P E R S E P H O N E
LITERARY MAGAZINE
Issue No. 1
July 2024
Volume I
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Content Warning
P E R S E P H O N E
LITERARY MAGAZINE
POETRY
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOUNDER’S POEM - FOURTH OF JULY
ABOUT THE FOUNDER
01
02
Why I write poetry rather than fiction
03
Susen James
Reaching
04
Louis Faber
Fire / Garden
05
This Feral Faith
05
Olivia Kamer
Emma Galloway Stephens
Jennifer Patino
Niiyaw
06
Ellie Cameron
Ode to Fairies
07
Frank William Finney
An Ode to Passing Clouds
08
Yuan Changming
Lingua Franco
09
Heat
09
Robert Beveridge
Quick! Take a Picture
10
John De Angelo
Konrad Ehresman
Undergrad Mythology
11
Carnivorous Flower
12
Kenna Tanner
John Grey
Morning in Manhattan
13
Reflections
17
Donna Burke Esgro
M F Drummy
gray braids
16
Angela Fach
Many Selves
15
Leah Mueller
The Artist
14
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LITERARY MAGAZINE
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PERSEPHONELITERARY.COM
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
SHORT STORIES Fiction
Who Walked the Earth
22
Sadie Higgins
A Stellar Reunion
24
Corrina Chan
SHORT STORIES Non-Fiction
True Nature
31
Lee Ann Stevens
35
Can I Make You Shine?
Sara Ohlin
JoAnneh Nagler
The Bracelet
41
PHOTOGRAPHY NARRATIVES
Kerani Arpaia
The Fruit of Persephone
18
FOUNDING EDITOR
SHORT STORIES EDITOR
Allyson Nichols
Isabel Brinegar
GRAPHIC DESIGN ADVISOR
Angela Fach
FOUNDING
EDITOR
Allyson Nichols
The dynamic founder and editor of
Persephone Literary Magazine, Allyson
has always been captivated by
storytelling. Armed with a Bachelor of
Science in Journalism from Kent State
University, where she minored in creative
writing, she has been crafting poetry and
fiction since her early years. A voracious
reader, Allyson was already diving into
large chapter books by the 2nd grade,
eventually even reading three books in
one day by the time she hit age 11. Her
literary journey reached a milestone with
the publication of her poem "Bubblegum"
in Kent State's Luna Negra Literary
Magazine. Driven by a passion to amplify
diverse voices, she created Persephone
Literary Magazine as a vibrant platform
for creatives to share their stories. Beyond
her love for literature, Allyson enjoys
spending time at home with her two
kitties, Evie and Stormy, and loves
exploring new film and television releases
with her close friends and family.
Photography Credit: AF Photography
PERSEPHONE LITERARY MAGAZINE
01
ABOUT THE FOUNDER
PERSEPHONE LITERARY MAGAZINE
02
FOUNDER’S POEM
Cherry cheeks on a hot summer day -
sweet like a honeybun that’s making me stay.
Licorice treats on a dead-end street,
buttercup kisses on a cotton candy sheet.
Firework hands making me sigh,
melt me like chocolate on the Fourth of July.
Fourth
Allyson Nichols, Founding Editor
of July
Poetry
Susen James
Because I haven’t the attention span. Because I wander woods with a candle & book
like a ghost only to ponder light passing through my hands. Because I worry for things
I said when I was winter & this is what steeps in me from months of rain. Because I
bear the tarnish of time. Because most ideas I write too unreasonable to fit story. I
write poetry to linger excess white space. Because in this place I isolate to write the
witching moon comes creeping phrasing in phrasing out. Because I might do with a
challenge of bleak bothersome rhyming. Because plucky but unlucky, I encounter
lunatic corpses sentient storms babbling champagne rabble. I have newfound
persnicketiness; it’s my age & wrinkle moons sag beneath my eyes. Because I like the
idea of haunting. Because too many thorns pierced my heart. Because reading poetry
breathes blood into pale lips Because it feels like I hold a lit match between my lips.
Because the sadness is on me. Because every coffeehouse needs a resident poet.
Because curious & cryptic are viable ambitions. Because poetry opens the veil between
this world & the next.
Because I am somehow still alive in this absurd aching world.
Why I write
rather than fiction
PERSEPHONE LITERARY MAGAZINE
03
POETRY
Night throws its mantilla of stars over us —
a cascade offered by the once gods,
now celestial spectators of the cosmic drama.
We, like they, want only a freedom
that the gravity of life denies us.
Each night we reach for the heavens,
offering prayers in supplication,
hoping for an ascension that is always
just beyond our reach, beyond our mind’s
tenuous grasp. Mere children wanting
the stage, forever kept in the wings,
the night is replete with the promise
that the day keeps imprisoned, and we
are no longer slaves to its unending demands.
Nothing may happen this night,
as nothing has happened on so many others,
but faith and hope are the irresistible tides
on which we sail toward the horizon of freedom.
These gods have failed us, as we have them,
but the universe is of infinite prospect,
and possibilities always abound if we
dare yield our trepidation and fearlessly
reach outward and take flight into
a future beyond our comprehension.
PERSEPHONE LITERARY MAGAZINE
04
POETRY
R E A C H I N G
Louis Faber
F I R E / G A R D E N
Olivia Kamer
In the garden,
gentleness grows
within
the space below
all roots rich
with minerals,
memory,
alchemy,
there is a fire
contained
your lungs
waiting to be expelled
and
left to—
bloom.
THIS
This feral faith that holds
my head under the water,
that rolls me in the mud,
twigs and leaves—makes me a daughter
of a ragged royalty. I am skinned
knees, ripped jeans, bruised brow.
Incense in my sanctuary—pine straw,
dandelion down. Prayers are wind-
strewn seed. Possum-plod and deer
spring, my creed. Crown me
with daisies so I may cast them down
at the mountain-root, my father’s throne.
Emma Galloway Stephens
FERAL
Faith
PERSEPHONE LITERARY MAGAZINE
05
POETRY
Niiyaw
to the very blood & bone
we are connected,
two hands
in the same river,
feeling the flow
of fresh water,
the pulse
of the heartbeat
like a powwow drum
steady we row, we walk,
we stand on sacred shorelines,
the ones our Grandmothers
mourned from, the place
where stories
flew like gulls,
swam like walleye,
soared like a great eagle
on the day of battle
to our cores we are rattled,
turtle shell &
chattering teeth,
grinding our
Jennifer Patino
medicine, holding
our tongues
& the hearts
of our women
so that nothing
of the Earth
shall ever fall
like tears upon
excavated graves again
this is not our end,
our defeat, our surrender,
this is our worship,
our war cry,
our purification
of the oil
they pumped into our souls
this is how we survive,
in thanking our waters,
Great Mystery, our breath –
this is how we
bless life.
- ‘my body’ in Ojibwemowin
PERSEPHONE LITERARY MAGAZINE
06
POETRY