It’s not often (enough) that one of our own—or any poet at all—is given a nationally televised voice, even on that thin slice of broadcasting bandwidth still called “public.” And yet, the weekend prior to Obama’s second inauguration, MR contributing editor Martín Espada was invited onto Moyers & Company. For the next half . . .
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We’re thrilled to hear how folks are liking Rachel B. Glaser’s portrait of James Tate on MR’s current cover. So we thought you might like to see some of her paintings of basketball players…. You can see more of Rachel’s NBA paintings here: nbapaintings.blogspot.com Glaser is also the author of the story . . .
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A little hard to believe, but it’s already been over three years since I joined the MR team. Whatever I’ve done right during that time, of course, I owe to my colleagues, and I certainly learned more from our editor emeritus, Jules Chametzky, than anyone else. This magazine has a grand history and sets . . .
Read MoreMen do not always recognize the dangersthat beasts can sense —Nosferatu In responding to his recent Facebook post, various detractors have made Franz Wright out as a monster. I don’t entirely disagree with this characterization; I just don’t think it’s such a negative thing. Monstrous behavior sometimes . . .
Read MorePre-war literature is what you write in hopes that you won’t have to write postwar literature. The nice thing about it is that everybody is still alive. The guy who works at the corner store down the street. The guy who works at the corner store down the street in Iran too. . . .
Read MoreSometimes you just have to break the rules. Some time ago now, one of our editors heard Karen Tei Yamashita read a truly stunning piece, “Borges & I,” a work which crosses the border between essay and fiction, and between history and poetry as well. When he told the rest of us . . .
Read MoreDelivered at the January, 2012 residency of the Pacific University Brief-Residency MFA in Seaside, Oregon I hate starting my remarks this way because you’re going to think I’m an asshole. Or maybe that’s not the ideal way to phrase it. You probably already think I’m an asshole. Maybe I’m projecting . . .
Read MoreI drink to the people on duty, on the train, in hospitals,kitchens, hotels, on the radio, at the foundry,at sea, on a plane, on the highway,and to those who get past this night where no one calls,I drink to the next moon, to the pregnant girl,to people who make a promise, to . . .
Read MoreThe psychoanalyst Cathy Caruth begins her book The Wound and the Voice with a definition of trauma. Like Freud before her, Caruth finds inspiration for that definition exactly where she should – in poetry. In Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Gerusalemme liberata, she reminds us, the hero Tancredi mistakenly and unknowingly kills his beloved, the woman-warrior Clorinda, . . .
Read MoreWelcome to the new and improved Massachusetts Review Online! Through our new site, we will be bringing you more from our current issues as well as our rich archive, including readings, artwork, conversations with authors and artists, and with this, our new blog, MR Notes. We hope our readers will find here the same level . . .
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