The Quarry 2017

THE QUARRY Literary and Fine Arts Magazine

St. Olaf Literary & Fine Arts Magazine St. Olaf College 2017

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

Joshua Torkelson Conlan Campbell Jabri Whirl Alexandra Madsen Hannah Hilst

Literature American Elegy

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Cosi Pori

2008; Spring and how it changes

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Clare Mikulski

I Ate My Heart

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Ash Willison

Atlas

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Anders Mattson

Watercolor Trigger

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Bella Mosqueda

Sea Song

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Samantha Seo

Futuristic Fone Collector

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Ash Willison

erudition

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Curran Olson

36”x80”

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Andrew Plumb

kaleidoscope views

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Rebekah Shuholm

For a Mother

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Jacob West

Candlelit

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Hannah Gerdes

Grandpa’s Toast

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Emma Burck

Time

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Paulo Gladney

This Lovely Land

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Olivia Beech

Dawn in a New Time Zone

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Claire Chenoweth

a prayer in cathedral lakes

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Lily Bane

Julius

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Cosi Pori

Art IF_YOU_SQUINT_IT_LOOKS_LIKE_A_BUNNY.jpg

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Nick Larson

Self Portrait

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Thomas Hardy

Flow and Spark

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Jasmine Carlson

Untitled

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Stephanie Trinkner

Portrait of an Unknown Person 2

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Evan Weselmann

Green Teapot

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Cailan Carpenter

By No Means

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Marika Lundeberg

Untitled

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Valleri Rami

Eggs

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Sophia Buchda

Acanthus Study

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Stuart Yurczyk

Growth

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Marni Kaldjian

Cover Art: Two Dead Rabbits by Evan Weselmann

An Editor’s Note

Someone once told me art is about intention. I speak of the creative arts—art in the broadest sense of the term—as an act of creation through forming, moving, collecting, begetting. Art is always, in some capacity, intentional. It delights, instructs, simplifies, shows truth. It is inner feelings expressed externally. Art is a form of observation in which everything has meaning. It is a record of place and time; Art is of a piece with life.

In times of crisis, the arts can seem an escape. They appear sometimes distant from very heavy realities. Yet, it’s easy to forget that all art is intentional or a product of concern to some capacity. Art is a complex public affair that forces us to interact and engage with one another, even on its most basic level. In order to make, to create, to form, to move, we have to find value enough in the life around us. Art is a starting point for change.

The creative arts tell many stories. Each story is a response, a reflection, and an evaluation of the time we live in. These stories not only reflect where we are, but where we want to be. It is in the arts that we find a place where differences can come together. It is a mark of successful art that it engages us in connection and in dialogue. To some degree, it should participate in our dark, loving, twisted, hurting, happy, banal humanity.

Artists are needed now more than ever. Art has a deep and powerful strength to enact change and we need to look to it. What you find within these pages cannot be repeated. This magazine is witness to and a testimony of the students of St. Olaf College 2016-2017. I will not claim that this magazine represents every story told on this campus—publishing and editing are always a subjective act—but what our editors present to you here is a limited window into the lives of these people, in this place, at this time. This magazine may not change a single event, but if it has caused one person to find value, to connect with another, to be delighted, or to be saddened, then it has done its job.

Josh Torkelson Executive Editor

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IF_YOU_SQUINT_IT_LOOKS_LIKE_A_BUNNY.jpg Nick Larson Digital

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American Elegy

after Emma Lazarus Cosi Pori

As the dust settles on the hills and all the bombs are shelled out to sea and everything we thought we knew is lost to the shifting sands of fabricated histories we will remember Bowling Green.

We will remember this day like we’ve already forgotten it, remember a day as good as any a day that never existed,

on courthouse steps calcified by blindfolded folk who say “non-resident alien”.

Keep our doors closed and locked so that we will remember Bowling Green.

And we will keep writing policy and curtailing laws to honor an imaginary slaughter,

and a day that has never stopped since tiny orange claws pawed at the Holy Book and forced their way through the already tarnished gates of a great white house,

we will keep drafting legislature to protect that which is already guarded, to shelter that which is already protected, to praise that which is already privileged, to hold a mighty shield against any and all who dissent and say “you do not belong”.

in delusions of freedom

And we will remember Bowling Green.

we will remember Bowling Green.

and we will remember the massacre

We will ring our bells for those unfallen those undead

and tides that curl against black sands

those whose sprouting stories in a dried up land of opportunity already wither in the cold sun: stories that are taken at the root and denied entry falsified

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and here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.

