Winter

2025

Megan Douglass: Editorial – The Dialectic of Grief and Healing

If you’ve spent any time in Detroit in the social justice world, you’ve probably heard of thinking dialectically as a way to engage with, analyze, and contend with big ideas… Read More

One Single Rose®️: Bag Lady

Bag lady, I know your shoulders are weighed down from weight of the world residing inside your bags— Pain Discrimination Racial profiling Heartache Low self-esteem... The stitching is coming apart… Read More

Perseis Skipper: Healing, healing

Healing, healing is something we all must do. if it’s for a sinking heart, or grief, maybe self reflection? I too, want to heal the inner child that is crying… Read More

Kim Redigan: On Picking Apples in a Time of Genocide

It’s one of those autumn afternoons in Michigan when October holds its breath as the brilliance reaches its fleeting peak. Bent branches drop flecked apples to the earth while leaves… Read More

Veronica Trevino: The world is coming to an end

The world always feels like its ending I have to be everywhere at once and everything feels impossible I am unprepared, a mess, and am rushing at all times I… Read More

Mary Gagnon: Deir Al-Baleh

Benjamin eats burning tents for breakfast. Smoldering and braided with decay. Soaked in the oxidized blood of children. His arteries are clogged with melted I.V. lines and the last breaths… Read More

Danielle Thompson: Disaster and Deafness: Centering Community Support And Disability Awareness in the Age of Climate Change

The World Health Organization estimates that now roughly 1.3 billion people suffer from some form of disability and warns that disability prevalence is on the rise. However, the exact statistics… Read More

Marcia Lee: 20 years of grace – a love letter to Detroit

Dear Detroit, You were my first love, my heart’s home. You have helped me to come home to myself. You have shown me, through your waterways, the way you grow… Read More

Hadassah Greensky: Indigenous Peoples Day in Detroit

Detroit, Michigan — otherwise known as Waawiyaatanong — where the curved shores meet, the area between Windsor and Detroit — along the Detroit River corridor, occupied territory of the Anishinaabek.… Read More

Jenny Teed: Charity Hicks Memorial Tree Reflection

I have deep gratitude for Hadassah Greensky for including a stop at Charity's Tree, as part of the Water Walk on Waabizii Mnising (also known as Belle Isle) as part… Read More

Kristian Davis Bailey, Feedom Freedom Growers, and Ghazzah Comrades: iamWe – A Cross-Pollination Trip from Detroit & Ghazzah to Puerto Rico

In early January, I booked a last-minute ticket to Puerto Rico with one of my closest friends and comrades - RG. At that point, RG had suffered through three months… Read More

Sacred Spaces: Boggs School 5th Grade Class

Ian Dickinson These healing works come to us from members of the 5th grade class at the James and Grace Lee Boggs School in Detroit. This November they came to… Read More

Ru Colvin: Wisdom

You ever think of how wise trees must be? Some of them have been here for hundreds of years.. can you imagine the stories they’d tell if they could talk?… Read More

Andrew Kaplowitz: Home Sick on Saturday Night

“May we all heal at the speed of land” -meital yaniv The sound of the bath running blends with the pitter patter of my fingers on the keys. A cup… Read More

Hrishika Makker: Invincible

I am broken pieces of diamond, Broken, but still shining in the dark They managed to break me To carve Words I don't want to believe onto me Switched the… Read More

Birch Kemp: An Experiment in Hope

Land. Instead of holding it back let’s give it back. What does it mean to hold land in a bank? Land Bank? What a perverse concept. However, Land Bank is… Read More

John Telford: ‘ZEITGEISTIAN WISHES THREE’

Tomas Garberding: The Emerald Dream

Lush emerald surroundings sing their tune in the morning A betrodden but comforting scene, peaceful times Soft and sensitive conversation taking place, fresh with an evoking sensitivity The trip is… Read More

Monica Isaac: George Jackson

Monica is a mixed media artist living on the eastside of Detroit. Recognizing art as a tool of education and resistance shapes my creative work. Specifically, I use Film photography… Read More

Madison Katrina Flood: Naked Like Water

Naked Like Water unlearn and remember you can swim sinuously surrender to serendipity breathe simultaneously… Read More

Joanne Coutts: Mapping Detroit Buried Waterways – Part II: Building Relationship with the Creeks

Editor’s Note: This article is part 2 of a series. Part I was published in the Fall 2023 edition of Riverwise. Read it online @bit.ly/waterwayspartone or by going to riverwisedetroit.org… Read More

Gigi Boyd: Gathering The Pieces

The night after the results came in, I sat alone, a heaviness pressing against my chest. The air felt different, colder, chauvinistic as if the sun had burned through the… Read More

