Spoke magazine provides numerous ways for students to express themselves

PHOTO: Junior Alicia Joo stands in front of her work “Through the Window,” on display at the student exhibition wall of the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. 

By Sarah Kim,

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff– 

Since late October, Spoke magazine has been open for rolling submissions of photography, artwork, writing, original music and short films. Recently, they have begun posting new content and promoting the submissions through their Instagram.  

Senior Aaron Berger submitted writing to Spoke last year and recently submitted new work that was published on the Spoke website. His recent work discusses “loneliness that can come from facing dangers and problems alone and then the reckoning that people have to go through realizing that salvation they have been waiting for the whole time isn’t actually going to come,” Berger said. 

Similarly to Berger, senior Morgan Hendrix-Chupa submitted a poem to Spoke. She recently became aware of Spoke and was encouraged by her peers to submit a specific poem as it depicts her personal life in a creative manner. 

Junior Alicia Joo submitted her photos to Spoke in order to expand her creative space and to seek out more creative opportunities at Davis High. 

“One of the submitted pieces [for Spoke] was also submitted for a student competition last year. It’s one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken,” Joo said. 

These artists and writers found the Spoke staff to be approachable during the submission and editing period. 

“I was concerned it would be hard to communicate but it really wasn’t. I thought it was an easy submission process,” Hendrix-Chupa said. 

The Spoke officers work in a ping-pong manner with the submissioner. Writing editor Ayisi Ni says for writing submissions, it is best to share comments with the writer via email and Google Docs. This is also the case for art submissions, according to the art and photography editor Alex Herrera. 

Herrera emphasizes that Spoke is open to any creative pieces. 

“We don’t really look for anything too specific, we really take pride in being a safe space for DHS students’ creativity so we try to be as inclusive as we can for all types of art,” Herrera said. 

With an unrestricted amount and types of creative pieces that Spoke offers, Berger recommends submitting art and writing pieces to Spoke to everyone in DHS. 

“I think anyone at our school who finds themselves wanting to share what they’ve done or to find a community of people with the same goals in mind as them and express themselves should really look into Spoke,” Berger said.