It flabbergasts me to realize this school year only has five more Mondays left. I can still recall my first day in Élan and the year was swollen with plethora of Mondays. Nerves and anxiety rattled my bones. It was the first day of my junior year and expectations were nothing short of homework filled nights and a restless sleep schedule. To make matters worse, I entered a class filled with mostly upperclassmen I had never spoken to. I teetered on the belief that the school year was going to be nothing to look forward to.
Flash forward a semester, Élan is preparing for the annual spring online launch. This half of the year, juniors are in foreground of leadership making decisions for the book. I see this as the time period where I really became comfortable with the staff. Staying after school for days on end allowed us to drop our filters and act as if no one else was the room. We all bonded over terrible jokes and our shared love for the production on the computer screens. This was where I stopped looking at myself as part of a staff, and instead as part of a literary family.
All year I have been especially nervous about the seniors leaving this magazine in our hands. Uncertainty of whether we all would be ready to take on the responsibility clouded my mind with paranoia. But witnessing the senior editors ask questions and reveal doubt made me realize otherwise. It’s okay if I don’t possess every parcel of knowledge needed to run a literary magazine. That isn’t possible for a single person to accomplish. We’re a team for a reason. Everyone withholds unique skill that when all brought together, creates the necessary ingredients to run Élan. This year alone, our class has totally flipped this magazine around and made more progress with branding our name than ever before. I can only imagine what all will occur next year.

–Mariah Abshire, Poetry Editor (& Assistant Editor-in-Chief)

1. Catch up on any missed assignments. Those zeros may not seem like they are hurting your grade, but the trick to feeling good about yourself is commitment and not leaving any loose ends.
2. Plug into the last few lessons of the year. I know you’re probably already accepted into college and got the score you wanted on the SAT, but that doesn’t mean you can give up now. Finish strong.
3. Don’t take this as an opportunity to skip school. Pretty soon, you won’t be required to sit through school for eight hours a day and you can suffer through it for just a little while longer.
4. Engage in conversation with your teachers. They are interested in what you plan on doing after graduation. They have become “substitute parents,” and in just a few short weeks you won’t see them every day. Thank them. Thank them even if you weren’t their biggest fan, because it takes a certain type of person to spend their weekdays with teenagers.
5. Take pictures. In a few years, these last memories will fade and you won’t remember who you sat with at lunch or what your style was. That’s the magic of pictures. They ignite those gray areas in your brain and will spark hours of conversation about the “old days.”
6. Go to your senior prom. Ladies, strap on those high heels that you can barely walk in and fix your hair until you feel beautiful. Guys, get that suit or tux ready. Try to have as much fun as possible so you have a story to tell your kids one day.
7. Attend all meetings and rehearsals about graduation. There will be many things to remember in the coming weeks and you don’t want to miss out on spending time with your senior class.
8. Spend as much time with your friends possible. School has made it convenient to spend numerous hours of the day with them, but make time to meet up after school or on the weekends. With the end of school comes the parting of ways. The friends you have now can carry you through the rest of your life. Confide in them. Go places with them. Listen to them. Laugh with them.
9. The morning of graduation, wake up knowing that after that day your life will be changed forever. You won’t be told to go to school, you won’t have busy work assignments to catch up on or have to wake up at the crack of dawn everyday. Spend that day in relaxation doing whatever makes you happy.
10. The night of graduation, put on that cap and gown with pride and let your parent’s take pictures of you. In their eyes, you are still the baby they held 18 years ago. Smile when your name is called and they hand you your diploma and try not to think about the possibility of tripping. Be proud of what you accomplished. Soak in the atmosphere. That will be the last time you will ever be in the same place with these people again.
11. Don’t be afraid to cry. In these last days, you may be upset thinking about how you will never do any of these things again. Cry because you are sad, but also cry because you are happy. This is a mile stone in your life and is just the beginning of so many firsts.

–Makenzie Fields, Submissions Editor.

 

National Poetry Month is quickly drawing to a close, so as a bittersweet farewell we asked the Élan staff for their favorite lines of poetry:

“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)

it’s always ourselves we find in the sea”

–e.e. cummings. “maggie and milly and molly and may”.

(Emily Cramer. Editor-in-Chief.)

 

“Well what’s in the piñata they asked. I told them

God was and they ran into the desert, barefoot.”

–Natalie Diaz. “No More Cake Here”.

(Sarah Buckman. Editor-in-Chief.)

 

“You have my permission not to love me;

I am a cathedral of deadbolts

and I’d rather burn myself down

than change the locks.”

–Rachel McKibbens. “Letter from My Brain to My Heart”.

(Emily Leitch. Layout Editor.)

 

“Suddenly I realize

that if I step out of my body I would break

into blossom.”

–James Wright. “A Blessing”.

(Taylor Austell. Layout Editor.)

 

“Now you say this is home

so go ahead, worship the mountains as they dissolve in dust,

wait on the wind, catch a scent of salt, call it our life.”

–Philip Levine. “Our Valley”.

(Raegen Carpenter. Poetry Editor.)

 

“then I awoke and dug

that if I dreamed natural

dreams of being a natural

woman doing what a woman

does when she’s natural

I would have a revolution.”

–Nikki Giovanni. “Revolutionary Dreams”.

(Brittanie Demps. Poetry Editor.)

 

“we are for each: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis”

–e.e. cummings. “since feeling is first”

(Mariah Abshire. Poetry Editor.)

 

“I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.”

–Maya Angelou. “Still I Rise”.

(Kiera Nelson. Fiction Editor.)

 

“I had the new books—words, numbers

and operations with numbers I did not

comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled

by use, in a blue canvas satchel

with red leather straps.

Spruce, inadequate, and alien

I stood at the side of the road.

It was the only life I had.”

–Jane Kenyon. “Three Songs at the End of Summer”.

(Emily Jackson. Non-Fiction Editor.)

 

“I’m carrying my box of faces. If I want to change faces, I will.”

–Naomi Shihab Nye. “One Boy Told Me”.

(Shamiya Anderson. Non-Fiction Editor.)

 

“The names of women melt in their mouths like hot mints.”

–Yusef Komunyakaa. “Moonshine”.

(Haley Hitzing. Social Media Editor.)

 

“And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,

and wear the brave stockings of night-black lace

and strut down the streets with paint on my face.

–Gwendolyn Brooks. “a song in the front year.”

(Madison George. Social Media Editor.)

 

“So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.”

–Charles Baudelaire. “Be Drunk.”

(Makenzie Fields. Submissions Editor.)

 

“God comes to your window

all bright and black wings,

and you’re just too tired to open it.”

–Dorianne Laux. “Dust”.

(Stephanie Thompson. P.R. & Marketing Editor.)

 

“come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.”

–Lucille Clifton. “Eve Thinking”.

(Mrs. Melanson. Teacher Sponsor.)