Writing is an act of resistance
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It Looks Like Dancing
By Otis Fuqua The moon is not out. Deborah is not in bed. A stranger’s silhouette is not rolling toward her like a panther. “Mish Deborah?” a child’s voice asks—Ricardo, at the front of the classroom. The esses catch on his braces. There is no face like a saber-tooth tiger. An eely stripe of…
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Wealth of Nations
By Gemma Cooper-Novack Jeff Bezos wrote a capitalist haiku and we all live in it Gemma Cooper-Novack’s debut poetry collection We Might As Well Be Underwater, a finalist for the Central New York Book Award, was published by Unsolicited Press in 2017. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in more than twenty journals,…
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what’s happening with the boys
By Lou Ella Hickman what’s happening with the boys our prayers & thoughts bullied? bang, bang you’re dead a moment of silence easy access? what’s happening with the boys new laws won’t help video games? bang, bang you’re dead our prayers & thoughts absent fathers? what’s happening with the boys a moment of silence…
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On Sending Her Back
By Abby E. Murray for Ilhan Omar The man with no back to return to— which is to say there is no path to safety from the cliff where he clings, no escape to remind him the way back is his— has wished to banish, send back, cast out a woman whose back is…
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The Rainbow Sign
By Sara Marchant We went, my mother and I, to get haircuts. The previous appointment was still there, standing in front of the mirror, talking. This woman’s hair made her look like a pretty Afghan dog; her large green eyes did little to compensate for wearing clothes too dowdy for a woman in her…
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Longing to Belong
By Elizabeth Weaver girl with eyes too large and milky teeth fairies must wait years for in country that ripped her from Mama locked her in metal cage no laughter crosses her howl swells into lost others’ sounds for families babies resounds past soiled dreams strips belonging as those ripping teach children how arms…
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We Are Not America
By Diane Elayne Dees America is Mexico, Columbia, Brazil, Argentina, Canada. It is Paraguay, El Salvador, Guatemala, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Chile. America is Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Honduras. It requires a lot of nerve to take the name of two huge continents and make it your own. We are the man who stands against…
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North Pole Bombshell: Elves to Be Shelved! by Marcy Dilworth
MEMORANDUM TO: The Elf Consortium FROM: Kris Kringle, aka Santa Claus RE: Downsizing1 DATE: November 24, 2019 ****************************************************************************** After extensive thought and countless sleepless nights, it is with great sadness and disappointment that I announce the downsizing of our North Pole headquarters. Physical, marketplace, and socio-political changes factored…
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Daughteret is not a made-up word
By H. E. Casson for Tarana Burke Your whisper met with stone and echoed back “A cave is not a prison,” ricocheted Ancestors live in each abraded crack A line from renegade to renegade I see your eyes are tired, heart is sore Body bearing scar and gash and grit In counting these…