A Review of The Singularity by Balsam Karam, Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel (Feminist Press, January 2024) Split into three parts, all formally different, Balsam Karam, in The Singularity, writes a lyrical, moving, formally inventive narrative of motherhood in the wake of loss—of child, of home, of self. In the first part, a mother . . .
Read More
A Review of Myriam J.A. Chancy, Harvesting Haiti. Reflections on Unnatural Disasters. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2023. If I weren’t invariably late with everything, this review would have been posted at 4:53 p.m. yesterday, January 12, 2023. Like most events that break time and begin a new calendar for some portion . . .
Read More
A Review of After World by Debbie Urbanski (Simon & Schuster, 2023) Artificial Intelligence is the narrator is Debbie Urbanski’s novel After World—a relevant theme since the debut of Chat GPT in late 2022 and the broadening discourse about AI in writing. Urbanski’s consideration of AI predates the controversies over students using . . .
Read MoreLike liquid gold the wheat-field lies,A marvel of yellow and russet and green…—Hamlin Garland ‘Twas Demeter that gave the world wheat;And Triptolemus took to his feetTo bring grains to us all.They enrich beers for Fall,As autumnal observance completes. 1.This Floridian Wheat Beer is lightWith a citrusy sweetness that bright-ens refreshing mouthfeel.It’s an ale that’s . . .
Read More
At long last, I’m finally sitting down to write a piece that I promised ages ago. This will be an admittedly partisan review, responding to the latest book by Tabish Khair, who is both a friend and on the MR masthead. Yet, given that it’s Hallowe’en today, on several levels it does seem the . . .
Read More
A Review of Divine Blue Light (for John Coltrane) by Will Alexander (City Lights (Pocket Poets Series, 63), 2022) Some poets, the best among them, make you learn to read their work. Sure, some structures and narratives inform their poems, but these are not familiar ones (the pentameter line, the regular stanza, the myths . . .
Read MoreI hear you’re having a sober October?That option, for me, is a Noper.But for you I’ve pursuedAn assortment of brewsSo your boozeless pursuits can be proper. 1.Translucent, refreshing, and lightIs this Upside Dawn Golden. So bright-ly concocted it zipsAs it passes your lipsWith a fizz on your tongue that delights. 2.Just the Haze is . . .
Read More
Fossilized ammonite mollusk. Photo by Adrien Vieriu Calvino fa la conchiglia [Calvino/Italo Calvinomakes/does/imitatesa/theseashell/shell/spirals] La costruzione di uno scrittore [The making/building/construction of a writer] Editor’s note: To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Italo Calvino on October 15, 2023, the journal California Italian Studies has published a special issue, edited by Anna Botta and Lucia . . .
Read More
A Review of House Parties by Lynn Levin (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023) Lynn Levin’s debut collection of short fiction, House Parties, offers the wisdom and humor of a keen eye and a kind heart. An accomplished poet, Levin, author of five collections of her own poetry and one volume of translation, also writes beautiful prose so . . .
Read More
A Review of The Sea Elephants by Shastri Akella (Flatiron Books, 2023) “Once upon a time,” reads sixteen-year-old protagonist Shagun in a book of Hindu myths at the outset of Shastri Akella’s earnest and aching debut novel, The Sea Elephants, “the gods took away the first ancestor of the sea elephants, coveting him for his . . .
Read More