Poem: “David Reardon (January 23, 1951-November 21, 2015)”
David Reardon (January 23, 1951-November 21, 2015) You were there, David, with me. I was there with you. We were drawn together and pushed apart by circumstances, our [...]
Book review: “Pagan Babies” by Elmore Leonard
When is a priest a priest? And when is he not? In Elmore Leonard’s 2000 novel Pagan Babies, Terry Dunn is a Detroit boy who, five years earlier, came to [...]
Book review: “Rodin: The Gates of Hell” by Antoinette Le Normand-Romain
I’m fascinated by the Falling Man near the top of Auguste Rodin’s masterwork The Gates of Hell, just to the left of The Thinker. It’s featured in a full-page photograph [...]
Poem: “The empty cave”
Let me be clear: In the face of hate and fear, I choose hope and love. But what about the Ku Klux Klan? What about the yahoos in the [...]
Poem: “Render”
Caesar will do what Caesar will do. Do the lilies worry? Do the lilies give orders to the sun? The rain? The soil food? The rain does what the [...]
Book review: “The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther” by Jeffrey Haas
The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther is much more readable than I would have expected it to be. This 2010 [...]
Essay: Job 1 is voting
Voting is my job. Voting is your job. It's Job One for us as Americans. When we go to the polling place, enter the voting booth and cast our ballot, [...]
Book review: “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros
There is a universal quality to Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street and also something very specific. This is the story of Esperanza Cordero, and, at its heart, it [...]
Book review: “White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America” by Nancy Isenberg
Well, this book is a mess. Given its title, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Louisiana State University history professor Nancy Isenberg would seem to [...]
Essay: Chicago’s deadly streets in the late 19th and early 20th century
On the evening of March 9, 1903, Maria Stanton wanted to cross Clark Street at Goethe Street, on the edge of Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, the enclave of many of [...]
