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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

“Dear possible, and if you drown, Nothing is lost, unless my empty hands Claim the conjectured corpse Of empty water—a legal vengeance On my own earnestness.”

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“Dear Possible” by Laura Riding - The American Scholar

Poems read aloud, beautifully

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Open our latest edition to learn more about two Kansas rivermen who were said to have perished in pursuit of giant catfish, why the pigment black has held such allure for painters, and how one anesthesiologist learned to expect the worst.

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Autumn 2025 - The American Scholar

“My father lived an honorable life. He fulfilled his responsibilities to those who depended on him. Without question, he was a loving man, but there was something unknowable and untouchable about…

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

“Wrecking Ball,” Rick Bass’s latest book, is “a beautifully composed and deeply insightful longform essay dealing … with race, friendship, God, and football,” writes Steve Yarbrough in his review.

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A New Sweet Diminishment - The American Scholar

What happens when a 60-year-old writer dons helmet and pads to compete under the Texas lights?

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

J. Malcolm Garcia’s journalism takes us into the heart of a homeless encampment without “shade, water, shelter, or any kind of supervision,” where some are lucky enough to own a tent and others sleep “on the ground with only their clothes for a blanket.”

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Helping Doug - The American Scholar

At a tent encampment in Oregon, one man struggles to survive as medical volunteers try to bring a meas-ure of light to dark, uncertain days

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Our Autumn 2025 issue has arrived! Highlights include J. Malcolm Garcia’s visit to an Oregon tent encampment; Kristin Idaszak’s look at the link between horseshoe crabs and the human heart; Steve Yarbrough’s profile of writer James Whitehead; and much more!

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Autumn 2025 - The American Scholar

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

There’s a whiff of George Plimpton in Rick Bass’s decision to play football at age 60, but Bass’s descriptions of the experience in his new book are very different in temperament.

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

For Doug, who lives at a Portland homeless encampment, simply taking two pills a day can seem like the most daunting challenge. Although Doug’s world is uncertain and dark, those volunteering to help him and his neighbors are trying to make it a little less lonely.

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Helping Doug - The American Scholar

At a tent encampment in Oregon, one man struggles to survive as medical volunteers try to bring a meas-ure of light to dark, uncertain days

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

What on earth was Rick Bass thinking? At the age of 60, the celebrated writer of fiction and essays decided to join a semi-pro football team—the Texas Express—and compete in one of the most violent sports there is, against and beside men who were at least half his age.

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

In this week’s Asturias Days, Clellan Coe meets a lonely duckling. “Catching it had taken several tries,” she writes. “Not because it was difficult, exactly, but because you hesitate in that moment—your body unsure whether this is something one really does: pounce.”

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The Duckling - The American Scholar

I was out walking the dogs early one Sunday morning when I saw something small in the middle of the road. It moved a little, veered to the side, then halted as if it expected someone to catch up. It…

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

The myriad problems associated with homelessness continue to dominate the headlines. But what is it actually like to live in a tent encampment? In our Autumn cover story, J. Malcolm Garcia introduces us to the J Street Lot in Grants Pass, Oregon.

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Helping Doug - The American Scholar

At a tent encampment in Oregon, one man struggles to survive as medical volunteers try to bring a meas-ure of light to dark, uncertain days

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

As Pablo Picasso (allegedly) said, “Good artists borrow; great artists steal.” Such was the motivation behind last month’s “Next Line, Please” prompt, in which David Lehman offered a handful of “stolen lines” to his intrepid poets, encouraging them to pick one and “run with it.”

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The Stolen Lines - The American Scholar

Proposing an original prompt is always a risk, but reading the poems provoked by what I shall always think of as my “stolen lines” prompt—“take a line from someone else and run with it”—I feel like…

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

What was David Brown’s night of baseball about? It was “about karma, luck, circles closed, optimism, and generosity,” he writes. And a “losing game that was a big win.”

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Immaculate Innings - The American Scholar

At the ballpark on a summer night in Baltimore

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

“I think it’s just really beautiful to understand art and home as being so intertwined in the same way that I understand cloth and family to be intertwined,” says artist Cici Osias.

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Cici Osias - The American Scholar

Sewing cultures together

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

With baseball season entering its final stretch, David Brown takes us to Baltimore’s Camden Yards, where the principal attraction on a warm July night isn’t necessarily the underwhelming Orioles but rather the ballpark giveaway: Hawaiian shirts.

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Immaculate Innings - The American Scholar

At the ballpark on a summer night in Baltimore

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

Thomas Gray wrote “Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes” in 1747 when Horace Walpole asked him for an epitaph to commemorate his cat.

