Fruit-heavy with pomegranate
hanging from a slender branch,
bending to the fig. A leaf-shadowed
mauve wall separates their oleander
and plum-lined yard from yours with
a string of party lights. When you squint,
they sparkle like a portal in a dune.
By Sarah Calvo
Over the course of 10 years, my husband and I moved seven times around the country. In that time away, the sights were what we missed the most about Las Vegas. This is a city of spectacle and surprise wrapped in sparkling sequins. It has a reputation in every corner of the earth.
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By Jane E. Olive
There is a softness in the twilight.|
Not the rude brilliance of sunlight
So piercing you cannot
Face it as you drive.
There is an easing off the day’s effort,
A knowing that plans left undone
Wait for another day.
By Bonnie Kelso
On August 12, 2023, the Walter E. Convention Center in downtown Washington, D.C. hosted the National Book Festival! Before the doors officially opened, I found people lined up as neat as a library stack all the way around the corner, tote bags slung over their shoulders ready to be filled with exquisite treats, like bookish children on a Halloween night.
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By Joanne Mallari
This poem appears in the 2023 issue of The Meadow.
and someone has hurt your heart.
I’ll tell you what a therapist
told me, which is that ruminating
on the past breeds depression.
The light will not be more lovely
than it is now, on a winter morning,
when all the intensity of a summer
sunset fits into a few minutes
before 9am. Winter welcomes
a twin energy, like last night
when I drew Inanna’s card
from a deck of divine women.
By Isabelle Bellinghausen
Founded in 2016 to support the mission of the first Clark County Poet Laureate, Poetry Promise, Inc. is perhaps the first and largest community-based program for poets in Clark County, Nevada. We remain committed to uplifting and amplifying the voices of emerging writers from underserved communities and working poets as they hone their craft. We provide financial support, education, and stability as writers develop their voice.
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By Sidne Teske
Tuscarora, the town I call home, is plonked into the middle of Bureau of Land Management open range. Local ranchers have allotments where their cattle graze, and our town is located inside an allotment. At different times of year cattle wander through town at will: we people are the interlopers. This is their domain.
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By Staff of Nevada Humanities
Want to learn about Nevada history and culture? Click on the ONE! The Online Nevada Encyclopedia (ONE) is a free and easy to use online resource about Nevada history and contemporary culture. This multimedia educational resource explores the history, politics, heritage, and culture of the Silver State. If you have access to the internet, you can dig deeper into all things Nevada at onlinenevada.org.
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By Justin Evans
This poem was originally published in the journal, Petroglyph.
Driving south in the pre-dawn Nevada desert
on a two-lane road, I measure the distance between
my car and oncoming headlights in heartbeats.
Close to the road two mares stand
casting dark shadows, sleeping with one leg
raised, ready for the run.
By Staff of Nevada Humanities
We asked staff, members of the Nevada Humanities Board of Trustees, and even our consultants to share some of their summer favorites—reads, podcasts, flix, and more—with our Double Down readers. Here’s a list of summer recommendations!
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By Staff of Nevada Humanities
Two books that celebrate and educate about underwater creatures have been selected by Nevada Humanities, home of the Nevada Center for the Book, to represent the state at the annual Library of Congress National Book Festival, which will be held on Saturday, August 12, 2023, at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. This year’s book selections from Nevada celebrate the smallest creatures of the sea to the largest fish of our lakes and rivers: Nudi Gill: Poison Powerhouse of the Sea by author and illustrator Bonnie Kelso, and Chasing Giants: In Search of the World's Largest Freshwater Fish by Zeb Hogan and Stefan Lovgren.
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By GennaRose Nethercott
“If you come thiiiiiis way, we’ve got two thousand clowns.” Reeva’s eyes light up, a grin highlighting the gap left behind from a tooth she’s just recently lost. She’s six and isn’t afraid of anything—even the piles and piles of clowns lining every surface of her family’s novelty motel. Ragdoll clowns and porcelain figurines. Pennywises and hobo clowns. Jack-in-the-boxes and red-nosed puppets. This: her legacy.
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By Paul Michelsen
I shuffled the deck
Not playing cards or Tarot
but 59 cards, each representing
one of the Buddhist lojong slogans.
I picked number 59
which could be the first or last line
of an American-style haiku
with its five syllables.
By Emily Hoover
Originally published in Waxing and Waning. The poem was selected as runner-up in the Tennessee Tempest Edition contest in 2021.
In springtime, rust-colored spiderwebs
are woven across the Mojave like fishnet
stockings draped on an open dresser.
This desert dodder engulfs creosote bushes
& sagebrush scrubs, an outstretched
hand in the dark after a nightmare.
By Harry Fagel and Rodney J. Lee
We asked Harry Fagel and Rodney J. Lee, poets and guest curators of the current Nevada Humanities Exhibition Series Affinity for Masculinity: An Exhibition of Poetry to answer three questions about their inspiration in creating this exhibition and about their 30-year friendship.
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My grandmother lived her early years in Carlin, Nevada. In the 1920s, winters were cold enough to freeze the Humboldt River, and ice was harvested and loaded onto trains in the railyards of the Central Pacific Railroad, where her father (my great-grandfather) worked. She slept with a brick warmed from the fire to keep warm—“bricks the size of two books” wrapped in a cloth. As a young teen, her family relocated to Sparks for railroad work. She lived out the rest of her life in Reno and witnessed the American strides and trials of the next seven decades.
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Nevada is a state brimming with diverse cultures, rich history, and vibrant communities. In the heart of this flourishing tapestry lies an organization that has touched countless lives and allowed individuals to truly bloom through the transformative power of the humanities. Welcome to the Nevada Humanities fundraising campaign, aptly named Bloom with Nevada Humanities, where the seeds of knowledge, creativity, and empathy are sown, cultivating a community that celebrates the human experience.
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When the first COVID-19 vaccines were first distributed in January 2021, I used a high-resolution thermal camera to document and track the body’s reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine. I have, to date, photographed the arms of 140 participants from Nevada at the site of each person’s injection.
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By Lindsay Wilson
From the new collection The Day Gives Us so Many Ways to Eat
Frost took its last bite
a week back. Now you drive
out to wander the dry lake
in your old shirt. This wind
a cool sickle in the open
country the wild horses sweep
through. Out here you cairn
your thoughts and thoughts
and thoughts, so much sand
and salt to sift through,
By Kathleen Kuo
“What are the humanities?” As someone who just recently passed her three-year milestone of working at Nevada Humanities, you would think that by now I would have an answer ready for this question. But I like the spontaneity that comes with not having a canned elevator pitch—my answer is a genuine reflection of my beliefs and thoughts at the moment that shifts depending on who I am speaking to, just as my own lived understanding of the humanities continues to evolve over time.
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