Winter was standing behind him.It imitated his shadowAnd considered itself a tree.It was getting skinny.It felt cold.You’re like a wooden coat hanger prepared to move home.The hat and the four assembled seasonsWouldn’t follow you.They would remain in paper boxes, deepIn their sleep, dreamless and naked.The cat would stay to guard the home.—from . . .
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Editor’s note: Alon Confino, director of the IHGMS at UMass, died on June 27, after a long illness. Professor Buerkle offered the following remarks at his funeral on July 2. My name is Darcy Buerkle, I am a faculty member in the History department at Smith College and it is a great . . .
Read MoreFrom the mountains and prairies, to ocean’s white foam:Hail the beers of America. Let your tastes roam!‘Twixt Atlantic, PacificCome brewers prolificWith tributes for toasting this spacious-skied home. So gallantly streaming, beers pourInto glasses and cups for the Fourth.From the crisp, from the tart,to the hoppy—the heartOf the country pumps out brews galore! . . .
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Courtesy of Chris Buhalis If you’re gone for good—if you’re history –I’ll know to search along rivers.I’ll look for bones, trace foundations,piece old shapes from shards. But time will take those, too.Strangers arriving with children will runthe length of the ruins for hide-and-seek,squeals of living delight.—from “Always Beside a River,” Volume 65, . . .
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@josephbrodsky puts on a snuggly tune,tweets a few words: “December. Like counting spoonsin the sideboard after a guest is gone.”Grins on rereading:this is the perfect tone. Gets up, goes to the window, looks out. It strikeshim that the day, still young, has grown dusky. Likea snowflake that—having lived a second in flight,fragile, . . .
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Willy-Brandt-Platz, Frankfurt, 03.02.2024. Banner reads: “Stop the criminalisation of Palestinian resistance and solidarity” Attribution: conceptphoto.info, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Vogliamo Tutto Since I wrote “Staatsraison: Dispatch From Germany” six months ago, Germany has seen an avalanche of staatsraison attacks, supported across the political spectrum. These attacks have often been mobilized and . . .
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You were a wooden coat hanger.Your body, half-clothed. No hat could alter your looks.No gentleman’s hat that tipped to highlightYour smile. You were an exquisite gentleman’sCoat hanger, with pale skinny arms growing upward. The wood grain was fading, paler and paler.The winter, too, was half-clothed. No gentleman’s hatCould disguise the looks of . . .
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Photo: Free Derry/ Palestine (crop), by Ktoma. CC BY-SA 3.0 When the Tree rises up, the branchesShall flourish green and fresh in the sunThe laughter of the Tree shall leafBeneath the sunAnd birds shall returnUndoubtedly, the birds shall return. —Fadwa Tuqan, from “The Deluge and the Tree” The very title of Adam . . .
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Key Art by Trevor Davis Presented here is Carl Hancock Rux’s Artist Statement for his forthcoming Juneteenth celebration at Lincoln Center “It was while singing… the idea of escaping from slavery was first suggested to my mind.” —Frederick Douglass African American music is inseparable from the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the forced . . .
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