Edith Farnsworth’s House
"Each season she arrived, / steering her car through uncut grasses / against the wishes / of the imposing architect"
Mike’s Big Ditch
For decades, Mike Kirwan was the loudest advocate for a proposed canal from the Ohio River to Lake Erie. But he couldn't close the deal.
Power and Possibility in Dayton’s Oregon District
An elegy for a wounded place.
Crossing in Miller (1889)
"a man stands, balancing, // one foot on one line and the other on another, touching the pulse / of two emergent powers"
A Complicated Heritage of Coal
In southern Illinois, one community’s complex relationship with the industry on display.
Inside the St. Louis Rent Strike of 1969
“It touched everybody all over the country who lived in public housing.” [From "The St. Louis Anthology"]
When Socialists Swept Milwaukee
Democratic socialists attending the 2020 Democratic Convention won't be out of place in a city with a long history of socialist governance.
The End of a World as I Knew It
On childhood summers at a black enclave in Michigan, and the moment everything changed.
Still Life, Ohio Valley
"In early morning the tributaries / at Pittsburgh meld, then flow on / for centuries"
Just Downriver from Detroit
"During my visits to to the nursing home, Dad and I have sometimes settled into chairs to time-travel through a photo album."
Minneapolis by Segway
"There was always a sense of something missing, a story still jumbled and incomplete..." From "Under Purple Skies: The Minneapolis Anthology."
Opèksipu Catches Sun Before it Flows Beneath the Washington Street Bridge
"home is built upon the scaffolding / of a hundred thousand stories..."