Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The ongoing rallies and demonstrations that have wracked Iran since mid-September have been many things. It is a women’s protest against severe patriarchy It is a Gen Z youth protest demanding greater personal freedoms from their 85-year-old Theocrat. It is an ethnic protest by Sunni Kurds and Baluch against Shiite […]
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poetry
For Easter: The Joyous, Dancing Ascendant Christ in a Love Poem of Hafez
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 […]
New Year Joy: the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
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 […]
bell hooks will never Leave Us – She lives on through the Truth of her Words
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 […]
Palestinian resistance poetry by Mahmoud Darwish
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 […]
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Muslim Secularism: A conversation with Juan Cole (Ta’seel)
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 […]
Celebrating our Declaration of Independence from Covid with Poetry of Omar Khayyam
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 […]
Poet Amanda Gorman’s take on love as legacy points to youth’s power to shape future generations
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 […]
The Hill we Climb: Amanda Gorman’s Inauguration Poem
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 […]
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