The 2022-2023 issue of The Agathon was released to the public eye on April 28th, 2023, to poetry-hungry passersby who sat in an audience of, well, poetry-hungry passersby. The “release,” colloquially known as “The Agathon Showcase,” featured jolly poetry recitations of students with enormous degrees of vulnerability, and, well, αγαθός. The first copy of The Agathon was published in 1966.
Sarah Villacorta ‘26, who read her poem, “Heritage”, said, “I feel very grateful for the opportunity to have done it, because everyone gets to know a little bit more about me.”
In the distant mists of antiquity bobbed a quaint old fellow by the name of Agathon. Mr. Agathon was a poet, as the best of us are, and is dead. His name stems from the Greek word αγαθός (agathós), meaning good, virtuous, and brave, and was particularly Greek, good, virtuous, and brave. Although he has been cheerfully forgotten by the cruel fickleness of time, his name endures in Barstow’s Literary Magazine, coincidentally called The Agathon.
Literally, a literary magazine must be litterātūra, or full of letters. This literary magazine is no different, as letters are lettered with letters and lyrics and love. The Agathon is eccentric in the fact that an incandescent quadrilateral (to describe a computer in as many syllables as possible) is crucial to its existence- without whom, Aggie would sloop about and die. That is to say, The Agathon is a fully-digital publication (much akin to the newspaper you are reading right now).
Aun Hathiari ‘26, an Agathon-published poet, said the following on The Agathon’s existence, “I think it’s a good idea. Literature should not die. With the advent of the internet, literature is dying and is being engorged in the simulacra of American consumerism.”
The Agathon and The B-Line are, as a matter of fact, intimately acquainted; where else to stalk student writers, but there were student writers scribble around? (A keen B-Line reader ought to recognize that sentence from another article). It is for this reason, among others, that this article covers The Agathon, its showcase and showcase or not.
In spite of that hackneyed saying involving judgment and book-covers (the B-Line staff refuses to deign themselves that low as to actually write it out), the cover is perhaps the most important part of an entire publication; it is the cover, not the content, that whets the literary appetite of wanderers throughout the world. The Agathon had a contest for their cover, which struck many Barstownians’ emotions awry.
“They did not accept my incredible application for the cover art! They didn’t even acknowledge it!” Tyler Bauman ‘25 shouted mildly.
While not everyone can be chosen for the illustrious Agathon cover, the honor this year went to Sarah Khan ’23. In addition, the magazine features nearly 60 pages of beautiful poems, art, and more. You can see the full publication here.
Agathonly later, the Agathon is ALIVE!
