The Next Best Thing

The Promissory Note and Notes on Jacob Lawrence’s “The Architect, 1959”

The Promissory Note and Notes on Jacob Lawrence’s “The Architect, 1959”

Photo: Photograph of Jacob Lawrence, Carl Van Van Vechten, Courtesy of the Library of Congress In the summer of 1941, A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, called for a march on Washington to draw attention to the exclusion of African Americans from positions in the national defense industry, . . .

Read More
From Shining Pearl to Shining Sea

From Shining Pearl to Shining Sea

A Transnational View of Hong Kong  Before I introduce our speaker this evening, I have a lot of thanks to give to those who supported and made this event possible. Thanks to Hampshire College Eqbal Ahmad Endowed Lecture Fund, the Ethics and Common Good Project, and the Creative Writing Program. Thanks to . . .

Read More
New Release: And There Will Be Singing

New Release: And There Will Be Singing

“And there will be singing”: An Anthology of International WritingEdited by Jim Hicks, Ellen Doré Watson, and Q. M. Zhang 6×9 paper, 312 pages, $24.95, November 2019ISBN: : 978-1-943902-14-9 In celebration of our landmark 60th anniversary, the Massachusetts Review presents a collection of the best contemporary and emerging international writers and writers in translation, . . .

Read More
Even a Number

Even a Number

Danilo De Marco is a photographer who still works with film, in black and white, and then goes into the darkroom to develop and print, under the glow of a red light bulb. He says digitalization erases the texture of his images. One of his recent exhibitions in Udine displayed a collection . . .

Read More
The No Nobel

The No Nobel

For many of us with literary interests, the end of October’s first week coincides not only with the beginning of baseball playoffs but also with the announcement of the Nobel Prize for Literature. The weeks preceding the announcement see statements of preference and prediction, and the oddsmakers at Ladbroke’s even handicap the . . .

Read More
The Elephant’s Memory

The Elephant’s Memory

Photo by Getty Images. Scientific American, December 2017.  In the north the skies will start to close in. The clouds will thicken—a cover sealed shut. Even bombing won’t make them open. Daily temperatures will fall, the earth will freeze, become barren. The skies will be dark, even at noon during the summer solstice. Citicombs . . .

Read More
Pinsky at the Poetry Center

Pinsky at the Poetry Center

Some unfortunates among you might know Robert Pinsky from one of two contexts. Perhaps you caught the Simpsons episode in which Lisa masquerades as a precocious college student, an episode in which Robert Pinsky, as “Robert Pinsky,” makes a memorable appearance. Where Jasper Johns, in his guest shot on the show, gets only the . . .

Read More
Listening to Mary

Listening to Mary

Early on, in the 1985 film that arguably inaugurated Jean-Luc Godard’s late-period work, we watch, for much longer than we expect to, a single person on a crowded sidewalk. Our view, or that of the camera, is from a nearby rooftop—surveillance in an etymological sense. At a certain point as I recall, . . .

Read More
The Next Best Thing: Christine Vachon

The Next Best Thing: Christine Vachon

Editor’s Note: This post inaugurates a new MR blog series, where we share online introductions given at guest appearances by some of our favorite speakers, writers, artists, and thinkers. Intros are, by definition, ephemeral, but that doesn’t mean they always should be. You’ve all heard great ones, the sort that don’t try to . . .

Read More
Resistance in Fiction

Resistance in Fiction

Though I’ve been at it for a few years now, editing this magazine still is full of surprises, and nearly all are pleasant. Finding new work you really love, and getting to correspond with—or even meet in person—the writer of that work is, of course, best of all. At the annual AWP . . .

Read More

Search the Site


Search the Archives

Sign up to stay in touch

Get the latest news and publications from MR delivered to your inbox.