“Despite the superficial tinkering [of the revisions in the Norton English], which, as suggested, is justified by a marketing rationale rather than a literary one, what lingers on is the general incapacity of the Norton English to really step out of mainstream Anglo-American critical paradigms.” —From “The Nortoning of Nagra,” Summer 2019 (Vol. 60, Issue . . .
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“If Amiri Baraka had never published anything but Blues People, he would still be an important cultural critic. The appearance of the book in 1963 is a plausible beginning for when and where cultural studies began in the United States, a starting point that, in fact, antedates the founding of the Centre for Cultural . . .
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Having risen from a branch of the Ni Riverduring a lull in the Battle of Spotsylvania,she settled on the blue upper lip of a deadConfederate corporal, weary. . . .—from “The Mayfly: May 12, 1864,” Volume 60, Issue 1 (Spring 2019) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.The first “serious” . . .
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Begone deadpanmother into stones arranged like a skeleton,begone fatherly blades that scotch my greening. . . —from “Ballad of the Wild,” Volume 60, Issue 1 (Spring 2019) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.Most of my first successful (sort of) poems I wrote in the MFA program at UMass . . .
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They said dragoon and sconce and prithee thenand cursed not their work—rock-hauling, hog-murdering, thatch-gathering,even as it stiffened their fingers, wrenched legs into question marks.—from “What Is the Cause That the Former Days Were Better Than These?”, Spring 2019 (Vol. 60, Issue 1) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.My . . .
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A god, speaking to anyonewho wants to listen, paints apartthis person from that limb, this ceilingfrom that sky, this mouth inside a child’s mouthlike those TV puppets that scaredme, sitting wood-jaw & vertebra upright in the lap.—from “The Neighbor’s Dog Would Not Stop Barking”, Spring 2019 (Vol. 60, Issue 1) Tell us . . .
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“My father calls in tears to tell me that two burly paramedics have just wrestled my mother to the ground, strapped her into a straitjacket, and forced her inside an ambulance. I am, in this moment, on a meditation retreat. Never in my life have I gone on a meditation retreat. And . . .
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“Emma has only ever seen him in dreams, which is strange because she read somewhere that the human brain can’t create new faces; it just pulls from the features of strangers. But she would’ve remembered his face if she’d ever seen it on a human: eyes that protrude from their sockets; thick . . .
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Today a man pressed a pillowover his 7-month-old son’s face,then strangled the baby’s mother(who was also his 16-year-old daughter),called his mother, confessed,then drove out into the woods and shothimself in the cab of his pickup.—from “Quills”, Spring 2019 (Vol. 60, Issue 1) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.One . . .
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“A few years back, I took my daughter and her best friend apple picking in central Massachusetts, where we enjoyed a picture-perfect early fall afternoon. It was the kind of day that shouts NEW ENGLAND—slightly cool temperatures, glorious foliage, and apples waiting to be picked. Our timing could not have been more . . .
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