Theme of Class #2: From Up in the Air

In our Thursday evening class, Walking Together without Fear: Reading and Writing with Alice Walker, we pondered the following reflections from Alice Walker, Denise Levertov, and Fred Branfman. 1. Alice Walker, Thousands of Feet Below…

Remembering Kanafani

Fatima Rhodes sent me this message:  “Have you seen this, Remembering Ghassan Kanafani, or How a Nation was Born of Storytelling by Elias Khoury ? It was published around the time we read Men in the Sun together….

This I Know Is True

If you stay in relation to writing (rather than zoning out for six years) and you connect with writing friends, read, listen deeply, you will write what you want but most likely never the way…

Dear Srimatiji

You often said to me When we were face to face in Chicago “No worry” So I write to you far away With beaming confidence “No hurry”

Patience

There are years that ask the question and years that answer. — Zora Neale Hurston

Ramadan (Guests)

Dear Night Who’ll Endure More Than Fourteen Hundred Medical School Nights We do home-stays here Like many before us And some will continue after we leave Breaking the fast at Abu Hamid’s home On the…

Mindfulness with Words

Before hurling insults and accusations at another, one should consider one’s own state of mind and circumstances. The tendency to lash out, defame, and belittle is an aspect of conceit. The scriptures illustrate it with…

“People Know My Lai”

Cal wrote to Carla Nguyen and me in an email: “People know My Lai (Or they think they do) People over 60 or so Remember the name Calley But what about the others? I don’t…