About The Piece: “Originally, the piece was an idea I had shared with my best friend for a collection of poems she was writing for one of her classes. She was doing a variety of poems about people watching and I had written a *very* rough draft to explain what I meant when offering her another idea to add to her collection. I ended up revisiting the idea and I was writing my own take on it. I remembered what being in the passenger seat meant for me. Ever since I got my license, I hadn’t really given it too much thought but I remembered how often I would fight with my sister to sit in front. After that, the words kind of just happened. My dad has always played a big role in who I am and in teaching me life skills, but cars and driving is where we really connected. I haven’t really ever written poetry before this, or submitted to anything, so once I wrote it I kind of just full-sent it and submitted the piece to see what happened. Honestly, as more time went by, the less confident I was with it and I was surprised that it got the reception that it did from the poetry committee. I guess that goes to show that a writer’s worst critic is themselves.”

About The Author: “My name is Arti and I’m an English Ed major at ISU. I have always loved English as a whole but I got into writing because I loved to tell stories and the freedom of creating new worlds was so cool to me. I hadn’t written in a while but as a Euphemism member, I decided to give creative writing another shot and tried my hand at poetry for the first time. In my free time, I love to skate, listen to music, hang out with friends, and bother my roommate’s cats. I also love photography and any type of art, even though I’m not really that good at it. In the future, I hope to be a high school English teacher at international schools so I can travel the world and pick up on new cultures and lifestyles. Maybe one day, I’ll open my own school!”