Tag: Portfolio
New Year’s Eve
by The Cowl Editor on December 9, 2021
Portfolio
Anna Pomeroy ’23
As the year’s clock begins to wind down,
I am reminded of the infinite cycle that begins every new year.
As it strikes midnight, we cheer and clink glasses filled with bubbly and
Ambitious hopes for the next months to follow.
Our warming smiles are not the only thing that lights up the room,
Covered wall to wall in gold balloons and confetti.
The reflection of the TV screen’s countdown sprawls across our “2022” glasses.
And while we once again repeat this special night in which
We set personal expectations for the year––
Some seem reasonable and others are placeholders for our dreams––
Our future selves continue to look back on that moment, mocking
The blissful ignorance.
Personally, as this time of year begins to roll around once again,
I naturally feel it is necessary to push off any personal efforts in growth
Until the next 1st of January.
Piling baggage onto my future self that will once again hope to reclaim these goals.
Editors’ Holiday Wish List
by The Cowl Editor on December 9, 2021
Portfolio
What is your guilty pleasure gift that you would never ask for but wish someone would read your mind and buy for you?
Liam Tormey: Off-White VaporMax Shoes
Sarah McLaughlin: Tickets to see Hamilton at PPAC (for the third time…)
Madison Palmieri: Ridiculously expensive Taylor Swift merch
Julia McCoy: the $95 Harry Styles sweatshirt that sold out in like an hour
Taylor Rogers: Pit tickets to Lorde’s upcoming concert
Colleen Joyce: Perhaps Tessa Young pants to match my Hardin Scott shirt. Or the rest of the After books (the hardcover version, preferably).
Maura Campbell: Federal student loan forgiveness! (Looking at you, Mr. President)
Abby Brockway: A Nate Watson basketball jersey to increase my chances of making it on the Dunk big-screen during “Jersey-Cam.” Oh, and Taylor merch.
Nicole Patano: Puzzles large enough to use around the house as rugs, blankets, and shower curtains, etc…
The True Christmas Spirit
by The Cowl Editor on December 9, 2021
Portfolio
Kate Ward ’23
Dear Diary,
Another day in the workshop—you know, it’s exhausting being an elf. We’re given shoddy tools and forced to work year-round. Do you know how insufferable it is listening to Christmas music all year? The good part is the Big Man sometimes shares letters from the kids with us, so that makes us all feel a little bit better. But my favorite part? The reindeer. We get to feed them sometimes and take them on long walks. But do you know how hard it is for me, an elf, to walk a reindeer? They’re fussy animals. I didn’t even want to work up here in the North Pole! I wanted to work somewhere warm with a wide variety of music and a diet other than Christmas cookies and hot chocolate.
We watch a lot of Christmas movies while we work, and a lot of them are extremely inaccurate to the elf lifestyle. The only one which got it right was Elf with Will Ferrell. We do have intramural sports and we do have quotas we need to reach! Plus, Buddy the Elf did a great job depicting our diet. I mean, I’ve never had spaghetti before, but I’m sure with all the sugar he put on it, it would be delicious. Our uniforms are the same as the ones in the movie but instead, the different colors represent our different ranks. I would do anything to get out of this workshop and out from under the foot of the Big Man, but he keeps us so busy that the only breaks we get are lunch, dinner, and sleep.
It’s not all holly and jolly here in the workshop. Instead, the mood is more like the claymation Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with Hermie who wants to be a dentist. Sure, singing songs and building toys for all the little girls and boys is great, but I have dreams and aspirations! I wanted to be an archeologist, and now I’m making toys! What happened? We definitely skipped a few chapters. Anyway, I’ll leave it there—I need to get some sleep so I can get up and keep making Etch-A-Sketches for kids who will use them once then leave them at their grandparents’ houses.
Yours truly,
Elf-vis
Invocation of the Muse
by The Cowl Editor on December 9, 2021
Portfolio
Sarah McLaughlin ’23
It’s far too late for me to be lying on my back with my guitar in my lap and thinking about Homer.
