Gwendolyn Brooks
Uncategorized

Gwendolyn Brooks – Boy Breaking Glass

Gwendolyn Brooks' Boy Breaking Glass looks at the creative imperative and the drive towards expression in a boy with curtailed options. Dedicated to the writer Marc Crawford who asked Brooks to write a poem about inequality, the images she uses are detractive and dissonant - the hole in the glass filled with the contrasting black and white objects.

Ta-Nehisi Coates
Book Bits

The Inscrutable Energy that Preserves the Breach

In this excerpt from an article published prior to the release of Between the World and Me, Coates talks about his childhood in West Baltimore. He describes the gap he felt between his own world and the world he saw through the TV set, as well as the perplexity and disingenuity of being fed a stream of non-violent role models at school.

Thich Nhat Hanh
Book Bits, The Masters

“The Violence in Our Minds Manifests in the World” – Thich Nhat Hanh on Smiling Away Your Anger

"Author Cuong Lu recently told me that the greatest lesson his teacher Thich Nhat Hanh gave him was to believe in him: "He kept trusting me. That was his power, his insight and his love." What I find comes across in Thich Nhat Hanh's books is that same sense of confidence, but on a global… Continue reading “The Violence in Our Minds Manifests in the World” – Thich Nhat Hanh on Smiling Away Your Anger