From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she with silent lips.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless tempest tost to me I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

In blessings unkempt and unsaid we will never forget the unsung tragedy the ghost of a mass grave that will fuel our hateful machines our Molochs our Metropoles a knife twisted fact as an alternative to the truth spoken so many times that the mouth rusts and the gleaming copper of the New Colossus turns green with the putrid lies of freedom.

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Self Portrait Thomas Hardy 22 x 30 in.

Gouache on Paper

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2008; Spring and how it changes Clare Mikulski Sticky fingers pick through the remains of French fry baskets And we work pieces of beef out from between greasy teeth.

I am watching a baby wearing only a diaper and a t-shirt crawl Around on a tabletop of the Kountry Kastle in Paducah, KY. We go to sleep in a farmhouse that sits in the middle of what feels Like a million acres of daffodils, but I have never had an eye for size.

The sky looks so open that I feel my throat close.

I start praying that the flowers won’t freeze overnight.

For the first time since I left Fayetteville, I can see Arkansas in the dirt Between every flower and blade of grass, and in the muddy patches that Burp and squeak beneath my sneakers. At home, 300 miles north of this farmhouse, Mud and crocuses are still choking on the coldest winter I can remember.

When I return to Western Springs it is frozen for two more days, but then The sun is an early guest; I’m not wearing any lipstick when she rings.

I walk around Clark Park in slow circles. My skin feels too soft, like it moves too much.

I reach out to feel a tree’s sunny trunk, but the bark is still cold to touch.

I won’t make a friend for six more months. I will cry in dressing rooms.

When I read “The Waste Land” in high school, I am sitting on the grass waiting For a girl with red hair. I will meet her a year after I trace my initials In the grease on a tabletop of the Kountry Kastle in Paducah, KY. I shift on the ground, run my fingers over the stripes the grass has pressed Into the backs of my thighs. I miss most of Eliot’s allusions; I am still illiterate to subtext.

I remember that cruel April, and the seven more that followed it.

I have let many springs slip through my fingers, dirty ice melt in my palms.

Last year the sun came out in Minnesota for the first time in months.

I romped and ran with the best of them. We rolled on dead grass, laughing Until we were sun-blind and our throats were raw, and my white wide legs Flamed with the fat, red welts of happy hives.

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I Ate My Heart Ash Willison I was bored So I rolled it out, patted my soft hands, Baked it, and frosted it In thick grey icing.

Then, into it, I pressed raw sugar.

So that maybe, in an excited child’s warm hand It would leave small imprints While the happiness would travel down into the invisible duodenum.

Put it behind invisible glass, marble counter And ooh’s and aah’s attract puckering smacks And trickling fingertips but people would Rather walk away With warm auburn coffee hot Wintery white peppermint scone Soft mist Hot breath Crusts flakey as the snow Instead of a grey heart.

So I ate it myself.

Gooey mouthfuls grinding mush Slithering down Instant gag Not only does it look only alright It tastes worse.

I ate my heart And it came back up In a slop on linoleum flat tiles Lurching stomach lining.

And so a dog ate it, after I had tried.

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Atlas Anders Mattson As I stood on the pier Gazing at a myriad of stars She whispered It’ll be around a fifteen-minute wait.

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Flow and Spark Jasmine Carlson 8 x 8 in.

Monoprint and Inkjet Transfer on Paper

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Watercolor Trigger Bella Mosqueda Painting.

The magical moment when color meets water.

Smooth, flowing, calm.

A drop of paint lands on the page.

Red. Oxygenated.

The same color as blood.

Trigger.

Trigger.

Trigger.

Your body contracts, coils.

A peaceful moment turned red.

Your eyes fill with dread.

Your brain falls in on itself.

Flee.

Flee.

Flee.

Find that space outside your body.

Go there, despite the falling of the sky.

Enter the abyss, black in comfort.

Ignore the flesh turned canvas.

Neglect the sweet swirl of seduction.

Detach yourself from red.

Turn it pink, then purple, then blue.

Ground yourself in the blue.

Indigo.

Cerulean.

Turquoise.

Come back down to earth, to blue.

Color meets water.

Wipe away the tears.

You made it.

Now paint your magic.

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Sea Song Samantha Seo You, tiny one Born in the month of june |바다아이 A grain of sand Turned into something beautiful | 진주 Raised on the ocean, Drinking mother’s seaweed soup | 미역국 Every birthday, every new year, The tides are rising | 변화 The earth of your body, The sea of your heart | 고르다 폭풍과 싸우지 마라 Don’t fight the storm.

