Issue Eight Contest: Hips
According to Merriam-Webster, “hip” means not only to be “aware or appreciative of something” but also “to make aware, tell, or inform.” Both the secret and the secret-teller lie within hips, and as we know from Shakira’s omnipresent words, “hips don’t lie.”
Or, perhaps the secret and secret-teller lie between rather than within, with hips equated to sex, gender, and sexuality (in every sense of the word), swaying and sticking into the world, encompassing “all the attraction, the tension.” Another song released two years after “Hips Don’t Lie” asks listeners to “talk with your hips,” instead of saying any words they might regret or otherwise not mean.
But what, precisely, are hips saying? What is the “perfection” Shakira invokes? And how do we balance both disclosing a secret and still appreciating it, the crimes and the calm loves that can both stem from vulnerability, without shame, especially in regards to the complicated connotations of hips?
For this contest, we will be prioritizing work about sex, sexuality, gender, reproduction, reproductive illness, sexual violence, and other related or intersecting topics that seek to fully explore hips—what they say, who’s making them say it, who they’re saying it for. Give us the gritty truth, the deeper analysis of society and self and personhood. Don’t lie, and show us what’s between.
Between the contest announcement and deadline, interpretations of hips by our staff launched in our “Articles” section. Read our blog correspondent Ottavia’s prompts here and a personal essay from our editor-in-chief Courtney here.
Read our final letter on the Hips Contest here.
Read the winners here:
First Place: “Bearing” by Miranda Sun
Second Place: “I’d Like to Think I Was in Gymnastics for a Reason” by Madison Lazenby
Honorable Mention: “Carnis” by Maya Wright
Honorable Mention: “moments and miles” by Magdalena Kamphausen
Honorable Mention: “Coding Bodies and Hip Size” by Danielle Amir-Lobel
Issue Five Contest: Ribs
In her song “Ribs,” Lorde makes us imagine “laughing ’til our ribs get tough.” She conjures images of giggling through childhood and simultaneously knowing childhood’s end is coming. She means the loss of innocence that comes with age and our knowledge of that loss even before we reach it. But her image also conjures a visceral memory of the times we have laughed hard enough that our ribs feel tough, when our stomachs began to ache and hurt because of our happiness, when too much of a good thing turned into a mistake or even a nightmare.
Ribs are cages—we get trapped by what they do and what they don’t allow us to do. Because we let them confine us, they also protect us: they keep our hearts and lungs safe. When they break, whether by our own hand or someone else’s, we often end up in the hospital, plagued by illness and injury. In mythology, their removal can create and destroy realms. Adam’s rib becomes Eve, who plunges humankind out of Eden and into sin and suffering—arguably for worse, arguably for better. Heh, the Egyptian god of timelessness and shapelessness, appeared in paintings holding palm ribs, which were used in temples to mark the passage of time. When the Babylonian goddess Tiamet was split in half in battle, heaven and earth were fashioned from her ribs.
Ribs can resemble emptiness, as in the case of ribs poking through skin in times of famine. They can also resemble excess, as in the case of messy barbecue ribs that symbolize American gluttony and luxury. They can refer to the skeleton of a person, of a ship, of a violin, or of an insect’s wing. They can be literal or metaphorical, real or imagined, both what they are and what they are not simultaneously.
For this contest, we are looking for pieces based off ribs. Break off a bone from your ribcage, throw it into the wind, and write about whatever facet of ribs the organ between your ribs brings you to. Whether you choose to make us laugh, cry, punch a wall, or walk dazed through our city’s streets depends only on you—and if you can make us feel your words in our bones and ribs, all the better.
Read our final letter on the Ribs Contest here.
Read the winners here:
First place: “Dental formula: I:C:P:M = 2:1:2:3” by Lamia
Second place: “an over-exaggerated metaphor about the pain of healing” by Lucy Pekovich
Honorable Mention: “the elephant on my ribcage” by Magdalena Kamphausen
Honorable Mention: “the storm” by Sage Walton
Honorable Mention: “Skeleton Boy” by Levi Welch
Issue Three Contest: Lungs
Inhale. Exhale. Though our lungs sustain us at every moment, we often forget how hard they’re working. Physically, they supply us with what we need (oxygen) and remove what stifles us (carbon dioxide). Emotionally, deep breathing kicks on the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms us and quiets our anxieties.
The state of our lungs reflects back onto us and our own behaviors. The stronger and healthier that they are, or that we perceive them to be, the more willing we are to deeply breathe in the unfamiliar across all spheres of our life. We take a deep breath before we step onto the stage for a performance; we take a deep breath before we cliff-dive into the ocean; we take a deep breath before saying something heated to someone we care about. However, when our lungs are weak and unhealthy, our inability to rid ourselves of waste suffocates us, and our feelings of confinement lock us into a cycle we get easily stuck in.
As we look forward to the new year, we imagine ourselves leaving behind the negativity of our pasts and embarking on new, more exciting adventures. We imagine becoming the people we’ve always wanted to be and having the lives we’ve always wanted to live. Right as the ball drops, we scream at the top of our lungs, christening the unknown 365 days in front of us. Screaming at the top of our lungs could mean happiness, or it could mean terror. It could mean both: though growth can lead us to immense personal achievement and satisfaction, it is rarely easy.
With this metaphor of the lungs in mind, write about growth and progress. Feel free to interpret the prompt as loosely or as strictly as you can. We ask only that you take a deep breath, feel your lungs inflate, and write.
Read our final letter on the Lungs Contest here.
