Welcome to the third annual edition of the Rutgers University-Newark Honors College Literary Magazine, Curiosities: In and Of the Honors College. Our magazine encompasses the wonderful artistic media submissions that students of the Honors College have submitted that represent our guiding words: curiosity, creativity, discovery, and excellence. Media that students have submitted include poetry, art, music, and video. As the magazine editors for this year, we hope you enjoy!
Editors: Janae Chavez and Priya Subramanian
Music created by Honors College students expressing our guiding words.
Poetry made by Honors College students expressing their inner thoughts, feelings and creativity that convey our guiding words.
Art pieces created by Honors College students representing our guiding words.
Videos created by Honors College students visually displaying our guiding words.
By: Rashawn Brown
This artwork is one of two logos produced during my internship for credit with the Honors College where I was a marketing analyst. As a marketing analyst, I created several short-form and static post content for the Honors College’s social media platforms, including creating personal graphic design logos such as this one.
I used the Rutgers-Newark and Honors College colors (dark grey, black, red, gold) to create this logo with animals that represented each of our guiding words, including our mascot, the Scarlet Raider.
The rays of sun are a reference to how, we, as Honors College students are motivated, ambitious, and representing our guiding words in order to take on new challenges and help those around us.
By: Priya Subramanian
This artwork is one of two logos produced during my internship for credit with the Honors College where I was a marketing analyst. As a marketing analyst, I created several short-form and static post content for the Honors College’s social media platforms, including creating personal graphic design logos such as this one.
I used the Rutgers-Newark and Honors College colors (dark grey, black, red, gold) to create this logo with animals that represented each of our guiding words, including our mascot, the Scarlet Raider.
The title of my internship that I gave to it was “Exevresi”, a word in Latin meaning “discovery”, as it symbolized one of our guiding words, and this internship process. The compass symbolizes “discovery” through exploration and going to new places.
Being able to intern for the Honors College (and having my first internship overall!) was a fantastic experience that taught me so much about the social media and data analysis process. As an aspiring financial analyst who would like to go into commercial banking, this internship logo demonstrates the plethora of opportunities that the Honors College has to offer to its students.
By: Priya Subramanian
Down from heaven, no body, face or heir
They sought my passion and slaughtered it there.
Disgusted by attempts of love despite
my knowledge of this solitary plight.
Atoning for those older, I ask, why me?
Ezekiel said of these sins I am free.
Maybe life just isn’t supposed to be fair.
And I’m a joke of one who does not care.
Here I stay, by myself, I See eye.
An Optic specter bleeding my heart dry.
Plumbing all the passion from its seed
Stomping embers for as long as he needs.
Until I go to follow his command:
Secede my love and satiate his demand.
By: Nicholas Khan
I bare my mark, and he did his
I try not to rage; bless his kiss.
I see the sands, our paths intertwined
Am I the thirteenth when the 12 dined?
I lack the courage of those who stayed
Among the 500, I worry I brayed.
I know that without him, I am not brave.
Where are the elders now, today?
It’s only fear in my heart, but only love in his
It’s in this chamber of echoes I fall but he forgives
I cannot forget why he lived
Nobody knows what he did.
“You Hate, You Lie, You Cheat”
It’s all on repeat.
I repent but do not admit defeat
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
By: Nicholas Khan
Who decides the price of bread?
Eggs or milk? Are we truly efficient?
Who teach you the value of green?
Su Padre? Madre? o Maestro?
No tío, nadie me enseñó.
A crime against the children
From then until now
How they made it? Given
nothing but the plow.
The song of a people
of blue chorus and red verse
The song of the people
Foreign, Evil and perverse.
Is the common man
capable of uncommon
thought, does he need
a handler? I think it for
naught.
“By the people, for the people”
” With liberty and Justice under all”
The people are gone, and Justice
For those who are big and small
Again, who determines the price of bread?
Is this what they said was efficient?
An arm a leg, and a head,
To not be nutrient deficient.
If the grease is green, then
We are rusted red.
An abuse which I can see but one end.
Who decides the price of bread?
Eggs or milk? Are we truly efficient?
Who teach you the value of green?
Su Padre? Madre? o Maestro?
No tío, nadie me enseñó.
A crime against the children
From then until now
How they made it? Given
nothing but the plow.
The song of a people
of blue chorus and red verse
The song of the people
Foreign, Evil and perverse.
Is the common man
capable of uncommon
thought, does he need
a handler? I think it for
naught.
“By the people, for the people”
” With liberty and Justice under all”
The people are gone, and Justice
For those who are big and small
Again, who determines the price of bread?
Is this what they said was efficient?
