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Main Menu
  • Treading on the Post-Colonial Road

    Rekha Menon

  • Treading on the Post-Colonial Road

    Rekha Menon

  • Treading on the Post-Colonial Road

    Rekha Menon

  • Treading on the Post-Colonial Road

    Rekha Menon

  • Treading on the Post-Colonial Road

    Rekha Menon

  • Treading on the Post-Colonial Road

    Rekha Menon

  • Treading on the Post-Colonial Road

    Rekha Menon

  • Treading on the Post-Colonial Road

    Rekha Menon

  • Treading on the Post-Colonial Road

    Rekha Menon

Prose

The Realities of a Young Woman Immigrating to America

Tiffany Columna

The fine Matcha powder sits in the creases of Hana’s palms. Frantically, she drops the bowl and instinctively bows in front of a veteran coworker, who ensures her it, “happens all the time.” Hana couldn’t find the words fast enough to apologize for her mess. She feels helpless and carefully sweeps up the broken shards of black ceramic as a sign of surrender. It wasn’t the same as back home in Osaka. She feels like a failure, struggling to piece together a new life.
 
Smoothing over her dirty apron, she wipes the tears from her cheeks. She walks over to the counter to ensure everything is in place. The creamer is in the refrigerator, the shakers are on the drying rack, and everything is set, except for Hana. After a few months in a new country, she feels immense pressure. They all speak another language. Even after five months, English is still as foreign as it was when she touched down in New York. She can’t seem to express her feelings in words others will understand. Frustration feels heavy on her shoulders, like boulders stacked upon her chest.
 
Immigration is a tumultuous journey, and for Hana, the language barrier keeps her from her potential. At work, she struggles to express herself and is ashamed of her failures. There are many difficulties with language proficiency, “…almost half of immigrants in the U.S. are not English proficient,” according to the George W. Bush Institute. …

New Creative Nonfiction

Erasure

Jennifer Andrews

Star Power

Creative Nonfiction by Jack Scaife-Elliott

Where Am I

Creative Nonfiction by Lisa Luckenbach

A World Through Her Eyes

Creative Nonfiction by Ailin Ledwidge

Triptych

Creative Nonfiction by Susan Belanich

I Talk With the Spirits: Communicating with the Jazz Masters

Domenic L. Rigazzi

Sharing the Darkness

Carolyn Forché

Music

Berklee Alumni Column #5: Paulina Romano

Joely Cromack-Kluko

In an electric start to the summer, I chatted with guitarist Paulina Romano. Paulina is a Spring 2024 Berklee graduate who earned a Bachelors of Professional Music with concentrations in performance and recording/production. Her love of music began in her hometown of Stamford, Connecticut, where, as a child, she often listened to her father play the guitar. By the time she started high school, Paulina was already playing the ukulele. At age fifteen, she followed in her father’s footsteps by experimenting with rock music and the guitar. While nurturing her love of rock, she practiced her technical skills by playing guitar in her high school jazz band. She also toured with a rock music academy in Connecticut. Realizing her passion for both learning and performing, Paulina began her education at Berklee in the fall of 2020. Paulina’s initial plan at …

Musings of a 21st-century Composer

Marti Epstein

Adventures in Collaborative Cello Playing (So Far…)

Celia Sieckert

Berklee Alumni Column #4: Natalie Dodge

Joely Cromack-Kluko

Dexter Gordon on Rittenhouse Square

Daniel Picker

Berklee Alumni Column Introduction

Joely Cromack-Kluko

Berklee Alumni Column #3: John Keyes

Joely Cromack-Kluko

Berklee Alumni Column #2: Angie Polizzi

Joely Cromack-Kluko

Berklee Alumni Column #1: Nicole Domagala

Joely Cromack-Kluko

Poetry

The Human Condition and 7 Other Poems

From “Writing Poetry 2,” with Pat Pattison

We wrote six poems this semester, four in fixed form and two in Free Verse. We spend a good deal of energy in class workshopping each poem, with students often marveling at some aspect of a classmate’s poem, perhaps making suggestions for edits or additions. Continuing our exploration of iambic pentameter from Poetry 1, we wrote an English Sonnet, an Italian Sonnet and finally a Terza Rima. Then we wrote Sapphic Stanzas, a Greek form that uses the duration of syllables to create patterns and rhythms. It’s challenging in English which, unlike Greek, has no fixed durations. Having been so compositional for both Poetry 1 and Poetry 2, moving into Free Verse usually terrifies the students. But the compositional tools and principles they carry, with their focus on prosody, prepared them to be intentional in Free Verse as well. Being …

