For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.
Some of the daughters who stayed turned into nymphs, living off the fish life wading in Nigerian waters. They were free when the white man decided to make our shores his own––to say our waters could be his. The mermaids could drink and dance. My mom doesn’t drink. She does love to dance.
While painters will take to a canvas or poets will take to the pen, the potter takes to molding earth itself. The clay is alive and breathing and from it life is not introduced, but rather transformed.
Stepping into the Timothy Dwight Art Studio for a Friday evening vision board workshop, I was greeted with warm lights, familiar faces, and the gentle hum of indie music.
The way you smell is the way you move through the world. It is more revealing about character than the clothes you wear or the things you say.
“Maybe we’re just haters. We don’t actually have costumes yet.”
“Diss. /dɪs/ verb 1. to treat with disrespect and contempt 2. to find fault with.” ––Merriam-Webster Dictionary
It was only upon finishing these two Elena Ferrante novels that I finally felt worthy of holding the title of ‘reader’–though this is of course rather dramatic because anyone can be a reader, regardless of what they read. I was not hesitant to join the masses–Elena Ferrante is a force. Both books were wholly marvelous….
once it blooms, maguey dies like your hand in my back pocket hand in my hand tongue in my ear green to tan to gray to black and blue bruise crescenting your eyebrow beloved why won’t you look at me today? why will you only touch me in darkness? I am not jasmine, I do…
Food holds the power to bridge cultural divides. Food, as a means of storytelling and community building, allows people to transcend borders and foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures. Baja Mediterranean cuisine (Baja Med), a northern Mexican culinary tradition, represents the art of fusion food, which serves as a bridge for the…
I begin with love, hoping to end there. Recently, for an (alleged) society interview, I was asked the question “What is important to you?” With a combination of a desire to be truthful and a compulsion to be interesting, I said that language was very important to me. I don’t think they loved this answer….
by Victoria Vilton ’26 I first heard of Joan Baez through a friend of a friend. They had mentioned her in passing and I, attempting to avoid looking like an uncultured idiot, nodded along and pretended I knew all about her various contributions to the folk art scene. Truly I’d had no way of knowing…
These recommendations range from books I read in my senior year literature class to a novel I stole off my sister’s bookshelf. Origins which remind me that reading is best enjoyed when shared with others. So please without further ado, relish in these recommendations and know you will survive midterms and maybe even have time…
A beginner’s guide to know which films are good through Saltburn. by Collyn Robinson ’25 Writer’s note: If you haven’t watched Saltburn, watch it, then come back to read this piece. “I love it–no I hate it.” That’s all I could say after watching the movie for the first time. The reason I watched Saltburn…
Whether or not you’re excited for Valentine’s Day, it’s on its way. Here are some songs to get you through. With Love, from DOWN
Over winter break, I went to my local bookstore and wandered around for an hour. I had $92.76 in my checking account. I spent it on books–and for the entire month, I only drank coffee at home. These are the first three books I read this year. And boy, have I been fed. I bought…
Light is a slippery substance, especially these days. Color is in plenty, almost always. This is funny because color is to light as time is to space, eventually the same thing. Pause. Back home, I watch teenagers with spray paint anoint the dilapidated bridge with streaky red, black, green, and white. Graffiti is otherwise mundane….
Girlfriend Eyes above red ribs, on the edge of acquaintance. Plastic cup; real body. Two parts vodka, three parts Coke, & Who taught you to kiss like that?
I spent this last summer splitting time between research and retail, on a race to pay for my groceries. My mornings were spent alongside the surrealists of the 20th century, shivering in the unexpected coldness of the Manuscripts archive. My afternoons were about the material, holed up in the vintage store researching obscure military buttons…
Miranda Lynn Carter received a good-willed gift. It was a thick red sweater from a home catalog. Thank God! She thought. It was a sinister season after all. The winds would howl and sneer, and the snow engulfed the terrains. The poor girl was prone to colds and chills, sensitive to noise and touch. Her…
One’s Company (literary fiction) Ashley Hutson This is for you freaks who love tales of obsession. This debut takes comfort television to a whole other realm. After suffering a tragedy, Bonnie finds comfort in the 1970s hit sitcom Three’s Company. A few years after the tragedy Bonnie wins the lottery (cool right!? Wrong.) With her…
Given that it is properly winter now (as a struggling Cali-girl who wears a puffer when it is 60 degrees and cloudy), I have become a pro at the game of layering *insert smirky face*. So, with that being said, I hope you’ll take my self-proclaimed professional advice on how to not only elevate your…
a guest column by Tyler Watts ’25 creative director How have I been living? Frankly I don’t know. I don’t live in routines, but I have rituals that shift around temporally. Regardless of when they occur: they always get done. My habituals are: eat-sleep-read-write-phone-coffee-singanddance-halfearnestprayer-burnincense-callfamily-seefriendsandacquaintances-plustimetimealone-lone-lone. How do I live my life? Ask the sun how it…
By Esmé Talenfeld ’27 Ranked on an imaginary scale of indie to alternative Werewolf V by Werewolf Already I will admit that this ranking is sort of arbitrary–I just want to put this album first. I’ve been listening to Werewolf V on repeat since it was released earlier this week. The first time I listened,…
The Perfect Find by Tia Williams Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi The Complete Poetry by Maya Angelou
