Interview by Alex Waygood, Joanna Engle and Christopher Hill ‘I’m trying to get accommodation, but as a single male I’ve got no chance in hell…’ We meet Angelis in North Oxford. He lets us interrupt his reading to tell us about his experiences… Are from Oxford? No. Liverpool and Italy. But I’ve been down here, […]
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by Zad El Bacha Utopia There have been hundreds of years of rich, positive exchanges between cultures. When a European meets an Arab, they ask them about the patterns on their clothes, the words in their books, the instruments in their songs. The Arab asks them the same. They listen and learn, they answer in […]
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by Tobias Thornes The heat of a long, lingering Louisiana summer simmered still as I made my slow way across the humid wetlands of that southerly state. It’s a country of wide deltas and stretching coastal marshes, a buzzing frontier between the amazing lifeforms of land, sea and sky united in a swampy soup of […]
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by Lizzie Searle Dear Jack, Darling I miss you. It hurts this far away. It’s pleasurable. I know you miss me so much more than I miss you. You’re needy and pathetic and rich. I love you. I love the nights we sing together, huddled on the same piano stool or better still when I […]
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by Alexander Walls Such a phrase, of course, we may not oft hear, Yet what is Eden? What is paradise? We idolise an Arcadian past; We long for a Utopian future. How will any of these dreams come to pass? We must refocus. Clouds block out the light Bringing gloom and dusk. Clouding our vision […]
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by Jenny Potter Smudges of neon watercolour stain The powder blue of the heavens. Towering stems slash at bare shins, Marking pink, criss-crossed fire Across epidermal brickwork. Fields dusted with poisoned petals Glow yellow in the waning sun. Rich greenery shrouds footed clay Leading through lush summer growth To trees of suitability: tall, spindly, straight […]
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by Tacita McCoy-Parkhill
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by Lucy Mellor Hazy sunbeams glide effortlessly through the bay window and seep across the ancient wooden floor. Unashamedly they stream through pure white curtains and gently stir the couple entwined in a large white bed. Slowly coming into the world, comforted by the warm heaviness of being home with no imminent desire to be […]
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by Eleanor Harris The view from the top is never the same, although I know every hold. One of the few things you can rely on in Snowdonia is, perhaps paradoxically, that it will always be changing; and yet, despite the dramatic seasonal changes, the ancient hills are consistently compelling. All year, it is as […]
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by Rebecca Slater All the blues I’ve ever known add up to this – this single perfect blue which is really a thousand blues, bottled up like the beachedblue glass on my mother’s mantelpiece, my father’s bluebuttoned shirt stained from Sunday afternoons painting my brother’s blue-walled bedroom – a boyish bias, ever since that blue […]
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Pdfs of the print version of Issue #15 – Utopia – can be downloaded here: Issue #15 – Utopia Issue #15 – Utopia (‘Stories of Oxford’ insert)
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Eve Finnie’s oil painting, “Kitty and the TV”, was recently announced as the winner to Oriel College’s Gower Memorial Prize. She says, “This is a painting of my little sister (Kitty) doing various activities after school layered over each other from the point of view of the television, which was playing throughout the evening.” You can download […]
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Charlie Willis’ collection of black and white drawings was recently announced as a runner-up of Oriel College’s Gower Memorial Prize. She says, ‘My inspiration for these pictures was the work of Arthur Rackham and traditional European fairytales. In these photographs of my original drawings I wanted to convey a thoughtful stillness and a sense […]
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by Aidan Chivers In the latter part of the 1st C BC, the Emperor Augustus’ obsession with Roman sexual morality was based largely on drawing contrasts between the behaviour of his day and the perceived standards of former times. Seeing moral decline as being in parallel with wider national failings, he linked the greater chastity […]
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Eoin Monaghan [at 4am, on my entering the JCR] – ‘Go back to bed, Alex. The apocalypse has already happened.’ Wesley Rawlings – ‘This is far more than something new. Syphilis would be new for me – doesn’t mean that I want it. The American people have given the White House “the clap”.’ Will Cook […]
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by Emma Gilpin When Thomas More wrote his Utopia in 1516, he described a society that was in many ways the polar opposite to his own, Tudor England. At the time, many critics believed he was writing an instructive text that could be read as a guideline for the improvement of European society. As we […]
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by Christy Callaway-Gale In two separate incidents during the same week, my dad was mistaken for my boyfriend and my mum was mistaken for my grandma, which told me everything I didn’t want to know, yet already knew, about society. This is how a life-changing article on gender norms on the front page of the […]
