The Quarry 2018

THE QUARRY Literary & Fine Arts Magazine

St. Olaf Literary & Fine Arts Magazine St. Olaf College 2018

The Quarry Staff Executive Editor Literary Editor Art Editor Layout Editor Web Editor

Alexandra Madsen Anders R. Mattson Jabri Whirl Thomas Hardy Eleanor Titcomb

Literature Thread

1

Henry Benjamin

Voice

3

Chelsey Mbachu

Invasive

5

Emma dePaulo Reid

Storm

6

Claire Jussel

What My Ghost Used to Tell Me

9

Mai Xee Vang

Love Is Found

11

James Wheeler

Lockdown

13

Keara Bores

I spent the year a(l)one

15

T. Allen Deger

On Two Words

17

Noah Forslund

I Want to Know

18

Paulo Gladney

Cremation Cake

21

Eleni Mahlis-Miller

Shades of death (and OCD)

22

Sarah Freyermuth

What to Do

24

Aaron Swanson

Hair Grease

26

Maddie Thies

underripe

29

Claire Chenoweth

Dialectic

31

Henry Benjamin

Art Car Nap in Beirut

2

Sumner Pitt

Trash

4

Elissa Krause

Fungal Odyssey

7

Kris Swanson

Flood #3

8

Joseph Kyle

On Being

10

Kris Swanson

Untitled

13

Melinde Madsen

Defy (i & ii)

14

Alekzandra Thoms

Part You

16

David Morrison

Gateway

19

Steven Garcia

Bedroom Slugs

20

Isabella Rose

I Worry

23

Thea Lund

Enveloping

27

Anna Wolle

Synergy III

28

Luh Natalia Granquist

A Sense of Place

30

Margaret Lindahl

Cover Art: Clarity by Kierra Lopac

A Letter from the Editors A fleet of thin, glossy magazines lives on the shelves of the St. Olaf College Archives. No single spine occupies more than a centimeter of shelf space, yet together, these publications span nearly one hundred years of creative student expression on the hill.

Glancing at this collection, so much appears the same from issue to issue–ink is always arranged strategically into lines of poetry, prose, paintings, and photographs.

Cracking open a spine, a reader can guess with some degree of certainty that a few of these poems will mention love, and some of these paintings will depict loss.

But it is here that the similarities end. In reality, each new magazine is a compilation of differences–differences in thought, differences in technique, and differences in message.

Meaning is born from difference. It’s how we notice progress; it’s how we appreciate growth. As editors, we have the pleasure of seeing the range of themes that linger on the minds of St. Olaf ’s writers and artists from year to year. As we review submissions, we witness the change within creative communities and the individual artists themselves.

Each publication of The Quarry represents a different St. Olaf. Each annual issue hears new voices, and each new voice takes ownership of personal experiences in divergent ways. The art and writing within the magazine before you represents the change in emotions, the progression of opinions, and the growth of community that took place on campus this year.

We thank all students who submitted their work to this year’s magazine, and who seek to contribute to The Quarry’s catalogue of student expression. As you read the publication before you, we challenge our readers to reflect on the differences embodied during their time at St. Olaf.

Until next time, The Quarry’s 93rd Editorial Staff

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Thread

Henry Benjamin Trace the silence In the air The line tossed Into the sea of noise Feel it in the space Between your running fingers Take it, weave it Into your walk, Your clothes and your words Direct it as much As it directs you Feel the way it flows Away from all the edges, The jagged borders, And through the soft parts Of this rough world It is nothing But another simple absence A reduction of that Which totals us To follow it is to see What shape you take When you force less Into the world

1

Car Nap in Beirut Sumner Pitt Photograph

2

Voice

Chelsey Mbachu I tried to speak up precise paragraphs of prose filled my mind raced to my mouth demanded to be spoken It’s like my mind was asleep my brain taken hostage intellect a spilled glass of milk Why can’t I cry over spilt milk?

It’s been days days then to weeks the time, slow-passing and sluggish, mirrors my cemented thoughts.

In my head I’m yelling language obscene the words don’t make it past my lips my mouth was moving where’s my voice?

Lost into the night that night I’ve sat at my desk darkness overtaking the world outside looked to the moon for answers put pen to paper almost as if to practice what I am to say although as a tear escapes it seems all I can do is weep

3

Trash

Elissa Krause 8” x 10” Mixed media

4

Invasive

Emma dePaulo Reid They crawled in through the tiles. They slithered through the woodwork. Girls as long as taxi cabs, girls as long as tuna fish, half sea softened skin and scales and tails. Mermaids, an infestation of them. They swam in through the pipes that led to the sea and they lounged in the bathtubs of the seedier motels, smoking and gossiping until the unsuspecting tourist turned the roomkeys on their peeling doors.

