Please come over to Chelsea Tuesday evening October 7th for a song poetry parlor! RSVP on eventbrite link – Hope to see you all there!

Lavender and Memory 

Krisel K

My grandmother hung dried lavender over her kitchen window. Not for decoration or scent, but something ancient—something traditional. She explained once, “Lavender keeps away the bad.” I imagined it chasing monsters from under the bed or darkness in the corners when I was a kid. But even then, I recognized she was communicating something more profound. It wasn’t just superstition—it was protection. A quiet tradition passed down through years. 

As I matured, I understood her words differently. The “bad” wasn’t always visible. It came in the guise of loss, loneliness, grief—the kind of things that can’t be chased out of a room but accumulate in the air like dust. Lavender didn’t just keep monsters away; it mellowed the bite of grief. It reminded us that the world has ways of soothing, if we will let it. 

Robin Wall Kimmerer speaks of plants not just as ecosystems, but as educators—living beings that will teach us if approached with respect. Lavender, for me, became memory and medicine. Reminded me that the world contains history and healing at the same time. That a plant can carry generations of belief, scent, and solace in tiny purple flowers. 

When I traveled to Albania this past summer, the country was old and familiar. I trudged across hillsides of wild lavender, its fragrance rising up from the heat. I bent down and ran my fingers through it, as if feeling history. I picked a small clump, tied it up neatly, and stowed it away in my suitcase. It wasn’t a souvenir. It was coming home. 

For weeks after coming back to Queens, the fragrance of opening up that suitcase smelled like home. The lavender had dried out but its scent never faded. Whenever I caught wind of it, I remembered the kitchen window at my grandmother’s house, whispering secrets when no one looked, old-time superstitions lingering even now with power. I knew flowers like lavender don’t just belong on earth—they are part of our lives. They make room for memory, carry stories across seas, and keep us mindful of the places and people that shaped us. 

In that way, lavender didn’t just calm me. It united me to my roots. It stitched the scent of Albanian hills, the wisdom of my grandmother, and the taciturn toughness of a plant that still existed in untamed pastures and city windows. It taught me that nature, if we listen, always pays back. 

Kimmerer blends science with story, and I found myself reflecting on how lavender connects the sensory and emotional parts of memory. Its chemical compounds calm the nervous system, but its deeper purpose, at least for me, is that it links people. My grandmother, my mother, and now me—we all dry and hang it without ever formally saying why. 

The act of writing about lavender helped me understand what Kimmerer means when she says plants teach reciprocity. Lavender has cared for me: calmed me before tests, sat by my window during heartbreak, flavored tea on late nights. In return, I care for it too. I plant it every spring in a cracked terra cotta pot, and every winter, I cut and dry the last sprigs like my grandmother once did. 

This memoir is not just about a plant—it’s about inherited wisdom, silence that speaks, and a kind of healing passed down through gesture rather than explanation. In the spirit of Braiding Sweetgrass, I offer this story not as science, but as gratitude. 

poetry in resonse to reading Song of Myself by Walt Whitman and Harryette Mullen’s Urban Tumbleweed: Notes from a Tanka Diary

By Stephen Suh, Global Literature

What is stephen?

I am tired as soon as I wake up,

dark circles under my eyes, getting blinded by the sun

I am water boiling in a pot

slowly getting hotter as my classmates yap in a lecture

I see a messy table and many seats.

And a Subway sandwich with the wrong order,

it has olives and cucumbers instead of pickles

I hear a baby crying in the seat behind me

getting louder during every turbulence,

the volume of my in-flight movie getting louder as I ignore it

I know only some questions,

Of the chemistry test in front of me

with the sound of sighing from the students around me, the sound of acceptance.