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by Tom Davy The ceiling splays a fresco for the crowds. The round Sheldonian, Truth lies on high And falls like words of Latin from the clouds Whose black betrays the turquoise of their sky. Time is not ours. So every stroke of brush That paints the ring paints every second too; We find ourselves […]
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by Anna Wawrzonkowska In 1992, Gerard Nolst Trenité, a Dutch academic and linguist, wrote his famous poem: the Chaos. It is, perhaps, the best summary of the helpless confusion any non-native speaker feels when put against the whirling maelstrom of English spelling and pronunciation. Dearest creature in creation Studying English pronunciation, I will teach you […]
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by Emma Gilpin The squares line up evenly and perfectly, forming a beautifully neat grid which I can scroll through, a photographic record of all the best moments of my life from the ages of 15 to 19. Four years of my little life, cherry picked to create a filtered reel of selected highlights. This […]
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by Lizzie Searle I am talking. Silently. I tap the little places on the screen with my thumbs. You’re there when I type, listening in my head. I have finished talking and look into your invisible face. You don’t say anything. You disappear from where you weren’t. I look back at my talking. Childish words […]
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by Lucy Mellor “Is the sky blue?” Said sarcastically – Analogous to “Is the Pope Catholic?” As though the Pope Changes his faith With sunrise And sunset. A mutiny of colours Largely unobserved Hang wistfully Waiting for acceptance Until time’s end – Rendering ordinary Each blue sky And white cloud. It’s getting colder […]
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A pdf of the print version of Issue #14 – Design – can be downloaded here: Issue #14 – Design
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by Tobias Thornes ‘Global warming? There ain’t no such thing! Didn’t y’ hear? That’s just a conspiracy cooked up by the Chinese. An’ the leftists. You’re a leftist, ain’t ye? Now you listen to me, mister. You leave all that clap-trap out o’ here. We’re done with commies, we’re done with Obama, now we’re goanna […]
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by Amanda Higgin Xanda and I sit in armchairs, chatting across a café table as the rain drizzles down the window beside us. The café is humid from drying coats, but we have been here long enough to have warmed up. “I’ve finally gotten into Hamilton,” I offer in a momentary quiet. “Congratulations!” Xanda smiles. […]
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by Alex Waygood
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by Jenny Potter It’s 5:15pm and we’re standing amongst rows of records, reeling in the late-summer-evening humidity and pretending to browse through DVDs. There are perhaps a dozen people scattered throughout the shop in the same state of pretence. Approximately twenty minutes later, Leftwich appears and we form a misshapen semi-circle around the corner where […]
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by Lucy Mellor “Looked in the mirror, I don’t know who I am anymore; The face is familiar, but the eyes, The eyes give it all away” -James, Out to Get You Everything I see touches me, and changes me in a million minute ways and refuses to let me be the same. No matter […]
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by Charlie Willis Michael McManus had a way of doing things. He would get up at six minutes past eight o’clock no matter whether it were a Sunday or his birthday or a cold day in the depths of January. Sometimes, depending on the time of year of course, this meant that he was […]
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A pdf of the print version of Issue #13 – Renewal – can be downloaded here: Issue #13 – Renewal
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by Callista McLaughlin
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by Aidan Chivers As the heat of our idyllic nineteenth summer draws to its close, and gives out its final surge of warmth in a late September burst, it is inevitable that we should gather at the bar which featured so prominently in our last few years of school. Full of excitable, childish memories and […]
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by Tobias Thornes Forgive me if I begin at the end. For the end is near, now: I can feel it in my bones. These my eyes, which looked upon so many of the world’s ancient wonders, have grown dim – like those wonders themselves, which one by one went out, melting like stars before […]
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by Christy Callaway-Gale It’s Sunday. Last Sunday. My entire bedroom is in our car, there’s a bike wheel next to my head and I have that unsettled, excited feeling as spires emerge overhead. Oriel helpers with their colourful t-shirts offer to carry my bags, both my parents cry as they say goodbye to me and […]
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by Tom Davy To the first term’s autumnal fog. Tears tumble off marooned cheeks That peek into new rooms, new curtains, Parted like families. Then there’s the names that fizz Like molecules around the hall, A mahogany pit of reaction After reaction After reaction. We’re all playing potters, Clay bridges between ourselves Form like the […]
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by Emma Gilpin Light Everything about you was light And I felt relief As you reached through the night Your smile so easy Your spirit so blithe You carried me to heaven As my paperweight body Turned suddenly, Joyously light
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The Poor Print 