It was the beginning of Junior year, and my friend Tara was helping me unpack my junk into our off-campus house. Like the good, patient individual that she is, she did not question how I had remembered to bring 27 different notebooks and forgotten my toothbrush, but all the same, there was something in my collection even she could not overlook. “What is this?” I … Continue reading Make Your Choice: Finding the Human Element Behind Technology

Three Reflections on Weezer’s Blue Album 1 By Noah Weinrich Weezer’s “Blue Album” is stuck in my CD player. Over the last ten months, the album has spun in my car’s stereo over a hundred times. No matter where I’m driving, what I’m doing, or who I’m with, the Blue Album is there. This album is remarkable for seamless synthesis of music with lyrics and … Continue reading Stuck in the Tape Deck

“Don’t scorn your life just because it’s not dramatic, or it’s impoverished, or it looks dull, or it’s workaday. Don’t scorn it. It is where poetry is taking place if you’ve got the sensitivity to see it, if your eyes are open.” ― Philip Levine 1. The first poem I remember hearing was Seamus Heaney’s “Digging.” I was seventeen and flush with testosterone and pride … Continue reading Dirty Miracles: An Excavation of Southeast Michigan

by Katie Davenport Ralph Waldo Emerson and I don’t get along. At least, I’m assuming we wouldn’t have, had we both lived in the same century. His belief in the divinity of man and his failure to account for evil compel me to agree with Herman Melville’s assessment of his philosophy: “God help the poor fellow who squares his life according to this.”[1] And yet, … Continue reading A Time to Listen, and a Time to Ignore: Finding Your Voice in a Sea of Criticism

We face two facts of life during December: Christmas is upon us and we are tired. We will soon return to family in other cities and other states, communities that did not delight in or endure the same things that we did this fall. There may be a sense of dissonance. Maybe this is not everyone’s experience, but sometimes I find it is mine. When … Continue reading Letter from the Editor, December 2016

By Amelia Stieren On Sunday afternoon last August, a car hit 21-year-old Vinny Kurtz while he was riding his bike in the small college town of Marion, Indiana.  In critical condition, he was airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in Fort Wayne where doctors removed part of his skull to alleviate swelling and attempted to amend his collapsed lung. Vinny did not live past the … Continue reading Friendship in the Face of Separation and Death