poetry

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Just as Good Friday is a time for sober reflection and grief at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, so Easter Sunday is a time for blissful celebration at his rising from the dead and his ascension into heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father. In keeping […]

Culture

New Year Joy: the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – I am rewriting a previous essay here, quoting some extra poems different from the ones I used last year, but my big points remain the same. After the dark year of 2021, I thought it might be nice to talk about poetry and rebirth today. The quatrains or Rubaiyat attributed […]

African-Americans

bell hooks will never Leave Us – She lives on through the Truth of her Words

The Conversation

By Karsonya Wise Whitehead | – I was introduced to the work of bell hooks for the first time when I was 14 years old, sitting on my Nana’s porch, complaining about the mosquitoes and the heat. My Nana, who was probably frustrated by my endless complaints about being bored, stuck a copy of “Ain’t […]

Israel/ Palestine

Palestinian resistance poetry by Mahmoud Darwish

Middle East Monitor

By Sayid Marcos Tenório | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – Mahmoud Darwish is the most internationally-renowned Palestinian poet and writer, although still little-known in Brazil. He is the author of 30 poetry books and eight prose books, translated into more than 40 languages, and winner of the Cultural Freedom Prize, the Lannan Foundation […]

Iran

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Muslim Secularism: A conversation with Juan Cole (Ta’seel)

Juan Cole

Juan Cole in conversation with Ta’seel Commons: “’To read Juan Cole’s deft, plain-spoken translation of the Rubáiyát is to find companionship, to rejoin a thousand-year human conversation about how to endure, enjoy, and find a fleeting beauty in everlastingly dire times. The lucid, cogent and mind-opening Epilogue is a kind of grace, a gift freely […]

Featured

Celebrating our Declaration of Independence from Covid with Poetry of Omar Khayyam

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Biden on Thursday expressed the expectation that the vaccination of the US population will have proceeded to the extent by July 4 that we can look forward to small gatherings of friends and family then. The calculation is that when 70% of the population is inoculated, the virus will […]

Democratic Party

Poet Amanda Gorman’s take on love as legacy points to youth’s power to shape future generations

The Conversation

By Heather Lawford, Heather L. Ramey and Jessica Riddell | – National youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman’s recitation of “The Hill We Climb,” at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration in the United States captured the attention of a nation and people globally. Gorman highlighted the power of poets in our current sociopolitical context to speak unique […]

Books

The Hill we Climb: Amanda Gorman’s Inauguration Poem

contributors

Amanda Gorman | – ( Buy her forthcoming poetry collection via Penguin Random House.) The Hill We Climb When day comes we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade We’ve braved the belly of the beast We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always […]

Books

New Year Bliss in Persian Poetry: the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – After the dark year of 2020, I thought it might be nice to talk about poetry and rebirth today. The quatrains or Rubaiyat attributed to the medieval astronomer Omar Khayyam (d. 1131), four-line Persian poems, are often about renewal, and some make special mention of New Year’s Day (Now-Ruz in […]