Lawrence Wray: Stonehouse Alms
There is in me a traipsing line of ragged men
I can’t ignore. Grass stalks dangle from chinks
in the house’s mortar by the caged window.
Jean d’Amérique: Blood in my Gullet
Each kid receives a page ripped from a dirty life;
no minimum age here for taking up the gun.
Don’t be appalled that a boy pays his hood tribute in bullets.
Tayve Neese: Only Her Buried Hand Rises
From soil, the wrist and fingers are not bloom and stamen,
although the child that first found the rising tarsals
thought them something for picking.
John Gould Fletcher: Lincoln
Like a gaunt, scraggly pine
Which lifts its head above the mournful sandhills;
And patiently, through dull years of bitter silence,
Untended and uncared for, starts to grow.
Walt Whitman: Come Up from the Fields Father
Open the envelope quickly,
O this is not our son’s writing, yet his name is sign’d,
O a strange hand writes for our dear son, O stricken mother’s soul!
Matthew J. Parker: The Misplaced Paean to the South
Southern disdain for centralized authority is an extension of the post-Civil War rebellion against federal efforts to impart a level of equality upon the scarred backs of freed slaves.
Bill Lueders: Beyond Good and Evil | On Wendell Berry’s Brave New Book
A book by the celebrated author, poet, and farmer that takes on racism, the Civil War, and his life’s work.
Abby Zimet: America’s Right Wing Is Some Stoked To Erase Our Historical Sins
Biden: “Great nations don’t hide from their history. They acknowledge their past, both the triumphs and the tragedies.”
Kathryn Levy: The Story of Apples
They peered at the apples
in the Apple Museum, or the half remembered
pictures of apples.
Video: The Breathtaking Courage of Harriet Tubman
Escaping slavery; risking everything to save her family; leading a military raid; championing the cause of women’s suffrage; these are just a handful of the accomplishments of one of America’s most courageous heroes.
Jason Baldinger: Copper Heads
america your wars are endless
but none is longer than the one
you’ve had with yourself
Bill Moyers, Heather Cox Richardson: The Day the Confederate Flag Flew in the United States Capitol
What happened in the 1850s and what happened in the present are very similar in a number of ways, though the symbol of the insurrectionist Confederate army never flew in that nation’s capitol—not once—until January 6, 2021.
Video: The Truth About the Confederacy in the United States (full version)
Jeffery Robinson, the ACLU’s top racial justice expert, discusses the dark history of Confederate symbols across the country and outlines what we can do to learn from our past and combat systemic racism.
Nick Turse: What Does War Have to Do With Me
TRIPOLI, Libya — Sometimes war sounds like the harsh crack of gunfire and sometimes like the whisper of the wind. This early morning — in al-Yarmouk on the southern edge of Libya’s capital, Tripoli — it was a mix of both.
