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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.
•
What counts
is the role
defined for each piece
by a system of rules saying
how it can move,
not the stuff
the piece is made of.
•
In the intersection,
a muscular, shirtless man
with small American
flags tied to each wrist –
so that he looks
like a wrestler –
pushes, no, shoves
then catches, a stroller
piled high with plastic bags –
his stuff.
•
City of the future,
where a tramway to the top
of a peak
opens onto
a wax museum
in which
Michael Jackson
extends one gloved hand
Rae Armantrout’s most recent collection of poems is Partly: New and Selected Poems, 2001–2015.
We invited poets to contribute new works, entering into a larger dialogue on what it means to have open eyes and ears in the twenty-first century. Poems by Armantrout, Ashbery, Bernstein, Pinsky, and others.
We invited poets to contribute new works, entering into a larger dialogue on what it means to have open eyes and ears in the twenty-first century. Poems by Armantrout, Ashbery, Bernstein, Pinsky, and others.
“Never do unto me what your uncle has done to us.” A family member’s disappearance leads to personal revelations.
Critics say human rights discourse blunts social transformation. It doesn’t have to.
“My mother has not slept for seven days.” A Taiwanese woman’s brother avoids calling their mother, setting off an insomniac unraveling.
We must reject the legal liberalism that attempts to cordon off constitutional questions from democratic politics.
The United States ranked first on health security; then came COVID-19. In place of technocratic hubris, we need robust new forms of democratic humility.
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