The American Political Sestina
Rattle
Poet Alexandra Umlas uses the subtle form, a sestina, to convey the tenuous substance of American political poetry.
poetry
Parade Rest
Slipstream
California poet Joseph Zaccardi reminds us that war veterans carry their burdens through their lifetimes.
poetry
Before I Was a Gazan
Voices in the Air
The poet Naomi Shihab Nye expresses a child’s sense of helplessness, trapped by politics and war.
food
The 10th-Century Master Chef Who Wrote Food Poetry
Atlas Obscura
Kushajim's verses offer a glimpse into the good life during the Islamic Golden Age.
poetry
Holes
Among the many things the USA left behind in Vietnam, besides pride, remains safely underground.
poetry
Our Revels
“And now we mourn the temperate days,” writes Chicago poet Donna Pucciani, as the news of weather is seldom good.
books
A Newly Translated Novel Captures the Tragedy of Greek Communism
Jacobin
Written in 1972, during Greece’s military junta, leftist Marios Chakkas’s recently translated novel The Commune is a mournful testament from a world where the stakes of politics were communism or fascism, democracy or dictatorship.
Let Them Not Say
Poem-a-Day
The poet Jane Hirshfield offers a grieved portrayal of contemporary impotence and apathy.
poetry
What Is Left
Copper Nickel
A survivor of the American war in Cambodia, the poet Bunkong Tuon lives with ancestral ghosts and gratitude for what is left.
poetry
Yellow Stars
“I will not be invisible,” writes NY poet Elizabeth Zelvin of her Jewish female identity, “I will not be herded/…I do not accept your yellow stars.”
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