Ruth Baumann is a third year English major. Going to school by day and waitressing by night, she combats the threat of a stereotypical life by writing poetry in all of the in-between moments. Her favorite colors: shades of gray. "It's a good life," she says. Ruth is also involved with Richmond's slam poetry community.

Sarah Bruce was raised under a rock. Her emergence into the real world began with her introduction to the Beatles at age eleven, and was finalized by her discovery of black coffee at sixteen. Contrary to popular belief, she is not a Scottish exchange student, does not paint her face blue, and does not quote scenes from "Braveheart." A freshman in International Studies, Sarah hopes to someday do what she loves and not make any money doing it.

Heather Marie Cohu is a junior majoring in English and International Studies at VCU. When she isn't busy with classes, she enjoys editing for Amendment and Poictesme, writing short fiction and poetry, reading authors such as Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf, traveling, watching films, and drinking wine--lots and lots of wine. She promises that she's not a snob; she just happens to like snobby things.

Sarah Clark is an MA student in literature, and received her BA in English and International Studies with minors in History and Eastern European Studies. She currently interns at Blackbird and Drunken Boat. Sarah enjoys the avant-garde, the conceptual, and the unspeakable.

Ben Hayes has a profound affinity for sea creatures, and would have been marine biologist, if only he had the grades. His dream was to reproduce giant squid pheromones and market them as lady's perfume. Ben is also double-jointed.

Kelly Gemmill is supposed to have graduated already but thinks she is currently a junior at VCU. She is, of course, an English major, but not a very good one. She is obsessed with: poetry, coffee, reading, a handful of people, great movies, analysis, awesome music, and chocolate things. She enjoys but is not obsessed with: mediocre movies, staring, living like a character in a Jane Austin novel, ice cream, and Harry Potter (which actually borders on obsession but she was embarrassed to say so). At times she can be quite pretentious, but she means very well. The end.

Scott Horner ran away from home at the tender age of 14, learning to play the mandolin on street corners to earn his keep. Lazing about the coal train one day, he found himself in Richmond, where he installed himself in VCU's art department, where he learned the trade of sculpture. While his passion for the arts will never surpass his life-long passion for the mandolin, he has deemed it fit to join Poictesme as our resident art editor. On hazy nights when the lights of Hyperlink color the clouds yellow, you can still hear him strumming on the rooftop of Beth Ahabah.

Emily Howard is a Virginia native who recently transferred from JWU. She is a fashion major, and enjoys reading both fashion magazines and literature. Are we going to judge her for reading Seventeen magazine? Of course not. Emily is fiercely creative and just likes to have fun.

Maya Jordan is a 19 year old, sophomore from Hampton, VA. She recently had the opportunity of getting her work published a the September 2008 edition of the "New York Post." Maya currently heads Poictesme's street team.

Elizabeth Knowles was raised in a small town, and consequently gets overly excited about traffic lights. She enjoys James Joyce, beat poetry, and Rimbaud. Her first words were "God damn it" and she continues to live by that philosophy.

Prakesha Mathur is the resident webmaster for Poictesme. A sociology student, she enjoys poetry, politics, media, music and tech stuff. She is helpless and forgetting, in the background, saying nothing.

Taylor Proffitt is a freshman journalism major at VCU. He enjoys jazz concerts, art exhibitions, road trips, nature, hippie chicks, and playing music. He plans to travel and write in the future.

Leila Rafei is a senior editor, finishing her degree in English. After dropping out of Ripon College in Wisconsin, where she did some acting and later summer stock, she signed a Hollywood contract with Columbia and later Universal. Her roles in movies and TV remained secondary and, discouraged, she turned to a career in professional carpentry. She came back big eight years later with the hit colossal role of Han Solo in Star Wars (1977).

Berengée Russell was close friends with Charlotte and Emily Bronte in a past life. They spent many an evening at twilight on the moors of Yorkshire, discussing strong-willed heroines and the morally ambiguous antiheroes for whom they have an undying love. This time around, her interests include photography, magazines, cinema, and the Russian language. She has dreams of working for a publishing house as an editor, and of some day owning a dog named Rigby.

Devon Russell is currently trying to grow a set of gills that can sustain a long-term aquatic life style. He hopes that he can incorporate a fish diet and be prepared to live in the ocean by 2010. By that time, he plans on being a fire-fighting merman.

Amy Sailer is a native of Roanoke, Virginia. Double-majoring in art history and English, she hopes to be an art history professor or museum curator by day and novelist by night. Her hobbies include drawing, making mosaics, and of course, reading and writing. Her favorite works include those of Evelyn Waugh, Alex Haley, and Zora Neale Hurston. In high school, she contributed several short stories and artworks to the literary journal, and she won two state championships for her original speeches. In college, she hopes to focus on and improve her fiction.

Born into the world without a name for five days, Jonathan Sloop is a friend of Constantin Constantius. He spends far too much time writing and reading almost anything he can get his hands on, but is particularly fond of the works of Rainer Maria Rilke, T.S. Eliot, Robert Bonazzi, Amy Hempel and Søren Kierkegaard. He is an English major and plans to minor in Business with the intention of starting an independent publishing company. He hopes to continue his education after finishing his undergraduate work by earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing, so that if all else fails he can be a professor. After all, professors can get away with being strange and eccentric.

Emily Stokes is a freshman in the Art Foundation program. She has an extreme addiction to works of literature, and a particular fondness for Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, and Douglas Adams. She enjoys going to used book stores just to inhale the old book smell. Of this, she is proud.

Jesse Sullivan has a slight obsession with minimalism, the 1920's era, and Diet Coke. However, he is even more addicted to art and fashion; both creating and reviewing it salvages him from the unrealistic world of reality. In fact, he is determined to become the Marvin Scott Jarrett of his generation.

Alicia D. Thomas currently serves as Secretary for Poictesme. She is a sophomore English major and Creative Writing minor, with a passion for poetry and creative thought. Her greatest joy is to see other aspiring writers flow and maximize their potential. She hopes to teach American Literature and Creative Writing preferably to college students when all this necessary required schooling is done!

Little can be said of Kristin Vamenta, as she is next in line for the succession of the Grand Duchy of the Philippines. Kristin must live in hiding, for fear of her political rivals. In her spare time, Kristin enjoys badminton and Reader's Digest.