Before the Poem
Stella Shin
Near the playground,
where cosmos flowers kept thrembled,
my younger siblings played hopscotch in the dirt-
their tiny hands carving fleeting
patterns in the dust.
I waited,
fingering the last crumbs of leftover breads,
until the school day was done,
and I stepped out the classroom door.
They sprang up, pure air,
ran toward me, windblown kites,
pressed their dusty palms into mine.
With my baby sister asleep on my back,
my wrist caught by the smallest hand,
we headed home.
The pale road, blurred with dust,
felt endless long.
Whenever a U.S. military truck passed,
its colossal shadowed the earth.
I closed my eyes tight.
The road felt as if
it might swallow me whole.
They trailed behind me-
quiet, loyal,
like small bodies waiting
for reassurance.
I wished
that tomorrow,
they wouldn’t come.
That might walk with friends,
my hands free.
But the next day
and the day after that,
they were there again-
at the edge of the playground,
like short sunflowers,
swaying.
Even now,
I dream of it sometimes.
The dust-thick road.
The child I was, standing alone.
And the one I am now,
walking on without a windbreak.
Empty campus,
I am still trying
to sketch that road onto the page.
Stella Shin Stella Shin is a Korean-Canadian poet based in Toronto. She was active in the prominent South Korean literary community, Si Sanmaek, before immigrating. Her work focuses on how language can bridge the gap between internal loss and external resilience, aiming to capture the quiet, unyielding proof of existence that remains after the storm.
Art: Nia Hughes (she/her) is an oil painter currently pursuing her BFA in Studio Art at Oregon State University. Her practice centers on human connection, exploring how emotions and memories can serve as points of empathy; moments in life that ache with nostalgia and slip just out of reach. Working in semi-realistic portraiture, she captures these fleeting feelings through facial expressions, color, and quiet storytelling that is intimate and personal.
Nia is part of the Scholar Cohort for the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts and the recipient of the Dr. Helen E. Plinkiewisch Art Scholarship for the 2024–2026 academic years. Her work was also recently featured in the Personal Mythology exhibition at the LaSells Stewart Center during Summer 2025. Nia believes art can reach the parts of ourselves we neglect or shut away, allowing us to feel seen in ways words often can’t. Through her work, she hopes to create moments of reflection, warmth, and shared understanding.