The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila

The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila

The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila

Riya Samuel (9) and Ivanya Sadana (9) dance to a Bollywood routine during Mondays assembly. The Student Diversity Coalition opened the showcase by introducing culture week and promoting events later in the week like a chalk art activity.

Culture Week Days 1 and 2: Students showcase diverse performances in cultural assembly

by Janam Chahal and Lily Shi February 28, 2024

Upper school students commenced Culture Week by sharing their cultural traditions through song, dance and poetry during an assembly in the Athletic Center on Monday.  Student Diversity Coalition leaders...

Dhanya Ramanan (9) recites Love Song of the Bat with Vertigo by Martín Espada for Harkers Poetry Out Loud competition on Jan. 31. Of the eleven contestants, Eric Zhang (11) and Iris Fu (12) advanced to the Santa Clara County regional round.

Contestants recite for Poetry Out Loud

by Jeremy Peng, Assistant Copy Editor February 9, 2024

Eleven students competed in Harker’s annual Poetry Out Loud contest in Nichols Auditorium on Jan. 31 during long lunch.  Each contestant recited a poem of their choice to three judges, English teachers...

Writers’ Advocate officers Tanisha Singh (12), Felix Chen (11) and Sydney Ling (12) analyze a mythology-themed poem Gaea for entry into the Scholastic Awards. Participants discussed how to use literary devices that communicated the writers voice without sacrificing clarity for the reader.

Club Corner: Writer’s Advocate hosts Scholastic writing workshop

by Jeremy Peng, Assistant Copy Editor December 19, 2023

Writers’ Advocate Club hosted its annual Scholastic Art and Writing Awards writing workshop during long lunch on Dec. 1 in advance of the competition’s Dec. 11 regional submission deadline. Club...

Modern haikus bend traditional rules; they blend old and new again.

Haikus for National Haiku Day

by Jessica Wang and Claire Su May 24, 2023

Learn about the history of haikus in a series of 5-7-5 poems we wrote to honor National Haiku Day on April 17! Sparse syllables flow Haikus born in Japan's past Bashō's artistry  Seventeen sound...

Anna Yang is a twelfth grader at Notre Dame High School in San Jose and is the 2022-2023 Santa Clara Youth Poet Laureate. Anna’s writing has been published in The New York Times and KQED. Anna spoke with Harker Aquila about her experiences in poetry, and how it relates to her identity and past.

The Poet’s Project: ‘Depths of my mind’

by Felix Chen and Aishani Singh March 16, 2023

Anna Yang is a twelfth grader at Notre Dame High School in San Jose and is the 2022-2023 Santa Clara Youth Poet Laureate. Anna’s writing has been published in The New York Times and KQED. Anna spoke...

An illustration representing various motifs in some of Edgar Allan Poes most famous poems. Many regard Poe as the greatest poet to ever live.

Friday Five: Poe(ms)

by Jonathan Xue, Humans of Harker Profiler March 8, 2023

Edgar Allan Poe died of consumption. But even a century and a half later, his works continue to gnaw at me; their biting twists and subtle nuance are truly captivating. Each poem he writes is layered with...

Ellen Bass is the author of four poetry collections, including most recently, “Indigo,” published in 2020. Bass spoke with Harker Aquila about her experiences reading, writing, and teaching poetry, making a home and a life out of this art.

The Poet’s Project: ‘The magic and mystery of it’

by Felix Chen and Sarah Mohammed January 24, 2023

Ellen Bass is the author of four poetry collections, including most recently, “Indigo” (Copper Canyon Press 2020). Her poems have been published in the New Yorker and the American Poetry Review and...

Upper school mathematics teacher Caren Furtado observes several works of photography and art at the Artstravaganza exhibits. Campus art and writing exhibition Artstravaganza displayed student artwork and literature from the past year.

Artstravaganza arts and writing show exhibits student works and talent

by Alena Suleiman, Assistant A&E Editor May 7, 2022

A gingerly cut wooden butterfly perches on a black stand. A few feet away, crawling vines wrap around the neck of a glossy pine green vase. These are just some of the creations on display at Artstravaganza,...

Zubin Khera (11) and Vivian Bi (11) read writing in the latest issue of the Harker Eclectic Literary Magazine (HELM), which was produced by students and focused on the theme of renaissance this year. HELM often features student-written poetry, creative writing and miscellaneous forms of art.

Poem in your pocket: Celebrating National Poetry Month

by Sydney Ling, Reporter April 30, 2022

It’s hard to define what poetry exactly is. Poetry can be reading Shel Silverstein’s poems in second grade, black-out poetry with sharpies or “I Am” poems. Poetry can be Frank Ocean’s confessionals,...

Rachel Mennies is a poet and the author of The Naomi Letters
 (BOA Editions, 2021) and 
The Glad Hand of God Points Backwards (Texas Tech University Press), finds poetry to be a site of tenderness. Her most recent collection explores this tenderness through the epistolary form, as she writes lush letters to an imaginary woman.

The Poet’s Project: How poetry teaches us to be tender together

by Sarah Mohammed, Features Editor April 30, 2022

Rachel Mennies is a poet and the author of “The Naomi Letters” (BOA Editions, 2021) and “The Glad Hand of God Points Backwards” (Texas Tech University Press), which was named a finalist for the...

Estelle Cimino, who visited the upper school campus with the Beat Museum on Wheels, reads a poem from Beat Generation author Ruth Weiss at their speaker event on Feb. 24. The BeatMobile came to the campus for the day to educate about the Beat Generation authors of the 1950s.

Beat Museum on Wheels teaches about Beat Generation at upper school visit

by Sally Zhu, A&E and Lifestyle Editor March 4, 2022

The Beat Museum on Wheels visited the upper school campus on Feb. 24 and stayed throughout the day, setting up a truck outside of Manzanita where students could explore the Beat Generation and also delivering...

Keith S. Wilson, an Affrilachian poet and game designer, sees the world through visual textures. He enjoys experimenting with the physical space of the page when he writes his poems, letting words leap and splay.

The Poet’s Project: ‘I come to video games thinking that they’re equally capable of being art’

by Sarah Mohammed, Features Editor February 27, 2022

Keith S. Wilson is an Affrilachian poet, game designer and author of “Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love” (Copper Canyon), which was recognized by the New York Times as a best new book of poetry. His work...

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