The mermaids were relatively harmless, but somewhat of a nuisance. What family, visiting Miami to enjoy Long Beach in the 70s, wanted to hear splashing and giggling in their bathtubs at 2am? The bright motels had already gone to seed, the jewel colors fading, clashing less egregiously but perhaps more sadly than they had 20 years before. And now there were scales on the ratty green carpets, discarded tubes of black lipstick and the faint smell of the bottom of the ocean. Cigarette butts and the weeds that they had shaken from their hair, a thin film of water squelching on the bathroom floors under the feet of children brushing their teeth in the morning.

The infestation didn’t last long. The city plumbing system identified and blocked the pipes that the girls were using but it lived in the hazy memories of summer tourists and Miami residents alike. And sometimes, after years and years, an ex-child of Miami ‘73 would open their desk drawer and run their fingers over a scale, covered in years of dust but still shining.

5

Storm

Claire Jussel [word] a violent disturbance of the atmosphere with strong winds and usually rain, thunder, lightning, or snow. [moment] desk lamp lighting. Faux wood grain. Haphazard books and charging cords and mugs. Windows open on gummy hinges. Leaf noise shaking through the screens. Neck swiveled further to the right with every swell, peripheral stroke of ghost light, and rumble. [scent] that can never be breathed deeply enough. Nose smashed into the old screen for any glimmer. Luring me outside. Wafting siren. Prickles on the back of the neck and contentment somewhere between the gut and rib cage. [emotion] thrill. Elation. Giddy eyes and swollen chest. Easy, reckless laughter.

A younger child’s apprehension. A different soul’s rage. [memory] the blinding and earsplitting late August variety. The ancient golden retriever, a sentinel over the bed; an escort down the hallway to Mom and Dad’s room. Plodding arthritic bones and grey fur back down the hallway to the other child. [blessing] a raindance. End of drought. Perhaps it will circle around once more. Forehead pressed to the windowpane in reverence and awe. [inspiration] a quick kick substitute for caffeine when night begs for sleep. For every shoddy poem, there is a less shoddy storm.

6

Fungal Odyssey Kris Swanson

8” x 9” Monoprint

7

Flood #3 Joseph Kyle 36” x 48” Oil on canvas

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What My Ghost Used to Tell Me Mai Xee Vang

When humans have beating hearts, laughters with Silent sounds have names That are evil & Vile, so they are quilted In fossil coats Deposited in The empty jars of the Breezy mountainside pasture Sometimes screams can be heard grazing On the Eastern wind unbothered

9

On Being Kris Swanson 7” x 10” Solar print

10

Love Is Found James Wheeler

When he told me he was leaving, because he couldn’t find work, I don’t remember his face, only his words: “That didn’t take as long as I expected.”

As if he had expected me to do anything else but roll with the punches.

To be anyone else than the wind, no pain, just fly to him when he called.

Yet, unlike as a kid when his moves made me displaced, he did not ask, “James, are you okay?”

Because he was moving, and I was not.

He was hurting, and I was not.

“James, your dad misses you, come say hi to him.”

“James, this is ridiculous, come show dad your project!”

“James, don’t be like that, not while I’ve got your father on Skype.”

“James, you are so difficult! I can’t deal with you on my own.“ When a spaceship leaves, we do not speak of the ground that it scars, the lives it takes with it, the one-parent homes.

Three years later he returned, and that Skype ring became a father again.

The world was the same, and nobody asked, “James, are you okay?”

And when I flunked out of math, because home was a nightmare, my mom yelled a lot of things, but never asked, “James, are you okay?”

And when I got a call from my girlfriend, and there was blood everywhere, and she said “you don’t love me anymore,” nobody asked, “James, are you okay?”

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And when I let myself go off a building, into darkness, into peace, I survived with a life I did not want, and nobody asked, “James, are you okay?”

And it goes on, But ahead.

We have grown, love is found.

My first year of college, a different girlfriend turned ex.

I was crying by a tree, a warm summer day.

My brother, then 8, went roaming for sticks and bugs.

Our chickens were upset with him.

This was an apology cake.

There he saw me.

Tears yet again, same wounds unscabbed, only this time, “James, are you okay?”

And I bled from my heart, and I drowned in my tears, and I snapped like a stick and I bloomed into something beautiful.

He came up to me and he hugged me.

