THE THE IVY IVY ISSUE XXI | PHS ISSUE XXI | PHS
THE IVY
ISSUE N .21 O
The Ivy began in the 1960s. Its serialization began in 2014.
Editors’ Letter Dear Reader, The Ivy staff has been working hard for months to bring you the latest issue of The Ivy magazine, and here we are! We hope that this magazine can serve as a break from school’s frenzy. In Issue 21 we explore timely topics of dystopia and climate change but also the ever-present aestheticism, love, introspection, and connection that comprise our lives. These broad themes embody our common quest to understand the broader world and to find beauty and connection in its increasing messiness and complexity. So, thank you for each of your wonderful submissions. This magazine would not be possible without them. Finally, we appreciate our staff who has been eager to participate in this workshopping and discussion process. We value your constant effort and willingness to participate and we (obviously) wouldn’t be here without you! Sincerely, Alice Fruitbythefoot and Andre Batmobiehl
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Table of Contents SNOWGLOBE.................................................. Farah Ardehali 6-7
SHAKEN BY THE ICE.................................. Madison Fetch 17
STOLEN THINGS..........Carolina de Sousa Lima Azevedo 6-7
DELICACY............................................ Matthieu Brinckman 18
HAIKU.................................................................. Dhruv Kanchi 8
THE FOREST............................................ Brooklyn Quallen 18-19
UNTITLED...................................................................... Irena Su 8
PEAS..................................................................... Vinny Wang 20
TAXIDERMY............................................... Charlotte Gilmore 9
CHOIR BOY........................................................... Rhys Watts 21
ISLAND.................................................................. Andre Biehl 10
SUPERPOSITION................................................... Anna Lieb 22
LOVE.................................................... Yunbing (Emily) Qian 11
UNTITLED............................................. Siddartha Suppiah 23
FLOWERET........................................ Angelika Solopenkov 12
ONLY FOR A MOMENT............................... Anna Mikoski 24
I WONDER........................................................... Anonymous 13
OUT OF TOUCH................................... Nimala Sivakumar 25
READ MY LIPS...................................... Lindsay Hirschman 14
ENTANGLED.................................................. Flossie Zhang 26
UNTITLED........................................................... Sam Tabeart 14-15
THE MONSTER UNDER THE BED............ Nina Bergman 27
GOOSE CAMP........................................... Hanako Moulton 16
COVER PAGE: CONNECTED by Isy Weng, acrylic and marker
THE FOX AND THE HARE..................................... Lili Wang 16
FLUFFY, Catherine Howard graphite
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STOLEN THINGS, Carolina de Sousa Lima Azevedo My name is Jennifer Doyle, and I have never been outside. Humanity has been living in The Bubbles for generations. My great-grandmother came here as a child, shortly after they began constructing the first of these in 2075. The year is now 2200; 125 years my family has been in here, since we last breathed the outside air, and even longer since the air was safe to breathe. Our ancestors were warned many times. They knew of the ocean acidification, and the giant patch of garbage still out there, floating. How the fish would no longer be safe to eat. They knew of the raging forest fires that would come, the same ones that eventually depleted the whole of the western United States of all life. They knew it would get worse if they kept cutting trees, extracting oil, mining coal, but it was lucrative, so they pretended not to know. They pretended not to notice
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when England exhibited signs of eventually becoming the Tundra it is today, of entire countries sinking due to massive water level rise, of more frequent natural disasters. They didn’t even flinch when entire species died off, including the bees, taking with them over one-third of our crops. Devastating diseases soon returned, recovered from the melting ice, killing millions. They just let it happen, knowing the truth but denying it for the short term pleasure that money would bring. They weren’t worried about themselves; yes, they made all the decisions, but they weren’t bound to this world much longer. They would never have to clean up their mess. Soon, no one could. I often go up to the Documentation Room, as it is the only place in Bubble #10057, the colony where I live, with simulations of
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LOB E
what life used to be. I put on my simulation bracelet, and I’m suddenly surrounded by the long-extinct Redwood Trees, along with people everywhere gawking at its height and massive beauty. Then, I’m transferred to a beautiful mountaintop, surrounded on all sides with other mountains and a river along a valley-- I’m supposed to be hiking. Suddenly, I’m in a garden, but it’s under water. My senses are overridden with dozens of vibrant coral reefs, a horde of fishes and even a turtle coming right through me. By the time the simulation is over,
I’m exhilarated, and soon after I start to cry because I know that it will never compare to the real thing. I want to be able to swim in a real ocean before it becomes too acidic for the species to survive. I want to breathe air that wasn’t synthetically made and distributed monthly by our colonial government. I want to climb a tree, and take a hike, and do millions of other things I’ll never be able to do because they were stolen from humanity. Suddenly, a message pops up on the screen of my glasses. Incoming call from Claudia. Claudia lives in Bubble #11009, all the way in what used to be Brazil, while my Bubble is in a former nation called Canada. She’s still my best friend, however, as there aren’t a lot of people my age in my Bubble. Plus, we’re able to talk every day.
