Sydney Lea: 2019
The gulls that once patrolled the Bay
of Naples, for instance, long since shifted
attention toward the city’s landfill
Ginger Thompson: A Border Patrol Agent Reveals What It’s Really Like to Guard Migrant Children
With the agency under fire for holding children in deplorable conditions and over racist and misogynistic Facebook posts, one agent speaks about what it’s like to do his job. “Somewhere down the line people just accepted what’s going on as normal.”
Aura Bogado: The US is quietly opening shelters for babies and young kids. One has 12 children and no mothers.
One of the infants is just 2 weeks old and was born in the United States, making the child a U.S. citizen in the custody of the federal refugee agency.
Naomi Shihab Nye: Trees Gossip with the Birds
When the orange sun sinks over the AZIZI sign I feel
the darkening world soaking up all the extra noise
Majid Naficy: Great Feast
Death, like a weary actress
Has gone behind the stage
To take off her black dress
And put on her lounging gown.
Mayeta Clark: When Fracking Companies Own the Gas Beneath Your Land
Natural gas companies have cut down forests and paved over farms on West Virginia private lands, calling it “reasonably necessary” to access subsurface gas they own the rights to. A legal battle with property owners has ensued.
Elizabeth Romero: Route Six
A bad time is coming we agree
I peer ahead at the changing shades of gray
On the road ahead
A light rain falls
Video: An Ode to Envy — Parul Sehgal
What is envy? What drives it, and why do we secretly love it? No study has ever been able to capture its “loneliness, longevity, grim thrill” — that is, says Parul Sehgal, except for fiction.
Video: Warsan Shire — Young Poet Laureate for London 2013-14
In her personal London Story, the latest of her commissions as part of her role as Young Poet Laureate for London, Warsan Shire uses the city as the backdrop for an exploration of her feelings of falling in love.
Video: The Office of Missing Children
Nearly 15,000 unaccompanied minors currently are detained in the U.S.; they’re held in places ranging from tent cities to trailers and shelters, some of which have a history of mistreatment, including forced drugging, sexual assault and physical abuse.
Angele Ellis: Occurrence on the Lake Shore Limited
The officer stopped at my seat and thrust his face toward mine. “Are you an American?”
Cassandra Burke Robertson, Irina D. Manta: The government sometimes detains and deports US citizens
More than 1,500 U.S. citizens spent time in immigration detention between 2007 and 2015. In many cases, they were deported.
Doug Anderson: That Quotation from the Talmud
I understand the world will be what it is
when I’m dead. I sometimes look at my hands
and know they are not mine. This body on loan.
David Korten: 8 Essential Steps to Radically Transform Our Economy
An economic system that serves everyone and the planet is necessary for our survival. Here are some guiding principles to get us there.
