Happy Birthday to Undergrad Journals that Spark Students’ Aspirations

Writing Studies Professor Paul Gibbons co-founded The Vernal Pool ("I just happened to put my shoulder to that wheel," he said.) and is its editorial team's faculty advisor. The journal started as a faculty-run product, shifting to a student-directed editorial team when it became a course: Writing 131B. The Undergraduate Research Journal is Writing 131C. Writing Studies Professor Susan Varnot is the URJ faculty advisor.

Works published in The Vernal Pool's 10 ^th year include:

• The opening of Sakura "Kora" Davis's "I Love You":

"I love you," I whisper in the crisp autumn air. It's twilight currently, the yellows and oranges of the leaves bouncing off the melting sunlight. The sun, a steam of pastels, is dripping into the horizon as a banner to this beautiful day. I finally felt like life could be good, I could feel happiness, I could be loved.

Wrong.

• The description of an old maestro's last performance in Jenson Doan's "Concerto to a Storied Crowd/Solo for a Clouded Screen":

His music was renowned for being as opulent as a fist-sized diamond; as calming as soft waves across sandy beaches; so otherworldly, it must have been crafted from a piece of heaven.

That, however, had never been Layton Hartwell.

If he was anything like a diamond, it was only in his hard and unyielding nature, a product of a child under persistent pressure; if he was waves across a beach, it was only in his wearing away of everything and everyone around him, for none recognized the emotions he brought forth; and even a broken piece of heaven was, in the end, only a broken piece. For the first time and the last, he showed his edges.

• And Vicky Sarabia's poem, "Close Enough":

As if it already wasn't close enough.
I stare and wonder if it was.
The makeup and photoshop.
It never really was.
So why find the need?
It is within the image we weave.
The art.
The figure.
The expression that withers.
So is it me?
Is "close" close enough?
I shouldn't care what I do with my hair.
Soon we'll disappear into thin air.
Why care about the things we shouldn't?
The things we wish we could change but couldn't.
Like they say, self-love is the best love, and I think it's close enough.

At a recent meeting of The Vernal Pool editorial board, the agenda included "BBaD": Bring Back a Decline. Editors put forward for reconsideration submissions turned down for the spring edition (please forgive them for turning "decline" into a noun). A short story and a poem were nominated. There was polite discussion ("It felt derivative." "It has a strong message that speaks to me."). There was a vote.

Both were restored (de-declined, perhaps?) and placed on the docket for the Fall 2024 edition. And so it goes.

"I think about the authors in the first Vernal Pool. What might they think about what we're publishing now?" said Eastman, noting that the latest edition will include video and audio entries. "Where are we going to be in another 10 years?"

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