Art: "Op. 5 n. 6" by Amalia Castoldi
Poetry: "Oh, Mama, Mama" by Kendyl Harmeling
in a parallel universe, I am already dead
thousands of times over and to my thousand mothers
a million light years, a gentle fallen wrist, an inversion, a flash of pain
and a ceasing yet still, yet still, I open my eyes beneath the morning knocks
but I cannot remember my afterlives
I have been dead since I was a child,
when the ghosts crept out of my mind and into the darkness of my room,
the fracturing I have always found in the bad luck of living
I kept and kept and kept, my flesh now cryptid in a
quiet, cross-spatial ceremony for my millionth mother’s grief
someday I will never have existed at all
and the green valley of her love for me will suffer a draught of rebirth and returning
when the grass dries under her knees and the earths crack apart
it will be said that it has always been this way
and the rubble ground into sand above my graves will have always been sand
this desert is beautiful, and the orange and purple flash of life
just before the sun sets here has always been breathtaking
and my mother has always loved the sun
Published August 27th 2024
Kendyl Harmeling (she/her) is a teacher and PhD Candidate at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. There she teaches and studys liberation and anti-oppressive composing processes and pedagogies. Her poetry and creative nonfiction can also be found in the mags “Untentured,” and “Miracle Monocle.”
Amalia Castoldi is an Italian painter specialized in oil on canvas, with a distinct focus on surrealistic horror themes. As both a pianist and painter, she doesn’t assign titles to her artworks, preferring to classify them with opus numbers like music pieces. This choice comes from her belief that while her paintings may depict figurative subjects, they transcend mere representation, serving instead as expressions of specific emotions conveyed through shapes and colors. Her secondary production, combined in Opus 6, combines painting with music, where the painting is an exact visual representation of a specific piano piece. Born in Milan (Italy) in 1997, Amalia Castoldi resides and works in her birth city. She has participated in national and international exhibitions, showcasing her distinctive style and thematic approach. With a Bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance from Civica Scuola Claudio Abbado (2023; Milan, Italy) Amalia is currently completing a Master’s degree at the Conservatory Giuseppe Verdi of Como while pursuing further studies in contemporary music at the Academy of Pinerolo under the guidance of the pianist Emanuele Arciuli. She regularly attends masterclasses with esteemed international pianists like Dorian Britton, Roberto Prosseda, Francesco Prode and Roberto Plano. Her talents have been recognized with prizes in various competitions, and she has been playing as soloist in classical music festivals across Italy including Piano City Milano, Piano City Trieste, “Flying notes” organized by Fazioli, “Young Talents” in Imperia, “Summer music festival” by Suoni D’Autore. In 2022 Amalia recorded a commercial for DHL and FIAT.