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1 week ago | 
thebollard.com | Al Diamon |Elizabeth Peavey |Samuel James |Leo Hylton
From Holistic Hatred to Spiritual Healing“Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor.” (Galatians 6:6, New International Version)Punishment doesn’t stop violence, it creates violence. It creates hatred. When I was handed a de facto life sentence of 50 years at age 19, it filled me with hatred. I hated myself for being capable of such extreme violence. I hated my brother-turned-codefendant for helping get me into this mess.
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1 week ago | 
thebollard.com | Al Diamon |Elizabeth Peavey |Leo Hylton |Samuel James
Fight songsIf everything seems overwhelming right now and the idea of fighting back feels impossible, please take this little note from history:When George Washington was first elected in 1789, the nation’s capital was Philadelphia. At that time, Pennsylvania had a law that freed enslaved people if they lived in the state for at least six months. Despite what you may have heard, Ol’ Georgie was a classic aristocrat.
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1 week ago | 
thebollard.com | Al Diamon |Samuel James |Leo Hylton |Elizabeth Peavey
Work in ProgressI lost someone dear to me at the end of last year. He was the lifelong partner of one of my closest friends. Each time I arrived at their home, he had one of two greetings for me: “Where ya been?” or “You again?” Much the same could be said of my recent return to print journalism after an eight-year hiatus. Where I’ve been is, well, complicated, so let’s save that for another time. But the You again? That was the question I wrestled with before deciding to come back.
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1 week ago | 
thebollard.com | Elizabeth Peavey |Samuel James |Leo Hylton |Al Diamon
The bliss of equalityThe problem with biological boys playing high school sports is even worse than Laurel Libby or Donald Trump imagined. Libby, a Republican state representative from Auburn, was censured by the Maine House of Representatives this past session for posting a photo online of a transgendered girl who had the audacity to win a high school athletic competition, thereby denying some less talented (but cis-gendered) girl a trophy.
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Mar 8, 2025 | 
thebollard.com | Elizabeth Peavey |Al Diamon |Leo Hylton |Samuel James
How the fuck we got here Have you been asking yourself reflexively every 15 minutes how the fuck we got here? Well, it’s actually pretty simple. This country is covered in a nationwide web of racist voter laws and racist voter maps that not only smother the Black vote, but wildly overvalue Republican votes. Without that advantage, our last Republican president would’ve been Dwight Eisenhower. This white supremacist advantage distorts all of our national political systems.
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Mar 8, 2025 | 
thebollard.com | Elizabeth Peavey |Samuel James |Al Diamon |Leo Hylton
Maine still needs parole“Most testimony presented by criminal justice professionals, victim advocates, and victims feels that parole should be re-established in Maine.” — Dr. Arthur Jones, renowned criminal justice and parole expertThe Maine Legislature’s last session was painful. It was the first time in my life that I engaged in political processes in any meaningful way. At 32 years of age, I poured my heart, mind and soul into the push to reestablish parole in Maine.
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Mar 8, 2025 | 
thebollard.com | Elizabeth Peavey |Samuel James |Al Diamon |Leo Hylton
The touch of strangersI came home from Brooklyn for the holidays and spent New Year’s Eve watching a ball drop in my new home on a shitty TV in my old home. Times Square is a horrible scene in the best of times: headache-inducing neon lights blazing day and night; the zombified, mutilated corpse of Elmo trying to corner you aboard a double-decker tour bus. On New Year’s, the horrors only multiply. Thousands of tourists and drunkards shout and blast vuvuzelas, cough and shove you.
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Mar 8, 2025 | 
thebollard.com | Samuel James |Al Diamon |Leo Hylton |Elizabeth Peavey
Sole SisterThe year I turned 50, I started walking. I didn’t know where I was going. In circles, mostly. I like loops. Left to my own devices, I don’t know when to stop, when to turn back. I need a loop to bring me home. When I started walking, I lived in a house with a husband near the trail that makes the 3.75-mile circle around Back Cove in Portland. He and I had been in the house for five years, but I didn’t walk.
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Feb 2, 2025 | 
thebollard.com | Phoebe Kolbert |Samuel James |Al Diamon |Leo Hylton
Me and Kiki shortly before we were almost eaten by a bear in Brownfield a few falls ago. photo/Kiki GarfieldYear 20The Bollard was born 20 winters ago as an underground publication, by which I mean literally beneath the surface of Earth. There were advantages to starting underground. It’s relatively warm down there this time of year (especially around the furnace), the beers were cheap and the landlord let us smoke.
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Jan 5, 2025 | 
thebollard.com | Leo Hylton
Concern and Hope at Maine State Prison“Therefore put on the whole armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:13, NIV)As the year draws to a close, I am realizing I haven’t been this uncertain and concerned about the future in almost 15 years.
