Once upon a time in Italy, a prominent citizen declared: “It is unacceptable that sometimes in certain parts of Milan there is such a presence of non-Italians that instead of thinking you are in an Italian or European city, you think you are in an African city.” In case the message was not crystal clear, […]

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Martín Espada is a resourceful urban seer, alternately humorous, tender, and impassioned: a warrior poet who raises “dissidence” to a level of majestic art. An essayist, translator, editor, and former tenant lawyer, Espada is the author of more than a dozen collections, including The Republic of Poetry, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and most […]

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It was easy enough to find out what the pundits thought about the Sept. 12 Democratic debate, but what about the candidates themselves? How did they position their candidacies in the days that followed? A scroll through Instagram was instructive and also provided a glimpse of how that platform is being deployed as source for […]

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There are a lot of sayings that amount to a kind of folk pragmatism: “Might makes right.” “God helps those who help themselves.” “The ends justify the means.” “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” These are all ways of saying if you’re getting the outcome you want, then don’t worry about how that […]

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Suzanne Gardinier is a global activist and author of several wide-ranging, dynamic poetry collections, including Iridium & Selected Poems 1986–2009 (2011), Today: 101 Ghazals (2008), and the long poem The New World (1993), which Lucille Clifton chose for the Associated Writing Program’s Award Series in Poetry. She has also published a collection of essays, A […]

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