!e Arts and Humanities Publications Presents

PROPAGANDA Winter 2012

PROPAGANDA

Cover Photo By: Geo!rey Williams

Editor-in-Chief: Kate Je!ordCreative Editor: Ruba Mabad

Managing Academic Editor: Kim Hesas Copy Editor: Meagan Puterman Layout Editor: Stephanie Grella

Propaganda is an annual Arts journal that features poetry, short "ction, photography, artwork, drama, and other creative works from Undergraduate students. All

copyright remains with the authors.

Disclaimer: #e sole responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors. Its con- tent do not re$ect the opinion of the University Students’ Council of

Western University (*USC). #e USC assumes no respon-sibility or liability for any error, inaccuracy, omission, or

comment contained in this publication or for any use that may be made of such information by the reader.

Table of Contents Prose and Poetry4.............................................Forward by Sheila Heti

7.............................................A Life in Rooms

9..............................................by carriers lowered

10...........................................!e Hummingbird

11...........................................Seasonal

12............................................I’m Running

13............................................!e Whims of Rain

15.............................................What the I Said

17.............................................Sunday Drive

21...................Fic-tion [Fik-shuh’n] noun: A Wrecking Ball

25............................................!e Seasons

27.............................................Fortuna

Table of Contents Photography

29....................................................Fall UC

30....................................................Waterdrops

31.................................................... Entwined

32....................................................Winter UC

33.....................................................Geo! Williams

Propaganda 4

Forward By: SHEILA HETI When I started writing more seriously, when I was nine-teen or so, I didn’t want anyone to tell me how to write. I didn’t care what other people said the rules were. I wanted to !gure out how to write by myself. I didn’t trust anyone, not a bit. I didn’t think anyone knew better than I did. So it has been strange be-ing the Writer-in-Residence at Western this year, because I can’t imagine why anyone would come to me for advice. Still, they do, and I sometimes try to give it. I gave advice to one guy, and he returned the next week and showed me his revised story. He had taken my advice and the story was worse. I had to tell him, “You should have known better than to take my advice.”

"ese last ten years, I have looked to my friends and other people for advice on how to live. It never occurred to me until right now that my friends’ advice about my life might no more !t me than my advice !t that guy’s story; that it could make my life worse if I followed their advise.

Part of the reason we make art is to learn from it. "ere’s a lot in common between writ- ing a story and living your own life. "e fundamental thing about both is that you have to trust your instincts. You are the only one who knows what you are capable of, what sort of outcome you most desire, what your life (or the story) is, at root, for. You know what you care most about. You know what gives you pleasure and a sense of vitality – both in writing and in living.

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!e "rst time I felt myself really writing, with true vital-ity, it was when I let myself do ex- actly what I wanted to do. I was writing a scene and I no longer wanted to be writing that scene. So I told myself, “Move on to the next scene! Who cares?” !e “right” thing would have been to continue the scene, but as soon as I said “Who cares?” and moved onto the next scene, I felt a tremendous freedom and the story got really good, and all my writing from that point on got better.

A friend of mine recently brought over a bag of beautiful clothes. It was her gi# to me. She had o$ered to lend them to me for a trip I was taking. I wanted to be wearing new clothes on this trip, but I didn’t want to buy new clothes. I have always admired the way she dresses; how pretty she looks in those "lmy blouses. When I tried on her pants, her dresses, her shirts, looking at myself in the mirror, I felt I looked terrible. !ey "t, but they didn’t %atter or make any sense on my body; not the way my own clothes do.Sometimes it’s hard to accept that no one knows better than you do about things like what career you should pursue; who you should date; where you should live. It’s hard to do things without getting approval from the people you care about; it’s hard to do things when the people around you don’t understand why you’re making certain choices; when it’s tricky to ex- plain it to them; when they think they know best; when what they advise sounds logically true.

When people comes to me with their stories, the only thing I can say with any conviction is: “You have to write way way more than you’re writing.” To be a great writer, it’s not enough to write three stories, or to write stories and to tell yourself they’re good when you know they’re not.

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I wonder what the corollary is with respect to living; how

does one live way way more? Deep down I know the answer (for me), but like the young writer who would rather do any- thing but sit at her computer and be confronted with the blank page, it’s also easier to turn away from the blank page of a future that would be way way more than the life you’re living now, but can only be !lled up once you have the con!dence to decide what should be written upon it.