Olive’s hanging out with some friends. She invited me, but I said no, to no surprise, and she told me to have a good night as she left with her purse and sensible flats. It’s not like she’s going to some wild Saturday rager; she’s going to sip Chardonnay and talk about Jane Austen with a couple of girls from the debate team.
I’m almost always invited. I feel bad that I almost always decline. When I mentioned once that I read Northanger Abbey, it piqued their interest, but I haven’t read anything else, not even Pride and Prejudice, and so I get left out of the conversation when it inevitably shifts to their unanimously elected, favorite author. Still, I enjoy the discussion when I can, though I never drink wine. I never drink anything. The one time I tried alcohol, the first weekend of freshman year, I had a panic attack and my roommate almost called 911. I convinced her I was fine while my mind told me I was asphyxiating and ended up sitting on the sticky floor of a locked bathroom stall with a damp cloth on my forehead, counting the seconds between breaths as drops of cold water trickled down my face.
When we first became friends, Olive used to tell me I was no fun, because truth be told, I am, and that means something coming from a girl whose idea of fun involves discussing the politics of the steel industry. But by now I think she understands and respects the fact that I don’t want to do anything. Well, maybe not respects, but she lets it be.
It’s not that I don’t want to do anything; I go to extracurriculars and to lunches at the mall and to see musicals at the community theatre. I simply draw the line at things I’ve never done before that have a high probability of ending in embarrassment. And that line happens to exclude a whole lot of things when one sip of hard seltzer is enough to shatter me.
You get drunk every now and then. Not frat-party drunk, that’s below you (you’d say), more like bottle-of-wine-in-bed-while-watching-a-Russian-film-with-subtitles sort of drunk. Do you remember how you called me once? Your dorm was a block away and you asked me if I’d bring you my copy of The Tempest because you knew I was reading it for class and you wanted to recite Prospero’s final soliloquy while standing on your bed and you were sad you didn’t know it from memory. I told you to go to sleep and not stand on your bed and that you could find it online if you really wanted. Then you started ranting about how your laptop could never compare to the weight of a physical book in your hands, and as you waxed poetic about weathered pages and cracked spines I laughed and laughed and thought you were going to cry.
The scene replays in my mind as my fingers run over the six strings, strumming a slow major seventh chord, going nowhere and meaning nothing. I think about Homer, how at the beginning of his epics, he opened with the invocation of the muse. I took some poetry classes thinking they would help me with songwriting, but they didn’t give me inspiration to write about anything grand or existential or even subtly poetic, like changing leaves or dust collecting on childhood bookshelves. I still write the same dumb lyrics about wine-drunk phone calls and I realize this is the only muse I can invoke.
I pluck an open B string and let it ring. Olive will come back soon, probably, and she’ll ask me how my night has been. I’ll say it was alright, and I’ll have written nothing.
A Moment by the Sun. / The Arrival of the Moon
by The Cowl Editor on December 9, 2021
Portfolio
Max Gilman ’25
When presented with an idea,
One is intrigued to oppose,
If they have knowledge
In a field so similar
To that of which is being argued,
Because
One yearns an ear,
To lean to with words
That accumulate
And become known as
The seeking of validation.
So,
When presented with a new idea,
Accept it,
At first,
And try
Understanding,
Instead of
Seeking
Such validation.
There she woke up,
Upon a bed of orange sand,
To become the observer of an endless sunset,
Confronted with an infinite horizon.
Around her lay remains,
Which a scholar could barely interpret.
The rumble grounded itself,
With the sand below its structure.
In the moment she sat there,
In the shifting sand,
She felt as if time had given her a break,
For at least the moment,
To witness such a miraculous sunset,
A beauty to withhold from no man.
She felt a breeze come from below her.
The breeze threw small rocks
Toward the sitting girl,
Implanting themselves along her hair.
She left the rocks, though,
A conscious decision,
And began standing up.
