April 18, 2023
Writing
Clyde Kye ’24
Love and Identity: An Analysis of Gatsby and Daisy’s Relationship in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (Honorable Mention)
Arguably, love has defined what may well be the very essence of the human condition since the first glint of sentience sparked within our primitive skulls. What may have begun as a biochemical urge engineered to sustain our species has morphed into an ideal uniquely transcendent of our usually oh-so comfortably digestible worldview. Love, as a concept, remains tantalizingly elusive of our fumbling attempts to grasp at the edges of what appears to be a frustratingly intangible yet ridiculously scientific idea. Reassuring narratives like “it means something different to everyone!” seem to consistently be overridden by an irritatingly conscientious voice inside that compels us to reject such a bite-size simplification and instead hunger for a more gratifying comprehension.
One such definition is presented in none other than F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 classic, The Great Gatsby. Throughout the narrative, Fitzgerald’s depiction of Jay Gatsby evolves as the narrator, Nick Carraway, develops his relationship with him — but by the end of the novel, the reader is left possibly more ambivalent about the character than ever. Fitzgerald’s opinion of Gatsby, love or any other prevalent character or theme is not necessarily overwhelmingly obvious, yet there does appear to be a prevailing assertion. Through his characterization of Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy Buchanan, Fitzgerald seems to suggest that love is selfish — an essentially functional yet not disingenuous means to satisfy our personal visions. Gatsby’s love is an obsession manifested in his devotion to the fulfillment of his “Platonic conception of himself ”, and though not necessarily entirely fabricated, is nevertheless borne of his relentless rampage to first achieve, then return to a certain constructed state of self.
Jay Gatsby is a persona manifested of a young James Gatz’s need to escape his less-than-ideal reality; a fantastically stylized guise that essentially defines the essence of who Gatsby is — a wealthy, embellished, indulgent man of status brought into existence by Gatz’s firm belief in the “unreality of reality.”
Born to “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people”, Carraway describes Gatz as having never “accepted them as his parents at all” (Fitzgerald 98). To compensate for the hand he was dealt, the personality of Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, “sprang from his Platonic conception of himself ” (Fitzgerald 98). To a young Gatz, Jay Gatsby was a feverish fantasy of an infinitely boisterous and extravagant lifestyle — he truly was a “son of God”, purposed by the glory of “vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty” — the garish excitement of which promised endless possibility to a teenager disillusioned by his circumstances (Fitzgerald 99). Every night, he dreamed of “the most grotesque and fantastic conceits” amidst the painfully real reminders of his desperate mortality and poverty as “the clock ticked on the washstand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor” (Fitzgerald 99). Such romantic “fancies” are what defined the essence of Gatsby as an ideal founded firmly on the belief in “the unreality of reality” which promised “that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy’s wing” (Fitzgerald 99). It would take nothing more than his imagination for Gatz to become Gatsby, and it was to this self-conception that “he was faithful to the end,” and it was to this self-conception that he would both consciously and unconsciously devote his life to achieving (Fitzgerald 98).
So, in retrospect, it is hardly surprising that Gatsby came to be so obsessed with Daisy Buchanan. She embodied every aspect of Gatsby’s dream — her lavish, old-money-established wealth and exuberant beauty provided not only the prosperity and status he sought but also promised a dash of excitement and mystery reminiscent of the same “vivid scenes” that populated his adolescent mind that would keep his youth forever. She was perfectly complementary to his self-conception, and therefore would perfectly complete his incarnation of it — and he loved her for it.
In the latter half of the novel, Gatsby recalls meeting her for the first time — “she was the first ‘nice’ girl he had ever known”, having been born into a world quite a few dimensions below her social sphere (Fitzgerald 149). And for this she was “excitingly desirable”, a sentiment expressed perfectly in his description of the first time he visited her home: “he had never been in such a beautiful house before. But what gave it an air of breathless intensity was that Daisy lived there — it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at camp was to him” (Fitzgerald 149). In this memory, he is amazed not by the sumptuous architecture or any of its materialistic features, but rather the ease, the casual nature of Daisy’s living there — what strikes him is not the gorgeousness of the palace, but the effortless grace in which such a palace is but a camp tent to her who calls it her home. It represents a stark contrast from the realities of his upbringing — everything he works so tirelessly to construct, every carefully-spun tale of opulence is so mesmerizingly effortless to her.
