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poetry

Trauma Walks into a Bar

Melissa Spohr Weiss Tar River Poetry
In this ode to the walking wounded, poet Melissa Spohr Weiss reminds us that trauma has consequences, that “trauma births trauma births trauma.”

poetry

Why We Need Unions

Stephen Dunn Plume Poetry
The Pulitzer-prize winning poet Stephen Dunn died last week on his 82nd birthday. This poem reminds us that if life isn’t fair, there’s still kindness, even love.

books

Winged Words: Maxime Rodinson on the Prophet Mohammad

Tariq Ali Tariq Ali London Review of Books
With Islamophobia rife in Europe and the Western hemisphere and with France’s center and far-right parties weaponizing laicity and scapegoating refugees, it’s time for engaged readers to reacquaint themselves with Rodinson’s classic study.

books

Winter Counts

Julia Stein Rain Taxi
This crime novel, writes reviewer Stein, "offers a fascinating snapshot of life and Lakota culture on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota."

food

The 20th Century Rise of the Confederate Soybean

Mathew Roth Zocolo Public Square
Confederate generals, memorialized through the south in monuments, parks, towns, and military bases, were an available form of nostalgia for naming soybean cultivars, part of a larger pattern of systemic racism whose legacy can be felt to this day.
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