Read the winning piece of our 2025 Nonfiction Contest “Through the Mirror” by Jessie Cato selected by Lucy Ives.

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Winter 1988 • Vol. X No. 1 • Poetry |

Herons and Water Lilies

I am walking behind three men,
obviously undergraduates,
who are talking in loud voices.
Why do they have to read Plato?

They speak of the opportunities
in medicine and law . . . in computers.
Who cares about Shakespeare?
What’s Hecuba to them?

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