WATCH Words - Spring 2022

Artwork by Henry Lee, ’22

Managing Editors Sophie Levenson & Ananya Chag Publisher Patton Galloway Faculty Advisors Childs Smith, Sarah Romano, & Jonathan Chang Front Cover Art by Caroline Butz Facing Page Art by Eliza Ford Featuring Artwork by AP Art Students: Eliza Ford, Dalia Medrano, Henry Lee, Will Houlihan, Caroline Butz, Callie Liberatos & Piper Lange With special thanks to Brink Norton, Brian Principe and Jen Lorenz who helped immeasurably with this publication

TABLE OF CONTENTS Each spring we are proud to feature student works of art and winning entries from the Upper School Literary Contest for Poetry, Short Fiction and Expository Writing.

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Narrative: “Just Average” by Anderson Toole

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Poetry: “A Full Bookshelf” by Ethan Lehrman

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Essay: “Philip Larkin, Unconventional Church-goer” by Sophie Levenson

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Narrative: “A Life of Pies” by Vivienne Worrell

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Essay: “Radical Humanism” by Ethan Lehrman

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Narrative: “Aim for the Moon, Land Amongst the Stars” by George Walton

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Poetry: “Those Lights” by George Walton

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Essay: “A Rhetorical Analysis of Prufrock” by Turner Long

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Impressions of a Poet: Appropriating an Interview with Writer Paisley Rekdal

by Sophie Levenson

Anderson Toole

1st PLACE, Narrative

Just Average On a normal Monday morning in a normal house in suburban Atlanta, a normal man rolled out of the bed he shared with his normal wife, into the bathroom, through the shower, and into slacks and a button-down shirt. He took his coffee as he usually did (black, save for a touch of cream) and made off in his mass-produced car to teach an entomology class at the university.

Professor James Grayson was a normal man, and this drove him crazy.

He thought about it almost daily. With a wife, two kids, a stable job at a respectable institution, and an average car, Grayson was the standard American male, down to his mundane coffee preferences. How is it, he would muse, that there are billions of people on the planet and each one is genetically distinct, yet we’re all so alike?

Grayson detested this uniformity, yet he fell all too easily into the ranks of men just like him and found that no matter what he tried, he couldn’t haul himself free. But he did have one mode of rebellion.

He taught the class that morning as he had taught every class before it. His students would nervously say the coffee had kicked in, and that’s why he was so different inside the classroom than out. None of them really believed it.

Throwing open the door, Grayson strode into the lecture hall with the air of a lion surveying its territory. He expounded the behavioral patterns through the life cycle of a moth, practically dancing around the board as he spoke, conjuring intricate diagrams purely from chalk and memory, and jumping at noises both quiet and loud. His eyes shone with a manic sort of light.

Those students brave enough to sit in the front rows said he looked possessed, and in the few weeks he’d been teaching, he’d earned a reputation as the madman of the classroom.

But Grayson was otherwise a normal man. Finishing the lecture, he shut his notes and swept from the room, making for his car as he usually would. As he left the building, Grayson seemed to snap out of his trance. The world came into focus again. Songbirds whistled and chirped.

“Strange,” he muttered to himself. It’s fading slower.

Grayson was used to the fervor by this point––losing control, colors distorted and thoughts scattered––but it usually didn’t last him out the door. Yet for the past week, it had stuck with him longer each day. Still lost in thought, he moved mindlessly towards his car at the far end of the lot.

A flash of light in his peripheral vision grabbed his attention. Grayson wheeled around to face an empty lot, bare, save for a garishly orange Hyundai. Blinking deliberately and promising himself more coffee, he resumed his trek to the car.

He got lunch on the way home, swinging by the grocery store to secure food for the night’s dinner, and whiled away the hours until his wife and children returned from their respective obligations by alternately grading papers and playing sudoku. As was the case with any normal kid, Grayson had always hated the entire concept of a Monday when he was in school, and thus had scheduled his to be as light as possible.

Still, even through the comforting tedium of routine, Grayson found himself on edge. The light of his desk lamp was too bright, and it felt for all the world like a glaring eye watching him, waiting until he inevitably fell asleep grading papers.

And fall asleep he did. His dreams were incoherent and scattered––waves of light and blinding flashes, beings watching him from the upper seats of the lecture hall. They wanted something that he had but couldn’t give, and every time he turned his back they moved up a row or two, and they started as silhouettes blacker than anything he’d ever seen, but they moved

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closer and closer and became steadily brighter until the light was too much and he couldn’t breathe and–– Grayson tore himself away from them and back into his bed where he lay, soaked in sweat with his sheet twisted around his neck, one end in either hand. He turned to look at his wife. She slept peacefully, as normal. Everything was normal.

Still panting slightly, he glanced at the clock. Half past two. How had he made it to bed? He hadn’t remembered his family coming home. His tongue tasted like metal and mildewed fabric.

Grayson remained awake for the rest of the night. He couldn’t take any chances.

He paced the house, twice thinking he saw dark figures in the windows, and twice looking closer only to find nothing there.

The rising of the sun was a welcome relief, though the blooming of dawn into daylight conjured images of the white-hot figures of his dream. Grayson greeted his wife and children with the sort of false cheer that only inspires concern. He went about his normal routine absentmindedly, staring blankly at the newspaper and taking nothing in.

Suddenly, midway through an article on something or other that should’ve piqued his interest, Grayson froze.

Photograph by Will Houlihan ’22 Something was coming. Up the front walk, stamping steadily along and growing closer. A pale human figure, blurred through the frosted glass of the front door. Not glowing, but uniformly light and growing brighter as it approached.

The mail slat erupted with junk mail and the odd bill. The mailman strolled back to his truck.

Sweating, Grayson shot up from his seat at the table, said brusque goodbyes to his family, and left for the university. They won’t look for me there, he thought before catching himself. Who were they? At least he could find a solace in his usual frenzied lectures.

