The Round Issue XXIV

THE ROUND

MANAGING EDITORS:

Aurelia Cowan

Julian Ansorge

Eleanor Peters

ASSOCIATE EDITORS:

Justin Nourian

Marlena Brown

Caroline Knight

DESIGN EDITORS:

Izzy Roth-Dishy

Simon Yang

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGERS:

Beto Beveridge

Francis Gonzalez

STAFF:

Leanna Bai

George Chudley

Zoe Ehrenkranz

Riley Gramley

Liv Graner

Linnea Hult

Carla Humphris

Addison Kerwin

Susanne Kowalska

Rowen Lee

Ayla Lucia Tosun

Zoe Redlich

Maya Renaud-Levine

Navya Sahay

Caleb Schultz

Yilin Xie

TABLE OF CONTENTS

IN THE NIOBE FOUNTAIN

Toinette Constable

Many years ago I was told about a distant cousin who had a tiny house, complete with a tiny pointed roof, inside the hallway of her very large home. There was a tiny bathroom, a tiny kitchen, and a bed barely long enough for her. She covered the walls with recipes, torn pages off novels and research papers, children’s book covers, dissertations about the state of the State, articles on economics and medical issues, remedies for scratching cats and drooling dogs, titles of popular songs, letters from relatives and grandchildren. Eventually these were covered over by telephone book pages, pages of the Koran, recipes from her family, travel brochures, pages of library books long overdue; topped by a layer of prescriptions, laundry and dry-cleaning bills, birthday cards and food ads, crafts, building advertising, business cards, and coupons for sodas added to the collection. There was no logic to her acquisitions, but she insisted on them, asserting that she felt cold and that the paper layers provided good insulation, which helped her fall asleep faster by keeping her warm. Since she lived in southern France, she had plenty of heat from the abundant sunshine, but even the midday sun on her tiles and her roof appeared insufficient.

With all this dispersed knowledge surrounding her, she could not fail to be knowledgeable in all subjects, though no one had ever seen her, in spite of years of spying, reading the material around her. Yet she discoursed at length on any subject, whether the neighbors neglected their guinea pig, our Aunt Mathilda’s asthma, or the relationship between insanity, heredity, and the drinking of green tea. She could expound on the latest treatment for alcohol or opiate addiction, the most glorious reception at the Elysée Palace or the White House, how to purge your garden of moles and mosquitoes, or create world peace.

Even when you brought this encyclopedic woman a propitious gift, she squarely told you what you’d done wrong and how offensive you had been, even unknowingly, in your dealings with your father-in-law, or your second cousin, the one who chose German citizenship after WWII; how your own children had permanently damaged her staircase wall by applying their buttered hands over the grass paper she’d applied that very day. She didn’t take kindly to disagreement, refuting any argument, since she was an expert in so many areas. Asking for proof exposed you to further interminable, uninterruptable discourse.

She was a political expert who could spell out President Wilson’s and Bush’s faults and failures, and how they’d manipulated the government to their own ends. She coyly hinted at her innumerable degrees, including an M.D. and one in herpetology, and the highest artistic awards she received in her youth, not to mention medals for sports achievements.

Her husband, when tired of her endless prattle, locked himself up into his home office while their children crowded around the television. The words in the mini house were so rich, so compelling that they’d penetrated her subconscious, and even though she had no close friends, she discoursed on all subjects endlessly for the benefit of her five cleaning ladies, the gardener, or the gas repair man. When her rare visitors showered before bed, her words reached them through doors and plastic curtains, and when, exhausted, they managed to fall asleep, she still discoursed through their bedroom door before retiring to her little papered house.

What caused her to be so talkative? Was it her high-strung but adoring mother, who found her delightfully and admirably impulsive? Was it the fact that this woman never worked a day in her life, having not learned the skills needed for a job, how to study for a degree, or acquire the skills needed for a basic certificate? Was it envy of her older siblings? Tongue too long for her mouth? Doctors who failed to diagnose her logorrhea? Whatever the cause, the result is that no one ever succeeded in silencing her. One day she was taken, much against her will and the weak protests of immediate relatives, with the help of a moving company and three police officers, to the Palais de Versailles garden and placed in the cool basin of a special breezy fountain, probably Niobe’s, since no one could stanch her interminable word flow. Now water, too, falls noisily from her mouth, covering the flow of her irrepressible speeches, disguising them lest her utterings offend international visitors ambling along the alleys of le Parc du Jardin de Versailles.