Sheila Heti is "e University of Western Ontario’s Writer-in-Residence for the 2011- 2012 academic year. She is the author of !ve books including a book of “conversational phi- losophy” called "e Chairs Are Where the People Go, which "e New Yorker chose as one of its Best Books of 2011. She works as Inter-views Editor at "e Believer and her writing has appeared in "e New York Times, n+1, McSweeney’s, Brick, Geist, Maisonneuve, Bookforum, "e Guardian and translated into multiple languag-es. She is the creator of the Trampoline Hall lecture series and the blog "e Metaphysical Poll.

From the author’s website: http://www.sheilaheti.net/

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A Life In Rooms By: Sarah Robbins

It has been said (again and again) !at life is a journey,

It is a road that one must travel.But a road is too straight,

Too "at. Sure there are curves and bumps.

But that’s nothing that a little repaving can’t #x.

So here’s a proposition, Instead, think of life as a room, And in this room are doors.

We make a choice, we open a door, Like a game show,

What’s behind door number three?

Another room with more doors.

Sometimes we stay in a room for a long time When we don’t know where to go.

Other times our stays are short, When we know just what to do next.!ere are rooms with many doors,

Others have but one, Our only choice. And some doors lead us back

To the rooms we have already been, A second chance.

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And that is life, Not the wondrous journey

Or the romantic road. It is endless rooms

With endless doors.

But is that really so mundane? So dull, or unromantic?

When we have the freedom of choice?

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by carriers lowered By: Alex Mason

by the carriers lowered I will be sealed;

kissed and torn in tears apart sides split and sewn up

by the sinews of pulp a stamp placed upon the ends

a!er they have dotted the eyes- shipped abroad now in portaging postage I will be carried on,

one day in deliverance- when a greater knife of horizon

splits the leaves as I am undressed enveloped entire self addressed.

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!e Hummingbird By: Matt Adrian

Wings "itting winds down the

near sitting bark as the

hummingbird shoots through the

spruces in fast spitting

eye slitting stark over

sharpening summer heat

sun.

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Seasonal By: Jesyka Traynor

Sunlight slips through the hands of those with the shopping carts And the girl with the scowl thinks she knew all along

Cause bills and no exercise will come knocking Just like they do every year

Somebody’s abject and somebody’s disillusioned Somebody’s not calculating their potential net worth

And we’re all so tired of this blessed neon What is this problem you think you have Why aren’t you bowing at your blessings

Why aren’t you crying at the feet of a Lord Who’s plastered on your greeting card We are just so angry and we’re starving For a Big Mac or something heartier And we wonder where the day went

!rough the store window We hurt inside and the monster gnaws

Away at all the therapist talk Our vicodin isn’t doing enough

Something more Something more

We look through the aisles of the store But the gleaming "uorescents

Don’t show us what we seek anymore

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I’m Running By Alexie Evans

Tick tock, the clock is turning red, And so is the spill I’ve got to clean up fast. And as she disappears over the horizon,

Horri!ed as she things of the past, "e sun screams to me that time is running out.

And the colours they are fading darker, "e rainbow is a little hazy to see.

My cheeks are painted with salt water,Looking down it’s hard to see my feet. Doesn’t the ocean just adore my face? Fate isn’t cleat or maybe it’s not real,

Happiness is either an illusion or a past-time. Waiting for the sand to fall through the hourglass, I’m running out of rhymes, now maybe that’s !ne.

Once is enough for me to decide, this isn’t what I want. Now leave me be as I try to hold on,

Grasping onto the hand that’s slipping away. He’s turning on me again, causing the sweat to form,

We’re gonna need the watch again, or someone will have to pay. Swimming through this now, it’s hard to see without a blur. And later the secrets will plummet, the lies might even too,

Fallen through what’s worn away in my pocket, in the seams a tear. She doesn’t need to believe in love for an embrace, Maybe truth need not be truth, is that enough to bear?

Stop and rewind, exhaust me from these troubles. Exhaust me from this animation.

