Writing is an act of resistance
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Bird Shit on Leaves
By Mark Grinyer The white-speckled green of bird-shit on leaves painted through weeks of days without rain marks favored platforms under canopies of trees where hawks cannot spy them but where they can see the movements of voters through wind-gusts and rain that soak these havens and wash shit away fertilizing forests with generations…
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For the Bookshelf: Bestsellers in the Age of Trump
Tara Campbell, #DonaldTrump, NRA, MAGA fiction, Donald Trump fiction, Incels, Make America Great Again, anti-vax, windmill noise cancer, injecting cleaner, injecting disinfectant, With Russia with Love, Purity movement, Fiction, anti-government terroristBy Tara Campbell All the President’s Mendacity How to Screw Allies and Idolize Dictators Where’s My African-American?: the Great Picture Puzzle Book Foreign Policy for Goddamn Idiots Windmill Noise-Cancer is Not a Thing, and Other Actual Facts The Man, the Myth, the Legendary Shitstorm: An “Illegitimate” Biography What the Fuck? Asking for a Nation…
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Group Home Rattle
By Andrés Castro Dropped and broken, over and over, we were dropped broken here— the labeled Spic and Nigger boys, said from stupid mothers and ugly fathers, said marked by wire gashes, gunshots, and sex toys, waking to crying, screaming, lying, threats. We were dropped broken here. Who bothers to look inside the hand that’s…
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To Kill a Creep
By Samantha Tkac 1. Hop on the T and head to the job interview you’ve been excited about for weeks. When the man huffing Nicorette breath against the back of your neck snags the bucket of your slacks as you step out onto the platform, whip around so you can pound your knuckles into…
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I Was Ranting About
By Pedro Hoffmeister the school district brought in a tech-expert, an Apple educator, a dynamic speaker, paid a lot of money to come speak to us, started by asking us to name our favorite technologies, audience members calling out new apps and video games I’d never heard of. I yelled, “The toilet” because it…
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The Chain & The Screens & The Fire
By Jake Phillips — after Alexandrea Teague’s “’My Country, ‘Tis of Thee’ (arranged for Brazen Bull)” Bellows and bolts and the king and the king’s rage at the price of freedom the fire the face like fire hot-orange on your screen first look at your phones the fire given to humankind hot breath fogging …
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Nothing Happened
By Jane Snyder When I woke, Suzie was still asleep, lying on her stomach, her bottom a little raised. She looked cute, like a baby, and I tiptoed from our room with exaggerated care. If she teased me I’d use it against her. Suzie with her big butt in the air, I’d say. I…
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Ring-a-Round the Rosie 2019
By Heidi J. Lobecker Ring-a-round the playground A backpack full of bullets Pop! Pop! Pop! We all fall down. Heidi J. Lobecker has lots of fun writing. If it‘s not fun, she finds something better to do, for example: reading, sailing, camping, and eating s’mores. Photo credit: Edwin Rosskam, Chicago, Illinois, 1941, via…
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Serpent Song
By Candice Kelsey I July. A man in Thousand Oaks confronted by wildlife authorities. The case: Exotic Reptiles illegally stockpiled. Neighbors suspect this guy may not have permits for all 40 venomous snakes. Above 100 degree heat kept in crowded conditions activity level through the roof. More runs to Home Depot 14 hour day. Curator…