Sometimes when language is song-like and rhythmic, it’s because it’s coming from a core part of yourself that’s not interested in façade. It’s an inner layer. Like a hum, a vibrational hum in the throat
Sacred Service: A Review of “Without Protection” & a Conversation with Gala Mukomolova Read More »
she stood there, smelling sweetly of sweat, shawarma, lipstick, the several different perfumes she’d quickly sprayed on herself at Sephora, hair spray, and hot love, with its intrinsic note, it so happens, of urine.
Performing Friendship: A Review of “Honey I Killed the Cats” Read More »
How easy it is to tell the story of myself without Lila: time quiets down and the important facts slide along the thread of the years like suitcases on a conveyor belt at an airport: you pick them up, you put them on the page, and it’s done.
We Are Always Us: The Boundaries of Elena Ferrante Read More »
Beefeater Bill has no dignity.
“Dignity and Urgency in Edinburgh and London” Read More »
I do not know how to shed my childhood, this old snake’s skin. My childhood weighs on my bones and hinders all my movements.
She tells me about the trees/
in the nearby park, points to them,/
identifies them—she knows what she’s talking about,/
she’s a biologist.
“Open-Air” and “In the Best of Cases, South” Read More »
Song Lin’s poem, translated by Dong Li, “To Czesław Miłosz,” appears in Michigan Quarterly Review’s Fall 2019 issue. in the years after you left the world remains the same only planet earth becomes elusive tribulation like retribution falls on the dining table from the sky, the earth and the sea as I reread your poems,
In this list, he translates the Bisaya word for “mother-of-pearl,” but not the Bisaya word for “mother.”
Some Words of the Aforesaid Heathen Peoples Read More »
Mauro Covacich’s short story, translated by Marino D’Orazio, “The Bride,” appears in Michigan Quarterly Review’s Fall 2019 issue. He motioned for her to climb up and she jumped in. What luck finding someone willing to stop in this weather; usually they spot you at the last minute and keep going. They’re afraid to put on
I am at the meeting point at the jetty by Mytilini Harbor just after 8 am. A lone slender bearded figure sits and smokes by the quai (he is H___ the barber, I learn later). Instead of approaching I retreat to dash off a sketch of the harbor mouth and a little coast guard tug against the rising terrain.
Dispatches From Lesvos Read More »
