Yeung | 30

POETRY CONTEST WINNER

Cailen Jimenez The Black Hole Speaks

severely sincere memory instigator apolog y-maker pill-taker sick-faker dead-dried-crumbled-leaves-that-fell-from-my-chest-tree raker take her break her – If there’s anything I should know by now, it’s that there’s only one thing Light is good for: making shadows.

–

fate-transforming, wood-worming, brain-stem-storming, cold-feet-warming, inner-space-exploring, outer-face-deforming, never-a-moment-boring, Fuck you I hate you get away from me.

– But always, always, before the lesson settles in, on my skin, reviving me again, your image cloud voice shoulders wings obscure everything, you goddamn Shadow.

Where was I again?

– 31 | Jimenez

Oh, right. Learning your name:

mirrors, mirrors, do you dare cast your shadows everywhere?

– Yes—that’s right.

You’re that shiny blank slate

crystalline picture-maker

soul-shower that I stand in front of, asking why or how my face is acquiring the bends and contours

I used to think were

yours.

– Fuck you. I hate you. Get away from me.

Shadow Mirrors Light I’m afraid I might eat you alive.

Jimenez | 32

FICTION CONTEST WINNER

Esther Ko

One Magic Thing a Day

I

used to perform magic tricks for Charlie. Nothing special—not even tricks, really—but he got a kick out of them.

Once we were in the backyard trying to make as much noise as we could. We took turns throwing a half-deflated basketball against the chainlink fence. The ball left my hands, bounced off the fence, and smacked him in the ear. I was the one that threw the ball but I didn’t mean for it to hit him in the head like that, and definitely not that hard. I was careful not to be too rough with Charlie. I just had to put a lot of strength behind that ball to get a decent bounce out of it.

He got really quiet, like he was trying to decide whether to cry or not.

Before he could think too much about it I told him I’d show him a magic trick.

We sat cross-legged on the concrete and placed the deformed basketball between us. I pulled a quarter from my pocket and placed it in the middle of my outstretched palm. I looked him straight in the eyes.

“Do you know what I’m about to do?”

I asked.

“What?”

“I’m actually going to use real magic, for real.”

He furrowed his brows and chewed the corner of his solemn little mouth. He wanted to believe in magic. More than that, he desperately wanted to believe in me. He was like that, even back then.

“Show me.”

I made a cross-eyed carp face and while Charlie laughed I tucked the quarter under my thigh. Then I waved my empty hands in front of him. He clambered onto my lap and grabbed at my hands to inspect them.

“Where did it go?”

“Magic.” I nudged him off my lap.

He furrowed his brows and chewed the corner of his solemn little mouth. He wanted to believe in magic.

33 | Ko

“Okay. Now make it come back.”

I flailed my arms into the sky, pounded my fists into the ground. I leaned my face into his, so close the tips of our noses almost touched.

“I make something disappear and now you want it back? How much do you expect from me?”

As I spoke, my hand roamed across the ground under my leg in pursuit of the coin.

“You can’t do it. If you were a real magician, you could make it come back.”

“Not a real magician?” I tried to sound offended. “I was going to do it but maybe you don’t deserve to see magic if you don’t even believe in me.”

“Nonononono! I wanna see.”

“Do you take it back?”

A vigorous nod of the head.

“I want you to say, You’re a real magician.”

“You’re a real magician” “Okay…but I have to concentrate.” I closed my eyes, snatched the coin, and rubbed my hands together while murmuring gibberish. “…Abraaa kadabraa!”

With a flourish I opened my hands and, there, on my palm—the recovered coin.

“Omigod! How did you do that?”

He took the quarter and studied it, tracing his index finger around and around the grooved edge. His eyes flickered between the quarter and me. He had been made a witness. He had seen the proof. His big brother was magical. He had no idea that I was a fraud, that my only gift was playing a convincing imposter.

Something shattered inside the house.

