NEW ENIGMA 2016 NEW ENIGMA Poetry | Prose | Artworks
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NEWINGTON COLLEGE NEWINGTON 200 Stanmore Road, Stanmore NSW 2048 | TEL 02 9568 9333 poetry | prose | artworks EMAIL [email protected] | WEB www.newington.nsw.edu.au poetry | prose | artworks | prose poetry NEW ENIGMA 2016 NEW ENIGMA poetry | prose | artworks 3 Contents Seascape 6 Trial 40 Perpetual Customs 8 Structure 41 Martial 60, Book 6 – An Interpretation 9 Coming Home 42 View of a Room 10 Athenian Democracy 43 Fact or Fiction? 11 08.02 44 Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book XV, Lines 153-175 13 Disguise 46 Pythagoras’s Teachings: Metempsychosis The New Roman Empire 47 Still Life 14 The Bird and the Bull 48 Marine Debris 15 Sun Splitters 50 Among the Mountains of Mathematics: 16 Earth Mat 52 Letter to Grandfather From 219 Parramatta Road 54 Degrees of Separation 18 Dance 55 Crystal Caverns 19 Politic(al correctness) and the English Language 56 Extinction Phase 20 Going Under 57 Harmony’s Puzzle 22 Living One Way 58 In Another Element 23 My Chase 61 Above It All 24 The Hawk 62 The Wave 26 Lowering The Flag On The Remnants of Industry 63 Wafer 28 Harmony for Everyone 64 Invisible People 30 Animal Respect 65 Quay 31 The Presence of Absence 66 The Magician: Prelude 32 Eerie 67 The Gift of Ariadne 34 Interior 68 The Secret Name of Ra 36 The Edge Of… 69 World Harmony 38 The Guardians 71 The Building of Us 39 The Reason to Live 72 >> Matt Putt (Year 11) landscape photography throughout: Most of my photos are entirely dependent on light and composition. I choose settings where the light provides a starting point for the way I compose the shot. I mainly use a digital reflex lens camera (DSLR) so I can work on individual settings. I prefer to shoot handheld rather than using tripods, although the night photo “Star Road” did require a tripod and a long shutter speed. 4 Foreword >> Hello and welcome! You hold in your consideration, we offer our thanks, Gregoire’s “Harmony’s Puzzle” or joy hands the 2016 edition of New Enigma, with an apology for any that didn’t finally as you encounter Conor Corcoran’s “In an annual publication that offers a place get included this time. Next issue is Another Element”. Ali El-Zein’s collage where we hear from the huge range of 2017 – so keep writing, painting and of the homeless may touch your sense voices across Newington College; we photographing! of sadness or shame at the plight of have works here from Year 1 children all others, or maybe you will feel anger the way up to young men who have just Our theme is valuing the imagination, or restlessness. Or maybe you will be graduated from Year 12. From artwork a faculty of mind we each have and humbled by the power of nature in to poetry, New Enigma’s purpose is to use every day. We use it to dream of Jack McSwiggan’s story “Seascape”. give creative imagination the spotlight. times long ago and times yet to come; Our cover points to the unfurling fruits to envision opportunities or dangers All we ask is that you let your of the imagination that unwind from an ahead; to interpret the insights of imagination spark. The poet William inspired centre. Thoughts, ideas and ancient languages, and we use it better Wordsworth writes in The Prelude of dreams have “born fruit” or “fructified” to understand our own humanity. You’ll “spots of time in our existence” which in the works contained in these pages. find imagination at work here in James “retain a fructifying virtue”: the fruitful Paoloni’s fantastical scenes, in Matthew imaginative powers we have within us First things first; the editors would like Putt’s beautiful “Star Road” photograph, can, he says, be “nourished and invisibly to thank Dr Yvonne Smith for all the in Max Quinn’s and Mitchell Long’s repaired”, especially in childhood and work she’s done in co-ordinating the intriguing translations and in the youth. Now is the time for Newington team and helping with this publication. poetry of boys such as Oscar Bell boys to “imagine what’s possible”. We would also like to thank Ms Pam and Ashutosh Bidkar. Hatfield and Ms Sarah O’Brien in the The Editors, 2016 Communications Department for their Let your imagination engage your feelings as you read. Perhaps you will Jack Alscher, Arthur Kuan, Mitchell Long, design for this issue. Importantly, to all Nicholas Peppercorn, Max Quinn the boys who submitted their