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“If I were a flower I would be a dandelion.” I turn my head and feel the sharp blades of grass scratch at my cheek. She is there beside me, blonde hair twisted against the green foliage, a dandelion dangling from her grasp. The spring wind ruffles through the trees and blows a stray seedContinue reading “Petals Rain from the Sky”

In his poem “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost illustrates the complexities of choice  through the speaker’s encounter with a divergence of two identical roads, communicating the  poem’s theme that although human beings are shaped by the decisions they make, it is often  impossible to foresee the outcome of those choices. Through a metaphorical analysisContinue reading ““The Road Not Taken” – A Commentary on Human Nature”

This issue of the atala was designed, curated, and edited by Editor in Chief Samantha Lowe, Editors Samantha Villafane and Logan Saenz, and NEHS Advisor Ms. Sarah Phelps Please click on thumbnails below to view each featured work:

The poetry of Emily Dickinson exhibits a command of mind that represents one of the paradigms of feminist ideology, storytelling as a vehicle for the activation of “the centrality of identity” (York 2). In her radical poem “It was not Death, for I stood up,” Dickinson reveals the pathology of oppression through her probe intoContinue reading “Ontopoetics: Metaphysical Massacre in Dickinson’s Poetry”

The sun went missing today. There were no rivers of blood or plagues of locusts, first-born children did not fall ill, nor did frogs descend on the cities. It was quiet. The black hole stood stagnant. We could only watch and wait. My friend Joseph says the aliens are coming. That they will treat youContinue reading “Boyscout Camping Trip on the Eve of the Apocalypse”

Mariana Colicchio is currently a senior and NEHS President at Pembroke Pines Charter High School. She specializes in oil painting and focuses on portraits. She is a past winner of the Scholastic Art Awards and won 1st place in the 2018 Pines Art Fest Student Competition.

The sky is ash-blackened and heavy with smoke, making each inhale a gasping effort into the strip of cloth pressed to my mouth. The suffocating scent of gasoline still chokes the air as I stumble over the cracked earth and into a small clearing on the boardwalk. From here, I can see the dark lineContinue reading “Oil Spill”

Marcella Lesmes is a junior at PPCHS and enjoys making art. She has been doing art for about 7 years. Although she usually uses acrylic paints, in this piece she went with watercolors and pens.

*A sonnet is a fourteen line poem written in iambic pentameter and following a particular rhyme scheme typically dictated by either Italian or English form rules. This sonnet qualifies as an English sonnet. I amputated my arm yesterday Blood relentlessly spilled out of the wound I watched it pour and I began to pray MaybeContinue reading “Adiela”