By Camila Perez ’26 Author’s Note: This piece contains spoilers. But to be fair, this movie has been out for a couple of months… so if you have not watched it at this point, can you really be mad at me right now? My best friend Noe and I rush down Temple Street, our arms…
In defense of contemporary romance and in protest to the partition of literature By Anaiis Rios-Kasoga ’25 An Author’s note In this piece I talk down a lot on smarties, wanna-be smarties or self-identifying smarties. I am not outright opposed to smarties, I fear if I was I would be a hypocrite not to lay…
by Camila Perez ’26 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz I cried the first time I read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and you will too. Through the use of colorful, Dominican Spanglish and profound historical insight, Junot Díaz invites us into the vibrant lives of Oscar, Lola, and their…
By Tyler Rae Watts ’25 A girl went to the grocery store to buy cereal and some almond milk. She opted for almond because there was only oat milk left in her apartment’s fridge, and it belonged to her roommate, the one that doesn’t like to share. Anyhow it didn’t matter either way because this…
A groovy fall playlist brought to you by DOWNmag 😉
Gianna Campillo ’25 My girlhood is fleeting, but my bedroom shields me from its conclusion. Resting on my desk is a pearly white jewelry box. Its lid bears my childhood nickname “Gigi,” with each letter representing a descriptive adjective: G-graceful, I-inspiring, G-generous, I-intelligent. A heartfelt gift from my grandfather, it serves as a reminder of…
By Kaity Chandrika Babel by R.F. Kuang I like books that live up to what the back cover promises—this is absolutely one of them. It’s a new-age dark academia tour-de-force (560 pages, but worth it) that focuses its commentary on the conquest of languages. R.F. Kuang’s Yale PhD research in East Asian Studies beautifully informs…
Lucy Ton That ’26 Lucy Ton That—was born again at 2:38 pmon July 28th, 2022 in Harvard,Massachusetts when she jumped off of abridge with four strangers. The distancebetween her two bodies was sixty feet,captured by the rust and wooden slats of therailway bridge and the murky river beneathit. The old Lucy Ton That is somewhereelse—inhaling…
Lucy Ton That ’26 Lucy Ton That—was born, probably around9:00 pm, on October 2nd, 2003 at Brighamand Women’s Hospital in Boston,Massachusetts. Her mother will recall that itwas too late to be served dinner at thehospital. The parents were restless andhungry. Lucy will be a child born out ofhunger. At 9:57 pm on August 7th, 2022,behind…
By Makda Assefa ’26 The world is a daunting place, they said, Rough, With edges that will poke and prod, Prick you, until blood is drawn. Hold your head up high, they said, Neck strained, eyes straight, Gaze fixed, Fixated on this world, This imperfect world where I am but a woman. I see this…
By Suraj Singareddy ’25 After “Red Wall” by Yi Lei, translated by Tracy K. Smith and Changtai Bi I plant violets in my ears Their splitting stems birth green tongues – digging, screwing, bursting like kudzu through my tympanic membrane middle ear isthmus eustachian tube nasophraynx oral cavity poke their heads out bushels unfurling in…
Look. We’re not saying these books are bad. Here at DOWN we don’t believe in judging books by their covers but by the content of their character. All we’re saying is that if you saw us reading this in public no you didn’t. When someone leans over our shoulder to ask what we’re reading on…
By Lula Talenfeld ’25 I catch myself shape-shifting with the seasons A new form of spring that is juxtaposed with a falling That is forgetting how to care at all – Weather changes sporadically like how I hear a heartbeat And I find a tornado where my closet used to be The fence has come…
a bi-weekly column by michelle ampofo ’25 managing editor ✶✶✶ an iron pillar. I KNOW MORE NOW THAN I’VE EVER KNOWN. That’s all. That’s the intro. ✶✶✶ J.k. because I feel like ending the year that way would be super anti-climactic. But I still don’t want to come up with something new to write… So…
By Makda Assefa ’26 I read through my old journal today. Ancient emotions spilled across pages reserved for just one set of eyes. Don’t they say time heals? I think time spreads. Spreads life across months, weeks, days, Spreads experiences across a novel’s worth of memories. Moments captured, trapped, in ink, On these pages. Pages…
a bi-weekly column by michelle ampofo ‘25 managing editor ✶✶✶ ALL THINGS MUST GO This column is mostly recommendations this week because I’ve abandoned thought, though not consideration. But first, a word. We’re so close to the end of the school year. SO close. But I feel increasingly contained and uninspired. So I want to…
Tyler Watts ’25 The moon is waning past April 6th’s full moon in Libra. Mars is in Cancer and mercury will be going retrograde around the 21st of the month. Spring is upon us! Aries:Aries is known as the child of the zodiac, so remember to play! Taurus: All flowers in time bend towards the…
Tyler Watts ’25 They say it’s going by fast. They say we just got here, and we’ll be on our way out soon enough. They can not believe that we are 20 and 21. Gosh, where did all that time go? I know where it has gone–not to say that this year deserves to be…
Lucy Ton That ’26 Possibility—was born when the sky criedthe night at 11:02 pm on August 22nd, 2022on Old Campus. The sky, like a scar in theuniverse, sobbed so hard that the drops hurtwhen they broke on my skin. I looked downat my Converse, once light but now darkblue, at my heavied brown skirt, soaking…
Lucy Ton That ’26 Shame—was born at 9:48 am on September22nd, 2022, in a dusty classroom on YorkStreet full of Viet kids who can’t speak theirown language. Shame was born at the samemoment that language died a confused deathin Lucy Ton That’s mouth, strangled by hernoose of a tongue. Learning language is likebecoming a child…
by Edwin Zishiri ’25 DADDY A small devastation is the sound that Daddy made when he put the cup down. He was always putting that brown cup down. That brown cup with the rotten, brown afterlife in it. That cup that he took with him to the park with the lavender flowers and big oak…