One day recently, I sat down to teach my little sister, Marah, who is six years old. The lesson was about colors in English. But on the pages before us, I found that despite their names all the colors were printed in black. How will children learn the difference between colors when . . .
Read More
A review of When We Are Kin: The History and Future of Afro-Indigenous Solidarity by Kyle T. Mays. Haymarket Books, 2026. A book subtitled The History and Future of Afro-Indigenous Solidarity might be expected to open on a scene of communion. Kyle T. Mays opens instead with its breakdown. In his first pages he . . .
Read More
The robe hangs from melike a dark green riverthat has traveledthrough iron gates,through winters of counting,through the long vocabulary of restriction. And now— see how the old cathedral lightcannot help itself.It pours over my shouldersas if the morning itselfhad been waitingfor this walk. Seventy-six years oldand still the heartopening like a wildflowerthrough . . .
Read More
There will never be an endTo this droning of the surf.-Wallace Stevens, “Fabliau of Florida” Where the pelicans glide overheadAnd the whitecaps foam up like beer heads,There’s a cold one for you.Try a Florida brewBy the shore with your beach blanket spread. 1Keep this Fish Camp Pils chilled within reachFor your revelries . . .
Read More
Recently, I joined a group of volunteers who write to immigrant detainees in Otay Mesa Detention Center. A quiet kind of connection that forms when I write to someone I may never meet—someone whose world has been reduced to walls, routines, and long stretches of waiting. Writing to detainees is, on the . . .
Read More
A review of We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Robin Myers (New Directions, June 2025) We Are Green and Trembling (2025), Robin Myers’s award-winning English translation of Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s latest novel Las niñas del naranjel (2023) has already received significant international recognition, winning the 2025 National . . .
Read More
One morning, as I sat on the beach near the displacement camp where I live, I was scrolling through my phone when I came across a post about my city, Rafah. It was written in the past tense, as if the city no longer existed. I reached into my bag and touched . . .
Read More
Photo credit: Sarah Deragon Note: This is an edited transcription of an interview conducted over Zoom. The full interview, featuring more in-depth answers and back-and-forths, is available below. Gunawan reads the poem “Go Back Home” from 14:45–16:25. Tell us about your relationship to translation. My God, where do I start? I feel like . . .
Read More
Photo credit: “2015 Dron DJI Phantom 3 Advanced,” from Wikimedia Commons. I have become an expert in distinguishing the sounds of Israeli death blasts. The roar of warplanes. The relentless thump of shelling. Each day in Gaza is a new battle to navigate the different cacophonies of Israel’s massacres. But it’s the . . .
Read MoreEarly in May, we held a virtual reading with Caroline who read her award-winning poem “My Love for Geography is an Act of Mourning,” alongside other poems of hers. Introduction by MR Poetry Editor Nathan McClain.
Read More