The Poor Print

Issue #24 – Memory

A pdf of the print version of Issue #24 – Shift – can be downloaded here: Issue #24 – Memory

by Josh Cottell ‘Music can shine light into places where nothing else can reach.’ James Rhodes seems to sum up my thoughts exactly. A pianist by profession, his 2014 autobiography describes his journey through an abusive childhood leading to a tough relationship with mental health. His journey is certainly an inspiration to anyone, yet it […]

Artwork, Comic

Sighs

by Joe Gardiner A brief look into the images that burn into the retina from prolonged exposure to Oxford. Detailed from top to bottom are: -My daily walk to the Maths institute for a morning lecture -The weekly walk back from Oxford University CompSoc at some silly time in the morning, having stayed down at […]

Humour, Prose

Why People Should Not Go On The Grass

by Patrick Hegarty-Morrish We have little left to remember of this city of aquatint. Its morning mists, grey springtime, the rare summer’s day, fleeting like a lovebird’s escape between hedgerows; wafts of pheasant roasting over her gables and cupolas, through cloister and quadrangle, carried to the dreaming student on a weightless breeze to displace smells […]

Music

Memory

An original composition for piano, by Chris Hill. Download the score here

Comment, Culture, Prose

Gaps

by Amanda Higgin On the last day of Summer Eights, Oriel’s first crew walks away from the river exhausted and a little disappointed. A couple of promising bumps in the first races were followed by a few uneventful row-overs, leaving them the fourth boat on the river. Close enough to take the headship next year, […]

Creative Writing, Diary, Prose

Romorantin

by Aidan Chivers The air around me is calm and still as I wake up, but if I keep my eyes closed and breathe slowly, I can still hear the fading echoes of church bells, morning lectures and Latin grace. They have not vanished, but are softly receding into old, fading patterns which hold glimpses […]

Poetry

‘Circle’

by Tom Saer We saw her near The empty drain She’d lost her pieces In the rain Her ankles wept In morning’s earth She went to sleep In beetles’ birth The flies are here Their tethers sink They filled their cups She did not blink To celebrate We found a wreath Its whispers made A […]

Culture, Prose, Reviews

The Lieutenant of Inishmore: A Preview

by Teofil Camarasu Upon arriving to watch a dress rehearsal of the The Lieutenant of Inishmore, I was told that I would be watching the first run of the show with genuine fake blood (until then they had used water instead). The first row of seats had provisionally been designated a splash-zone, and was covered in […]

Poetry

‘Doubt’st Thou the Stars Are Fire?’

by Caroline Ball Those waxen wings Born of a father’s best-laid plans Weaving some ethereal scheme From an old man’s foolery And you – Borne aloft on fragile fancies Revelling in your flight Your freedom As kingdoms and cities and mountains and oceans and temples and tombs Pass beneath you Sky-born Godlike In the twinkling […]

Poetry

‘Gravity Gone’

by Joel Fraser We beat in time to a rhythmical pulse Attracted to permanence, after all Yet in time will come a rhyme that rings false And the well-built walls of life start to fall Gravity gone, I simply dissipate Innate need for form, now unsatisfied Ground yourselves, cling on, avoid what awaits With gravity […]

Comic

The Adventures of Gravity-Man

by Joe Gardiner

Creative Writing, Prose

It All Drops Down

by Peter Pencewing What you are about to read is absolutely true and, although it happened to me, it could just as easily have happened to you. You see, last weekend – after a frightfully fearsome week spent in the Bodleian cramming for an essay due at the precise time of 2:37 p.m. on Friday […]

Print issues

Issue #23 – Gravity

A pdf of the print version of Issue #23 – Gravity – can be downloaded here: Issue #23 – Gravity

Poetry

‘untitled’

by Tom Saer the spider tells me with the bulb in his hand I am weaker the dust tells me with her tired eyes I am older the jackal tells me with his little finger I am thinner the little knife tells me with her little blade I am worse I tell you mother […]

Poetry

‘Grounded in Reality’

by Alexander Walls Grounded in reality we must be. There is scant point in looking to the stars, To the heavens above, no, we must see Only the ground beneath our feet. It mars Us, that constant force of optimism Which can propel us, call us to action, But this never-ending altruism Can lead to […]

Poetry

‘As Clear Blue Symbols Dance Before My Eyes’

by Aidan Chivers As clear blue symbols dance before my eyes, And I lie still, my head upon the ground, Each part of me, in dappled sunshine crowned, Wants formal shape in selfish compromise, And hides itself in Nature’s rich disguise – I watch my youthful fragments form a mound Of […]

Comment, Diary, Prose

Slow Travel: Inter-Railing

by Tobias Thornes ‘Hotel,’ said the border official, pointing to the place I’d left blank on the form. I must have looked conspicuously European as I waited amidst the queues of Malaysians to cross into Thailand, for almost at once he had come and beckoned me into a side office. Britons, as I knew, did […]

News, Prose

Oriel News: Issue #23

by Alex Waygood. I read the minutes, so you don’t have to. Welcome to ‘Oriel News’, The Poor Print’s new fortnightly roundup of everything big that’s going down in college. As the rust has been scraped from the gears of the Oxford machine and Oriel life has restarted, students could be forgiven for thinking that it […]

Prose

When the Sugar Hits the Fan

by Amanda Higgin Xanda and I sit at a coffee-shop table, making towers out of sugar cubes. I’ve lost two rounds, Xanda’s lost one and we’re currently drawing with four-high towers. Then, as she carefully places the fifth piece on her stack, it wobbles and scatters across the table. ‘A-ha!’ I laugh maniacally. ‘Things fall […]

Music

Gravity

An original composition for piano, by Chris Hill. Download the score here.