But no solace came. The lights were too bright and each time he turned towards the board, his students moved closer in. They took no notes, only stared expectantly at him.

They want something, Grayson thought. They’re waiting.

To his students, something was clearly different. Grayson, typically insane but confident in his passion, had become less a lion and more a beaten dog. They carried on as normal, albeit hesitantly.

“Stop it,” Grayson growled to them mid-explanation, shutting his eyes. “Quit moving.

Assigned seats from now on.”

The students glanced furtively at one another, thinking the same thing: he really was the madman of the classroom.

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Grayson snapped his notes shut. He had to get out before they moved past the front row.

They whispered things to him now, still staring. You know what we want.

“No,” he whimpered. “I don’t. I’m normal.”

“Professor Grayson?” A brave student stood slowly, as if trying not to provoke an agitated raccoon.

Grayson started. “What is it? What is it that you want? Please––just tell me––I don’t–– I’m normal!”

They were asking too much of him. They came closer still, passing the first row of seats and stalking towards where he stood at the board.

“Class dismissed!” Grayson cried and ran from the room.

The world seemed to get brighter behind him as the beacon-figures closed. He burst through the doors and ran full-tilt across the parking lot. Would he be able to get away? He reached the car, desperately rummaging through his pockets and then his briefcase for his car keys. He paused, heart slowing. Looking around, he found that nothing had followed him from the lecture hall. The world’s colors dulled to their normal muted nuance.

Grayson slumped against his car, sliding to the asphalt and laying his head on his knees.

Nobody was coming, were they? He was safe. A flock of crows cawed in the trees. Cars drove by the lot, making soft sounds in the wind.

He dragged himself to his feet. He still had an afternoon lecture to give.

Grayson made himself a sandwich at the university’s dining hall and returned to the lecture hall knowing full well he couldn’t fall into his usual teaching mania lest he never resurface. The class began at half past one. Two hours.

By one thirty-five, Grayson’s voice had developed a slight tremor. His students were utterly bemused, being used to the wild professor-maniac rather than an average lecturer.

At one forty-five, he caught himself beginning to ramble too passionately. The room seemed to brighten, but quickly faded back into its normal hues as he repressed the lunacy.

At two, Grayson broke a sweat. He was so concerned with keeping himself stable that he barely taught the lesson.

But teach he did, sanity waxing and waning all the while.

Artwork by Dalia Medrano, ‘22 At two fifteen, a pencil dropped somewhere towards the back of the hall and Grayson snapped, plunging headfirst into the lecture.

His students, bewildered by the sudden monotony of the previously animated professor, nearly fell out of their chairs as Grayson leapt onto the table and continued his lesson.

Impassioned, Grayson gesticulated wildly as he spoke. He left the table in favor of the chalkboard, illustrating the differences in various species of moths’ wings in the finest detail, seemingly untouchable.

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That is, until he glanced back towards the students. They watched as they had that morning: intently, demandingly. They expected something.

Grayson paused. “Why do you all look at me like that?”

His students, who had to that point been taking notes as they usually would, exchanged confused looks.

“You want something from me,” Grayson continued steadily. “What do you want?”

Grayson’s heart sped up. The beacon-figures were back, peeking above the seats of the back rows.

“I’m normal,” he insisted. “What do you want?”

The bright silhouettes moved closer, more quickly than he’d seen them move before. They hurdled seats with a slightly superhuman agility, getting brighter all the while. Grayson stood frozen, mesmerized.

The fastest of them reached the front row of seats, luminous as a small sun. Grayson bolted, leaving his bewildered students behind in an otherwise empty room.

The beings were faster than he was. He wouldn’t make it much farther.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to. Grayson had had the foresight to park his car close to the building and leave it unlocked this time. He started the car and sped away, praying the radiant demons would leave him be.

Grayson wound like a madman through the most tranquil streets of suburban Atlanta. They followed him everywhere, leaping from roof to roof and driving the cars around him.

Finally, he gave up trying to shake them. Grayson drove home, desperately hoping they would leave his family alone. Pulling into the driveway, he ran full-tilt from the car into the house, locking the door behind him.

Nothing followed him in. Heaving a sigh of relief, he slumped against the front door, sliding down until he sat on the floor. They couldn’t get him here. It was from this vantage that he saw the figure, glowing white-hot, slide nimbly out of his chimney.

It stood, facing him directly, seemingly waiting for him to make the first move. It emitted a soft buzz, like a bug zapper.

“What do you want?” Grayson asked the figure yet again.

You know, it hummed. What do you want?

Grayson’s blood turned cold. “I don’t want to be normal.”

The figure nodded. You don’t have to be.

“How?” Step out of line. There are so many lines. Cross a few. Weave them together and tie them in knots.

It reached out deliberately and, with a sound like the crack of a whip, poked him in the chest.

Grayson’s vision flashed white, then black. His eyes adjusted, allowing him to make out the dark living room. The frosted glass of the front door behind him glowed softly, lit from the back by a streetlamp.

The streetlamp grew brighter. Grayson followed it through the door and across the yard to the sidewalk.

Dawn came slowly. The sky lightened from a deep black to a gray the shade of pencil lead, past a cloudy color into a bright white overcast.

The mail truck swung around the corner onto Grayson’s street, partially blending into the sky.

Grayson stared at the cracks in the sidewalk.

Step out of line.

The white lines of the road were shockingly bright against the new neighborhood’s fresh asphalt. Tie them in knots.

He stepped in front of the mail truck.