And yet even more irresistible to his ravenous desires is an air of the unknown — the alluring whisper that promises even more treasures behind every door: “there was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors, and of romances…fresh and breathing and redolent of this year’s shining motor cars” (Fitzgerald 149). Gatsby is made “overwhelmingly aware” of the excitement, of the indulgent extravagance characteristic of both the newest “shining motor cars” and loving Daisy — and it is from this awareness that his obsession is born (Fitzgerald 150).
She is not a factor in his journey to achieve his self-conception, she is the self-conception. To him, she is not even a means to an end, but rather the end itself — she is everything he has dreamed of his life becoming, the life he believes as a son of God he should have been born into. She is the escape out of the mires of his circumstance — “gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor” (Fitzgerald 150). Through loving her, he could claim his birthright; he could fulfill his every dream and expectation. To him she was a ladder that “mounted to a secret place above the trees” — he knew “he could climb to it, if he climbedalone” and “suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder” (Fitzgerald 110). By kissing her that fateful night under the stars and claiming his love for him and his for hers, his ambitious mind was freed of the divine aspirations that haunted it, and every abstraction was given an overwhelming substance on her “perishable breath” as he seized the “pap of life” at the top of the ladder and completed his “incarnation” — Jay Gatsby, as an ideal, was finally fulfilled through the love of Daisy Buchanan (Fitzgerald 110).
It seems that to Fitzgerald, Gatsby, though by no means an archetype, represents what may be an inherently universal human experience — a testament to the laughable malleability of reality and the concomitantly fabricated nature of any concept of identity or love we deceitfully internalize. Gatsby’s love for Daisy, though functional in essence in achieving his self-conception, is not a conscious falsification of affection. Nor is it pure idealization — in fact, it is as authentic as love can be — he loves everything about her as intensely as he desires his own qualities. James Gatz loved Daisy just as genuinely and as passionately as he loved Jay Gatsby — in his mind, both of them were equally tangible and fantastic in their nature. Though Gatz’s image of Daisy may have been idealized, so was his image of Gatsby — his very identity. To Gatz, the two entities were inseparable — to achieve Gatsby, he needed Daisy — and to obtain Daisy, he needed Gatsby. She eventually stopped meeting his criteria and started becoming his criteria as his obsession with Gatsby as an identity gradually became one with his obsession with Daisy as a romantic pursuit. And if Fitzgerald is saying anything about love, perhaps it is just that. We love as we do all things, in accordance with our self-conception. If our love is in any way disingenuous, it is so in the same way that our identities are disingenuous. Both are equally substantive narratives inseparable from one another. If James Gatz is Jay Gatsby, then Jay Gatsby must love Daisy. How can identity be absolute, but love idealized?
True and False Kings (Honorable Mention)
The panther slinks silently across the sunset savannah, a shadow flitting by the steppe. He’s a blot of vanta black ink spilled on a crepuscular canvas. His soft fur whispers in the breeze as he streams through space, swallowing the twilight like a black hole. Floating in the fluid abyss are two striking lime orbs that shine with piercing intelligence. Their gaze remains gently affixed to the birch antlers peeping above the grass.
His paws tread silently upon the arid soil, his powerful muscles coiling and lengthening meticulously, every fraction of a movement measured and meditated. He slips through the tall blades like a stygian river and sinks into a crouch a few feet from the bank. He waits patiently, dissolved into the dirt, watching from behind as it twitches its nervous head back and forth. Eventually, it relaxes — he sees the antlers lower to the river surface. Through the archway formed by its twig legs, he sees its pink tongue flick out to lap up the water, its tail flicking back and forth in ease.
He streaks through the air like tossed paint.
