Natascha Bruce’s translation of Can Xue’s novella, Mystery Train, is out now from Sublunary Editions. Bruce’s translation of Samwai Lam appeared in our Fall 2022 issue. Sweet Movie, Alisha Dietzman’s National Poetry Series-winning collection, was published by Beacon Press. One of the poems in the collection, “Love Poem without Light,” was published in our . . .
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Excerpt from The New Bicycle. Forthcoming from Clavis Publishing, 24 pp., November 2023. Recently Daniel Barenboim, the Israeli conductor, stated that, “Music is one way to bring people together—we are all equal human beings who deserve peace, freedom, and happiness.” Of course, we could say not only music, but all of the arts. Dialectically . . .
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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 . . .
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Teeth marks are found in the back of a cop car.Cymbals clang on too-hot grits. My mental chatter is at the speed of rabbits thumping.Asphalt tapes the blood spill. A gold tooth crater smiles into . . .
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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 . . .
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Introduction from Abla AbdelhadiAll support for my people in Gaza under the genocidal Zionist campaign is important. But this statement is especially meaningful to me as a Palestinian Jordanian feminist. It demonstrates to Arab societies that while Arab leaders spout empty statements of “solidarity” with Gaza, it is the people of the . . .
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 . . .
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Crete Senesi. Photo by Gunther Tschuch, 2008 (Earth Primer #5) I don’t know why I ended up with soil as my specialization. I could tell myself it was a matter of chance, since that rendezvous seems to have happened on its own, not as an act of will: I did nothing to bring . . .
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I’ve checked the box acknowledging that, whatever happens,it won’t be your fault—that my insurance policy will covereverything, except what actually breaks, that you are not responsiblefor any data corruption, any mistakes in my bloodwork results,that your mammogram can only detect so much.—from “Poem in Which I Read the Terms and Conditions,” Volume . . .
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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 . . .
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