Close your eyes, slip beneath the surface.

Let the waves carry you under.

Let the wind sing you to sleep.

Breathe in, and Drown.

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Untitled Stephanie Trinkner 8 x 10 in.

Solar Plate Intaglio on Paper

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Portrait of an Unknown Person 2 Evan Weselmann 10 x 14 in.

Ink on Paper

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Futuristic Fone Collector Ash Willison Futuristic Fone Collector What’s your vector victor checked her Out the time she bought a latte Cast my line and with luck I caught a Dumpling sweet a mustard mellow American eyes but skin that’s yellowIsh the kind of vanilla oreos the story goes more of those fresh off the boat types like-minded hype-types.

Scared or shy oh my god who’d have thought. I didn’t know that what an interesting fact.

Independent bagel maker What’s your race and preferred gender Freshman cool then cooler coolest Wrenchman rules and ruled the rulest School. Her mates all party hardy Art the walls and get pop-tarty Hip hop charts these Minds of tribes whose vibe ease Feels and wheels slowly stop turn.

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Green Teapot Cailan Carpenter 7 1/2 x 7 1/2 x 8 3/4 in.

Slipcast Porcelain

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erudition Curran Olson if you wish to learn do not think to invest but to enrich nutrients; currency of the present something to believe in ingest liberally at your discretion no not theirs water as needed (wash behind ears) recommended eight glasses a day don’t avoid sun grow

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36”x80” Andrew Plumb The rhythmic beeping of beige machines Echoing my failing world.

The analogue clock, ticking faster and faster. Stale air lays heavier than somber whispers.

Rustles of paper sheets on paper skin Palpitate.

The wavering beeping of beige machines Echoing my failing world.

Deep scratches etched in the Linoleum Floor, evident from the cream waiting chair’s once frequent traffic. The faint taste of iron and disinfectant that turns teeth to chalk Long since permeated every surface.

The faltering beeping of beige machines Echoing my failing world.

The flickering fluorescent tubes cast yellow Light on the scene that seemed shadows To the lone, blaze orange chrysanthemum Whose aroma seemed to beckon company.

The monotone of beige machines calls For company. Too late, as the chrysanthemum’s Blaze seemed satiated, and faded to dust.

Finally, at peace.

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kaleidoscope views Rebekah Shuholm messy maroon blood that smears up against broken glass headaches and dark rooms a bloody riot between my fingers and heart to my navel from my brain until we drown in flames and i drown in your lipstick

swirls cool on the surface: of a snow globe dream wind knocked out of my chest lit by cobalt eyes: freeze all I am except for a faint heartbeat that won’t die lie down with me in january snow, you breathing the iciest breath into me.

and i heard you wanted a forest lover, soft among somber pines, so step barefoot into my eyes and we’ll live in the woods, two pale bodies that fade into emerald earth no longer people, just humanscreatures of this place that made us.

And to think we almost forgot

We have always belonged to it.

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By No Means Marika Lundeberg Photograph

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For a Mother Jacob West

This summer past your breath last took fell quiet.

You left us softer than the sweetest kiss.

You toted you would face death with a riot, but like old friend you greeted the abyss Your name that day swept through the dogwood trees, Your favorites in the soft sweet breeze of June.

Your garden growing still with squash and peas, life after death and roses left to prune.

Soft smirk in picture sitting framed by crystal, live eyes, still body, love that knew no bar, remembering your quick mind like a pistol, and stories told, voice soft as a guitar.

That night was stark and quiet as time brooded, deafening silence in a life concluded.

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Candlelit Hannah Gerdes The forest is having a dinner party.

Wine-dark wind has blown the sycamore and the elm into each other They are stumbling home together holding each other up in a tangle of branches and caressing leaves.

The birch is peeling off layers of bark painstakingly slowlypaperthin litterings of unquestionable Vulnerability. No one notices.

The oak has stained herself with cheap cabernet so the vineyard tries to Dab Not Rub away This cannibalism and moral degradation.

There are forty six percent fewer trees in the world today; they are drinking themselves to death and evaporation. the Bush is on fire but no matter. What is maybe God is just impaired judgement, Stupor and Alcohol.

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Untitled Valleri Rami 15 1/2 x 10 x 10 in.

