CONVERSATIONS

by Liam Boyle

 

in memoriam Jürgen Habermas (1929–2026)  

 

In his later years, Jürgen Habermas was sometimes described as “the last European” – a reference to his passionate commitment to the ideals of the European Union (although not always its modern reality). The great German philosopher was also the last surviving exemplar of a generation of postwar intellectuals formed by the experience of the second world war. Like Jean-Paul Sartre in France, Habermas was as at home in the public square as the seminar room, debating the future of a continent that needed to be rebuilt ethically as well as physically. In the new age of unreason, where brute exercise of power is explicitly prized above the force of moral argument, the loss of any such figure is to be mourned. But Habermas’s death at the age of 96, as the US and Israel wage an illegal war of choice, and the far right is in the ascendant in France and Germany, feels particularly poignant. A member of the Hitler Youth as a boy, Habermas then made it his life’s work to philosophically ground the democratic values which are now under threat again. A renewed focus on the great insight that drove his thinking would be an appropriate legacy. The Theory of Communicative Action, his 1980s magnum opus, was not (to put it mildly) as accessible as some of his newspaper opinion pieces. But its central idea – that our nature as linguistic beings puts reason and the search for consensus at the core of who we are – remains an antidote both to intellectual relativism and Trumpian “realism”, which elevates national or individual self-interest above all other sources of human motivation. —The Guardian, March 18, 2026

 

I have to think that it matters
my own small contribution 
to the project of democracy
going door to door at evening time
arguing the merits of my candidate. 
 
And I know there isn’t time enough
to trace each reason back to source
and I know, between my tired feet
and families readying meals,
this is not the ideal public sphere 
that you described.
 
In your obituary the familiar gripes –  
too much Enlightenment,
too out of its time,
too emphatically rational. 
But that’s what I liked, the ambition of it all, 
the long conversations 
step by step to consensus.
 
The horror of holocaust formed you.
You saw the mirage of Nazism
and its brutal reality. 
Your “never again” meant reckoning 
with the whole story of modernity. 
You sought to rescue its promise
from the twisted wreckage around you. 
 
And with the recent turn from talk,
all the strong men who do because they can, 
might is right, and all that gab, 
the giddy march of atavistic nativism, 
it can be said that you failed. 
 
But I thank you for the ideal you sketched 
of undistorted conversation
of reasons advanced and scrutinised
in the slow careful business 
of building understanding and agreement. 

 

Liam Boyle lives in Galway, Ireland. He was a featured reader in the New Writing Showcase at Cúirt International Festival of Literature 2025. Many of his poems deal with memory and heritage. He enjoys spending time with his grandchildren.

[THIS POEM WILL PROBABLY GET US KILLED]

by Sharmila Voorakkara & Ron Riekki

Planned Parenthood officials on Monday announced plans for a mobile abortion clinic—a 37ft recreational vehicle that will stay in Illinois but travel close to the borders of adjoining states that have banned the procedure since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade earlier this year. —The Guardian, October 4, 2022

                                                               for Alexis McGill Johnson

There has always been a running, either away from

or to.  And sometimes, just the promise of anything other than

where you are is all you need to leave. To live.  This fills me

with worried peace… My friend told me that I need

to practice gratitude, to be thankful for mobile clinics

and mobile apps and even my mobile home—

these places of temporary comfort, where people 

might treat you like a person, can understand you are

a being, human, like them, to help with the need to avoid

suffering, needlessly, and perhaps be understood, 

be under caring hands, especially after the hands

that strangled you, tried to own you, drown you,

breakdown you, in your nightgown, you in front

of your children and the law-and-order and the Bible 

that want to shame you, and then, at the border,

this safety, waiting, at the border, thank God, at the border.

Sharmila Voorakkara received her MFA from the University of Virginia. Her first collection of poems, Fire Wheel, was published by the University of Akron Press.

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press).

THANKSGIVING ON MY MIND

by George Salamon

Digital Painting of an old woman’s hands by Victoria Castro.

