Last week, my own ever cogent rants against anything that catches my fancy were missing. If you’re reading this now, it means you may have noticed. And if you didn’t notice, you’re probably not reading this one either, so my referencing people like that here seems a bit silly now that I think about it.
In any event, my excuse is simply a migraine that I felt was going to take me out. Fortunately, I managed to get the actual worthwhile content out to the website, so you didn’t miss too much. This week though, we’re back in the saddle, and this marks the first week that I’ve had to hunt down the “Scholarship of the Week” and “AU-Thentic Events” information in years. Fortunately, the previous writer, Barbara Lehtiniemi’s instructions were clear and the links she provided extremely helpful to finding what little information I could. Even though there doesn’t seem to be much going on in the next couple of weeks, it was easy to run down the lists and double-check everything to make sure. That said, as quick and easy as it was, I’d still rather be paying some AUSU member to do it for me. So if you’re an AU undergraduate student (even if you’re just visiting) and you think keeping up with what’s going on at AU might be interesting, why not get in contact with me and make a few bucks while you do so!
This week, we had a student interview with a brand new AU undergraduate planned to go forward, but unfortunately for us, they decided that AU wasn’t quite the fit for them right now, and so asked that we not run it. Which means if you’re wondering why this issue seems a little short at the moment, now you know why.
On another subject, in the past, the Voice Magazine has, infrequently, published poetry from students and regular writers. I’ll be honest, it’s not something I like to judge too much as poetry can be an intensely personal medium, and even the worst writers of it (which very likely includes myself) tend to feel their poems are often sublime entries of emotion and literary talent, and as such can find rejection of what they’ve poured their souls into a debilitating experience. And what’s worse, sometimes it can simply be a mismatch between the writer and myself, so what may objectively be an astounding piece of work hits me like a sodden sock. And the thought that I might reject something like that, just because I’m not on the same vibe as a writer (and, being the cynic I am, that occurs quite often), scares me even more.
But this isn’t just my magazine, and as I have some potential writers that have been asking about poetry as of late, I thought I’d put it to you, the readers. Does the idea of reading poetry from other undergraduate students sound like something that might be of interest? Should I relax my fears and see what talent blooms, even if it means embracing some of the, shall we say, lesser entries? This is a student magazine, after all, so perhaps I should consider things more in the idea of a learning experience, both for would-be poets and myself. If you have any thoughts on the matter, please send them to me at karl@voicemagazine.org. I’m always interested in hearing what your opinions might be.
Of course, if more poetry becomes a regular thing, that may mean I submit you all to some of my own doggerel. You’ve been warned. There once was a woman from Venus…
Enjoy the read!