Do you remember crying at lonely night on the cusp of summer's end? Headphones on ears, he stood on the roof of your red house, barefaced, no blush melting down your mouth. Neither do I, but I imagine your concrete statements of sadness, which he once expressed to me as gentle throbs of color, maybe navy blue, drifting abstract in the crawlspace of your memory. That was Weinberg and Bean and Juniors Sky Tarshis reading their poem inhabiting.
Tarshis currently serves as Helicon's operations manager and treasure. From the Daily Northwestern, I'm Joanne Hader, and this is NUD Classified, a podcast about how wild cats thrive and survive in Northwestern. April showers bring May flowers, but did you know that April was also National Poetry Month? In honor of National Poetry Month, we're sitting down with members of Helicon, Northwestern's Literary and Arts Magazine.
Since 1980, Helicon has published student poetry, prose, photography, and more, making it Northwestern's longest-running literary publication. Weinberg, Jr. Lee Globinger, currently serves as Helicon's editor-in-chief and has been a part of the application since her freshman year. I was very involved in my high school literary magazine, which was coincidentally also called Helicon, as in English Literature major, and as someone who has started to try to get involved in publishing, and that's what I want to do post-graduation.
Being a part of the literary magazine is very much one of the main spaces at Northwestern that you can get involved in publishing literary and arts elements. Helicon publishes twice a year, once in the winter and again in the spring. Northwestern students are welcome to submit content anonymously to the publication. Globinger says that while reviewing submissions for the literary magazine, she's been able to practice her editorial skills.
I've been reading a lot more with an editorial lens lately, which has been very interesting and kind of a fun exercise in creative writing. While Helicon usually publishes poetry and prose, Globinger says publication is open to publishing almost anything. We have staffs dedicated to prose poetry and art, but our definition of art is incredibly broad. We have photos, we have actual drawings, we've had music videos, we encourage any type of art or anything creative that you make in your free time.
Tarsha's began her Helicon journey working with the poetry team last year. Like Globinger, she said she enjoys being in a space with people who have similar interests. I love literature very much, particularly poetry, and it was so wonderful to just sit around and talk about all the amazing student literature that we got. We have such a talented student body truly.
Globinger echoes Tarsha's point of view. This is a place where everyone is just incredibly passionate about what they're doing. If you're looking for somewhere to get inspired from other people's writing or just from being in a community of people who are so entrenched with writing, it's the perfect place to go to. Unlike other publications on Northwestern, Globinger says Helicon has a variety of students from different specialty schools and degree programs.
The great thing about Helicon is the fact that it's a way to be involved in the literary sphere on campus without having to actually take classes on writings. If you're super STEM focused, I myself, when I was largely compsied instead of English, this was my main escape into the literary. It's a space where everyone gets to actually. Express their passion for writing, even if they aren't actively involved in it.
Weinberg's senior in Helicon Poetry editor Natalie Jarrett says she enjoys the interdisciplinary aspect of poetry at the magazine. As a cognitive science and creative writing double major, she's able to incorporate themes she learns in her classes into her poetry. I did a series last year for the poetry sequence where I was focusing on the language loss disease, known as aphasia, and writing a series of poems generated by understanding that disease. Jarrett highlights Helicon's ability to give student poets a platform to share their work with a larger audience.
I think Poetry is also one of the harder literary forms too, especially for younger writers too master. So when you do see a really talented student poet, it's really something to behold. Beyond their biannual literary magazine, Helicon also hosts other events throughout the year, like book clubs, open mic nights, and writing workshops. While the stars at Helicon are busy putting together an annual spring issue of the magazine, Jarrett has a few recommendations for where the daily audience can look for poems during National Poetry Month.
There's so much you can find on social media. There are a lot of poets that joke about how they're way more viral on Twitter than they do with the actual way they publish, like the Academy of American Poets, like Poetry Foundation, all those sites. They post full-length poems and it's really a treat to be able to read that because sometimes you would have to pay for the actual journal in order to have the opportunity to read that. Tarsh is mainly focusing on practicing their writing skills during National Poetry Month this year.
They've been looking into poetry challenges that involve writing a poem a day. I just love poetry so much and recently I've been into picking something very particular to research and sort of funneling all those things I like to write about through that very particular specific topic. I find myself writing a lot about different forms of loss, whether that be literally losing a person or losing some kind of relationship or missing an opportunity. Ultimately, Tarsh is appreciates Helicon not only as a location, but also as a space where it's members to engage with one another.
I've learned that forming a community of writers is really important, not just for the success of the club, but just for everybody's mental well-being too. And also just having a space to sit down and exercise your brain in a creative and analytical way outside of the classroom is really fulfilling. From the Daily Northwestern, I'm Joanne Hainer. Thanks for listening to another episode of NUD Classified.
This episode was reported and produced by me. The audio editor of the Daily Northwestern is Mika Ellison. The digital managing editors are Ayman Doolie and Eric Schmidt, and the editor-in-chief is Alex Perry. Make sure to subscribe to the Daily Northwestern's podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or SoundCloud to hear more episodes like this.