Students share creative works at Central Review release party
Poetry, prose and photographs were shared at the Central Review reading and release party on April 13 in the Charles V. Park Library auditorium.
Central Review is an undergraduate literary publication that accepts submissions from students and publishes once a semester, said editor-in-chief Delany Lemke.
At the event, contributors to Central Review’s 2018 spring edition came on stage to read through written passages or discuss art pieces that were included in the journal.
Works included in the spring edition adhered to a darker subject matter, with reoccurring themes of loss, pain and grief. Interspersed between submissions are graphics with sharp edges colored with dark red, gray and black.
Muskegon graduate student Jef Fisher read two of his pieces at the event, “Sint-Pieterskerk” and “How you move through my life now.” His piece “Sint-Pieterskerk” won this edition’s award for best poetry.
“I think writing is a good way of working through your emotions, as cheesy as that sounds,” Fisher said. “These poems are about someone I lost in my life.”
Fisher noted the appropriate release date of the journal.
“I think it was a really good edition,” he said. “It was very fitting for Friday the 13th -- there were a lot of dark works in it.”
Other winners included Lake Orion junior Duncan Tierney for best prose with his piece “The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa” and Bloomfield Hills senior Emily Stieg for best art with her piece “A Tiptoe and a Helping Hand.”
Trenton junior Jordan Price will be taking over for Lemke as Central Review’s editor-in-chief when Lemke graduates.
“I just joined Central Review in the fall. I really enjoyed the first semester,” Price said. “It’s fun meeting with this group of people and talking about everything that was submitted.”
Price said that one of her favorite things about the journal is how they begin to take shape every semester.
“We try to look at the selections that we make and somehow it all follows this central theme,” Price said. “I don’t know how it works out. It’s definitely with the help of Anna (Horak), our designer.”
Price said to keep an eye out for new things from Central Review, including more "Unwritten" events like the one Central Review hosted on April 10. The event allowed students to submit stories and perform them live in front of an audience, with a theme of “crisis.”
“That was really cool to read what people submitted and hear all the jokes and the heartache,” she said. “There’s definitely more to come from Unwritten.”
The spring 2018 Central Review will be the last edition released while Lemke is editor-in-chief.
“We had so many talented people publish in our journal and a lot of incredible work that made my heart feel things,” Lemke said.
In the editor’s note, Lemke mentioned that she is sad to be leaving Central Review, but glad to leave it in “good hands.”
“I know this community will continue turning out incredible new editions without me,” she said. “I’m going to miss it.”