A dish, probably. Maybe a lamp. We heard the thud of a man’s fist against a wall. A woman’s scream lingered in the air. I picked up the basketball and threw it against the fence.

Charlie was chewing his lip again.

“Do you think…”

I caught the basketball and chucked it again, higher this time.

His eyes flickered between the quarter and me. He had been made a witness. He had seen the proof.

His big brother was magical.

Ko | 34

OTR

35 | Hernandez

“Could you use your powers to make them stop?”

The ball ricocheted and landed out of reach. I could have gotten up. I could have rooted around the clump of weeds and trash and gotten the ball back, but it didn’t seem worth the effort. I didn’t really feel like playing anymore.

“No,” I said, “I can only do one magic thing a day. And I already used it up on you.”

“Oh.” The air was sucked out of him and his whole body, his scrawny little boy’s body, drooped. I wanted to tell him to stop being so stupid. Of course there was no such thing as magic. He needed to stop being such a dumb kid and realize most people can’t be trusted, not even me.

“Is there any way I can take it back?” he asked.

“Forget it,” I said. “They’ll stop soon anyway.”

“I didn’t know…”

He scraped the quarter back and forth along the concrete.

“I didn’t know.”

Gabriela Hernandez Father and Son Photography Ko | 36

OTR

Merryn Reis Storm Warning

Mabel made the point to huddle when the wind would buckle down the lean-to.

Lightning flashed a one, two, harshly in the dark wood.

Mabel made the point to count the seconds up to thunder booming back. Could buckle down the lean-to, could walk out to the night to touch the lightning, calm, nude.

Mabel made the point to think less darkly, though to catch it would be good. Should buckle down the lean-to, shouldn’t wonder now, do storms feel gratitude?

Mabel made the point to buckle down the lean-to.

Jessica Astudillo Ma Petite Digital photography 37 | Reis

OTR

Shane Velazquez Man-Made Landscape Ink

39 | Velazquez

Shushanik Karapetyan Rose Nap Acrylic on canvas 8”x11”

Karapetyan | 40

OTR

R. F. Henrickson

WPIX Sunday Morning Movie “I’m not going to church anymore.” not going to church— not going— flinch!—and looking truly sad, and asks, “Why?” No scintilla of Sicilian, suburban guilt that she and her mom and back and back they rode the backs of nations of men who died for it, still “I’m not going to church anymore.” not going to church— not going— From the mossy monster, navyblue, that hides the dirt and swag— “Hell, I learned to masturbate on this synthetic shag”— ’n while Cap’n Crunch ’n semen seem to savor impudence— a Sunday spent with Bud & Lou conspires reverence!

41 | Henrickson

POETRY CONTEST RUNNER-UP

Alanna Wray Seeing Eye God

It was whispered at department meetings, and great minds made footnotes in articles stating but not stating the absence of God. So the scientists lowered a robot with camera and lights down into God’s home, the seventh quantum (which is nineteen infinitums deep). Earth inhaled as the best brains squinted, scribbled, and finally spied a female cradling several thousand eggs.

Of course! It must be! The scientific community shouted, without her, we are nothing! Without us, she is nothing!

A large pinkish nothing, a splendid pulsing nothing waving her tentacles to aerate and nourish.

The Church of the Squid took the world by force, waving dramatic tentacles in dogmatic arenas, scuba diving priests adopted disciples as misconceptions about squid arose.

Wray | 42

ART CONTEST WINNER Jantsankhorol Erdenebayar The Flow Ink, ink pen, collage 24”x34”

43 | Erdenebayar

Erdenebayar | 44

OTR

Jennifer Jade Yeung With Caution

I saw your brown eyes soften then saw out imaginary windows where I softened like laundry on the line to dry.

Your hair appeared wild on the midnight indigo.

I wasn’t sorry I closed my eyes.

45 | Yeung

Jennifer Jade Yeung Natalia Gelatin silver print Yeung | 46

CONTRIBUTORS Jessica Astudillo is a psychology major hoping to work in the field of behavioral neuroscience. Black and white photography is her favorite medium, as the motions gone through in a darkroom to develop a film can be immensely rewarding. She also specializes in portraiture.

