The Delivery Man
The unremarkable office, home to two ancient wooden desks, collapsing file cabinet and ever-present aroma of oil emanating from the uniforms worn by Glenn Ray and his two employees, looked out over two weathered fuel delivery trucks parked in the gravel parking lot. Each one, rusty red and blue, covered in dust and grime, carried …
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Three Poems
Brown Fields One by one by one, they take The hollow factories down. It gives The sons of sons of sons Of workers work to do. They donโt Just blast or bash the buildings all to pieces: The job is difficult and careful. First, the guts come out, and then The skin comes off, sheet-metal …
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Call for submissions
Weโre looking for stories that cut through the noise โ from people living the contradictions of this moment: layoffs and rent hikes, ICE raids and border patrol crackdowns, automation, strikes and small acts of defiance, survival and solidarity. If youโve seen or lived something that speaks to how working-class people make sense of these times, …
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Whatever It Takes
it is a warm spring afternoonin the politically drunk 1950sin the little Virginia mill townstuck like a birdโs nestin the fork that splitsthe James and Appomattox riversboth rivers slapping their mouthstogether in a rough wet kisschurning and swirling the tidearound the high banks of City Pointinheriting their tidal swoon and swayfrom the inland Chesapeake Baythe …
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Morbid Curiosity: Reviewing Jarrod Shanahanโs Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help
Iโve been a fan of Jarrod Shanahanโs work, but only with his new essay collection Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help: A Decade of Rebellion, Reaction, and Morbid Symptoms, published by PM Press, did it occur to me just how long Iโve been reading him. Well, I guess it’s been a decade. I …
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Refinery Reflections
One night in March of 1983, I had dinner on the stove and was building a fire when the phone rang. It was the foreman Charlie from the ARCO Refinery at Cherry Point, Washington. I was living in Bellingham then, about thirty miles away, and supporting myself by painting houses and working the occasional shutdown …
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From the Archives
EDDY GET READY, ROCK STEADY!: The Equals, Eddy Grant, and Trump
Most people who are old enough remember the reggae singer Eddy Grant for his popular radio song in 1983 called Electric Avenue.ย ย Fewer know about his earlier seminal London rock combo, the Equals.ย Eddy Grant is currently involved in a lawsuit against none other than the worldโs number one flimflammer, Donald Trump, over copyright infringement …
COVID, protest, and now fire: Portland at a tipping point
The past four months in Portland have felt like nature doling out warning slaps, demonstrating the fragility of all of our systems. In the midst of years of far right groups mobilizing and marching in the city,ย months of militant and bold demonstrations against police violence, and after COVID had arrived earlier, our local and national …
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