EUGENICS

 by Willam Cullen Jr.

British Eugenics Society poster from the 1930s. 
© Wellcome Collection. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

eugenics

the non-renewal

of health care subsidies

William Cullen Jr. is a veteran and works at a social services non-profit in Brooklyn, New York. His work has appeared in the American Journal of Poetry, Gulf Stream, I-70 Review, Lake Effect, Pirene's Fountain, Poetry South, and Spillway.

NEXT GEN JEWS

by Rob Okun

A new Jewish tradition is growing in those places where solidarity flourishes. Amid the ugliness and death, and as our institutions cleave to the mistaken idea that our safety comes from ever more brutal applications of state power, the future of our people is being written on campuses and in the streets. Thousands of Jews of all ages are creating something better than what we inherited. Our new Jewish tradition prioritizes truth-telling and justice, and in this way it is actually the old Jewish tradition, which has given us all the tools we’re using. —William Alden, The Nation, May 10, 2024. Photo: Jews calling for a cease-fire in Gaza demonstrate at Grand Central Station in New York City on October 27, 2023. (Kena Betancur / AFP via Getty Images)

now comes a multigenerational exodus:

next gen jews leading us out of the

desert of fear where
too many in our ancient tribe
—hearts paralyzed by trauma—still 

cannot see 
the nakba as a catastrophe for
our semitic cousins

stifling next gen voices only strengthens resolve
shutting down encampments is a 
losing proposition:
love flourishes in these life camps and
 “justice, justice, thou shalt pursue” 
remains our north star
of david

with an outstretched hand 
fingers tightly wrap around 
the braided fringes hanging at
the ends of our meditation shawls
we hear the cries of our far flung 
family in diaspora

turning inward—to the work of tikkun olam: 
there is a jewish renewal unfolding
a new jewish agenda being birthed 
at street seders and shabbats 
in the rain 

no one, not netennotajew nor any jew—no 

matter how hard they squeeze their eyes 

wide shut—
can unsee the future 
blowing in the wind on campuses 
in the streets and in the hearts of all 
those following next gen jews out of egypt

Rob Okun is editor emeritus of Voice Male, a magazine which has been chronicling the profeminist men's movement since the mid-1980s. His commentaries and op-eds are syndicated by the Portland, Oregon-based Peace Voice. 

MIDTERMS

by Adin Thayer

The heft
of the planet’s
turbulence
the severing
nation
burst
into wails
 
there were
leaves 
falling 
everywhere
raining 
free gold  and 
          apricot
littering the path
with the bright
carved shapes
of renewal
 
and why   why
can not 
this world 
itself
lead
us errant 
citizens
down this 
path  where
mingled
leaves of maple 
oak and ash 
together 
anonymously
mix the trees’
spring supply
of delicious 
dirt
 
this path
not
the other

  
Adin Thayer has worked in a variety of roles, as a psychotherapist, a teacher at the Smith College School for Social Work, and a peacebuilding facilitator in several African countries. In addition to what she draws from these sources, her work engages her childhood growing up in Virginia when it was a legally segregated state. Her poems address how the lawfulness and beauty of the natural world provides sustenance in the face of human struggle. One of five sisters and the mother of two daughters, she lives in Massachusetts. She published a volume of poetry, The Close World, in 2020.

OUR BODY POLITIC

by Vera Kewes Salter

The praying mantis turns its head 
to destroy soft-bodied insects 
with its armored limbs

 

and giant ants use their  

mandibles to sever 

the mantis' narrow neck.

 

We sawed the limb 

of the flowering cherry to protect 

ourselves before the storm.

 

Now the wounded branch seeps

amber onto the blond wood

and green shoots grow.

 

There is a walnut tree that casts an even

shade and bears heavy lime-green fruit

but excretes toxic juglone that poisons 

 

all growth on the ground 

around and causes a permanent 

blight even after it is felled..

 

Will our wounds 

succumb to poison

or can green shoots grow?

Vera Kewes Salter lives and writes in New Rochelle New York.