by Luke Sheridan. An account of a journey. As written at the time and unaltered. Meandering plains, gently drawn pillows of silt that at times abruptly swing into a valley as sand dunes but which tend to converge between mountains to push the water into rapids. The beginning of this journey is permeated by the […]
Read more
Interview by Alex Waygood, Joanna Engle and Christopher Hill “If I had their money, I’d buy an island and sit on it all day! David Lloyd George, beloved amongst Oriel joggers, sits on a bench in the Christ Church meadows. We ask if he has time for a chat… Go for it! Are you from […]
Read more
Interview by Alex Waygood, Joanna Engle and Christopher Hill ‘Boredom motivates me…’ Carol works on Cornmarket Street selling hats, scarves and her artwork. It’s a busy Saturday afternoon and the streets are full, but she says she has time to talk to us. You’ve got some great artwork you’re doing here. It’s what I do. […]
Read more
Interview by Alex Waygood, Joanna Engle and Christopher Hill ‘They’re horrible people, where I come from…’ There’s a man playing an electric keyboard on Cornmarket Street. He introduces himself: ‘Darren Potter, as in Harry Potter’. Music is Darren’s life. He bought his keyboard in a charity shop, and has been teaching himself to play; we […]
Read more
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, […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
by Tacita McCoy-Parkhill
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
Pdfs of the print version of Issue #15 – Utopia – can be downloaded here: Issue #15 – Utopia Issue #15 – Utopia (‘Stories of Oxford’ insert)
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
The Poor Print 