Poems / June 10, 2025

Optimal Stopping

Devon Walker-Figueroa
Devon Walker-Figueroa

More from The Nation

Larry McMurtry, 1978.

Larry McMurtry’s Tall Tales Larry McMurtry’s Tall Tales

By questioning the myth of the cowboy, he offered a different kind of legend, one more suited to this country and its contradictions.

Books & the Arts / Gus O’Connor

The Strange Afterlife of Confederate Monuments

The Strange Afterlife of Confederate Monuments The Strange Afterlife of Confederate Monuments

“Monuments” an exhibition in Los Angeles, interrogates the changing meanings of Civil War-era statues and their ability to shape historical narrative.

Books & the Arts / Pujan Karambeigi

A Bundist march on May Day in Poland, 1930.

The Enduring Lessons of the Jewish Bund The Enduring Lessons of the Jewish Bund

A conversation with Molly Crabapple about “Here Where We Live Is Our Country,” her history of Bundism, and what we can learn from their socialist and anti-Zionist example.

Books & the Arts / Ishan Desai-Geller

Byron Allen speaks at an upfront presentation for his eponymous media company at a 2023 conference in New York.

Waging a Culture War by Promoting Comedic Mediocrity Waging a Culture War by Promoting Comedic Mediocrity

The Ellison family, poised to continue dominating the media landscape with its Warner deal, signs on an infomercial-grade comic to replace Stephen Colbert.

Ben Schwartz

Jamaica Kincaid in Toronto.

The Worlds of Jamaica Kincaid The Worlds of Jamaica Kincaid

Memory pervades a new collection of nonfiction, and so do the ghosts of empire.

Books & the Arts / Edna Bonhomme