I see an assignment in front of me,

About writing a poem, and it is hard

The sound of the keyboard typing away

I taste an energy drink

It tastes like pineapple, and I like it

I can feel my eyes and hands shaking

I hear a professor with a heavy accent,

but not the sound of my utensil writing notes on paper

because I have an apple pen

I breathe cold air that hurts to inhale

As I walk home

the wind penetrating through my clothes

I pray desperately,

For the bus to come on time

I don’t want to be late for class

The bus is always packed at 1 pm on a Monday,

There is no space even to take out my phone

Everyone’s faces are glued to their phones as more and more people fill the bus

Work is the same as always,

Busiest on a Monday

A dusty warehouse, clear lenses

And a phone ringing every couple of seconds,

With customers on the other line

I take the customer’s order,

They ask for lenses for glasses,

With a specific prescription for a specific person

I can barely understand them sometimes

The warehouse is long

Shelves filled with boxes of lenses

Each is numbered with a different power

I wanna go home  

Finally, the day is done

Turning on my computer the minute I get home

I have a lot of homework to do

Done with everything, I take a shower

Do skincare, brush my teeth

Watch 30 minutes of TikTok and sleep

The past is brought up in my dreams,

A familiar view of my old high school days

A sport that I used to play

A familiar court filled with voices and sounds

Sounds of clapping and cheering

Reminding me of a big regret in my life

I think about how much I changed

And how much this sport changed me

With the mindset I built from it

And the people I met through it

What did I do to make it this far?

I ask myself as I think of the past

Would I want to change anything about the past?

Yes, of course, I do

I want to change how I acted in the past

All the embarrassing mistakes that happened,

Because of the kind of person I was before

I was a great pretender

Acting like someone that I am not for attention

Lying a lot to others for attention

Acting angry for no reason for attention

Trying to do anything for attention

I am the stock market

Constantly changing, going up and down

Losing people and gaining people as I go

People I have been, people I have lost

All inputted in my memory

Every day now seems like it is repeating

I do the same tasks every day,

Eat, sleep, work repeat

Waiting for change or something interesting

Who am I as a person now?

I am calmer, an observant person

Waiting for opportunities

Taking chances when I need to

Not being scared of the future

But again, I want to change

Not waiting for change

But seeking change

I am surviving college

My grades are pretty ok

Hopefully, I can finish this portfolio in time

So I don’t have to worry about it

How did I get to this point in my life?

Experiences.

Playing for a team

Arguing with friends

Making up with them

Working a job

Stressing about work and tests

I am a knitted sweater

Experiences woven into me like yarn

Making me who I am

Do I contradict myself?

A million times, yes

I am the one who hates and loves

The one who forgives and resents

The one who builds and breaks

I am confident and doubtful

A hurricane and a drizzle

An acid and a base

I take on the world

With open arms, fearless

I’m here

I am colossal

I have multitudes

Please post new poems, collages, valentines, ekphrastics for SPRING 2025!!!

’-Love, your Ancestors’

By: Amelia-Rose W.

I am a miracle, born of uncertainty

Yet blessed with the hope of beauty and grace

With a creative mind and whimsical spirit.

A blessing gifted to a matriarch  

Strong in her way

Hoping, desiring, to be gifted an infant

Who is an exact reflection of her?

Coils and curls 

All a reflection of my ancestors

Roots which bury deep in the Caribbean

And soar to where royalty is most prominent.

Identity? Something to be determined through growth.

Growth is something determined through love;

Blessed is the one who grows both quickly and elegantly.

Skin? Skin only makes up my exterior however skin defines who I am,

What of my interior? 

What use is my beating heart if the only thing that matters is outside of that?

Eyes widen, chins wag, just from my existence alone.

As the wandering eyes and loud whispers consume my every fiber, how will I ignore this fate prophecized before me?

Close your eyes and dream, imagine, feel, touch, and smell what lies beyond.

This isn’t what’s in store for I know my path goes beyond these expectations.

Confidence, passion, commitment 

Gut-wrenching feelings that are too raunchy for sheep-like humans.

But I am a shepherd.

Soar, soar higher than the loudest voice that tells me no.

Soar further than what they tell me I can reach.

And love, love everything I am becoming.

For this is only the beginning of a journey, well lived.

A my rah?

