by Noah S. Adhikari I wish I could go into the future. That would be amazing. I could see when I get my black belt in karate. But the real thing is that someone has said that they have already been in the future and said that I will never get my black belt! Noah […]
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by The Yellow Feathers This is a transcription of an intercepted meeting of the 696th Airborne, the ‘Yellow Feathers’. Triangulation of signals places the location somewhere in the Hall rafters. Little is known about the covert division, although the code names of the commanders have been declassified for public release. The latest intelligence suggests that […]
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by Anonymous Victoria Park: on this site, in 2022, nothing happened. For thirty years, people had gathered at the park in Hong Kong in remembrance of those who died on 4 June 1989, at the hands of a regime that sent its military on its own people. Hong Kong had been the only city in […]
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by Monim Wains Hence, the future beckons, as it always does. With the last issue of this academic year, you move on, dear reader, turning a new page. But, I wonder, how big will the change be? Is the summer just a page break? Or a whole new chapter of life? Although the university seems […]
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by Ada Sevimli I learnt so much about the world around me, primarily that I know so little about it. In classes, seminars, and during revision, I filled a small but precious pool of knowledge and relished in its beauty. Took pride in the fact that it glistened like the foreheads of those who labour […]
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by Joe Lever When Keats had fears that he may cease to be,Alone to night he turned, to shore in thoughtThose thoughts against the nothingness – and heResolved to unhand all he wrote and wrought. Still, he lives on; and now I take his placeIn thinking, fearing, knowing that my beingHere is but an accident […]
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by Siddiq Islam we’ll have a love likeslow indie moviestwo stubborn youths withno cares or duties we’llkiss on the street andlaugh on the bus they’llnot say a word they’llnot bother us we’llsteal mother’s blankets gobeneath them in the library we’llpretend we’re working hard but we’re justgiggling under quietlyyou’ll bake me bowls of pasta andi’ll write […]
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A PDF of the print version of Issue #80 – Future – can be downloaded here.
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by Monim Wains
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by Siddiq Islam People have always sun-swum in the summer,And bathed in broad buttercups under blue skies.People have always been meadow-grass thumbers,And combed with fresh fingers the fields where they lie. Oh, let me go back to those mild, milky meadows,Where life flows with ease, undisrupted and mellow.I’d stretch like a starfish, alone there for […]
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by Monim Wains Finally! My window was bright!My room was filled with glowing light! After months of grey and cloudiness wet,A t-shirt and shorts were a decent bet. So out I came smiling with glee,Everyone blinking and squinting to see. I saw that tourists had filled up the townAnd the river had punts all the […]
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by Noah S. Adhikari Summer is the best … … but!Have you ever thought that summer could be the worst? Meet Jack. He has had the worst summer ever. Here is why: When it was summer, Jack was playing with the water.He caught a cold, and that made him cross. So that’s why he has […]
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by Beary McBearface Beary McBearface, treasured Oriel mascot and JCR staple, is here to help you with your troubles. In this column, Beary will attempt to find solutions to your little college worries; trust him, he’s seen it all. To contact him, all you have to do is send an email to thepoorprint@oriel.ox.ac.uk with the […]
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A PDF of the print version of Issue #79 – Summer – can be downloaded here.
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by Jerric Chong Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is: brethren, to dwell together in unity! Psalm 113:1 As I write this, Sam Ryder has just given the UK our best result in twenty years at the Eurovision Song Contest: a goodly 466 points to finish in second place. The victorious act (most […]
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by Beary McBearface Beary McBearface, treasured Oriel mascot and JCR staple, is here to help you with your troubles. In this column, Beary will attempt to find solutions to your little college worries; trust him, he’s seen it all. To contact him, all you have to do is send an email to thepoorprint@oriel.ox.ac.uk with the […]
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by Monim Wains Silence.No sound, nor light, nor existence at all.The universe idled, in a trance. It wasn’t still, though, not perfectly so,Growing from the tiniest speck to the size of a room, to size of the sky, and space, and time.It was evolving, and changing, and turning, all the while asleep. Because, for all […]
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by Ayomikun Bolaji
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by Anonymous Another day, another sheet, another essay. Not a scoot or whoot in sight – I ponder as I gaze out of my window. A habit I developed since discovering that there is a slight, minute, tiny but VERY CRUCIAL FACT that it is slightly, possibly possible that your atoms can align in such […]
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by Madeline Dougherty ‘Mages! Fica! We have done it! Only the cowardly Elite leaders remain of the Tenebrum army. Today you have fought hard and we have lost many valuable members. Some of you have sacrificed family members, lovers, friends, children. We appreciate the efforts and pain you have endured today and it will be […]
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A PDF of the print version of Issue #78 – Unity – can be downloaded here.