Livia Weiner

ONLY PLAYED IT AS A KID WITHOUT EQUIPMENT

Charles Elin

The man laughed himself to death. There, in the mirror he watched it happen. His face, swollen with tears. His body, old and crooked. The NFL had just chosen him as a running back. Deep in sleep, it made no sense. He only knew himself as a defensive specialist. His knees dropped, having failed to catch his breath.

FORECASTING YESTERDAY Charles

Elin

Some had a passion for used influence. It was not well represented. The essay he wrote was in all caps. Then he changed it. He lived inside the weather. Moods were among a stack of used markings. His writing had no escape. If bound and gagged he’d give consent to be on the shelf.

THE LEVEE

SOME SORT OF BLESSING

Jeanne Rana

I sometimes see double. My lazy left eye strays. The edge of the picture frame

slowly separates into two lines, like a dividing amoeba. Out the window, identical twins, dressed alike, walk their small brown dogs down the sidewalk.

I wore a pirate patch at age five, had an eye operation at eleven. At a certain angle, one thing still becomes two.

This has been a somewhat useless gift, but I have seen more than my share of double rainbows.

Dear one, you may disagree, but I continue to believe that all is well.

Seeing two birds fly east at dawn when I know there’s only one is some sort of blessing.

THE REALM 3 & 5

Karl Lorenzen

AFTER THE BURIAL

Kimberley Nunes

It can be the wall of the basilica at night— the way the spotlights flood thick Spanish stucco troweled three centuries ago. The way the Virgin holds the corner—figurehead at the bow of a ship. The graves at her feet—Ohlone Costanoan Esselen—rest anonymous here. Your path to Saturday evening mass, 5 p.m., through the side door—

Sometimes, it’s the Pebble Beach golf course in midday mist, the colonies of egrets—oblivious. We always laugh at the herd dogs chasing mud ducks to clear the green—we watch them

from the club dining room, all those lunches together alone at the large west windows. How the ducks quack away on the seventeenth green into the sea—the cove where cormorants dive and otters float like everything normal, like sea dogs.

The sun glows bright in this bluebird sky, even when gray, with whitewater crashing, winter salt spray, as today, silent, beyond the bird rock, waves like a geyser out there, and beyond that—my sensing this moment’s inevitability.

When after the last slice of key lime pie we share, the last ask for the check, you always pay. I hand you your cane, then we walk to our cars. The last time you drove away. I want to remember.

SOON

Danielle Stockley

Eighty-two thousand five hundred and twenty acorns selected and carefully interred into the body of this tree whose load-bearing weight is eighty-two thousand five hundred and twenty acorns and one

Sarkis Antonyan

My cheeks refract the air helplessly. This street we walked on every night. My mom doesn’t know. I’m wearing the jacket she bought. The oaks’ shadows ebb into one another. They leave. They return. They leave. Thrumming blotches of crimson skin emerge throughout the city. My thin arms, my wet-paper legs buckling. Skin you learned to hold. I still have a long way to go.

It was cold once and I yelled at you for wearing shorts.

You said we’re almost there so quietly the street heard my teeth grinding, softly. My mom bought an abstract painting for the living room back home. The paint looks like legs. The torso looks like it is being blown up. Everywhere it is splattering. My arms were motionless on the table that night.

I come from another ocean. I’m covered in globules of salt and sweat. I hold out my tongue in the bathroom light. The secret has rendered it jade, acid. The air was too cold that night. Your eyes kept apologizing. The Sun could have ruptured and I wouldn’t look up.

I walk on the sidewalk and my earbuds slip out of my ear, over and over. I drooled on your pillow by accident.

I wrapped my afternoons into bows and left them in your hands. The frost distracts foreground from background. The shadows ebb. Still.

You once kissed me after your granola bar fell to the floor. You once coughed hoarsely and turned to the sky, laughed at it.

