Acknowledgements
This magazine wouldn’t be possible without the support and encouragement of many. Particularly, we are grateful to Dr. James Palmer, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, for making it possible for us to bring this issue to you. We are also grateful to Dr. Pamela K. Wright, Interim Chair of the Department of Language and Literature for believing in us. And we are especially grateful to Dr. Palmer and Dr. Wright for making it possible for us to organize the poetry reading and visual poetry workshops by Texas State Poet Laureate, Dr. Octavio Quintanilla.
We also appreciate the support of Dr. Scott Anthony Jones, Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. And we absolutely must recognize all the hard work done behind the scenes by Ms. Crystal Suarez, Office Administrator for the Department of Language and Literature; Ms. Elisa Guerra, Manager, Operations & Planning, for the College of Arts and Sciences; and Ms. Jennifer Maria Vela, Executive Assistant II to the Provost.
We would be remiss if we didn’t thank Dr. Octavio Quintanilla for taking time out of his busy schedule to visit our campus and share his work with us. Thank you, Dr. Quintanilla, for also sharing 3 of your incredible visual poems to be featured in this issue.
We are so very grateful for the support of our readers. We can create new worlds through literature and the arts, but we could never adequately express just how much it means to us that you are there to see what we have created.
Finally, we are grateful for each other because we are a community with a shared vision; we support each other, listen to each other, and when we come together, we create a thing of beauty.
From the Desk of the Editorial Advisor
What a feeling it is to be able to share with you the Fall issue of the centennial year of our university. 100 years! This august heritage of our institution inspires all Javelinas to create legacies of their own. Who knows, perhaps, in a few more decades, a new generation of readers will marvel at the 50-year anniversary of this little magazine that was lovingly brought to life by our talented students.
This issue, Issue 5, is special in many ways. It celebrates the centennial of the university by looking forward to new horizons. It features the winners of a poetry competition. It features 3 incredible works of visual poetry by Texas State Poet Laureate, Dr. Octavio Quintanilla. And it features the talented work of students, staff, and faculty at TAMUK, as well as students from Bishop High School, Santa Gertrudis Academy High School, and Kaufer Early College High School, all of whom participated in workshops with Dr. Quintanilla.
We hope you enjoy this issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together. As you go through the pages, please think of the amazing editorial and graphic design teams of TAMUK students who make this magazine possible. The dreams that led to the foundation of TAMUK in 1925 continue to burn brightly in the Javelina Nation today and will bring you many more issues of TheJavelinaExpress in years to come.
1st 2nd
“Apparition”
by Sean P. Cooper
General Note Poetry Contest Winners
“A New Horizon” by Colleen Fischer
We created this magazine to provide a platform for Javelinas to share their imaginations. And Javelinas have powerful imaginations that map the full spectrum of human experiences that can address challenging issues like grief, trauma, violence, etc. We recognize the courage it takes for authors and artists to share their creations, and we appreciate our readers using their judgment to decide whether to engage with the published work.
Table of Contents
Poetry Visual Poetry
Sean P. Cooper
• Sense Memory, Corpus Christi Bay........7
• Apparition................................................11
Luis Alberto Cortés
• Preparing the Meat...................................5
• i see you there............................................3
• Chasing Dreams........................................8
Colleen Fischer
• A New Horizon.........................................12
Joseph Garza Medina
• The Weight of the Earth............................3
Alexia Montemayor
• The Woman Who Comes and Goes........6
April Dawn Patterson
• The Squadron..............................................2
Ellen Snelson
• Where the Horizon Begins........................1
風のジャク
• Ephemeral Cycle....................................4
Non-Fiction
Katy Erben Ruuning on Empty .....................................9
Esquivel
Chess with a Love that Never Was ........23
Octavio Quintanilla
• 34 Uninhabited Memory .........................14 • 45 Uninhabited Memory .........................20 • 57 Uninhabited Memory .........................25
Where the Horizon Begins
By: Ellen Snelson
Beneath the wide South Texas sky, where dreams and dust together lie, each sunrise whispers soft and clear— Go farther still, your path is here.
The prairie once a boundary seemed, but now it’s where our hearts have dreamed. Our boots press forward, steady, strong, to trails that hum a hopeful song.
We are Javelinas, fierce and free, bold in heart and legacy. Through heat and hardship, storm and flame, we carve new roads and stake our claim.
From classrooms bright to fields of grain, our roots grow deep, our hands remain. We build, we heal, we lift, we learn, and light the path for those who yearn.
When twilight paints the golden plains, and quiet pride in us remains, we’ll see the glow where light begins— and know the horizon starts within.
The Squadron
skwŏd′rən- n. a group of javelinas.
