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10+ Questions for Ahmad Almallah

10+ Questions for Ahmad Almallah

What does it mean to be a poet, another “Homer”going home? Trying to find one?Is it time to prepare?—from “Loose Strings,” Volume 65, Issue 4 (Winter 2024) What role does language play in resisting colonialism and precipitating and precipitating? How does your piece engage with this question?Language is the steppingstone to any . . .

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10 Questions for Anna Leahy

10 Questions for Anna Leahy

When sagebrush sprouts from rhizome, growingitself from itself, this pungent shrubhas a far fairer shot at survival—from “Artemisia Tridentata,” Volume 66, Issue 1 (Spring 2025) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.I wrote a haiku about a hamburger in fourth grade that was read on the radio. I really . . .

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“I understand now”: Aria Aber’s Good Girl and Maternal Recognition

“I understand now”: Aria Aber’s Good Girl and Maternal Recognition

A Review of Aria Aber’s Good Girl (Hogarth 2025) “I wanted to take pictures, I thought, because exile made my parents’ lives a mystery to me. I wanted to archive my life, to have irrefutable testimony,” says Nila, the protagonist of Aria Aber’s debut novel, Good Girl. Good Girl tracks the artistic . . .

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Oxford Union President on the Israel-Palestine Debate

Oxford Union President on the Israel-Palestine Debate

Photo credit: Oxford Union In my final week as President of the Oxford Union, former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf – the first Muslim to hold the office – began his address in the House Chamber to me with these words: “You’ve not had the easiest time as president, and I’m saying . . .

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Thank You for Not Leaving Us All Alone

Thank You for Not Leaving Us All Alone

Deported Venezuelan soccer player, Jerce Reyes Barrios with his older daughter Carla and baby Isabella. (All photos courtesy of his family) On a recent evening, I sat in the San Diego office of immigration attorney Linette Tobin. Her two- year-old pug, Cujo, played at our feet. I waited for her to make a FaceTime . . .

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An Open Letter from Student Activist Mahmoud Khalil

An Open Letter from Student Activist Mahmoud Khalil

Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/SWinxy. This letter was dictated by Mahmoud Khalil from ICE Detention in Louisiana to his lawyer over the phone. My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and . . .

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10 Questions for Hanna Leliv

10 Questions for Hanna Leliv

The woman who was once caught by the air raid siren while she was taking a bath was most afraid of dying like that—without her panties, naked, with wet hair and hairy legs;      afraid that the first responders who would pull her from the rubble would see her white body with . . .

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10 Questions for Chelsea Dingman

10 Questions for Chelsea Dingman

My father died in a car accident in a blizzard when I was nine. The next winter, my mother took my brothers and I to the Baja, where we camped on the beach for a month or so. My fifth-grade teacher tasked me with keeping a journal while I was gone.

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The Last Song of the World

The Last Song of the World

A Review of Joseph Fasano’s The Last Song of the World (BOA Editions, 2024) Like a deep breath, like a flower that blooms against the relentless elements of an inhospitable season, Joseph Fasano’s The Last Song of the World begins with “Sudden Hymn in Winter,” a short but powerful poem, functioning almost as the collection’s own . . .

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10 Questions for Marissa Davis

10 Questions for Marissa Davis

This morning, something in my doubt dissolves.The footprint or the transparency of floors.The wells open up. Sometimes, the wells close again.The added materials haven’t allowed the decision anything.Footsteps must swell, take up bone. The wells must rise.—from Marissa Davis’ translation of Stéphanie Ferrat’s “Skyside” Volume 65, Issue 3 (Fall 2024) Tell us . . .

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