Prison Moon
Four a.m. work duty and I beginmy solitary trudge from outer compoundto main building. A shivering guard,chilled in his lonely outpost, strip searchesme until content that my inconsequential nudity.poses… More
A Song of Death
There's a bird caught in the airduct that blows his dying song through the vent scared and beautiful resounding memories of the birds of childhood More
The Cobra’s Cross
CHARACTERSBlackmanStangYabbaOritaLil ManKenyaOld WomanOld ManFADE INExt: African village of Snakira—afternoon Snakira’s lone dusty road is reminiscent of an old western town with an Asian twist. An old man leading a… More
Prison Poets
Everywhere solitary prisoners begin to create the words of the new dialogue.- Octavio Paz, 1949 The poet in him flounders in a morass of lies and distortions about his conquered… More
His Spirit Lives On: George E. Marshall, 1940-2001
My friend George E. Marshall has made his final transition to the ancestors. He is at peace with Allah, with himself and with all those who loved him. That's… More
Hero of the Quotidian
It was in the golden, grasshopper-drenched spring of my eighth year that I first purposed to become a police officer, when I watched the grim-faced deputies arrest and carry… More
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PEN America On 
Salman Rushdie shows us that free speech is life itself
Rushdie knows how vital, how serious the business of storytelling is. Yet in my encounters with him he never took himself seriously, writes @EricaWgnr in @NewStatesman #SalmanRushdie #FreedomToWrite https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2022/08/salman-rushdies-books-show-free-speech-life-itself
@PENamerica, K Desai @saliltripathi curate a majestic set of writers on #IndiaAt75. @SalmanRushdie midnight’s child says a writer's work is "stop the world from going to sleep." Here they write to keep India’s tryst with destiny to "awake to light and freedom." - incl Saumya Roy https://twitter.com/saliltripathi/status/1559033410034831360
When you make this many bureaucratic hurdles to kids reading books, and couple it with a climate of suspicion and surveillance, you are going to, ultimately, stop kids from reading books. It that's not the goal... what is? https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1558858550214115328
