Lake Charles, Louisiana, after Laura
August 31, 2020
Read more by John Griswold here.
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Grassroot Chilean Heritage Workers Emerge From Underground
The women of Lota, Chile, or Lotinas, represent a long feminist movement to preserve cultural memory and reinvigorate the economy of their city. At the end of March 2026, they flew more than 20 hours to be in residency for a week at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where they led workshops on art “as a tool of historical storytelling and civic activism.”
AI and the Inhabited Body
Poetry is a different embodiment in words of the experience of being human. AI does not (yet) understand the mysteries, perspectives, uncertainties, and feelings—the experience itself—of inhabiting a body in the physical world.
‘Go Bags’ in Relationships
The impulse is to think that someone who makes plans for something else also helps bring it about. That fantasy does not seem to be doing us much good as a body politic, but the idea has taken root everywhere, including at Department of State.
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Comedian Tim Robinson Reveals the Humanity of the Absurd and the Absurdity of Being Human
When Tim Robinson in his poorly fitting outfit that he most likely refers to as his “work clothes” describes an incident in which a monster barrels through his doggy door, we laugh. But when he points at the camera and screams “WHAT DID THEY DO TO US?!” who can laugh? Who, honestly, can write him off as absurd?
The Curious Bondage of Inattentiveness
The French philosopher, Michel de Montaigne, writing in “Of Friendship,” imagines friendship as a bond so complete it resists explanation. It is difficult to read that text now without noticing how much it assumes proximity, continuity, and a shared life that does not fracture across distance.
“Mambo ya Congo,” or Things Happen in Congo
I left Congo. But Congo did not leave me entirely. I came to the United States not long after. There were moments when the fear came back. But I had learned something in Congo about fear. Get closer. Look at it. It is never quite what it appears to be from a distance.
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The Speculative Value of a Stolen Literary Bust
By the time it was gone, the change was subtle but unmistakable: one corner left without its figure, one pedestal left bare. But to understand why that absence matters, it helps to understand who Kate Chopin was and the stories she wrote.
Recipes for Rascals
The ginger nut (and by association other cookies of its type, such as those made with black peppercorns) has an aggressive presence but offers scant sustenance. It is meant to aid digestion of other things, to have a warming effect in winter, to relieve boredom, and perhaps to remind us we are alive in the sometimes dry, husky business of life.
Standing at the Edge of Two Worlds
Having lived in the United States for a few years, I have either struggled to understand democracy in practice or struggled to keep up with it.