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Counterculture
He Arrived In A Hollowed-Out Studebaker Lark
We also had eyes for his car. You had to give up / all possessions to live here, George fine with that — / he’d just spent two cross-country months in the thing, / its front bucket seat removed for sleeping purposes — / and now an actual Lark was our newest town-runner.
October 2022Salt Of The Earth
I was drawn to quite the opposite: curiosities, anachronisms, misfits, innocents, and angels. They quickly became my family. They gave me something my blood relatives could not, something fresh and immediate, accepting and nonjudgmental.
January 2021
Dark Corners
Whitney Phillips On Conspiracy Theories, Social Media, And The Spread Of Misinformation
When COVID-19 hit, Dr. Anthony Fauci was portrayed on the Right as a deep-state villain, one of these “elitists” who are trying to tell “us” how to live in Middle America.
October 2020
Beneath Our Feet
Well, if the world handed me strangeness, then I’d take whatever advantage I could, which meant walking right down the middle of a street usually clogged with traffic. There was luxury in the freedom to roam as I pleased.
August 2018
Rubbish
Eventually, when it was clear that things could not go on as they were, and it was obvious to everyone that matters were now completely out of hand, that something had to be done, we had a meeting in the town hall, all of us crowded in.
February 2018
December 2017
Featuring Rabbi Michael Lerner, Barbara Kingsolver, Sister Helen Prejean, Sy Safransky, and more.
December 2017October 2017
Featuring Pramila Jayapal, Ralph Nader, Sister Helen Prejean, Sy Safransky, Tim Wise, and more.
October 2017One Nation, Indivisible
A special section featuring Michelle Alexander, Wendell Berry, Noam Chomsky, Ram Dass, Ani DiFranco, Barbara Ehrenreich, Ross Gay, Barbara Kingsolver, Bill McKibben, and others.
August 2017
Weapons In The War For Human Kindness
An Interview With David Budbill
There are many different uses of language. There’s the politician’s use of language, which is too often an outright lie. There’s the diplomat’s use of language, which is carefully worded so as not to anger or offend, yet calculated to achieve the intended goal. The supreme diplomat these days is UN secretary-general Kofi Annan. And then there’s the poet’s use of language. Emily Dickinson said, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.” I think she meant that the truth, like the sun, is too bright to look at directly. Allegory, for example, is a way of telling the truth but telling it slant. In my own poems, though, most of the time, I try to tell it blunt and straight.
February 2017
Garlic In My Ear
In our culture, when you have a medical problem, you visit a doctor, who writes you a prescription; then you drive to a pharmacy and pay thirty-two dollars for a medication. There are few surprises or slip-ups. But if you decide to single-handedly reconnect with a lost ancient lineage of herbal wisdom, you may end up with a short spear of garlic bearing down on your eardrum.
April 2016
