“A Heartbreaking Lesson of Politics,” by Sharon Gelman, was recently featured in Scoundrel Time. Read an excerpt below:

A Heartbreaking Lesson of Politics
“I first parted ways with my parents politically during a presidential primary race. I was eight.

The Republican candidate was Richard Milhous Nixon. My parents were staunch, active, pragmatic Democrats, and they were backing Lyndon Johnson in the Democratic primary. Once he withdrew from the race, they supported Hubert Humphrey.

But I fell in love with Eugene McCarthy. He was the anti-war candidate who spoke about peace like a poet, because, in fact, he was a senator as well as a poet. His campaign bumper stickers were shaped like flowers: white daisies with his name in white in the flower’s blue center, to be precise. I put a McCarthy flower sticker on the paisley cover of my three-ring binder and proudly carried it to school, talking him up to anyone and everyone who would listen. I loved him and believed in him with my whole tender young heart…”

Read the rest of this piece here: https://scoundreltime.com/a-heartbreaking-lesson-of-politics/

Faculty member Robin Romm‘s essay “Hi, Dad. It’s Me. Please Buy Lots of Soup” was recently featured on Wired. Read an excerpt below:

“Hi, Dad. It’s Me. Please Buy Lots of Soup.”

“MY FATHER IS 74. He lives alone in Eugene, Oregon, about 90 miles from the first novel outbreak in the Portland area. In 2016, he was in a catastrophic bicycling accident that left him with steel-plated ribs and reduced lung function. I still think of him as a stubborn and athletic ox of a guy. He was a cardiologist and mountaineer, a skier, hiker, and general adrenaline junky. His father was a histrionic type, eternally crouched against imagined (and experienced) tragedy. My father defined himself in the face of this. He is never histrionic. If he panics, he does it silently, then makes a joke. He wouldn’t be the one looking over his shoulder to see what pursued him. He’d be the one looking forward, toward what beckoned. Once, when I asked him why he’d chosen the heart as his specialty, he told me he liked the feeling of being on the edge. The edge is a vivid and exciting place to be, so long as you always stay on it, and don’t fall off.

I called him and asked how he was. He told me he’d been keeping busy. He’d gone to his class on the poetry of the Vietnam war, two fundraising parties, and a basketball game.

“I guess you’re not worried about the coronavirus,” I said.

“Well,” he said, taken off guard. His dog has cancer, and he’d thought I was calling for another update on his status. “We don’t have it here,” he said. “Why should I be worried?”

Read the rest of this essay here: https://www.wired.com/story/hi-dad-its-me-please-buy-lots-of-soup/

“Direct Address,” a poem by Kimberly Kruge, was recently featured by The Poetry Society of America. Read an excerpt below:

Direct Address

Here is everywhere I’ve ever been and everywhere I’ve never been at once.
The one beside me is everyone I’ve ever known and everyone I’ve never, too.
The howl from the next apartment is every howl across history and it is also not that.
It is no secret we create reality. The storm settling over the city where I am now is
the storm settling over my past haunts, is the storm at a particular longitude and latitude
on the plane of my thoughts; it is a death wish…

Find the rest of this poem, and read a brief reflection by Kimberly, here: https://poetrysociety.org/features/in-their-own-words/kimberly-kruge-on-direct-address

Victoria Chang‘s poem “OBIT [Frontal Lobe]” recently appeared on poets.org. Read an excerpt of this poem below:

OBIT [Frontal Lobe]

My Father’s Frontal Lobe–died
unpeacefully of a stroke June 24,
2009 at Scripps Memorial Hospital in
San Diego, California. Born January 20,
1940, the frontal lobe enjoyed a good
life. The frontal lobe loved being the
boss. It tried to talk again but someone
put a bag over it. When the frontal
lobe died, it sucked in its lips like a
window pulled shut…

Find the rest of this poem here: https://poets.org/poem/obit-frontal-lobe

Dawn Abeita‘s short story “Corner of Main and Paradise” recently appeared in the Yemassee Journal. Read an excerpt below:

“The man stands on the same street corner near the wire garbage can every day. He never sits or squats or leans. He is a pole, planted on the corner like a reminder of something. The four and five and ten story fringes of the city huddle above the storefronts. Some windows are arranged and curated, but one contains a toaster, a nightgown, and bowls for cat food, unmoved for a decade.  In another a retro TV/VHS combo is showing a movie: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. It can’t be heard…”

Read the rest of Dawn’s story here: http://yemasseejournal.com/2020/03/01/corner-of-main-and-paradise/