Category: Junior Literary

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.

 

 

 

I used to cry and yell out of anger, whether it was out of frustration or heart break. Now here I am, barely glancing at negative situations. I’m far too old, and well, I’ve come entirely too far for setbacks such as people. I am steadily progressing, someday I will even reach my full potential. I am a flower bud that will continually sprout regardless of weeds and pesticides. I am the phoenix, I will burn and be re-birthed, nothing will stop me. I am the persistent snail on the mission of life and I am the shark that will keep swimming. I could just as easily be overly angry about every last thing on this earth. I could be the most monstrous person in the world. I am the universe, still good, forever progressing.

Before this transmutation in my life, I was an extremely hateful person. I held grudges for years and would even consider people who had crossed me as dead. I was truly an unpleasant person. Spoiled, a rotten apple, I was great on the outside, but if you so much as looked to me sideways, my mouth would become a weapon of destruction. But luckily, I’ve changed for the better, but all the while, still a work in progress. 

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Two Tyrannosaurus Rex-es push an RV off the cliff with our main characters in it: Sarah, Ian, and Nick.  Eddie Carr rushes to try to save them, and they scream at him for a rope.  When he asks them if they need anything else, they sarcastically order cheeseburgers and meals.  This is the same mocking of the poor, barely mentioned side character has been met with the entire movie.

Eddie still struggles to save them, slipping through mud to try to connect the RV to the car, having to pause midway to secure the rope that slipped off.  In the torrential weather, he is a true hero because the task seems impossible.  He finally hook the cable to the car, reversing the vehicle to try to pull the RV back up.  When the T.  Rex-es return, he has ample time to run; instead, he crouches down in the driver’s seat, foot STILL on the pedal.  He tries to save the people he has been berated by the entire movie with his entire heart.  Yet watching the movie in passing, you would barely even recognize his heroics. What is his thanks?  He is thrown into the air and torn apart.  Everyone should know about Eddie Carr.

I can remember sitting in my third grade science class, reading from my textbook,  and having trouble pronouncing the word “eclipse”. What did it mean? It sounded pretty scary to me. Later on in the year I would find out that an eclipse is, in my teacher’s words, “when the moon swallows the sun whole and then spits it back out”. I was intrigued, and made sure to find out when the moon was planning on doing this. She told me sometime when I was in high school, around 2017. It was a long time away, but I always remembered to keep an eye out for this natural phenomenon on the news as I grew up.

it’s finally here, and I’m so excited. My family bought glasses to watch the sun disappear in the sky as the moon attempted to “swallow” it. I’ve been on NASA’s webpage all week waiting for the livestream of the eclipse. This is a rare event that only occurs about once every thirty years, and were lucky enough to experience it with the help of modern technology. The eclipse supposedly will pass over Oregon around 10:00, traveling over entire states in less than thirty minutes. The passing of the eclipse over America should last around ninety minutes, expected to be in the Carolinas around 2:45. Mississippi doesn’t have the ideal spot to see the full eclipse, but Brookhaven should be able barely make out the black dot over the sun as it passes us.

Millions of families and travelers worldwide are expected to travel to the heart of North America to see the eclipse. One of the most optimal places to see the eclipse is around Nashville, Tennessee.

Travelers must know the rules of viewing the eclipse to safely watch the amazing event. The sun’s harmful rays are actually heightened around the corners of the eclipse, making retina damage a serious threat to all who gaze at the sight. You should avoid looking directly at the sun during an eclipse, rather, opt to watch via NASA’s satellite camera recording the entire process.

I’ve been waiting for this since I realized what the word eclipse even meant, and now that it’s here, I don’t know how I will feel about it once it’s over. This is a historical event, and it could only happen once or twice in someone’s lifetime, so make sure everyone you know is ready to witness the moon swallowing the sun and spitting it back into the sky.