2020 Issue

The SAT Experience

Based on the information provided above, what best describes the author’s attitude towards the SAT?

​

1. Annoyed and bitter

2. Enraged and exasperated

3. Furious and irate

4. Optimistic and excited...

Snow Day

The shadow of my body

Is the adherent

of many forms of me. 

Sitting upright, it hides beneath,

Walking , it stretches out,

bouncing quickly forward or backward,

depending on the light.

​

Zhonghua Gate

Smoky-gray, light-gray, the brownish yellow of a desert, the inky-blue glows of the horizon which is about to pass away, and the solitary brightness floating in the vault of the night-sky, have all been the most beautiful themes of human poetry. 

Ah Ryno my love, have you not been attracted by fairies in your fine wonderland, have you not forgotten your young lover doomed to die! Years have passed, cold, lonely years, I stayed in this stone house waiting for you, my mighty lover, my fair poet!

Aporia

you already know how we leaned back,

looking up at the lights that we

pretended not to be

fluorescent bulbs brought to life

by electric current but thought

that by looking at them through half-closed,

watery eyes we could turn them into star...

“Makye-ame” and the Dakini

Under the bright moonshine of the plateau, I looked deep into the stone Dakini’s eyes. The beautiful word “Makye-ame” fits her well, I thought, a Buddhism goddess who had not born me but seems like a mother.Staying in the tranquil night of the Drepung monastery, I felt a bliss that I had built a bridge between the goddess and the ancient Tibetan poem...

Writer's Block 

The hands of the clock above my desk soared over the roman numerals. Minutes morphed into a river of hours and washed over my head. The cursor kept blinking, the word count still at a number divisible by zero. The generals are arguing, tossing ideas into the air, burying each other in an avalanche of dissent. Narrative? Boring. Fantasy? Hard. Essay? Harder. Realistic fiction? No...

Ephemeral

...

I cannot cry -

I tilt my head to the side,

the water pours out my ear

onto the pavement,

a momentary splash

...