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1st PLACE, POETRY

Ethan Lehrman

A Full Bookshelf

Organization is the key Put the books on there without order and you’ve got a mess You can’t have Homer next to Kafka—it just won’t do So you pull them off and stack them Philosophy on the left, put the oldest on the bottom Fiction goes on the bottom shelf alphabetically by last name You reckon poetry should have its own section Then you lift each stack onto a shelf Sometimes you’ve got to squeeze the last volume in Take a moment to appreciate your handiwork Let your eyes scan the shelves until something grabs your attention Then pluck out the little red volume with tattered corners—you’ll read it... later

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Artwork by Callie Liberatos, ‘22

SOPHIE LEVENSON

1st PLACE, ESSAY

Philip Larkin, Unconventional Church-Goer Students in Dr. Aaron Lehman’s AP Literature class were assigned an analysis of “Church Going” by the English poet Philip Larkin. As Senior Sophie Levenson demonstrates, it’s a work that defies an easy reading but rewards the deep thinker.

The speaker in Philip Larkin’s “Church Going” carries his listeners out of the corporeal world and into the realm of thought by employing the power of wonder. Larkin’s speaker begins his lyrics in the narrative form; haltingly, irreverently, he enters and surveys an empty church, noting his vacuous lack of connection with the building, and feeling nothing remotely resemblant of awe. In the third stanza, though, his attention abruptly shifts, along with his approach; suddenly, a fluent style and thoughtful tone replace callous observation with sincere contemplation. The enjambment accompanied by tonal diction and unusual rhyme scheme which Larkin’s speaker employs in “Church Going” represent the uncertain nature of spiritual reflection and intimate the speaker’s unorthodox perspective towards the role of the church.

Enjambment characterizes Larkin’s verse in order to shape it into a soliloquy of uncertainty. The separation of ideas by lines allows the poem’s listeners to stride alongside its speaker as thoughts imbue his mind: he thinks of “marriage, and birth”—then, suddenly, “death” (50-51). When someone thinks, he does so without intent. Thoughts simply happen to a person. Such is Larkin’s poem. As the speaker reflects on the meaning of the church, his questions fall on broken lines: he wonders “who/ Will be the last, the very last, to seek...” (38-39). Here, the speaker’s curiosity grows out of his own contemplation; the isolated church-goer, surrounded by silence, questions the sacred. Enjambment is the ultimate break of convention; it pulls apart the very cohesion and syntax of a sentence. “The ghostly silt/Dispersed” is in itself a consecration of the holy ground in which lie the bones of the faithful dead (46-47). The break of convention in Larkin’s language mirrors the break of convention inherent in his thought; as he challenges the rules of English, he challenges, too, the sacrality of a building heightened only—in the speaker’s eyes—by its reputation. His wonderment perhaps offends the institution of the church, which rests so heavily on its status as the singular house of God. Still, he faithfully wonders.

Diction conveys that Larkin’s speaker only truly begins to entertain any notion of spiritualty when his mind has left the simplicity of church observation and turned introspectively instead. The first two stanzas of the poem, distinguishable for their bland profanity, are painfully close to prose; rife with cacophony and terse verbiage, the lines crudely observe “some brass and stuff ” lying aimlessly within an “unignorable silence” (5,7). The rough consonance of the words “brass” and “unignorable,” alongside the thoughtless “some... stuff ” characterize the speaker’s experience in the church as mundane, empty, Godless. Larkin’s speaker is not, though, totally irreverent. As he transitions into the latter half of his work, Larkin allows his orator a captivating license to verbal elegance; his mind wanders and his speech entrances: he sings of euphonious “compulsions... robed as destinies” and speckles his verse with sibilance, as in the “special shell” (56-57, 52). Instead of blindly practicing canonized Christianity, he assaults it with curiosity, challenging the church’s right to be kept “chronically on show” (33). It seems as if Larkin is asking, wondering: why must holiness only exist in one place?

Larkin’s rhyme scheme is... almost rhythmic. But not quite. There exists something asymmetric in his pattern, something—wrong. The sixth line in each of Larkin’s stanzas protrudes, lonely, flaunting boldly its singularity in sound. Seven stanzas compose “Church Going”—seven, of course, being a holy number to reflect the holy nature of the poem—and in the middle of each stanza, on the sixth line out of nine, sits a word remarkably and unsettlingly different. A simple alternating rhyme scheme

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characterizes the majority of the lyricism in “Church Going”: Larkin’s speaker chants harmoniously to his listeners, “in fact I often do... wondering, too” (19-21). He sings, wistfully, “though I’ve no idea... it pleases me to stand in silence here” (61-63). Amongst these pleasant masculine rhymes, though, lurk misplaced words that ruin the ease of the poem and disturb its continuity: an “organ” chimes discordantly through the church; religion is accused of being “random”; tradition is demoralized into “antique” (6, 33, 42). One can only imagine that such isolation serves to distinguish these seven words from the others that fill the lines of Larkin’s work. Note the diction which Larkin’s speaker chooses to sequester, for there is indeed a grotesque impiety in these words: first, they accuse the church of performing a sort of “show,” then emphasize the fact that it was “built” by human hands (24, 51).

Indeed, the speaker perceives a wholly artificial place of worship, lofty only for its reputation and imagined significance. These rhymeless words, acting as tears in the fabric of Larkin’s steady verse, mirror the fraying threads of orthodoxy which the poet’s speaker boldly unwinds as he denounces that empty, soulless building known as the House of God. “Church Going” reeks with unconventionality. Larkin’s speaker, though, evokes a most pure form of piety in his raw and vulnerable state of wonder. The poem does not, by any means, condemn Christianity or its liturgy, but rather regards it as a belief deserving of more than stone temples and humdrum ritual. No, this poet does not challenge God—instead, he embraces him as an omnipresent spirit, confined neither by “serious” graveyard nor by “antique” emblems of performative faith. Why should worship vanish across the threshold of the church? Why must there exist a separation—an arbitrary, corporeal separation—between the holiness possessed by one house and another? Alas, says Larkin, there is no need for such a schism. Superstition, performance, graveyards—these things are not religion. A stone building topped with a spire is no more conducive an environment “to grow wise in” than a barn (62). It is the act of asking, the practice of thinking, the habit of wondering, that elevates a creature’s mind from dullness to wisdom. Religion is an endeavor for the soul.