Ceramic

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Grandpa’s Toast Emma Burck Biscuit burning in the toaster Fire alarm goes “BEEP BEEP BEEP!” I always know it’s breakfast time When the future of grandpa’s toast is bleak.

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Eggs Sophia Buchda Photograph

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Time Paulo Gladney you were soaked in time, a quick crack of your smile lived for minutes and your kisses tasted like hours, I would look into your eyes for an eternity and be left with seconds.

with every quick, crack of a smile I had only minutes to take in the happiness you never meant to write all over your face, to shove into my brain the fact that you could never really hide what was in your heart

maybe you hated pictures because they were the only things that could outlast you, evidence that one day your future would be your present;

with every kiss I had merely hours to feel your fingers tangled in my hair, to remember the way that your nose pushed against mine

one day, passed, and so I tricked you with poems of today, telling you that they were alive, I persuaded you to believe that they would perpetually live in the present, I convinced you that they were new living organisms every time they were read again, but see I lied, because

and every time I looked into your eyes I would spend an eternity, perusing the crinkles in your cheeks, and the brown dot just east of your nose, and the lines rising up from your chin, and the soft ridges meeting right at the top of your lips, and I would forget that I only had seconds see I lied, because this was past tense and so were you

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Acanthus Study Stuart Yurczyk 9 x 12 in.

Lithograph on Paper

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This Lovely Land Olivia Beech As clouds burdened with snow bubbled on the western horizon, the world held its breath.

It is only just beginning, they said. It will last for centuries, they said. Our children will be the last to run through the sprinklers, they said. We have seen the last summer, they said.

I turned off the news; The last broadcast to air, they said. I went outside; The last day over fifty degrees, they said. I sat down on the grass; The last time you’ll see it green and lush, they said. I breathed in a whiff of the flowers before me; The last ones to bloom, they said. I watched a honeybee buzz over to the petals, land, and lap at the pollen inside; The last bees to alight on flowers, they said.

I looked at the world around me as it worked seamlessly in its own way; “What was wrong with this?” said I.

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Dawn in a New Time Zone Claire Chenoweth My world is made of shadow puppets, detail stuttering between streetlights.

In this floating and underwater hour the trees are two dimensional and I think I could blow them over like a candle flame.

Florida 6:45 is a new flavor of dark.

It oozes tar-like through roots, bubbling up around the median.

The early morning creeps forward, clinging to the edges of the cement.

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a prayer in cathedral lakes Lily Bane the sun stretches down to lick my skin, says I taste like apricots

dried figs black tea. the straps of my pack left their fingerprints on my shoulders; red lines pressed into skin and muscle. overhead, a snarl of ice and rock bursts from an expanse of mountain lakes and trickles of melted glaciers and

I wonder who put it there.

I am looking for

an engineer of mountain peaks/

the blueprints to the sky.

I want to ask the rocks

who bore you

who pushed you from her molten womb

who brought you, cloaked in granite and quartz, into a world of clean acidic sunlight of empty mountain air.

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Growth Marni Kaldjian 9 x 11 in.

Intaglio and Chine-collĂŠ on Paper

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Julius Cosi Pori one button, one fist, holding the weight of a thousand suns. some of us laugh some of us cry though, most of us are silent. the great ash cloud rests on the thighs of history a brilliant purple fire scalds the desert sands turning them green father, son, holy skin.

I avert my eyes while cells shed leaves and seasons change lose hair lose breast lose life. now, we are all sons of bitches. one button, one fist, takes the blue waste glowing in earth’s veins funnels it on trains between washington, tennessee, the carolinas, back to my backyard. you don’t know me by name,

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only by case number only by my dull eyes that rest unblinking on the heart monitor’s screen on the geiger counter on Lord Shiva assuming his many armed form to say “now I am become death the destroyer of worlds”. on Julius’ reflection in the glass unassuming and silent to say “now, we are all sons of bitches”. the graphite fire flickers on the red horizon another memory another body slips past us in the distance. lose love lose culture lose power Lord, almighty, lose power. one button, one fist grabs me by the neck at night and shakes me forces my wide eyes to gaze upon ghosts with melting flesh and ruined genes

ghosts without homes green ghosts wailing in the abyss of forgotten history and rapid modernization. i sleep fitfully now, i am become death the destroyer of worlds. now, i am become death the destroyer of worlds. now, i am become death the destroyer of worlds.

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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 License. Š 2017, 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 licensed under Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licenses. For information on uses permitted under this license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Printed by Engage, Northfield MN

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ST. OLAF COLLEGE 2017