James Crews: Mud-Puddling
I don’t want to read another book
or listen to another podcast promising
a better life, the road to happiness.
I just want to love my life as it is
Matthew J. Parker: The ICEY Fingers of Our Prison Industry
Congress has spent decades nullifying even a whiff of comprehensive immigration reform while simultaneously encouraging American businesses to both hire and demonize the cheap labor.
Dewitt Henry: On Grace
Economy and naturalness,
as in ballet, or basketball’s dunk,
or skater’s twirl, leap and glide.
Body’s flow seems effortless.
George Yancy: Black Men Endured Sexual Exploitation Under Slavery. Their Story Is Rarely Told.
There were no legal protections against the rape of enslaved Black women or enslaved Black men.
Dorianne Laux: Spirit Level
I see how my whole life has been a dream,
one she built for me from the ground up,
her daughter, my mother the axe, beautiful
tool with which she shaped me, a house
much like the one she lived in, but smaller
Kurt Brown: A Moment
You stood before me, brushing your long hair,
stroke after stroke in the astonished air
while you talked of nothing, and I sipped my drink.
Delmore Schwartz: O Love, Sweet Animal
O Love, dark animal,
With your strangeness go
Like any freak or clown:
Appease the child in her
Because she is alone
Rashida James-Saadiya: Anti-ICE Organizing Is Creating Counter-Institutions Based on Care
The task now is not to burn brighter or faster, but to build the collective capacity to withstand what’s coming.
Rebecca Gordon: On Seeking Asylum and Refuge
In a Hostile United States
Woody Lewis: Sally Hemings and the Road to Curdsville
I have memories of the apartheid signs on all the restaurants and public facilities. A white person who grew up in the area at that time recently corrected me: “Those weren’t apartheid signs, those were Jim Crow signs.”
Ma Yongbo: Three poems for Helen Pletts in English & Chinese
No one can walk here,
save shy deer, save wind and rain,
save those invisible wings
that can gently lift the whole garden
up to the constellations.
Theia Chatelle: Indigenous-Led Collectives Are Keeping Minnesotan Communities Safe From ICE
Members of the American Indian Movement and the Many Shields Warrior Society are patrolling the streets of Minneapolis.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Lassitude
the stars barely visible above the oil rigs off the coast,
aglow like phantom ships
Diego Ramos: Academic Freedom | Trump’s University Blackmail Results
Universities in 2025 proved that the federal government can indeed blackmail academic institutions by withholding federal funds and forcing schools not only to give money to the government but also fundamentally alter the way their campuses operate.
