Entering into its fourth year of existence, the student-run arts festival Pankumenta is a longstanding tradition for Bard College Berlin students, alumni, and faculty alike. The annual festival has become a staple in the Spring semester for the university community and for young artists around Berlin, and it has grown in popularity with each passing
The Fire That Never Went Out
She sits by the smouldering tarp, kicking a rock with her dusty boot. Cinder and coals smolder perpetually. The sun is stingingly bright. You can taste the heat. She used to go down to the sea, to cool off, to bathe, to feel weightless. She’d go at night with her cousin, Zadi. When the sea
Speaking Eryngos
The sea burning, the heads of blued Thistles nodding now, You are drift Ing across the dry grassy Field of perception. Above me, Humming with the Softness of hands in mud, Words wing and land, Clutching the branch of hope That this is finally a sign. The ache between the dunes, tilted Towards
Exploring Queer Experience: Shame, Pride, and Liberation
“Why do you have to make your whole life about being gay? Like, WE GET IT. Not everything in life is about who you want to date. Maybe people would accept it if you didn’t make it your new personality.” That’s the Instagram message I received from a cis gay man after I had confronted
Sin Miedo, Without Fear
(translated from Spanish) From far away I hear their songs and their screams The ground rumbles Charged by restless spirits Tired of making themselves small To fit into lines drawn to cage us We all hear it from birth and learn it as children The life lessons all women must know calladita te ves más
Why Did You Twist Me Up?
Was the Moon A witness Or an accomplice? I can’t tell But, Both times It was there Sleepless Swollen eye An overripe orange That I mistook For the sun Why did you twist me up? I ask the staring eye Who, Clutching every reply Doubts to confide Even a hiccup Hollow Pulp-less fruit With
That Moment
Film tapes turned to ashes Bare feet on the shore, unable to walk The tied ropes that suffocate me Holding you tight while you slip off My naked ego goes to its knees Carrying the stale bitterness of crying too much Will I wake up from this nightmare again? Will I remove all the blades
Foreign Plants Grow Between My Toes
I couldn’t name a sparrow from a line-up of birds nor tell you what the ants dancing in my summer yard do after dark or before it or during I couldn’t confess which flowers bloom forth from my soul today—I’d have to look them up. Most of the Romantics are lost on me;