Original Poem: Rahsaan Kirk’s Dream
Sean MurphySneaking in right before the end of Black History Month, my poem "Rahsaan Kirk's Dream" -- a tribute to another one of my all-time heroes: a blind iconoclast who figured…
Original Poem: What Gets Heard When Men Won’t Speak
I'm immensely grateful to the excellent team at The Good Men Project for publishing this poem. (Stay tuned for more in a series on the theme of toxic masculinity.) What…
Rush Limbaugh: America’s Cultural Cancer
(*Author’s note: Equal parts infuriating and appalling (and, for our country, embarrassing) that this piece, written ELEVEN years ago, holds up. Indeed, that things have only become more obscene via Trump…
Rush’s ‘Moving Pictures’ at 40
Every band, if they’re lucky, is able to create a definitive work — a document that embodies their unique qualities. Most great bands, at some point in their career, successfully…
The End of an Error
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Patrick Semansky/AP/Shutterstock (10686342a) President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, early, after stepping off Marine One as he returns…
David Bowie: The Man Who Owned the World (Five Years Later)
ONLY THE BEATLES. That’s the sole comparison that comes to mind when compelled to name a musical act with similar impact and importance. The Beatles, as we all know, changed…
Original Poem: Sonny Rollins’s Bridge
Gratitude to the wonderful Burningword Literary Journal for publishing this poem. (And thanks again to them for publishing my poem "Charlie Mingus's Miracle, and nominating it for a Pushcart Prize.)…
New World Man: An Appreciation of Neil Peart (One Year Later)
He knows changes aren’t permanent, but change is. Taken from Rush’s most famous song, “Tom Sawyer,” this line might best illuminate the “elemental empathy” that came to define Neil Peart,…
A Farewell to the King: Neil Peart (One Year Later)
Like, I know, many (many, many) others, it’ll be impossible to succinctly or adequately convey my admiration for Neil Peart. (Full and semi-embarrassing disclosure: I wrote my graduate school thesis…
Original Poem: Himmler’s First Blasphemy
While I could probably get away with claiming this poem was written in recent weeks, it was actually completed before the 2016 election. It was inspired by a book reading…