nazbk

Becoming a Peaceful Earth Warrior by Susan Schirl Smith

It was that picture of the battered baby seal on the cover of the World Wildlife Fund magazine that did it. At 17, I became an environmentalist, an activist, a champion of the vulnerable and downtrodden. Rachel Carson poster on the wall. Daktari my favorite TV show. The flag award for caring about the other human animalsContinueContinue reading “Becoming a Peaceful Earth Warrior by Susan Schirl Smith”

Edge of Seventeen, Mississippi Delta, Summer 1982 by Stuart Phillips

Plowing down Delta in Jerry’s white Spitfire, cheap speakers make us cooler than the breeze, top down, “don’t you want me baby” impressing because everyone listens to the words as we make the Friday night loop from downtown Clarksdale to the Sonic Drive-In, launching from Yazoo between Woolworth’s acres of plate glass windows and Penney’sContinueContinue reading “Edge of Seventeen, Mississippi Delta, Summer 1982 by Stuart Phillips”

Death, Grief, and Honey Nut Cheerios by Kiely Todd Roska

6:30 Tuesday morning. My four-year-old daughter sits next to me, scooping spoonfuls of cereal toward her mouth as milk drips onto her bare chest. Emmalani prefers life without clothing. Today she sports purple butterfly underwear. Nothing else. Her brown bangs fall over her eyes, finally regrowing after her latest full-headed self-haircut. Between bites, she alternatesContinueContinue reading “Death, Grief, and Honey Nut Cheerios by Kiely Todd Roska “

Read Me in Braille by Carella Keil

I don’t just like the book with the pretty cover. But he’s got to have something on the outside that will make me want to flip through the pages. I like it when the pages are dog-eared, marked with the dark rings of coffee cups, ripped at the edges of a tender passage. Men whoContinueContinue reading “Read Me in Braille by Carella Keil”

Mother by Adrienne Pine

My mother died in the early minutes of March 21, 2012, just as spring was coming to its fullest expression in Birmingham, Alabama, the city where she was born, married, and had her children, and where she had lived her entire life. The foliage was a promising shade of bright green. The suburban lawns wereContinueContinue reading “Mother by Adrienne Pine”