Artwork by Piper Lange, ‘22

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Vivienne Worrell

2nd PLACE, NARRATIVE

A Life of Pies Yesterday was Thanksgiving, a holiday I’ve always dreaded. I don’t enjoy anything about it.

I don’t even enjoy the time off school. I’d rather be pretending to learn about trigonometry than pretending to learn about relatives who are far more complex. And the food? Yeah, no thanks.

Nothing grosses me out more than cranberry sauce. Actually, that’s not true. Stuffing. Stuffing is way more disgusting. And boy, if you think this is absurd, you should’ve heard me when I was younger. Thanksgiving was even worse. I wouldn’t eat a thing! Besides one thing, chocolate pudding pie.

My grandmother and I were closer when I was younger, and we would always make chocolate pudding pie together around Thanksgiving. Back then I was optimistic and adoringly naive. I didn’t understand death, how sudden it can be. Or how long it can linger over you, like an old tree branch moving ever so slightly in the wind. I knew my grandmother was old, but I still took for granted the sacred moments we spent together. We made chocolate pudding pie every year. It was tradition. It was the one dish I enjoyed, and the one dish she put in the effort to make.

Sometimes I wish I had a time machine. Not so I could fast forward and unveil the future, or go back in time to fix my mistakes and inadvertently prosper new regrets, but to simply relive moments and memories that have already somewhat vanished from my mind.

Memories like this one. You see, I wish I could go back in time not to change it, but to feel how I once did in those precious and fleeting moments. What I wouldn’t give to see my grandmother in better health again. What I wouldn’t do to revisit life on Thanksgiving when life was worth living.

Now I’m sixteen, and all grown up. My mother is a real estate agent. This year for Thanksgiving, her boss gave her twelve pies to distribute to her best clients. Five pumpkin, five pecan, and two key lime. My mother’s boss is the type of guy who walks a fine line between generosity and cursed ambition. Most real estate agents only sell three or four houses a year, so my mother was stuck with twelve pies and only half a dozen clients to give them to. After giving one to each of her clients, she decided the remaining pies would be gifted to family friends. One was given to our former neighbor, Jackie, and I managed to pawn one off to my friend, who was just trying to give me a ride home from school. My father’s cousin, Dan, and his wife, Chelle, were also victims of the pie. My mother had called Chelle to discuss the debacle a few days before Thanksgiving. When she offered Chelle a pie, she listed the three types and asked if she or Dan had a preference. Chelle said she liked key lime best, but because it was Thanksgiving, and she had relatives coming into town, she would prefer a pecan pie. My mom took mental note of this—at least I thought she did.

The night before Thanksgiving, I looked in the fridge and saw one of the pie boxes. I wondered for a second why it was in the kitchen fridge, and not the garage fridge, because that’s where we had been storing the pies for the past week. I brushed off this thought though, and made the fatal mistake of assuming this pie was for my immediate family’s consumption. Out of curiosity, I decided to take the pie out of the box, just to see what type it was. It was key lime.

My favorite. I knew my mom only had two key lime pies to give away, and one was already given to Jackie, so just in case, I asked for permission before I had a slice.

“There’s a pie? In the kitchen fridge? I guess you can have it.”

So I had a piece. And let me just say, it was delicious.

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The next day, I was sitting with my grandmother, reminiscing on the days when she and I would make chocolate pudding pie together. We were laughing, wishing life were as simple now, when all of a sudden, my mom freaked out. She started mumbling curse words and frantically opening cabinets and drawers until she just turned around and left the kitchen ablaze. I decided to follow her out of the kitchen, and I eavesdropped by her bedroom door. She was on the phone with someone, apologizing, and hiding her face with her sleeve from the voice on the other end. I was so confused. But after a while, I put it together. She was on the phone with Chelle. My mom had accidentally given Chelle the key lime pie I had eaten Artwork by Callie Liberatos, ‘22 the night before, instead of the pecan pie she wanted.

After giggling quietly for a solid minute or two, all I could think was “my poor mother.” She blames the mishap on the fact that Chelle told her she normally prefers key lime pie, but wanted pecan pie because it was “More Thanksgiving.” I, for one, think this is a lame excuse for a stupid mistake. Even if my mother planned on giving the key lime pie to Chelle, why was it in our kitchen fridge? And why would my mom let me eat it if she was giving it away?

All I know is that Chelle opened a nice brown box with a perfectly tied ribbon to find a once beautiful pie destroyed. She and my mom eventually laughed it off. I could hear Chelle’s chuckle echoing on the other end of the phone. And once my mom hung up the phone, I snuck back to the kitchen just in time to hear her tell the story to my grandmother. My whole family got a good laugh. I kept imagining Chelle’s face opening up that pie box—It’s too good. But every time I picture Chelle’s face of horror, my mother’s face of shame comes into view. I’m worried about her. She’s under so much stress, confusing people’s names, appointment dates, and now this. I want to help her, but I don’t know how. The easy answer is to be kinder, more accommodating, and patient. Something as simple as smiling could keep the water calm on the eve of a storm; however, it’s no longer my nature to behave in such a way. I am no longer the girl making pie with her grandmother. I am the girl eating the pie she shouldn’t have.

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2nd PLACE, Essay

Ethan Lehrman

Parts 1 & 2

I. Radical Humanism There’s no pleasure so simple as talking to strangers. It is a joy to strip away the illusion that the street is full of faceless crowds and uncover a fellow human. I often find that I’ve slipped into an egoist world, that I’ve forgotten that those around me have inner lives and experiences as complex as my own. But, when I see my simplified conception of a stranger melt away to reveal a full human, I am reminded of my love for and fascination with humanity.

