Charlotte Matthews: Draw With Your Eyes Closed
On Fridays, we drew animals with our eyes closed. Mrs. Plath said it could be anything we wanted. So, there we were: 25 six-year-olds bent over manila paper, crayons in stubby … Continue reading
Sean Sexton: Plea
An evening has passed, and a young cow is still
crying among the herd this morning like the widow
in the Bible who wouldn’t leave an ill-tempered
judge alone.
Video: The Medallion
In Ruth Hunduma’s short documentary “The Medallion,” a mother’s memories serve as a window to a history of genocide and survival in Ethiopia.
Gary Fincke: The Book of Numbers
Ten thousand and one, I thought,
Ten thousand and two, and went
Outside, after that fever,
To bounce a ball off the roof
Wayne Hsiung: The 10,000-Year Famine
The failure of storytelling leads to calamity. Hannah Arendt, in her studies of atrocities, notes that they are typically the result of inattention rather than malice.
Todd Friedman: Two Poems
Israel, you have become like Joseph’s brothers
who abandoned him in an empty cistern
and then sat down to a feast.
Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi: Those With Chronic Illness in Gaza Say They’re Denied a Bare Minimum to Survive
This is an engineered famine — deliberate starvation under Israeli siege: Markets are empty. Aid trucks are blocked. Weeds are being boiled for soup.
Mary B. Moore: Gloria, Arbored
The foliage simmers or shivers,
airs itself out, and the round
leaf-scales, which join and branch,
make each stem a flat little tree:
a tree of trees.
Video: Eternity
Valerie and Alan have been married 57 years. Eternity is a look at love that lasts a lifetime, whether they like it or not.
Andrea Mazzarino: How MAGA Uses Violence to Consolidate Power
Cruelty is the point.
Betsy Sholl: Haibun | Tarantula
Our creature, named Slash, also bulked up. He had a taste for crickets we fed each week…
Ghada Abu Muaileq: In Gaza, Even the Cost of a Grave Has Become a Luxury
We tear up chairs for firewood. Soap is watered down to make it last. Basic necessities are increasingly out of reach.
Baron Wormser: Distressed
Since grade school when I was hunched under my desk during an air-raid drill, I have been distressed by the specter of the atomic bomb.