She knew not why she was here,
In this desert-like place,
Surrounded by the empty infrastructures,
Obtruding about the moving ground,
Or why the sun was departing from the sky so hesitantly,
But she admired it there.
As the heat had begun to withdraw
From the barren landing,
Another breeze lifted the girl’s hair,
And she thought of its comfort.
Curiosity intrigued the girl,
Yet she remained
By the spot where she had awaken,
To witness a splendid picture,
Emanating art
For art’s sake.
***
Precious sleep…
Perusing…
Shocking cold grasp.
Like the feeling of ice water exposed,
To warm skin.
Uncomfortably frigid sand,
Shifting with her moving arm.
Her mind,
Ablaze with thought,
A frightening light
Above,
A spotlight?
No.
The moon
Has arrived.
Like an entity of vast, colossal size,
The moon tore through the air,
Perching above the world below,
Looking down in a grim attitude,
Shedding little light
Around the barren sand
And protruding buildings.
One could say the moon took on a sinister tone
That night,
As it collected all of itself
Into one cohesive, spherical, godly planet,
Towering above all those residing
On the puny land
The moon so grimly overlooked.
Then night…
Begins to overtake the girl,
As she begins to confront her confusion.
Sand.
Desert,
I am in the desert,
I watched the sun set,
I must have fallen
Asleep.
Then
She reaches to her left arm
To now confront the stagnant grip there.
Who could
It be
Holding my arm
Who
Came here
Now?
The girl kicks the blind spot behind her,
Shifting the sand quickly.
As her body twists
To face the unknown peruser,
Her heart
Beats
Fast,
Beating
Faster,
Beating
Until
No one.
An empty painting
Of a desert at night,
In a museum.
The girl shrieks,
Holding her head tight
Between two hands,
Pushing
The wrinkles on her face
Too close
Together.
Hair
And sand
Don’t mix well,
But the girl has already begun
Pulling her hair out,
Spastically dispersing it around her,
Blankly
Staring at you,
The viewer,
Emotionless.
She keeps pulling,
It keeps coming out.
It comes out like string,
Loose string,
As her eyes stare deep and long
Into your eyes,
The viewers eyes,
Her eyes,
A midnight black,
Your eyes.
She knows you watch her with them,
She knows she is just a character,
Just a character,
For your amusement,
You,
The viewer.
She knows she is here,
In this piece,
Stagnant and without purpose,
But to tell the story,
Laid out before her.
She knows you watch her,
She knows she is just a character
In a poem,
In a desert,
In a painting,
In a museum,
In a cage,
In a cage.
But
She’s happy,
Right?
In a cage.
Did you not read the beginning of this piece?
She seemed happy,
In a cage.
I thought she seemed happy,
In a cage.
Join her,
By leaving your eyes in their rightful sockets,
Or dare to relinquish this poem’s entertainment,
Leaving it
Solely to tear your eyes out.
The Shattered Ornament
by The Cowl Editor on December 9, 2021
Portfolio
Taylor Rogers ’24
I left a glittering ball of green at your doorstep,
Knowing the emerald hue was a color you adored.
Patiently, the sphere sits outside,
Waiting for your comforting touch to pull it off the empty porch.
The ornament watches the world in awe,
As December rips off her white jacket,
Letting the small cotton balls gracefully glide to the ground.
Fragments of this coat began to dot Earth’s exposed back,
Hitting the poor planet with a cold embrace.
Day’s warmth soon escapes the tiny steps,
Surrounding the distraught ornament in night’s terrifying shadows.
As the sky fades, the green bead’s anxiety increases,
Unwilling to wait this long for its new owner.
Hope flees from this poor ball,
Refusing to stay on the freezing porch of despair.
Snow continues to languidly fall,
Taunting the lonely gift that appears to be unwanted.
A foot nearly crushes the distressed ornament,
But manages to stop itself as the sphere shakes in fear.
Within seconds, the ball of green is embraced,
Lifted from the doorstep of despair,
Finally allowed to relax in your arms.