Emmie Fitz-Gibbon

CHERRIES

Alaire Kanes

Yeah, they are Sitting nice and pretty “Baby tee, she’s here for me” Suffocating arms, unfortunately

Ice cream swirls and bug bites, nipping Maraschino stems and men who start sippin’

A few cold beers, the jukebox ain’t quitting Toddlers’ cries and wet dreams dripping

Two bar stools and stolen keys Swerving seats, he’s here for me A sticky counter, parallel knees Wrongful wishes, the waitress wants free

Sweet cream whipped, dollars kept Drawers slammed shut and bathrooms swept A mother’s love, white powder owed Slice me some tart cherry pie, à la Mode

DECEMBER

Laura

King

Still we are quiet as white I told a little of the how until the dawn moon exiled from the night sky on a windless morning rested above us— when my toe touched his he shifted, without sound away, and I became aware the dog’s steel bowl outside was filled with ice and the seams along our palms from birth have always been the same.

FRIEZE

Gina Ledor

FOURTH OF JULY

Sarkis Antonyan

I used to hide my hands under the frosted glass of Grandma’s table

to unsee myself. Weeks ago, I kissed a man until stars sharpened in my chest.

Everyone suspects it woefully. California save me. I came here brittle like I was

a loose tooth. I have always held my breath against my own name. My delicate

cousins. Their young puffy lips. I sat nearby harvesting lint from my sweater.

Everything was aligned. Stale December air. My skinny arms, my expression—

they ruin violently. The palm trees were fireworks frozen mid-air. When

I hit the pillow at night the ends of my lips were strung with salt.

Vicky Yang

LOSS, BEFORE

Joanne Lee

Tragedy lies in inversion

And so we begin, instead, in the dense blind black with red dried thin Traces, just traces. The eyes open widest in the dark Strain as every color draws so near as to become blank Child that you are of perfect night, where will you look when the lights turn on?

WE DRANK FROM THE SAME WATER

a Golden Shovel after William Carlos Williams

Jacqueline Simon

Wan water will never forgive you—muggy-breathed she warned me.

Like roe from a sac they {her words} floated, were ears in water hungry delicious removed from meaning. So,

wan means feeble. The liquid not sweet refreshment as I’d hoped, and her phantom words bubbled so slowly, their exhalations thirsty and cold

ANTIGON-IST

Carla Humphris

Jesus killed a fig tree because he was hungry and angry that it had no figs; yet they say Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Maybe Jesus came back to life in the same cave

Antigone was buried breathing for honoring the gods— tangled in thorns, not crowned a victim of vindictive pride— they’ll never deify the vilified daughter of a man married to his mother, each brother slaughtered by the other (both losing a war without a winner).

I think it’s hard to be the child of a sinner, carrying their mistakes on yours, because wrongs multiply like rabbits and faults breed in to feed greedy on our flaws.

Antigone sought justice over life

and Jesus didn’t wash his hands. I think we should resurrect a woman.

CETERIS PARIBUS

Ethan Altshul

Unreal. I circle in a vortex. A whirlpool convecting in the ticks between A and P. My dreams are full of broken heads. In the morning, I break half a tablet. All else being equal. All else will be ok. Somebody must’ve broken the heads. In the vacuum they would float off into the great depository of space. But they rest in the corner. Between the metal sheets. Under the metal blinds. In another time, this dream would be an act of the devil. In another time, this dream would be an act of god. I live in neither. In mine, this is the act of the day to day. All else being equal. This is the break between sleep and coffee. In the dream, it was me clubbing head from neck. From body. When my hands trace the rim of my plate, they shiver. My heart didn’t always do this. My throat didn’t always burn. But now is always. Immemorial. Here I am. Wondering. Always wondering. In another time, I imagine, I’d be asleep. Dreaming of bones.

