“Read Forugh’s poems and you’ll find the very forces that shape our moment: misogyny, censorship, nativism, consumerism, the annihilating violence of war. Read her poems and you’ll find that they, like all the best poems, don’t merely offer a reprieve from the abuses and terrors of the world, but a repudiation of the forces that make those abuses and terrors possible: ignorance and political regimes for which ignorance has been and will always be their life’s blood.”
A poem from Mike Ladd reflecting on time, memory, love and ephemerality
With a few stories spanning a few decades, photographer Neal Rantoul shares his affection and admiration for fellow photographer, teacher, and friend Harry Callahan.
“In subsequent weeks, I might take time to look at it and see what I’ve done. Or in this case, listen to the waves.”
From the station we walk past panel beaters, La Rosa tile factory, then up the hill by the river — and there it is, El Greco’s view of Toledo, on first glance hardly changed in over four hundred years.
“The room was small, dim and a desiccated yellow colour but the handshake and welcome were warm and clearly genuine. The man who once held the most powerful job in the world was dressed in casual shades of black and grey.”
A moving tribute from one painter to another.
“I deciphered the occasional splash of graffiti: alongside youthful declarations of love and football were vague revolutionary slogans: “Freedom is a Right”, “Liberty”, and “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
“When we got up the nerve to crack the door open, we were immediately met with the smell of air that hadn’t been smelled in a long time: a mix of dust, musk, and cedar — a whiff that gave a sense, even to a kid, of past lives and an odor that we didn’t experience in the city, where every space seemed to be in constant use and never remained closed off for long.”
Pia De Girolamo shares a travelogue recounting observations and art from her trip to Vietnam.
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