From LIFE to Vogue to “Shaft,” Gordon Parks brought black life into focus.
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People on the Plains led quiet, anonymous lives. Until Spoon River.
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No malaise, no 1000-mile drive, no downer decade could dampen the miracle of sun and moon.
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His English was fast and loose but his fastball was faster. There was only one Dizzy Dean.
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How an unknown grad student, mother of five, became a historian, an inspiration, a meme.
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Weaving wonder out of darkness, Mary Oliver became America’s favorite poet.
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America was going modern — skyscrapers, biplanes, Model T’s. Why not poetry? Harriet Monroe asked.
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Think April is “the cruelest month?” E.E. Cummings will cure your despair.
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
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For a full year, poet Ross Gay focused on things that delight him. The result: The Book of Delights. You need this now.
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Martin Gardner was interested in everything and made everything interesting.
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While the nation watched, Barbara Jordan stepped out of the Jim Crow past to defend democracy.
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Photography was anything but instant before Edwin Land made a magic camera called Polaroid.
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Like the music it celebrated, the iconic photo of jazz greats was mostly improv.
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Through the worst seasons of TV’s “wasteland,” Rod Serling brought intelligence and irony to “the boob tube.”
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The deep ocean remained a mystery until William Beebe and his Bathysphere found new depths.
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