Bridge over the Illinois
byI’m driving on highway 29 in rural Illinois. This is the Midwest. When you travel here, you drive through corn and soybean fields. You…
history
Blue Bridge
byGrand Rapids, Michigan (December 2015) One of the most recognizable bridges near my home is the Blue Bridge, a historic truss bridge in downtown…
Old Downtown
byPlant City, Florida (2013) Oil painting I try to mix portraiture with nostalgic pictures of old downtowns. Downtowns are becoming a thing of the…
Paddling through history
byEditor’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…
The Creek
byOn a fresh-washed April day 25 years ago, I sat in my car in the driveway before the brick country house that was to…
Contested byways
byLegend has it that Three Rivers, the rural city where I live, used to be a gathering place for sacred ceremonies for the indigenous…
How to tell when it’s winter in a Michigan farmhouse
byThe years have a way of making technology lose its bluster. And so do the centuries. When our southern Michigan farmhouse was built, the…
A river gone wild in the city
bye live in two worlds, writes Minnesota poet Tom Hennen. The first includes “airplanes and power plants, all the machinery that surrounds us, the…
Time’s Trash Gyre
byWork the land long enough, and you become aware of the kelp-like waves of crops advancing and retreating across the face of the earth….
Imagining community in story and soil
byEditor’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….