Susan Kelly-DeWitt: Maybe I Have No Ideas
Eating a turkey sub from the school cafeteria
I suddenly think of the blonde woman
whose marriage is falling apart and the dark
circles under her eyes
Tom Engelhardt: Beyond Our Control
It was summer almost half a century ago when I got into that Volkswagen van and began my trip across country with Peter, a photographer friend. I was officially doing so as a reporter for a small San Francisco news service, having been sent out to tap the mood of the nation in a politically fraught moment.
Robert Walicki: Two Poems
I’m stumbling out of the dark and back down again,
winding out of the rutted valleys of the Mon,
ass crack of the world and broken roads…
Robert Walicki: Storm
It’s 40 degrees, and windy enough to lift us
off the edge of the earth, and this hospital roof,
where we drop the heads of metal snakes down stacks,
next to exhaust vents carrying the breath of the dying
Jason Baldinger: Résumé
apparently just to live
just to experience life
is not an acceptable trade
Jason Baldinger: The Hymn at the End
this fucking game is rigged
give your soul, you will be asked for more
eat shit, you will be asked to eat more
repeat until you’re too old to care, then please die
Video: Made in Iowa
In 2011, Webster City, Iowa, experienced a massive economic shift after the town’s large appliance manufacturing plant shut down. But the community refused to let their town die…
Jason Baldinger: David Ogden Stiers
I can’t come off the night shift schedule
so I get 4 hours sleep a night for a week
drool all day, try not to pass out standing up
god forbid I catch a nap, sleep with a bag of diapers under my head
James Zogby: Addressing Those Who Have Been Fooled All of the Time
What is needed is a message that speaks to voters across the spectrum, telling them that they are being heard and their needs will be addressed by proposals for economic and social progress that will include and benefit everyone.
Video: Nora Brown plays two old-time banjo tunes
In a mesmerizing set, musician Nora Brown breathes new life into two old-time banjo tunes: “East Virginia” and “John Brown’s Dream.” An evocative performance paired with a quick history of the banjo’s evolution.
Sandy Solomon: Poison
The red-faced guard, his scant hair pressed like a wish against his boney pate, sat uniformed at the library gate sternly blocking the un-elect like me. After just a … Continue reading
Robert Gibb: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
“Sharecropper’s Work Shoes” —Photo by Walker Evans, 1936 . The Magritte who took issue with the ordinary Would have tipped them with toes. Evans, deferential, simply sets them before … Continue reading
Robert Gibb: Home Scrap Project — Unemployed Steel Worker, 1987-1988
for Ramon Elouza . Close-ups in an eye-level lineup, His photographed faces hung on their wall, Each behind lines of writing, well I lost my job my wife and … Continue reading
Jon Tribble: Missionary Barrel
for my father Like a loose plank on a flatbed Ford skittering and shimmying the bolt free, your life has shaken out the cotton fields in Limestone County, the … Continue reading
Vox Populi 