Read the winners here:
First Place: “Ribbons” by Paige Stetson
Second Place: “Biology” by Sama Hakmi
Honorable Mention: “A Science Fair Experiment” by Kaitlin LaRosa
Honorable Mention: “untainted” by Jenna Wiley
According to Merriam-Webster, “hip” means not only to be “aware or appreciative of something” but also “to make aware, tell, or inform.” Both the secret and the secret-teller lie within hips, and as we know from Shakira’s omnipresent words, “hips don’t lie.”
Or, perhaps the secret and secret-teller lie between rather than within, with hips equated to sex, gender, and sexuality (in every sense of the word), swaying and sticking into the world, encompassing “all the attraction, the tension.” Another song released two years after “Hips Don’t Lie” asks listeners to “talk with your hips,” instead of saying any words they might regret or otherwise not mean.
But what, precisely, are hips saying? What is the “perfection” Shakira invokes? And how do we balance both disclosing a secret and still appreciating it, the crimes and the calm loves that can both stem from vulnerability, without shame, especially in regards to the complicated connotations of hips?
For this contest, we will be prioritizing work about sex, sexuality, gender, reproduction, reproductive illness, sexual violence, and other related or intersecting topics that seek to fully explore hips—what they say, who’s making them say it, who they’re saying it for. Give us the gritty truth, the deeper analysis of society and self and personhood. Don’t lie, and show us what’s between.
Between the contest announcement and deadline, interpretations of hips by our staff launched in our “Articles” section. Read our blog correspondent Ottavia’s prompts here and a personal essay from our editor-in-chief Courtney here.
Read our final letter on the Hips Contest here.
Read the winners here:
First Place: “Bearing” by Miranda Sun
Second Place: “I’d Like to Think I Was in Gymnastics for a Reason” by Madison Lazenby
Honorable Mention: “Carnis” by Maya Wright
Honorable Mention: “moments and miles” by Magdalena Kamphausen
Honorable Mention: “Coding Bodies and Hip Size” by Danielle Amir-Lobel
Issue Five Contest: Ribs
In her song “Ribs,” Lorde makes us imagine “laughing ’til our ribs get tough.” She conjures images of giggling through childhood and simultaneously knowing childhood’s end is coming. She means the loss of innocence that comes with age and our knowledge of that loss even before we reach it. But her image also conjures a visceral memory of the times we have laughed hard enough that our ribs feel tough, when our stomachs began to ache and hurt because of our happiness, when too much of a good thing turned into a mistake or even a nightmare.
Ribs are cages—we get trapped by what they do and what they don’t allow us to do. Because we let them confine us, they also protect us: they keep our hearts and lungs safe. When they break, whether by our own hand or someone else’s, we often end up in the hospital, plagued by illness and injury. In mythology, their removal can create and destroy realms. Adam’s rib becomes Eve, who plunges humankind out of Eden and into sin and suffering—arguably for worse, arguably for better. Heh, the Egyptian god of timelessness and shapelessness, appeared in paintings holding palm ribs, which were used in temples to mark the passage of time. When the Babylonian goddess Tiamet was split in half in battle, heaven and earth were fashioned from her ribs.
Ribs can resemble emptiness, as in the case of ribs poking through skin in times of famine. They can also resemble excess, as in the case of messy barbecue ribs that symbolize American gluttony and luxury. They can refer to the skeleton of a person, of a ship, of a violin, or of an insect’s wing. They can be literal or metaphorical, real or imagined, both what they are and what they are not simultaneously.
For this contest, we are looking for pieces based off ribs. Break off a bone from your ribcage, throw it into the wind, and write about whatever facet of ribs the organ between your ribs brings you to. Whether you choose to make us laugh, cry, punch a wall, or walk dazed through our city’s streets depends only on you—and if you can make us feel your words in our bones and ribs, all the better.
Read our final letter on the Ribs Contest here.
Read the winners here:
First place: “Dental formula: I:C:P:M = 2:1:2:3” by Lamia
Second place: “an over-exaggerated metaphor about the pain of healing” by Lucy Pekovich
Honorable Mention: “the elephant on my ribcage” by Magdalena Kamphausen
Honorable Mention: “the storm” by Sage Walton
Honorable Mention: “Skeleton Boy” by Levi Welch
Issue Three Contest: Lungs
Inhale. Exhale. Though our lungs sustain us at every moment, we often forget how hard they’re working. Physically, they supply us with what we need (oxygen) and remove what stifles us (carbon dioxide). Emotionally, deep breathing kicks on the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms us and quiets our anxieties.
The state of our lungs reflects back onto us and our own behaviors. The stronger and healthier that they are, or that we perceive them to be, the more willing we are to deeply breathe in the unfamiliar across all spheres of our life. We take a deep breath before we step onto the stage for a performance; we take a deep breath before we cliff-dive into the ocean; we take a deep breath before saying something heated to someone we care about. However, when our lungs are weak and unhealthy, our inability to rid ourselves of waste suffocates us, and our feelings of confinement lock us into a cycle we get easily stuck in.
As we look forward to the new year, we imagine ourselves leaving behind the negativity of our pasts and embarking on new, more exciting adventures. We imagine becoming the people we’ve always wanted to be and having the lives we’ve always wanted to live. Right as the ball drops, we scream at the top of our lungs, christening the unknown 365 days in front of us. Screaming at the top of our lungs could mean happiness, or it could mean terror. It could mean both: though growth can lead us to immense personal achievement and satisfaction, it is rarely easy.
With this metaphor of the lungs in mind, write about growth and progress. Feel free to interpret the prompt as loosely or as strictly as you can. We ask only that you take a deep breath, feel your lungs inflate, and write.
Read our final letter on the Lungs Contest here.
Read the winners here:
First Place: “Ribbons” by Paige Stetson
Second Place: “Biology” by Sama Hakmi
Honorable Mention: “A Science Fair Experiment” by Kaitlin LaRosa
Honorable Mention: “untainted” by Jenna Wiley