2016-2017 THE CAULDRON VOLUME 37 THE CAULDRON The CAULDRON 2016-2017 STAFF ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS FACULTY ADVISOR Diane Seuss CO-EDITORS Isabela Agosa Lauren Perlaki SUBMISSIONS EDITOR The Editors would like to extend our deepest gratitude: Rachel Williams To Diane Seuss for her continued support of this magazine. Her wisdom, support, and encouragement have continually DESIGN AND PRODUCTION allowed us, as students, to produce a wonderful anthology Lynnette Pryor of student voices. She has been at the heart of our literary Craig Simpson community on campus and also at the heart of The Cauldron. While she will be missed dearly, The Cauldron will always VISUAL ARTS COMMITTEE carry traces of her magic. Committee Chair: Malavika Rao Sam Gleason To our Divine Crow Judge, Bruce Lack for reading and Carolyn Topper selecting our Divine Crow Award recipients. To the Director of Publications, Lisa Darling and her team, FICTION COMMITTEE Lynnette Pryor and Craig Simpson at the Office of College Committee Chair: Serena Bonarski Communication. Thank you for designing this incredible Sara McKinney book, which allows students to see their Jon Jerow names and works in print. Camille Wood David Vanderkloot To Brian Deitz and the Office of Student Involvement for their generous support of this magazine. Thank you for NONFICTION COMMITTEE seeing the value in The Cauldron. Committee Chair: Erin Bensinger Melissa Erikson To the Department of English at Kalamazoo College for their Cate Liska continued support of this special and essential publication. Lucy Merrill Jamie Misevich To Dianne and Robert Vibbert for their continued support of The Cauldron and for allowing us to honor their daughter with the Stephanie Vibbert Award. POETRY COMMITTEE Committee Chair: Carmen Torrado Gonzalez To our Submissions Editor, Rachel Williams, Sarena Brown and all of our staff. Sam Ettwein Danielle Gin To those who submitted their works to this collection. Izzie Kerivan Rumsha Sajid And finally, to you, the reader. TABLE OF CONTENTS MIMOSA PUDICA ALTER YOUR MIND // FALL INTO THE MID-AUTUMN RAPE 8 Jamie Misevich 27 BACKGROUND NOISE OF REALITY *60 Serena Bonarski 106 Izzie Kerivan Qynce Chumley ASYMMETRICAL COLLAGE CRUX HANDS THE VOICE OF VINE PIECES (SPACE) 9 Malavika Rao 74 Annah Freudenburg 108 Alyse Guenether 28 Erin Bensinger GANESH WHO? LILITH’S POMEGRANATE DYSPHORIA TO LELAND: Sarena Brown SALT STAINS Leland Merrill 10 Kayla Park 75 109 LETTER ONE 34 Leland Merrill PEARLS FALLING APART // STITCH ME Sophia Hill BONN AGAIN UNTITLED 2 & 3 11 Annah Freudenburg 76 BACK TOGETHER 35 Qynce Chumley 110 Anja Xheka REFRIGERATOR VANITY 12 Carmen Torrado Gonzalez DOWNRIVER DREAMERS BATTLEGROUND MAKE IT WALTZ PROPER 36 Lauren Perlaki 77 Nkatha Mwenda 111 Emiliana Renuart IM ALWAYS RUNNING MYSELF OVER * 13 TRYING TO MURDER MY TRANSNESS I FOUND AMERICA 32 B MEENAKSHI Caro Peterson 37 Madeline Lauve 78 Malavika Rao 112 Malavika Rao GHOST HARDLY A WHIRRING 14 Kayla Park IMPACT DERRIDA’S TRACE 39 Elise Houcek 79 Carmen Torrado Gonzalez 113 Caro Peterson THE PUMP I, LA CHINGADA 15 Jon Jerow POEM AFTER GUSTAV KLIMT’S SIREN 40 Melba Flores 80 THE KISS *114 Na Young Kim Lucy Merrill THE BOILING POT I’M WAITING FOR 16 Carmen Torrado Gonzalez THE TAIL END 41 DESTRUCTION TO COME DON’T HURT YOURSELF 115 Sara McKinney Shelby Tuthill 82 (LOVE, GOD HERSELF) LET ME IN Nicole Huff 17 Hannah Kim HOW FRIENDSHIP ENDS NANCY’S REVENGE 42 Rachel Williams AMERICAN BEAUTY, 1999 125 Annah Freudenburg SECULAR 95 Christine Cho 18 Emma Peters MOTHERLAND: SAGINAW FOREST 45 HER JOURNEY BIG BABY CANCER CHILD 126 Audrey Gerard A CORRECTION TO MARK 11:23 Christine Cho 96 Lauren Perlaki 19 Danielle Gin RECOVERY * * MY PLEDGE 127 Lucy Merrill 46 Rumsha Sajid CABRONA /CHICANA HEMOPHILIA 98 Cynthia Valentin 20 Andrea Beitel PIECES (LEAVES) YELLOW FEATURE Alyse Guenther 47 Christine Cho FABULA MINOR 130 FUMBLING. 99 Isabela Agosa 22 Qynce Chumley THE LAKE TELLS ME I AM OUT OF PLACE 131 READY TO LOVE AGAIN 48 Paige Chung SELL ME DRUGS AND I BELIEVE HER. CHOCOLATE MILK FIELDS FOREVER 101 Carmen Torrado Gonzalez Cate Liska 23 Audrey Gerar THREE FACSIMILES OF 49 THE KASHMIR VALLEY AU Mira Palakodaty PEEKING A LITTLE POEM 102 Elise Houcek 132 Hannah Kim Sam Ettwein 24 CONCERNING FATHERS 51 Emma Peters KANCHANA NABAGASHK LONG OLD ROAD 103 Malavika Rao 133 Isabela Agosa Austin Ickes 25 STRETCHED OUT SWEATERS 57 AND SORRY’S CREATION BOYHOOD THRILLS Camille Wood 104 Danielle Gin 26 Sophia Hill TO EVERYTHING MY PAPA LDIBL IN SUMMER 58 WILL BECOME WHEN DUST 105 Julia Koreman Yuri Gutierrez 4 5 DIVINE CROW AWARDS* PREFACE The Divine Crow awards are given each year to three exceptional pieces in The Welcome