Read River Styx #96 - Books Library

River Styx #96

Unknown Author

4.9/5 (22613 ratings)

Description:Introduction from Issue 96 “. . . man is by nature a political animal, and a man that is by nature and not merely by fortune citiless is either low in the scale of humanity or above it . . .”—Aristotle In forty-two years of issues, many of them themed, we’ve never tried a political issue. If anything, we’ve probably avoided overtly political work as it can often sound preachy and un-nuanced, one-dimensional and didactic, and, of course, clichéd. For most of my life, I’ve held with Auden, who said, “Poetry makes nothing happen,” and I’ve been to and read in enough 100 Thousand Poets for Change readings to know that the only minds they tend to change are those of people on the fence about whether or not they like poetry.But then Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, and the subsequent tensions and violence tore our city apart. While those events raged, another black man, VonDerrit Myers Jr., was shot and killed by a white off-duty police officer. The victim was my neighbor’s nephew. I never knew him, but I heard he’d had previous brushes with the law and read that he had a gun and fired three shots while running away. Those shots plus the officer’s, twenty in all, sparked a powder keg under our South Grand neighborhood, and soon afterward the streets and air outside our offices were filled with protestors, reporters, live bloggers, riot police, helicopters, tear gas, vandalism, and looting.Despite the fact that we tend to stay in our little arts bubble—where we embrace and celebrate diversity and goodwill through literature—politics (and angry politics with a component of violence) had literally come to our doorstep. Some of the photos from the series in this issue were taken right outside our front windows.One of the most heartbreaking days of my life was walking to the River Styx office one morning—the morning after a night of protests, vandalism, and lootings—stepping over broken glass and tear gas canisters, and seeing friends’ and neighbors’ storefront windows broken out. It’s a beautiful, diverse neighborhood, one of the gems of St. Louis, but on that morning it looked like a war zone.Since then, it feels like everything has become political, especially in this election season. As Carol Hanisch wrote, galvanizing feminist action in 1970, “The personal is political.” For us, the political had become personal. I recently spent a spring break writing trip in Gulfport, Mississippi, which had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina—and other hurricanes before it. An astonishing amount of dead sea life—fish, small sharks, and even large dolphins—had been washing up on the beach as a result of oil spills, drilling, and agricultural pollutants. It was impossible not to get into a discussion about it with the few people also walking the beach, which inevitably led to politics. Several people there blamed Obama, the logic of which escapes me, but I went down to write, not agitate politically. While dipping beignets in my coffee at Port City Café, I overheard two men, who had previously been extremely polite to me and kind to my dog Ginger at my feet, say, “If Trump doesn’t get the Republican nomination, there will be a war.”Two average dog-loving guys spoke as casually about a civil war as if it were the World Series. In many ways our country is already at war, and this issue reflects those divisions: racial, religious, gender, marital, economic, and class.Putting this issue together made me realize that almost everything is political—every decision we made regarding what to include or not to include was political. Do we have enough women and people of color represented? Do we need more pieces about fracking and gay marriage? (We received a lot of those.) All art is political, and I mean art with a capital A. All arts become political when funding, public grants, awards, and university jobs come into play.Almost every writer, artist, and editor I know works in higher education, which has grown more political than ever. The reliance on and exploitation of adjuncts at poverty-level wages contrasts to millionaire football coaches (the now outgoing University of Missouri football coach made $3,768,889 his last year) and millionaire chancellors (the Washington University chancellor here in St. Louis makes $1.4 million a year). Across the country, adjuncts are fighting to unionize and negotiate contracts for livable wages. And despite many campuses relying on 70–85 percent adjuncts, college tuition is now unaffordable for all but a few. College administrators are decimating humanities programs while spending vast amounts on sports stadiums. The state of higher education is quickly becoming one of our country’s most pressing political issues, and two pieces here deal with university politics head-on.Across campuses or outside political rallies (or both when schools like Washington University in St. Louis host presidential debates), the anger is so pa...We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with River Styx #96. To get started finding River Styx #96, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Pages: 119

Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

Publisher: Big River Association

Release: 2016

ISBN

Description: Introduction from Issue 96 “. . . man is by nature a political animal, and a man that is by nature and not merely by fortune citiless is either low in the scale of humanity or above it . . .”—Aristotle In forty-two years of issues, many of them themed, we’ve never tried a political issue. If anything, we’ve probably avoided overtly political work as it can often sound preachy and un-nuanced, one-dimensional and didactic, and, of course, clichéd. For most of my life, I’ve held with Auden, who said, “Poetry makes nothing happen,” and I’ve been to and read in enough 100 Thousand Poets for Change readings to know that the only minds they tend to change are those of people on the fence about whether or not they like poetry.But then Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, and the subsequent tensions and violence tore our city apart. While those events raged, another black man, VonDerrit Myers Jr., was shot and killed by a white off-duty police officer. The victim was my neighbor’s nephew. I never knew him, but I heard he’d had previous brushes with the law and read that he had a gun and fired three shots while running away. Those shots plus the officer’s, twenty in all, sparked a powder keg under our South Grand neighborhood, and soon afterward the streets and air outside our offices were filled with protestors, reporters, live bloggers, riot police, helicopters, tear gas, vandalism, and looting.Despite the fact that we tend to stay in our little arts bubble—where we embrace and celebrate diversity and goodwill through literature—politics (and angry politics with a component of violence) had literally come to our doorstep. Some of the photos from the series in this issue were taken right outside our front windows.One of the most heartbreaking days of my life was walking to the River Styx office one morning—the morning after a night of protests, vandalism, and lootings—stepping over broken glass and tear gas canisters, and seeing friends’ and neighbors’ storefront windows broken out. It’s a beautiful, diverse neighborhood, one of the gems of St. Louis, but on that morning it looked like a war zone.Since then, it feels like everything has become political, especially in this election season. As Carol Hanisch wrote, galvanizing feminist action in 1970, “The personal is political.” For us, the political had become personal. I recently spent a spring break writing trip in Gulfport, Mississippi, which had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina—and other hurricanes before it. An astonishing amount of dead sea life—fish, small sharks, and even large dolphins—had been washing up on the beach as a result of oil spills, drilling, and agricultural pollutants. It was impossible not to get into a discussion about it with the few people also walking the beach, which inevitably led to politics. Several people there blamed Obama, the logic of which escapes me, but I went down to write, not agitate politically. While dipping beignets in my coffee at Port City Café, I overheard two men, who had previously been extremely polite to me and kind to my dog Ginger at my feet, say, “If Trump doesn’t get the Republican nomination, there will be a war.”Two average dog-loving guys spoke as casually about a civil war as if it were the World Series. In many ways our country is already at war, and this issue reflects those divisions: racial, religious, gender, marital, economic, and class.Putting this issue together made me realize that almost everything is political—every decision we made regarding what to include or not to include was political. Do we have enough women and people of color represented? Do we need more pieces about fracking and gay marriage? (We received a lot of those.) All art is political, and I mean art with a capital A. All arts become political when funding, public grants, awards, and university jobs come into play.Almost every writer, artist, and editor I know works in higher education, which has grown more political than ever. The reliance on and exploitation of adjuncts at poverty-level wages contrasts to millionaire football coaches (the now outgoing University of Missouri football coach made $3,768,889 his last year) and millionaire chancellors (the Washington University chancellor here in St. Louis makes $1.4 million a year). Across the country, adjuncts are fighting to unionize and negotiate contracts for livable wages. And despite many campuses relying on 70–85 percent adjuncts, college tuition is now unaffordable for all but a few. College administrators are decimating humanities programs while spending vast amounts on sports stadiums. The state of higher education is quickly becoming one of our country’s most pressing political issues, and two pieces here deal with university politics head-on.Across campuses or outside political rallies (or both when schools like Washington University in St. Louis host presidential debates), the anger is so pa...We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with River Styx #96. To get started finding River Styx #96, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Special Offer | $0.00

Special Offer! | $0.00

River Styx #96

River Styx #96

More Books