Olivia Zhu currently resides and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to that, she graduated with a degree in Applied Mathematics-Economics from Harvard University, where she was also Publisher of the Harvard Political Review. Interests of note include predictive policing, poetry, public transportation, and (taking a break from alliteration) the science of cooking. Email: [email protected]
by Olivia Zhu As I wrote in a post back in June, reporting bias is a phenomenon that significantly detracts from the efficacy of potential predictive policing measures. Simply put, if underserved communities don’t trust the police and are less likely to report crime as a result, the resulting data is incomplete, inaccurate, and therefore…
by Olivia Zhu Every year, there comes a flood of articles regarding trends in baby names accompanied with charts and historical analyses. I’ve been tickled to see my own first name see rather significant increases popularity over the past decade or so—congratulations to my parents for being trendsetters! Yet, equally interesting—if not perhaps even more…
by Olivia Zhu A month ago, I wrote about haikus that wended their way through the Internet and found me. Really, truly—I hadn’t gone looking for them, had read them casually, and thought I might forget them. “And yet, and yet…” Chiyo-ni’s and Issa’s haikus kept nagging at me, so I looked for the translations…
by Olivia Zhu Not too long ago, I was struck by a haiku. It’s a form I know very little about, aside from what most students are taught in school about its five-seven-five syllabic structure. Moreover, I don’t read or understand Japanese, and feel very much at a loss to understand the paragons of the…
by Olivia Zhu I wrote a few months ago on May Swenson’s “Untitled,” a love poem filled with the rain of many, many beautiful images. “You have found my root you are the rain,” she says. Today, I found myself caught in a rainstorm, took shelter under a tree, but it came with such a…
by Olivia Zhu Grumbling and stumbling in the night: this is Philip Larkin’s self-introduction in “Sad Steps,” dissatisfied with his aging and driven awake by a compelling need to urinate. Over the course of the poem, however, his evident discomfort with growing old is replaced with first a burst of poetic dynamism before ending with…
by Olivia Zhu Right now, I'm somewhere in the American Southwest, surrounded by what my high school biology teacher would remind me is called a “desert chaparral.” I'm road-tripping from Austin to California, both a far cry away from the cold climes where I first encountered Monica Youn, and her second book Ignatz. As a…
by Olivia Zhu That poem pulled me to a stop. Through some gravitational mechanism or another, it drew a page to fall exactly right as I rustled through my 700-plus-page poetry textbook; it drew my eye to a blocky section unlike all the rest. I had to write about it. No, really—I had to. My…
by Olivia Zhu Predictive policing is catching the public’s attention. Interest in the topic hasn’t abated, ever since greater scrutiny, strained budgets, and racial tension have plagued police departments and the communities they are meant to protect. The Marshall Project and ProPublica, among a host of other news organizations, have published in-depth—and extremely popular—descriptions and…
by Olivia Zhu When I first get to meet Johnny B.A.N.G. Reilly, he looks tired. Really tired, leaning back away from his computer screen with most of his head cocooned tight in a sweatshirt hood. The light is wan, his hood is grey, and his famous voice is at first raspy and subdued. As quiet…
by Olivia Zhu The pale neck of John Singer Sargent’s most notorious portrait subject graces the cover of William Logan’s latest book, a collection of poetry that pays homage to the artist in its themes and style. Madame X, named after the painting, opens with two epigraphs that establish the themes of the work: the…