Midterms 2022: 4 experts on the effects of voter intimidation laws, widespread mail-invoting – and what makes a winner
Four scholars give us their initial observations on the voting, in an election whose outcome may be be determined by voters’ concerns about the economy and democracy – and whose full results will take days or weeks to know.
Doug Anderson: Distance
She said my poems had emotion in them
as if they might have syphilis.
Brett Wilkins: AOC Says ‘Don’t Fall For It’ as GOP Revives ‘Red Mirage’ Conspiracy
“There is nothing to suggest that delay indicates fraud. Counting every vote takes time,” one expert asserted. “Don’t fall for this scam!”
Valerie Bacharach: Night, Descending
Night explodes in fractures of shining glass.
Sidewalks hold storefront fragments,
deadly crystals glitter,
almost beautiful with still-red blood.
Gabes Torres: Reclaiming Abundance Under Capitalism
Is there a way we can be critical of our cultures of consumption, while also preserving the spirit of abundance? Perhaps beyond preservation, we can reinvent the meaning of abundance altogether.
David Ades: Nothing and Everything
Man, what an induction you gave me,
rolling that joint of fresh Sumatran grass
on the little deck of a longhouse
overlooking Lake Toba
Robert Reich: This Election Is About Whether US Democracy Can Endure
My friends, we owe it to generations before us who fought and died for democracy and the rule of law, and to generations after us who will live with the legacy we leave them.
Larissa Shmailo: Abortion Hallucination
In the corner of the basement where my father used to lie I
watch, interested, as the snake
grows larger and more menacing
Rev. William J. Barber II, Karen Dolan: This is an Election Americans Cannot Afford to Lose
The stakes for America’s poor and low-income families are huge this election.
Barbara Hamby: Thus Spake the Mockingbird
The mockingbird says, hallelujah, coreopsis, I make the day
bright, I wake the night-blooming jasmine. I am
the duodecimo of desperate love
Audio: Jack Kerouac reads his poem “Old Angel Midnight”
“Old Angel Midnight” is only the beginning of a lifelong work in multilingual sound, representing the haddalada-babra of babbling world tongues coming in thru my window at midnight no matter where I live or what I’m doing
Jose Padua: Ten Sonnets for Electric Motherfuckers — The Second Decad
Karen, call the cops, he’s waiting by the curb
reading Colson Whitehead’s least popular book, I can smell him from
here, he’s wearing Pakistani musk, furrowing his frou frou eyebrows…
Richard Cambridge: In Medias Res
Tom, the eldest son of Daniel and Helen Brownson, tells his parents he has dropped out of college. He is now in the crosshairs of the draft board and will be re-classified 1-A — a good chance he will be sent to — and possibly die in Vietnam.
Charlotte Mew: Rooms
I remember rooms that have had their part
In the steady slowing down of the heart.
