Perry: Raphael's Madonna della Seggiola

If You Frame It Like That

So much depends on the way a work is formatted

Bernstein-Machlay: The human egg cherry-picks the precise sperm it wants

Why the Egg Matters

A meditation on remembrance, family, and time

Owen: The author (left) and his pal John Ruth on their way to summer camp

My Hairy Past

Shoulder length or longer, my mane was about my looks, yes, but also about the need for justice

Five Poems

Getting In, Daylilies, Funeral of a Bumblebee, Song for Jacqueline, and Little Iliad

Gimme Shelter

How housing became the foremost symbol of inequality, and what we can do about it

Pan de Dátil

“Renascence” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Past is Present

How violence, exploitation, and religion have ruled Latin America’s history—and might portend its future

Teeth of the Dog

“Birches” by Robert Frost

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Keepers of the Old Ways

Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive

Above the River of Your Longing

Two new prompts

Casa Gorín

“The Purse-Seine” by Robinson Jeffers

Poems read aloud, beautifully

The Writer in the Family

The fiction of E. L. Doctorow gave a young man hope of connecting his father and his literary hero

Birthday Boy

“The Horses” by Ted Hughes

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Amy Wetsch

Life, magnified

The Weight of a Stone

Searching for stability in an erratic world led Oliver Sacks and other writers to the realms of geology

New Year, Old Year

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