Mike Schneider: Stirring Up the “Great Folk Scare”
There’s nothing easy-going about the folk songs of the Greenwich Village revival, not the ones Dylan sang — a man-killing woman, catastrophic floods, a man driven insane by love — songs that taught him there’s nothing new on Earth.
Adam Patric Miller: Labyrinth
in the yellow light of that narrow
carpeted hallway that led to my parents’
bedroom. there was a photo of
my great-grandfather Nestor Dreyfus
whose face escaped into my mother’s face
Robbi Nester: Tradition
I learned to light the candles, studied
the old books, taught my son to recognize the one
day of the week, one week of the year when we
eat matzo instead of bread and sing of freedom
and redemption.
Richard Hoffman: Nestling
One day an old painter, impatient with his failures, took a scissors to the paintings he didn’t like, cutting them into strips and putting them out with the trash.
Chard deNiord: Inanna and Dumuzi
The sky conjures you all day
into clouds that sack my heart
to the point I hear the growls
and howls of the beasts
they form in the guise of you
Arlene Weiner: Attachments
The lesson I draw over and over
is, everything can change
in a moment.
All that you have is lent.
Alfred Corn: All It Is
The flexible arc
described by treetop leaves
when breathing currents ripple
a branch to one,
then the other side.
Grace Hussain: For Siċaŋġu Nation, Taking Food Sovereignty Back Means Eating Climate-Friendly
Mushrooms, bison, and foraged plants offer a critical mix of new and old food traditions.
Andy Young: Ash Wednesday 2020
Sitges, Catalunya We slept to the clatter of the sea and rose to search for the weeping drag queens displaying their mourningbehind the king’s erect effigy paraded to the sea … Continue reading
Angele Ellis: The life and legacy of Palestinian writer Refaat Alareer (1979-2023)
Refaat Alareer stands in a field in Gaza, holding a container of freshly picked strawberries. What evokes the earth’s sweetness more fully than a ripe berry? The expression on his face—scholarly, bespectacled—is gentle and tender.
Sandy Solomon: Making Soup
Who would have guessed before this year
how cheerful this simple chore would feel
now that the sick room’s silence starts
beyond the swinging kitchen door.
James Crews: Hello, Little Sun
On the rusty tin roof of a red barn
in rural Quebec, someone has carved
the words, Bonjour, petit-soleil—
Hello, little sun
John Zheng: Poetry as Enchantment by Dana Gioia
“If poetry is the most ancient and primal art, if it is a universal human activity, if it uses the rhythmic power of music to speak to us in deep and mysterious ways, if the art is a sort of secular magic that heightens the sense of our own humanity, then why is poetry so unpopular?”
George Yancy: Black History Testifies to the Impossible Creative Power of Black Resistance
Literary scholar Farah Jasmine Griffin discusses how Black yearning keeps surviving in the face of racist violence.
