Peter Markus’s Inside My Pencil: Teaching Poetry in Detroit Public Schools

by Joseph Scapellato

NOV 2017 | Books

Inside My Pencil: Teaching Poetry in Detroit Public Schools, Peter Markus’s teaching memoir, is warm, patient, and wise—an enchanting “how-to” sparkling with pedagogical gems.  The book follows Markus as he teaches poetry for InsideOut Literary Arts Project, a nonprofit program that brings arts education to inner city Detroit elementary school students.

Playlist for Prefab Houses: YouTube and the Revitalization of Japanese Ambient Music

by Sadie Rebecca Starnes

MAR 2018 | Music

Liz Pelly’s recent article for The Baffler, “The Problem with Muzak,” bemoans music journalism’s embrace of Spotify. Algorithmically fueled, mood-based playlists such as “Ambient Chill,” she argues, are nothing more than “emotional wallpaper” for the distracted, disengaged masses.

Why Poetry Now

by Ann Lauterbach

APR 2018 | Editor's Message

A friend recently handed me a bumper sticker that reads WHO NEEDS POETRY. A question in the form of a statement.

Visions of Resilience: New York City’s Infrastructural Response to Climate Change

by Max Moorhead

MAR 2018 | Field Notes

When Hurricane Sandy hit New York City in 2012, the storm surge rose over thirteen feet in Battery Park, breaking a record set in 1960, and the New York Stock Exchange was forced to close for two days, the longest closure due to weather since 1888.