a Far
li eha rt d r h A ital a dig
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HAIKU,
Dhruv Kanchi
Drifting through meadows
Aimlessly finding questions
Without clear answers
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UNTITLED,
Irena Su pencil
TAXIDERMY,
Charlotte Gilmore
My life consists of moving piles of paper from one surface to another. She asks me where the registration forms are “My desk?” a sigh. “I’ll print out another.” If I could press a button, I would sudden piles forming at my feet of 13 half-filled metro cards 5 copies of my passport innumerable post-its with cryptic importances of past selves [-sat -jzmf -burg sketch? -conf app -print] Jumbles of letters linger with lost meaning, like fluency forgotten abroad. I make piles of trash that never seem to make it to the bin, and my desk drawers sigh with lungs of crumpled papers. But then a book, uncracked for years, falls open to a buried line of beauty, a flower pressed by months and dust preserved inside. I shuffle the unending piles of paper and find a poem, sweeter for its rediscovery than if it had staled in a well-observed frame. So I pile it back up and move it to another table, to find another 2 years from now. XXI | 9
ISLAND, Andre Biehl For all the years I have known A small community existed White duplex houses Clothing hanging Wooden fence Light neon sign “Kids at play” Dumpsters Bicycles Grills Last year, orange fences went up Construction vehicles entered Green tarps engulfed “Active worksite” “Keep out” A mid-autumn day next year the sky was turbulent In a day the fence and signs were gone and a vast open plot lay Rain poured birds still soared through the orange, red, and yellow canopies This place, with all its magnificent trees and wild animals Overshadow the small community that once was Where do the houses live now? I wonder
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marker
LOVE, Yunbing (Emily) Qian
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I WONDER, Anonymous Sometimes I wonder why Why they are so comfortable in the light I question why I sit and they fly They soar above me in my eye I am dull while they shine bright Sometimes I wonder why
I see them up there and I sigh I can’t participate in their flight Sometimes I wonder why
I see my classmates in the sky They are able to reach such a height I question why I sit and they fly
They open their wings with no good-bye It’s an image of beauty and of fright I question why I sit and they fly They say I am the same but they lie I know they are just being polite Sometimes I wonder why I question why I sit and they fly
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TITLE, Artist Name READ
man
y Hirsch MY LIPS, Lindsa
pencil
UNTITLED, Sam Tabeart If I were deader, grass were greener
Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit.And Here you’d a brighter, light demeanor is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. HereIfiskings were weepers; queens much keener a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here isIfaeyes were smaller, I’d not seen her piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is aIf when I wept, the tears were hollow piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is aRemembering when we were callow piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is aIf action never led to sorrow piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is aAnd all the flowers were not sallow piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a piece of lit. Here is a
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If down by banks of sordid taste The fish crept up the streams with haste And to another land they made A pilgrimage for luster lakes If all were right, if all were good If all were just, if where you stood I were to stand, look in your eyes And tell you all would be ‘just fine’
If that were true, and time were wrong If melody gave way to song If hamp’ring anger were not longStanding, in a mortal throng If by the bush of dreary takes I heard of all your false mistakes And all were good, and all were just I’d send to you a mal-born thrush
And if said thrush was not to fill You up with his melancholy trills If stagnant ponds would not stand still I’d have to take you from my will And cast you hard out on the streets Where cobble fault-lines sadly meet And all of this slips further still Til’ all I dreaded takes its fill. XXI | 15
THE FOX AND THE HARE, Lili Wang One used to pass through my backyard every day ‘Till the second came along and chased it away. When the fox claims a plot of turf as its own What’s a poor hare to do but sadly move along? I watch the fox from my kitchen window, Eyeing it as its eyes fixate somewhere in the woods. I think it can sense the hare’s whereabouts Better than any human musing on nature’s poem could. Kids who watch too many cartoons believe All the things about magic that these shows say. But the more I see of the fox and the prey, the more I know That hunter and hare do not play.