In an instant, its windpipe is crushed under the impossible weight of his paws. He evenly maintains the gaze of its panicked eyes scrambling for life, his snout silently stoic without so much as a snarl.
————
His coat catches the spilling starlight, and he’s enshrouded in an ethereal blue tint — as if he’s molded from the leaking galaxies overhead. Though he makes his journey across the savannah soundlessly, something draws their attention to him. They each sit hidden in their bushes, their gazes affixed in a fearful yet reverent stupor upon the beast that skulks to his home atop the birch tree, the carcass of their slaughtered brother clutched firmly in his unforgiving jaws.
Yet they feel no sympathy for it. It is not a victim; he is not a murderer. They know there is no place for such things on the savannah, underneath the vast, open space between the ground and the stars, worlds away. He shows them that here, it is only him and them. He makes no noise, no song, no dance or prance or howl. He doesn’t puff his chest, flash his fangs, or strut his feathers —there is no flair, no flamboyance, no pomp or garishness. He simply makes the same trek every day to the creek, to the valley, to the marsh. And every night he returns with another one of their brothers skewered between his fangs. He feels no remorse — and they know it. There is a dignity in his movements, and though vicious, a grace in his actions. Such is the way of the wilderness — he shows them so.
————
The black panther is a majestic beast. He possesses an effortless, natural dignity reminiscent of a king. He does not flaunt or compete, and instead focuses purely on his necessities in the moment — to hunt or mate — and in that quiet humility conveys possibly the most authentic power. A quality we sorely lack. People are loud, boisterous, gaudy. Our accomplishments must be competed for, our victories announced, our wealth and our social life publicized, our egos constantly validated and inflated and justified. We are impatient; we are entitled. We expect everything and we expect it now. We let ourselves get sweeped away in storms of drama, anxieties, celebrities and politics and gossip and this and that and him and her.
The panther remains immune to such petty, petulant behavior. He will wait days and travel miles for a kill. He never expects that prey will be captured every day – in fact, he isn’t bothered with such a silly fabrication as “expectation” at all. He simply hunts. If he catches his prey, he eats. If he doesn’t, he keeps going until he does. He does not dwell in our frivolous constructions. He lives with his paws on the ground, content in every passing moment in his experienced continuity of life, his vision unobscured by fables like time or thought. Meanwhile, we lounge so comfortably on our false throne atop the food chain, looking down upon him and every other untamed, savage beast. We point and laugh at them in their glass cages, blissfully ignorant of just how ridiculously we pale in comparison to the better angels of their nature.
Annie Chian ’24
How to Find Your Way Through 99 Ranch Market (Gold Key)
Swallow your pride.
Step onto the cigarette butt littered curb
Walk past the wrinkle-eyed old man
He squints at you
His jowls puff acrid smoke
Ignore him
Wield your shopping list like a sword.
It’s your ticket in
Your excuse to come back
You traitor.
You can’t even pass the first test
You freeze up when the lady with large glasses greets you
in that language that once
Rolled off your tongue.
Hurry past.
Shields up.
The knobby root vegetables she used to boil:
Lotus root
Daikon radish
Napa cabbage
Rotund tomatoes, sweating in the mist.
Ribbons of bean sprouts.
Bok choy. Variations of them.
Each lacy leaf a different kind of bitter on the back of your throat.
Swallow.
This feels illegal.
Stow the vegetables away in
Those plastic produce bags that she used to take extras of, in case
You needed to store a dripping swimsuit
Or to spit out your gum.
Caution.
Wet floors.
Don’t slip.
Salty pungence tingling in your nose.
Below the jabber in that foreign tongue
Is the pulsing of the fish,
Not so much a sound but a sense.
Slippery.
Imagine:
Aimlessly circling in a tank too small for you wriggling into the space between the others A herd, unknowing Bumping into the glass colliding into the smooth surface that wont give A reminder that you are at the mercy of those shadows above Behind the glass is the truth you dont know
She used to scale them herself, letting each flake
Fall into the sink while you watched, transfixed
By the smell of the sea,
The quickness of her water-wrinkled, blue-veined fingers
Grab a number
Wait your turn
Order to the steel-jawed cashier who obviously doesn’t want to explain the difference
Between a slab of tilapia and a hunk of beltfish
To a girl who doesn’t
Even know
How to speak Chinese.
