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Introduction

WHAT, ULTIMATELY, IS the true way of this world? Our answer will depend, in no small part, on our perspective. When the hurricane hits, Shakespeare’s Ferdinand is the first to abandon ship, leaping into the foaming brine, famously crying out that “Hell is empty, / And all the devils are here.” By the play’s final scene, however, the chaos of The Tempest’s titular storm has resolved or dissolved into harmonic order, with Miranda registering her amazement before Ferdinand’s kingly father and his entourage: “How beauteous mankind is! O, brave...

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The Offering

by Mónica Crespo, translated by D. P. Snyder

Audio:

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Broadsides

2024 Winner of the Anne Halley Poetry Prize

Congratulations to MICHAEL LAVERS, winner of this year's Anne Halley Poetry Prize!

Nathan McClain and Abigail Chabitnoy have selected Michael Lavers' poem "Sun, Birds, and Leaves" from MR's Summer 2023 issue (Vol. 64, Issue 2) for the prestigious prize.

MICHAEL LAVERS is the author of After Earth and The Inextinguishable, both published by the University of Tampa Press. His poems have appeared in ...


MR Jukebox

 

Curated playlist of music that inspired our 2024 Fall artist, Mike Ousley, as he created the artwork featured within our issue:

"Wildcat & Snake"
Brushy Fork of St. John’s Creek By Daniel Sherrill

"Night Train"
Old Train by the Tony Rice Unit

"Company Town"
Sally Ann by Dirk Powell

"Cults Are Fun"
Little Things by Adrian Berenguer

"Come With Me"
Hainted Ground by Pete Kosky

"Star Crossed Lovers"
Free Bird by Lynrd Skynrd

"When Brother Willie Prater got Drunk and Preached on Hell"
Cousin Sally Brown by Dirk Powell

Accompanied Invitation to Art Show, December 2023
Bonaparte’s Retreat by Bruce Molsky

“We are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest [...] the teachings of Thoreau are alive today, indeed, they are more alive today than ever before.”

—REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. (MR 4.1, Autumn 1962)

From the Blog

Reviews

The Songwriter as Poet. A Conversation with Phil Elverum
(Part One)

- By Jon Hoel, with Phil Elverum

Poems are songs, songs are poems. This dictum may infuriate anyone who has ever penned an editorial on Leonard Cohen’s songs or anyone who was irate when the Nobel committee declared Bob Dylan was literature. Those familiar with the history of songwriting, however, might be inclined to agree with such an equation, knowing their shared origin points.

Anyone presented with a songwriter such as Phil Elverum—who under the moniker Mount Eerie (and The Microphones before that), has been making some of the best music of the last few decades—would be compelled to do so....


Justice for Palestine

Who Are Universities For?

- By Leyla Moushabeck

Around midnight on May 7, 2024, I was arrested on the UMass campus alongside over 130 students, faculty and fellow community members. Up until the moment of my arrest, I’d been sitting on the ground, singing protest songs and sharing out granola bars with friends and colleagues, a “Ceasefire Now” banner draped across our legs.

I joined the student-led protest to pressure the UMass administration to disclose and divest from companies profiting from the sale of weapons used in the US-backed Israeli war on Palestine, an act that violates both...


Working Titles Excerpts

The Quicksands of Toyne (Working Title 9.1)

- By Written and Illustrated by Michael Dahlie

A Death in Toyne

In the summer of 1974 I watched an elderly man drag a wooden deck chair onto the beach just north of Toyne. He was from the area, I’d seen him before, so I didn’t bother to warn him that the place where he finally chose to stop and sit was near a limestone shelf that made the tidal pools dangerous. Apparently there’d long been a problem with fluvial peat mixing in the water just east of the beach, and the sand could turn almost to mud as the tide came in.

It was not until two hours later, when I was returning to the cottage I’d been renting, that I realized that I ought to have said something to the man—someone I now know to be named Timothy Llewelyn. There were nearly fifteen men standing hand in hand, forming...


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October 2024 Contributor Publications

- By Staff

Tess Lewis’s translation of Lutz Seiler’s Star 111 was released by New York Review Books. Tess Lewis’ translation work was published in our Summer 2020 issue.

Yuliia Iliukha released her novel, My Women, with the help of translator, Hanna Leliv. An excerpt of this novel is featured in our Fall 2024 issue.

Run with The Wind is Yui Kajita’s latest translation work. Kajita’s translation of several  was in our Fall 2024 issue.

Jolana Insana's poetry...



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