I confronted my fondest memory of Thanksgiving,

not long ago, as the oven door was opened to baste

the turkey with yet another coating of bubbly pan

juice, that was to make the meat more tender, when

I heard the scratching of Cleo's paw at the kitchen 

door shut to her, Cleo the golden retriever who knew

what she smelled and what she wanted, while the

humans were told not to didscuss the important things

they cared about—politics and race, the economy 

and money, having it all or having nothing at all, the

state of the union and the abuse of the environment—

while the word important made my skin crawl I

thought of Cleo's paw and glanced over to the old

grandma, eyes shut and the sensitivity in her lapped

leathery hands, that feeling in the tips of her fingers

for all living things and understood the paw and her

fingers mattered and counted, and the rest belonged

with all that stuff we sought and still seek at the mall.

George Salamon is fond of the German word Fingerspitzengefuehl—the feeling at the tips of your fingers. It seems to him that we will lose it completely with all that clicking on the computer and smart phone. Have a lovely Thanksgiving weekend —anyway.

BECAUSE WE ARE HUMAN

by Kim M. Baker

Written on the Occasion of Pride 2018

I had hoped to compose a new melodic poetic sonata to all my sisters and brothers
Ls and Gs and Bs and Ts
theys and hes and Qs and shes
something glistening and soulful and proud

When what I really want to do is to tell the world this:
Don't tell me, world, that you understand what it must be like to be gay
if you haven't been spat on flipped off had bottles thrown at you
when all you wanted to do was go have a beer and a dance and a hullaballoo

I knew a woman once who documented the stories of Holocaust survivors
And during the training, she was told to never say I understand
Because, of course, she can’t
No matter the depth of her empathy
No matter how many survivors she knew

I want to tell the world:
please don't say you understand because you know someone gay
or watched a show or read a book or took skating lessons with a gay
I don’t need your understanding
What I need is your love

What I need you to know is that gays are spectacular and should be celebrated
not because we are different
but because we are human

We bleed we cry we eat we die of cancer of AIDS of broken hearts
of casting out from families and jobs and housing and other necessary parts of simply living

I mean what I'm trying to say is that gay is amazing and painful
gay is rainbow and see through and black and blue
gay is grace and good embrace and mixed race just like you

Andrew Garfield was correct in his Tony award acceptance:
“Let’s just bake a cake for everyone who wants a cake to be baked”
Not because we are different
but because we are human

Here, let me show you how human we are:

Who here has ever gotten up in the middle of the night to tend to a crying baby?

Who here has ever lost a loved one to cancer or had cancer yourself?

Who here was the class clown in school, ever felt like a fool, ever swam in a pool?

Who here has wished to be different to be normal to be accepted to be loved?

We ARE the world
cake bakers and techno babes
tattooed beauties and bookworms
rabbis and fly girls
families and rebel artists
one-breasted word whisperers and transgender tender hearts
chefs and gardeners
sun-screen wearing beach combers and nifty nude bathers
dog owners and horse riders
fire spinners and bicycle back packers
humble poets and foster parents

Michael Jackson was right
WE. ARE. THE. WORLD.
each gorgeous tortured struggling being

And if I want to be treated more humanely
I must practice the pride of authenticity
I must gift every person I meet with this greeting:

I see you
I see you
I see you

I am you
I am you
I am you

I’ll carry your burden
I’ll speak up for you
I’ll act on your behalf

My Muslim brothers
My prostitute sisters
My immigrant children
My world family of differently abled
struggling to be stable
unfairly labeled
with N words and C words and hate

Michael Jackson was right
WE. ARE. THE. WORLD.
And I will take my place in it
All that I am
All that I am
Just as I am

Kim M. Baker’s poems have been published online and in print and essays broadcast on NPR. Under the Influence: Musings on Poems and Paintings is her first book of poetry. Kim also edits the online poetry journal Word Soup End Hunger that donates 100% of submission fees to food banks nationwide.  A retired writing professor, Kim currently works in Administration at Cotuit Center for the Arts. Kim's play Gin and Ashes will be produced at Driftwood Players in Edmonds, Washington in July 2018.