What if you could build a holographic map, in which all America’s Indigenous poets, from the beginning of time until now, were mapped, linking out to their works and their words? Joy […]
Even via Zoom, Don Evans is passionate about Chicago’s relationship with the written word. A writer, editor, and teacher, Evans is also the executive director of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame […]
An homage to Lou Rawls and to the St. Louis poet who became a Brit. February is the cruelest month. Where did T.S. Eliot get that April business? February is […]
Eight years ago, I wrote a post about Richard Blanco’s poem, “One Today,” presented by the poet at Barack Obama’s second inaugural. I was so moved by Amanda Gorman’s poem for Joe […]
Towards the end of the plague year we learned that someone somehow transported a ten-foot high silvery metal object to a remote canyon in the Utah desert drilling through layers […]
What year were you born:? If you are lucky enough to meet Margaret Atwood, she might ask you that. Knowing when someone was born tells her what happened to them, what books, […]
Taught by Women: Poems as Resistance Language, New and Selected by Haki R. Madhubuti Third World Press One of my favorite poems in Haki R. Madhubuti’s new, career-spanning collection Taught by Women: […]
She was the queen of Brooklyn although she wore no gold crown except in the public’s imagination and on t-shirts. Instead her apparel of choice was a white frilly lace collar that […]
Blessed Blessed are the dead and the dying. Blessed, the mourn-filled good-byes to loves behind glass, behind walls. Blessed, neighborhoods of pain, grief communities, lightning-struck homes, annunciations of the […]
Until recently, Pilsen Community Books was operated by owners Mary Gibbons and Aaron Lippelt. Current part-owner Katharine Solheim shares what’s changing and what will stay the same at the shop. Pilsen Community […]
Everything Must Go: The Life and Death of an American Neighborhood By Kevin Coval and Langston Allston Haymarket Books What’s the best way to preserve a time and place? I recall the […]
The Boys in the Band was revolutionary when it was first performed off Broadway in April 1968, in its portrayal of the lives and loves of gay men. The producers had difficulty […]
