Michael Simms: A Brief History Of Tree Hugging
The first tree huggers were 294 men and 69 women belonging to the Bishnois branch of Hinduism, who, in 1730, died while trying to protect the trees in their village from being turned into the raw material for building a palace. They literally clung to the trees, while being slaughtered by the foresters.
Charles Bukowski: Odes to Los Angeles
man mowing the lawn across the way from me
don’t you see the young girls walking down the sidewalks now
with knives in their purses?
Molly Fisk: God Speaks to the Rope Swings of Summer
in his gentlest voice, reminding them
about change, about fallow fields and the quiet
everything needs to grow stronger
Edna St. Vincent Millay: Travel
The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.
Federico García Lorca: Weeping for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías
García Lorca’s “Weeping for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías” is by far his best known poem in the Spanish speaking world. Why is it not better known in the United States?
Stephen Dobyns: Laugh
What he wished was to have his ashes flushed
down the ladies’ room toilet of Syracuse City Hall,
which would so clog the pipes that the resulting
blast of glutinous broth would douse the place clean
Peter Lake: How to Get Reelected Republican Style
Trump is not an aberration but the natural consequence of central strands in Republican party politics and political maneuver over the last thirty years.
Amiri Baraka: Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note
And now, each night I count the stars,
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.
Jeffrey D. Sachs: Why the US Has the World’s Highest Number of Covid-19 Deaths
Unlike China, which turned to its public health experts, Trump turned to Vice President Mike Pence and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Thousands of Americans are dying unnecessarily as a result and … Continue reading
Christina Rossetti: The Plague
‘Listen, the last stroke of death’s noon has struck—
The plague is come,’ a gnashing Madman said…
Danusha Laméris: The Cat
After my brother died, his wife was sure he was living
inside their cat, Rocky. He’s in there, she’d say, staring into
those blank, yellow eyes. Isma’il? Isma’il? Can you hear me?
Ben Martin: COVID-19 and Philip Roth’s Nemesis
The practice of medicine demands answers, yet to practice medicine in the United States is an invitation […] to be swallowed by suffering that eludes meaning.
Amiri Baraka: The Liar
What I thought was love
in me, I find a thousand instances
of fear.
Danusha Laméris: Reading My Valentine’s Poem to Frank X. Gaspar
I am thirty-two, and in love, again, this time
with a man whose name rolls off my tongue
like water. I’m afraid of hope.
