Susan Kelly-Witt: Maybe I Have No Ideas
Eating a turkey sub from the school cafeteria
I suddenly think of the blonde woman
whose marriage is falling apart and the dark
circles under her eyes
Aviva Chomsky: Migration Is Not the Crisis
What Washington Could Really Do in Central America
Video: Hurray For the Riff Raff | PA’LANTE
Winner of the 2019 Jury Award at SXSW, Director Kristian Mercado Figueroa’s music video PA’LANTE performed by Hurray for the Riff Raff takes us inside the Puerto Rican experience of life post Hurricane Maria and the pressures facing an estranged family attempting to reconnect amid the wreckage.
Deborah DeNicola: The Death of Socrates
Even the guards listened in
as he taught his eternal lesson,
how to live like a moral human. Politics
back then—as now—rampant, wretched corruption,
a den of sociopaths in sheep’s clothing.
Robert Bernard Hass: Oedipus in Thebes
When he left the palace, the streets were nearly empty
Save for the women wailing at the altar, rending air
With sobs and litanies, the smoke from their incense pots
Thick and fragrant, perfuming the shrouded dead.
Christine Skarbek: Konstancin
Konstancin was the turn-of-the-century playground of the Polish wealthy and elite. Weekend trains would bustle the chic out of Warsaw to their palatial country mansions and the casino directly across … Continue reading
Rafael Cadenas: Beloved Country
So much of you remains unopened, like music lost inside me.
Country to which I return every time I go broke.
Joe Kadi | Good Poetry: A Force To Be Reckoned With
As soon as I became an activist, as soon as I connected with Arabs and feminists and queers and folks with disabilities and poor people fighting to re-make the world, poetry demanded my attention.
Luke Montrose: There may be dangerous components in wildfire smoke
As dozens of large fires burn, a lot of people are wondering what’s in the air they’re breathing.
Video: Why lakes and rivers should have the same rights as humans
In this powerful talk, tribal leader Kelsey Leonard shows why granting lakes and rivers legal “personhood” — giving them the same legal rights as humans — is the first step to protecting our bodies of water and fundamentally transforming how we value this vital resource.
Chris Winters: Does Every Vote Still Count?
As far as crises of democracy go, this should be a hair-on-fire moment.
Video: How a 1940s psychology study sparked the modern gay rights movement
In the 1940s, psychiatrists labeled homosexuality as a mental disorder. UCLA’s Dr. Evelyn Hooker sought to change that with her groundbreaking study that proved homosexuals were not ill and in need of a cure. This research made it all the way to the Supreme Court and helped change gay life forever.
Kaveh Bassiri: Afterword
In the Quran, God taught Adam the names of all things. Even the angels didn’t know the names. Do we carry the weight of these words with us? Do they hold us responsible?
Doug Anderson: The Tyrant
The people beat him so badly
that afterward
they could not distinguish him
from the pigs the rebels slaughtered