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!e Whims of Rain

By: Saleh Radideh

!e raindrops so swi"ly pour with a pace resembling the nature of my inner world, so random and whimsi- cal. Each drop a dream,

each tap a memory, each splash an image. !e shine of the enchant-ing re#ection in the puddles of the sparkling water collecting on the

surface reveals an intriguing sense of the intricate and subtle dy-namics of this world. !e feel of its touch on my skin brings to mind the inner callings of redemption, as if to wash away the darkness of

the past. !e realm of its embrace upon the atmosphere of the world provides the planes on which I cast the boundless capacities of my hopes and dreams. !e delicacy of its stature falls into the chaotic

droplets of unpredictability, representing the in$nite possibilities of countless phenomena engrained within the threads of my percep-tion. Its repetition synchronizes and disassembles thoughts sharing the doom of this quality. !e #uidity of its nature profoundly en-

compasses the scope of good and evil and joins them in this super-nal weep of grief and joy. !e beginning touches of its generosity

o%er a spontaneous moment by which the di%erences of our ideals dissolve and are overlooked with the universal relief of nature’s

cleansing. !e serenade of the rhythmic ripples of their clashing to the surface somehow dictates all the tears of sorrow of the past, as if

to foretell a misfortune approaching.

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!ey narrate the tales of those whose tragedies were swept away under cloaks of fear and expressions of idleness. !ey some-how display in their re"ection the turmoil of passion burn- ing wildly within the depths of our souls. !e sounds of the ripples awaken the true depths of the mysteries this world keeps hidden behind the rays of sunshine. !e waves of its dispersion provide a piercing insight into the ultimate subjectivity of the sceptisim of all concepts currently held in conviction. !e resonation of the "icker- ing of the intuition of its scattered yet harmonious rhythm, di#uses one into an instigating realization not withwords described, but with ecstasy felt.

Propaganda 15

What the I said By: Alessia Iani

!e kosmos has said Yes to me— Yes, and I have said No:

No is easier said than felt, For fevers rage to touch,

And "ght, and drink, and Fuck, and repeat.

And Yes is easier felt than said, For aches break more than knees,

And minds, and hearts, and Souls, and I repeat:

No is easier said than felt.

!e kosmos says Yes to you— !e spoils and lusts before

Us, on platters silver served and Oh! so easy to gobble up,

To swallow a piece and—pupils Dilated—dance into the

Eye of chaos—!ere! !ere you feel the world Saying yes, yes, yes, in

Heaves, and sighs so so# And fuzzy-warm, like

Stupor and pressing bruises.

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And we say No to me, So I say No to all—

No is easier feigned than felt: Crisp clean dress and White hands, and sleek,

Shiny self tidied for a space !at has never said No—

A kosmos that feels the "re Fighting up, up, up, in aPlea bursting out of me

And out of my silent No.

Propaganda 17

A Sunday Drive By: Justine K. Lee

With the windows rolled down, the steady wind pushed against him and he felt fearless. !e wind could push his shirtsleeves back as much as it wanted but no matter what, he would force

himself across the freeway. His hair was slicked tightly to his face and despite the fact that he had shaved that morning, the hairs

were already "nding their way out of his pores. Someone rode up beside him and he could hear rap music blasting through their

windows. He wondered if he would still be able to hear the music if their windows were bulletproof. If someone took a shot at the

car, maybe the resounding bass would shield the bullet before the driver even got hit. Up ahead there were two cars stopped by the

side of the highway. As he approached them, he observed that there were two men and one short brunette woman. Immediate-ly, he could tell that she was sleeping with the stern-looking man on the right, just by the way he was lightly leaning on her car. She wore faded ripped jeans with big gaping holes in the knees. !e jeans looked like they would rip pretty easily. Perhaps when her pants ripped, the tan leather interior of her car would rip too.

His new baby was freshly waxed and lacquered, he had even cleaned out all the take-out containers and beach blankets from

his back seat. Now he only had one more thing le#.

!ey sat in a ravaged garbage bag beside him. !e top of the bag $uttered as he drove but they sat neatly inside, forever still. !ose miniature disproportionate bodies, permanently tan, nylon hair. With one hand on the wheel he picked one out at random with his other hand. Her slenderness melded into his palm and he

could feel every indent and undulation.