So often we rob ourselves of our fellow man with the erroneous belief that we fully understand others. To look at one trait of a person (be it an idea, feature, or action) and judge them is an oversimplification, most would agree; clearly, you are not just a student, or showertime singer, or someone with a particular hair color. Yet, still we go through our days understanding our peers as the sum of their traits. However, you aren’t just the sum of your physical traits, what you do, and your ideas—you’re more than that, we all are. When a string vibrates, it emits a tone depending on the pattern it vibrates in. Yet, if we gathered together many strings, each with their own tone, and played them all at once, we would not hear a multitude of tones. Rather one chord would emerge from the disparate parts. So it is with our humanity. It is the harmony of our traits emerging into something new. You are not the sum of your parts, but a great symphony of humanity. Just as it is so for you, it is so for every other person you meet.

Our base humanity informs our traits, not the other way around: they do not add up to one’s humanity, but rather they are derived from it. While this distinction may seem pedantic, there is a purpose to it. When we look at traits and actions as stand-ins for a person, it is easier to ignore the other’s humanity and act cruelly towards them. However, when we see the traits of others as pointing towards their humanity, it is harder to ignore it, and empathy follows. We must see other’s traits as the manifestation of their humanity, not the components of it.

We all have something fundamentally in common, regardless of our other traits. Take joy in seeing other’s humanity manifest in countless ways. Understand you can connect with anyone at the human level, then truly attempt it. I beg of you, find the humanity in each face that meets you. Dare to be foolish for your love of humanity; be genuine, be vulnerable—be human. I will not deny you take on risk trusting others: you may be rejected, hurt, and called a fool. But in the face of the chance to come to know my brother and sister humans, that is a risk well worth it. Anyway, I’d much rather be a fool for humanity than a genius misanthrope.

I will not claim that my call is revolutionary, you’ve been told time and time to mind the Golden Rule, “love thy neighbor,” and not judge a book by its cover. But, those maxims bear expanding upon and repeating. They are not passive lessons to be stored in the dusty corners of your minds, nor are they facile or naive. They are acts of radical love for humanity! It is a noble exercise in absurdity, it is a leap into the unknown, and it is a fundamentally human action to shed the quiet ease of egoism and pursue the company of your fellow humans.

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Artwork by Henry Lee, ‘22

Artwork by Callie Liberatos, ‘22

Artwork by Eliza Ford, ‘22

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Artwork by Caroline Butz, ‘22

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Ethan Lehrman

II. So It Goes There’s some idealistic image of a cafe in a plaza at the center of some Mediterranean town—banish that. This cafe was run down from the economic downturn of the past few decades. It was not rustic; the chairs, however, were a bit rusty. The awning which used to shield from elements, had developed holes which let sunlight trickle through like breaks in the canopy. At one of those tables sat two old men, nearly as run down as the cafe itself, sipping bitter espresso from chipped cups.

“That boy Niccolo, by the church steps,” muttered one, “he sits there every day and shines shoes from mid-morning to evening.” “...Shoes...” echoed the other, feigning interest. “Yeah, he made my old shoes shine like new—unbelievable.”

The other sat in silence a moment before replying. “Niccolo? That Carlo’s boy?”

“No,” one replied, “that’s Nico, he moved to the city a year or two ago.”

“And Carlo?”

“Died—nice funeral, weren’t you there?”

The other chewed the air a bit before replying. “Musta been. He used to be my tailor; you know how it is.”

They both sipped in agreement.

One didn’t look at the other for a bit, though the other didn’t look away. One was looking rather intently at the church. It was a patchwork of the architectural styles of thousands of years of invaders—nothing remarkable, everything around the sea was similarly mixed. Finally, he looked back. “It really is a shame, all my suits fit wrong these days.”

“Just wear the jacket unbuttoned, no one cares about the fashion of codgers like us,” the other said, wheezing into a smoker’s laugh.

One gave it a token chuckle, though his lingering pride for his days as a young dandy stopped him from releasing deep belly laughs. “Still need a good one for the casket,” he retorted.

At that they’d depleted the topics at the forefront of their minds and at this point, and made the tacit agreement to sit and stare out at the empty plaza for a while. While not a carbon copy, it was not dissimilar from many conversations that were being had in sleepy plazas all over the continent. Its significance was owed solely to the fact that it had occurred at the very time and place I chose to tell you of.

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George Walton

3rd PLACE, NARRATIVE

Aim for the Moon, Land Amongst the Stars It was funny. I had never felt heavier. I sat there and watched out the window, a whole world going by me. Maybe I was passing it… My costume lay on the ground in front of me. It too was heavy, and since I no longer had a purpose for it, the fabric had become too heavy for me to justify. I didn’t need it anymore, so why waste my strength? Breathe in. Breathe out.

I wondered what life was like elsewhere. For other people, for other things. I remembered a lesson I had sat through one day. Biology. The respiratory system of a human was drawn on the board. Sloppily, yet better than I could ever do. However, next to the human torso, a pond was meticulously portrayed. A single salmon populated its waters. This drawing was obviously not the work of the torso’s artist. This one was perfect. I remembered opening my mouth to stop its destruction. Mr. Caulfield was the teacher if I remember right, and he was the eraser.

Before my breath could reach my throat, another person spoke. I can’t really remember her name. Emma? Maybe. That sounds almost right. She went on and on about how she had given the perfect demonstration of different respiratory systems in nature. She used so many fancy words, and every time she said systems, the last letter was emphasized. Eventually, Mr. Caulfield took the bait. He asked her why it was “systems” and not system. For two minutes straight she talked. The first system came from the fish, obviously. The second came from a parasite caught inside of it, something that didn’t need oxygen. Here she dwelled for a long time, detailing how it lived, what it used instead of oxygen, and how it died, too. The only reason I remember this moment, however, was the final system. With one short explanation, she told us, that of course the final respiratory system in this image, was the observer. Whatever they were. A bear maybe, or a photographer—us even.

