Cicada

Teeth The stars were glowing intensely that night; It looked almost as if it was a warning. The mousebirds that usually fill the sky were nowhere to be seen. You could feel it: something terrible was going to happen. The humidity of the air stuffed my lungs making it extremely difficult to breath. I could barely hear the TV over the loud roar from the helicopter, “Breaking news: Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana has been killed. The former president’s plane has been shot down above Kigali…

Pat Mora is an American of Mexican descent; and has written over 40 books, which encompass poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her books largely address children. However, she has written a book for teens and young adults, called “My Own True Name”, as well as, a book for educators, called “Zing”. Three of her poems, “Suspense”, “One Blue Door”, and “Twilight Choir”, occur during and after a rain; and will show how her use of diction entertains and speaks to children. The titles of these poems do…

Hello, I’m Chelsea Elizabeth McDaniel and this is my personal narrative! I was born in Phoenix, Arizona and lived in a large, one story house with my half-sister who at the time was 8 and my half-brother who at the time was 10. I went to Madison Elementary and then when I was 6 it was summer time, I went out back to see my dad having a drink on “the rocks” and for some reason I asked, “Hey Dad, are we ever going to move?”. I wasn’t expecting to wake up the next afternoon to the house entirely…

What does that thing mean? Why is it this thing so important? When looking at art or trying to find meaning within oneself one is often driven by, either a curiosity for understanding or by their desire to uncover a meaning, and to explore their own personal analyses and theories. Sigmund Freud 's theories often bank heavily upon the interpretation of dreams. What do they mean? What is their purpose? What do they say about us? Using his interpretation to pull psychoanalytical significance from…

In The Pearl, Steinbeck captures the destructive effect of colonialism on the indigenous people. This parable includes many motifs that depicts how greed and corruption can be a destructive force and overwhelm an individual. The novella portrays two contrasting forces that shape a person’s future. It depicts a world in which humans shape their own destinies. However, forces beyond human control can sweep at any moment and completely change the course of an individual’s life. It can be…

Having Cried Wolf does a lot of work in only a short amount of space. Gretchen Shirm does so by taking on multiple characters’ stories, including different perspectives and interwoven storylines, all the while being chock full of vivid imagery and carefully crafted with literary techniques such as similes and metaphors. She also gives such specific, detailed, and relatable examples, appealing to multiple senses that make the reader feel almost as if they are actually there. For me, all of these…

My story happens in a boondocks town in south-eastern rustic Kentucky. It's a residential area that you've probably never become aware of – its residents peppering the mountainsides here and there. It's the sort of town where it isn't precisely remarkable to discover neighbors wheeling and dealing for products with domesticated animals and administrations, living off what the area gives, and by and large making do with what they've got. It was here that my father was raised. It is here that my…

You know what makes those grade school “get to know you!” games ulcer-inducing? Being the only kid in class without an easy answer. At the beginning of each school year, without fail, our teachers would herd us into sharing circles and we were forced to choose an easy self-identifier to share with the class. In order for you to truly understand how I feel about sharing circles, here is what I imagine hell to be like: Everyone is forced to stand in an eternal, godawful sharing circle and watch,…

The brain-death of a nation, organised genocide, millions upon millions of deaths. Words have never had so much power. World War two has inspired many high-quality films and literature through the years. Two of the many books are Pennies for Hitler by Jackie French and Morton Rhue’s, The Wave. PFH is an emotional adventure experienced alongside Georg, a young German boy who by Nazi logic, is a Jew. This forces him to flee Germany to England and then Australia, leaving love and lies in each step…

Both Craig Womack’s novel “Drowning in Fire” and Gloria Anzaldúa’s semi-autobiographical work “Borderlands” explore the intersection between queer and Indian identities. One specific way that Womack and Anzaldúa focus on these identities is through the tension between native religions and Christianity in the lives of modern natives. Both authors come up with a compelling narrative of what it is like to be native and queer in the face of an institutionalized product of Western conquest like…