“We are not free to go on as if nothing happened yesterday,” begins Nikky Finney. As South Carolina removes the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds Friday, the award-winning poet considers the road before us. “Who are we now?” she asks.

Hillary Clinton has a date with history. It was all but inevitable: The former Secretary of State officially announced her candidacy for president this week. Other hopefuls include Republican senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio. I’m stating the obvious here, but Cruz, Paul, and Rubio don’t have a real shot at winning; it will, however, be entertaining to watch them fumble all the way to wherever it is losers go when they don’t win presidential elections.

This was a year when I couldn't get away from the idea of America. Every time I turned around, something rushed at me, forcing me to consider whether, for however long we as a nation have been traveling, we've been covering real ground or merely going in circles.