Mary Oliver: The Artist’s Task
It is a silver morning like any other. I am at my desk. Then the phone rings, or someone raps at the door. I am deep in the machinery of … Continue reading
Jeff Oaks: Fathers
Ward Cleaver, Mike Brady, Archie Bunker, Mr. Cunningham: what other models? No one expected our fathers to do much beyond buy things, and I wonder whether fathers were relieved or … Continue reading
John Samuel Tieman: On Doubt And The Wednesday Messiah
I think Mishima once said that before the golden pagoda burns, a hymn begins with the scratch of a single match. If he didn’t say it, he should have. I’m … Continue reading
George Monbiot: There Is Such A Thing as Society
Why should plagues of mental illness surprise us, in a world being ripped apart? What greater indictment of a system could there be than an epidemic of mental illness? Yet … Continue reading
Jean Vanier: Becoming Human
Loneliness is a taste of death. No wonder some people who are desperately lonely lose themselves in mental illness or violence to forget the inner pain. ― Every child, every … Continue reading
John Samuel Tieman: Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier
It is late as I write. 3 AM. This is when I feel them most keenly. The boys who didn’t come home from the war. You would think that such … Continue reading
Topher Sanders: “Only White People,” Said the Little Girl
Few things are more awesome than listening to kids playing on the playground. There’s magic in that mix of laughter and exhausted breaths — giggle, pant, giggle. Just the other … Continue reading
Paul Christensen: The Vermont Book of the Dead
Up here in Vermont, we’re sort of tucked away from the rest of the nation’s storms and upheavals. We read about the cops killing unarmed black men, of floods sweeping … Continue reading
Wendell Berry: On Love, Freedom and Community
People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their … Continue reading
Phoebe A. Cirio: A Tragic Failure to Communicate
“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” Captain to Luke in Cool Hand Luke. I am a white, middle-aged woman, someone not likely to be regarded as a … Continue reading
Peter Van Buren: It’s Personal
Apologizing to My Daughter for the Last 15 Years of War I recently sent my last kid off for her senior year of college. There are rituals to such moments, … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: On Sex, Politics and Poetry
My friend Jane Legrand has written “I must find something to do with all that I feel.” What a perfect expression of why we write act direct draw sing photograph. … Continue reading
Video: Elgin Park
. . In this award-winning short film by Pittsburgh film collective Animal, we see a portrait of Michael Paul Smith who after a childhood scarred by bullying and dark family secrets, … Continue reading
Marc Jampole: Trump May Win
How many people voting for Trump have been brainwashed by mainstream news media to dislike Hillary? Yesterday evening I witnessed something frightening. The masterful jazz trombonist Robin Eubanks was performing … Continue reading
