Literary Magazine

Athena once said, "Everyone needs the gods" (3.48). The goddesses of Ancient Greece drove and structured people's lives. We know this because of Homer's Epic, The Odyssey. The Odyssey follows the king of Ithaca, Odysseus, on his journey home after the Trojan War. With many roadblocks, including ravenous sea monsters, screeching sirens, suitors, and the loss of most of his men, many people help him reach the final destination of returning home, along with saving his wife from

With food deserts on the rise, thirty-three point eight million Americans experienced food insecurity in 2021.  A food desert is an area lacking cheap and healthy food, leading people to take a long time out of their day to find adequate food. The “deserts” impact communities all around our country and affect many people’s lives daily. Food deserts cause a lack of healthy food and many problems like obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Solutions

Pickup, the end of the day. Freedom from the nightmare known as school. I tremble, my hands squeezing the straps of my book bag tight. Nobody could pry my hands off of the dark blue, rough and smooth straps. They were locked in place. My eyes scan the entrance of the building, the bronze brick walls towering over students' heads. Scanning across the clearing one more time to be sure, my eyes detect no threats. No kids, that would hurt. I breathe deeply and push open the glass

“He came up close and [kneeled] gently down… I up at once and smote him on the cheek” (280). Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is a feminist text that encourages women to break out of the one-sided patriarchal bonds and standards that were common during the Middle Ages. Through the character of the Wife of Bath, Chaucer encourages women to develop their personality but to not get full of themselves and fall into the trap of thinking they are more important than men. Chaucer uses the

I remember when we met We never expected to become friends We were so different then And I did not have a single regret Our relationship was small Our conversations were absurd We rarely felt insulted We didn’t hate each other at all Now things are different You were always somewhat cruel Please tell me what I did That turned you indifferent Your words cut deep Deeper than glass And my heart bleeds As I cry myself to sleep I sob because of you Because I remember the friendshi

The airplane landed on the hard tarmac of the airport. As I sat in my seat, anxious to get out of the plane, looking out of the window at the vast Australian climate. The landscape was gorgeous, the golden sunlight lighting up the hills as the native animals flocked freely. Waiting patiently as we drove down the gravel road towards my grandparent’s farm. The smell of the earth was fresh, a smell you could only dream of. My Granny was waiting on the porch, waiting to greet us,

I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota at around 7am with the beating hospital fluorescent light in my face. Doctors scramble to make sure everything is okay, do I weigh more than I’m supposed to? Too little? Is my mom doing okay? I can’t imagine what that was like since after all I couldn’t remember any of it, I had just been born. Sometimes I think about what I was doing when I was little since I can’t remember my memories from before the age of 3 or 4. My mom said I would sp

Puhhk! Puhkk! As college students in the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music briskly walked through the expansive halls, their dress shoes clapped against the porcelain tiles, producing an echoing thunder. Despite bearing towering instrument cases on their meager bodies, they glided through the building with a grace comparable to nature’s songbirds. Watching them as a tiny six-year-old, I could not help but hang my mouth ajar and tilt my head with burning curiosity. Outside the

Budhh– Budhh–Budh! Blood surged into my head from all over my body, leaving a tingling sensation in my arms and legs. I blinked away the moisture that had built up on my eyelashes. In the darkness of the night, cars sped through the streets, weaving through the sea of Metro buses and stopped taxi cabs. People who crowded on the littered concrete walked briskly, navigating the corners and edges of the city. My brother and I stood in the middle of it all like red oak trees in a

“THERE IS ENCHANTMENT in a uniform.” In these words, convicted felon and fraudster Frank. W. Abagnale. Jr. presents the idea that a facade gives a person influence. He discovers such an idea as a nineteen-year-old in the latter half of the twentieth century while impersonating an airline pilot. Living four centuries before Abagnale, Shakespeare expresses a strikingly similar idea in The Tragedy of Macbeth . In his tragedy, Macbeth, a Scottish noble, murders King Duncan of Sco

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” In these words, Oscar Wilde, the esteemed Irish author and poet, expresses that many people in society live in conformity. He expresses an idea that forms a significant component in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake . In Lahiri’s novel, Gogol navigates adolescence and adulthood as a second-generation Bengali immigrant in America along with his family. Lahi

Growing up feels like being wrenched from a dream. One might hold onto the vanishing visions, but reality urges to push you ahead. Childhood, seemingly blissful and filled with wonder, unravels so that rules engulf imagination and certainty replaces curiosity. No one can avoid this transformation, as it will inevitably happen. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland  and Through the Looking Glass , Lewis Carroll captures this shift, crafting a land where nonsense rules and author

Under the shining moonlight in a dark green forest, the sparking embers of a warm fire pierce through the darkness, casting flickering shadows on the faces of those gathered around. The air hums with the low murmur of conversation, the soft clinking of bottles, and the crackling of fire while the scent of roasting meat fills the night. Horses snort softly in the background, their silhouettes blending with the thick forest as if drawn to the moment’s warmth. In the center of t

When the clock reads midnight, pixie dust's glowing colors flutter into the deep, inky sky. Their traces are abruptly gone until the light spreads its wings again, reaching across the stars and staining them with a boom of dyes that are soon left to fall to their demise. Noises of all kinds, the sounds of lips meeting others, kids screaming into the icy air, and adult chatter explode in my ears. I am disconnected from the chaos, liveliness, and energy that surrounds me. Inste

I sway harshly In the cold winter day, Snow showering down violently, Frosted grass silent and frozen Waiting for spring, I hang tight Stretching into nowhere, Longing for light Standing lively and tall, My colors brightening  Against blazing heat like a wall, I’m awaken by the summer air Into the night, Surviving the day, Remaining still Leaves swirling, I lay

Danville, Illinois, is not just another small town in Illinois; it's a place where memories are made, from taking your first steps to...

Rain pounded the glass windows of the speeding train. The soaking landscape outside blurred by as we moved along the tracks. Green fields...

The sky was blue as far as my eye could see, and there was not a smidge of white to tarnish it. It was the kind of day that you would see...

Poems are a way that people can connect with each other. Poems can be used to prove a point or tell a story. However, many poems have...

It was a late night in Berlin in 1923; the factory hadn't been doing well because of the extreme hyperinflation. The factory hasn’t even...