I wondered what was observing me now. Was it a god? Probably not. Maybe that would come soon though. I pitied them, whoever or whatever it was. Nothing exciting, just a man sitting against a wall. With an intermittent alarm disturbing his peace.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Breathe in breathe out.

Breathe in.

“Honey, are you going out this year? Maybe a party?”

“Nah, I’m going to stay in.”

“Is your phone dead?”

“No?” “Then answer when I call, Charles Vince Bryon.”

“Sorry.”

“Should I return the costume tomorrow then?”

“Yes please.”

“That’s better. Good night.”

“Good night.”

Breathe out.

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Artwork by Dalia Medrano, ‘22

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3rd PLACE, POETRY

George Walton

Those Lights Those lights. The ones that hung between the trees. They were beautiful... That way they illuminated the blades of grass, the patio, those bricks circling the little garden. They were like mini stars, come down to visit us. To show us what life is. Above us.

A quiet song swept over all of it. Coming from the living room, the one that was open to the cool spring night. You were barely able to hear it over the crackling fire. The one that tried to steal the spotlight of those dangling stars.

For a while, that was what life was. Us talking in your backyard, about everything everywhere else. I never said how much I loved the lights, the sounds, not even those roses trying to grow in the middle of everything else.

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Artwork by Piper Lange, ‘22

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Turner Long

3rd PLACE, ESSAY

A Rhetorical Analysis of Eliot’s Prufrock Students in Ms. Anna Smith’s AP Language class were assigned T. S. Eliot’s famous postmodern poem“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” a strained expression of one individual’s effort to cope with a conflicted world. The following is Junior Turner Long’s submission analyzing the rhetorical devices that convey this speaker’s characterization and communicate his plight.

Catalyzed by two consecutive world wars, the Modernist Era was a time of alienation and despair, leading despondent individuals to suffer from disillusionment and lack of direction.

To articulate their predicament, Modernist writers employed fragmentation and exploration of human psychology to frame existential ponderings. One such writer, T.S. Eliot, serves as the quintessential paradigm for Modernist writing, with his expatriate status augmenting his ability to express the Modernist sense of displacement. Eliot’s dramatic monologue “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” evokes poignant imagery of passivity, distinguishing it as the archetypal text of Modernist prose. In the poem, T.S. Eliot utilizes fragmented punctuation and metonymy in order to convey the fruitlessness of the Modernist Generation embodied by Prufrock’s lonely and dejected plight.

To express the fragmented and impotent nature of Prufrock and of the Modernist Generation, Eliot uses ellipsis and dashes to highlight the ineffectuality of Prufrock’s character. At the beginning of the text, while Prufrock meanders along desolate streets ruminating upon “an overwhelming question...”, Eliot utilizes an ellipsis to omit meaning of the question—despite the mention of its existence—in order to convey Prufrock’s inability to complete a thought (Eliot 16). Much like an ellipsis, Prufrock’s thought dissipates into oblivion, producing a sedated effect and fragmentation. Moreover, Prufrock’s failure to answer, much less to formulate coherent cognitions, calls attention to the agonizing passivity of his nature and reveals his incapacity for action. Throughout the text, Prufrock asks these existential inquiries: “Do I dare?” (Elliot 44). “How should I presume?” (Eliot 60). Through this excessive contemplation, Prufrock creates a sense of dual ineffectuality with his inability to both form and to answer his queries, illustrating the impotency of his actions. Similarly, when analyzing the correlation between himself to Lazarus, Prufrock claims that he shall “‘come back [from the dead to] tell [us] all’—” (Eliot 101). Eliot’s dash portrays Prufrock’s failure to finish his comparison, once again illuminating Prufrock’s ineptitude. Furthermore, Eliot’s fragmented punctuation both literally and metaphorically disconnects the text in order to mimic Prufrock’s unsuccessful attempts to interact with the world. When pondering another existential question, Prufrock contemplates on whether or not there is “so much more?—,” but deems “it impossible to say just what [he means]” (Eliot 108-9); by use of the dash, Eliot demonstrates Prufrock’s frantically incoherent thoughts and his inability to express his inner desires. Moreover, the dash illuminates Prufrcok’s indecisiveness and paralyzed persona, calling attention to his desperate and delusional yearnings.

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Photograph by Will Houlihan, ‘22

Similarly, instances of metonymy convey the dissected and self-conscious nature of Prufrock’s passive personality. Eliot chooses to utilize “eyes” as metonymy—a fragmented part of the face—with Prufrock lamenting that the “eyes fix [him] in a formulated phase” (Eliot 62). By highlighting the most judgmental part of the face, Eliot illustrates Prufrock’s destructive self-consciousness and insecurities; Prufrock cannot picture a face with openness or a smile and instead agonizes over the potential scrutiny of others. He wiggles and writhes, concerned with the “bald spot in the middle of [his hair]” and the fear that his “arms and legs are thin” (Eliot 46-50). Moreover, Eliot’s focus on the eyes conveys the root cause of Prufrock’s passivity, as his excessive self-consciousness demonstrates that he has succumbed to inaction: “like a patient etherized upon a table” (Eliot 9); through use of a simile, Prufrock’s stagnation is compared to that of extreme paralysis. Additionally, when Prufrock ponders “arms that are braceleted and white and bare,” Eliot employs metonymy to dissect female anatomy (Eliot 68); by separating arms from the rest of the body, Eliot encapsulates Prufrock’s ineffectuality, as he is unable to partake in the loving embrace of a woman he so desperately desires. Prufrock’s inability to imagine the female body as a whole highlights his failure to understand or to establish rapport with a woman. Instead, Prufrock reiterates existential inquiries he cannot find the answers to, and wonders whether it is the “perfume from a dress / That makes [him] so digress” (Eliot 70-1). Spiraling down an abyss of unanswerable questions, Prufrock not only finds himself tediously dissecting his every move and “[measuring his] life with coffee spoons,” but also analyzing his multitudinous flaws, ultimately resulting in crippling self-criticisms (Eliot 57).

