Samuel James

2 weeks ago | thebollard.com | Al Diamon |Samuel James |Jessie Banhazl |Sara Hogan

Border CrossingI’m standing on the side of the road, talking with my neighbor Chester (not his real name) about the porcupine that had been in that very spot for several days but is now gone. “Smelled it before you saw it,” he says. A period of silence follows. I’ve learned not to rush these conversations. They’re fragile things, and one wrong word or move can shatter them. We both gaze at the greasy smudge where the critter met its fate.

1 month ago | 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.

1 month ago | 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.

1 month ago | 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.

1 month ago | 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.