Summer
2026
Editorial by Megan Douglass: Still Waters Run Deep: Cultivating Collective Conscious & Conscience
Movement. This is a word that gets bandied about regularly. It is also one that isn’t always so clear and carries many meanings. Meditation. This is a word that we… Read More
Valerie Jean: April 2026 – The People’s Potluck
In the fall of 2025, the federal government came to a halt, unable to reach an agreement on a national budget. By October, word spread across the US that, beginning… Read More
Baba Wayne Curtis Edited by Kristian Davis Bailey: Artist Statement -“Driven by the Movement”
I don’t like explaining my work. I like to leave it up to people to decide.I like to joke that their interpretation is usually better than mine. If I have… Read More
Raina Rising: Movement Meditations
Writer. Birthworker. Abọriṣa Abolitionist. Mother. All of my identities are grounded in birth, transformation, and new ways of being. In my youth, I considered myself an activist. As a younger… Read More
Hoda Z. M. Amer: Dreams Of
In 2017, artist Barbara Fox (BF) designed a coin for the state of New Jersey, celebrating immigrant families as they enter through Ellis Island in pursuit of the American Dream.… Read More
Mary Kamal Gagnon: White Grief
Mural by Mary Gagnon located at the Artist Village in Brightmore, MI. I grew up in East Dearborn, the daughter of Arab immigrants, learning early that my body was always… Read More
Julia Cuneo: A Movement Family
My earliest memory is of a red metal wagon, a little rusty, covered in “No Scab Papers” bumper stickers. My childhood best friend and I remember holding hands from atop… Read More
Owólabi Aboyade: Dear Young Detroit: “a foundation ain’t the answer”
Featured article from the "Future Beyond Billionaires" exhibit held at Swords into Plowshares Peace Gallery. I’m writing this to you because you love Detroit; you build communities of care and… Read More
Sacred Spaces- Art from the Detroit 2050: Future Beyond Billionaires Exhibition
In Winter 2025, Riverwise partnered up with our friends at the Swords Into Plowshares Peace Center and Gallery for the Detroit 2050: Future Beyond Billionaires exhibition, which ran from November… Read More
CHii Thee Last Poet: We Have Had Enough
Featured article from the "Future Beyond Billionaires" exhibit held at Swords into Plowshares Peace Gallery. We have had enough of your governments We have had enough of your schools We… Read More
Josmine Evans: Healing with Hibiscus – Refreshing Mind, Memory and Movement with Tea
Editor’s Note: This recipe is a part of a series graciously offered from the community inspired kitchen of Josmine Evans, founder of the Detroit based Indigo Culinary Co. We hope… Read More
Breanna Krywko: Motor City
They demolished our neighborhoods so they could put up highways. They put up highways so they could build and sell cars. They sold cars so they could build and sell… Read More
The Hydra Mutual Fund: Centering The Solidarity of Choice
Abortion may be protected in Michigan, but protection has never guaranteed access. For many people across the state, getting care is shaped by cost, distance, clinic closures, stigma, and the… Read More
Erin Posas: Every Day
This poem was written on a day when I was supposed to be doing grad school homework. I felt too distracted. I had spent much of the semester processing the… Read More
Marilyn Lowen: Detroit Elder Haiku
I miss the fist Joe miss my parents, grandparents & the Bob-lo Boat Note: Detroit Poet Laureate jessica Care moore recently invited Detroiters to write haiku for our city, so… Read More
John G. Rodwan, Jr. Poetry
Weather Report Unlike white men wearing short pants in Midwestern winter, wholly unworried that the car might not start – no waiting for buses with these guys – and confident… Read More
Valerie Jean Blakely: The world is burning, and all I want to do is watch the birds.
I like to be very still. Very quiet and listen to them sing. Then I am not thinking about Genocide, ecocide. Drones, bombs, and war. I am most certainly not… Read More
Benni Aho: The Paris of The West
She is bass lines and sirens. She is your relaxing reward for a day of hard work. She slaps the back of your head when you say something stupid. She… Read More
Bryce Grubbs: RAGE → LOVE
When I sit cross-legged in a handstand in contemplation on action - my action - anger spills onto my living room floors. Movement was spurred by anger, an anger that… Read More
Bill Wylie-Kellermann: (Un)Forgotten: Memory as Resistance and Resurrection
Think Detroit in the 1930’s: religious hate radio is being invented here - broadcasting white supremacy and antisemitism; corporate industrialists openly embrace fascism and turn guns first on the homeless… Read More
Interview by Erin Posas: “Detroit Got D Power”: From ghettotech to transit justice, artist DUANE is making big moves.