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by Monim Wains ‘Altitude, 200 metres … 100 metres … 50 … 20 … brace for landing.’ The constant hum of the jets got louder, fiercer as we got closer to the ground. Four beams of flame bore down on the land as the starship slowed to almost a hover before dropping for the last […]
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A PDF of the print version of Issue #77 – Memories – can be downloaded here.
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by Samuel Skuse I remember.Under the dwindling light of that fading dayI watched my mother, from the window of the room I shouldn’t be in.No one stops me now. She loved her garden. Nestled in Eden, the nurse of nature nourished.My heart would fill to a millpondto see her gentle hands with such willing carebring life […]
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by Siddiq Islam These are the things that I tend to remember.A soft, supple night with a close, quiet air.A little prince clutched by the light’s final ember.The warm, thick-skinned fingers that comb through his hair.He’s safe from all harm. With her lips she dismissesAll nightmares and vampires with silk forehead kisses,Between which she whispers […]
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by Ayomikun Bolaji
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by Madeline Dougherty I will always remember the day I got in. The frenzied phone call to my mom; the worry I had misunderstood the email; telling my boss that I would be leaving; my family immediately driving 3 hours to celebrate. I remember everyone telling me this would be a formative year, the best […]
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by Hamish Dodd ACROSS 1. Flowers left chess mob sorry to be so moved. (6,8) 9. Art Virgos, somehow high above us, wrote The Rite. (4,10) 10. Allusion changed slightly for deep respect. (9) 11. South Africa after uniform of country. (3) 13. Average day of this season to hear horse-like bullock. (6,7) 17. Genuine […]
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by Ayomikun Bolaji
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by David Maw In his lengthy debate poem Le Jugement dou Roy de Navarre, the poet–composer Guillaume de Machaut related his experience of the Black Death. Celestial portents, earthquakes, and bad weather heralded its coming. It provoked processions of flagellants, conspiracies about poisoned water and air, and the scapegoating of Jews. Its victims suffered bodily […]
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by Monim Wains
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by Siddiq Islam She was the blossom.Her pink, silken smile.And her peach-coloured joy.And her soft, petal style. She was the leavesAnd I couldn’t quite catch her.She dropped in the breezeAnd I just stood and watched her. She was the flowersI mushed in the mud.Her sap ran like tears.And she was the buds. And she was […]
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by Beary McBearface Beary McBearface, treasured Oriel mascot and JCR staple, is here to help you with your troubles. In this column, Beary will attempt to find solutions to your little college worries; trust him, he’s seen it all. To contact him, all you have to do is emailthepoorprint@oriel.ox.ac.uk with the subject line ‘Dear Beary’. […]
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A PDF of the print version of Issue #76 – Spring – can be downloaded here.
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by Nikita Jain
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by Emily Hudson There is a place for you here. Oxford, and Oriel in particular, carries the weight of hundreds of years of tradition and stereotypes, not all of which are favourable, and not all of which have quite faded with the times. This is the message upon which I originally ran for the role […]
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by Joe Lever History 1576: First recorded use of a sign language in England (in which marriage vows were signed by Thomas Tillsye) with accounts of deaf people using signs going back even further to the 15th century 1720: Daniel Defoe publishes The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr Duncan Campbell, Deaf and […]
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by Anonymous I wonder who invented British small talk. ‘How’s it going?’ (I woke up this morning and I felt so anxious I couldn’t get out of bed for an hour and a half and looking at my phone watching it get later and later made it worse because every minute that ticks by is […]
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by Gregory Davidson [Content warning: gun violence, school shootings, death, and suicide. This piece references the Heidelberg University shooting in January 2022.] For me, it began with an anonymous text on a group chat for international students in Heidelberg, Germany. It asked us to stay inside and stay away from the campus on Neuenheimer Feld. […]
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by Siddiq Islam Crouched we areAround sturdy pub woodGloved fingers hugging mugsAnd our laughter steaming up the winter eveningWhen on the ebbing end of a wild winding dialogue of sports and plays and eggs with facesYuv turns to us and tells us he knows how Pythagoras died. The people of Greece angered by the weirdo […]
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The Poor Print 