Black Earth Institue: Social Distancing
Date: June 4, 2020
In dreams I walk through crowds, brushing arms, knocking elbows. Skin to skin: hands are bare. Crocuses congregate in beds, along sidewalks. Unlatching city gates,
Date: June 4, 2020
In dreams I walk through crowds, brushing arms, knocking elbows. Skin to skin: hands are bare. Crocuses congregate in beds, along sidewalks. Unlatching city gates,
Date: June 4, 2020
A flare of russet,green fronds, surpriseof flush againstthe bare grey cypressin winter woods. Cardinal wild pine,quill-leaf airplantor dog-drink-water.Spikes of bright bloom–exotic plumage.
Date: June 4, 2020
“Be stubborn and ultimately believe in your writing,” advises first-time novelist Mia Heavener ’00, “especially if you are having crappy writing days.” On April 13, Heavener visited Wyn Kelley’s literature […]
Date: June 4, 2020
Tess Taylor’s new poetry collection Rift Zone is published this month. She shares five books about writing place in a time of crisis.
Date: June 4, 2020
Poet Tess Taylor questioned what it means to be creative, when every day feels like a radical reinvention of life. “These days, helping myself and my family steer a way around sadness, […]
Date: June 4, 2020
LINCOLN, Neb. — My mother was born into a flu-stricken household at the height of the pandemic of 1918. Within minutes she was swaddled in a homemade quilt and placed […]
Date: June 4, 2020
1985 Long and black, the streaksof gray, aflutter in the lightwind as she prepares to tell her story at the Federal Building:reaching into a tattered sackshe pulls out a doll […]
Date: June 4, 2020
The Skin of Meaning He was late to the party and without directions,though his invitation was secure, and his instinctskeenly honed to an acceptable edge, and as we arewaiting to […]
Date: June 4, 2020
Ascension Didi Jackson The blue jays lay claimto the raspberry busharriving in groups of four or five:one holds a rubied berry in its beakand feeds it up in the white […]
Date: June 4, 2020
after Käthe Kollwitz I heard they no longer sew eyelids of the dead shut.At the morgue, I busied myself countingthe lacerations on my husband’s neck and wrists.I wore sunglasses and […]
Date: October 30, 2023
The publication of two books in one year is either an impressive achievement or a fluke of timing. Whichever the case may be, David Nikki Crouse’s short and shorter fictions […]
Date: October 26, 2023
How can we exist within, and navigate our way through, a world where the deepest beauty is inextricably linked to the darkest ugliness? Francesca Bell’s unflinching second collection of poetry, […]
Date: October 19, 2023
Susan Rich’s eighth book, Blue Atlas, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press (April 2, 2024). Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems (Salmon Poetry) and Demystifying the Manuscript: Essays and Interviews for […]
Date: October 17, 2023
Poets Jason Schneiderman, Cate Marvin, R. A. Villanueva, Lynn Xu and Rachel Zucker consider the pleasures, challenges, eccentricities and value of live, in-person poetry readings. These musings are followed by […]
Date: October 11, 2023
Many American Jews are unaffiliated with Judaism. Some do not observe Jewish rituals in any regular way; others might not worship at all. And yet Jewishness still pervades their lives: […]
Date: October 10, 2023
Marybeth Holleman’s book tender gravity was my companion on a recent hike in Avalanche Canyon in Grand Teton National Park, and what fine company it was, contributing to the feeling of well-being […]
Date: October 10, 2023
This fall, Food Tank is recommending 23 books that can broaden and deepen everyone’s understanding of food systems and the power of storytelling. Books like Taras Grescoe’s The Lost Supper, Sarah Lohman’s Endangered Eating, […]
Date: September 25, 2023
In Pacific Light, David Mason’s eighth collection of poems, we find the former Poet Laureate of Colorado newly settled in Tasmania, weighing the “titanic volumes of air” between “here and Patagonia” […]
Date: September 20, 2023
What Small Sound, a new poetry collection by Francesca Bell, is an exploration of life, death, and love, and of the myriad ways these essential elements of human existence intersect and […]
Date: September 20, 2023
The Bookgirl Community in the Daily Kos highlights key takeaways from Juliana Lamy’s first short-story collection, You Were Watching from the Sand, published by Red Hen Press this September! Read […]