Billy Collins on the Beauty of Short Poems
Says former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins, "Whenever I pick up a new book of poems, I flip through the pages looking for small ones. Just as I might have trust in an abstract painter more if I knew he or she could draw a credible chicken, I have faith in poets who can go short." Short poems take center stage in his new collection, Musical Tables. More in this interview with NPR.... posted on Apr 04 2023, 2,050 reads

A Lost Mariposa Garden
"I got a phone call one morning. The woman was distraught. Her friend's garden -- thirty five years in the making -- was being destroyed. The larger pieces-- a griffin, a couple of horses and two large cats-- were too heavy to move without special equipment. And the blue mosaic hillside had already been bulldozed. I published an art magazine. Wouldn't I want to see it before it was gone? I would. ... posted on Apr 03 2023, 1,988 reads

The Rights of All Beings
"The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, inspired by Franklin D Roosevelt's four freedoms, outlines the rights to which humans are equally and inalienably entitled: of speech and religion, from want and fear. They are our global guiding principles for protecting humans from humans essential in establishing the legal frameworks within which humanity can operate freely to express ourselves,... posted on Apr 02 2023, 1,386 reads

Say Wow: A Conversation with Poet Chelan Harkin
At the age of 21, on a pilgrimage to Israel, Chelan Harkin found herself sitting alone in the same cell that some 140 years earlier had confined the founder of the Baha'i faith. The quietude was suddenly broken by a voice she took to be the Persian prophet's spirit saying, "Let us dance." This unexpected invitation cracked her heart wide open and spontaneously led her to fill the resonant chamber ... posted on Apr 01 2023, 4,533 reads

A Concerto is a Conversation
When we achieve anything in life, "we" is the operative word. We are supported by the life choices and dreams of others. Kris Bowers, a virtuoso jazz pianist and film composer, recounts the collective story of his family. His 91-year-old grandfather traces their shared choices and dreams from Jim Crow Florida to the Walt Disney Concert Hall.... posted on Mar 31 2023, 1,177 reads

Our Tenuous Boundaries: A Life in 10 Sea Creatures
"When Sabrina Imbler was in college, they enrolled in a class they thought was about whales, but which turned out to be about whaling. In one of 10 brilliant essays in their new book, Imbler recalls the class, which focused on "the systematic hunting and harvesting of the animals that brought human populations to the verge of unimaginable prosperity and whale populations to the brink of extinction... posted on Mar 30 2023, 1,820 reads

How Much Silence is Too Much?
"As much as anyone else, I fantasize about checking out. I would love to remove the pinging notifications from my days, for my mind to wander without being thrown askew by each incoming tweet. But visions of total unplugging also seem a bit grotesque. Even if we can still shut our eyes and cover our ears, become details of the landscape, should we? Is it morally acceptable at this moment? How much... posted on Mar 29 2023, 1,754 reads

A Thousand Words for Weather
"In June 2022, ArtAngel's installation, A Thousand Words for Weather opened at London's Senate House Library. Created by author Jessica J. Lee and sound artist Claudia Molitor, the piece invites listeners to consider the ways in which our experiences of weatherand climate change--are at once intimate, shared, yet untranslatable. Lee began by working with a group of UKbased poets and translators in... posted on Mar 28 2023, 1,447 reads

An Introvert's Field Guide To Friendship
"'Whatever our degree of friends may be, we come more under their influence than we are aware,' the trailblazing astronomer Maria Mitchell observed as she contemplated how we co-create each other and recreate ourselves in friendship. Her friend Ralph Waldo Emerson -- whom she taught to look through a telescope -- believed that all true friendship rests on two pillars. In his own life, he put the t... posted on Mar 27 2023, 5,558 reads

Caring for the Vulnerable: A Gateway to Our Deepest Brain States
"Humans often fancy themselves quite extraordinary specimens in the animal kingdom. But while most recent research undermines our centuries-long claims of human exceptionalism, there are some ways in which we are quite unique -- especially when it comes to childhood and childcare. Indeed, even when compared with our closest primate relatives, humans spend a truly inordinate amount of time -- rough... posted on Mar 26 2023, 2,863 reads