Summer

2025

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

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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

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

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

Dom Witten: Hair and Lineage

It’s been nine months since I’ve wanted to [ ]. I could’ve birthed a copy of myself but one night I saw my body unzip crown to heel. Thick… Read More

Fatou Sow: Art, Poetry, and Prose

Fatou Sow is a creative writer, poet, and professor with Senegalese and African American roots from Detroit, MI. Her work focuses on familial connection, self-reflection, and humanistic experiences shared across… Read More

Hank Kennedy: What’s in a Name? Stop honoring fascists and bigots in civic infrastructure.

“It used to be called Dondero.” “Yeah, I went to Dondero.” “Hey, remember Dondero?” Dondero. Dondero. Dondero. When I worked and shopped in Royal Oak, I heard that name a… Read More

Joanne Coutts: In Search of Solidarity: Reflections on a weekend of Search and Recovery in the Sonoran Desert

Introduction By April 2020, as the world grappled with the harsh reality that the COVID pandemic was not going to be over quickly and that not everyone who contracted the… Read More

Megan Douglass: Celebrating Our Roots, Cultivating Our Collective Consciousness: A Conversation with Elder Baba Simmons

Listen to the whole interview at Podcast - Riverwise Magazine Read More

Katelyn Rivas: Ecology of Migration on Detroit River

Midnight passage over water. Blushing strawberry moon. A litany of stars reflecting the deep blue story curving into my Black body. I hope to see my mother on the other… Read More

Katelyn Rivas: The Longing of Migration

When I see the bodies of Gazan children pulled out from an ocean of rubble, I often think of the humpback whale who carried her lifeless calf on her head… Read More

Mary Gagnon: Everything That Hurts

Artwork by Mary Gagnon Acrylic on birch. 4 feet by 3.5 feet. It is called "Right of return" and it depicts two sisters who, after being displaced by war into… Read More

Josmine Evans: Sassafras – A Spring Tonic for Healing

Editors Note: This is recipe #2 in a series of recipes graciously offered from the community inspired kitchen of Josmine Evans, founder of the Detroit based Indigo Culinary Co. We… Read More

Making Room for Abolition

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Laura Bailey “LB” Brandon and Charles “Buddy” Smith: The Soul of Charles Buddy Smith

Part 1: The Migrating Memory of Music Article & Inquiries by Laura Bailey “LB” Brandon Music, Poetry, & Stories by Charles “Buddy” Smith A direct link to music history in… Read More

Mary Gagnon: The Art of Remembering: A Defiant Act of Resistance

References: Clarke, K., & Yellow Bird, M. (2020). Decolonizing pathways towards integrative healing in social work. Taylor & Francis Group. ProQuest Ebook Central. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wayne/detail.action?docID=7245245 Decolonizing Pathways Towards Integrative Healing in Social… Read More

Russ Bellant: TALKING ODE TO A SNOWFLAKE

Today a beautiful snowflake flew through the sky and fell on the land that I call home. I tell it that its artful unmatched design is a gift of its… Read More

Nancy Poprafsky: UNSUITABLE

Very rarely did I see my grandpa wear a suit. He was a farmer. A farmer’s most important business was taking care of the land so he could take care… Read More

Triniti (iii): 26

"Pieces of Me" collage art by Trinity (iii) Teach me Inner technologies And circuit my mind back to Source Remind us of how we arrived dancing with light And that … Read More

Demetric Walls, aka DWallsCanTalk, aka Shabazz Shakur: Turning Pain into Pathways Through the Power of Music and M.O.T.I.V.E.

Every single person walking the earth is a music producer. It’s no coincidence that human body parts share the same name as music instruments (organs, eardrums, vocal chords, heartbeat). I… Read More

Tanya Martinez: Las Manos de Generaciones

In my piece, Las Manos de Generaciones, I aimed to express the importance of immigrant families in adapting and persevering. I was inspired by my own family and the millions… Read More

Community Win!

Community win! Congratulations, Detroit Disability Power! Read More

Tap In Times

Find your people! Read More

Katy Nightingale: Migration is an Act of Courage

Riverwise back cover Katy Nightingale (she/they) is a semi-nomadic woman of Western European immigrant descent who grew up in the Great Lakes region. On her travels she has learned from… Read More

YVAK: A Meditation on Modern Movement Organizing

Richelle Still (she/her) is a passionate young person dedicated to making a difference wherever she finds herself. As a recent graduate of the University of Miami, she is making her… Read More

Are Capitalism and Militarism Really The Hills We Want To Die On? Choosing life over death in the fight for global liberation

On June 27th, 2023, Detroiters and folks across SE Michigan woke up unable to see more than a few yards down the road and to reports that the city had… Read More

Riverwise Sacred Spaces: Concert Of Colors 2023

When She Found Me

I look out at the Atlantic. This is my view, everywhere I turn. I see it in my waking hour and something in there reminds me that… As much as… Read More

Holding Their Feet to the Fire

ShotSpotter is audio surveillance technology marketing itself as gunshot detection technology. City Council’s approval last fall of the Detroit Police Department’s (DPD) request to extend and expand ShotSpotter throughout the… Read More

Michiganders Unsatisfied with DNR “Denial” of Camp Grayling Expansion and New MOU

Photo credits to Kenny Karpov Camp Grayling is a Michigan National Guard (MNG) training center and part of the National All-Domain Warfighting Center located in Crawford, Kalkaska, and Otsego Counties.… Read More

Making and Baking A Greater Detroit Our Children Deserve

Too many Detroit children have inherited an unfortunate, unfair set of economic and educational inequities. Too often, when we speak or hear of Detroit, we hear or speak of scarcity… Read More

Say His Name: Porter Burks; Say What This Is: Genocide

I vividly remember the bodycam footage of the murder of Porter Burks in the early morning hours last October, shortly before settling into my workday as a psychiatrist who works… Read More

Cocooned and Covered

Author’s Note: Though I am not a member of the trans community, my niece and I co-created this piece about her journey of transition. We offer this story with the… Read More

NCOE Statement Opposing Transphobic, Homophobic, and Gender Violence

Image downloaded from Just Seeds https://justseeds.org/graphic/my-body-my-choice/. Visit Kill Joy and Just Seeds online to learn more and support! On Instagram @kill.joy.land, @la.onda.grafica and @justseeds “…the issues of race and class… Read More

Suicide, Violence, and Abolition

This March, thirty-four organizations in Detroit signed on to a statement in solidarity with the abolitionist #StopCopCity protests in Atlanta, denouncing the police killing of innocent people, calling to defund… 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