Poetry

‘Collapse’

by Shay Vera-Cruz It has a sound: the wide solitude of gravity in the breath between one star & the next. imagine suns, scarce […]

Prose

Why We Fall

by Michael Angerer In the beginning was the Fall: drawn down by the implacable forces of nature, down tumbled the apple and down tumbled humanity, Adam, Eve, Newton and all. Ever since, we have looked upwards in expectation of that which is beyond and above our mundane existence: divine inspiration, the fire of Mount Olympus, […]

Poetry

‘Hollywood’

by Tom Davy Simmonds is on the stage for Whiplash, a film about drumming and abuse. The academy is giving him a thing which entails the usual sing song about the wife and the crew and sometimes the kids and some trite account of charity and, in the same breath, Hollywood fondlers with some charming […]

Prose

Where Will the Time Go?

by Michael Angerer Change is best seen in hindsight. We may sometimes foresee, forewarn and foresuffer all, but the truth is that Tiresias was very much an isolated case; people seldom look forward and say: ‘How time will fly!’ We cannot even hold to the now, the here, because the future does not plunge perceptibly […]

Print issues

Issue #22 – Shift

A pdf of the print version of Issue #22 – Shift – can be downloaded here: Issue #22 – Shift

Artwork

Logo 2017-2018

by Alex Waygood. Mixed media: pen and pencil on paper.

Poetry

‘Persephone’

by Caroline Ball Pomegranate seeds Are turning the leaves to red Again, my dear one.

Poetry

‘Patience in an Eternity of Change’

by Alexander Walls Change: our somehow, sometime, supine constant. A force as old and great as time itself, A force to turn our worn out world, a force Which can ne’er be avoided, nor need be. For though we strive to conserve what matters, Change itself cares not what’s left in tatters. The tree which […]

Artwork

Editors 2016-2018

by Joe Gardiner: an MS Paint sketch of the two Executive Editors from 2016-17, and the three taking over the role in 2017-18. Left to right: Christopher Hill, Joanna Engle, Tom Davy, Aidan Chivers, Alex Waygood.

Prose

What’s New About Fake News?

by Teofil Camarasu We have a fake news problem. Every week sees a new slew of articles on the ongoing epidemic. Some report on its destructive spread as it conquers country after country, swinging elections and referenda on its way, all the while heralding the start of a new Post-Truth era. Others prescribe remedies to […]

Poetry

‘Traces’

by Aidan Chivers As I awake in strange and foreign bed And on my face French sunlight gently falls, I look for my own room around my head But find myself between uncertain walls. My eyes, in earnest, dart around and seek With puzzlement a trace of something known – They chance upon some words […]

Prose

Tea and Obstinacy

by Amanda Higgin Xanda and I sit in my new room in college, catching up on our vacations while the kettle boils. We both agree that the increase in floor space is nice, but my view has downgraded from the cherry tree outside St Mary’s to the college’s exterior wall, with its brick patchwork of […]

Comment, Diary, Prose

Slow Travel: Re-Orient

by Tobias Thornes I have now, in the course of some twenty-one instalments, related to you most of the adventures that awaited me on setting out, so many years ago now it seems like another Age, in the spring of 2018 on my long journey of Slow Travel. Many miles I ventured by foot or […]

Prose

Shifting Languages

by Emma Gilpin Shifting from one language to another feels strange. It feels almost like I have more than one personality, as if there is a strange sort of discord between my English and German speaking selves. I have always loved words, which is why I chose to study languages in the first place. But, […]

Poetry

‘Dwindling’

by Tom Saer Now I’m ready to remember All those times in which we thought We’d never see the light of day My brothers, wrong we were to feel That we’d forgotten what she taught Now don’t be shy Do we know how best to reel the fish in From the northern sky? In the […]

Diary, Prose

What Happens on Tour…

A diary from Oriel Choir Tour 2017, by Alex Waygood. Featured image supplied by Matthew Hull. Tuesday, 27 June Far too early Wake up. Persuade myself that, yes, I did need to set the alarm this early. Lie in wait outside the bathroom so I can use the shower. There’s a queue – Lizzie kindly […]

Artwork, Photography, Poetry

‘The Tree in Third Quad’

Poetry and Photography by Christopher Hill I wonder about the tree in third quad. I wonder how many students have seen it grow. How many fresh-from-school students. How many just-back-from-Chequers students. How many off-to-first-lecture students. How many starting-to-miss-home students. How many new-term-new-me students. How many just-five-more-minutes students. How many rushing-off-to-lecture students. How many swatting-for-next-collections students. […]

Poetry

‘Passage’

by Tom Davy I sit with a bear on a sofa. He tells me of his troubles; The drunkards who stormed in at night Just some months ago: asking for toast, Sipping at tea. ‘None for me, of course’, Or so I’d imagine he’d say In his supine, wordless way. In truth, I was one […]

Interview, Prose

Dr Allan Chapman: The Growth of Science

by Lucy Mellor Dr Allan Chapman FRAS is a fellow of Wadham College and member of the Oxford University History Faculty, where he specialises in teaching the history of science. He lectures at many institutions across the country, has presented numerous television programmes, and written several popular books. A fascinating man with an unrivalled knowledge […]