Engage with Words

Residency Test at the Ore Dock I no longer stop when the chutes shudder and lower. I don’t turn when I hear the pellets bang and race to the cargo hold. I’m not mesmerized as the ship unzips the seam between Superior and the sky but at night when the freighter lights flow between two wells of darkness I cannot look away. ...

The first rays of sunlight shine through the treesand the autumn air blooms with the scentof fallen leaves and morning dew.I breathe in the crisp air and wonder,a droplet softly kisses my nose.Is it real, or did I imagine it?Slowly, the sky becomes alight withan army of crystalline soldiersand the witch season comes to a ...

From 7-years-old, good girl, you were told,be good for the nanny, be good for your teachers…Being good was a choice—Good girl. Be a good girl—I’ll be right back, she says.She knows it’s a choice you will always choose.Being good means nothing if it is just a word—Good girl. You enter a new world, filled with people willing ...

Dance round the vice in silence. Prick your heartwith the broken record stylus, let itbleed out and boil, up to your chest, your brain. It’s slow, no thought to panic, just writhingin unease. Blood into a steaming pool,enduring the ancient dance, elusive. Unpredictable—you can’t look away. The vice is near and tradition follows,and for reasons of the heart, ...

It was your choice—all you wantedwas more, trading welfare for a point.All we wanted was to be loved. You’ll never see how hard we try. No one asks for a sky filled with violence,families dying, the world blindto our youth’s pain, blind to our cries. I see no reason to explain it to you further

Three Springs Up where forests have pushed back through fences, belief comes more easily, comes sometimes, for us, despite all our learning, even as it comes for that man we both love. Remember the day he took us away from the lake, from the roads, far into a valley, fern-covered and filled with the high calls of warblers ready to mate. Remember and this might help you when, shaking, you stand ...

LAKE SUPERIOR Under my hand, a stone bear in nesting circles carved by ancestors, behind me, the walking woods at dusk, feather and fur, the little stone, moss, and mushroom people— we all still and hush to look and listen. Beyond the barrier islands and reefs, where the sun sets blood red and thunderhead brew black and quickening, the abyssal heartbeat spirits deep within ...

Christopher Schmidt is graphic designer and digital illustrator based in Houghton, Michigan. An avid cyclist and Nordic skier, he often draws inspiration for his work from the sights and scenes he  encounters while exploring Michigan’s Keweenaw peninsula. Though trained in geophysics, he was led astray by his love of graphic design discovered in college out ...

Aanakwadoon / Wind Water  Waabmiimii ge ogijise waasechiganaatigong bizhibaamiigwanetaad mikwam-inaanzoyan bikwagondang miinikaanensan oshkaabewisiwiyan mii miinawaa gikendaman ezhi-epogwag aanakwadoon. Rock dove as you land on the windowsill a splash of feathers the color of ice a throat full of seeds bearer-of-messages you know the taste of water in the wind. Artwork by Christopher Schmidt About Margaret Margaret O’Donnell Noodin Margaret O’Donnell Noodin is Professor of English and American Indian studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. She ...

This Cathedral          Isle Royale National Park, 2017 where the waves shush agates, where ungulates clip moss, where falcons smirk from lichen ...