“A democratic rant.” — Ed. We face the primal situation that we need those closest to us to have an intense value and meaning that cannot be extended to others. As democratic citizens, or tribal members, or anyone else, we must live with the uneasy emotions of this. What if losing an election means losing […]
Luke Wallin
Luke Wallin has taught Philosophy at the School of Visual Arts, Creative Writing in Spalding University’s MFA program, and Literature at University College Dublin and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. His 10 books include The Redneck Poacher’s Son, In the Shadow of the Wind, and Writing at the Crossroads of Nature and Culture. Visit at lukewallin.com.
Longing for Wilderness
In response to this issue’s call for submissions, the statement “we invite authors to reflect on how the influence of previous generations shaped your identity” set me thinking about a key moment of conversation with my father. […]
Out on a Wing
Hammond, Louisiana, 1964 On the afternoon of my first jump, wind gusts rocked the Cessna 170 on the ground and swept bright clouds across the sky. Four weekends in a row had brought violent winds up from Texas and the Gulf, and all our skydiving flights had been cancelled. There was much discussion between the […]
Crossing on Foot
Snakes didn’t bother you, nor gator holes. You clutched your grandfather’s double barrel 10 gauge, illegal gauge, buckshot loaded. The black bear was hunting shaggy wild pigs. You let him pass. You set into that fog again. The girl on the other side of the swamp was all you cared about that day. Lost […]
My Good Right Hand
My good right hand has rolled the logs, tossed the boards and climbed the tower. My good right hand has played guitar night after night in sadness and in ecstasy. My good right hand has written books at the kitchen table and poems lying in bed. And now it does not wish to be […]
Animal Strangers
When I enter the woods, I expect something strange and interesting to happen. Watching a deer lying down for a nap, or a pair of gray foxes climbing an oak, or looking into a hollow log and seeing a large rabbit looking back, I’m surprised and delighted. My friends and I see animals as […]
Terrapin Was
Back in my hunting days, bobcats caught turtles and brought them out of the swamp, up onto the raised bed of the wood-train railroad, to eat them. They’d leave the shells between the rails. Trains passed over, redneck poachers and country boys walking the line passed them by. Coyotes deigned to pick them up for […]
Annals of the Healing Arts: Notes on Thirteen Paintings
A Self Interview about Painting and Philosophy JW: I’ll use my first initial to distinguish me, John, from you, the painter. LW: Fine. JW: Could you tell us a little about your painting process and how it relates to philosophy? LW: There are philosophical problems everyone shares. Questions about the meaning of life, of death, […]
A Secret of Ecological Planning: River of Silence
This essay is based closely on the original version, first published in BAILE ’98, the Journal of the Geographic Society at University College Dublin. It reports on an adventure Luke had as part of a Regional Planning team working to protect the Connecticut River in Massachusetts. The story is reprinted in High Horse!, Fleur de […]
A Mindful Friend
Photos courtesy John Twomey In 1988, I began teaching at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Late in the day I’d pass through a grove of white pines to my building’s parking lot. Often I’d see a man watching the small pond across the road, where graceful birds danced and dove in the air. One day […]
An Existentialist Café of our Own: A Review of Sarah Bakewell’s At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails
Last year my friend Charles Entrekin, publisher of Sisyphus, recommended an audiobook: At the Existentialist Cafe՛: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others, by Sarah Bakewell (Chatto, 2016); ably read by Antonia Beamish. Charles and I were grad students in a Philosophy program […]
American Identities, Flowing Underground
Trump seems mad, insane. Many are still drinking the Kool Aid. Why? He seems to repeat a lie three times and then believe it. He transforms from someone who appears to smirk with skepticism at his own statements, to someone who embraces them emotionally on the third repeat, then calls up righteous anger for subsequent […]
Editor’s Notes
Introduction of new editor Luke Wallin: Charles Entrekin and I met in 1966 as graduate students in Philosophy, at the University of Alabama. I was taken by his brilliance and his laughter, and recognized that I’d found someone who loved philosophy as I did. We were excited to explore Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty, to practice dialectics, […]
Point of View and Choice in Conservation
Choices in Ecology Beyond the light of my desk lamp and computer screen, and the hum of my air conditioner, there exists a coastal hardwood swamp of great mystery. Though I live in the old settled East, not far from Providence and Boston, even closer to Fall River and New Bedford, my garden and lawn […]