Him, curtly: “What fish?”
“Uh, that one”
Point vaguely towards the small one balanced in the corner, its eyes already
Glazed over.
Aquamarine light slips off its scales
And scintillates into the water:
Pearly strings.
He weighs it,
Plops it into a bag,
Reaches over the display case of ruby red meats.
In an expanse of aisles, each shelf
Goes on forever,
Filled with familiar but strange characters.
Runes
Each character brings back a piece of her.
She used to interpret them for you, pointing out each characteristic
鸭 – looks like a duck.
You brandish your shopping list
Tofu
Should be simple enough.
Stumble through the aisle where you sobbed
And dug your heels into the linoleum
Asking for Hello Panda.
Wander through the aisle lined with those rice crackers
She packed with lunch
Tofu?
Tofu
Not simple.
You are confronted with a refrigerated display of blocks of tofu
Red packaging
Blue packaging
Green packaging
Fancy tofu
Cheap tofu
You must choose.
Each unfamiliar character looks up at you from the aisle display.
You wish she were here. You wish she could hold you in her arms and whisper that it’s all going to
be alright as she brushes your hair out of your eyes. Wish she could interpret each package and tell you which one is the one she uses.
The details:
When she left,
A piece of you left too
You traitor
You cry
You cry
You can’t get it back
Alex Tang ’23
Farewell (Honorable Mention)
To chasing butterflies under the summer sun.
For my time of carefree childhood is now done.
To racing bikes, recess soccer, and playing by the sea.
For those days of youth are long behind me.
To the icy bite of loneliness, self doubt, and dad.
For I’ve found the family I’ve never had.
To the burns that have left me horribly branded,
For I’ve come out forged stronger and beautifully sanded.
For King and Country (Honorable Mention)
1914 on Christmas Day,
On the western front, the guns died away,
We were lying in mud, on bags of sand,
We heard a German voice from no man’s land,
His tenor voice, so pure and true,
The words were strange but notes we knew
It floated above both living and damned,
That young German voice from no man’s land,
They left their trench and we too left ours,
Despite the wishes of ruling powers,
With chocolates, photos, and bottles of wine,
We forged a rare truce on the front line,
That odd thing of beauty on Christmas day,
With our lives, the next year we’d pay,
As next Christmas eve, the cannons all roared,
And for King and Country, we died in that war.
And though our brothers, we were forced to shell,
The walls built between us crumbled and fell.
Zoë Flint ’25
History’s Hands Divide Us (Honorable Mention)
History is always present with us in the form of our historical self, our historical identity. For me, my historical self, the piece of history that I always carry with me, is my race. In particular, the fact that I am mixed race. I see history follow me in the traditions of both sides of my family and my interactions with them. For example, my mom’s side, my black side, moved during the Great Migration from the family ranch in Oklahoma, to Bakersfield where my grandpa and his 16 siblings split across the California coast and New York, bringing my great grandmother’s tradition of marshmallows in her sweet potato casserole and my great grandfather’s need for a thriving vegetable garden with them. My dad’s side, my white side, has stayed mostly between Maine and Eastern Massachusetts where my great-great-great-great-great grandfather originally stepped off the Mayflower. A few have left, but most stay in their East Coast homes where their traditions consist of skiing, blueberry picking, and annual trips to Naples, Florida.
It was on one of those trips that the differences in the history that is present within my life and the history present within the lives of my father’s family became visible. My aunt and uncle belong to a country club, where the family decided to spend my grandmother’s 75th birthday. The country club is in the heart of Naples, a city that is not notorious for its abundance of diversity. Upon entering the building and our private room, I immediately noticed something. I am the only person of color dining in this country club hall. There are other people of color there, though. There are about 5 black women, cooking pasta for the (old) white patrons and serving them and their white families beverages as part of the pasta buffet experience. I looked to my dad to see if he had noticed this as well, but if he had, he showed no sign. I sat and made constant eye contact with our two black waitresses who seemed as intrigued as me—the single outlier in my very white family.