The last line of the poem suggests that the implications for Prufrock’s plight carry a relevance to society today, as mankind will continue to pursue our dreams “till human voices wake us and we drown” (Eliot 136). As humans, we can contemplate and question our existence: we can ask the fundamental inquiry of “why.” Therefore, we often seek that which we cannot obtain—hence our innate ineffectuality—and ponder existential topics lacking concrete answers. Prufrock’s text leads us to “drown” in a flood of agony, only to be saved by the recognition of our common human vulnerability.

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Impressions of a Poet: Appropriating an Interview with Porter-Gaud Visiting Writer Paisley Rekdal

by Sophie Levenson Paisley Rekdal, Porter-Gaud’s visiting writer and the State Poet Laureate of Utah, has built a remarkable career as a poet, essayist, storyteller—as, in short, a commander of words. Along with publishing six books of poetry, several of nonfiction, and, most recently, a webbased poem, Ms. Rekdal is a Professor of English and Poetry at the University of Utah. She has been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, a Civitella Ranieri Residency, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, Narrative Magazine’s Poetry Prize, the AWP Creative Nonfiction Prize, and various state arts council awards. Professor Rekdal is also the creator of the project “Mapping Literary Utah,” a resource which connects the people of Utah to the working writers all over her state. In the first week of May, Ms. Rekdal shared her work and ideas with the Porter-Gaud community, making her the 32nd visiting writer in our school’s history. She was kind enough, too, to spend some time in conversation with me.

The clock is just inching past noon as I walk into the Middle School Library on Tuesday, May 3rd, for the meeting I have planned with Paisley Rekdal. In the back of the room sits a woman completely absorbed in the movement of her fingertips on a laptop keyboard: the poet, I see, is writing. But Ms. Rekdal sees me, looks up, smiles—we exchange greetings, and then without delay, fall into a matching set of plush turquoise chairs and begin to talk.

Professor Rekdal and I dive right in, beginning our talk in medias res with Ovid, Homer, and the nature of literary reference. Greek and Roman poetry serves as a focal source of inspiration for Ms. Rekdal, who believes reference to be the very “spine of literature.” Why, I ask her, are Homer and Ovid so featured in your work?

Ms. Rekdal tells me how her parents “had a very lax approach to parenting; I was allowed to read whatever I wanted.” Classical mythology filled the books which lay around her childhood home—naturally, these were the stories she fell into, and so myth was the beginning of her literary journey.

However, both Homer and Ovid earned their own place in Ms. Rekdal’s work for reasons more than coincidence. Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad are stories of war, desolation, and the subsequent return home; Ms. Rekdal posits that Homer has made a bold reentrance into our contemporary society because of the similar—if perhaps less mythological—tumult that has characterized our most recent decade. War in Iraq and Afghanistan mirror the perpetuity which seemed to accompany the Trojan War, as do the greatness of the wakes they leave in their paths.

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Just as Odysseus navigated the seas for a decade to return to Ithaca, our politically-taut society is struggling, now, to find a state of normalcy, a return to a collective home.

Ovid has held a mighty influence on Professor Rekdal’s poetry in quite a number of ways.

Ms. Rekdal shares her opinion on Ovid’s Metamorphoses as a collection which explores corrupted power—power regularly manifested in the form of abuse and assault, usually inflicted by the Roman gods. In a political sense, our visiting poet considers Ovid’s work to be shockingly relevant to our current situation, just as Homer’s work is invocative of modern war. Ovid, who lived between the last century BCE and first century CE, crafted his work as Rome shifted from its regime as a republic to its reign as an empire; he lived in the Augustan Age, when his city lost its sense of strict rationality and moved towards a system which derived its power and legitimacy from a single man. Ovid was ultimately exiled from Rome, perhaps because of the vulgarity of his work surrounding the gods, or perhaps because of his subtle rebellion against the emperor.

Because of this, Professor Rekdal cannot help drawing a parallel between Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the explosive effects of the 2016 election, when politics became about people rather than ideas, when America lost its sense of rationality and fell into its period of utter disarray.

For Ms. Rekdal, however, Ovid’s exploration of power is about more than politics. It is something that characterizes the experience of women, past and present—an idea cleverly interpreted in her poem “Philomela.” The poem, named for a woman in the Metamorphoses who is victim to a terrible assault, recasts the myth into the narrative of a young woman recounting a similar experience she had in college. I ask Ms. Rekdal whether using a classical myth as a lens through which to relate this kind of experience equips her with a sense of universal, timeless solidarity. She says that it does—that a story accompanied by a widely respected myth is empowering in some way. But she also notes that the indirect retelling of Philomela’s story was not quite enough for her. Thus was the creation of Ms. Rekdal’s monumental work “Nightingale: A Gloss,” which is written in a lyrical prose, almost mimicking the form of a diary. “Nightingale” is a shockingly honest piece, quite literally transcribing the events of Ms. Rekdal’s own assault from many years ago. The poet who sits before now me details the lack of closure she felt after writing “Philomela”: she rather felt that by focusing too much on the poetic artistry of the verse, she had neglected some of its substance. Somewhere in the course of grappling with her seemingly unfinished work, Ms. Rekdal decided: “I am just going to write down what I left out…

And somewhere in the middle of that, I started writing about what happened to me.”

“Nightingale: A Gloss” is a brutally expressive work, largely because it so boldly disregards Ms. Rekdal’s usual poetic style in exchange for a necessary emphasis on her story itself.