An arm a leg, and a head,
To not be nutrient deficient.
If the grease is green, then
We are rusted red.
An abuse which I can see but one end.
By: Nicholas Khan
I think I’m selfish
I want one, all to myself
That’s selfish, isn’t it?
I pray that
The rain comes again
So, I can get the chance
To grab at them
Trust me, we’re not
Talking about the same
Them, you think I mean
Rain drops
I’m talking about fish
It’s when the rain comes
They draw near to me
And
I have a chance
A sliver of hope at maybe
Catching on keep, maybe
On my finger? Or on my arm?
It’s the rain, whenever it decides
To happen, that leads them
I know I’m a trapper
Men like me must be
It’s the only way we can
Catch anything in this
Damned damned sea.
Some have luck with
A rod, other trawlers.
I have a raft and a net
It’s the only way I can do it
Self-taught, no-one but
The waves to guide me.
I read a couple of manuals
But they’re too abstract.
Maybe I’m just not cut out
For fish, I always preferred
Chicken anyhow.
But something keeps driving
Me to the sea and to fish,
Maybe it’s because they’re
Pretty.
The scales and the eyes
The find and the lips.
I’d take any fish, just please
I desperately need a fish
I considered buying one
But I know that people
Could tell, it would be a
Waste of money on a
Fish that would only
Smell.
By: Nicholas Khan
I don’t see a lot in these woods
I feel the sand from back home
On my feet, the grit the rocks wear them
I wear them
Both of us are worn down by time and each other’s caresses
In these woods, I see naught but death and thorn
The fallen leaves covering ardent soil
The August boon that all life is supplanted
Why cover the joys of the earth?
From the leaves that fall I am blind to all but disdain
I see nothing but the brown carcasses of shame
These woods are a grotto unto me, I fear their change.
By: Nicholas Khan
When did we decide that the sky was full?
That the starry city had no more citizens to register?
How old is that, Orion? how do we know that it’s not his corpse that lies there on the black tiled floor?
Who knows the names of the dippers, as we so like to call them? Who can say that Aquinas or Qiu didn’t name them differently?
To what end do we limit our imagination and use ancient names? Just as we live upon this land, called “America”, “China”, “Russia”, “Brazil” there were people before who referred to it otherwise.
Who are we, idealists, to keep the skies separate from the affairs of the land, as if it isn’t witness to earth and the ground voyeur to the heavens?
By: Nicholas Khan
I know you in my bones,
Feel you in my blood,
Keep you in my soul.
Know you in the strongest,
Most invisible bond,
Of memories saved,
And secrets unstold.
I know you in moments shared,
And pieces of my own,
And I’ll carry you to the grave
Because I’ve loved you so.
I know you in my reflection,
In the words that I speak,
In the corners of the world,
And the place we did meet.
I know you like a map of my town,
Like every old battered road,
Like everything I’ve held dear,
Every world I’ve ever known.
I know you like my own favorite song,
Like the birds in the trees,
Like the bark of my own dog.
I know you like the whispers of the wind,
Like the wonders of the world,
Like colors drawing me in.
I know you like coffee,
Or like I know my own skin,
Because if I loved you once,
This is all that I did.
By: Emma Lipsky-Portales
Vive.
Vive todo lo que puedes.
El amor, la triste, el feliz.
Vive los momentos perfectos y los momentos peores.
Vive sin tiempo.
Sin expiración ni explicación.
Vive para ti y nada más.
Respira.
Respira en los momentos sin aire,
Cuando el dolor es la única cosa que sientes.
Cuando no sabes cómo vivir.
Cuando necesitas fuerte.
Respira y para.
Y deja ir.
Deja ir las ansiedades que no puedes controlar.
Las personas que son más como pesas en la vida.
Decide.
No puedes aguantar todo.
Deja ir.
Debes.
Como un diente de león en el viento
Hágalo porque necesitas.
Porque puedes.
Vive, respira, y deja ir.
By: Emma Lipsky-Portales
Sitting across my father’s tired hands,
I watch his calloused fingers trace
the edges of my acceptance letter—
over the creases it goes.
The dream flows quiet.
Sitting still, his tea steam curls
into the kitchen light,
into the silence,
into the weight of his sacrifice.
The dream flows in pieces.
Laying on my dorm bed,
drying homesick tears as the streetlights glow,
the phone buzzes—his voice, warm,
& with the Nile it goes.
The dream flows steady, steady, steady.
Every dawn, this path steels my being:
My Books, my battles,
My Name, my roots.
The dream is heavy.
The dream is beautiful.
