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Dance Card
My mother’s name is written on the second page of the book: María Victoria Ávalos Flores. A somewhat hasty examination of the handwriting leads me to the improbable conclusion… More
International Women’s Day: Today and Every Day
She sits at her desk, reading lamp above her, smoking a cigarette as she reads through handwritten lines of poetry. She is Liu Xia.March 8 is International Women’s Day,… More
PEN Speaks Out Against Prosecution of Journalist Barrett Brown
A prosecutor filed to dismiss 11 charges against Barrett Brown, safeguarding the use of hyperlinks to share information--for now. More
Lessons for Writers from RightsCon
Human rights activists, technologists, corporations, and foundations came together this week in San Francisco at RightsCon, the leading U.S. conference on human rights and technology. PEN American Center joined… More
Two More Murders of Journalists Highlight Need for Effective Measures to End Impunity
Last month, two more journalists were found murdered in Mexico, a country infamous for attacks on the press. PEN International released the following statement on their deaths and the… More
Betrayal–Past–Tony
I met Tony when I was nineteen. I was wild-eyed and wide open, looking for love and finding nothing but one night stands in the back seats of random… More
Cultivation
Burlap sack snaps in the windagain, the turn-rows grow longer.Along the way, days become bygones—dandelions dancing in the breeze.Knees dig into loose soil,toiling hands peel away a husk.Dusk meets… More
Air Pressure
I’ve seen wind go mad / in the skies of Arkansas; sticks / like straw, stuck through plumb... More
An Ordinary Prison
Peer into a prisonariumWe travel in a fish bowlPut your ear to the glass and hearA mumbled roar with shrill highlightsCardsharks hunched over scores and crumbsSlapping cards and grunting… More
Coming into Language
On weekend graveyard shifts at St. Joseph’s Hospital I worked the emergency room, mopping up pools of blood and carting plastic bags stuffed with arms, legs and hands to… More