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She was a recent catch. She had lasted only brie!y and had been a nurse which he enjoyed taking into consider- ation. Her name was Michelle or something. He knew he had her when they both ordered fries at the same time from the neighbourhood diner. He had commented on the power of coincidences and two seconds later he held her in rapture. Cradling her in his hand now her

blue eyes stared vacantly into his. She had looked so di"er-ent that night than she did now, so di"erent yet really just the

same as the others. If she hadn’t been so generic, maybe he would have kept her around. But one !ick of his wrist and she was gone,

incidental road kill.

As he drove, the garbage bag !ickered pleasingly beside him in the wind. #ey had all come so fast and so easily to him. #eir

oblivion was an added bene$t of course and he relished the moments when they would look long- ingly up at him thinking

there were only two people in the room – they had unknowingly miscounted.

Twisting another free from the bag, he sneered in his mind as he realized just who he had chosen. Jolee, that ignorant bitch.

She had thought that she was the only one. #ey had started o" as friends. Long talks, movie nights, Tetris wars... but platonic

relationships didn’t exist in his world. By the time he had decided he didn’t want to pretend they could be ‘just friends’ anymore, he had wound their sexual tension up so tight that all he had to

do was say the word. She was too attached though, she liked him too much; friendships were never a good idea. When she found out there were others he thought a third world war had started.

She yelled and screamed then collapsed in a corner and all he had had to do was turn and take one last look at her as he walked out the door to know he had done the right thing. It was like she had

evaporated and he made sure it stayed that way; condensation wasn’t his thing. He squeezed her in his $st and hurled her out

the window, disproportionate hips and all.

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He hated the fact that the plastic didn’t cave when he grabbed it – it just stayed in its place, !xated on keeping its shape in his hand.

He wanted to hear the satisfying crunch of a car driving over all of them, "attening them out and dulling those vacant eyes.

He grabbed the next one out of the garbage bag. Took his eyes o# the road just long enough to take her out. He had saved Kayla

for last for he had strung her along the most. Her curly brown tresses tangled around her face. His one-dimensional highschool romance; her kaleidoscopic !rst love. $eir stolen moments from their sepa- rate lives were their essence but their essence was lost from the fact that they had nothing in common. $eir separate lives were just that – separate. He relished the detachment for

in his life, she didn’t exist and no one knew about her. If only he hadn’t forgotten to write the ending. He looked at her again and

sure enough, her heart was gone, for he had stolen it long ago while she was still lying in a crypt of pillows. He had almost been

able to tell her he loved her then as she looked longingly up at him. He had let the idea steep too long, an el- ementary mistake,

so he con!gured his escape. It was always an escape with him; he had le% her before he could begin to realize she might not be

worth losing.

Miscalculations seemed to serve him well but he knew it wouldn’t last. It would only be a matter of time before word spread around, but of course he had planned for this. $e fun part was that he got to reap the bene!ts from seeds he had never sown. Kayla’s plas-

tic hand seemed to cling to his, and as the wind blew, it was like he could feel her pulse too. He dangled his hand out the window and waited until the next gust of wind pulled her away from him, making it look like an accidental separation but with all the pur-

pose of a murder.

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!e rest of them didn’t matter, he took shots into the wind and he thought he heard them gently whistle as they "ew. He took the next exit then entered a small residential neighbourhood. Cruised down a street. Identical houses on every block with

identical pink stucco. !e lawns weren’t manicured but that was probably just as well.

He pulled up into the driveway of a house with pink stucco, parked his car and slowly got out. As he walked towards the

house, the door opened and there she was, waiting for him all along, a perfect still life.

!e garbage bag "uttered in the wind.

Propaganda 21

Fic-tion [!k-shuh’n] noun: A Wrecking Ball

By: Taj Barfoot

Fiction is a drug of sorts. It has a ready capacity to be addicting, and, if you give yourself over to it, it has the ability to derange your life. "ere’s a high to it, a sense of invincibility and

an a#ere$ect of depression with- out it. Nothing is as simple once you’ve had it.

I didn’t kiss a boy until I was fourteen. It seemed I was remiss a rite of passage I needed to go through before my ado-

lescence could progress. "at missing kiss troubled my feminine conversations. I had no story to o$er when friends talked about

boys, and especially not when they talked about sex. With a wide-eyed expression and nervous smile I’d say I hadn’t even

kissed a boy in an I-can’t-believe-it-either tone. "ey’d stare at me in disbelief.

