Hayden Saunier: The Spin
My washing machine won’t operate
without the matte black hardcover
American Heritage Dictionary, Fifth Edition,
placed atop its lid. I no longer question this.
Gary Fincke: Schmaltz
My mother
Said we could shimmy it off in no time,
Doing the Twist and the Mashed Potato,
The dances of the slim who’d never heard
Of real schmaltz and the terrible success
Of learning place
Betsy Sholl: Monet’s Garden
When he was painting his lilies,
when he was refusing evacuation
despite the war being close enough
to hear from his garden,
was Monet offering the world lilies,
saying there are lilies as well as guns?
Jordan Smith: These Days
The danger of elegy is that it just tells us what we already know: we lose and suffer and become the subject of the loss and suffering of others. Liam had no patience for what he called the “I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed” school of poetry.
Jasleen Singh: The Trump Administration’s Campaign to Undermine the Next Election
The Trump administration is setting the stage for election subversion. This power play poses a grave threat to the future of U.S. election infrastructure. It is also, in many respects, illegal.
Charles Harper Webb: Bad Dog
Bad Dog licks killers’ bloody hands,
leaps with joy for rapists, fawns at politicians’
crooked feet. “He’s an awful judge
of character,” the owner tells kind-hearted
strangers who scuttle past
James Zogby: The Story of the Gaza Genocide Did Not Begin on October 7
When those who seek to help resolve a conflict are captive to one side’s definitions and perspective, it’s a recipe for continued tension and ultimately disaster.
Sally Bliumis-Dunn: Women’s Voices
…when Margaret Thatcher took voice-
lowering lessons, she was told
to speak as if she had a penis and a cold.
Sarah Beckerman: What fantasy stories teach us about defeating authoritarianism
More than offering an escape, fantasy worlds can also show what courage looks like when the odds are stacked against you.
Tony Gloeggler: This Kind of Room
I don’t
want to be back in love with Erica, driving
to some quaint upstate town, windows
down, in complete control of the tape deck
and we’re both singing along as loud
and as off key as we please
Alfred McCoy: Did Mark Twain Imagine Donald Trump?
If Mark Twain were alive today, he would certainly have written a novel about Donald Trump. After all, his 1873 novel, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, distinctly caught a nineteenth-century version of our Trumpian moment, tariffs and all.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: In Response to a Student Asking Where to Find Poetry During Difficult Times
In your friend’s voice. Or silence.
In all those years it takes for a barn to collapse.
In the terrified tenderness of a first kiss.
In a last kiss too.
Cynthia Kaufman: Jewish Safety and the Weaponization of Antisemitism
The conflation of criticisms of Israel with antisemitism makes Jews less safe.
Baruch November: After Bracha
A blessing for just being able
to arise in early pink-blue light.
A blessing for when lightning veins
a cloud or strikes the oak into flames.
A blessing for when the earth quakes