Our life, our pain, the absence, “are you okay, James?”

Because he knew I wasn’t, but he didn’t mind.

Through all the pain, he was on my side.

For he loved me, he loved me, like nobody.

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Untitled

Melinde Madsen Photograph

Lockdown Keara Bores

In elementary school, we were told that we practiced lockdown drills in case a deer came into the school.

A deer, trapped, wide-eyed and innocent, like us.

13

Defy (i & ii)

Alekzandra Thoms 3.4” x 2.1” Oil paint on Metro cards

14

I spent the year a(l)one T. Allen Deger

I spent a year with you. (three-hundred sixty-five days) A constant lunar eclipse of bees, for me.

You spent nine months with me. (three-hundred sixty-five minus ninety-two days) A rocky shore with rescue on the way, for you.

15

Part You

David Morrison 6” x 10.75” Stoneware

16

VI. On Two Words Noah Forslund

I know one of only two words.

Those words are affection and the one I do not know.

It is not a burial ground,

though it may well be somewhat morose.

Either way, you know it, so let’s fall into each other and die anyways.

You can keep your livelihood to yourself;

all I want is to touch your spine

and be warmed by you.

I cannot imagine what calculated instigation led me to you,

just as I cannot I imagine what you will tell me

as I am dying.

For now we are become soulless trees

and we grow as if we hadn’t seen the sun in years.

Whisper your word and disassemble these masks with me.

You are nothing

but only if I am myself nothing;

that is the nature of our joy.

17

I Want to Know Paulo Gladney

i want to know my grandfather. i want to know his words, the sound, the cadence, to hear his voice. i want to see his face, his skin, compare it to my own. i want to know who he is today. the blood that pumps through my veins. i want to know what it means to be his. to own his name. i want to know what it means to be a Black Man. i want to know his struggle i never felt, the pain i never endured, the fear i never breathed, the blood i never tasted. you told me that every day he would hitchhike five hours to pick cotton in the hot california sun just to put food on your table. i want to know his heart. to know what he stood for. i want to know how you felt when the pastor gave his message of love and hope and peace amidst the sea of black clothes on black people holding blackened hearts. you were barely older than me today, seventeen, the day you realized that you would have to teach yourself how to be a Man.

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i want to know if you cried, because you never cry. i want to know if that was the day that you decided that God is nothing more than hope: like a child desperately trying to hold water in his bare hands, that love is as cheap as life and life as empty as silence i want to know if that’s why you think a home to be sand, if that’s why you never stayed in one place, with one person, with one heart i want to know if that’s why you left. if that’s why you never taught me how to drive, how to shave, what it means to wear Color on my skin if that’s why i don’t cry. i want to know you. but today I realized i have to teach myself how to be a Man.

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Gateway

Steven Garcia Photograph

21

Bedroom Slugs Isabella Rose

32” x 32” Wood, chicken wire, foam, faux fur, yarn, pantyhose

22

Cremation Cake Eleni Mahlis-Miller

hello i say to the man with the delectable crinkles his paper-thin icing wrist dangles hesitantly heavy-lidded sponge eyes carefully acknowledge me the smallest of nods, and i am a turtle step further the absorbent scent of vintage cream drifts in every single corner i can’t help but be in denial; no soul wishes to buy into ageing and rotting mortal compost a woman from the far left grins with yellow birthday teeth thin thin lips hidden by dripping and smeary maraschino lipstick the abysmal feeling is masked by bright wallpaper and confetti thousands of wrinkles and ridges encased into a single box it seems loss of elasticity leads to vanilla and chocolate folds i have a sneaking suspicion we are all turning into ribboned frosting ready to be feasted upon by the worms that lay in wait, hoping for the smallest taste of human cake.

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Shades of death (and OCD) Sarah Freyermuth

I’m dreaming of mommy dying in the elevator.

If only I had hit both my left hand,

my right hand,

she would have been safe from my mind.

If only I had scrubbed every skin cell into oblivion If only I had stayed symmetrical.

I turn the doorknob one times before daddy stops me.

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I gasp until he’s gone and count six He doesn’t know I am protecting him.

three seven

My fingertips are laced with longing My brother died again last night

and back.

four

five

...

eight.

laced with murder.

because mommy put my orange shirt before the red.

Red has shades: 1. Burgundy comes before

2. the auburn of mommy’s hair before

3. the rust of daddy’s favorite tie before

4. blood.

5. Scarlet comes before

6. the crimson on mommy’s fingertips before

7. the rose red of daddy’s screams before

8. blush that fades as they die.