"e day I was kissed I was expecting it would happen. It was a regular weekend venture to the movies with friends, but if that boy only held my hand through one more movie I was sure to give up with a screech of defeat. By that point it was bound to

happen."roughout the !rst half of the movie I stole sneaky sideways glances at him. Nope, not yet, I seemed to have known. Like I had known that that day was the day, I knew I’d recognize the

moment too. He’d likely look at me, then look at my lips, back to my eyes and close his eyelids a little. "ere would be a moment of hesitation, adren- aline-punched anticipation, and then it would

happen. I squirmed in my seat, rubbing my palms against my jeans, every moment it didn’t happen. A lepidopterist would have

been lucky to dissect my stomach. He could’ve started a whole conservatory with its contents.

Propaganda 22

I turned my face a sliver in his direction (to sneak another moment, wondering) and that was all it took. He dove at my face like a seagull a!er its dinner. His tongue, slimy and foreign, was licking and probing the cave of my mouth. Perhaps he was searching for something. Too taken by surprise there was no squirming in my gut, lightness in my head, or last suspenseful moments of being unkissed. He had no lips. Who was this lipless guy? Surely, I would’ve picked some-one with nice lips, a good kisser? But he was try- ing to eat my face. And weren’t his hand supposed to be caressing my neck and the little dimple between my ear and cheek? But his hands lay uselessly upturned in his lap. And wasn’t it supposed to be slow-er? Sex called for hungry, passionate kissing, but plain old kisses were supposed to be slow. And when did it end? If these had been pages of a book, the moment would have trailed o" on some gooey-gushy note, le! for me to imagine the end- ing. Would it be rude to just stop? My relationship with #ction isn’t healthy. I found the #rst taste of its destruction a!er my #rst kiss. I hadn’t seen stars, it was slimier than I cared for, and it le! me hoping I’d never do it again. $e enchantment of #ction got a stronger foothold a!er that when I settled into my #rst relationship. $e bliss of #nally grabbing hold of what would make #ctional scenarios from lit-erature come to life for me – a boyfriend – was new and exciting, untested. However, like my #rst kiss, I was surprised when the initial charm of the #rst relationship – the idea of one – wore o". I faltered, because a protagonist’s story never delved deeper than the temporary perfection, the façade of ethereal permanency. I read more novels featuring love stories with almost tangible kisses and conver- sations that made my insides %utter. What I pined for could be found in novels. $ey contained a lusty energy to feed from, found in the fabrications of fantasies that I could encapsulate and let loose on my own relationship. $e things I could inject on my relationship was limitless so long as I had more inked pages for fuel.

Propaganda 23

It became costly. I could eat through a book in a week, but there was no consumption in moderation. I would read the

backs of books and choose depending on whether or not it told a story I wanted to live. Instead of buy- ing one new novel, I’d buy

four. I couldn’t get through them fast enough; my grip on the energy was slipping, and so was my relationship’s contentment.

Suddenly I needed two plots for every ounce of fuel my relation-ship needed, when before one book had su!ced.My choices have become more selective now. Teen romances no longer cut it and I’ve turned to more explicit novels featuring protagonists with

complex (love) lives. Every now and then I will feel that connec-tion to a character and want to live vicariously through her for a brief moment in the pages yet it’s hardly ever trans- ferable. "is is perhaps because I’m living the plot I was incessantly search-ing for in my youth and it has fallen #at. "e character is there, but the plot and conclusion are not, and neither is my a$ection. In desperation I’ve ransacked bookshelves for whatever will be

most satisfying; whatever will revive a molecule of desire within a desiccated passion so I can hold up my end of the relationship.

*** Sociologists talk about serial monogamists – people who

are addicted to the very real adrenaline, dopa- mine, and sero-tonin a brain secretes in the initial, giddy phase of love or deep

like. It’s true that your body expe- riences a high while these chemicals pump through you – a momentum that allows you to

sustain sleeplessness, where two people can go on together in conversational exploration into the morning. However, the mo-

ment a sense of comfortableness sets in, the serial monogamist is o$ again. Short-term monogamy, if you will.

