June’s largest-ever edition includes creative writing, fine art and photography
By Alison Rooney
Insight magazine, Haldane’s literary publication, includes student photography and artwork along with written work in multiple genres. Advised by Haldane English teacher Eric Richter and operated as an extra-curricular club usually meeting once every other week after school, the publication is staffed, edited and more or less created by students, many of whom have taken or are taking Richter’s creative writing elective class.
A PDF of the full magazine, including the cover, designed by just-graduated senior Shauna Ricketts, can be downloaded here.
In speaking of this year’s edition, Richter notes:
The first Insight was published in 1984. I never cease to be amazed by the creative talent of our students at Haldane. Advising the staff of Insight since I started teaching at Haldane over 30 years ago has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my teaching career. The work of our student writers and artists inspires me as a teacher year in and year out. This year is no exception. In fact this year’s edition is one of the best, if not the best, our students have ever produced. The contrasting tone of these two poems conveys the range of the work in the magazine.
Here is a sample of the work from the most recent issue:
I Dream In Vapor
By Alice Flanagan (who will be entering her sophomore year in the fall)
I dream in vapor
Since you left me
In my head you look just like
A clouded mirror, like the steam from the kettle,
The fog sitting low on the mountains
And dancing off the pond
When the first light of morning
Begins to warm the air.
But in actuality you are the
Puff out of grandfather’s cigar
And I see you rising steady
From the flame,
Choking my lungs
So that I cannot even speak Your name.
You hang stagnant in the
Smog and I think I can
See you shadow like
Maybe you never
Left at all,
Like maybe you
Will still be waiting for me
To take your hand
And lead you home.
They who say the hardest thing
Is holding water in your
Cupped hands,
Clearly have never tried
To Love a
clouds
GHOSTFACE KILLAH eats a Pesto Sandwich
By Cameron Henderson (who will be a senior in the fall)
I felt like thinking but my thought funds just keep sinking
Solipsistic brokers ripped me off for every blinking
Neuron in my cloudbank.
I wish I could pay off favors with bitcoin.
Maybe I could rap a bit more like John Burgoyne
And fill the broken spaces with dirty laundry loins.
And perhaps I’ll even convince myself I have free will
And tell all my relatives that I got mad skills.
Buzzkill!
You couldn’t ride a beat if it was strapped onto your feet, sonny.
I’ll take my milk tea with a little more honey.
I’m a broken mirror.
Relatively objective and absolutely objected to
Abject objectivism.
I’m a pragmatist,
And I’ll buy your car,
And your tickets to Coachella when your income becomes sub-par.
I met a man named Heisenberg, but he didn’t wear a porkpie hat,
And I can’t be certain but I think he killed Schrodinger’s cat.
I dreamed there was a door last night,
I dreamed about your floor last night,
And I dreamed that you were broke last night,
Took out a bank loan in my sleep.