If only I could collect all the sidewalk cracks in the world to protect them.

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I Worry Thea Lund

size Digital collage

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What to Do Aaron Swanson

Think Of an alternate world, Where to understand and be understood Are not the only saving hands That keep us from drowning In the lake of despair; A world where we can get along Without those primordial whispers Blowing forth from the mind’s caverns, Telling us we can escape our aloneness, That we can dissolve ourselves into A soul mate, into some vocation, That, instead of living like leafless trees— Lonely trunks and bare, anxious branches— We should chop ourselves up into wood, Become a stool or a table, anything But a tree; A world where it’s no tragedy When two people try And fail to have a conversation, Meet across the brook to trade stones, Stones desperately angled in the sunlight So they may glimmer with personality, Thought, experience, and They keeping trading until that one day When those stones break open in each other’s hands, Disclosing the shy flame of their soul that sits inside, Illuming the walls marked with cave drawings Of their most besieging fears And their plainest loves, But this time, By cruel chance, Their minds orbit around each other, a whirlpool Tearing apart the riverbed, leveling A barren field of silence,

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Snuffing their souls and their breaths, Leaving nothing but Gray shards in their hands, But in that world, It’s a reminder they’ve learned to accept.

Here We hug our existential baggage Close to our chests like a sunflower, Our eyes eaten with tears at the thought That we’re nothing but an absurd tableau Of bodies grasping at strands of grass, Reaching at distant clouds, crumbling under Vast, inscrutable skies.

But to make our alternate world a reality, We’d have to dull the sensitive burden of Our hearts, let the golden petals Hit the shriveled leaves at our feet, and Our DNA would unravel out of our cells, Flung by the wind like straw, and Without our human weight, our feet no longer Anchored by the transient caress of the dirt, We would start floating, Raptured by the cold stars above, and Never to know joy again.

I hear rain.

I take wilting steps out into the grass.

I kneel at a cloudy puddle, set My hands in the sodden dirt that Frames the rippling surface.

I face my drowning reflection.

I surrender a feeble smile.

I resume living.

What else?

I always retire to the stripped forest, To my wooden shack I built myself, where A distraught mind unpacks the day, Strewing its pain onto the floorboards.

I know that next week, My voice will bubble drunken cheer Off the walls, reenacting some joke That made my friends laugh, enough to forget My present sorrow, But I can’t beat it.

I open my chest packed with shattered rocks, Washing me with riverside agony, Dump them on the floor And let my palms wallow in the ash and rubble.

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Hair Grease Maddie Thies

I wonder if when my father dies if my mother will have me send her

my dirty pillow cases

Very much his child White cotton

stained yellow

Hair grease

dreams oozing in deep

Smell him

Each night

Still living

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Through my scalp

Enveloping

Anna Wolle 24” x 30” Oil on canvas

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Synergy III

Luh Natalia Granquist 18” x 24” Mixed media

30

underripe

Claire Chenoweth I am tired of ripening on someone else’s schedule. the desire of other fingers, other mouths, will not make mango skin blush out of season. embrace the hard green,

the crunch of the unripe pear. it is time to unlearn what you did for them. you have always known how. you were born beautifully selfish, let it come naturally again.

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A Sense of Place Margaret Lindahl

18.75� x 13�

Solar and copper plate intaglio

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Dialectic

Henry Benjamin A broken beginning And one lover of an end Keep chasing each other Across my skin I watch them tumble Down the cliff of my shoulder Landing on my knuckles, Claiming territory

Should any two true aspects Wage their wars and loves Upon my hardly hallowed flesh Then stillness is the least I can manage However long it takes To achieve a resolution Will be an age That I can live through

They are too small to hear, But I imagine them Hurling their words like stones Across the rifts between my tendons Treatises on the heart, Soliloquies crossing blades, Terms of affection and frustration Shifting between them like muscle I try to keep still, For the sake of this idea Measuring my breathing, Controlling variables

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The Quarry is an annual publication by the students of St. Olaf College.

All correspondence should be addressed to: Executive Editor, The Quarry St. Olaf College 1500 St. Olaf Avenue Northfield, MN 55057 All works of the authors in this issue are protected by a Creative Commons Lisence. Š 2018, The Authors and Artists. Some rights reserved.

Authors and artists retain the copyright to their works. Without otherwise limiting the rights reserved under copyright, the works published herein are licensedunderCreativeCommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0Internationallicenses.Forinformationonusespermittedunderthislicense, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Printed by Engage, Northfield MN

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St. Olaf College 2018