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I’ve become acutely aware of the political danger the country is in. The champions of material wealth, the acolytes of technology, and the religious extremists are so loud, so bellicose, so uncompromising. Who will rein them in? Who’s not afraid to criticize their notions of “progress”?
By Michael ShapiroJune 2006This morning, I came across these words by Ramana Maharshi: “God’s grace is the beginning, the middle, and the end. When you pray for God’s grace, you are like someone standing neck deep in water and yet crying for water. It is like saying that someone neck deep in water feels thirsty or that a fish in water feels thirsty or that water feels thirsty.”
By Sy SafranskyApril 2006In the Islamic Republic of Iran, honest self-expression carries a heavy price. Over the last six years, as many as a hundred print publications, including forty-one daily newspapers, have been closed by Iran’s hard-line judiciary. In April 2003 the Islamic Republic became the first government to take direct action against bloggers. Many more bloggers and online journalists have been arrested or intimidated since.
By Nasrin AlaviApril 2006“C is an average grade,” I tell my students. “C means you’re doing just fine. B is a good grade, a better-than-average grade, and an A is an outstanding grade reserved for truly outstanding work.” I’m lying of course, and I suppose they know it. University-wide, the average grade is a B-minus. Higher for some subjects.
By Jean BraithwaiteMarch 2006After I graduated from college, I worked as a prep aide at a large hospital. The prep aide was the person who went around each night and shaved patients for their surgery in the morning.
By Sybil SmithNovember 2005In the small Nebraska town where I live, I am known as “the cook.” People I don’t know will often stare at me fuzzily for a moment before a flash of recognition lights their face: “Hey, I know you. You’re the cook.” Which is reasonable enough, I suppose, since I am the cook at the Olde Main Street Inn, the chief dinner house in town. It isn’t exactly what I’ve dreamed of being all my life, however. To be honest, being the cook is an unwanted byproduct of my efforts to be “the writer.”
By Poe BallantineOctober 2005Words shuffle into my writing room, complaining that I’ve woken them too early. I remind them that I just work here, that I don’t like it any better than they do. They don’t believe me. They know that I’m the one who unlocks their cells.
By Sy SafranskySeptember 2005Outside of a psychotic who attacked me a few months ago (I stuck his head into a snowbank until he promised to leave me alone) and a middle-aged fellow who drives around town shouting obscenities from a riding mower, there is not much happening here in Middlebury, Vermont.
By Poe BallantineAugust 2005I believe the only possible ethical consciousness is one that accounts for the whole human being, that doesn’t leave any of it out — and this is precisely what poetry can achieve. On a social scale, this would be a government that accounts for all of its population — the poor, the rich, women, men, children, old people, black, white. Poetry is a way to integrate all of who we are: the saint, the murderer, all of it. By this, I don’t mean to suggest that we give the murderer free rein, but we have to account for that aspect of human psychology and understand it, not just push it aside.
By Katherine Towler, Ilya KaminskyAugust 2005When it comes down to it, my personal identity, how I perceive myself as a human being, doesn’t have anything to do with how other people view me. I hope I’m seen as a good person, but I’m not like Judy Garland: I don’t need the applause. When I perform and the people are happy to see me, it’s a moving experience. Performing is a privilege. I always try to give it my all, no matter what the situation, no matter what kind of shit-hole I’m playing in. But I don’t count on it to reaffirm who I am. I don’t feel lost if I don’t have it.
By Greg KingJuly 2005Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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