Blog / Interviews

10 Questions for Michael Lavers

November 12, 2018 - By Abby MacGregor

Tonight, even the frogs
are out there, discoursing to darkness,
regurgitating air, getting it said.
They too are turning the embarrassing
necessities of flesh into a kind of music,
they too are instruments of the invisible,
some unpleased power that would settle
for limp skin just to preserve itself.
—from "All This Fiddle", Fall 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 3)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
From the vast miasmal swamp of early, and less early (and very current) failures, no one piece stands out in my mind as particularly significant or transitional. Just the common and unavoidable process (still on-going) of playing dress-up in other peoples clothes, to usually disastrous results....

10 Questions for Devon Miller-Duggan

November 7, 2018 - By Abby MacGregor

 1. Discuss: The Greeks said it all:

As with thyme—the scent of Greeks speaking Time,
breathing thyme, which grows even
when walked upon. On its own, spreads.
—from "The Test: Western Civilization", Fall 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 3)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
My 4^th grade teacher had E. E. Cumming’s “[in Just-]” on one of the bulletin boards. That was the first time I’d...

10 Questions for Christopher Kondrich

November 5, 2018 - By

Your back is your voice it speaks volumes.
It is telling me I cannot see what I hear coming from in front of you.
From in front of the circle of backs yours is a part of.
What is happening?
Is there a body?
Is it attached to these sounds of a body in pain?
—from “Ownership of Sight”, Fall 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 3)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
The first poem I...

10 Questions for Emma Bolden

November 1, 2018 - By Abby MacGregor

He could never trust a thing, he says,
that bleeds for seven days and doesn’t
die. Ha. Just a joke, he says. Lighten up.
Ha. By this red he tries to read me right
between the eyes.
—from “Portrait of the Woman as Blood”, Fall 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 3)

Tell us...

Interview with Ntozake Shange

October 29, 2018 - By

This interview took place on the telephone on December 22, 1986. Originally published in the Winter 1987 (Vol. 28, no. 4) issue of the Massachusetts Review.

BRENDA LYONS: Colored Girls raised a furor in the 70s. In addition to much acclaim and many awards, you were attacked as a traitor to your race and put down as a writer and a black woman. Reflecting on that reaction now, ten years later, how do you feel about having been positioned as an angry young black feminist?

NTOZAKE SHANGE: I think it's O.K. to have been what I was. I'm not sure that I'm still not.

BL: Has it affected your writing?

NS: I think on a...