As someone who has lived in the Bay Area her entire life and has not left it often, I am very used to rich diversity, and serving staff of all races, not just my own. It felt as if I had been brought to a time decades earlier. It was the history I shared with the staff at that club, as a black woman, the history that was present with me throughout that entire dinner at the country club, that set me apart from the rest of my family. It was that shared history that made me feel that separation acutely in a way I hadn’t felt before. My family continued to eat the food served to them by these women and no one seemed to think of commenting on the oddness of the clear racial hierarchy within my aunt and uncle’s country club or give me even a look to show that they were at least aware of my situation.
I was glad, almost, that my mom wasn’t there. As a woman who is very aware of the historical context present within her life, I am sure she would have been unable to keep quiet about the situation. James Baldwin describes history as “a great force,” and it is. It’s a force that was present when those women were hired to be cooks and waitresses and nothing more, that was present when the only white employee hired was the hostess who was the first thing you saw when you opened the door, that was present when I walked through the tables with my family- looking more like the workers than my own relatives, and that was present as I sat awkwardly through my grandmother’s birthday dinner, attracting the stares of the women with the same history as me.
Riley Pan ’24
Necrobia rufipies (Honorable Mention)
The best way to kill a red-legged ham beetle is with a floor pheromone trap. Equipped with 100 multi-species beetle disc lures and an accompanying glue board, this trap is a cemetery with all the headstones erected, waiting for the grave pits to be filled. A clear film covers the trap, such that all may view the sufferance of these creatures and find entertainment in the gauche writhing of their carmine legs. To spot an infestation, look for the pearly-white, silken cocoons that will permeate even the smallest crevices of a wall, filling them the way resin does a cavity. When you’ve determined the source, place the traps 7 feet away for optimal effectiveness. You’ll know the trap has fulfilled its task when charcoal specks litter the glue board. Still, you must watch for larvae. They produce at an alarming rate, laying upwards of a thousand eggs a year; the mothers usher children from womb to earth in numbers most creatures wouldn’t dare to think of. It is this rate of reproduction, and the vastness of their population, that makes this insect such a persistent pest. Once born, the red-legged ham beetle blooms from egg to larva to adult after just a month and burrows into the bones of your home.
Though no larger than a tooth, the beetle’s iridescent body finds its solace in rotting flesh, drawn to the dark odor of ruination. It arrives long before the elegies have been written, jaws cleaving tendon from rigid bone and tumefied skin. Like the timeless gods, untouchable and untamed, like the sturdy trees, roots long enough to wrap around the core of the Earth, and like children so young that they still feed on their mother’s breasts, the red-legged ham beetle does not fear death. Instead, it consumes death itself, bringing corpses to their final resting stage. It peels bodies like tangerines, bone freed from skin, canines sinking into the flesh. Chew. Chew. Chew. Its wings flutter as it bites down, a faint buzzing, a metronome in the distance. The red-legged ham beetle feasts, greedily consuming each morsel. It will eat well tonight.
Like the beetle’s meal, the death of our bodies, the deterioration of muscle and bone, is gory. Our flesh rots from the outside in, eating away at the vessel that has housed us for a lifetime until we are unrecognizable as anything but a pile of bones. Our skin bloats, shifting to a faded purple, our swollen joints protruding from the thick shell. Rust-colored cruor leaks out of our orifices, mouths, ears, and eyes leaking with blood. But, in tearing ourselves apart, we feed ourselves back to the nature that has sheltered us, returning to the Earth the bodies that we have borrowed.
We obsess over death, fearful of its anonymous oblivion and nauseated by its carnage. We lure it into traps covered in clear film, enraptured by the hope we can learn about it, even defeat it. But we are destined to die, to decompose until we are the ground from which flowers grow. We return to the soil we have stood on, we find peace in feeding nature, and trees become tangled in our bones. Death feeding life.
