a woman pressed against a plastic barrier with her eyes closed, wearing a purple shade of lipstick.

issue no. 27: self-portrait 3

february 2026

This issue of Pearl Press features work from:

Samantha Jensen, Venessa Tai Yeh, Hinako Ogoshi, Robin Jamketal, Edward Thomas-Herrera, Frances Bukovsky, Stephanie Schwiederek, Chloe Scout Nix, Abigail Marcolini, Christina Mei Rouse, Toni Dawe, Saoirse Sexton, Kevin Gutoskey, Miya Jordan, Jen Klockner, Kadiejra O'Neal

Cover image: Kadiejra O'Neal

Curated by: Delilah Twersky

Download the PDF →

two metal sheets with ridges covering the body of a woman, you might only see her hands holding the metal. it is black and white and vertical orientation.

RADIUS: Samantha Jensen

pov: you are labeled as a first-generation taiwanese-american

i look
for meaning
in the mooncake
and i find only the taste of
a delicious paste of dates
wrapped inside a golden
brown flower. i look to the
upside down fú for a prayer
but only find it in the sound
of má jiàng pieces click-clacking
with the laughter of my family
as i slip away into sleep on the
couch. i was given the hóng bāo
for prosperity, so i gave it away.
i find comfort in the smell of
chòu dòu fǔ and alleys weathered
by humidity that clings to my
skin. the incense offered to
the laughing buddha speaks
a language i thought i didn't
understand. until i realized
my language was the stillness
of the buddha stone. it was
the flickering smoke and
the ash tick-tocking
time without a

sound.

Venessa Tai Yeh

a black and white portrait of a woman standing in shallow water looking up to the sky. she has short dark hair and is wearing a thin white nightgown.

nothing and everything: Hinako Ogoshi

black and white photograph of a persons hand close up to the left side of the camera holding an umbrella that is slightly out of frae, viewing a landscape that is open.

Identity Loss #3: Robin Jamkatel

the incomplete cartographer

I can’t draw you a detailed map because I’m not the god of
anything. I can barely lay claim to cardinal directions and a
vague sense of forward movement. I’m powerless to deposit
these leafless trees anywhere, these February houses still
clinging onto their Christmas lights, these cafés, these yoga
studios, these pastel boutiques for expectant mothers. Here is
where you’ve got to turn onto a noisy intersection, they tell
me. Here you might pick up a bus, should you deserve one.
This is the spot from which you can see the church steeple,
but only at a remove. The ancients surrounded Old World
continents with an imagined circular ocean because they
realized, after a certain point, they had to come clean and stop
pretending they knew where everything was headed. I invite
you to draw me a detailed map. You possess perspective I
don’t, that I can’t, and never will. Feel free to mark my exact
location with a big bold X in red like a pirate’s buried treasure,
or a dotted line like a scenic route through southern Utah, or
just abandon me, if you must, to an expanse of gray GPS
pixels. Surround me with an imagined circular ocean. I’m not
the god of anything. I struggle to inhabit this place with joy.
I’ve come clean and stopped pretending I know where
everything is headed.

Edward Thomas-Herrera

a color image of a person pouring water over themselves with water droplets all around their face lit by the sun.

Baptism: Frances Bukovsky

black and white photo of a person's nude back with dee shadows and lights to show it's curves.

I'll See You in the Morning: Stephanie Schwiederek

person lying in a circle body of water flat on their back in a bathing suit in a sandy landscape.

RADIUS: Samantha Jensen

knocked up #2 (moms college blanket)_2025.jpg

Knocked up #2: Chloe Scout Nix

a person standing in the middle of a body of water

Revealed by Shadow: Frances Bukovsky

a glory be (for you and me)

How many times do you have to repeat strong are the meek before it’s true?

How seventeen do you have to be to give out plastic daisies at the adobe McDonald’s by your high school? How amazing is it that my desires are simple? (One: a little levity; two: an exception, like a star for Ed Ruscha on Hollywood Boulevard.) How many scarlet honeyeater feathers would I have been worth in the Solomon Islands all those years ago? (The only ethical way to find out is if you get that Malinowski book for free.)

