This Poet Slams the Competition. Is Broadway Next?

Hands clasped, Mecca Verdell paces slowly under the park’s fluorescent street lights. Night has fallen in Baltimore. Firm and commanding, she launches — from zero to 60 — into the combative opening lines of “Petty,” a poem that unpacks her complicated relationship with her father. Eyes wide, her voice drips with sarcasm as notes of […]

How (and why) a London poet who never shot a gun came to lead Defense Distributed

Enlarge / Paloma Heindorff (center) in Austin, announcing herself as the new head of Defense Distributed. (Attorneys Josh Blackman, left, and Chad Flores, right, joined her to field questions about the company’s legal efforts against various states’ attorneys general.) (credit: Nathan Mattise) Prior to 2015, Paloma Heindorff had never even shot a gun. But last […]

How a Young Poet Is Nurturing Empathy … With Virtual Reality

In this occasional series, OZY takes to streets and neighborhoods across the globe to ask a simple question: “How was your day?” Amanda Gorman, 19-year-old sociology major at HarvardNew York City It was a really big whirlwind. There’s a line from Hamilton: In the eye of a hurricane, there is quiet for just a moment. […]