Notes from the Underground: Fall 2019: Notes from the Underground: Maclay Upper School's Journal of Creative Writing, #7

By Lauren Fleischer, Sonu Patel, Caroline Delegal and 34 more

We take the title of this journal from a novella of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The novella is an existentialist piece, written before Dostoyevsky's greatest works and before Existentialism had really taken root in literature. The unnamed narrator is frequently named an anti-hero and is described by the note on the back of the Dover edition as "a profoundly alienated individual in whose brooding self-analysis there is a search for the true and the good in a world of relative values and few absolutes." The novella opens with the words "I am a sick man." This is not to say that Dostoyevsky's novella are about art and darkness but rather that this novella and art confront darkness. The powers that be don't like this, but art endures and fights on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Low
• Release date: Dec 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393657170

Book preview

Notes from the Underground:

Maclay Upper School’s Journal of Creative Writing Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Craig Beaven

Founder: Dr. N. Suzanne Jamir

Issue 7 Fall 2019

Editorial Staff

Editor – Lilly Simons

Assistant Editor – Sameer Ponnaluri

Managing Editor – Ellie Casteel

Poetry Editor – John Messer

Assistant Poetry Editor – Mary Allison McCue

Fiction Editor – Ethan Tetreault

Assistant Fiction Editor – Elias Jaffe

Nonfiction Editor – Madi Cordle

Assistant Nonfiction Editor – Hunt Deison

Art Editor – Kendall Minter

Assistant Art Editor – Lauren Fleischer

Copy Editors – Simon Corpuz, Rachel Abbott

Submissions Manager – Caroline Delegal

Front and bacl art covers – Jordan Jones

Spine art (not featured) – Lilly Simons

A Note from the Editor

With every string of words that I thread together, embrace of my eyes upon the work of another being, I reflect, retrogress. At the beginning of last year, my AP Lang class (shout out to you Norment) bravely embarked upon the teachings of Richard Miller in his essay The Dark Night of the Soul. As we diligently worked through his revelations upon existence, I found myself hypnotized, paralyzed in my own thoughts as Miller’s text flowed across the page before me: The only way out is through (Miller 27).

Blinking my eyes, feeling the presence of the figure moving outside the window, and watching the hands of the clock meet in perfect unison reminded me that I was alive despite the rebirth simultaneously occurring within my soul. Within that moment, I garnered a degree of clarity, obtained answers regarding the questions that consumed my mind: Why is it that I write? What is the power of writing in a society that fails to recognize its potential and necessity?

Fast forward to over a year later. As I stringed together celestial poems with planetary artistic creations, wove a connective thread between revelations upon heart- break and confrontations with the absurd, I found myself returning to this meditation upon human experience that has been engraved within my mental sphere since that September day in AP Lang. I found myself confronting the force that gets me through the exhaustion of existence, the constant questioning of the purpose of my vitality. This moment forced me to recognize the power of the journal that you hold within your palms. In NFTU, we find purpose, a reason to continue pushing our Sisyphean boulders up the hill of existence despite all that plagues us. Within this community, we achieve alignment in purpose, getting through.

Within the mere three months that this journal has been in progression for, we’ve expanded our creativity significantly. We altered our font, collaborated with the Art Department to create the exquisite poetry broadsides found within the journal, adopted a new publisher, and enlisted a new computer program in order to create our journal. Such expansions would fail to exist without the undying passion and creativity that you all foster within this community.

Despite the complexities of existence that we all endure, the narratives that diversify our human experience, we are all united in our ability to enlist writing, reading, and the visual arts as mediums for confronting the reality we are subject to. Our hearts bleed lyrical notes of tribulation, elation, heartbreak, bewilderment, and loss into art that we share. We pour tears, laughter, and love into the art that we cultivate. We spend sleepless nights, rainy mornings, and hectic midday moments crafting lines of poetry, drenching a canvas in paint, and meditating on narrative pieces. When verbal language fails, we return to NFTU, this community of aligned souls, for connection and purpose in our otherwise isolating human experiences.

I possess such an intense degree of gratitude for my ability to be immersed in the unique beauty of this community. From my beginning days as an underclass- man copy-editing and building my writing obsession to my modern moments of

all-nighters feeling my mind bloom with every provocative piece that greets my eyes, NFTU has been the vessel of community, collaboration, and creativity that has propelled me forward. Within NFTU, I have found passion in the brilliance of the literary arts, friendship in past and present Undergrounders, and admiration for the diligent efforts that we all conduct in order to make this journal a reality and uphold the outstanding standard of excellence that Dr. Jamir founded the journal upon.

Gazing upon this completed journal fills my frame with emotion. The thought of embarking upon the