work for feel pride as you conclude Anthony 5 Seascape Jack McSwiggan | Year 12 >> The chatter of seagulls filled the air as ate people on sight! I was not looking was the lack of headspace but there was I gazed out onto the sea. As a child, forward to exile in such a place. a trade-off in comfort and privacy that growing up in London, I had little I reasoned was worth it, especially when experience swimming as most of the Once the ship was moored, the Captain I saw the good-size bed in the corner. year the water would be too cold. But as had the gangplank thrown across to the I looked out at the sea for the last time dock. It hit the hard wooden surface **************************** as a free man, a tear began to glisten in with a resounding bang as if sealing the final chapter of my life. The only remotely We had been at sea now for three my eye. All those opportunities missed, weeks, and I found that with no one like sand slipping through my fingers. exciting part of leaving London was the chance to ride the waves on this trim much to talk to the sea would be my It was almost ten o’clock and yet the ship. Even as a child of a quite wealthy only friend. As I sat near the prow of the sun had failed to show; dark clouds family, I always envied the children ship, I could feel every movement as dominated the sky, and light struggled whose fathers were traders. The sea was we crawled slowly over the gentle swell. to creep past the guard formed by their fascinating, yet I knew so little about it I knew this couldn’t be all there was mass. The ship came to a stop. The sea and the mystery only served to make it to the sea. Back at home, I had seen lapped gently at its hull. more desirable. a few storms breaking along the coast where great waves crashed onto the grey The Captain stood at the rail looking The marshal began herding us onto the pebbles of a nearby beach. There were down at us: the rabble, small-time boat as a dog would a flock of sheep. many moods to the sea, I thought. I still criminals all the way up to murderers. We were shown where we would sleep had a burning sensation at the back of I stood among them, accused of a crime for the next few months. The ship’s hull my throat from days on end of vomiting I didn’t commit, yet stuck with this was lined with hammocks from one end due to sea sickness. The constant bunch of sad, untrustworthy souls. to the other. Down the far side were the rocking of the ship had an unnerving We were headed for what they called officers’ and Captain’s quarters. As I effect on me for the first days, with the “The Southern Land”. It seemed to be walked past, I noticed the door of the feeling of the ground beneath me always all people could talk about since that Captain’s cabin was slightly ajar. No one moving leaving me feeling vulnerable Cook fellow stumbled upon it some was taking any notice of me, so following and exposed. years back. Some said it was a land my curiosity I pushed the door open and ruled by savage natives who killed and looked inside. The first thing I took in **************************** 6 The ocean had been as calm as a mill my shoulder but her words were lost to off course we had be blown. pond for the last three weeks. To-day, the deafening winds. All I could hear I asked about the storm and the woman however, the mass of the ocean buzzed was the howling anthem and the faint, I had seen, describing her. Apparently and heaved with power. All day muted voice of the Captain as he yelled she and many others had been washed I heard the mutterings of the crew as commands to the crew. overboard in what was the worst storm they managed the sails. The Captain the Captain had ever encountered. stood next to the spoked wheel that I turned. Too late. A great wave hovered steered the ship, looking out at the over me. I was just able to take a breath I sat near the prow of the ship shifting horizon through a telescope. before I was engulfed by the sea, held in once more, mulling over what I had I had used one before to gaze at the its limitless grasp. I could feel its power experienced in the past few days and stars. Such a magnificent device! As as I was flung across the deck, hitting weeks. I had watched the sea since I looked now, I saw the sun suddenly the port side hard. My vision dimmed as I was a small boy yet only now had I felt disappear with the last glimpse of light I felt consciousness shutting down.