By: Alyaa Awad
(The poem transforms the original’s serene river into the Nile’s relentless current—tracking a first-generation student’s journey through homesickness, academic struggle, and the weight of family sacrifice. Where water once soothed, it now carries both heritage and hunger, turning immigrant resilience into its own kind of sacred flow.)
I walk my childhood street in my dreams.
My dad still looks at me with a mischievous gleam in his eye.
Strangers flash their friendliest smile,
Golden child, worth the kindness.
You see, I’m on a mission to save my mother’s back,
I have to jump over every pavement crack.
Chinese Wisterias in the courtyard, parents are eternal, friendships are forever,
The sun shines only for me, the world’s my oyster.
I walk my childhood street.
Light up sneakers, the inflation is high
A teddy bear in one hand and a beer in the other,
I’m on a payment plan for my new Barbie kitchen play set in pink color.
Stuck somewhere in between child and not
Not quite fit either crowd.
I wonder if I could still hear the ocean in a seashell,
Even though I know it’s just the sound of the blood in my ears
If I could forget what I’ve learned over the years
Could I be as free as I was back then
But I shouldn’t be so childish, this is not how you become important men.
I walk my childhood street,
The air smells like all the things I couldn’t become
The buzz of disappointment is hummed
I don’t know these roads, the pavement cracks are mended
Buildings repainted, no longer Wisteria scented,
My ears ring with the friendships that have ended.
I walk my childhood street and trip on an unfamiliar crack,
The cold floor welcomes me with an impact
I pray that nobody sees me like this,
Shame twists inside my veins
It clings to my bones
And reeks from my skin
For the whole world to smell
I’m afraid somebody will notice,
But also that nobody will.
I walk out of my childhood bedroom with too small clothes in one hand and too big dreams in the other.
My friends are getting married,
There is a place for them in this world.
But I’m stuck at 10 years old,
Waiting on my bleeding knees in Walnut Street, 2012
By: Iris Tural
eternal sunbeams
forever a golden hour
orange trees and magnolia groves
blazing on through the orb of the sun
stems of wheat rustling in the sunset
fireflies blinking back at me at the dock
tracing the hues of the sky
with my little finger
my palms are a memory
playing those carnival games
holding swirls of cotton candy
ice cream dripping down my thumb
hands interlocked on the ferris wheel
feeling the grainy sand under my soles
caressing the waves with my hand
the waft of popcorn
the footprints of fertile mud
the flashes of a photo booth
the echoes of childhood laughter
the ripples of nostalgia
time off its anchor
and wishing it never ends.
By: Priya Subramanian
fastening my jhumkas
that twinkle in the moonlight
unwrinkling my kanchipuram saree
made from the finest silk
my golden bangles
clinking as i walk
my ebony ring bobbing with my hand
my curls tied in a wreath of jasmines
my sukha a mark of my present
a symbol of the past i come from
palm trees and dusky nights
noisy rickshaws blaring throughout
stirring my filter kappi
and crinkling the palm leaf
seeing the stove in my inti
and nibbling my porous idli
circling the stained pages
and seeing ancient recipes
sprinkled with cardamom
tossed with cumin
carried with coriander
a teaspoon with turmeric
captured with chili
released with mustard
and lastly
topped with a pinch of love.
By: Priya Subramanian
(Bhasa in Telugu, my language, means “language”. By utilizing descriptive imagery, I convey the central message of my poem which to be proud of one’s culture and homeland. Various words from Telugu are used, such as sukha, meaning “bindi”, kappi meaning South Indian filter coffee, and inti meaning “home”.
Day in the life of an Honors College student!
By: Priya Subramanian
As a note, I submitted a day in the life of an Honors College student last year leading me to receive my very first internship at the Honors College! I had to pay homage to our Honors College providing me with so many opportunities and to the Honors College that has helped me in my career field! Interning at the Honors College taught me so much about the marketing and data analysis process, but also about how special our community is and how we are valued. It was that video that really showed me how valued I was at the Honors College and at Rutgers-Newark and led me to where I am today!
Honors College students along with Dean Troiano in the 2025 graduation celebration.
Honors College students had a chat with New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) students about the medical school application and advice to keep in mind to be competitive applicants.
Honors College students at the Annual Mentoring Dinner where they engaged in meaningful conversation with alumni and peers.
Honors College student, Daniela Ovelar, was the 2024 Convocation student speaker!
Honors College students coming together to play an interactive game for their Honors Seminar class!
Honors College students engaged in important conversation with RU-N alumni.
Thank you for reading our third edition of the annual Honors magazine. For us to keep improving and take into account your feedback, we would like to ask you to complete this Honors Magazine Feedback Form.
Stay tuned for the next edition!
