Writing is an act of resistance
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American Signs
By R.M. Engelhardt Dead crow in the middle of the road, Black as death and dark In the cold November air When all the trees all sigh “Remember” Where there is a change in the scenery Something different Like God has suddenly left The building A winter without snow Where a part of your soul…
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Impressions of the USA
Paul Simon, Julia Halberstam, Gay Talese, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Anna Quindlen, Essay, Tran Quoc Cong, David Halberstam memorial, David Remnick, Calvin TrillinBy Cong Tran Editor’s note: Cong Tran, or Tran Quoc Cong in Vietnamese naming convention, paid his first visit to the United States in 2007, an invited guest at the memorial service for author and Pulitzer Prize winning Vietnam War correspondent David Halberstam. Mr. Tran had guided and ultimately befriended the journalist during a return visit to Vietnam by…
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Porn Government
By Eliza Mimski One He undressed the country and grabbed it in his sweaty palms. As the zipper came down, the country split in two. He inserted his finger into the wrath. He inserted his finger into his following but they didn’t notice. He peeled open the law and banged it into the first half.…
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Scent of Mock Orange
A cento by Marcia Meier The serpent, that mocker, woke up and pressed against me In the west the falling light still glows but here on earth we’ve got a fair supply of everything If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter crooning black lullabies in the kitchen, And now, it is easy…
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A Brief History
A sonnet by I.E. Sommsin Into the toilet endlessly flushing leap the great state and vast empire, fat and swollen, on schedule to expire, onward toward oblivion rushing. They got the loud proud words that prove them strong, and the firm resolve that works on teevee and the raw courage made for a moovee— if…
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The Big Top Comes Down: A Consciousness Poem
By Deborah Kahan Kolb once the elephants left the crowds stopped coming to the circus but look do my eyes deceive me the elephants are back they are blustering along on Capitol Hill with old white-man creases leathering their skin leaving yuge piles of shit in their wake for the humane rights activists to shovel…
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The Return of History
By Easton Smith I was born in 1989, the same year that Francis Fukuyama published his essay, “The End of History?” The Berlin Wall fell that year, collapsing history (such a delicate thing, after all) underneath it. It was final: Liberal democracy and global capitalism were the inevitable tide to raise all boats. My…
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Typing Class
By Susan Elliott Brown A black, rectangular shield covers the keyboard and my hands like a censor hides nipples on TV. I type sample sentences, hundreds more words to go before the bell. When will the auditor perform the city audit? The fox and the bear jumped over the logs. The mayor mailed a letter…
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When the Clock Was Smashed
By Julia Stein Color Juarez White I was twenty, alone in Juarez and afraid in a white-walled clinic wearing a white paper gown. The illegal abortionist took from the drawer his metal rods, metal knife, metal spoon. I laid back on the hard, white table. The gas mask was put over my head. It was…