“Whatever had happened—the way the clouds moved, where the light shone, what was going through my head, that radiance—was another chapter in a story that began a half-century ago.”
A Visitation
Magpies Mix Tape: Ain’t Going to Worry No More
A playlist of songs about putting your worries aside and moving forward, for anyone who might need a reminder that we’re all in it together.
January Issue, 2025
A collection of all the articles we’ve published over the past month, for those who like to savor their Magpies’ tidings as an issue.
Letter from the editor, January 2025. Change all your strings.
Ramblings for a new quarter-century.
Wendy Okeke’s Vision of Freedom
“Nigerian poet Wendy Okeke uses the dark recent past of political failure, youth angst, and government violence against its own citizens as a point of entrance in poems that resonate with sensuality, self-affirmation, and a continuous search for freedom.”
Excuse me, mountains. Excuse me, snow. I think I’m going to freeze.
She felt that somehow, in the wild night and storm, the still-ness that was underneath all sounds on the prairie had seized the cattle.
Korean Folk Painting: Minhwa
“The power of Minhwa lies ultimately in the fact that it participates in a universal code — a common denominator for all living human beings, a core of desires and beliefs that is tied to basic human activities … “
Dorothea Lange and the Japanese-American Internment
The military seized her photographs, quietly depositing them in the National Archives, where they remained mostly unseen and unpublished until 2006
American Mythologies: Frank Capra Values
“The art of Frank Capra is very, very simple: It’s the love of people. Add two simple ideals to this love of people: the freedom of each individual, and the equal importance of each individual, and you have the principle upon which I based all my films.”
Socialist Singer Barbara Dane Was a True American Radical
“Refusing to sacrifice her socialist principles for commercial success, folk-blues-jazz singer Barbara Dane dedicated her life to bringing music from around the world back to where it belonged: in the hands of the people struggling to change it.”
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