Cesare Pavese: Displaced People
Suppose tomorrow, bright and early, we took a trip
to my hills. We could stroll through the vineyards and, maybe,
meet with a couple of girls, dark brown, ripened by the sun,
we could start a conversation and sample some of their grapes.
Abby Zimet: Untethered to the Facts
Two months ago, the United States made the Human Rights Watch list for the first time; rights advocates cited a nation “sliding deeper into the quicksands of authoritarianism” with peaceful protests met with military force, critics treated as criminals, journalists targeted, and support slashed for civil society.
Michael Simms: Baron Wormser (February 15, 1948 – October 7, 2025)
Although history will have the final word on who among us is read by future generations, I’ll put my money on Baron. His writing represents the best of the American spirit.
Adam Patric Miller: A Chill in American Classrooms
I’m trying to be a good teacher, listening carefully to my students so I can make the ten-thousand micro-adjustments in what I’m presenting to them so they will feel how much I really want them to learn.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Ode to Sungolds
Sungolds, coughed my old neighbor, a bird
shat the seed.
George Yancy: Trump’s Education Plan Seeks to Make Cruel Domination Into “Common Sense”
Control the curriculum and you control the range of ideas that people are exposed to. This is why schooling is inherently political.
Chard deNiord: Patience Is The Tinder
a silence in which you hear
in the midst of the noise all around you
a voice that speaks inside the ear
inside your ear that depends
on silence for writing it down
Baron Wormser: On a Sentence by Albert Camus
Sometimes, the illness of our world, the death-in-life that turns nature into nothing more than the source of raw material, seems so boundless that throwing the lasso of language on it seems impossible.
Michael Simms: Serene Gorilla in a Cloud of Butterflies
Her name is Malui and she is walking through a cloud of butterflies she’s disturbed.
Michelle Bitting: Before Disappearing into the Fog
here near the sea
soaked in fog
where feathers of radiance
streak the sky
the blood of light
Abby Zimet: Weird Drivel and Loser Shit | This Looks Like Terrible
“A drunk and a rapist walk into a bar…” noted one online sage. Another: “Hegseth: No fatties in the chain of command! Trump: Waddles onto stage.”
Rebecca Gordon: Going Backwards on Rights with Trump
Centuries of Struggle Undone
Majid Naficy: My Silent Buried Treasures
Speak to me, you roots of plum trees!
The barefoot children of summer
And the wandering lambs of fall
Could not witness.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg: Federal Agents Are Abducting Any DC Resident Who Appears Latino, ACLU Lawsuit Claims
Agents abducted one resident when he was on his way to dialysis treatment, according to the groups’ press release announcing the lawsuit. He was detained for over eight hours, without food or his medication.
