The Cost of Free Land-Book Review
In The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance, Rebecca Clarren details how she never questioned her immigrant family’s narrative until all she could do was question how her great-great-grandparents, the Sinykins, arrived to settle on a 160-acre homestead in South Dakota. Her ancestors crafted detailed family stories of their successes, and failures, set to the common rural tune of humorous hardship. They never mentioned their land, the foundation for the
An Offering (Of)r(End)a(s)
What is this? Another poem. Another poem is just as well, A deep well, Of well, Then ... what? Memory comes next. I’m asked to gaze At my hands. When I look at my hands, Usually, I stare at my nails. But not today, Because the question is who Not what. Nails pounded into a coffin. Her coffin lowered into a grave, Dug. Not For her Not A well. Dug deep, still No water, still, The years gathered, Drawn up, Like water. And there's more, Space. For keeping. For resting. Above wate
My Writing Year: The end of the beginning (my writing business)
Friday evening, just before sunset, I stood in the ditch along our country road. I was live streaming the Rosh Hashanah service, a necessary adaptation to my observance of the ritual because of the ten-month-old puppy tugging us through the grass. I did my best to process and understand the Hebrew prayers and songs as they flowed past, captivated more by the music spreading into the multicolored horizon. I smiled, inviting in a moment when I embodied the music and the mindset