Lucia Cappuccio is a fun-loving feminist double majoring in creative writing and media studies. She enjoys strawberry margaritas and singing karaoke.

Jantsankhorol Erdenebayar was born and raised in Ulaanbaatarm, Mongolia. For more, see bio on page 5.

Alexandra Heidler is an American mutt with an artistic perspective that cuts across many cultural boarders. She spends her free time writing, painting, and photographing her world, with a focus on textures and quality shading. She is a senior here at Hunter, with one more semester until she is frightfully released into the post-graduation world out and beyond.

R. F. Henrickson is an English major and a native New Yorker.

Gabriela Hernandez is a junior studying community health education. Originally from Puerto Rico, she has lived in Florida, Boston and now New York City. She hopes to continue her travels and capture all that she can while advocating for the health of society. You can view more of her work at lavieengaby.tumblr.com.

Cailen Jimenez does not like being called Cailen Jimenez. She goes by CJ. She lives on Mount Olympus, because nobody knows where Mount Vernon is.

CJ is a fairy princess, a zombie assassin, and sometimes a god. But most of the time she’s a college freshman-going-on-sophomore with no clue what it means to be an adult. Oh, and she likes elephants. A lot.

Shushanik Karapetyan is studying English, psychology, and studio art. She stopped dancing tango because she couldn’t stop back leading after repeated instruction. Her favorite word is “exogenesis,” and if there are two kinds of egoists—those who admit it and the rest—then she is the type that admits it.

47 | Contributors

Albina Khayrulina is a self-taught photographer who was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and moved to the US when she was eight. As a child she was always drawn to storytelling and the moving image and later found her niche in photography, incorporating her childhood hobbies of storytelling, design, and movie-making into her photographs. Visit her website at akhayrulina.com.

Esther Ko is the nation’s next singing sensation.

May Mary Lynn is currently a freshman at Hunter College, double majoring in creative writing and philosophy. You can contact her by emailing may.mary.lynn@gmail.com.

Connie Salvayon explores psychological and feminist themes in both her artwork and poetry. Texture also plays an important role in her work, as she believes in human physical touch. More of her work can be viewed at conniesalvayon.wordpress.com.

Jason Sloan is currently a freshman at Hunter College. He is on the pre-med track and double majoring in biology and creative writing. Creative writing has always been a passion for him and he hopes to never give it up, even during those difficult years at med school.

Shane Velazquez is a lifelong resident of New York City and has been producing art for twenty years. He’s attended many schools in his life but has never taken art classes. Velazquez has been using pen and ink since the very beginning, drawing from life or the colorful world of pop-cultural representations of life. Though he is asked occasionally, he can’t really speculate on the nature of artistic inspiration—or aspiration. You can email him at velazquezshane@gmail.com.

Alanna Wray hails from Des Moines, Iowa. She attended Truman State University and studied English and music. Currently, Wray works as an assistant for Rebecca Connor, Eileen Myles, and a kindie rock band named “The Jimmies.” She has been published in Lyre Lyre, Shake Your Tabooty, U of I Journal, and Wordsmyth.

Contributors | 48

Get involved Students can get more involved in the literary and art community at Hunter by attending OTR events such as our open houses, writing sessions, art trips, open mics, and launch parties.

Edit The OTR welcomes Hunter undergraduates of all experience levels to become editors for art, prose, or poetry. Editors decide together which pieces are accepted into the issue every semester. For more information, please visit our website.

Submit Passionate about writing or art?

Submit your visual art, fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, plays, or cross-genre pieces every semester.

See our website for details on how to submit online.

Contact us theolivetreereview.com Thomas Hunter Room 212 olivetreereview@gmail.com

theolivetreereview.com

OTR

Spring 2012 issue 51

Hunter College’s literary and arts journal since 1983.