Dear Readers,
Welcome to ANGLES Issue 12!
This issue, ANGLES features creative work that addresses the complexities of the body through movement and time. Our featured artist, Syd Brewster, encompasses these themes in their colorful array of images. Their art encourages viewers to insert themselves into moments of captured action, offering them the experience of rich mundanity. Syd effortlessly turns the colorless to the colorful and the ordinary to the extraordinary.
In addition to the other talented writers and artists, we are proud to publish the work of a fellow Fisher student, Robbie Beach. Robbie’s prose, “Letters of Change,” is vulnerable, innovative, and an excellent exploration of form.
This issue of ANGLES is our technicolored love letter to all the writers and artists we’ve had the pleasure of working with over the past few years. And although this may be the last issue we work on as Fisher students, we know–without a doubt– ANGLES has a promising journey ahead in the hands of future editors.
With sincere appreciation and best wishes,
Kirsten Comstock and Sophia Ross
ANGLES Managing Editors
GIRL FINDS SHE IS INCAPABLE OF LOVING IN THE EUCLIDEAN PLANE by VANESSA NIU
Geodesic—the shortest path betweentwo points on a not always straight surfaceif I am not-always-straight and findingthe closest and fastest way to (1) touching a(real live) girl’s shoulder blades and (2) gettingkicked out of the family reunion sometime inthe...
DON DIEGO’S MOONLIGHT WALK by THOMAS PIEKARSKI
As Don Diego walkedalong a haunted moonlit beachthe waves whined and bats swooped. After a few mileshis feet grew quite tiredand a coyote howled from the far pier. He needed a breakbut refused to take one,pressed on through a flock of banshees. With determination...
EIGHT WEEKS by MADEIRA MILLER
The heaviest thing I ever carriedwas raspberry-sized. There wasnothing ceremonious about it; itwas and then it wasn’t. I waseighteen and while I wasn’t readyto be a mother, I certainly wasn’tready to lose the tiny thing thatdwelled within my emaciatedframe. I suppose...
AMORPHIA by X THE MARTIAN
Poetry is knowing many names—few need to be of people. Composition calls on the nomenclature of poetic urgency in asking:“What is most pressing? What of that is here? [Am I...
LINGUISTIC ODDITIES by BEE LB
there is something to waiting for a trap that isn’tcoming. analyzing lilts and usage and tonal discrepanciesfor a word that would consume you. you, i mean me.word, i mean name. he, i mean they. she, i mean they. them, i mean,always theirs. this isn’t a poem so i can’t...
ADAM & EVE by JILLIAN THOMAS
dear god, it’s me. i doubt you will get this letter- i am expecting return to sender, maybe an exasperated postal worker wondering how the hell i expect this to arrive at its destination- and the truth is i don’t- because if you were real you would see me every night...
BLACK LIKE HE. by TAUWAN PATTERSON
Poem I. inspired by and 1st line taken from artist Carrie Mae Weems “Blue Black Boy” for her series Colored People
(1989 – 1990).
SCENES FROM 6,909′ by DERMOT LOUCHART
an artifact from jerusalem has been brought to mass. i am kneeling in front of it andcrying. i ask god why he made me bad so that he would not love me. my youth leader tells meafter that i should enter the seminary, with how my devotion moved me so quickly to...
MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED by DAVID STILLWAGON
Paul stood at the top of the porch stairs, peering at the two-lane highway. He stroked thecreases on his weathered face and yawned. Route forty was fifty steps from his mother’s house.He counted them when he was a boy. Each day, he tracked toward town dressed...
LETTERS OF CHANGE by ROBBIE BEACH
Dear Our Beloved Son, I noticed at dinner the other day you didn’t pray with us. You meekly did the sign of the cross and even snuck some bits of mashed potatoes before we prayed. As you know this is unacceptable behavior. I thought we made it very...
SISTERS I WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE by GRAHAM CAMPBELL
I grew up enjoying my status as an only child in a family with just mom and dad. In the 1950’s, that was unusual even sort of frowned upon. I liked it. Lots of attention and much quieter. My friends all had little urchins running around making lots of noise and...
CHEMICAL COMPANY by MATTHIAS GLASS
It’s a freezing February night and I’m at my friend’s dorm. In contrast to the twenty-degree weather outside, the room is warm with body heat. My friend group is gathered for amovie night and we sit snuggled in blankets or in the arms of significant others....
THE ORANGE by CYNTHIA CHEN
Sitting in her office chair, hunched over the trash can, she tore into an orange, chilled from thefridge. She didn’t have long nails, but she had just enough to pierce through the skin of the fruit.She had to force her nail, cutting through layers of pith, before she...
FEATURED ARTIST
Syd Brewster is a Black, queer writer and film photographer from New York state. They are a senior Creative Writing major at Chapman University in Southern California. Their current overplayed song is ‘I Know It’s Over’ by Jeff Buckley.