Lifting the Page: Lesson Plans from MQR’s Anniversary Issue
A poet is a time mechanic not an embalmer.
Winter 2021: Celebrating 60 Years
Pins
Nye flawlessly writes about the power in prayer, in letting go of rage and the past, that by the end of the poem, we are left thinking of our loved ones and what we’ve learned from them – and how that knowledge lives in our bodies.
Shrinking the Uterus
Nothing screams love more than food, and Song flawlessly executes the poem’s richness through her sound and imagery.
Against Leaving Him
Read MQR Reader Connor Greer’s response to Christine Rhein’s “Against Leaving Him” here. “Against Leaving Him” appears in our Winter 2021 Issue. You can purchase the issue here. Against Leaving Him “. . . [Ric] Hoogestraat was never much of a game enthusiast before he discovered Second Life. But since February, he’s been spending six …
Mary Gaitskill: The Woman Who Knew Judo
I’ve often heard that a story’s ending should change the way the reader sees everything that has led to that point. It’s the moment when the story’s pieces snap into place, when all the seemingly unrelated scenes become unified in the climactic light.
Meatloaf
Two fingers on her hands rattle like winter leaves on the tree. Words hiss through her head. Do-ga-ske-v-se-gu-hanaugh.I shrug in frustration. How do I tell her even the words of her Cherokee language do not survive? I put her hand to my head but she takes it away. She is not deaf or blind! I see her buckskin gnawed by the teeth of wolves. Her feet trail bits of a comet.
From the Archives: Seven Rooms
The poem is both tender and sinister, simply told and yet deeply bizarre. It is a poem seemingly about torture, affection, and the afterlife ambiguously titled “Seven Rooms,” and, though we decided not to include it in our upcoming Anniversary issue, I believe it still deserves some attention.
On The Grandfather of Pop Art: An Interview with Diane Kirkpatrick
It’s true that he wanted to be inside and outside the art world at the same time, but he was on public performance whenever he was out.
Backyard Rock
Hit play below to hear Jacques J. Rancourt read his poem “Backyard Rock” and scroll down for the full text. “Backyard Rock“ is featured in MQR’s Winter 2021 Issue. Backyard Rock It’s 1999, the year I learned to float by filling my body with questions. Swimming at night with my father was the first time since the fog …