Literary

The Cardboard Box

The Cardboard Box By Hayden Von Coombs Share LISTEN Essays Content Warning: This essay contains sensitive and potentially distressing content related to death, miscarriage, and depression. Reader discretion is advised.  The cardboard box looked unremarkable—its exterior marred by a few

The Collection: Mingus Ah Um

The Collection:Chapter 1Mingus Ah Um By Amari Pleasant Share Essays It has been a few weeks since I returned home from Little Rock. The steady flow of raindrops pounds the windows surrounding my family room. Several albums from my dad’s

Why We Write

Why We Write By D. Rodrigues-Martin Share LISTEN Essays Writers write because we must, but why we must is always a story in itself. I started writing when I was eighteen—mostly poetry, mostly about unrequited love for a dark-haired girl

A Warrior’s Daughter

A Warrior’s Daughter By Zitkala-Sa Share LISTEN Stories In the afternoon shadow of a large tepee, with red-painted smoke lapels, sat a warrior father with crossed shins. His head was so poised that his eye swept easily the vast level

A Revelation Birthed from African American Culture

A Revelation Birthed from African American Culture By Jasmine M. Taylor Share LISTEN Essays A slew of faces, both young and old, look toward the stage; they are present and alert. People from near and far occupy the seats of

A Song of Thanks

A Song of Thanks By Edward Smyth Jones Share Poetry For the sun that shone at the dawn of spring,For the flowers which bloom and the birds that sing,For the verdant robe of the gray old earth,For her coffers filled

The Haunted Oak

The Haunted Oak By Paul Laurence Dunbar Share Poetry Pray why are you so bare, so bare,Oh, bough of the old oak-tree;And why, when I go through the shade you throw,Runs a shudder over me?My leaves were green as the

A Daughter of the Samurai

A Daughter of the SamuraiChapter 4 The Old and The New By Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto Share LISTEN Stories I was about eight years old when I had my first taste of meat. For twelve centuries, following the introduction of the

The Collection: Introduction

The Collection:Introduction By Amari Pleasant Share Essays “9:39” – is the time my phone reveals as I quietly sit on the floor surrounded by old worn boxes full of musty vinyl LPs in my dad’s former bedroom. A few months

A Thousand Faces

A Thousand Faces By Paul Hostovsky Share LISTEN Essays I recently watched the movie CODA, for which Troy Kotsur, who is Deaf, won an Academy Award. Kudos to Kotsur! I liked the film, parts of it, but there were other