Bridge over the Illinois
I’m driving on highway 29 in rural Illinois. This is the Midwest. When you travel here, you drive through corn and soybean fields. You…
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Blue Bridge
Grand Rapids, Michigan (December 2015) One of the most recognizable bridges near my home is the Blue Bridge, a historic truss bridge in downtown…
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Old Downtown
Plant City, Florida (2013) Oil painting I try to mix portraiture with nostalgic pictures of old downtowns. Downtowns are becoming a thing of the…
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Paddling through history
Editor’s note: Each Thursday, we feature a throwback piece from Topology’s predecessor, catapult magazine. In this essay, Matthew Deames explores the benefits of kayaking…
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The Creek
On a fresh-washed April day 25 years ago, I sat in my car in the driveway before the brick country house that was to…
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Contested byways
Legend has it that Three Rivers, the rural city where I live, used to be a gathering place for sacred ceremonies for the indigenous…
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How to tell when it’s winter in a Michigan farmhouse
The years have a way of making technology lose its bluster. And so do the centuries. When our southern Michigan farmhouse was built, the…
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A river gone wild in the city
e live in two worlds, writes Minnesota poet Tom Hennen. The first includes “airplanes and power plants, all the machinery that surrounds us, the…
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Work the land long enough, and you become aware of the kelp-like waves of crops advancing and retreating across the face of the earth….
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Imagining community in story and soil
Editor’s note: A portion of this essay was originally published in Geez Magazine, issue 34. Photos from “Conquest of the Land Through Seven Thousand Years,” W.C….
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