The Abscondment
“The Abscondment” explores the seductiveness of saving a community over tending to the needs of a child — is one more important than the other? Can selflessness, anti-materialism, and community work justify child neglect?
pandemic
Arts As Refuge Amidst The Pandemic
The world is gradually trying to recover from a pandemic that has resulted in one of the most severe global economic crises and therefore, quite naturally, arts and cultural heritage sectors have taken quite a major hit all over the world. Yet, what is truly amazing is that it has not dampened artistic spirits. What has dawned on all of us by now, surely, is that science and technology will get us out of this situation one day, but it is the arts, culture, and humanities that will get us through this tough time right now.
The Moolian Stream
“The Moolian Stream” is about missing the company of true friends and loneliness. These have always been true for humans, but for groups such as immigrants and those who find themselves in exile, they are experienced more acutely. The exiled experience cultural isolation as well as existential and physical loneliness. After the COVID-19 pandemic, many others feel increasingly isolated.
America’s Forgotten Epidemic: The Opioid Crisis
The American opioid epidemic has become overshadowed by the Covid-19 crisis, yet it remains one of the worst public health crises in the nation’s history. Addiction is a part of the human condition; however, it can also destroy nearly all aspects of our humanity. The following poems attempt to reflect a similar countermanding by using contrasting styles, voices, and forms while continuing to raise awareness.
The End of Money
What would happen to humanity and human behavior if our societies no longer relied on monetary value at all? Could we return to a barter system? Or, is currency and its use so ingrained in the human condition that all societal achievement and advancement would cease without it? Who are we without a system that encourages and demands production?
Relics of Last Week’s Civilization: Is the US Losing Its Way?
Human civilizations have evolved as humans have, culminating in advanced societies of social and cultural organization. Despite humanity’s success on a grand scale, do the current protests, threats to peace, and societal discontent foreshadow the demise of one of the world’s leading hegemonies? Is it human nature to incite violence and encourage chaos, destroying what we’d once created? How can we utilize the relics of last week’s civilization to rebuild?
Nurturing Darkness: Mixed Media & Faltering Civilizations (2020)
Have we lost sight of what is important, as a civilization? Is the world out of alignment with principles that matter? Missing children, an increasing COVID-19 death rate, and constant ethical dilemmas associated with our socially complex world make us wonder: can we, as a species, come to an agreement on anything?
Commemorating Each New Disaster: Two Poems of 2020
The following poems address the failure of the current US administration to respond to the pandemic, as well as its systematic denial of science and sidestepping of the Constitution and Rule of Law. The lies, abandonment of responsibility, and stoking of divisiveness have caused and continue to cause fear, chaos, hatred, violence, and death.
This Is A Time Unknown (August 2020 In Photos)
How are the current conditions affecting us? The fear of catching Covid-19, the fear of spreading it. The political turmoil in the United States and what feels like an impasse in communication, in discourse. How are the restrictions and isolation affecting our mental health? Sometimes, we need to look backward in order to move forward. The following photo essay takes us through this time unknown.
Safer At Home
The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the United States in a way that leaves US citizens wondering how this great nation could be affected so severely. On top of facing a pandemic, US citizens have been met with increasing polarization both in the media and in politics, leading to mass confusion and ignorance — how are we to solve a problem we can’t fully understand?