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“Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes” by Thomas Gray - The American Scholar

Poems read aloud, beautifully

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

Fifty years ago, Paul Theroux published “The Great Railway Bazaar,” a book that “dazzlingly lifted travel writing out of its midcentury doldrums,” as Thomas Swick writes.

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The Great American Travel Book - The American Scholar

The book that helped revive a genre, leading to an all-too-brief heyday

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

Studying Penelope Fitzgerald, Muriel Spark, and Anita Brookner has led Jessica Francis Kane to wonder if “there is some pattern to be discerned, some golden ratio” of motherhood and work—especially as it seems Fitzgerald is the only one who succeeded at both.

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The Patient Penelope Fitzgerald - The American Scholar

Here’s to the English writer who waited until her ninth decade to finally experience fame in America

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

Of all the freebies on offer at Camden Yards, the Hawaiian shirt is arguably the most coveted. The trick? You’ve got to be among the first 15,000 fans to arrive to receive one.

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Immaculate Innings - The American Scholar

At the ballpark on a summer night in Baltimore

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

“The Great Railway Bazaar,” writes Thomas Swick, “is also a book that frequently makes you stop and underline a sentence simply because of how brilliantly it captures a look, a scene … a precious detail, a perfect word, an unexpected finish.”

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The Great American Travel Book - The American Scholar

The book that helped revive a genre, leading to an all-too-brief heyday

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

This past year, textile artist Cici Osias turned her attention to quilting because of its role on the Underground Railroad, where quilting codes signified safe houses for enslaved people seeking freedom.

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Cici Osias - The American Scholar

Sewing cultures together

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

Socrates, not unlike the Buddha, insisted on subjecting local culture, codes, and customs to rigorous examination, leaving “no established opinion unchallenged.” A new book argues that their similarities don’t end there.

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The Seeker and the Sought - The American Scholar

A prominent Buddhist scholar’s quest to unify East and West

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

Growing up in Maryland’s Baltimore County, Cici Osias—who is of African-American, Haitian, Congolese, and Nigerian ancestry—was surrounded by African art and traditions.

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Cici Osias - The American Scholar

Sewing cultures together

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

Paul Theroux was a novelist by trade, and, as he set off from London on a journey that would take him across continents, he used fiction techniques to bring a wide cast of characters to life.

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The Great American Travel Book - The American Scholar

The book that helped revive a genre, leading to an all-too-brief heyday

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

“Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes” by Thomas Gray has resonated with many cat lovers—including William Blake, who illustrated the poem just before the turn of the century. @tate.bsky.social exhibited these watercolors in 1971.

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“Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes” by Thomas Gray - The American Scholar

Poems read aloud, beautifully

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

“Long ago, @elizmccrack.bsky.social … said, ‘We all write with everything we have and for some of us that includes children, and for some of us it does not,’” Jessica Francis Kane writes. “I believe this. But if I can refresh Fitzgerald’s literary legacy … I’d like to.”

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The Patient Penelope Fitzgerald - The American Scholar

Here’s to the English writer who waited until her ninth decade to finally experience fame in America

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

While Cici Osias was growing up, artwork from the African diaspora hung on her relatives’ walls, and she wore Nigerian textiles, or “aso ebi,” to family functions. During her college years, Osias delved deeper into the history and creation of Nigerian textiles.

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Cici Osias - The American Scholar

Sewing cultures together

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

David Brown’s recent summer evening turned out to be memorable for reasons beyond the freebie that brought him to a ball game: friendships and chance encounters that rendered the game’s outcome irrelevant.

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Immaculate Innings - The American Scholar

At the ballpark on a summer night in Baltimore

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

Paul Theroux’s “The Great Railway Bazaar” led to an all-too-brief flourishing of literary travel writing, which saw the publication of seminal works by Bruce Chatwin, Jonathan Raban, Isabel Hilton, Colin Thubron, and many others.

theamericanscholar.org

The Great American Travel Book - The American Scholar

The book that helped revive a genre, leading to an all-too-brief heyday

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

One of Cici Osias’s quilted textile pieces is currently part of a group exhibition, “Nothing is Fixed,” at the Old Stone House in Brooklyn through October 13.

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Cici Osias - The American Scholar

Sewing cultures together

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

For this week’s Read Me a Poem, Amanda Holmes presents “Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes” by Thomas Gray.

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“Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes” by Thomas Gray - The American Scholar

Poems read aloud, beautifully

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

“For reasons I cannot fathom, Penelope Fitzgerald’s literary reputation seems to be lagging behind those of her English contemporaries, namely Muriel Spark and Anita Brookner,” writes Jessica Francis Kane.

