Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: The Grand Quilt
I don’t believe we can stitch together
only scraps of beauty, squares of light.
James Crews: Finding my Mother
The day you passed away, I stumbled
along icy sidewalks, searching for any
sign of you
KATIE MYERS: How Folklore Can Shape Our Climate Futures
As climate change fractures communities, folklorists help stitch them back together.
Michael Simms: Leaving Walden
Is it true the distance between atoms
is proportionate to the distance between stars
and the world we know is mostly empty space?
Toi Derricotte: The Minks
In the backyard of our house on Norwood,
there were five hundred steel cages lined up,
each with a wooden box
roofed with tar paper
Baron Wormser: Era of Ill Will
It’s easier to be against something than to be for something, particularly since any ideal is bound to have flaws.
Donna Hilbert: Two Poems
You are the rosemary I add to the soup:
how you pressed pungent bristles
between thumb and finger
Video: Thordis Elva & Tom Stranger | Our story of rape and reconciliation
In this extraordinary talk, Elva and Stranger move through a years-long chronology of shame and silence, and invite us to discuss the omnipresent global issue of sexual violence in a new, honest way.
James Crews: Choosing the Light
Relentless
as the urge that also blooms in us—
to find the things that bring us alive,
and open ourselves fully to them, never
giving up
Ellery Akers: Four Prose Poems
Each of us is a struck bell that still reverberates. Walk down the street, and everyone who passes you is echoing inside.
Derrick Z. Jackson: After Decades of Disinformation, the US Finally Begins Regulating PFAS Chemicals
The Environmental Protection Agency announced it would regulate two forms of PFAS contamination under Superfund laws reserved for “the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites.”
Adrian Rice: Among the Lavender
Honeybees spend their busy day
hovering among the lavender
with constant co-workers for company.
Barbara Hamby: Ode on Killing Sadness
the emcee said at the start
of the evening, “Here we are killing
sadness,” and the music did take the sting
out of the night
Mel Duncan: There’s a better way to make communities safer — and it’s taking off around the world
A growing number of courageous and creative people are showing that unarmed civilian protection is far superior to any smart or dumb weapon.
Vox Populi 