Students Poetry Featured by Local Arts Organization
E&H Seniors Jasmyne Rowe and Sally Smith are featured in the April Edition of A Magazine for the Arts
Seniors Jasmyne Rowe of Fayetteville, N.C. and Sally Smith of Blacksburg, Va. have been chosen by A Magazine for the Arts to be featured in this month’s editions of its printed magazine as well as its online publication, both of which celebrate National Poetry Month.
A! Magazine for the Arts asked area colleges to submit poetry by their students, and both Emory & Henry entries were selected. Rowe’s piece, “Refusal”, is one of just five pieces selected to appear in the printed version of the magazine that is distributed monthly to locations throughout Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. Smith’s piece, entitled “Wintertime Sunset,” is one of only seven chosen to appear in the online edition of the magazine.
A! Magazine for the Arts is a publication of Arts Alliance Mountain Empire. The award-winning magazine is the recipient of the Tennessee Governor's 2003 Award for Arts Leadership, a 2007 Pinnacle tourism award for the print edition and the e-mail digest and three awards in 2009 from the Society of Professional Journalists, Tri-Cities Chapter.
Copies of A! Magazine can be found on the main floor of Byars Hall, Van Dyke foyer, Wiley Hall foyer and the Emory Train Depot.
Jasmyne Rowe, who uses poetry to share her ideas and feelings, possesses a heightened interest in the power of language and words. During Rowe’s junior year, she completed a study abroad course in Peru. This May, Rowe will graduate with a double major in sociology and Spanish. Rowe also enjoys photography, and her image of Machu Picchu won the 2010 International Photography Contest at Emory & Henry.
Sally Smith is finishing a Creative Writing major at Emory & Henry College. She has served as editor of the Ampersand, the college’s literary magazine, and is the winner of the 2006 Leidig Poetry Prize. Her poem “Vagabonds” appeared in the winter 2010 edition of the Battered Suitcase, a Vagabondage Press Publication. Sally has lived in Austin, Texas, and Blacksburg, Va., and hopes to pursue graduate work in creative writing.
“Refusal”
by Jasmyne Rowe
Tonight is the night.
We can smell his excitement from out here.
We will taste the mixture of their flavors.
Of her – fear and bitter void;
Of him – deep hatred, blood lust, and the faint hints of happiness.
And over here, we have these men pathetically fighting.
Quarts, parts, and pieces – that’s what we get.
The flavors? Fear. Fear of crossing the worst line possible.
We taste debauchery, pride; we taste hope and intense sadness –
spilling, running, drowning us.
We don’t want these leftovers.
Every time they shove it our way, we protest.
We clench up so tightly, fervently hoping that they won’t break through our defense.
And every time, they push on through us.
Our Mother.
Why has she abandoned us? Why would she leave us to defend ourselves so emptily?
Maybe she too is weary. With all of us pleading for some relief, she must be wavering beneath it all.
Man, and his endless repugnant works.
We don’t want your leftovers.
“Wintertime Sunset”
by Sally Smith
Glow of
stark-solid
sherbert cloud fills the sky:
sunset a swelling
exhale. The cold-tin dribbles drum
daunting as the unnatural
glow of charged sky begins
to fade. We prowl this earth-
stadium afterglow, life lit up
for us. Orange
light shines in the west,
burning bright through skeletal,
tender branches and
burrs of evergreen puff,
glowing as pricks of my own
blood, the holes between
threads where the cold cuts through, leaving me
shivering.
