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

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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

Abraham Paulos: The War Ant App

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

Haikus By Eric

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

Larry Sparks: Make The Past Serve the Future

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

Leslie Cieplechowicz: A Conversation with Ramiro Alvarez, Communications Director of the Detroit Disability Power

“Honestly, straight up, the biggest problem people with disabilities face is that people do not care enough. People don’t even like the word disabled. We've been called everything in the… Read More

Anjelica Jade: The Pulse of Eternal Knowledge: Memory and Mycelium

When considering memory in relation to nature, trees often come to mind. The rings inside each tree tell us exactly how long it provided the precious oxygen we need to… Read More

Dr. Hoda Amer: Palestine in Chains

Palestine In Chains is an illustrated story of survival, bravery, pain, and resilience. In this drawing, a woman sits cross-legged on the floor. She cries tears of barbed wire, symbolic… Read More

Megan Douglass: Editorial – Memory Fuels the Movement

There is a grounding exercise that I have loved ever since it was introduced to me at a National Council of Elders convening by Shea Howell, a revolutionary elder and… Read More

Tales of The Village Drummer: A Review and Reflection of the Biography Dilla Time by Dan Charnas

Book Cover: Dilla Time by Dan Charnas. Cover Art Designed by Rodrigo Corral, Illustrated by Matt Buck. Published 2022 by MCD Picador and Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York). Find… Read More

What we are reading, watching, listening to, and supporting

Community Wins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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