“A writer’s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity.”  —Toni Morrison In the past year I rejected several manuscripts which initially excited me because they addressed, or seemed to be positioned to address, some... Read More

False equivalency and calling lies the truth. Apparently that’s the neighborhood where we live. Several people have emailed to ask if the wompus is still in business, so I felt compelled to answer: We are alive and kicking. But posting... Read More

My partner has been dreaming for the past week of plane crashes, then last night dreamt that the Buddha was dead, and concluded: It’s more important than ever that we keep kindness alive. Van Jones: “This was a whitelash against... Read More

Around the wompus on Banned Book Week… Verse Daily has chosen the poem Blue-footed Boobies from Sally Bliumis-Dunn’s Galapagos Poems. Van Garrett’s poems will be recognized and anthologized at Waco WordFest 2016, a ‘festival within a festival’ offering an exciting variety of events... Read More

“The duty of critical writing is to listen to the noise of life without being deafened by it.” Teju Cole’s column on The Superhero Photographs of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Purple pancakes? See Van Garrett’s work in the Franklin Arts Center Resident... Read More

There’s a long, intriguing email exchange posted as an article in one of the NY Times magazines (T, their “Style” mag), between actress and director, Nathalie Portman, and her friend of fifteen years, the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer. I got... Read More

Let’s use accurate terms when we speak of the extra-judicial killing of people of color by American police whose salaries we pay. In any other country we’d call it state-sponsored terrorism. Roxanne Gay on Alton Sterling. Reginald Dwayne Betts on Tamir Rice. Jesse Williams’ beautiful speech... Read More

Meghna Chakrabarti interviews David Blight on how Memorial Day started–a pivotal episode of our suppressed history, on a Charleston SC racetrack in 1865. Eileen Myles talks with Christopher Lyden about authentic diction, working class origins, gender fluidity and the democratic virtue of individualism... Read More

So often humans seem the least sensible creatures. We are speechless at the latest violence perpetrated by humans, against other humans; at the continuing agony of misery, of civilians fleeing violence, caught again in the literal and metaphorical crossfire. We gape as... Read More

Not everything is income inequality. Race is still an issue in 2016, and your resistance to examining this as distinct and worthy of your focus is why you are losing big right now. Don’t listen because it’s politically expedient—though it... Read More