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Continue reading →: Workers of the World Unite: Notes From a Volunteer Diaper-Packing Shift
I recently did some volunteer work — a two-and-a-half-hour shift where a mix of volunteers and staff sorted food, diapers, feminine products, and other basic necessities, preparing them for drop-off or pick-up. My job was to pack 16 to 18 diapers (depending on the size) into plastic shopping bags.
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Continue reading →: I tried my first open micLast night was the 31st anniversary of my first underage consumption, there on a gravel road south of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where I grew up. The cops came from two directions, pinned us down between two corn fields. Someone ratted. My dad had to come pick me up. He…
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Continue reading →: Suggested copy edits to the American DreamI have just a few edits and comments for your consideration.
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Continue reading →: Four poems on a Saturday morning
Some poetry lately, placed in order of most to least favored (by me).
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Continue reading →: Wear a helmetMy dad is giving me his motorcycle. Or rather, one of his motorcycles, with another going to my brother. At 79, he was riding it and tore a rotator cuff when it tipped over at a stoplight and he didn’t have the strength to hold it up. Instead, he tried…
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Continue reading →: Risk it all. Be extraordinary (aka The tulip tree)In the front yard of my home is a tree I call the tulip tree. It’s a yellow bird magnolia, and for a brief moment in the spring, each blossom turns into what looks like a yellow tulip. It might last a few days, maybe a week or more depending…
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Continue reading →: Risk taking and the coffin on the horizonA few months ago I signed up for a daily “newsletter.” This guy, this poet George Bilgere emails a poem he loves and then says a few words about why he picked it. And so every day for months now I’ve started each day with a poem, and besides dogs,…
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Continue reading →: Girlfriend PrayerI am not a prayerful man, though I have offered up prayers in the past with some inconsistency. I am not a believer. But lord, I need a girlfriend, and haven’t I done the time? Help me with this, oh lord, to find love and the support of someone who…
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Continue reading →: Ibuprofrend (to be performed as late 70s rap song)*Let me introduce you to my friend IbuprofenHe makes the pain say now C’mon let’s get go-ingRound pill, oval, oblong, liquid gelGet yourself a brown candy-coated pill to be feelin well (chorus)16 pills every 24 hoursWatch out for them kidneys man they gettin devouredAin’t no time to be stoppinDon’t forget…
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Continue reading →: The first shorts dayIt is in the early days of springWhen a snowfall isn’t yet out of the questionWhen the boulevards and gutters reveal winter’s trash collection An unexpected 70 degrees and the quiet sun in a cloudless sky This is the first day that a reasonable person would wear shorts This is…
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Continue reading →: A Pile of YesesI’d originally written the following poem as a paragraph, with all its commas and periods and other detritus. It was about my time camping in Northern Minnesota a year or two ago in the fall alongside a quiet lake with just three camping spots (no water, no electricity) down a…
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Continue reading →: To not to be – Monkeys & AIKnowing that the monkeys might someday write ShakespeareWe wisely took the typewriters away from themRestricted their potassium in precautionAnd set them free from their cages Gleefully slipping upon their way They howledThe ribbons of ink trailing behind them Now ours alone In which to celebrate and despair And so stained, our fingerprints remain…
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Continue reading →: Inbox Zero and Banjo DreamsGood morning. Today is Saturday, February 21. I’ve decided I’m not going to post about politics here, at least not often. It’s not what a lot of you signed up for. That said, I’m still going to write on social and political issues over on my Substack if you want…
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Continue reading →: Poem for the Puppy BowlIn honor of that greatest of bowl games, a poem written by a dog Dog Poetry I want to be pet and snack snacksI want to chew and to napI want to howl and barkAnd take a walk at the parkand oh, what a larkI love you If you want…
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Continue reading →: An ‘outcome based’ action by CEOs to make Minnesota and its people wholeI’ve long been of the mind that my own soul is derived from within me, has been and continues to be written—and revised—on a daily basis, by my own hand and my own actions. Each of us is every day given an opportunity to write that soul story, which I…
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Continue reading →: A rising tide lifts all yachts
There are a lot of people doing good out there right now, but not who you’d expect. Look in the mirror and you might see one. The writing I’ve always most identified with has been writing that originates in and is guided by the heart, writing that feels like the…
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Continue reading →: If you have been on the sidelines, we sideliners are exactly the people who can change the tide on ICE
A dozen years ago, I posted a picture on Facebook of two city workers in safety vests using blowtorches to heat asphalt for pothole repairs on the streets of Minneapolis, streets that crack and heave in the frigid winter temperatures in a never ending battle against mother nature. This year,…
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Continue reading →: Rotisserie coffins at Costco
Costco rotisserie coffinFor some reason Costco takes only Visa For goods from a goat to six pizzas You can pay them in cash But who has such a stashFor a coffin and 10 pounds of cheese, unh I was at Costco the other day, and yes, they do have entire goats in the…
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Continue reading →: Not a good sign, but a signFirst, the most important part of this piece is at the end. Go there now. Second, last weekend at Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis, I attended the protest/memorial for Renee Good who was murdered by the United States government in Minneapolis. It was my third time protesting in my 48 years,…
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Continue reading →: Resolution
I am tired of being a striving person For whom I am never enough I want to be a person for whom Just me is good enough For happiness, I am told Is something to be pursuedBut nearing 50 years I ask Just who is chasing whom? And so in 2026 I think that I shall…
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Continue reading →: 2025: Year of the Adam?As 2026 rolls in, you will never be the you that you were before you left for wherever it was that you went. 2025 was not, overall, a terrible year for me, though I know that it has been for so many. One of the benefits of keeping a blog…
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Continue reading →: Please, put me in your willI’m on a text thread with about eight good friends and I recently messaged them that if they could each put me in their will, I think I’d be able to accomplish great things once they pass away. I’ve let them all know before that I’m pretty sure I’ll outlive…
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Hi. I’m Adam Overland, a writer based in Minneapolis. These are the meanderings of my muddled mind. I’ve written humor columns for various print publications, so naturally that’s dead and here I am, waiting for the last gasp.