Coco Kliman ’26
A Lollipop Before You Go (Gold Key, Poetry)
i can recall Daddy’s big arms wrap around me after a long day at work
tumbling down the stairs I’d go, stuffed rabbit in my hand
as soon as I heard the raspy rumble of his 1970’s Chevrolet roll into the driveway
i can recall the sweet tang of the cherry lollipop Daddy always had in his pocket
that left my lips raw and red
he never forgets to bring them
i can recall the buttery song of his saxophone seeping through the walls
it sounds like a story with no ending
once he let me touch its golden buttons
it was cold
it was
magical
i can recall the hesitation in his voice
when I asked if he was lonely without her
he was quiet for a minute
“how can I be lonely if I have you?”
he kisses my cheek
he turns off the light
i think
for a long time
i can recall the knot in my stomach
on the first day of Junior High
he grabbed my hand
“go get ‘em”
i smile
i can recall him trying to do my hair
trying to figure out the difference between a comb and a brush
after begging and begging him
to make it look like the braids of all of the pretty girls at school
i laugh looking back
at the photos
i can recall my face, red and swollen over a boy
he opens my door
and sits
next to me
saying nothing
he slides me a cherry lollipop
i feel a little bit better
i can recall the excitement to see him
visiting after a semester
i run over to hug him
his eyes are sad
“i missed you, kiddo.”
me too, daddy
me too
i can recall him in the front row at my graduation
clapping louder than anyone else
tears, happy tears, run down my cheeks
i’ve come so far
i can recall the scream of an animal that came from me
when I got the call
i threw the phone against the wall
i sobbed
i poured myself a glass
tears, heartbroken tears, run down my cheeks
i can recall coming back home
the rooms, once joyful and alive
are silent
i walk through the empty house to my childhood bedroom
and break down when I see
a cherry lollipop
left on my bed
i’m all grown-up now
a husband
two boys
a house anyone would want
daddy would be so proud
to see me this happy
i’d be happy
to see him
at all
i rarely mention him
only when the kids ask about Grandpa
with an extra long pleeeease
one night, tucking my youngest in
he asks me,
“are you lonely without him?”
a tear rolls down my cheek
how can I be lonely if I have you?
Sienna Charvel ’25
growing up (Honorable Mention)
first i wanted to be 8
then, once i was 8, 10 seemed better
once i was 10, 16 seemed right
it was always about tomorrow
today was never enough
being cool meant staying up late and painting my nails
being cool meant not wearing a sweater when i went out and swimming in the sea
being cool meant climbing trees and being able to read
being cool meant being nice
my biggest dream was to go to the moon
i played family and counted my loose teeth
after dinner my brothers and i spent countless hours laughing while we ran away from our only
worry, bath time, which meant playtime was over
wanting to be 8 turned to wanting to be 16 so quickly
and now that I’m 15
those times seem so simple
so serene
i look at photo albums to take me back to those times when my biggest dream was to go to the moon
when i played family and counted my loose teeth
when after dinner my brothers and i spent countless hours laughing while we ran away from our only
worry, bath time, which meant playtime was over
at first growing up was the best thing that could happen
but now i am afraid
being a “teenager” is supposed to mean wanting to wear shorter skirts and smaller shirts
being a “teenager” is supposed to mean wanting to reach for drugs instead of chocolate
being a “teenager” is supposed to mean wanting to be on our phones instead of playing card games
being a “teenager” is supposed to mean thinking it’s uncool to love our families
being a “teenager” is supposed to mean wanting a boyfriend instead of friends
being a “teenager” is supposed to mean needing to count calories instead of memories
being a “teenager” is supposed to mean smiling our tears away
but why?
why is it that i am expected to wear smaller clothes
why is it that drugs are cool
why is it childish to want to play card games
why can’t i love my family
why is it expected for girls to have boyfriends
why do i have to count my calories
and why can’t i show emotion
as a teenager i am not treated like an adult quite yet,
but i am surely not a child
so what am i?