to the 2016-2017 edition of The Cauldron. As we collected Cauldron. A writer from these works, we noticed a strong desire to confront, evaluate, and the extended Kalamazoo to simply look. We are at a point in history where there is much community judges the pieces uncertainty surrounding our future and our present. This uncertainty blindly. This year’s judge is bleeds into all things social, political, and emotional. And as you can Bruce Lack. see here, it bleeds into our art. In certain ways, we have found ourselves in a world where “...no The recipients of this year’s one looks past the leaves to the stem, the roots, to the full extent…” Divine Crow Awards are much like the plant in Jamie Misevich’s “Mimosa Pudica: A plant that im always running myself over trying to murder my transness by Caro plays dead when touched”, the first piece in the collection. Mimosa Peterson, Mid-Autumn by Serena Bonarski, Siren by Na Young Kim. Pudica longs to live in a world where her name will be remembered. We feel the works submitted to this year’s edition hear that call, and are fighting for a world where all names, identities, and stories will not just be heard, but embraced. Annah Freudenburg’s “Crux Hands” is a visual depiction of this embracing. We would like to think of this as both a metaphorical and literal reaching out–to our pasts, presents, futures, and to one anoth- er. We can see this concept being enacted in works such as Serena STEPHANIE VIBBERT AWARD** Bonarski’s “Mid-Autumn” where myth is the vehicle used to reach out and in Rumsha’s Sajid’s “My Pledge” where reaching out to others The Stephanie Vibbert Award becomes an active form of justice. is given to one work which Our cover art “Stained” is a photograph of a single pane contain- exemplifies the intersection ing smaller, individual pieces of stained glass. In many ways, we felt between creative writing and this to be indicative of the work we desired this edition of The Caul- community engagement. dron to do. We are all able to contribute to this story – to pull from This award honors Stephanie our own lived experiences and narratives. Within the pane, there is Vibbert, a senior English/ division where one shade of stained glass meets another; however, Psychology double major who there is unity in the fact that together, they make a complete window. died in a car accident Our final piece, “Nabagashk” embodies this idea through its use returning from a peace march in Washington D.C.. Stephanie’s of the “we”. The speaker of this poem urges us to remember that we life was passionately devoted to both creativity and to community have survived before and we will again. All of the pieces within this service. This award was created to encourage Kalamazoo College book are grappling with dense, complicated and sometimes even writers to use their creativity to reflect upon and explore issues of apocalyptic questions. The very nature of The Cauldron ensures they poverty, human rights, sexual orientation, race, class, gender and do not have to do this work alone. We hope that this book will serve cultural diversity. as soil. We want this book to be a place where we can put our roots down and, together, begin to “[take] out the arsenic”. The recipient of this year’s Stephanie Vibbert Award is Rumsha Sajid for My Pledge. – The Editors 6 7 8 Her leaves curl into her body when she is touched. She is often called The Sensitive Jamie Misevich deadwhentouched plays A plantthat PUDICA MIMOSA Plant, though her real name is Mimosa Pudica. She gravitates toward the imaginary, but the world in her head is no more real to her than the world where anyone could be a predator. The real world disregards her flower to poke at her delicate leaves. I remember a field trip when I was young where she was held up in front of the class and prodded, her movement the object of everyone’s attention. In the real world no one looks past the leaves to the stem, the roots, to the full extent of her existence. As she considers the problem it occurs to her that perhaps she is incapable of being touched without shutting down. Perhaps she is the only one she can leave herself open around. Perhaps she would better off where the wind is the only real thing that could touch her, and the rest could happen in her head, where her name could be remembered. ASYMMETRICAL COLLAGE ASYMMETRICAL Malavika Rao 9 GANESH WHO? PEARLS Sarena Brown Sophia Hill The dog took her Do pearls feel at ease on the string, bra again, draped over her collarbone like so she goes without. silk on a mannequin, or are they She wears her blue tormented by the surrounding paisley pashmina over reflections of identical countenance, her chest, draped like a god.