I felt free when I realized my preference for The Clash over The Cure alienated me from my peers. Free at first, but I soon became boorish, because I had three questions I wanted to pose to the group (I’m so big, who could contain me? I’m so small, who could find me? I’m so medium, who gives a fuck?).

So I blamed the music when I questioned why I got frustrated like a child over these syllogisms. It was on the music that I said to the hairdresser: do you have a vision for me? Do you see this strange face? And, if so, can you take it into consideration?

I have since left the question of the meek and our supposed strength on the table next to the keys to the apartment because I learned that questions are nothing more than noise, because the quiet -- that meek angel of clarity -- is the only thing that wrings out of me those little bouts of glory.

woman in black standing in the middy of a rocky terrain with red blurs over her black dress that show movement.

Semblance: Christina Mei Rouse

So glory to this museum body, which stands next to illuminated manuscripts and tans on the deck of the Intrepid. May it become like that old Victorian manor in downtown Phoenix, which seemed so out of place yet so celebrated and stewarded. It was this very angel that pushed me up the staircase at the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, the one who whispered to me in New York City: here, you can be on a highway and be in the city too.

Glory to my girls, who say everything true. And glory to the equator: for at any given moment, there is a sun over Guyana, a furnace, and a million plantains to enjoy. Glory to this past September, when I knew it would not be long before the first maple leaf bombed the sidewalk
declaring that the world still turns about its axis.

Like when summer peeks around the freezing corner and we say:
ah, yes, there are all the people.

Abigail Marcolini

woman standing in the middle of an outdoor backyard space with her shirt pulled over her face exposing herself.

they were wearing my face: Chloe Scout Nix

dissociate associate

I don’t know who you are
A reflection baited with grace or fury
Eyes deterring

I blink
Plastic shutters quake in the wind
How I wish I could be blind

I lay on the bed in the motel fog, break of hazy dawn, cigarette ash lining tear ducts and stained
countertops, ripe with jaundice and lilac lash, whip placed in the remains of my hands

Perhaps I am bitter
At the loss of the familiar
I blink

Eyes traversing
Perhaps I miss the person in the mirror
I don’t know who you are

Toni Dawe

Suspended in Cabinteely: Saoirse Sexton

self-portrait as a dust jacket

Edward Thomas-Herrera is a Salvadoran-American poet, playwright, and
performer who lives in a manner of speaking. Mostly Chicago. Sometimes in an
imaginary villa on an island in the Mediterranean. He’s only been published a
handful of time in his entire life - and one of those times was for an online literary
magazine, so he’s not sure if that really counts as “published.” On the subject of
Edward’s writing, his therapist has said, “Your depressing poems are always a little
funny and your funny poems are always a little depressing.” Edward attended Rice
University where he majored in musicology which explains why he found The
Sting so disappointing. Any soundtrack that heavily features ragtime music is
completely anachronistic for a movie clearly set in 1936. He is a bottomless pit for
coffee and compliments and he’s more Latino than you’d think. At least he can
speak the goddamned language. In 1983, he was on the receiving end of a
mischievous wink and a smile from famed British composer Sir Michael Tippett.
Edward was 19 at the time; Sir Michael was 78. Things never went any further
than that despite the fact they were both notoriously easy lays, which is par for the
course in a life of near misses and squandered chances. Edward is the creative
genius behind When Bad Animals Happen to Good People, a blog dedicated to
reposting news items about people being attacked by wild animals. It lasted about
six weeks before he lost interest. He routinely forgets lots of stuff: mostly
usernames and passwords, but also birthdays, anniversaries, dentist appointments,
and the meaning of notes followed by multiple exclamation points jotted down
during a staff meeting from only earlier in the day. It’d be comic if it weren’t all so
tragic. Here are some of his most recent Google searches: anaphora, Penguin
Classics cover generator, mitch.fit.model, Miss Universe Pageant 1975, Fudgie the
Whale, Quad Cities, prostate cancer, trahana, Domenico Cimarosa. These days,
Edward might look like a librarian who doesn’t know how to dress or moisturize,
but he is a force of nature. Deep inside him flow turgid rivers of molten emotional
lava determined to erupt someday into a Pulitzer Prize opportunity for any
adventurous National Geographic photographer. Entire fishing villages will be
buried under burning ash. He will disrupt flight paths and alter weather patterns.
Expect refugees.