Here! My name is Amira, pronounced as Ah-Me-Rah meaning “princess” in Arabic. Yet somehow it was constantly mispronounced throughout attendance. A name that carries weight and expectation from my family. With the expectations of hope to be someone in life and achieve all the things my mother could not have. How I should hold myself up to the embodiment of determination, strength, and resilience that comes with the pedestal of the name. To achieve all the hopes and aspirations, I hold for myself as well does my family. At times I used to wonder if I could live up to the grandeur of name while facing challenges within my own life. I work for a life where I can be both the meaning of my name and accomplish all my dreams, goals, and aspirations for myself, and nobody else. Just as Maxine said in my favorite horror movie X “I will not accept a life I do not deserve “. My name does not simply mean “princess”, but it is a name I define on my own. Me acknowledging how much self-empowerment, ambition, and determination I have creates the crown I wear throughout my day-to-day life. Although I am not Arabic, my name came to be when my mother had a best friend who was Arab, and she named her daughter Amira. The nickname I got from all my grade schoolteachers all the way up to high school was (uhhhhh-my-rah ). Which commonly occurred throughout attendance, every, single day. All my family rotates my nicknames from Ami to Amima back to Princess. The truth is I never really liked my name the way it was pronounced in English. I loved the way it was fluid and rolled off the tongue with non-native English speakers pronounced it. I love how smooth and how the R rolls when my family pronounces it in Spanish. I would not want to ever change my name; it is unique, and I am more than happy I cannot find it on any keychain on vacation. 

Down the stairs I go,
Squash blooms by the driveway,
Vines overgrown,
stretching through the morning sun-
Fall feels close.

1-2-3-4 stone
by the grassy strip,
My dog patiently sniffs the ground,
Leaves drift slowly from the tree-
Autumn whispers.

As I walk the street,
Barking comes from a house,
My dog wags her tail,
Does she think they want to play?
The quiet answers.

Mowing, leaf blowing,
Gathering what the wind’s left,
They pause, I nod,
running past the sunlight covered by large trees—
Grateful for their work.

Navy mailbox,
an orange stone just beneath.
Why is it there?
I wonder what’s the meaning,
left unknown on the sidewalk.

What is the Grass?

“What is the Grass?”; A child once asked.

To which I responded, Grass is the prime example of life.

It’s beauty and its horror.

Grass holds the stories that are kept hidden and forgotten.

Grass sees it all and still sways in the wind as the lies and rumors sway from human lips.

Grass is the perfect image of America as it holds the dark and horror of the land but still flourishes,

Grass in all of its beauty, in all its colors, shapes, and sizes keeps strong and sways as it is stepped on and neglected.

Grass is the most divine living thing on Earth; forgotten, mis-treated, abused and still gives and provides for humans.

It was November 15th I had my parents pick me up from st johns early in the morning so I could go back home and spend the day with them. I got home and ate a home cooked meal for the first time in a while. It was a simple meal that my mom cooked but I missed it a lot. Then I played some video games with my brother and spent some good quality time with him. After playing I drove him and some of my friends to go play soccer in this park where most people play pickup at. It’s called Jack McManus field in Roosevelt Island. We played there for about 2 hours with local kids and had fun. Then I dropped my friends home and went home with my brother for dinner.

1. I remember kicking my first soccer ball
2. I remember scoring my first goal
3. I remember dressing up as batman for my first halloween
4. I remember falling off my bike for the first time
5. I remember watching the Yankees play live for the first time
6. I remember collecting and trading Pokemon cards
7. I remember drinking hot chocolate on a cold winter morning
8. I remember taking my first salsa lesson
9. I remember getting my first F (it was in English by the way)
10. I remember my first day of high school
11.  I remember my first elementary school friend 
12. I remember my first time playing tee ball
13. I remember dancing to Katy Perry
14. I remember doing a musical on the movie Rio
15. I remember doing soccer camp in Hunter Point park
16. I remember my first soccer team
17. I remember karaoke nights with my parents
18. I remember the Peruvian place my grandma used to take me to
19. I remember going to Colombia for the first time
20. I remember the Ronaldo haircut I would always get
21. I remember playing Minecraft on my tablet for hours on end
22. I remember my first dog Bella
23. I remember the 2 pet fishes my cousins had
24. I remember the kool aid popsicles my grandma would make me
25. I remember the smell of my moms cooking
26. I remember my dad taking me to his work for bring your kid to work day
27. I remember getting Spiderman face paint at school
28. I remember nap time in kindergarten 
29. I remember going to the park to play with the neighbors 
30. I remember opening presents at midnight on Christmas Eve