Onaje Grant-Simmonds

ALONE IN THE KITCHEN

Marty Krasney

Have you ever been anxious, cleaning up in the evening, alone, nearing midnight, as I’ve been way more than once, that perhaps from distraction or preoccupation, a song on the radio, or just possibly having drunk a bit more than you usually drink, or gotten less sleep again, you find yourself impatient with the performance, the speed, of your garbage disposal and you thrust your hand down inside it— into the limp sodden lettuce leaves, the rejected cherry tomatoes and the gnawed chicken bones, gristle, carrot tops, peach pits, stems and cores, shells and skins, orange rind, banana peels, the rejected leftovers of your day, of your ordinary day— pressing down to speed it up, as the blades do what the blades do, as anything mechanical does, and you yank your hand back, fast, but nowhere near fast enough, flesh hanging down, some severed, small bones cut if not cut through, blood surging torrents as you lunge away from the buzzing, spattered sink across the room to your cell phone and with your nondominant hand, nauseated and faint, dial nine-one-one embarrassed, not sure what to admit, and you slide down onto the linoleum holding your bloody right wrist against your chest, your favorite shirt, a girlfriend bought it for you in Florence, in your streaming left hand, and you wait, nothing to do but wait on the kitchen floor, wait, while the disposal keeps churning.

BEYOND THE GLASS

Camilla Watson

THE EMBRACE Grace Chen

PLATONIC ENCOUNTER

Carla Humphris

Sometimes it’s easier to be vulnerable with a stranger than a friend. We can all be hedgehogs. I only think in comma splices and run on sentences, I am always depressed in October. First names are so erotic, don’t you think? It’s permanent December in the economy of indifference and I am hungover, hanging onto every word you said. You were mostly sorry. I wonder what percentage of people experience existential dread. In that unspoken flash of recognition between two ex-lovers—was it intimacy or just intensity? Sometimes it feels right to languish. I remember how my thumb felt tender on your jaw.

STROLL

Sara Kandler

The time I let you slide right off the stroller seat and onto the sidewalk your round bottom and fleece winter onesie cushioning your fall at least a little because I hadn’t fastened you in at all your older brother and sister pulling me this way and that to see the ducks and open the mailbox and retie a shoe and you stopped crying right away in spite of the incision at your waist that was surely still sore you nestled your cold nose against my neck when I picked you up and pressed our hearts together

Me promising to take better care of you my easy one

Me promising

Vicky Yang

SO WE WON’T FORGET

Livia Weiner

BURNING

Frank Jamison

The tree cutter came singing yesterday, complicit with me to burn the dead ash tree. He’d cut it into logs last spring and left it in sections like corpses at the water’s edge.

They lay all summer until he came at last with his long white hair, beard unkempt, his mackinaw worn, his mellow sound like a sweet dirge as the fire burned hotly.

The heat stung our faces until toward day’s end when we had heaved the last log, the embers smoldered, the air chilled, and he turned to leave, tossing his last song on the air.

ROBINS

Meredith Davies Hadaway

Dozens mob the winterberry, disassembling its red mantle

bite by bite, berry by berry, until it stands, stripped

to its twigs and branches, a skeleton of former glory, silently

fingering the staggering few who remain too fat to fly, happy little drunks, harbingers of nothing but a blank

window, a bare winter, my disappearing gaze.

DESERT RAIN

Joddy Murray

Achilles tendon might ache to tell you with emphasis: slow down before you fall; remain awhile and let rain fill your ears, rattle those tiny bones.

SECRET STASH

Joddy Murray

And then acceleration became equal to wonder, equal because it did not purport an end of any kind. Just go. What is wrapped in the fabric you keep under the bed? I think there is saliva in there, ready to digest who looks.

LOOK! WE HAVE REACHED HOME

Dora Bos

THRILLER THURSDAY

Ellis Elliot

in junior high meant Mark Meineke would put his arm too tight around me in the cold dark of the Malco Theater on College Street. He already sported beard stubble and a swagger born of parents never home. It was thrilling to imagine his house, with a permanently parked lawnmower in the yard, his mom asleep with a half-lit cigarette in her mouth, and SpaghettiOs congealed, half-eaten on the stove. His untethered life felt both foreign and seductive, his whispered drawl said, “C’mon” as his lips glazed my ear. Like when the knife glistens right outside the bedside window, there was a feeling this story could go either way. And all along, the flickering movie screen spelled it out in front of me. Watch for warning signs. Turn on lights. Do not stumble as you run away.