Propaganda 24

I sometimes wonder if I’m a serial monogamist, and when I do, I never laugh. I consider the question in all seriousness, the way a junkie contemplates how to get his next !x. More. More !ction.

More vicarious hormones of budding lust. A placebo of pretend-ing. If I stop living in pages, in !ction, and start living my own

life seriously, I wonder who I will hurt when I step up to make a life-altering decision?

I need that !xation, the euphoria of strangeness. I tell myself that at some point I’ll have to settle for comfort- able, that going from relationship to relationship can’t work even though it’s the way to sustain love’s high. I tell myself that each relationship will

plateau.I gave myself over to !ction – a drug – that has marred my

expectations. I’ve fallen for the whimsical tingle of love – a drug – that seems to get me every time. "e problem with drugs is

that they distort, and every time a junkie crashes he has to ask, “What’s real?”

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!e Seasons (!is is a pastiche of Derek Mahon’s poem of the same title) By: Amy Higgins

1. In snapshots the perfect family, a summerMade long by sun and sandwiches and cousins On each side, the picnic wall and "owers Taller than your head. Ice-cream dripping sweet and sticky on your tongue. But how do you know !at the

heat wasn’t cloying? !e sandwiches Were sandy and your chatter failed to ease !e elastic and sun-sodden tension Of the long ride home from the beach. !e heavy Silence between driver and pas-

senger seat.

2. !en crisp new shoes as sun gives way to autumn.Homework satis#es, hopscotch sounding through Bon#re air. !e season for giving in, for giving thanks. Forgiving. !e skies are So$ and thick around you as you stumble on Your fawn legs,

stuttering resolutions. !e light grows dim, and the ghosts of your summer come rustling, rest their #ngers popsicle cool Around your neck, nestle deep in your tendons and bones. Something’s

coming. You can feel it in the air.

Propaganda 26

3.Your mistakes accumulate like snowy stacks of paper on a wide

oak desk, your palm circling the frost-covered window, over, then over again. Vice makes you tiny, Dwarves you again and again under pools Of golden streetlight, silhouetted branches Stark against the sky. One by one, the wind Decapitates your

snow angels. Dead robins drop From tree branches. Your throat furs over with Guilt, promises you really thought you’d keep.

4.It’s spring time. Air is cool on your bare legs, !e sins of your "esh laid before you, for All the world to see. !e snow melts,

and falls, and melts again, air tasting of salt and copper pennies. You’re freezing in your t-shirts, sweating through your sweaters. You draw Xs on your hands to remind yourself of your mistakes,

all the ways that you’ve fucked up. You think of going some-where, but the buses are so crowded and all the places are too

many stops away.

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Fortuna By: Alex Carillio-Haley

A!er a delightful meal of crispy noodles, steeped oolong, and oodles of deep-fried lust,

I drum my "ngers on the table, eagerly awaiting my favourite

portion of the meal.

It’s total crap, you smirk, as I crack open the artfully knotted dough

and contemplate the sentence printed on the little white rectangle that falls from the broken cookie.

#ere’s probably a “Fortune Cookie Ltd.” somewhere where people get paid to write

those bullshit sayings you think are so ‘proverbial’

you laugh, stabbing a chicken ball with your chopsticks,

I’ll bet they print the same ten over and over again. #ere’s no such thing as

fortune you say, as bits of balled-up, deep-fried goodness

fall out of your mouth and onto the linoleum $oor.

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I guess I’ll eat yours for you, then, I answer, as I smash yours open.

Glancing at your fortune, I struggle not to laugh.

As you read the seven words of wisdom, your smirk evaporates into the lingering scent of soy sauce and MSGs, and you throw

down your chopsticks and stomp out of the restaurant.I close my hand around the piece of paper that says What you

just ate was notchicken. and continue eating the rest of my cookie.

Propaganda 29

“Fall UC” By: Aruna Vithiananthan

Propaganda 30

“Waterdrops” By: Megan Cook

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“Entwined” By: Sorin Popa

Propaganda 32

“Winter UC”By: Aruna Vithiananthan

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Photograph By: Geoff Williams

Propaganda 34

“Autumn Trees” By: Devin Barnes

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