Massachusetts Review
“What little that’s rooted must arise.Like, who plants in cups except kids? Enter the forest. The forest will eat you,men in balaclavas who haven’t read Marx. And so on, including the starry skies.You’ve seen a sieve? Explosions unto mesh…“–from “Vegetables” which appears in the Fall 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 3). What . . .
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The earth too is a magic coach, my dear,look at the flocks of elves that pull itdown dark virgin forests of the universe,and a witch or two, it’s known, would like to diverge itinto a coy ditch, in a passionate embrace.—from “Mozart’s Magic Coach” which appears in the Winter 2016 issue (Volume . . .
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“The flute, the sackbut, the dulcimerin the rooms of the dying. The harp,the cornet, the psaltery. The look…”—from “Music from a Farther Room” which appears in the Winter 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 4). Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve written I remember being twenty-one or twenty-two and writing . . .
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“these hands, their roughness if you tell me what to swallow, I’ll do it sheathed in ice, brittle as glassanother kind of groping in the dark a blue note fills the room climb on top, again and again…” —from “Goldberg Variations” which appears in the Winter 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 4). Tell . . .
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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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