Joseph Milne is an artist, Illustrator and filmmaker, his pen and ink work blends psychedelia and art nouveau, drawing inspiration from the occult, anthropology and Jungian psychology.
The Penumbrian Ball
Issue 35
Lazy Afternoon
Claire Lin is a sixteen-year-old artist from Princeton, N.J. who has been drawing and painting since the age of four. She is now tapping into the world of mixed media and exploring new materials in 3D. In addition to creating art, she enjoys watching sunsets, petting fluffy dogs, and going for nature walks.
Graphite Portrait
Madeline is a junior at Georgia Southern University. She is pursuing a degree in Studio Art as well as Creative Writing.
Book Review: Pet Sematary
This gripping novel is by far one of the most chilling reads I’ve ever come across. Picture this: someone incredibly important to you suddenly passes away, leaving you in a state of utter despair. How would you handle such a heartbreaking situation?
The heart of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary lies in exploring the mysteries of life and death.
The narrative begins with the Creed Family – Louis, Rachel, their daughter Ellie, their toddler son Gage, and their cat Church. The Creeds have just relocated to a small town in rural Maine, as Louis has accepted the job as the head doctor at the University of Maine.
Upon settling in, their elderly neighbour, Jud Crandall, promptly becomes their friend. Jud is a sociable old man and Louis and Jud begin to regularly spend time together.
Louis, along with Jud, uncovers a hidden pet cemetery, where the pets of the town’s children had been buried for generations. Unbeknownst to them, this cemetery holds a dark secret that will soon come to light.
The Pet Sematary is rumoured to possess a mysterious force that brings the dead back to life, and that’s exactly what occurs.
At first, I found the beginning a bit dull, but as you get further into the book, it becomes more and more mysterious. It’s a classic horror novel, and King really knows how to make it spine-chilling.
Pet Sematary is more than just a scary story – it delves deep into the darker side of human nature, exploring themes of grief, loss, and the consequences of tampering with the natural order. Stephen King’s unique blend of the ordinary and the eerie makes this novel a must-read for horror fans.
Stephen King’s unique mix of the mundane and the macabre elevates this novel to a true horror tale.
I hope you enjoy reading this book- have a great day!
| Sanskriti is an avid reader, programmer, and author. Her writing typically focuses on science and nonfiction. She has been published as a writer, with a science article appearing in Bookosmia magazine. Additionally, she serves as the head of her school’s editing department, as a writer for The Teen Magazine, — and has a strong passion for stargazing. |
Anagrams of Identity
In Chen Chen’s deceivingly simple poem “Chen [No Middle Name] Chen,” names are far more than the words on our birth certificates: they’re insults and affirmations, histories and experiences, intricate portraits of our identities and aspirations. By writing a loose sonnet consisting solely of anagrams of his name — including its “flaw” of having “No Middle Name” — Chen explores his multifaceted Chinese-American self, from the insults he’s received to the surprising adjectives with which he describes himself. Though the words that comprise “Chen [No Middle Name] Chen” may be difficult to find within the poem’s title, they have always been part of Chen’s name — therefore, they are an inevitable and indelible part of his being.
Unfortunately, many of these words are aspersions, ranging from innocent mistakes to microaggressions to slurs. Chen is “called Chad called mini / called homo” (1-2), words that both define and demean his identity. He learns that he is not who he considers himself to be, but what society views him as; he is no longer “Chen Chen,” but “Chad,” a “homo, a “Chinaman” (1-3). The world turns his simple descriptors — “gay,” “Chinese” — negative, replacing his true identity with degrading racial epithets. In the next stanza, when Chen recounts how “one man called [him] Hannah / then mad,” simply correcting his presumably White persecutor reveals their racial privilege: that they have a right to be angry when all Chen did was assert himself. The persecutor’s defensiveness is a display of White fragility, but at once it’s a reminder that others’ perceptions of Chen — in this case, as “Hannah,” — outweigh the truth of his name and his being. Eventually, the oppressive name-calling Chen faces in these two stanzas causes him to question: “am I a man?” (4).