ECOLOGICAL AWARENESS #2

Emmie Fitz-Gibbon

METAMORPHOSIS

Jeanne Rana

After the turtle encounter, she went home, but nobody believed her. They thought she was haunted as her midriff, breasts, and knees began the slow change. Her face and skin became coarse, a bit green. She watched as her calves became knotted then shortened and her back began to rearrange itself, the spine spreading into a carapace. She was becoming leather. She scuttled toward the fridge, looking for lettuce, but couldn’t open it then pushed open the screen door with her snout and headed toward the pond.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

SARKIS ANTONYAN is a Brown/RISD Dual Degree first-year from Los Angeles, California, studying Interior Architecture, Urban Studies, and Literary Arts. His work has appeared in Peach Magazine, Olit, Revolute, h-pem, Prometheus Dreaming, Pollux Journal, The Augment Review, and elsewhere, and has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, the International Armenian Literary Alliance, Oprelle, and Randolph College. A poetry reader at the Adroit Journal, he enjoys brewing peach tea, knitting, collecting frog sculptures, and drawing on foggy windows.

ETHAN ALTSHUL is a 17-year-old writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rabid Oak, I-70 Review, Broadkill Review, and Evening Street Review. The grandson of two poets, he currently works as a poetry and prose editor for Kalopsia Literary Journal. When not writing, he constructs crosswords and plays baseball. Ethan lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania, with his family.

ELYSEE BARAKETT is a second-year student at Brown studying International and Public Affairs. When she’s not reporting about tax agreements for the Brown Daily Herald or filming silly videos with her pals, she loves to sit on the floor and collage. She is interested in faces, perhaps due to the fact she has poor facial recognition.

DORA BOS is a junior at Brown studying Egyptology and Economics. She has done art all her life.

GRACE CHEN is an interdisciplinary artist studying computer science and visual art. When she is not designing or animating on her laptop, she enjoys creating physical art through oil painting, crocheting, and dancing.

ANTOINETTE CONSTABLE has been published in Louisville Review, Sierra Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Willow Review, California Quarterly, El Portal, and anthologies. Two of her essays have won international awards. She studied with Linda Watanabe McFerrin, David St. John, and Ellery Akers. Raised in France during WWII, Antoinette has worked as a registered nurse in the UK and the United States. Now retired, she enjoys traveling, inventing recipes, collecting copper items, and learning Russian. She writes under the pen name Toinette.

CHARLES ELIN worked with the late writer/editor Larry Fagin from January 2012 until his death in 2017. Larry published a chapbook of Charles’ poems and stories in 2014, then added two later stories to his 2016 magazine, The Delineator. Charles’ flash fiction pieces have been published by Columbia Journal, Corium Magazine, and Midway. His poems have appeared in over a dozen journals, including Rosebud, Forge, and Mantis. Orange Fanta is his latest chapbook. By profession, Charles is a psychiatric social worker in private practice.

ELLIS ELLIOTT is a writer, ballet teacher, and facilitator of online writing groups called Bewilderness Writing. She has a blended family of six grown sons and lives with her husband and feisty dog in Juno Beach, Florida. She has an MFA from Queens University, is a contributing writer for the Southern Review of Books, and is an editor/workshop teacher for The Dewdrop contemplative journal. She has been published in Signal Mountain Review, Ignation Literary Magazine, Literary Mama, OPEN: Journal of Arts and Letter, Plainsongs Poetry Magazine/Award Poem, Sierra Nevada Review, Women of Appalachia Project Anthology, Delmarva Review, The Rail, Spotlong Review, Euphony Journal, and others. Her first chapbook, Break in the Field, was released in July 2023 with Devil’s Party Press.

EMMIE FITZ-GIBBON is a first year Brown/RISD dual degree student from Los Angeles, studying Industrial Design and Cognitive Neuroscience.

MEREDITH DAVIES HADAWAY has three published collections of poetry from Wordtech— including At the Narrows, winner of the 2015 Delmarva Book Prize for Creative Writing. Her work has also appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Cincinnati Review, Harpur Palate, New Ohio Review, Rhino, Salamander, Southern Poetry Review, and Valparaiso Poetry Review, among other journals. Hadaway is the Sophie Kerr Poet-in-Residence at Washington College.

CARLA HUMPHRIS is a junior at Brown studying International and Public Affairs and Literary Arts. She comes from London where no one knows what any of that means. Carla likes to make things and run.

