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The Right Poetry Collection For Right Now

Walton Muyumba Los Angeles Times
This poet's sixth collection offers aims helping us reflect on our difficult times. Hayes, an African American poet, wrote this new collection during the first 200 days of the Trump administration.

How ‘Pose’ Restores Pride to LGBTQ People of Color

Ashlee Marie Preston Mic
Most depictions of trans people in the media either position trans people as the butt of the joke, a victim on a crime show or a hypersexualized trope. Instead, Pose centers trans people of color from a first-person perspective.

Boy White American

Amy O'Reilly Tar River Poetry Review
Amy O’Reilly’s “Boy White American” puts her finger not so gently on the dangers in a Trumpian universe of gender roles.

The U.S. Government’s Border War Against Children

Scott McLemee Inside Higher Education
Reports of the forcible separation of parents and children at the border by U.S. immigration authorities tell only part of the story of the violence now being directed against hard-won norms of civil society.

How Christians Destroyed the Ancient World

Bettany Hughes The New York Times
This book describes the cultural wreckage that accompanied the rise of Christianity, thereby adding nuance to our inherited understanding of the origins of Europe's "dark ages."

Chia Seeds: Update

editors, Harvard T. H. Chan Newsletter Harvard T. H. Chan newsletter
Chia seeds are a complete protein, containing all nine essential amino acids that cannot be made by the body.
Chia seeds have been cultivated as a food source as early as 3500 BC; they come from the plant Salvia hispanica L., and were at one time a major food crop in Mexico and Guatemala. They may contribute to disease prevention as part of a varied plant-rich diet and other healthy lifestyle behaviors.

Anthony Bourdain Was the Best White Man

Malika Rao Vulture
Bourdain engaged without fetishizing, touristed with ease, in the way of a person who’s been toggling between identities so long, the act of meeting a stranger from a strange land is the only familiar feeling.

To Kneel

Kathy Engel The Root
As the moguls of the National Football League coerce the athletes to abandon their protests against racism, Kathy Engel’s poem reminds us of the larger stakes for us all.