Category: Junior Literary

About twelve years ago, my Aunt Jill introduced Tanner, my cousin and her only son at the time, and I to the wizarding world of Harry Potter. Being only four verging on five, the idea of wizards and witches was one I happily accepted. My cousin being younger then myself didn’t quite grasp the concept. And as per usual, we claimed house Gryffindor as our own.

However, as time progressed Tanner came to understand the movies and he truly claimed the stereotypical house of Gryffindor. I however, after seeing the third movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of  Azkaban, I knew Gryffindor was not the house for me.

Now this might sound quite silly, the idea that one could possibly claim a mythical house from a mythical school of wizardry in which there is a man who seeks to destroy all the good mythical people. But you must know that for the nerdy people, this is normal.

But back to what I was saying, I relinquished all claims to the house of Gryffindor and laid claim to House Slytherin.

So when my family went to Universal Studios in Orlando, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter was our first stop. I, of course, collected as much Slytherin Merchandise as  our budget allowed.

Then my friend informed me of the Pottermore test that is supposed to categorize you into a house based on your answers. I immediately created account and took the test.

My results thankfully came out as Slytherin.

“Or perhaps in Slytherin,
You’ll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means,
To achieve their ends.”

–The Sorting Hat, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

 

Without the plot twists and the surprising turns, a movie would not be considered to be one of good taste to many, myself included.  We rely on movies and TV shows in order to give us some sort of entertainment after a day of our own seemingly uneventful and “boring” lives.  Compared to those people on the screen, we feel as though we are no more than bland, over-emotional beings.

Movies are a thing of wonder, of imagination.  When we are bored with our lives or want to avoid doing homework, we sometimes watch movies.  And what is the best part of a movie?  Well, personally, I believe that the best part of a movie is when it makes you cry, or it makes you rethink something you’ve gone through or choices you’ve made throughout your life.  It makes you think, or feel, or consider extremely intensely.

The part of the movie that makes you cry is one of the best because a good piece makes you cry.  A good piece makes your emotions surge all around you and into the sky above you.  It makes an impact greater than you could ever imagine that a movie would have on you or how you think, or how you feel.  Without that, the movie itself is bland. Without the powerful emotion it makes you feel, it becomes nothing more than a couple of people being recorded living their everyday lives.  Without emotion, a movie is not a movie.

Now, the part of it that makes you rethink any decision, or life choices you’ve ever made is my personal favorite.  When a movie causes you to sit down and wonder “Was I right to do this?” or “How many people were affected by what I did?  And was that something an action that seemed insignificant to me but had a life-changing impact on someone else?”  That, is what I have come to enjoy.  We let such simple things determine how we react or what we choose to do when something drastic happens, and something just as simple – say, a movie, for example – can cause us to question those choices we made.  We think we are the only ones that can change our lives, when really, everything but ourselves influences every little decision we make.

Something that does not even pertain to our own lives makes us wonder if we were in the right.

for me, the best moment in a movie really depends on music. my favorite moments typically have songs i love in them; for example, my favorite scene in the film speech and debate is a montage with “rollercoaster” by bleachers playing over it. two of my favorite scenes in the perks of being a wallflower are the dance scene with “come on eileen” by dexy’s midnight runners and the tunnel scene with “heroes” by david bowie (speak of the devil “heroes” just started playing on youtube). part of why i love these moments is that i love the songs that accompany them.

music is something that i always have and always will love, which means the moments in film that i love often revolve around soundtrack. in my opinion, good films have to have good soundtracks. having just the right song playing at just the right time can turn one normal scene into a moment that the viewer will never forget.  a song can be any old song you hear on the radio, but if its opening chords start to play at during the climax of a scene, the song begins to represent something bigger than just another song you hear on the radio. it comes to represent that moment, that specific feeling you felt the moment you heard it in the scene.

the best moments in films are the ones where the music perfectly sets the tone of the scene. they’re the ones where an emotional moment becomes magnified by lyrics and melody. these moments take a song you may or may not know and turn it into something that will forever remind you of three friends speeding through a tunnel feeling infinite, the moment two characters share a first kiss and change everything between them forever.

in my world, music means everything. this also means that music changes everything. music can make happiness and love just as much as it can make heartbreak and despair. it can turn a day on its head, and the same applies to film. a happy song can completely reinvent a scene that may not be entirely happy and vice versa.

music can change the world, and it does. it can build up mountains and break down walls. it can completely revolutionize the life of just one person or an entire community. music changes us, so doesn’t it make sense that music changes film too?

