Erica Chenoweth, et al: American Spring? How nonviolent protest in the US is accelerating
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the size and scale of anti-Trump protests this year have dwarfed those in 2017, and they have been extraordinarily peaceful.
Charles Harper Webb: Appetite
The crowds seem endless, tramping past
the Hunger Artist’s straw-filled cage to see
the panther’s glinting teeth and lethal stride.
Kari Gunter-Seymour: A History of Fireworks
It’s July 1st. Whose idea it was to wait
I can’t remember, but me, my son
and two granddaughters, nine and ten,
are at the fireworks warehouse
Gerald Fleming: Two Somethings
He could have run marathons, triathlons, could have blundered through densest jungles barefoot, quick-macheted, and not been prepared for this. He could have caressed the skin of a hundred women or men, every texture, every shade, but now this….
Sharon Zhang: Democratic Senator Gillibrand Goes on Islamophobic Rant Against Mamdani
The Democrat’s rant has sparked calls for her to resign over her bigoted language.
Sean Sexton: Not
Not the listless woods these days,
their ongoing summer song
same as the year-round sound in my head.
Baron Wormser: Groovy
It’s fair to say that “groovy” has passed out of daily parlance. As words go, it was a bit silly, a bit mystic, a bit glib, a bit droll, a bit low-brow, a bit artless, and a bit wonderful. It spoke to an era and seemed, accordingly, germane to that era and almost sensible in its glad frankness.
Barbara Hamby: Trigger Tries To Explain
Aw, Dale, he didn’t mean it when he said I was the
best thing that ever happened to him. If he even said it,
chalk it up to the RKO publicity machine.
Video: She Sells Seashells
Archival footage meets contemporary black and white super 8, in a curious exploration of the female cockle gatherers of South Wales and the surprising secrets shellfish and seaweed hold for our oceans’ health.
Video: The F-Word
A dad struggles to give an age-appropriate explanation of the expletive.
Michael Simms: The Cove
I loved those mornings
of timeless simplicity.
I learned patience
is not something you work for
but something you wait for
Desne A. Crossley: A Wallflower and Her Mother
Clueless about west coast Whiteness, for sure. For my anxious mother, this meant I needed her singular brand of watchful encouragement to grow into a whole person, a whole woman—and to be taught some street smarts for life in suburban Palo Alto with its unfamiliar patterns and pitfalls.
Cesare Pavese: Ancestors
I found out I had lived, before I was born,
in hard, sturdy, independent men, their own masters.
None of them knew what to say, so they just kept quiet.
