All submissions to Canto — whether they be art or literature — undergo a blind review process with the help of those listed below. This process ensures that all submissions are anonymous and that the selection process is impartial. Literature submissions were read by Student Readers, who provided both scores and feedback to the Literature Editors. They used these scores and feedback to select the final pieces for publication. All literature submissions submitted by the Editorial Staff were blinded and sent to our Faculty Reader, Prof. Jessica Jones, who provided scores and feedback that was used to determine which pieces were to be published. The Art Team, comprised of students in Dr. Marie Gasper-Hulvat’s Arts Engagement course, provided similar scores and feedback; using these scores, the Editor-in-Chief made their final decisions concerning the publication status of these pieces. Reader,
Literature and art are able to speak during a time when it feels as though no one is listening and can cut through noise in ways that almost nothing else can. We must continue to allow them to do their jobs. We must allow words and images to do what they are intended: To provoke the same emotions that they have done for centuries. So to those who contributed work to Canto 27 — indeed, to those who submitted any work at all — I must thank you, first and foremost. Never stop creating. It may seem like a quaint anachronism to print a literary journal on paper in the year 2019, but there is still a value in placing literature directly in individuals’ hands. The value does not come in the feeling of the paper or the smelling of the ink — but in the access it provides to the reader. Our decision to, for the first time, simultaneously publish Canto 27 online and on paper ensures that the art and the words within this publication are as accessible to as many people as possible. This was a bumpy road, but if you are reading this, it is the proof: We’re still here. To this end, I must first thank our Faculty Advisor and tireless advocate, Dr. Jayne Moneysmith. Without her persistence, this publication would quite literally not exist. Many of the pieces in the publication deal with issues about which some may find difficult to read. We selected these pieces for publication because we believe that it is important address these topics in art and literature. However, we also want our readership to be informed that they are discussed within.
Numb but needy;
nothing matters and yet I’m constantly wanting. The world keeps spinning and my heart keeps pounding and my thoughts keep racing and the pain keeps coming but it has no meaning. In the meadow of golden rose petals I stumble toward you.
I feel the wind rushing through my hair, all the while getting closer to embracing the earth. Back to the solid ground underneath those evergreen grasses, piercing through my flimsy feet like a blade and I cannot catch my breath. I cannot stand. I cannot grow like the branches of those willow trees. I cannot be what they are. Wise and strong, I am weak. Hidden beneath moonlit shadows
I hear her sing a tale beneath the ancient bridge. A melody that brings serenity, yet I can tell is filled with her distress. This girl, my friend with so much life and with such purity, voices everything to me. Her secrets, her troubles and fears become my own. Slowly but surely, Nick rolled out of bed. His feet met the chilled hardwood at precisely 2:38 a.m., just before he began to wander about his room.
At sixteen, Nick was a good kid but he wasn’t the best student; he did just enough to get by. He got along well with everyone at school but struggled to make any solid friends. Nick enjoyed music—listening to it, playing it, even talking about it; therefore, that’s what he invested most of his time into. Aside from taking band in school, Nick drummed for a local jazz band. He also produced drum covers out of his basement in his spare time. Nick was on the right track. He’d just gotten his driver’s license, an enormous feat to any teenager, and the school’s homecoming dance was only four days away. Nearly everyone already had their dates, and Nick didn’t plan on going. He wanted to go, deep down, but he figured he didn’t stand a chance finding a date—at least not one he would’ve enjoyed going with. Thy lonely voice and somber tone
Of melancholy words ‘ere spoken To linger here and left alone Amongst dreams thy thoughts have broken Whilst sitting still enduring all The fathoms of thine emptiness Mine own demise in time befall My mourning without recompense Thy earthly form to sever thee From this final mortal coil I can feel my fingers
and the hidden strings tied around each from the second I’m born. the strings are still at first so still in fact that I almost forget they’re there until they start to lightly tug; not enough to move anything really just a friendly tug every so often. in 4th grade when I meet her I. The Letter As the chill of the November air slowly creeps down your scaly spine—still the memory lingers. You’re taken back to that night; that cold, dark, sad night as you wrote down the words concealed in a letter addressed to a dear friend. They were the words, the silly little words—the words that bleed red in love, the ones that could significantly change your life forever. On an impulse, without thinking, you tell him everything. How you will never forget the way he made you feel, the way he makes you smile, even though he is no longer around. You watch him, still in the distance and yet you keep falling—slowly.
I
like the moon on the back of your hand when we drive at night your wrists drape over the wheel Janie tried dancing to the blaring music with her friends in the sticky mosh pit of bodies, lasers, mirror balls, and fog; but when the guy grinding on Casey spilled his beer all over her, she decided to slip away and wound up at the crowded bar. Alone, sweaty and exhausted, she was packed in like a sardine with other people who were, at the very least, sweaty, drinking, and dancing to exhaustion or until last call. Whichever one came first.
