Octavia E. Butler: A Few Rules For Predicting The Future
‘All I did was look around at the problems we’re neglecting now and give them about 30 years to grow into full-fledged disasters.’
Audio: W.S. Merwin reads “In Time”
and started to dance without music
slowly we danced around and around
in circles and after a while we hummed
when the world was about to end
Video: Inside, The Valley Sings
Trapped in the never-ending horror of solitary confinement, three prisoners in the United States seek comfort and escape in the boundless landscapes of their own imaginations.
Jordan Smith: Tattoo
The tattoo place was in the strip mall
Between the pizza shop and the liquor store,
Where all during Covid he bought
His tequila because the owner played
Old blues on the stereo and kept his distance
Caitlin Scialla: Meet the Top 7 Oligarchs Controlling Your Online News
The internet has not democratized news in any meaningful way; instead, the media monopoly has simply migrated to digital spaces.
Robinson Jeffers: Night
Over the dark mountain, over the dark pinewood,
Down the long dark valley along the shrunken river,
Returns the splendor without rays, the shining of shadow
Liz Theoharis & Sam Theoharis: The Young Organizers Survival Corps
Despite a seemingly endless barrage of think pieces bemoaning the fickleness and apathy of the young, teenagers and young adults have been at the forefront of every significant struggle of this moment.
Wilson R. M. Taylor: Two Poems
Today I said goodbye to my mother
for a few weeks. Five months ago,
the doctor estimated she had six to twelve
to live. I fly back and forth to replace futures
we’ve lost; I leave long scars in the atmosphere.
Alexis Rhone Fancher: The Girl in the Photo
She’s been damaged. Life’s out of control; there are no good options. The girl in the photo wants to let go, to quit this life and choose another…
Jerome Bergland: The Dreaminations of Jianqing Zheng
Jianqing Zheng long ago established himself as one of the most thrilling and gifted writers of haibun and tanka prose.
Jianqing Zheng: Dreaminations
[…] young woman with a basket in her hand walking down the road, her long skirt swaying like sunlight rustling with shriveled leaves. Is she taking lunch to her husband harvesting cotton or going berry picking in the woods?
Derrick Z. Jackson: Trump Throws Red Meat to His Base (and Everyone Else)
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new dietary guidelines promoting saturated fats is a recipe for disaster
Cynthia Atkins: When Harry Met Sally
A light quaked on earth, because when the waitress
gasped and blushed, we gasped and blushed,
sitting in the plush dark aisles to our interiors.