FRANK JAMISON is a graduate of Union University and the University of Tennessee where he majored in both English and mathematics, each of which, he says, is an elaborate language. Frank’s work has appeared in numerous literary journals, most recently, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Arkana, Avalon Literary Review, Big Muddy, DASH Literary Journal, Evening Street Review, Glint Literary Journal, Literally Stories, The MacGuffin, Moon City Review, Nimrod, The Penmen Review, Pennsylvania English, The Phoenix, Plainsongs Poetry Magazine, Spoon River Poetry Review, South Carolina Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, The Wax Paper, and many others. His book of poems, Marginal Notes, was published in 2001, and his book of poems, Songs of Unsung People, was published in 2021. His poems have won the Still Poetry Prize, the Robert Burns/Terry Semple Memorial Poetry Prize and the Libba Moore Gray Poetry Prize. He has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Frank is a member of the Tennessee Mountain Writers and the Knoxville Writers’ Guild. He lives and writes in Roane County, Tennessee.

SARA KANDLER teaches English at an international school near New York City, and reads and writes poetry whenever she has a spare moment. She publishes her work in Medium and had a piece recently in the poetry journal One Art. Sara has an MS in Journalism from Columbia University and a BA in Comparative Literature from Brown University (Class of ’88). She has lived and taught in France, Morocco, and the US.

ALAIRE KANES is a junior Anthropology student at Brown University. She’s exploring her latent love for writing for the first time in a long time. It feels good. You can probably find her sitting on a bench somewhere, scarfing down a blueberry muffin.

LAURA KING holds a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and is in the MFA program for Creative Writing at Rainier Writing Workshop in Tacoma, Washington. Her work has appeared in DASH, El Portal, Evening Street Review, Frigg Magazine, Hollins Critic, The Los Angeles Times, The Midwest Quarterly, Modern Haiku, Neologism Poetry Journal, The Opiate, Off the Coast, Perceptions Magazine, The Phoenix, Ponder Review, Slant: A Journal of Poetry, Visitant Lit, Whimperbang, and Wrath-Bearing Tree. She lives in Sacramento, California, where she is a hospital chaplain.

MARTY KRASNEY’s poetry and short stories have been published in Areté, Innisfree, Evening Street Review, Frost Meadow Review, MacGuffin, Marlboro Review, Missouri Review, Mudlark, Tricycle, and Witness, and he has completed a novel, The Bees of the Invisible. He has studied writing with Richard Bausch, Patrick Donnelly, Lynn Freed, George Garrett, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Edmund Keeley, and Tom Mallon. His long and varied career as an organizational executive culminated with ten years as the founding executive director of Dalai Lama Fellows, a global network of contemplative, young social-justice activist leaders, administered since 2018 by the University of Virginia. Previously, Marty was the program director of the National Humanities Series, the first director of the Aspen Institute Executive Seminars, and the founding president of American Leadership Forum. He has served on more than twenty-five boards, primarily in the arts, education, the environment, health, and human rights.

GINA LEDOR is an artist from Berkeley, California, who is studying at Brown to become a high school English teacher. Music and art are her lifeblood.

JOANNE LEE is a sophomore at Brown University concentrating in Biology and Literary Arts. She is an avid lion dancer, has strong opinions on how (and how many) flutes should be used in concert band, and is currently rather wishing organic chemistry didn’t exist.

KARL LORENZEN is a professional and community artist based in Queens, New York who partners with non-profits in presenting art workshops for diverse communities in New York City. His artwork has been exhibited and published in numerous venues and journals including the San Francisco Botanical Garden, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, the United Nations Headquarters in NYC, The American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, and The Columbia Journal (Columbia University).

JODDY MURRAY’s chapbook, Anaphora, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in over 70 journals, including, most recently, Birdy Magazine, The Torrid Literature Journal, Wrath Bearing Tree, The Fourth River, Prism Review, Nude Bruce Review, OxMag, Perceptions Magazine, Cape Rock, Redactions: Poetry & Poetics, and Sou’wester Literary Magazine. He currently lives in Marion, Illinois.

