Essays

This week they are painting
the North Gulfport water tower.

On her wedding day, a bride should slip a good penny into her shoe
to ensure luck and wealth during the life of her marriage.

The first run, from Tampa to McAllen to Greensboro, was a bit of a lark. Maria was living in Tampa, and she was bored. So when a friend, someone she knew to be a Mexican drug cartel–affiliated smuggler, appeared at her door with a business...

The reality of Bolaño’s outlaw image, The Daily Beast gets into books, the Google books settlement’s collapse, Bill Murray’s support of poetry, and more.

At first, there was nothing to do but watch.
For days, before the trucks arrived, before the work
of clean-up, my brother sat on the stoop and watched.

Here is North Gulfport—
its liquor stores and car washes,

The house is in need of repair, but is—
for now, she says—still hers. After the storm,
she laid hands on what she could reclaim:

I should like Kennedy, there’s something about walking past a display lined with copies of True Compass that strikes a sour chord.

They’ve passed on naming the controversial Farouk Hosni as their new director general, choosing Bulgarian Irina Gueorguieva Bokova.