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“Gov ordered statewide lockdown until April 7. Nonessential biz’s to close physical operations. We are really in this now.” —from a 3/23/2020 email from Paul Marion, writer and Loom Press founder We Are Really In This Now By Emily Ferrara At Swamp Locks Dam on the downstream side the Great…
Read More »Influenza 1918 by Jane Brox Writer Jane Brox grew up in Dracut on her family’s farm. Now living on the coast of Maine, she is the author of several books including Here and Nowhere Else: Late Seasons of a Farm and Its Family, Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light (a…
Read More »A regular contributor offered these photos of Spring and suggested the following from the volume of poems by William Carlos Williams, published in 1923, was a fitting accompaniment for the photos and for our time. Spring and All By the road to the contagious hospital under the surge of the…
Read More »The False God of Dow by George Chigas At the height of Cambodia’s economic and military power during the Angkor Period (ninth to fifteenth centuries), when a drought or disease threatened the kingdom’s prosperity and security, the ruler, believed to be semi-divine, a deva-raja or god-king, would summon his high…
Read More »Blood on the Tracks By John Wooding The world is hurting. Tens of thousands are sick and too many have died. We are confronting a catastrophe, and there are few causes for optimism. In all of this, however, there are some small sparks of hope, one of which is our…
Read More »This post is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Friday night, at precisely seven o’clock, people in our neighborhood opened their doors and, as did others across the world, clapped, cheered, used noisemakers, even honked the horns of their underutilized cars to cheer for first responders and providers…
Read More »Our new correspondent Sierra DeWalt is in New Zealand on a study abroad program. We asked her to send her thoughts about being overseas during the coronavirus crisis. She is a junior at Chapman University in Orange, California, with a double major in English and Screenwriting. She grew up in…
Read More »A World Crisis Comes to a Small Town in Texas By Frank Wagner UNTIL ABOUT FIVE YEARS AGO, most people knew about Brenham, Texas, for the ice cream that is made here. Blue Bell Creameries quite rightly promotes their ice cream as the best in the country. The Kruse family…
Read More »The Barbarians Have Arrived After Cavafy by Tom Sexton After a few centuries of patiently waiting outside the city, the barbarians have finally arrived and taken over the Capitol. When did they realize our Republic was rotting from the inside like an overripe pear? Who thought they’d…
Read More »Ten Sure Ways to Know It’s a Pandemic By Fred Faust Tests are hard to come by these days. It remains vital to determine if we are COVID-19 positive. I pray that you and your family are safe and well. While the pandemic issue is no longer in dispute, there…
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