Sarah Chavez: The Story of Death Is the Story of Women
It is clear that our society’s current denial of death is not working. What would our culture look like if we instead met the most mysterious, painful, and transformational aspect of our lives with compassion and clarity?
Rebecca Solnit: Welcome to the US, Greta. With Your Help We Can Save the Planet and Ourselves
Even in such a divided and troubled country, there is hope. Between us we can beat the climate destroyers.
Abby Zimet: Good Job, Little Man
Before plunging into the grim cauldron that is this week’s news about the ravaging of democracy, decency and our precious, fragile, singular planet, here’s a picture of a small good thing.
Adrie Kusserow: Mismatch in the Modern West
Still, no one loves humans more than I do. How beautiful we are, at night calling to each other like owls, our loneliness barely masked, barely voweled into sound, the past calling to us like hungry ghosts…
Michael Simms: Dogsbody to the Muse
Sometimes it’s painful to watch a group of poets trying to work a room as if they were politicians. The AWP conference, as the wag put it, is comprised of 15,000 introverts pretending to be extroverts.
Megan Volpert: The Sophomores
Sophomore is fangirling out. He loves these boys in their three piece suits…
George Yancy: Dear God, Are You There?
We are in a deep spiritual crisis that can’t be relieved by politics, or philosophy.
Eva-Maria Simms: Letter from my 60th Birthday
I broke into tears before the great abbey door because the lament of the elements had overwhelmed my heart.
William J. Astore: In Wars and Weapons We Trust
We believe in wars. We may no longer believe in formal declarations of war (not since December 1941 has Congress made one in our name), but that sure hasn’t stopped us from waging them.
Christine Skarbek: Oh, Poland!
My buddy Yolanta invited me over to Park Café to listen to this wizard on the piano, a 17-yr old skinny fellow. I cannot tell you how thin this character was or, for that matter, how long and tapered his fingers and what a master he was at the ivories.
Michael Simms: On the Spectrum with Garrison Keillor
Many of the issues people have had with Keillor’s behavior through the years may have been caused by his autism.
Marco North: Landyshi (their ocean)
At night, the trees bend hard. The crows are awake, chattering their secret language in the darkness.
Sandra Lubarsky: Speak the Name of Beauty
So beneficial is exposure to the natural world that a new global movement has arisen to declare access to nature a human right.
Elizabeth Kirschner: Jones Beach
He went out. Into the ocean’s black maw. To save. To rescue. Didn’t, as they say, come back. Death is funny like that, precise, dissolute.