KIMBERLY NUNES’s poems have been published in The Alembic, Apricity Magazine, Blue Light Press Anthology, Brushfire, California Quarterly, Caveat Lector, El Portal, Evening Street Review, Mantis, Marin Poetry Center Anthology, The Madison Review, Spotlog Review, Sweet: A Literary Confection, WomenArts Quarterly Journal, and Adelaide Literary Magazine. Her poem “Morning at Moore’s Lake, Again” was nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize. She has attended numerous writing workshops and studied with Marie Howe, Sharon Olds, Ellen Bass, and many others. Kimberly sits on the board of Four Way Books in New York City. She received her MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. Her hobbies include bird-watching, gardening, swimming, golf, and tennis.

DAWSON PHILLIPS is a sophomore at Brown from Austin, Texas, studying Environmental Studies and Visual Art. In his free time he enjoys drawing, birding, playing guitar, and listening to Joni Mitchell. His artwork is inspired by his love for the environment and his experiences birdwatching. He particularly enjoys using symbols of the natural world to explore themes of environmentalism, gender, and selfexpression.

JEANNE RANA has been published in El Portal Literary Journal, Apricity Magazine, Cantos, Clackamas Literary Journal, The Ignatian Literary Magazine, Fresh Rain, Blood Tree Literature, California Writers Club Literary Review, Marin Poetry Center Anthology, Feather River Bulletin, Earth’s Daughters, Edison Literary Review, Flights, Paterson Literary Review, Perceptions Magazine, The Phoenix, Ponder Review, Prism Review, and Voices de la Luna. She received a Poets & Writers grant for her performance and workshop in 2019 for the Plumas Arts Council in Quincy, California. Jeanne was also awarded a space as a Contributor in Poetry for the 2022 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Jeanne sings Sufi devotionals and runs a Sufi center with her husband.

ONAJE GRANT-SIMMONDS is a Surrealist painter born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He is currently studying Visual Arts at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he will receive his AB in 2024. Grant-Simmonds explores the ego, consciousness, anxiety, and divinity in paintings which merge abstraction with idealized naturalism. Grant-Simmonds has exhibited in solo shows in Brooklyn and Providence, as well as group shows at prestigious venues including the New York Academy of Art, the RISD Museum, Brown University, and the Providence Art Club. Inspired by adventure cartoons and comic book illustration at an early age, Grant-Simmonds dreamt of illustrating his own universe. That inspiration, combined with his growing Vajrayana Buddhist practice and exposure to the New York art community, instilled a life-long passion for painting and a fascination with the mind. He is currently showing in the Housewarming group show at Project Space in Providence, RI.

JACQUELINE HUGHES SIMON ’s writing has appeared in the Cal Literature & Arts Magazine, The Cortland Review, Okay Donkey, Pennsylvania English, Perceptions Magazine, Pine Hills Review, The Rail, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Vagabond City, and the anthology Processing Crisis (Risk Press). She was nominated for Best of the Net by Okay Donkey in 2020.

DANIELLE STOCKLEY is a writer and photographer whose work has been published in Grim & Gilded. She has worked as a waitress, fantasy editor, and in higher education.

CAMILLA WATSON is an illustrator in her last year at Brown University studying Visual Art and English. She creates art that is vivid and colorful, full of stories and magic. Her illustrations explore the fantastical and the mundane and the spaces where they intersect. You can find more of her work on her website: camillawatsonart.com and instagram @camillawatsonart.

LIVIA WEINER is a senior at Brown University studying Visual Art and Environmental Studies. She likes to collect rocks and trash and shells but forgets about them in the depths of her bags.

VICKY YANG is a designer and illustrator from Shanghai, China. She is currently a Brown RISD Dual Degree undergraduate student in Providence, Rhode Island, pursuing a BA in Psychology and BFA in Illustration to New Order and loves Satoshi Kon films.

COLOPHON

The Round is a literary and visual arts magazine based at Brown University.

Our name is adopted from the musical “round,” a composition in which multiple voices form an overlapping conversation. It is our mission to extend and enrich the dialogue surrounding literary and visual arts at Brown by creating a community of artists across the country and around the globe. We are excited to work on a magazine which brings together contributors with a wide variety of backgrounds, ages, and places they call home.

We welcome submissions in any genre or medium and publish both students and professionals. Send your work, comments, or questions to theroundmagazine@gmail.com.

View submission guidelines and learn more about us by visiting http://students. brown.edu/theroundmagazine. Check out past issues at https://issuu.com/ theroundmagazine.

Sincerely, Eleanor, Julian, and Aurelia