Photo by Howard Romero It took time and travel to understandhow the word father sings to me in alllanguages — I want daddy, but father-abuser crossesthe notes or keys I believe have barricadedthe badness of that man. I hear father-addictin the damn silence. Of course, my whol- hearted hope had no chance, . . .
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Yesterday, blue rain fell on me. I found my hair on the pillow: lovely beige clumps,dry like distance.I remember your hands running through it. I’m on read-only access. . .—from “The Persistence of Music,” published in Winter 2016 “Words and Music” (Vol. 57, Issue 4) Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve . . .
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Our business is making musicwhite enough to covereven the deepest blues.We steal to earn our keep. . . —from “Race Music,” which appears in the Winter 2016 “Words and Music” issue (Vol. 57, Issue 4), available now. Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve writtenMy first “real poem” was sort of a . . .
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Mary Catherine Ford: Mahtem, thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. It was such an immense pleasure to read and review Fuchsia, your debut poetry collection, for World Literature Today, and then to hear you read at Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop last month. What a fabulous reading that was! I felt so privileged . . .
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“When she asks me to removemy spectacles, I am wary, feelas if she is asking me to reveala wound. The lensesa closed window betweenwhat I have seen…” —from “Portrait of José Clemente Orozco, Doris Ulmann, New York City, 1929” which appears in the Fall 2016 issue out now! (Volume 57, Issue 3). Tell . . .
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Before the end of his second month at the Gazette, Connor was told that he wore his misery too openly. “You need to hide it better,” said Sandra Cramer, the staff writer who did most of the movie, concert, and theater reviews and was also the paper’s primary fact checker, “Or else, . . .
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Handed from barbarian to barbarian The Burgundian Code saysif they pull my hair with only one handthey’re free. I carry what I own overmy ovibovine shoulders. — from “The Dark Ages” which appears in the Fall 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 3). Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve written.When . . .
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Alternative Realities (Read Part One and Two here.) JH: One of the things we’ve done in the Massachusetts Review blog—because we thought we needed to—is book reviews of other work that pretends to come out this period and this history. In particular, two novels were very successful in the US: Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife and Sara Nović’s Girl at War. About . . .
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Between Realism and Fantasy (Read Part One here.) JH: The next obvious subject is to talk about process, and how this comic came about. From an idea to an object that exists in the world, there’s a hell of a lot of work. So tell us about that. One of the things people . . .
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Remembering a Life Cut Short Jim Hicks: Probably the best place to start, since nobody in the United States is really going to know the background, would be to summarize the story of Karim Zaimović. Aleksandar Brezar: Well, it’s not a story that can be summarized. The simplest way to describe his life and . . .
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