Meet DUANE: Still smoldering from the late March 2026 cover of the Detroit Metro Times, working with Godmother of House, DJ Stacey “Hotwaxx” Hale, catwalking to open a fashion show,… Read More
Keeping Memory: How Storytellers Respond During Urgent Time: A Conversation with Cornetta Lane Smith and Ifayomí Chistine
A recent executive order targeting exhibits deemed “divisive” or “race-centered” has placed institutions like the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture under pressure—raising urgent questions about how… Read More
Ava Ballew Poetry
Whatever You’ll Let Me You are not an easy person To come by, that is. Like a warm day in February, Melting the top two layers of compounded snow.… Read More
The Return of Afrofuture Fest in 2023: Reflections on the Past and Communal Futures
The Return of Afrofuture Fest in 2023: Reflections on the Past and Communal Futures By Adrienne Ayers Afrofuture Fest originated as a 25th birthday party for myself on Anishinaabe Land at… Read More
Fat On Freedom
“Fat on Freedom” by Megan Douglass As we prepare for the long haul, we asked: What is guiding, fueling, feeding our work? All this conflict is a part of movement,… Read More
An Act of Love
An Act of Love By Laura Bailey Brandon We sat on a patchwork of blankets in a field, hugged by trees. We sat facing each other, knees bent against strangers… Read More
if a tree falls (and No One is around)
if a tree falls (and No One is around) (new liturgies against “representation”) Does it make a sound? The man was white that named the tree “no one,” and so… Read More
a riot is a prayer is a maybe is a yes—
a riot is a prayer is a maybe is a yes— (in praise of refusal, of the dark, of “yes;” in praise of every unknown regarding the world to be… Read More
Keepers of The Straits: Heart Of The Turtle Tribal treaty rights, sovereignty and the fight against Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline
Keepers of The Straits: Heart Of The Turtle: Tribal treaty rights, sovereignty and the fight against Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline By Hadassah GreenSky (Little Traverse Bay Bands of Chippewa and Odawa… Read More
Detroit Love-n-War
Detroit Love-n-War by Poem by Rosemarie Wilson a.k.a One Single Rose The Spirit of Ðetroit’s head bows in shame. Uninviting images broadcast through the idiot box and the tangled web they’ve… Read More
Fists Clenched, Hearts Wide Open: Countering state based narratives of violence and nonviolence
One in four (25%) of Black trans and nonbinary young people reported a suicide attempt in the past year. Black Americans at every age die at an earlier age than… Read More
Mutual Aid In Michigan
Photo by Laura Bailey Brandon Community Support Networks & Services Alternatives for Girls: alternativesforgirls.org Back Alley Bikes: backalleybikes.org Black To the Land Coalition: On FB @ BlackToTheLandCoalition Church of the… Read More
Cold Turkey
Photo by Laura BaileyBrandon taken on the North Country Trail in Wilderness State Park (Carp Lake MI) A retrospective of the author’s last six years, retiring from community activism in… Read More
Ready, Set, Listen!
Dr. Martin Reinhardt is president of the Michigan Indian Education Council, lead singer, and songwriter for the band Waawiyayaa (The Circle). He is a tenured professor of Native American Studies… Read More
1954 / 2022
“Separate and unequal” Has an evil sequel: The devilish creation Of racial segregation Is abject subjugation And clear discrimination. So found ‘Brown Versus Board of Education.’ True reconciliation And total… Read More
Compassion, Solidarity, Care: Detroit-Area Youth Respond to the Pandemic
“Oh my god I can’t believe my teacher just . . .” “Y’all see this tweet from the superintendent?” “When’s winter break start?” “They just changed up my schedule and… Read More
Issue 28 Fall
2025
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2025
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2025
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2024
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2024
Fall
2023
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2023
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2023
Special Citizen Empowerment Issue
Fall 2022
Summer
2022
Winter/Spring
2022
Fall
2021
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2021
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2021