Everyone has that one song, maybe even a whole playlist, that they need to listen to to be able to start their day off or to help them get through a particularly hard day. Here are some of mine:

When I need to get out of a funk:
–Feel It Still by Portugal. The Man
–Ophelia by The Lumineers
–Wish I Knew You by The Revivalists
–Dog Days are Over by Florence + the Machine

When I need to concentrate on my writing:
–The Girl by City and Colour
–Arsonist’s Lullaby by Hozier
–My Eyes by The Lumineers

When I’ve had a long day and I’m ready to wind down and relax:
–Slow Hands by Niall Horan
–Spirits by The Strumbellas
–First by Cold War Kids

Artists have so much influence over the people around them or even across an ocean or two. An artist and their work can change someone’s perspective, opinions, and even personality.

So, when an artist produces a piece, expresses an opinion, or speaks to the media, they [the artist] must censor themselves if they want their influence on society a positive one.

As a writer, I know the responsibility is colossal. The weight can be overbearing because all you want to do is express yourself freely–which is entirely okay. It’s a matter of how you do it, however. For example, a comedic writer’s purpose is to make their audience laugh. Well today, vulgar comedy has gained popularity. Although vulgar comedy is in at the moment, this does not mean that the writer should conform to society’s standards. In my opinion, the author should instead make his/her own type of humor. This will turn comedic audiences instead to less vulgar humor and in turn, changing their personality. This is an example of good influence. Not to say vulgarity is always bad, but sometimes it goes too far and can be quite scarring or even inspiring to malicious intentions.

However, I am not saying that artists should always censor their work or even that they have to censor ANY of their work. It’s all up to how you want to influence the world around you, because art is powerful. It’s all up to the artist.

Recently, I became all too aware of a groundless fear of mine. A fear of writing. Now this is probably the most ridiculous fear of mine. My irrational fear of a shark attacking me in my shower probably makes more sense than this to be quite honest.

I am a literary student. I was accepted into an Art school primarily for my writing. But as the months progress and the work intensifies, I begin to fear what words may come to me as I sit at my desk. I fear the overwhelming emotions that  overtake me as I place my innermost thoughts onto paper.

I fear the criticism I will ultimately receive. I fear the expectations. I fear putting my work out into the world for I do not know how the world will respond. Will people applaud my writing or will they tear it to shreds? Will I be recognized for my work or will i be pushed aside?

I lay awake at all times of the night thinking of how my poems can contain as much emotion as possible. I dream of nothing but pens on paper and fingertips on a keyboard.

I only hope that the world will give my writing a chance.

I really love things, objects, feelings, and emotions. I love having the ability to make a specific thing the apple of my eyes and writing about it in any which way I feel. Having creative freedom, but also control over whatever I desire is very empowering. I enjoy having a subject and stretching it in different directions until I find one I am comfortable with. Then being able to mold and fashion the idea in any way I see fit. Having control over a subject  gives you a world to roam freely, peeking into corners and hidden places and pulling from them what you find most interesting. Better yet, when even greater ideas come from simple ones, you can now build and progress, a series of transitions. Creating a masterpiece from your mind alone is exciting, but putting it into the real world makes it ten times better.

Creation is a beautiful thing. From it you bring life, shape, and energy. Putting energy out into the world is one of the greatest feelings, and usually what you invent will have an affect on at least one person.

So continue creating, inventing, existing, and emitting energy into the universe.

One of the times that I have used my intuition, be it though I don’t use it often, have to be back in 6th grade. Back then I was very awkward,shy and extremely fearful of all human interaction not counting my own family. I was known for being quiet and reserved and as of the new school year,friendless. I had a reputation of being a tattle-tell and a cry baby. my only friend, Brittany had moved away two weeks prior to the new school year and I was mortified. But I didn’t stay that way I gained a little confidence of the course of the summer and I thought I was prepared to face new people and show everyone a new and improved me. It didn’t go that way at all.

Upon arriving at the first day of school I walked the new halls, the middle school halls, much bigger than the elementary’s. Within those halls, i felt insignificant, small and weak among the other students much older than myself, already familiar with this strange place chatting with their friends and walking to classes. It was a sad sight to say the least.

