Category: Books & Poetry
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"What I’m Made Of" and "My Excavated Heart" by Kathy Engel
What I’m Made Of I am a crab I am chemical dispersant spill, I am spilled spilling, fish swelter stone, I am slick, eyes burn bleed oil, nose oiled mucous, talk spits from my oil swollen lips, gurgle and sputter drip from my ears, crude ruts my cheeks, neck scar leaks oil, hair sheens nipples…
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A New War On Poverty
In their book, The Rich and the Rest of Us, noted public intellectual Cornel West & broadcaster Tavis Smiley challenge the presidential candidates to at least talk about poverty. Q. What was the motivation behind this book? Cornel West: There were a number of contributing factors that led to the writing of this book. First…
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Inaugural
Now is the time to be generous, now is the time to be brave and patient, to watch how the dove tails up, blinks, sits tight over invisible eggs. Now is the time to protect, a time to risk, now is the time to mother, to become curious, now is the time to father, the…
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Obama Is Not King
On January 20, 2009 Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States. The inauguration, which set a record for attendance for any event on the Mall, drew an estimated crowd of 1.8 million people. According to Nielsen, approximately 37.8 million Americans view the inauguration from home. Millions also tuned in from…
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Nature
Your supple hands caress my cheeks Like a loving mother Your breath twirls across my eyes and Slowly collapses like a graceful silhouette As the dirge of song birds echoes in the darkness echoes in the darkness echoes in the darkness Then there came a cold chill as a wave of winter dust descended deliberately…
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Hymn To The Sacred Body Of The Universe (Excerpt)
let’s meet at the confluence where you flow into me and one breath swirls between our lungs let’s meet at the confluence where you flow into me and one breath swirls between our lungs for one instant to dwell in the presence of the galaxies for one instant to live in the truth of the…
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The Poetry of Martin Espada
Sheep Haiku Achill Island, Ireland A lone sheep cries out: There are more of us than them! The flock keeps grazing. —– Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100 For the 43 members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 100, working at the Windows on the World restaurant, who lost their lives in the attack…
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Orwell's Economy
The Price of Inequality, by Joseph E. Stiglitz (W.W. Norton & Company). While reading The Price of Inequality, one seems confronted by a society that was merely imaginative in Jack London’s 1908 dystopian novel The Iron Heel. Rampant poverty, political and economic imbalance, entrenched class divisions, and middle class evaporation, all engendered by an oligarchic…
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Poetry of Chopper Kate
The Storm and I The Western sky broods; fire bolt fingers claw rain laden clouds roiling to release their soggy burden. Two wheels, one heart beating a steel streak across the asphalt plain. Ride faster to haven, Ride faster to home. We fly, the storm and I. Bad ass, it breathes dank and damp; the…
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"F" Poverty
The Rich and the Rest of Us, by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West (Smiley Books). These two bright minds, with articulate diction of intellect and the loud volume of intense passion, place the political “F-word” at the center of the socio-political discourse – and that disconcerting word is poverty. For many, it remains an icky…