Following the tradition of the sonnet form, these eight lines form the octave of “Chen [No Middle Name] Chen” and set up Chen’s internal conflict: his loss of power when both his name and his identity are determined by outside forces. Western sonnets are comparably White and restrictive, mirroring Chen’s own confinement by White, heteronormative American society. However, the next two stanzas show how Chen is able to create something beautiful out of the sonnet’s strict rules, as he breaks free from the traditional rhyme scheme and ten-syllable lines. The poem soars as he exercises the agency taken away from him in the first lines to make this sonnet defined by him, not by straight White men from 400 years ago.
The second half of “Chen [No Middle Name] Chen” begins with a volta, or a shift in the sonnet’s direction, signifying a resolution to the conflict introduced in the octave. By switching from past to present tense, from “[they] called me” (5) to “call me” (9), Chen reclaims his name as something he gets the last word on. He is “mad,” as he should be after facing both racism and homophobia, and he is “mean” because, sometimes, he needs to be callous in order to defend himself. Simultaneously, Chen is “ammo” because of the hostility his assertiveness may cause — like the White man’s self-justifying retaliation in the second stanza. As Chen wields the dual identity of being Chinese-American, he is also “alchemical,” transforming and blending parts of himself depending on the situation. Though these adjectives aren’t all flattering, what’s meaningful is that now Chen is doing the “calling,” not the anonymous figures who called him “Chad,” “homo,” and “Chinaman” (1-3) in the stanzas before.
Chen, however, still knows he deserves complimentary words, despite being forced to see himself through the lenses of racism and homophobia, and despite his “blemish” of not having a middle name, spelled out in the poem’s title as if it is something missing. In the final stanza, in which every word uses letters from the phrase “No Middle Name,” Chen lists a series of beautiful nouns, like “ocean,” “dahlia,” and “eel-dance” (13-14). Through his “blemish” of having only a first and last name comes so much more — the poem itself, these elegant words. Chen may be a “nomad” (14), constantly traveling between cultures, and “loam” (14), split between identities like the soil is split between sand and clay. Still, Chen knows he is more than the negativity spewed at him in the first two stanzas, whether he received it from others or from himself. He knows he is worthy, and throughout this poem, he chronicles his journey towards declaring himself as such. Chen reveals how, though the world may try to restrict our identities, language ultimately prevails. Unlike anything else, as Chen learns, words allow us to claim and reclaim, define and redefine, who we are. By its final stanza, in the tradition of most sonnets, “Chen [No Middle Name] Chen” is a poem about love — not for others, but for ourselves.
Lila Raj is a junior at San Francisco University High School with passions for writing, music, and psychology. She is a 2023 Juniper Institute for Young Writers alumna and 2024 recipient of numerous Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. When she’s not writing, Lila can be found curating her many Spotify playlists or playing jazz on the saxophone.
The Golden Fish, Retold
Once there was a fisherman who lived in a run-down apartment near the shore. He spent his time fishing and selling his catches, though they were always small. One day, as he was fishing, he caught a strange fish, the likes of which he had never seen. It was small and golden in the sunlight.
“Oh, please let me go,” said the fish. “I am not a fish, but a transformed prince, and I must go back into the sea.”
“I don’t know what I’d do with a talking fish anyway,” said the man, and released the fish.
That night, he recounted the strange experience to his daughter.
“Well,” she said, “if it really was a magical prince, surely it could have granted you a wish. You should have asked for somewhere better to live.”
***
Feeling guilty that he’d not thought of that himself, he went down to the docks early the next morning.
“Oh fish!” he called. “My family is suffering, and I believe you owe me a favor.”
The fish swam up next to the pier, bobbing in the tide. “What is your request?”
“I would like a nicer place to live, somewhere clean and not broken.”
“Consider it done.”
Sure enough, when he returned that evening, his daughter was sitting in the living room of a small house. There was a garden in the front, full of lettuce and carrots and beans. Inside, they each had their own bedroom, and not a single faucet leaked.
