Portside

Brooklyn poet Ally Malinenko offers a sardonic/graphic expose of East Germany's nostalgia for the old days.

It may be something of a stretch to claim, as Malcolm Harris does, that "anarchists get the artists and tacticians, Marxists get the theorists and politicians." Yet this remains an insightful review. It surveys the history of anarchism and its relationship to Marxism as it considers how adherents of these historic modes of thought might find themselves acting in this political year.

We deserve to know, and we are obligated to know, the cost of America’s love for football.

Although 44% of all consumers—and 84% of foodies—really enjoy cooking, easy-to-prepare foods are still the favorite for more than half (53%) of U.S. meal preparers.

If the first five seasons of Downton Abbey—the British upstairs-downstairs soap opera that will have its sixth and final U.S. season premiere on Jan. 3—were about the structure of class divisions in English society, the last one is about those divisions crumbling.

New Zealand poet John Sweden describes life as "seamless," meaning that the human-made divisions of nationality, ethnicity, even bodily labels and ego, are part of seamless flow that transcends one's life. .

The centennial celebration of Joe Hill's execution is being marked by concerts, symposiums, meetings and forums, and the publication of new books, or new editions. Labor historian Paul Buhle reviews two of these. Franklin Rosemont's Joe Hill: The IWW & the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture, with a new introduction by David Roediger; and Philip S. Foner's The Letters of Joe Hill, with new material by Alexis Buss and foreword by Tom Morello.

The Voyage of the Sable Venus, the highly regarded debut poetry collection by Robin Coste Lewis, won the national book award this year for poetry. The title poem unites art history with the history of slavery and racism. Here, Dan Chiasson introduces this book, which has become a must-read across the literary spectrum.

'In desperation and insanity, you call for a ban on all Muslims entering this country. I was raised to believe that we are all each other's brother and sister, regardless of race, creed or color. That means if you want to ban Muslims, you are first going to have to ban me. And everyone else.'

The United Nations has declared 2016 the International Year of Pulses, nutritious sources of protein which include peas and many kinds of dried beans.