Critics Page
World on Fire
By Elizabeth BishopAn intertextual installation of joy to uplift the heartbeat that keeps us alive. Installation as party as mode of survival counteracting narratives of bodily shame and poverty porn, of “marginalized” people living only in suffering. COVID-19 civil disunity, writing through quarantine in NYC.
Pandemic Poetics: An Eulogy and Manifesto in an AntiBlack World
By Gwendolyn Baxley and Yolanda Sealey-RuizWe both turn to poetry for refuge and reflection during these multiple pandemics. When Blackness means possible execution, poetry becomes both eulogy and manifesto: we put our pens to pads as a means to not only mourn and give tribute to Black life lost, but also declare and celebrate the audacity and fearlessness of Black life (and Black afterlives) even in the face of violence.
Black Joy Is Not Canceled
By Damaris Dunn“Could you show me how to use the asthma pump?” In the wake of COVID-19 this was probably not a question a nurse wanted to hear, but it was a genuine question that warranted some support. I had never used an asthma pump and my newly diagnosed bronchitis had made breathing hard.
On Confinement
By Nicole HamiltonWhen I consider confinement, my mind wanders to the terrors of the Middle Passage. Fear of the unknown, the violence of an oppressor, the hopelessness of captivity and the unbearable torture of confinement. Chains and shackles linking me to others on every side.
On Circular Economy
By Regina AndersonWith a circular economy I am thinking about how we are understanding our relationships, surface then deep. An exchange means words, it means thoughts, it means an ask of something. An economy is an ask of something.
Anti-Racism at the Borderlands of Whiteness
By Nassim ZerriffiSince moving to the US, people have often asked me whether I see myself as a person of color or as white. I now say, “White enough most of the time.” This answer is conditional and not based on an internal sense of self, but on how I’m seen by others.
Peace by Understanding
By Elizabeth Bishop and Carolyn EanesDr. Elizabeth Bishop and educator Carolyn Eanes discuss the challenges and importance of ongoing antiracist conversations.
The Real Virus
By Henry Beltrán PérezOn its 50th anniversary, the earth gives us a clear reminder of the fragile vulnerability of humans, but it shows us a more important message that humanity refuses to see through the veil of the prevailing economic system: the fragility of our planet.
From Beirut, Borikén, and Brooklyn with Love
By Meghan McDermottIn July 2020, Sarah Aoun, chief technologist at the Open Technology Fund (OTF) and Teresa Basilio Gaztambide, Network Strategy Director at MediaJustice met with Meghan McDermott to talk about their work at the intersection of digital rights, human rights, movement organizing, and the political moment.
The Discord
By Ioanna OpideeThose of us who take up the challenge of loving “America” in the way that James Baldwin did—critically, with every eye wide—might consider this part of our fight: to resist the sinister insistence on a harmony that commands we temper ourselves, and each other, or stay out
Am I Dying, Mister?
By The Lost Child of Emma Goldman and Bernie SandersAn homage to William Burroughs printed in the Brooklyn Rail, March 2006