By: April Dawn Patterson
Questioning can be an awkward place, But it’s where all epic journeys begin. You may be asking, WhoamI?WheredoIbelong? As you think yourself into a tailspin.
Take heart.
TAMUK gives your dreams fuel and a map And puts you in the pilot’s seat-Prepares you for the challenges You’ll inevitably meet.
So,
Set your coordinates for horizons, New and bold. Begin to live the story that Begs to be told.
Unbound by yesterday, Equipped with today. The Javelina squadron joins you As we proudly say, “WITH YOU. WITHOUT LIMITS.”
The Weight of the Earth
By: Joseph Garza Medina
Ding ding ding!
A fleece blanket on white limbs, A disgrace on tape.
The tape reveals the face of the age, The pride and sloth of highly articulated and individualized loneliness. You who wish to conquer pain, What right have you to judge the tattered and the poor?
In their ice caverns? In their lunch boxes?
In their Beirut dwellings? Come, child.
A moppish fop and inmate of the One Tribe Nation, Come into the bosom.
i see you there
By: Luis Alberto Cortés
whispering my name promising, this time will be different
how joyously numb you helped forget bastion of the night
i see you there waiting for me saying, “you’re all alone”
Ephemeral Cycle
By: 風のジャク
Preparing the Meat
By: Luis Albert Cortés
Before the sun thought to rise, I was already carving, hands steady against the weight of it all— raw and waiting, heavy as old prayers. The blade found the seam between bone and flesh, and I worked without hurry, without fear, only the slow certainty that some things must pass through fire before they can feed the living. I was thinking of my family, how their small hungers are stitched into the bigger ones, how a man’s hands must learn the art of cutting back without cutting away. There was no music, no great light, only the quiet sound of flesh giving waya kind of blessing. A kind of mercy. By the time they woke, the smoke would be rising. The table would be set. And no one would ask what it cost.
The Woman Who Comes and Goes
By: Alexia Montemayor
I will always love you. It doesn’t matter what you have done or what you will do. It will never change the way that I love you.
The days are cold when I wait for your return. I was just a child when you left. I felt the pain but couldn’t let go of the love.
You came home and locked yourself in the room. I tried to search for you, but the door was always locked. I wanted to hug you and hear you say, “I love you”.
But the only thing I heard were screams and door slams. You would leave again and not return, And when you came back, our family would grow.
Our home no longer felt like ours. It was filled with strangers. The strangers would come and go just as you would,
But I stayed, I stayed alone waiting for you to return so that I could love you. You searched for love in strangers when love was always waiting for you at home.
I waited. I hoped. I hurt.
I still love you, Mom.
Sense Memory, Corpus Christi Bay
By: Sean P. Cooper
standing near the seawall searching out beyond wavecrests and breakers trying to make out distant sands barrier islands and far-off gray-green gulf waters
it’s quiet out here in a strange way despite the cheerful shouts of children and teenagers a man near me playing music through his phone and of course the roar of the gulf breeze and the susurration of the waves splashing mistfoam against jagged concrete jetties softly like a jazz snare played with brushes unexpectedly a memory of saltwater burns the back of my throat briny and summer-warm pulling me under flickering impressions of childhood days spent standing amid the rhythmic swells trying to stay upright against the pulse of the ocean wishing wondering if the next wave might carry me out to sea
By: Luis Alberto Cortés
I didn’t go back to remember. I went back to see. The house was bare, stripped down to its ribs— no voices, no breathing wallpaper, just the architecture of what survived us. Upstairs, in the room the boys once filled with breathing, the door snapped shut like a trap. Footsteps slapped the stairs— quick, urgent, real. I ran after them, feet pounding where memory could barely keep up, tracking the thing that still lived in the bones of this place. It ducked into the old bathroom. I ripped the door open— nothing but stillness. No fear. No ghosts.
Just the sudden knowledge that whatever you chase through the empty rooms of your life, you are really chasing yourself— and you are gaining.
Running On Empty
By: Katy Erben
By April 2027, one of the largest ports of the United States will lose its largest water suppliers1. Corpus Christi is on the brink of water bankruptcy. Drought regulations have become second nature to Corpus Christi citizens, so much so that the prediction of an extreme water shortage took no one by surprise. The brown, crunchy lawns and fields have become the natural landscape of the city. Drought conditions are the norm, and when rain does make an appearance, flooding usually follows. Even the soil has become unaccustomed to water.
Water powers humanity. Not only is it necessary for our bodies, but it is also vital for our everyday lives. Our homes, food, power, and jobs all rely on water to function. Every day, we use water to grow crops, create electricity, drink, and dispose of waste. In Corpus Christi, it is most prominently used by industry. Companies like ExxonMobil, CITGO, and Valero use millions of gallons of water a day to sustain their operations. These companies provide many Corpus Christi citizens with jobs, and the growth of this industry means the expansion of the job market. At least, it will for now. Come April 2027, that expansion will come to an end.