GOOSE CAMP, Hanako Moulton
photography
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SHAKEN BY THE ICE, Maddie Fetch I flew through forests of hemlocks Wind whipping my body Glided across sheets of ice Sailed across salty turquoise waters Gazed upon endless mountain ranges That seemed to be artwork painted on An ever-changing canvas Before my eyes Fragments of ice fell From a finite sea Into the endless blue Chunks of melting ice Acted as a clock counting down To the point of no return
The glacier succumbing to climate change, Losing chunks of itself to a never-ending ocean Is my antonym What has shook me Has awakened me The limitless opportunities Presented by this universe Has merged to become one With myself
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DELICACY, Mathieu Brinckman photography 18 | PHS
You are not welcome In this garden of beautiful things. You, the destroyer, are not welcome To take and take and take All in the name of peace and refuge. Do not lose yourself In the flight of the worms And the singing of the beetles Or the way the grass Bends just for you.
Because the forest does not want you Like you want the forest. The trees do not love you
Do not overlook And the silence of the bones Of those who were lost Before you.
Like the cities love you. So stay away, you with your Meaningless symbolism And extended metaphors.
(If they still had the ability, these Bleach-white bones, They would beg you go.
The forest is not a place For your poetry. No, do not get lost in the forest. You will never be found
You would not listen, But they would beg anyway.) That world is not for you. XXI | 19| 19 XVII XVII | 11
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CHOIR BOY
Rhys Watts
It’s currently 11:03 pm, Thursday night in the middle of autumn... or maybe it’s 11:04 pm. I’m not really sure to tell you the truth, or at least I don’t care enough to do so. The weather outside is in that transition state from fall to winter, when the air slowly gets thicker choking the life out of everything, when everything dies. The clouds swallowed the sky last Tuesday to the point where there is no progression of time, when the light is out it only lasts for a few hours of the day. Every year the winter seems darker, colder, and greyer than the last; while the summer reaches closer and closer to a point where we could have pasta at barbeques because the temperature creates a boil.
PEAS, Vinny Wang
digital
It’s currently 11:08 pm. I have been planted in this seat for three hours, listening to monologue of the ticking sound from my watch. The office is dark and silent and yet every employee is still here. The cleaning crew finished two hours ago. The smell of burnt coffee has stretched the length of the confines of this office. I’ve had this horrific pain in my lower back, where the bolt is sticking out from my chair. The longer I sit the more it scars. Every attempt of pushing the bolt back in has a reverse effect pushing the sculpted metal further into my rigid spine. It’s currently 11:13 pm. The city looks like a vibrant dystopia and I, a man in a window, am just a grain of sand like an eight-year-old boy in a 70-person choir. If I decided to stop singing, nobody would notice... nobody. I’ve been desperately attempting to stay in some manner of productivity but have been interrupted by this mental blue jay who’s been jamming its head against the window frame. Earlier, I asked the maintenance guy if there was any way we could get rid of it, maybe crack the window open and push it off. Unfortunately, he gave me no hope; these damn windows are bolted closed. Not sure why they would ever do that.
