As the Provincetown Independent keeps reporting, the Outer Cape has a desperate shortage of affordable housing. The consequences include dwindling enrollment in the public schools, as parents of school-age children […]
Books & Poetry
POETRY
Beachbreak
Salt-footed Dwellers on the sand, we Blunder over trails Of periwinkle thumbprints. Dunes roll like whale tongues From the face of the open sea. Bewildered by our niggling mayhem We […]
POETRY
What the Heart Wants
Questing is a host-seeking behavior in which ticks ascend plants, extend their front legs, and wait poised for a chance to attach to a passing host. —Annals of the Entomological […]
POETRY
At the Cooktop
Into the sizzling pan of bluefish fresh from the Bay he pours Marsala to his own secret measure, a spoon of hoisin, pinch of blackening, a touch of bouillon, brown […]
POETRY
Blue
For Aaron, 17, away for the summer Each summer we tied cut-off plastic milk jugs to our waists, freeing our greedy hands to grab clusters of dusky blueberries from the […]
BOOKS
The Inner World of an Outer Cape Childhood
Cynthia Blakeley writes of memories lost, found, and reconsidered
Cynthia Blakeley’s account of growing up in a working-class, chaotic household in 1960s Wellfleet is a memoir. But categorizing The Innermost House that way is as inadequate as calling Wellfleet […]
A CASE OF YOU
Paul Lisicky Loves Joni Mitchell
In a singer’s magic and mourning, a writer finds a bond
When Paul Lisicky happened upon the online video of Joni Mitchell singing at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival, he watched through tears of amazement and gratitude. That’s probably not so […]
BOOKS
The Liberty and Luck Behind the Jewish Golden Age
David Denby’s 'Eminent Jews' is a romp through postwar American culture
Betty Friedan worked so hard she forgot to pee. Norman Mailer was married twice in four days. The only way to get Leonard Bernstein out of bed was to play […]
BOOKS
The Alternate Realities of Rosemary Woodruff Leary
Susannah Cahalan unveils a life on the sidelines in The Acid Queen
Susannah Cahalan writes that Rosemary Woodruff Leary is “everywhere and nowhere.” Her point is that the woman who was the fourth of five wives of Timothy Leary — the Harvard […]
POETRY
That Come and Go
Open my eyes with the sun, bright over my shoulder, and uniform clear blue […]
POETRY
Transitions
The air felt like May, but the water said it would rather be March. They negotiated through a fog that rose from the moors and burned off in my lungs. […]
POETRY
Marie Howe Maps a Spiritual Journey
The poet won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for her New and Selected Poems
The uncluttered elegance of Marie Howe’s voice has held its power over the 40-plus years she has been publishing poetry. And nowhere is it heard more lovingly than here in […]
BODY HORROR
On the ‘Monstrosity’ of the Human Form
Carmen Maria Machado and Ilana Savdie are drawn to the uncanny
Just before Carmen Maria Machado left for graduate school, she came down with swine flu. The year was 2009: Barack Obama had just started his first term as president, Bitcoin […]
FILM HISTORY
Censored, But Still Queer
In Sick and Dirty, Michael Koresky argues for a second look at Code-era movies
“Golden ages” are rarely golden for everyone, especially in film history. The era referred to as “classic Hollywood” roughly coincided with the Production Code, a set of guidelines developed by […]
RETREAT
Claiming the Right to Grieve
Geraldine Brooks reflects on her husband’s death in a new memoir
In her new memoir, Memorial Days (Viking, 2025), Geraldine Brooks with matter-of-fact and elegant prose delves into a universal experience that, as a culture, we try our best to push […]