Edward Thomas-Herrera

a man looking behind a white fence, you cannot see his face, just branches, tree trunks, and his body.

Identity Loss #1: Robin Jamkatel

a woman sitting on the edge of a bathtub topless, looking right toward a window where the light pours in.

I'll See You in the Morning: Stephanie Schwiederek

a plant with tall branches and green leaves leans toward a window and radiator.

Kevin’s Room, 2025: Kevin Gutoskey

a person's back with the light from blinds shadowed on.

Pink, 2021: Kevin Gutoskey

how to be a brown skinned girl

Rule #1: “Pretty for … a Black girl”
You will hear this phrase -- more times than you would like. However, pay them no mind and know you are not pretty -- you are as radiant as the sun and as precious as a girl. That many will marvel at you, not just for your looks, but for your resiliency, the way you carry yourself, and that quiet strength that you possess.

Rule #2: “Stop being so angry!”
They will look at your face and see the lack of emotion. Some will let you be, and other times you , a white man who works for the city and shout at you, “Smile, girly! Life isn’t all that bad”. But if he were a brown skinned person in these times -- well, I don’t have to tell you. While your face may tell a story of anger or exhaustion -- they will never really know that while your face says nothing, your heart has bloomed after getting a heartfelt message from a friend. Besides, life is better when they don’t know everything.

Rule #3: “You need to dress your age. Stop being fast!”

You may grow up thinking your body is inappropriate. That you are too big in some areas that your peers, especially the girls, are not. You’ll force yourself to wear baggy clothes and nonrevealing necklines to hide your chest, stomach, and thighs -- spoiler, it won’t help. By the time you leave your school from a small conservative town for college, you will find yourself, your style, and your love for your body in due time. Remember: you never had a say in how your body was designed but you can decide how you view it.

Rule #4: “You need to stop crying! You are not white!”
You will be told time and time again that you need to be stronger than you are just because that is what has always been done. Being told to fix your face, never let them see you cry, or how “we” don’t do all of that. That you need to dial back your feelings to placate others. You have the right to feel your feelings like everyone else, and you should never feel burdened for doing so. It will take time to find what works for you and to accept who you are and learn to process grief, hopelessness, and failure but you will.

Miya Jordan

a hand seen behing a hill of rocks with a cable release running through.

RADIUS: Samantha Jensen

field-notes self-portrait

I am a hat
or I have one,
actually, I have many
in the mirror,
I am different than
what my mom probably sees
I think about gay romance,
am I James Dean?
please, let me be hunky
but I think I’m just a hat
I am a child of
New Jersey blacktop grass driveways,

woman wrapped around pole holding a cable release.

RADIUS: Samantha Jensen

playing fortress and freezetag and kickball into
the back of that pick-up
God I wish I had a car
What if I was a car?
maybe a MG Midget convertible,
but I’d have to learn stick
I think about quitting my job, so I am not my job
because right now it feels like I’m being swallowed by my VPN
If I wasn’t a sell-out, what would I be?
not an artist,
but something adjacent
like happy?

Jen Klockner

a woman with dark curls, closed eyes, and painted lips pressing her face against a plastic barrier.

Sorry For The Inconvenience, 2015: Kadiejra O'Neal

a man holding a cable release photographing a woman hanging out of a car window of a truck.

shot by dad, 2025: Chloe Scout Nix

Thank you for reading.

For more updates check @pearl.press on Instagram.

www.pearl-press.com

Delilah Twersky

Pearl Press