It is no secret that most of the water used in Corpus Christi is by industry2. The allocation of that water, though, is not as well known. City officials have been able to skate by with the over-promising of water rights to big industries so far, but as the coming water scarcity crisis gets closer, the scrutiny of the distribution of water has increased. The scramble for a solution to the impending water shortage has led to
dead end after dead end. The proposed desalination plant would have provided an additional water supply, though it would come just a little too late. Brine produced by the desalination plant would damage the local marine environment, which is the backbone of many local services and professions.
Long-lasting droughts that have plagued the city for the past several years have only exacerbated poor regulation of water usage. The city is draining water faster than it can be naturally replenished for the ambitious growth of the city’s industrial sector. The burden of water conservation has been placed on the everyday citizens of Corpus Christi. Restrictions have been placed on outdoor watering, and conservation campaigns encourage citizens to take shorter showers, repair leaky faucets, and use dishwashers and laundry machines as little as possible. This movement for water conservation seems to have become little more than a poor attempt to build morale and continues to drain the city of its once vibrant image.
Corpus Christi has become a Goliath of the oil and gas industry, but water scarcity is closing in with its slingshot ready. The consequences of the city’s ambition are becoming clearer with every gallon of water sold. How much dryer can the land get? How many more drops of water can be conserved through five-minute showers? Can the city save itself, or will it drown in its own ambition?
The story of Icarus has been retold and reimagined time and time again, and it will soon be seen in the history of Corpus Christi. This time, however, it will be the ordinary citizens of the city that will bear the brunt of its fall.
1CorpusChristiWater,WaterSupplyDashboard.
https://www.corpuschristitx.gov/department-directory/corpus-christi-water/water-supply-dashboard-english 2Ibid.
Apparition
By: Sean P. Cooper
through the food truck window next to pictures of tacos flautas and quesadillas amid the smell of fried foods a face stares back
ball cap pulled low glasses tinted gray over weary blue eyes beard close-trimmed more salt than pepper
for one hopeful second i’m tempted to call out:
Dad?
but i realize it’s just my reflection in the dirty glass
1st in Poetry
A New Horizon
By: Colleen Fischer
My mom once left everything she knew for a new country— streets that didn’t know her name, a sky that looked the same but didn’t feel like home.
She learned to build a life from unfamiliar pieces— translating for my grandma, calling offices where no one said her name right, learning how to exist in a place that never slowed down for her.
Now it’s me, somewhere new again. Different air, different light. Even the silence feels louder here.
Sometimes I see someone and my chest tightens— a flash of a smile, the slope of a shoulder, and I think I see someone
2nd in Poetry
I never realized how easily people drift— how they can look like someone you knew and still be completely different. No two clouds are ever the same, no matter how much you want them to be.
This place feels endless, like I’m walking through her story without meaning to— trying to belong somewhere that doesn’t quite know what to do with me.
But she did it. She learned to find warmth in a colder sun. And maybe that’s what she passed on— not certainty, but the quiet strength to stand beneath an unfamiliar sky and keep looking for a new horizon.
Visual Poetry From South Texas
Dr. Octavio Quintanilla
In October 2025, students, staff, and faculty at Texas A&M University-Kingsville as well as students at Bishop High School, Santa Gertrudis High School, and Kaufer Early College High School, attended visual poetry workshops with 2025 Texas State Poet Laureate, Dr. Octavio Quintanilla. These workshops were organized by The Javelina Express with the encouragement and support of the Office of the Provost and Department of Language and Literature. Dr. Quintanilla, among his many achievements, created his own form of visual poetry drawing upon his life experiences in South Texas called “frontextos.” These “frontera + textos” or border-texts have been published and exhibited widely and many of them are featured in his collection of poems titled TheBookof WoundedSparrows(Texas Review Press, 2024), which was longlisted for the National Book Award. His other two poetry collections are IfIGoMissing (Slough Press, 2014) and LasHorasImposibles/TheImpossibleHours(University of Arizona Press, 2025), the latter of which won the 2024 Ambroggio Prize of the Academy of American Poets.
In this issue, we are delighted to feature some of the visual poetry that came out of the wonderful workshops. The theme of the workshops was Ars Poetica or poems about poetry, and the works-in-progress showcased throughout this issue bear testimony to the tremendous talent in South Texas that that needs only the mentorship of a kindred spirit to flourish.
We are also honored to include 3 frontextos by Octavio Quintanilla.
