“What killed my son Abboud wasn’t just an American missile fired by an Israeli pilot. What killed my son was a regime whose very existence is defined by and built on expulsion and genocide.” – Ahmed Abu Artema, co-organizer of Gaza’s Great March of Return Gaza is asking all of us: . . .
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I’m home from work, reading in bed, when Mom calls to tell me. It’s six in the evening. My boyfriend’s out with some friends of his I find exhausting. He’s often out, while I stay in. We’ve been together for almost a decade, our rituals of avoidance calcified into habit. I live . . .
Read MoreNathan McClain and Abigail Chabitnoy have selected Michael Lavers’ poem “Sun, Birds, and Leaves” from MR’s Summer 2023 issue (Vol. 64, Issue 2) for the prestigious prize. MICHAEL LAVERS is the author of After Earth and The Inextinguishable, both published by the University of Tampa Press. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, AGNI, Southwest Review, Best New Poets 2015, TriQuarterly, The Georgia Review, . . .
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I met Haya Abu Nasser in January 2024 under the auspices of We Are Not Numbers, a youth-led literary mentorship program founded in Gaza in 2015. We Are Not Numbers, or WANN as it is called by its members, pairs young Palestinians who are writing in English with international mentors. The goal is . . .
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1. CHLORIS HAS HER SAY “If it’s true, Chloris, that you love me,and I’ve heard you do love me well—”was a fresh way for you to begin.After that you lost the thread a bit,scorning ambrosia and the prospectof trading places with kings if my lovewere sure. (No kings were offering.)—from “Anti-Pastorals,” Volume . . .
Read MoreAnd pints that instantly glow,On the counter, in pyramids of crowns…—Émile Verhaeren, trans. Jacob Siefring Tripelicious is how I describeThese Belgian-style beers I imbibe.As I sip golden glow,I will rhyme and bestowApprobations with Tripel Ale vibes. 1St. Vrain is a river and beer.Lightly fruity, the latter will cheer—fully tickle the tipOf your tongue as . . .
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(Repressive State Apparatus in action 5/7/2024, FJP photo) I have been a history professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst for twenty years. On May 7, I was one of a handful of faculty members arrested for standing in support of hundreds of students who were engaged in nonviolent protest of university . . .
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A review of The Girl Before Her by Line Papin (Kaya Press, 2023) The road to the laundromat is iced all over and the wind is ruthless, blowing me back to the winter in Massachusetts, to the field of sunflowers, their eight-foot stalks almost depleted of moisture, their beehive heads bent over by snow, . . .
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Before we brush our teeth and get dressed, beforeI take two kinds of blood pressure pills and threefiber gummies, put coffee in one kind of go-cup,kale smoothie in another, get into the car, I say I wantto have one more cup of coffee in bed and read youthis Ellen Bass poem, but it’s . . .
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(Photo by Victorgrigas – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0) (An earlier version of this essay, titled “They tried to kill the truth, but it came back stronger” was published in Issue 4 (Spring 2024) of the print magazine, Discontent.) 1. Every time I’ve opened this document to continue writing, I’ve had to turn . . .
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