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SUPERPOSITION, Anna Lieb Lieb
She lives in binary, Only two options. She was born in binary, Only two fates: Boy or girl. Qualified or incapable. She learned in binary, Only two states: On or off. 0 or 1. She got lost in binary, Forgot herself in the code, Defined by “Boy or girl,” Limited by “0 or 1.” Then superposition hit.
Breaking news: They told her that it is not heads and tails, It is spin, infinite combinations of angles, Limitless states and undefined fates. Now binary could be meaningless. Now they could have the power to break the binary, Rewrite the code. But she couldn’t forget How she was born and taught. Her mind was trapped in a swarm Of 0 and 1.
Note on the poem: Superposition is the ability of a quantum system to be in multiple states at the same time. This concept is the basis of groundbreaking work in the field of quantum computing, in which digital information can be represented in more complex ways than the traditional computer binary of 0’s and 1’s. This new way of computing has powerful potential, but scientists are struggling to overcome the fundamental challenges that it poses to traditional computing logic.
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UNTITLED, Siddartha Suppiah
acrylic
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ONLY FOR A MOMENT, Anna Mikoski
Lights hit my face from every angle Greens, reds, purples, yellows, blues They come together in a chaotic, beautiful tangle I take a breath and sing for them I smile, I speak, a voice distant from my own “Wow,” they say, “she is just a gem.” But away from that proscenium Away from the lights and the mics and the covers I march to my never-ending drum: You are not good You are not enough You are not understood But each day I emerge once more Back to the lights and the mics and the covers Because, if only for a moment, I can see what they are cheering for.
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OUT OF TOUCH, Nimala Sivakumar colored pencil on toned paper
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ENTANGLED, Flossie Zhang acrylic 26 | PHS
THE MONSTER UNDER THE BED, Nina Bergman There is a monster living under my bed. It slithers and hisses underneath the mattress and creeps up the bedpost in smoky tendrils when I’m asleep. One time, when I was younger, I woke up in the middle of the night, suffocating. The monster was coiled around my throat. I ran into my grandparents’ room. “There is a monster under my bed and it is suffocating me!” I yelled. But they woke up slowly, squinting to get their bearings through the thickness of the dark room.
“Go back to sleep,” my grandma said. “There is no monster. You’re fine.” “It’s around my throat! Don’t you see it too?” I persisted. “There is nothing there. You have an overactive imagination,” my grandpa declared. And I was exiled back into my room, where the stuffed animals glared at me with red eyes and my clothes looked like ghost silhouettes and the blankets felt like crushing lead. No one else saw it because I was the only one who experienced my room with the lights off. The monster was real and I knew it. But, as I laid in bed and watched it emerge from the depths of the dusty abyss underneath my bed, I wondered if maybe it only wanted someone to talk to. Maybe the monster was lonely, too. So I reached out to make a secret handshake with one of its serpentine arms.