34 Uninhabitated Memory
By: Octavio Quintanilla
My Sweet Sonic
By: Purity Niño
By: Jathan Ten Cate
By:
Elena Rodriguez
By: Armando Ortega
By: Desiree Quesada
45 Uninhabitated Memory
By: Octavio Quintanilla
By: Araceli Balboa
By: Piper Colston Haiku
57 Uninhabited Memory
By: Octavio Quintanilla
Poetry
Sean P. Cooper is an alumnus of Texas A&M University-Kingsville (BA 2000, MS 2022). He is currently working as an assistant principal at H.M. King High School in Kingsville, where he lives with his wife, children, and a mother-in-law.
Luis Alberto Cortés obtained his Ph.D. in Literature at the University of California San Diego. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies and American Literature of the U.S. at Texas A&M University - Kingsville. Luis Cortés is the son of formerly undocumented migrants and is a first-generation Chicano graduate.
Colleen Fischer attends TAMUK as an English major. She likes to cook and spend time with friends and enjoys writing.
Joseph Garza Medina was a founding member of the Javelina Express editorial team and has served as Poetry Editor for the journal. His work has also been published in Taj Mahal Review, The Soliloquist, and in Voices Unbound-An Anthology of International Poetry. He enjoys spending time with his pets.
Alexis Montemayor wrote her poem about her mother who has been in and out of her life. Alexis decided to write about this because every time her mother returned she felt that this would be the time she would stay, it would be her new horizon.
April Dawn Patterson is a TAMUK distance learner pursuing her MS in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. When not studying, she unwinds with philosophy chats, astrology memes, and Star Trek reruns. Patterson is proud to be part of Javelina Nation, where students and alumni make the world a better place through their passion and integrity.
Ellen Snelson is a student and writer at Texas A&M University–Kingsville. Inspired by her South Texas roots, she writes about identity, hope, and discovery. Her poem “Where the Horizon Begins” honors the Javelina spirit of resilience and the pursuit of new horizons.
風のジャク is a Junior at Riviera Kaufer Early College High School, pursuing her associate’s degree through the dual credit program. She wishes to major in Kinesiology in college and serve in the U.S. military.
Contributor Bio Notes
Visual Poetry
Araceli Balboa is a student at Kaufer Early College High School.
Jathan Ten Cate is a student at Kaufer Early College High School.
Piper Colston is a student at Kaufer Early College High School.
Kayla Ryan “Percy” Esquivel is a First-Generation student and English major at Texas A&M University- Kingsville. Her academic focus centers on confessional poetry and contemporary playwrighting.
Roberto Juarez wrote his poem when his son was diagnosed with autism at a young age. Roberto was at a loss, frustrated, not knowing how he would be able to help his son. He felt he was drowning in complete sorrow, but peace came over him when he sought a higher power.
Purity Niño is a student at Kaufer Early College High School.
Desiree Quesada is a student at Kaufer Early College High School.
Octavio Quintanilla is the 2025 Texas Poet Laureate and author of three poetry collections. He is the founder and director of the literature & arts festival, VersoFrontera, publisher of Alabrava Press, and former Poet Laureate of San Antonio, TX. His Frontextos (visual poems) have been published and exhibited widely. He teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Our Lady of the Lake University and was recently inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.
Elena Rodriguez is a student at Kaufer Early College High School.
Non-fiction
Katy Erben is a student at TAMUK, majoring in Geology and History. She spends her days reading, playing with her dogs, and undertaking new creative projects. As a Corpus Christi native, the success and well-being of her city is important to her, and she believes that the incoming water scarcity is an important discussion. She hopes to help build a future where Corpus Christi citizens won’t have to worry about water shortages.
Meet The Editorial Team
Editorial Coordinators
Leslie Cariaga (Team Leader)
Kayla Ryan (Percy) Esquivel
Danielle Arredondo
Alessandra Zavala
Graphic Design Team
Thomas Perez (Lead Designer)
Mia Vigil
Marketing & Advertising
Rebecca Farias
Associate Editors:
Katy Erben
Jacob Warrick
Mathias Kimmel
Joseph G. Medina
Hannah Henderson
Aniruddha Mukhopadhyay (Editorial Advisor) (Poetry Advisor)
The Javelina Express is available free-of-cost to the Javelina Community in digital format. If you would like to be added to the mailing list for digital distribution, please email us at javelina.express@ tamuk.edu.
If you would like to support the running of the magazine with a donation, please contact Dr. Pamela K. Wright, Interim Chair of the Department of Language and Literature, at 361-593-2516 or by email at pamela.wright@tamuk.edu.
If you enjoyed the stories, poems, and artwork in this issue, and would like to write to the author, please email your letter to javelina. express@tamuk. edu clearly identifying the piece and the author. We will forward your letter after review.