(Click on the title to view the whole piece)
 

Sally Draper at the Ford Rotunda
 
The annual Christmas fantasy (with Ford's latest model cars never far from the scene) drew the 50s kids from Dearborn and beyond, attracting six million visitors across nine holiday seasons. Once inside the domed court of the building, we arched our backs to take in the Paul Bunyan-sized Christmas tree, its top branches miles away in the up-spaces.
 
Amy Kenyon

 

The Will to Devolution
 
An acquaintance of mine, a man who is an orthodox priest but was once a hardcore fundamentalist, has two sons who are known around town for having left Christianity and started a cult called the Wolves of Vinland, which practices ancient European paganism as they understand it and calls for, among other things, animal sacrifice. They move among the 20- and 30-somethings here in town, and are generally looked upon with bemused curiosity. They call themselves a "tribe of folkish heathen." Part of their rituals, and what seems a necessity of membership, is a fight club.
 
Vic Sizemore

 

Our Daily Dose of Terrors
 
It was not until recently that I began to appreciate what an extraordinary thing it is to unfold the newspaper at the breakfast table and commence to read—all the while eating with a citizen's iron calm, buttering the toast, cracking the boiled egg necessary to one's existence, and pouring out a cup of coffee with an unfaltering wrist.
 
Jascha Kessler

 

Why Poetry Must Become More Philosophical
 
I'm not suggesting poetry that moves me to weeping or laughing is anything less than divine. I'm not implying consolation is not great in its own terms. I'm saying that lyric poetry is bigger than any of those things.
 
Joel Fry

 

My Family in the Air
 
In a few hours more they landed at Gander. All deplaned and began walking to the little transit building. It was my friend's last chance for freedom. He broke away from the group and ran into the Canadian woods, fast and far. A decade later he was a successful entrepreneur in Ohio.
 
Peter Bridges