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THE LONELY CHILD, Anonymous
A lonely child sat in a dusty and unlit room. Her eyes watered in sorrow as she gazed longingly at the rotted floorboards. As she fumbled with her unwashed hair, which was tied into two little pigtails, she saw a bright and mystifying light emanating from somewhere in the halls and slowly entering the open door frame. The child stood up. His eyes transfixed on the gradually more blinding light. The silhouette of a creature was slowly appearing as it approached the child’s room. The child shivered, not knowing if it was from the below-freezing temperatures or terror. Yet, this magical light was keeping her warm, and she could not help but feel some comfort in the light. Then, a strangely familiar voice echoed through the room, “Come!” The child instinctively took a step forward, but then she paused. What was this creature, and what business does it have with her? Several moments passed. The child stood there, stuck in several trains of thought. The creature outside did not stir, seemingly respecting the
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child’s uncertainties about it. The child took another step. The entire room seemed to tense up as if the entire world revolved around the child meeting this creature. The single, patched teddy bear seemed to have its gaze on the child, urging her to move forward. Despite the child’s sky-high misgivings, she could not help but want to continue forward. Her small steps progressed to careful movements on her toes. The light seemed to only brighten at her every move. Passing through the door frame, the child saw, in all its beauty, what was waiting for her. “...mother?” the child whispered. The rainbow light coming from the creature’s mane blinded her, yet she could still make out the shape of an elegant horse with a pure white pelt, complete with an ivory horn on its forehead. The child reached out her hand and patted its head. It kneeled, beckoning the child to ride it. “Come on, little one! Join us!” the unicorn said as the child climbed onto its back. Laughing and cheering, they rode away into the wind, and into the warm horizon.
The next day... “Today, we have been given the news of a completely heartbreaking story! At the Equiville Orphanage, a carbon monoxide leak is responsible for the deaths of countless orphans and caretakers! Investigators say that fifty-three children have passed away along with all twenty six staff members. Authorities urge everybody to make sure their CO detectors are up to date to prevent this from happening to anybody else. The weather today will be mildly humid, with a light rain shower tomorrow. Then the sun will come up, but be sure to watch out for your little ones chasing unicorns into the end of the rainbow!�
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STAFF LIST ADVISORS Mr. Gonzalez Ms. Muรงa
EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Andre Biehl Alice Feng
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Nina Bergman
MANAGING EDITORS Olivia Benevento Cecily Gubser
PUBLIC RELATIONS Sofia Alvarez
COPY EDITORS Chris Shen Travis Thai
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TECH
Lawrence Chen
SECRETARY Savannah Spring
SPREAD DESIGNERS Bella Cui Vera Ebong Heidi Gubser Lindsay Hirschman Jane Lillard Yunbing (Emily) Qian Shaila Sachdev Hanaan Sikder Ellie Cellinese-Dickinson
GENERAL STAFF Alexandra Rubin Helena Gifford
COLOPHON The artworks in this issue were accepted through standard review board voting and group discussion. During this process, the artists’ names were kept anonymous to everyone besides the managing editors, who had compiled all of the submissions beforehand. Each staff member voted anonymously either “yes” or “no” on a Google form. All art and literature pieces with higher than 50% approval were published. A few others with at least 48% were also accepted based on their potential, both as complements to other pieces and their abilities to unify entire layouts. We keep a consistent art-to-literature ratio. We are Princeton High School’s only art and literature magazine. We are an extracurricular club that meets after school; on normal meeting days we meet for half an hour on Tuesdays. When we are designing layouts we meet for three hours every day for four days. For Issue XXI there are over two hundred copies circulating the school.
FONTS COVER AND TITLE PAGE| Baskerville regular 60pt, Minion Pro regular 12pt, Baskerville Semibold Italic 80pt, Georgia regular 14pt TABLE OF CONTENTS | Lora regular 24pt, 18 pt, 12pt, 10pt SUBMISSION TITLES | Open Sans light 33pt,18pt, 14pt, Courier Bold 18pt, 14pt, Georgia 36 pt, 18pt SUBMISSION TEXT | Lora regular 13pt, 10pt, Courier Bold 12pt, Georgia 14pt, Marion 18pt, 13pt STAFF LIST | Open Sans bold 36 pt, Open Sans semibold 13pt, Open Sans light 24pt, Open Sans bold 24pt COLOPHON | Open Sans semibold 12pt, Open Sans light 12pt, Lora italic 12pt, Open Sans bold 24pnt, Lora regular 13pnt PRINTING PAPER | House Laser Gloss #80, 8.5x8.5 inches Printed by Short Run Printing, 2020 regular 14pt
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