growing up i have been told that time flies
i watched peter pan and didn’t understand why he didn’t want to grow up
and now i get it
Complete List of Winners
Scholastic Art Awards
Honorable Mention
Ella Chang ’23
Glitch – Photography
Joy – Photography
Leaping Angel – Photography
Pink Lady – Photography
Annie Chian ’24
Awakening in Temple Beth Israel – Photography
Gigi Geyer ’23
Tilted Greeting – Photography
T-Nobile – Photography
Ada James ’23
Au Pénombre – Sculpture
Silver Key
Gigi Geyer ’23
Halsman – Photography
The Overpass – Photography
Twos – Photography
Talia Tom ’23
Zosia – Drawing & Illustration
Gold Key
Ella Chang ’23
Trapped Light – Photography
Gigi Geyer ’23
Chess – Photography
In Passing – Photography
The Architect– Photography
Under Construction – Photography
Ziyang Liu ’24
Under the Surface – Photography
Scholastic Writing Awards
Honorable Mention
Sienna Charvel ’25
Growing Up – Poetry
Annie Chian ’24
On We the People / Chrome – Poetry
Zoe Flint ’25
History’s Hands Divide Us – Personal Essay
Regina Flores ’24
Baluartes fallidos – Personal Essay
Coco Kliman ’26
Solus – Poetry
Clyde Kye ’24
True and False Kings – Journalism
Love and Identity: An Analysis of Gatsby and Daisy’s Relationshipin F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby – Critical Essay
Daniel Lee ’23
The Great Gatsby and the Grand Glass: Two Windows into our Moral Conscience – Critical Essay
Ingrid Lu ’24
Laolao – Personal Essay
Thomas Paige ’24
A Father and His Son – Personal Essay
Riley Pan ’24
Necrobia rufipies – Personal Essay
Kendall Rhee ’24
Sleeping Sky – Poetry
Alex Tang ’23
Farewell – Poetry
For King and Country – Poetry
Nicole Teh ’23
A New Pair of Glasses – Personal Essay
Silver Key
Sophie Alijani ’24
Fitting Into the Flock – Personal Essay and Memoir
Tallulah Bates ’25
Anybody want a cuppa? – Personal Essay and Memoir
Lain Biles ’24
To Be a Child Again – Personal Essay and Memoir
Ella Chen ’23
It Blossoms – Short Story
Annie Chian ’24
How to Catch a Dream / Milk / Gaea – Personal Essay and Memoir
Suffocating – Poetry
Daisy Gemberling ’25
Grounded – Poetry
Shelby Kernisant ’23
The War for McWilliston Theatre – Short Story
Coco Kliman ’26
Half Sister, Half Gone – Personal Essay and Memoir
Ingrid Lu ’24
When I was Nothing but a Thought – Poetry
Ember McMullen ’25
Power and Sexuality in The Great Gatsby – Critical Essay
Jasmine Palekar ’24
The Crow – Critical Essay
Kyle Park ’24
Doorframe – Short Story
Enrique Perez ’24
Cycles – Personal Essay and Memoir
Kendall Rhee ’24
365 Visits – Poetry
Becoming – Poetry
Everest Schipper ’24
Seperation – Critical Essay
Oona Summerford-Ng ’24
It’s Not “Okay” – Personal Essay and Memoir
Gold Key
Addie Bracher ’25
My Most Prized Possession – Personal Essay and Memoir
Annie Chian ’24
How to Find Your Way Through 99 Ranch Market – Poetry
Phillip Choi ’26
The Pen and the Pencils – Short Story
Claire Clark ’24
A Hollow Man: The Trivial Passions of Jay Gatsby – Critical Essay
Josie Frazer ’24
Flying with Three Feet on the Ground – Personal Essay
Noor Harwell ’24
The Virginia Opossum – Short Story
Shelby Kernisant
The Main Character(‘s Best Friend) – Short Story
Coco Kliman ’26
A Lollipop Before You Go – Poetry
Ryan Lee ’24
Home – Poetry
Seb Sutch ’24
Land of the Title-less, Home of the Alcoholic: Understanding the Unconstitutional Subjugation of Modern Native America – Critical Essay