So, Which Is It?
My friend Andrew Wimmer texted me the following two lines… [Paul] Street’s dementia: “the Kremlin [is] in the grip of a megalomaniacal neofascist…” Stephen F. Cohen on accusations of fascism leveled against Putin: “absurd.” Street…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
“Nhat Hanh Is My Brother”
Dear Friends, I invite you to a second “Merton Hour” to consider Thomas Merton’s short intervention on behalf of Thich Nhat Hanh in 1966. We will read together “Nhat Hanh Is My Brother,” discuss in…
Reckoning with Russia, War, and Ourselves: A Spring-Summer Class
War presented itself to him only as a matter of subjecting himself to danger, to the possibility of death, and thereby earning awards, and the respect of his comrades here and of his friends in…
Su Tung P’o, Traveling at Night and Looking at the Stars (NPM, 4.25.22)
Heaven high above, the night air chill,ranged stars crowd the sky, all in proper places,big stars darting rays back and forth little stars busy as boiling water.Heaven and humans don’t meddle with one another —what does…
“Up to Me” (National Poetry Month, 4.22.22)
Dear Vanessa, It took me a few weeks to work in the 2016 Nobel Laureate of Literature in these NPM missives to you. Is he a poet? He’d say “song-writer.” This is one of my…
Anne, Allen, You, Me
National Poetry Month This Day of April 21, 2022Today’s poem: Anne Waldman, Notes on Sitting Beside a Noble Corpse Where would I be without Anne Waldman and Allen Ginsberg? In my own Shimmelstoy way, I…
Poems for Tuesday (NPM, 4.19.22)
Dear Lily & Rosemary, Yael was in my SJ class at SLU in 2004Rob in 2006Laura and Katie in 2008Katja in 2009 So many occasions for gratitudeDuring and since all those SLU years!! Poets/2
Brecht 101 (NPM, 4.15.22)
Dear Ruthie, Have you ever read Brecht? He was one of my influences —I stole a couple of lines from “A Worker Reads History” and used them at the end of “A Mindful Rant for…
A Day of Duality in Brooklyn by Alex Gaynor
Waking up to harrowing news of subway shootings and terrorHappening on the most beautiful day of the year thus far An unsettled anxiety pacing the small room of my studio apartment Giving way to sunlit afternoon…