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We are a public forum committed to collective reasoning and the imagination of a more just world. Join today to help us keep the discussion of ideas free and open to everyone, and enjoy member benefits like our quarterly books.
Confront yourself to the point at which
you cannot move, or move slowly enough
it goes unnoticed, and only during
crepuscular hours. Is there anything more
stranger than your own voice telling you when
you didn’t tell it to? You are now unfull
of yourself, bursting with the long meal
worms of otherness, of reflection deflected
away from the counterpart, yet the details of being
human cannot be ignored. Sleep is a river of
selfishness, of psyche getting the better of you.
How will the man who has never once
seen a mirror, never stooped to a stream,
pick himself out of a lineup? It is not enough
that you have provided milk and cookies
to sustain what isn’t there. You must also eat.
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In her new book, Danish poet Olga Ravn writes with open love, pity, and compassion for her strange yet familiar creations.
Draconian individual punishment distracts from systemic change and reinforces the cruelest and most racist system of incarceration on the planet.
Our well-being depends on a better understanding of how the logic of labor has twisted our relationship with pleasure.
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