A Cry from the Heart
by The Cowl Editor on December 9, 2021
Portfolio
Toni Rendon ’24
A cry from the heart
Echoes through the night
It soars among the stars
And heads towards the light
A cry from the heart
Can be heard up high
When a true love’s kiss
Turns out to be a lie
A cry from the heart
Is a somber tune
It rings out
When a heart is beaten
Black and blue
A cry from the Heart
Shakes the world to the core
everything collapses
you question “is it worth it anymore?”
A cry from the heart
Is sung in twos
As both of you
Realize you had something to lose
A cry from the heart
Is the greatest love song
Written by me to you
I Wish
by The Cowl Editor on December 9, 2021
Portfolio
Mariela Flores ’23
I wish I could float inside the slits you let open
like a seed in a line ready to sink and to grow. I wish I could dive
into your veins and feel your hot blood crash against me.
I want nothing more than to burn from the spark in the shaking of our hands
––to feel the drilling of your rhythm until I only hear––your sounds.
But your body is hollow, echoing my screams.
If I dive into you now, I will fall onto soft bags
filled with proof of a breath, proof of a cleansing, proof
of a thought etched into the ridges of time with no ear nearby.
I cannot float without choking on the colorless
pungent smell of this new you. You reek of wilting petals
and dimming lights from the sky pulling bodies into rest.
As I touch you now, the burn is cold and raw.
I wait for the spark in my hand to thaw you––but you stay frozen.
I press my ear to your chamber hoping to hear
the thumping of some sound. I hate the silence that you leave me.
I wish I could will your soul back into its casing
and feel the pulsing rush of your life embrace me.
But your body is rusted underneath old soft green earth
and there is no more time to wish.
Tiff and Earl
by The Cowl Editor on December 9, 2021
Portfolio
Dear Tiff and Earl,
My roommate and I are having a serious, friendship-breaking fight over something very important: who takes home our precious BOP fish over winter break? How should we determine who has the honor of bringing Mr. Guppy to their wonderful home?
Sincerely,
Certified Fish Parent
Dear Certified Fish Parent,
A wise old chappie named Solomon once faced this very problem. If you are familiar with your Old Testament—wait…you’re a PC student. Who are we kidding? Let me take a leaf out of his book (1 Kings, you putz). Go to your roommate and demand to divide little Mr. Guppy in two, so that you can both have him. Your roommate, unless she’s as crazy as a horse, will readily give up Mr. Guppy for his own good. Now if, on the other hand, she starts hunting for some fish-dividing implement, be prepared to take the fish and run. Either way, you may have won the fish but lost the war. You’ll probably need to find a new roommate.
Cheers!
Tiff
Dear Certified Fish Parent,
You and your roommate evidently both love Mr. Guppy and want the best for him. There’s only one thing to do in a serious situation such as this: let the law decide who his most suitable guardian is. Rulings on grand theft auto and homicide can wait—this is a matter that demands the court’s immediate attention. As long as you don’t have any dogs, cats, or seafood lovers at home, you should have a good chance of being awarded full custody.
Just keep swimming,
Earl
Holiday Listomania
by The Cowl Editor on December 9, 2021
Portfolio
Holiday Miracles That Would Make Me Cry (of Joy)
- Getting an A on every single final
- My plants coming back to life (looking at my succulents…)
- Getting off the waitlist for my classes
- My BOP fish still being alive after break
- Finally getting a stimulus check (to spend on Christmas shopping)
- Colleen coming back to life (fly high queen)
- Getting a response on LinkedIn
- Securing the internship I’m completely underqualified for
- Actually being able to do what I say I can on my resume
- Getting no Friday classes
- Finally shooting my shot with my crush
- Finding the perfect temperature for my room
- Fulfilling all my New Year’s resolutions
- Learning how to cook (finally)
- Finishing my elaborate alternate universe
- Actually being the main character
- Getting Nate Watson to follow me on TikTok