Indeed, our poet told me, in regards to this particular work: “I’m not going to care as much about the high figurative language. I just want to express the thing I need to express here.” Ms. Rekdal then reflects on how art is granted great consideration and value when it represents trauma in an artistic form; she then wonders aloud, “Why can’t the real thing have its own weight and respect?” Thus came “Nightingale”—an honest thing, quite worthy of weight and respect.

Our discussion of “Nightingale: A Gloss” prompts the investigation of a broader idea: why do artists create representations of terrible things? How does this kind of art

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move people, if at all? Does art that explores trauma demand change from its observers, or does it simply exist as a source of expression? Rather than answering these questions, Ms. Rekdal asks them of herself, of other poets. I am beginning to see that there is very little collective ethos for poets, as every one of them seems to work in an entirely independent sort of way. Ms. Rekdal knows this, too; she even quotes Plato, repeating his quip that poets are “a bunch of lying liars telling lies.” Professor Rekdal suspects that her field is full of liars: so she cannot tell me why they make art the way they do.

What she can tell me, however, is the answer to my following query: can art be obscene? This one earns a short and unequivocal “no.” Ms. Rekdal believes that art cannot be fundamentally obscene— that an obscene subject only allows for one gaze, whereas “art allows infinite gazes.” If an artist were to present a work that was universally interpreted as obscene, it is either not truly art, or it is bad art. But art itself cannot be an obscene thing.

Professor Rekdal’s opinion on obscenity says quite a lot in itself about how this poet views craftsmanship—apparently as a form of expression that should not and cannot be limited by the often closed-minded discomfort of critics. Certainly, Ms. Rekdal hears pushback about “Nightingale”—it is either loved or hated, she tells me now; apparently, there is no in-between. Still, she wrote it, and wrote it without self-censorship, without artistic limitation. Indeed, Paisley Rekdal does not, by any means, accept the censorship of art.

She does, however, demand it to be appropriate.

The homonym “appropriate” gets tossed around our conversation a few times; we discuss the “appropriate” presentation of ideas in art alongside the topic of cultural and personal “appropriation.” Actually, this is a prominent subject in Ms. Rekdal’s life and work: in 2021, she published Appropriate: A Provocation, a book in which she examines the extent to which art can draw from another individual’s experience. In a brief summary of the book, Professor Rekdal is able to explain the line between acceptable and problematic appropriation quite easily—she tells me that respectful appropriation is allusion, rather than plagiarism; that language should not be stolen, but concepts can be repurposed. When the original question posed by a given artist is picked up and maintained, only to be answered in a different way, the writer has managed to respectfully appropriate that work.

But this is, still, appropriation: I note Ms. Rekdal saying, throughout our conversation, “When I’m appropriating Io…” and “I can appropriate Ovid…” I am fascinated by Ms. Rekdal’s neutral use of this word, practically taboo in our society—how can appropriation of art be permitted? I learn from Ms. Rekdal, though, that there is indeed a necessary distinction between paying tribute to another’s work and claiming ownership over another’s experience.

Indeed, Ms. Rekdal learned how to write through imitation—her earliest writings were in copied forms of Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, George Eliot. In recounting a certain onebuck-book-bin in a local bookstore where she grew up, Ms. Rekdal tells me, “I could be a completely different poet if I had picked up Alan Ginsberg or Charles Bukowski… but they just weren’t in the bin.”

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Utah’s poet laureate has further explored appropriation in her most recent project, entitled West: A Translation. Commissioned to honor the 150th anniversary of the Union and Central Pacific railroads joining together in Promontory, Utah, Ms. Rekdal created an interactive poetic website—soon to be published in book form—which explores the experience of Chinese immigrants as the workers who built the railroads and the citizens who were banned just after its completion, in the form of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

West threads a multitude of themes into an intricate tapestry of the American experience: it pays tribute to marginalized communities, honors American accomplishment, laments the displaced, spotlights exploiters and corrupted capitalists. What most beautifully elevates Ms. Rekdal’s creation of West is the exploration of identity that lingers in its every verse.

Identity, the source of appropriation, the beginning of character, the burning question of the twenty-first century: this is the foundation of Paisley Rekdal’s poetry. What does it mean to be American? How does an immigrant adjust her identity? How do we explore this in language? Identity riddles Rekdal’s “Philomela”—a poem about a woman who cannot speak her own experience. Identity bursts out of “Nightingale: Gloss”—a personal lyric, an Photographs by Brian Principe exposé of the self. West: A Translation revolves entirely around identity; it unearths the pain of an abused community, appropriates their experiences, explores their past and present, their intergenerational traumas. Ms. Rekdal’s own identity is woven into West—she herself is the daughter of immigrants, Chinese and Norwegian—she is, too, a product of combined identities.

Time is not our friend in the library today—I have class, the professor has a presentation. But I find her again at the end of the day to hear her speak more publicly about poetry and language and their importance in our world. Ms. Rekdal, of course, holds literature in the utmost place of significance—she views it like I do, as a necessary source of empathy and understanding. It is now approaching three o’clock in the afternoon on this fascinating Tuesday. Ms. Rekdal is addressing a room of tired teenagers, whose lives are overscheduled, whose eyes burn from staring into the ever-blazing screen of their schoolissued MacBooks. And she says, softly, in a turn of phrase that seems too lovely to be real (I suppose she is a poet, after all) that we all need “a moment of relaxation to luxuriate in language.” It is quiet. Ms. Rekdal speaks again: “We should enjoy moments of art and we should enjoy moments of deep thought.”

The silence remains for a moment—the Middle School Library is likely as quiet as it will ever be, as a room full of exhausted minds absorb the great words of a great poet.

And just like that, our time ends—students file out of the room, Ms. Rekdal packs her bag, she and I shake hands. Off she goes, to live the life of a writer, a poet laureate, an artist whose medium is typeface and line breaks. A woman of identity.

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Artwork by Callie Liberatos, ‘22

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