Poet Tongo Eisen-Martin, 2019. Still from YouTube, Wikimedia Commons
By Jonah Raskin |
SONOMA COUNTY, Calif. English Department purists might complain that Tongo Eisen-Martin doesn’t write “real” poems, that is poems about birds and flowers, and thus shouldn’t be featured this year during National Poetry Month, which as always falls in April.
Eisen-Martin’s first book,
someone’s dead already, was published by Bootstrap Press. His second,
Heaven Is All Goodbyes ($11.17) was published by City Lights in its venerable Pocket Poets Series. Tongo’s brother Biko, an artist and an actor, designed the cover.
The first poem in the volume is titled, “Faceless.” The last is titled “The Oldest Then the Youngest,” and begins, “Grandmother, why don’t you ever talk about your children who the first world murdered?” The grandmother replies, “Because, son, I haven’t run out of knife handles.”
(Jo Jung-ho/Yonhap via AP, File)
Never mind that the ChiCom foreign minister and the PLA-N have been saber-rattling over Taiwan lately and crowing over the commissioning of their second 12,000-ton Type 055 guided missile destroyer. Don’t worry about the Russians’ new super-sized submarine, Belgorod, armed with their latest version of nuclear-tipped torpedoes. No need to be concerned about military readiness and combat effectiveness of the US Navy. The shortage of combat systems team training and other basic training time in the Navy? Fuhgeddaboudit. We gotta stop the music, stand down, and purge all “white nationalists” (a/k/a Trump supporters) from the ranks of the US Navy! Because of the “armed insurrection” on January 6, that’s why! Except that the FBI has finally and reluctantly confirmed that not one single firearm was confiscated during the Capitol “riot,” debunking once and for all the Democrat-media complex hoax about the “armed insurrection” requirin
Biden pick for top Justice Department post is a big fan of Black Lives Matter washingtonexaminer.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonexaminer.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
with my parents.
By Lamar W. Hankins |
SAN MARCOS When I was about 10 years old in the mid-1950s, I had a great fear of Communists. At that age, I didn’t understand what communism was or why I feared Communists, but now I do. I’ve read several books about the McCarthy era over my adult years, which has helped explain my childhood fears. And when I say fears, I am not exaggerating.
Once or twice a month, my family would drive about 45 minutes from Port Arthur, through Beaumont, to Vidor to visit my maternal grandmother. It was usually dark when we drove home. My younger brother and I always rode in the back seat. As we drove along the 25-mile stretch of mostly open land on the southwest side of Hwy. 96 between Beaumont and Port Arthur, I noticed lights in the rice fields we passed, some blinking off and on in the distance, and some glowing steadily, often with a yellow tint. They could be seen both near the highway and far away.
It was announced in January, that Hillary Clinton would co-produce a mini-series on the book alongside her daughter Chelsea, raising eyebrows in some corners, cheers in others, and outright disgust in many more.
The fact that Clinton, a former United States Secretary of State and 2016 presidential nominee, is poised to dip into the world of television to tell the story of Rojava s Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) appears at first glance a baffling move. That is, unless one understands that the point of her decision is to present a sanitised and revisionist version of US policy in Syria, and the Middle East more generally.