2023 Pulitzer Prize Winner, Carl Phillips: Two New Poems, exclusive to FUSION

“The Autobiography of Frogs” and Other Poems

Duy Đoàn, winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize for We Play a Game

Modernist Poems

from “Liberating Aesthetics” course, Wayne Wild

Post-Modernist Poems

from “Liberating Aesthetics” course, Wayne Wild

“Scenes from a Morning” and Other Poems

Berklee Student Poets at The Greater Boston Intercollegiate Undergraduate Poetry Festival

The Quiet: 9 Poems

Reba May

The Breaking Pointe

Faith Alhadeff

Film

Transcendental Horror and the Future of the Genre

Tyler R. Jenkins

Freud describes the nature of horror as un-homelike; unheimlich. When one’s idea of safety is subverted, the effects of horror set in. All horror films strive to achieve this to an extent, whether it’s a killer stalking the protagonist, or a monster …

Black Lives Matter: What Would It Cost Us to Weep with Those Who Weep?

Ricky Staub & Aaron St. Jean

Vinyasa for Two & The Waiting Room: 2 Plays by Naomi Leites

The First Assistant Director: Communicator-in-Chief on a Movie Set

Hristo Dimitrov

A New Lens on Old Film: A Twenty-Something’s Angle on Art House Cinema

Isabella Komodromos

Art

The Art of Mali Olatunji: Painterly Photography from Antigua and Barbuda

by Mali Olatunji and Paget Henry

 

At Play: New Photographs

by David Hollender

Pastoral Mosaics: Journeys Through Landscapes Rural

Brian Michael Barbeito

ALLAMERICAN

Margo Davis

Bathtub Series

Eva Redamonti

The Garden@FUSION

SPACE // PLACE

an anthology by THE GARDEN @ FUSION

Visual Art

Features

Landscapes in the Time of Covid

Students of Professor Wayne Wild

Against The Odds: an Exploration of Bulgarian Rhythms

Vessela Stoyanova

New Faculty Fiction

BTOT

Against The Odds: an Exploration of Bulgarian Rhythms

Vessela Stoyanova

Capturing Berklee’s Stories: The Berklee Oral History Project

Sofía Becerra-Licha, Archivist, Berklee Archives

Exploring New Teaching Techniques with Case Studies

Alexandre Perrin (Valencia)

Interviews

FUSION Meets the Fuze

An Interview with David Fiuczynski

Interview with Silvina Moreno

Meaning Through Music: An Interview With William Ross

Michael Hazani

Events

A Faculty Dinner, Reading, & Conversation with Brian Turner

An Evening of Poetry & Music

with Sara Pirkle Hughes, Neil Olmstead, and Ana Guigui

Photos from Celtic FUSION – Am Fuaran

A Celebration of the Music of Scotland

Reviews

Student Book Reviews from Prof Beth Denisch’s class: Music, Gender and Society

Beneath the Skin of “Under the Skin”

Taylor Page

Kairos by Mateus Starling

A review by Erin Thomas

FUSION, Berklee’s global arts magazine, publishes writing in all genres, photography, video, and music by students, faculty, staff, and alumni from across the U.S. and our international communities. We feature distinguished guest artists, including three U.S. Poet Laureates, a U.K. Poet Laureate, National Book Award finalists, and writers whose awards include NEA, NEH, Guggenheim, and MacArthur fellowships, a PEN Award, and the Pulitzer Prize.