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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
Cold Spring
Cold spring and a redwing blackbird. / Norway maple in a litter of seed keys. / Inconvenient, the needs of the soul. // Cold spring. Fresh paint on a… More
PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature Marks Tenth Anniversary, April 28-May 4, 2014
A Weeklong Series of Readings, Debates, Performances, and Workshop Celebrates Writers Who Have Taken Artistic and Political RisksParticipants include Adonis, Boris Akunin, Martin Amis, Lydia Davis, Timothy Garton Ash,… More
The PEN Ten with Jimmy Santiago Baca
What is the responsibility of the writer? To toss out like old rotten salad the yearning for fame and money and get busy fighting for human rights and protesting… 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
Fears for Safety as Uyghur PEN Member, Writer, and Academic Ilham Tohti Formally Charged
PEN is seriously concerned for the well-being of Uyghur writer, academic, and Uyghur PEN member Ilham Tohti, who was formally charged with “separatism” on February 20, 2014, amid a… More
Return to Sender
The first sentence stopped me cold: “When the assassins come they kill everyone.” More
Notes From the Provincial Town of N
They stared in amazement for a long time at the trucks of the special operations units, which they had never before seen in their town. These, however, remained purely… More
Five Poems by Lisa Olstein
Like everyone, I’ll watch indefinitely while / the meant-to-be lovers stay a lip’s width apart / or a war zone, their shadows overlapping / like animals around a dried-up… More