When I came to my class I stopped at a group of lockers four inches away from the door. I try to ease my tremors and my beating heart not wanting to look too childish, I was stronger than that. So when I finally took those steps and peered into the classroom, I froze and the sea of unfamiliar faces and any resolve I had crumbled. I ran out, and back to those lockers I stood at not even a full minute ago and cried. My teacher who looked extremely worried at my state asked why I was crying and if she could do anything to help. In explaining to her my fear of new people, new things and experiences and she seemed bewildered, she then pointed at the class list. On the list was all of my classmates that were in that room. She told me to pick a name from the list who I knew. I looked over the list several times names that I knew were there but of past bullies and vague memories of short conversation from previous years. That’s when I saw it, the one name which for some reason I remembered. Some part of me spoke to me that day almost pushing my finger towards that name and did. The teacher then walked inside and brought out the girl I chose, a short Mexican girl with long brown hair and a blue feather stuck at the top. She took my hand and led me into the classroom.

Now the same girl who I picked that fateful first day of school is the same girl who helped me get into this school the girl who stuck by my side through my worst moments and my greatest. She is the one decision that I will forever be grateful that I made. That girl’s name was Lilly Flores.

I’d like to think that I write because I have very strong feelings and hope that through my writing, others will be able to relate to me and know that they are not alone.  I don’t think that that is entirely true though.  I think that I write for more selfish reasons.  I don’t like that I write because I am selfish, but that doesn’t change the fact that my reasons for writing are, in fact, selfish.

One of these reasons is that I just enjoy the actual process of writing.  I like the feeling of putting words from my head down on paper or a screen.  It feels like I’ve built up something and am releasing it through writing.  It’s not always emotion that I feel the need to release.  Sometimes it’s just a need to get something out in precisely the way I mean it and have as much time as necessary for corrections.  Communication can be difficult for me through speech, and I often say things that I later feel could have been said better if time for consideration had been available.  Of course, conversations and debates can’t have long pauses to allow me to craft each sentence, but that’s precisely why I feel writing is a greater form of communication.

Another reason that I write is, admittedly ego.  I think that my writing is good.  I enjoy the feeling of having an idea, putting it on paper, reworking it, throwing it like a blanket on top of a structure as if building a fort, and ultimately having something that I feel works as a single work.  It’s so satisfying to read your own work and recognize that every individual piece operates with something else like gears in a clock.  This isn’t a reason that I am proud of, but it undeniably is one.

I also enjoy writing because of the control I feel as a writer.  I am able to create a person.  I can develop this person to be as complex and realistic as anyone you might meet in real life.  I can make the lines between fact and fiction indistinct even when writing fantasy if I so choose.  I have unlimited power granted to me simply through the order in which I choose to place words in a sentence.  It gives me an almost godlike control over something in a world where I am able to control little to nothing.  It doesn’t matter that that sounds worrisome because that is the truth, and I can write.  I could write it if it wasn’t, and it might as well be.  That is the power that can be held through writing, and I enjoy it immensely.

“Where Are The Poems For Dictators?” the title reads. I pick it up precariously, not sure I want to read more or trash the book as a good deed. I read on anyway, indulging in some of the best poetry I’ve ever read, the works of E. Ethelbert Miller. His poetry is political and stubborn, leaving little room to support the antagonists in his stories. He does very well at creating worlds within stanzas.

One poem in the book I found that really stood out to me was about a little girl, simply titled, Juanita.  

“when she was small she wore the lipstick of her mother    face made older with powder     like the pictures of movie stars she cut from magazines    The blonde ones she put on the wall     next to Jesus”

Another one of my favorites, called Madonna, went like this:

“four children on a blanket   eight children in a room   I sleep with my eyes open      the belly of José swollen like a half moon  there is no milk in my breasts to comfort his needs   yesterday Miguel walked to the city to beg for food    it was his birthday   I had no gift    I prayed that Miguel would not steal    the soldiers wait in doorways    they bring us bullets”

Both of these poems are dealing with political unrest in Nicaragua around the time Ethelbert wrote this collection of poetry. The first discusses the idolization small children hold for their mentors and celebrity figures or famous adults around the time they grow up, sometimes changing themselves to try and be more like these people. Most of the children he speaks of do not know what it is like to be wanted or even looked up upon, so they strive to be like the women they see in magazines and yearn for a more refined life.

The second is about the hardships of growing up in a third world country and being poor, focusing especially on a family with eight children, all of them in need of food and a bed to sleep in. The mother talks of not having enough money to buy food or even a gift for her son’s birthday, and she prays to herself that her son does not try to steal to survive, because the military soldiers have no mercy on small children.

After doing some research I discovered Miller comes from African- American descent; he is a teacher and poet,  and the heart he pours into his work is inspiring. His work taught me to continue to read old poetry books I find in thrift stores from now on, even if they have sketchy names; I never know what great stories might lie beneath the pages.