Video: Jane Goodall Asks What Separates Us From Chimpanzees?
Jane Goodall says the only real difference between humans and chimps is our sophisticated language. She urges us to start using it to change the world.
Steven Ratiner: Fathering
After the stroke, when language
froze over in his throat, he had a hard time
with the snow–– He couldn’t say,
and the sky wouldn’t stop saying
Barbara Hamby: The Word
In the beginning was the word, fanning out into syllables
like a deck of cards on a table in Vegas
Sydney Lea: But-cept
From a half-century ago, I remember wishing my oldest son would continue saying ‘upslide down’ at least until first grade.
Barbara Hamby: Ode to American English
no one uses
the King James anymore, only plain-speak versions,
in which Jesus, raising Lazarus from the dead, says,
“Dude, wake up,” and the L-man bolts up like a B-movie
mummy. “Whoa, I was toasted.”
Barbara Hamby: O Deceitful Tongue
Drunk tongue, warling,
malt-mad forger in the bone orchard, give me
your traitor’s code, so I can whistle my psalm
through the sinworm night.
Barbara Hamby: Ode on Dictionaries
A-bomb is how it begins with a big bang on page
one, a calculator of sorts whose centrifuge
begets bedouin, bamboozle, breakdance, and berserk,
one of my mother’s favorite words, hard knock
clerk of clichés that she is
Barbara E. Young: About the Language. And Inevitable Death
alone could fill all the space
between all the yellow cities on the map with a hollow
more empty than the echo of the emptiest of moved-from homes