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The Patient Penelope Fitzgerald - The American Scholar

Here’s to the English writer who waited until her ninth decade to finally experience fame in America

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Gotama Buddha exhorted his followers not to accept things as they are, but “to imagine something new, whether in the sphere of politics, work, relationships, art, or philosophy”—sounding, a new book argues, more than a little like Socrates.

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The Seeker and the Sought - The American Scholar

A prominent Buddhist scholar’s quest to unify East and West

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

“Her conscious tail her joy declar’d; The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws; Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw; and purred applause.” —Thomas Gray

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“Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes” by Thomas Gray - The American Scholar

Poems read aloud, beautifully

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

On paper, the late Penelope Fitzgerald’s career is the stuff of literary dreams. She was nominated for the Booker Prize three times, winning once, and won the National Book Critics Circle Award, boosting her fame in the United States.

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The Patient Penelope Fitzgerald - The American Scholar

Here’s to the English writer who waited until her ninth decade to finally experience fame in America

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

Gotama Buddha and Socrates were contemporaries in the fifth century BCE, and although they never met, their lives and messages exhibit compelling parallels.

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The Seeker and the Sought - The American Scholar

A prominent Buddhist scholar’s quest to unify East and West

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 24/08/2025

Multimedia artist Anne Labovitz interviewed health care workers about how they incorporate creativity in their careers, and “it was wonderful to hear the level of commitment to their patients and passion for doing excellent work.”

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Anne Labovitz - The American Scholar

To see and be seen

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 24/08/2025

“My older brother is instructive to a fault. My younger brother, self-sufficient to a fault. I’m forgetful to a fault—easily thrown off when there’s too much happening around me,” writes Clellan Coe.

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Eighty - The American Scholar

No one is getting younger. Every summer, I try to make it to the States to see family and friends—and most years, that means being in Durango, Colorado, on August 20 for my stepmother’s birthday. I…

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 24/08/2025

The older we get, writes Costică Brădățan, “the more spiritually ossified we become.” We need things to challenge our assumptions, to rouse us from our spiritual slumber: “That’s what awakenings are for.”

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The Seeker and the Sought - The American Scholar

A prominent Buddhist scholar’s quest to unify East and West

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

“our bouncing baby boy, thank God and knock on wood, is well, looks just like his folks, like a kitten in a basket like the tots in every other family album.”—Wisława Szymborska (excerpt from “Hitler’s First Photograph”)

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“Hitler’s First Photograph” by Wislawa Szymborska - The American Scholar

Poems read aloud, beautifully

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

The cultural and religious traditions of East and West are often treated separately, as if emanating from entirely different worlds. Yet in his new book, “Buddha, Socrates, and Us: Ethical Living in Uncertain Times,” Stephen Batchelor bridges the gap.

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The Seeker and the Sought - The American Scholar

A prominent Buddhist scholar’s quest to unify East and West

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Wisława Szymborska compiled her poetry on the aftermath of war into a 1993 collection, “The End and the Beginning,” and won the Nobel Prize for Literature three years later.

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“Hitler’s First Photograph” by Wislawa Szymborska - The American Scholar

Poems read aloud, beautifully

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

The poet Natan Yonatan was born in Ukraine in 1923, just two years before his family emigrated to Palestine. As a young man, Yonatan joined Kibbutz Sarid, which was formed by immigrants from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union.

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“The Girl in the Ray of Darkness” by Natan Yonatan - The American Scholar

Poems read aloud, beautifully

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

The local veterinary practice in Asturias has an open floor plan, and despite her ailing cat, Clellan Coe felt at ease: “I like the office, the relaxed attitude of the vets, the open consulting-room door, the way everyone smiles at everyone else’s pet.”

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The Lady Vet - The American Scholar

I stepped into the veterinary clinic and sat in one of the chairs in the small waiting area, to the left of the desk and counter, placing my cat Ella, in her carrier, on the floor between my feet.…

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

For her recent exhibition in North Dakota, Anne Labovitz interviewed over 50 health care workers. “I’m interested in how something really personal and intimate can become something monumental,” she says.

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Anne Labovitz - The American Scholar

To see and be seen

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The American Scholar @theamscho.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Natan Yonatan was a prolific poet, but his best-known collection is perhaps “Stones in the Darkness.” From this collection, Amanda Holmes presents “The Girl in the Ray of Darkness” for this week’s Read Me a Poem.

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“The Girl in the Ray of Darkness” by Natan Yonatan - The American Scholar

Poems read aloud, beautifully

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