January 30, 2017
On Carrying Each Other & Cosmic Debt
The world is gone, I must carry you. —Paul Celan If my father was not the kind of person he is, it would be a touchy subject. It bears […]
January 26, 2017
Derechim: Writing as traveler’s prayer
Years ago, one of my first would-be mentors told me that he was never writing again. That the sum total of rejection, the pressure to keep sending work out […]
January 23, 2017
Gam Zu L’tova (This too Is for the Good)
And when they bombed other people’s houses, we protested but not enough, we opposed them but not enough. I was in my bed, around my bed America was falling: invisible […]
January 13, 2017
Goodbye, Marcus Aurelius
Blaming Russia for the outcome of our recent election is, among other things, a way of offloading collective guilt for its result. The same goes for blaming the electoral […]
December 31, 2016
Rituals of Hope: On New Year’s Resolutions
I never make resolutions on January 1 because for me, Rosh Hashanah ushers in the New Year, a time in which I enter a quiet, reflective solitude. But […]
December 19, 2016
Call Her Esperanza: On Resistance & Writing
Everyone I know // Hates the racist police & wants a revolution. // But we seldom Aim the gun . . . Have you heard // how the bullets Sing […]
December 9, 2016
A Fable
It is the last day of life on earth, but the United States populace is forbidden to acknowledge the fact. Anyone caught without a smile on their face is subject […]
November 29, 2016
“We have the house and it is gated”: Latina/o Writers on Resistance
The pain and joy of the borderlands—perhaps no greater or lesser than the emotions stirred by living anywhere contradictions abound, cultures clash and meld, and life is lived on an […]
November 29, 2016
In the Present How Can She Exist In Multitudes
Lately it appears the water has been waiting for us to keep trying to make it across. The rivers and trenches glossed with light know we are so relentless as […]
November 23, 2016
The (un)rest is history
In the weeks leading up to the election and following the election, I fell silent here on The Kenyon Review blog, and in my life as well, to some extent. In the […]
November 18, 2016
When It’s Not Our World Anymore What Will We Hear: On Empathy
We wait for their approach. We are the silence that multiplies itself in the night. We are the dark with our eyes closed. We are the hard knots pressed against […]
November 1, 2016
Utopia 500 Years Later
Now that 500 years have passed since the first publication of Thomas More’s Utopia, and we find ourselves in a season of promises to remake our world again, what might […]