The Challenge

“The Cucumber” by Nâzim Hikmet

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Going for Gold

Joshua Prager on a forgotten Olympic gymnast whose 1904 record still hasn’t been beaten

Bards Behind Bars

Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison

Un Tinto

“Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Marlana Stoddard Hayes

Hope blooms

Rage, Muse

The novels that revisit Greek myths, giving voice to the women who were scorned, wronged, or forgotten

Drops in a Bucket

“Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Kinship and Contradictions

Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity

Verde

Learning a foreign language isn’t just about improving cognitive function—it can teach us to sense the world anew

Cats and Dogs

“Full Moon Rhyme” by Judith Wright

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Katie Heller Saltoun

Tenderness and grit

Magic Men

Aging Out

Many of us do not go gentle into that good night

Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Ageby James Chappel

Braña Curuchu

Under a Spell Everlasting

Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, published a century ago, tells of a world unable to free itself from the cataclysm of war

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