“Thank you,” said his daughter. “I am glad to see the fish was not lying.”
“As am I.”
“Perhaps, though, the fish can do another thing.”
“No,” he said. “This is plenty for us. We shouldn’t be greedy.”
“But wouldn’t you like a second floor? And a dog? I know you’ve always wanted one.”
***
The man couldn’t deny that. The next morning, as he set out his crab traps, the fish came to surface again.
“Is the house to your satisfaction?” it asked.
“It’s a very lovely house. But, you see, we’ve always wanted a dog, and I’m afraid it’s still too small to have one. If we had a second floor, we could have a dog.”
“Consider it done.”
When the man got home, he was greeted by a large black dog, wagging and begging for pets. His daughter laughed and hugged the dog.
“Do you think, Dad, that the fish has more tricks up his sleeve?”
“Even if it does, we shouldn’t ask for more.”
“If he can make a dog appear, though, he must be able to make me a boy.”
“I will not ask the fish for anything more.”
***
The man saw the fish again, but did not ask anything of it, and only threw it a scrap of his bait. When he returned home, everything was just the same as it’d been before. His daughter was sitting on the sofa with the dog, a book propped open in her lap.
“Dad, you didn’t ask the fish.”
“I told you, we’re not going to bother the fish anymore.”
“If I can’t ask the fish, then I can at least ask you. “ She closed the book. “Please, I just want to be a boy.”
“But you are not,” said the man, and he went and cooked them dinner.
As the weeks went on, she asked more and more. Every time he returned home, she stared at him in disappointment. Every time she asked, he refused. He remembered sitting in a doctor’s office and being told, it’s a girl! and he simply did not see how that could not be true.
***
The fish continued to pop up around the docks, seemingly nodding at the man. It didn’t speak to him again, or if it did, he didn’t hear over the crashing of the waves. One night, long after the other fishermen had gone, he stayed, hauling up shrimp traps and throwing back the occasional rockfish.
Once again, the golden fish appeared.
“Old man,” he called, “do you have any other requests of me? I am forever in your debt, and surely by now, you’ve found some flaw in the house and dog.”
“No,” the man said. “I do not.”
“Not you? Or your child? Not even a bone for the dog?”
“No, thank you.”
“Very well.”
It was nearly midnight when he made his way home, under a cloudy and starless sky. In the dark, he did not recognize the building. He’d gotten so used to the house that seeing once again the broken-down apartment did not register.
His key still worked though, and the apartment was exactly how he remembered it. The kitchen was small and one of the burners didn’t work. The bathroom sink always leaked, and the pull-out couch where he slept was creaky as ever.
The only difference was his daughter’s room. She was not there, and neither was the dog. The bed was made, only her baby blanket missing. A stack of books sat in the corner.
The man raced back to the docks.
“What did you do to my house?” he demanded of the sea.
“What house?” the fish answered. “The house your son wished for? The house in which you refused him his life? The house that I gave, not to you, but your son? It is still his house. But it was never yours.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your son spoke to me. He told me of the wishes he’d asked for. I gave you a chance, tonight, to be honest. To care for him. And you did not. If you cannot make one selfless wish, you do not receive any wish. It is your son’s choice whether or not he finds you. I’ve made sure you won’t be able to find him.”
***
True to the fish’s word, the man never saw his daughter again. It was as if she had disappeared, or, more accurately, never even existed. Across the bay, there was a small, two-story house. Inside it lived a young man, a daughter who was once someone else’s son, and the dog.
Many years later, when visiting an old friend, the fisherman thought he saw his daughter. He recognized the dog on the leash, but not the man holding it, laughing with a friend. He wondered, then, if the fish was right. If it really was true that he had a son. Or, maybe, he just missed the dog.
Khalila Soubeih (they/he) is a creative writing student at Western Washington University. He writes about queer magic, often set in their home of the Pacific Northwest. In their free time, they can be found exploring tide pools and on Instagram as @starful.khalila.