© Safara Parrott: Eulogy for a Stone Fruit Tree

I woke up to find you already kissing the ground from which you were raised /blood rush and overwhelmed / I did nothing/ but let out a small earnest sigh… Read More

Josmine Evans: Collard Greens and the Politics of Resilience

Editor’s Note: As an offering to the Riverwise Community, over the next four editions we will feature a special recipe and it’s story from the community inspired kitchen of Josmine… Read More

Lauren Silver: Found Objects, Found Connections: Art As A Pathway To Healing

Ghosts, mixed-medium collage with sticks and fibers 2024 My Melody, mixed-medium fiber assemblage with found objects, dried botanicals, and feathers 2024 Nest, Self Portrait, mixed-medium, found object assemblage with mini… Read More

Gay Hergert: Tapping Away The Pain: The Healing Power of The Emotional Freedom Technique

Editor’s Note: The information provided here should not be considered as providing medical advice or a cure for any particular ailment you may be experiencing. Always consult with a medical… Read More

Safiyah Basir: Demystifying Diabetes: Ending Stigmas One Story At A Time

I’m a mom to six-year-old twin boys, balancing motherhood, my studies, and my advocacy. I believe, as I often say, “There is nothing I cannot do, I just have to… Read More

Toi Theriot: Peace Returns Home

Peace taps gently and places a toe just over the threshold... Peeking into the house as it cracks the front door... "Hellooo... hellooo... hellooo... hellooo...." It's echo resounding off the… Read More

Dain Evans: Zine – What is Eco-Grief

From a Queer Death LGBTQ+ End of Life Doula Care Warning We’re gonna get in our feelings! This zine might bring up some anxiety or depression around grief. It is meant… Read More

Care: A Revolutionary Idea for Responding to Crises

Photo by lance hicks Late one night, Grey received a call from a nurse informing him that his sibling had been forcibly injected with an antipsychotic after an altercation with… Read More

A Police Department with a City

Illustration by Amanda Matyas Israel has been called “not a country with an army, but an army with a country.” The proliferation of military equipment, tactics and culture… Read More

Confessions of a Former Cop

It’s a hard pill to swallow when you are used for bad, Trying to go against the grain but you get why people are mad. The boys in blue represent… Read More

I Tried to Join the Police Force; It Was Toxic.

There is a famous quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which goes “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” It is one that… Read More

We demand freedom for all US-held Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War!

"It is extremely essential to support our political prisoners and prisoners of war. How else do we show our appreciation for their selfless labors and sacrifice on behalf of us… Read More

There should be no exception to the promise

Slavery was supposed to have ended with the end of the Civil War and the creation and ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865. It was supposed to enshrine a… Read More

Accountability and Transparency Now! How Detroiters Can Leverage Their Right to Civilian Oversight

Civilian Oversight in Detroit Today The Detroit Board of Police Commissioners (BOPC) was established in 1974 to provide civilian oversight of the Detroit Police Department. The Office of the Chief… Read More

I don’t know your ocean, but I know our lakes

I don’t know your ocean, but I know our lakes. And I imagine the love I have for my lake is the same as you have for your ocean. I… Read More

What Happens When You Uproot a Cedar Tree?

what happens when you uproot a cedar tree? when the stories kept captive in its trunk lie dormant in the arab spring what happens when the roots have absorbed the… Read More

A Call to Social Justice Movements & Organizations: Build collective safety AND fight the carceral state and state-sanctioned violence

More info here! https://www.muslimsforjustfutures.org/blog/acalltosocialjusticemovements Read More

Creating Other Worlds: Abolition As A Portal To The Possible

Many of us are familiar with the idea of abolition from history lessons that link it with the fight to end chattel slavery in the United States. However, given this… Read More

What We’re Reading, Watching, Listening To

A Few Organizations Feeding, Fighting For, Helping to Heal Our Environment & Community

Arboretum Detroit arbdetroit.org Black To The Land Coalition blacktothelandcoalition.com Capuchin Kitchen Earthworks Urban Farm cskdetroit.org/earthworks Clean Water Campaign For Michigan michigancleanwater.org Citizen’s Resistance At Fermi 2 - https://www.shutdownfermi.org Detroit Black… Read More

Who’s Energy? Our Energy! The People’s Power Program Uplifts Activism, Advocacy And Agency in Creating Just Utility Policies

In Fall 2021, DTE Energy, which serves 2.3 million customers across Southeast Michigan, put $50,000 in dark money into the narrative campaign which helped to tank Proposal P. Proposal P,… Read More