Tag: Writing

And so it begins…

Welcome back! With the smells of sharpened pencils and fresh paper comes classes, homework and peers. I’m so honored to take the lead this year and carry the torch hand in hand with my fellow co-editor, Sarah Buckman. The Élan staff as a whole is eager to take the brand new foundation we constructed last year and keep progressing. With the new building and construction occurring on campus, it comes natural. It’s almost unreal to try to image we could implement anymore change than we previously did. But I’ve already been proven wrong.

This year’s homecoming is held in an entirely new location. And no one’s complaining about having to move the event out of the muggy gym. The new venue will hopefully attract a larger crowd. More people showing up means more people learning Élan’s name. Last year was strictly all about branding and defining our identity. I see this year’s focus being directed towards projecting that fortified identity to the public. We want people to know who and what we are. A large portion of gaining followers is making sure we’re directing our attention to the people who actually want it. The Élan will be striving to reach out the writers’ of this community and securing their presence with us.

It’s so exciting to know that new art and writing will be in our hands in a matter of only thirty days. The submission period can be intensely chaotic with the hundreds of pieces to be read, but I’ve missed it. It’s so rewarding to be a part of a staff that has a shared, overarching goal: the dispersal of art. The process to achieve that distribution, no matter how hectic, is always worth it.

Here’s to a new year, new land to trek and a new Élan to discover.

-Mariah Abshire, Editor-in-Chief 

Editor’s Farewell Post

It is literally my last day in Élan. I won’t enter this room again as Editor, next time I come back I will be a reader. I can submit for as long as I am 18, and I can’t wait to see when the next edition becomes available online. I won’t know exactly how the pieces will be read, and I won’t be standing there arguing over a cover or a page layout. All I have to do is continue to support the magazine.

I couldn’t have lead this magazine without the support of the staff. They were so committed, and all work that you submitted this year was in the best hands. They care about this department and publication so much, even when we would slam our heads on the key board and scream about how done we all were- we weren’t really done. All of the staff parties and book launches and we still would never be done, because writers never really finish a piece, and this magazine lives on, so we as long as we have readers and a committed staff Élan will thrive.

So thank you for writing, thank your for reading, and above all thank you for believing in us.

–Jenn Carter, Editor in Chief

At the Core of Poetry

If I had a nickel for the number of times I’ve heard the phrase “write what you know,” I’d probably have fifty nickels. While that is only a whopping $2.50, the point is, fifty times is a lot, considering I’ve only considered myself a writer for the past two years. This phrase used to grate on my nerves, making me want to scream, because I didn’t really know anything. Or at least, I didn’t think I did.

I knew that Romeo loved Juliet and that anything that wasn’t poetry was prose. But how do you write about that? The answer is: you can’t. After many moons of biting my nails and unsuccessful third, fourth, and sometimes fifth, drafts, I realized the key is much more than writing what you know. A brilliant poetry teacher once told me poetry was like an onion, and with every read you pull of layers of emotion, meaning, truth. The core of it is writing what you know, but all the layers around this core rely on–get ready for it—lies. Tim O’ Brien said it best,  “A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth. And that’s why poetry gets written.” (Alright, he said fiction, but I think poetry still applies here.)

After this brilliant discovery my poetry seemed to blossom. I took the core of it, what I knew, and all of these lies blossomed. Lies like beautiful images I’d pay to see, people I’d kill to meet, love I’d die to have, and loss I’d barely live through. I’d found that the images, or the lies, I created were indeed truer than anything I’d ever written, because once they were complete and on the page, I realized they were simply truths I’d never acknowledged.

And so I’ve realized that lies are the key to all brilliant poetry, or maybe even all brilliant writing. Because the lies bound to page by an author’s hand really aren’t lies at all, but layers of an onion that were otherwise unacknowledged.

–Darcy Graham, fiction editor