Perched on a sticky wooden barstool, Janie tugged her rising hem down for what seemed like the millionth time. The thundering of the beat and the strobe lights rattled her core and made her eyes water as her contacts throbbed under caked on black mascara and smoky silver eyeshadow. Her stained, white camisole clung, exposing the obviously stuffed bra Casey insisted she borrow. The neon yellow underglow of the counter illuminated the long rip down her leg to show swollen ankles and feet pinched into teeter tottering, sit-pretty, scuffed, pine needle heels. Janie pulled her too tight high-pony out of her light, glowing hair. She tapped her chipped nails restlessly as the bartender continued to ignore her and the DJ dropped the beat yet again, chuckling behind his shades as some of the dancers missed it. It smells weird in here, she hears her say,
I can’t figure it out. Her eyes move around the room, curiously seeking out Something to explain the riddle. All day she felt the sadness creeping Through the pores of penetrable skin. Bleakness oozing from the previous night. She could taste it on the pillow. Names are important. I know this because everything has one. At least one. Most things have more than one. Some things have many. The more names something has, the more complex it is. My name is Francine. Most everyone calls me Franky. When I was little and my mom was mad at me, she called me Francine Joanne. I earned the name Sparky among some of my friends by electrocuting myself when we were tinkering with a computer we were building. My brother calls me sis, but not as often as he calls me doofus. It has really become a term of endearment. I call him doofus sometimes too.
Naming is an important way of communicating. You see, everyone can have a different name for the same thing. And what you call something can say a lot about both you and the thing you are referring to. Names don’t necessarily have to identify the thing they refer to. Names can describe. Beautiful, grotesque, intense, mild. All of these and more can be names. Anything can be a name, so long as it can be said. Names are not bound by part of speech or correct grammar. The moon was unnaturally big in the cerulean sky. I sat on my old trunk looking out the window to appreciate the beauty of the night. I spend a lot of the night awake, staring into the darkness from my window. I sometimes dream that I will have the courage to sneak out and experience the night time magic.
I am not that brave. Just as I am about to turn back and get some sleep, a yellow dash catches my eye. I look closer into the woods, face smashed against my window, but see nothing. Wait. There. Alan: Guess whaaaat…
Whenever he texts me that, it means one of two things. Either he’s going to tell me something incredibly exciting for the both of us, or he’s going to tell me something that’s incredibly exciting for him. Me: What lmao Alan: I got that costume we found at the mall last week! I think I’m going to wear it to Jackson’s Halloween party tonight. Me: You mean that weird ass scarecrow costume??? You know that gave me bad vibes…. Far deep in interstellar space, billions of stars, perfectly unmoving, dot the infinite void; a peaceful omnipotence created from chaos. Among the two-hundred billion points of light was an insignificant speck suspended in the vacuum travelling at an abysmal forty-nine million kilometers per hour.
That speck was a stolen Confederacy ship; an efficient vessel designed for its resilience—although, it was fast enough to travel from the earth to the sun in twenty-four hours, it had been damaged. While it was being commandeered, a lucky shot pierced the hull and lodged itself inside the fusion reactor creating a small leak. But the thief was in no real danger, as the radiation was only leaking to the outside. However, with the ships main energy source slowly exuding power, the interior temperature of the ship plummeted to a blistering -6 C˚. Three violets
whimpered with heads bowed stems entwined. Never touching, never looking at each other as they slowly withered in a cracked vase. The small, pretty nurse just came in and took the IV out of my hand. There’s a big bruise that is black and green where it was, it is gross and hurts. They put a band-aid on it for me, one that covers my whole hand. I also got to change clothes; I’m in my Sailor Moon sweatshirt I got for last Christmas. And pants. I have pants! I am so excited not to be in a hospital “gown,” as Mom called it. It seemed more like a sheet cut up with holes to me.
Mom and Dad were here a little bit ago. I went to the bathroom and thought I heard them say something, but I didn’t hear what, and now they’re gone. I have to find them. They can’t leave without me. I’m ready to go home. Where are they? I never liked the sun
until I looked in your eyes and I saw that even the fluorescents made a sun rise. I could only imagine what the actual sun would do. She wasn’t broken. She wasn’t hurting. She wasn’t stuck, crushed, defeated. She wasn’t broken. Not...broken.... But her thoughts betrayed her two legs, in an ever damning synchronicity, as they rocked on the ledge. Every second of regret was buried under a minute of torment, and that voice had finally gained control, and this time it would not be silenced. She had run for too long, she had hidden in the alcoves of fear for decades, and she could bear it no longer. That wind was bitter in December. She didn’t even bother to wear a coat that day, because what snow could possibly be colder than that of her heart?
Among autumn leaves and winter’s breeze
shines luster in a garden froze. A perfect form without needs, stands a beautiful, tin foil rose. When all around the garden aged whose frailty never shows. For what is time for whom was swaged eternal, tin foil rose? She scribes solemn statements
upon the stones surrounding her. She’s miserable. I can tell by the way she saunters ever so slightly down a corridor of shadows. When sets of eyes are not staring her down, she attempts to erode the silver silhouettes, slightly, as she splashes serenely, slapping the masonry that confines her slender, streamlined body. I found myself looking through the fireworks
at the smoke they left behind. After the prideful colors faded and the sententious bang echoed away the wisps haunted the fairgrounds like the ghost of what never was. And I wondered why I took so long to smell it. Today makes three months since Papá and
Nina went to the city, to speak to El Jefé About the missing cattle in our pasture. Papá was wearing his work boots. Today mamá told me in her soft voice, As she pulled the braids tight on my head, That we must go to the church and see if The shoes are there this time. |
Editorial Staff
|