What Is Not Beautiful: An Interview with Adeeba Shahid Talukder

Photo Credit: Willem van der Mei “Beauty is a constant state/of unrest,” writes Adeeba Shahid Talukder in What Is Not Beautiful (Glass Poetry Press, 2018). In her debut collection, Talukder interrogates the fleeting nature of beauty and the uncomfortable cultural fascination that surrounds it with a deft, sparing hand. Sticky and unnerving in the best way, What Is Not […]

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King’s “Dream”—Whose Country ’Tis of Thee?

Eric J. Sundquist’s essay appeared in MQR’s Fall 2007 issue. Featured Image: Nathaniel Donnett, “Demarcation; The Marked Location of Death, Life, and A Dream Deferred,” 2018, Plastic, gold leaf, books (“King’s Dream” by Eric J. Sundquist), shoestrings, 77″ x 98″ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ On the evening of June 11, 1963, President John F. Kennedy delivered a televised

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The Saturday Club

“The Saturday Club,” by Josh Bettinger, appears in the Winter 2019 Issue of MQR. I wanted to tell you but decided against it because the cut of the weekend is real— I did not wash the car I am not on a diet I watched the finale without you but my love runs through the blackened

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NOS (disorder, not otherwise specified): A Review and an Interview with Aby Kaupang and Matthew Cooperman

We name our children before we know them, and our names express our hopes for them. In doing so, we are not unlike flight attendants welcoming the child to a place we haven’t yet arrived in. But what happens when one’s child is—as Winston Churchill said of Russia—“a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an

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Tiny Water Glasses

Clamping my hand over my left boob, which was leaking a slow and deliberate drip-drip-drip into my nursing bra and then into my marled gray t-shirt, and then onto my hand, I galloped up the basement stairs, taking two steps at a time, my body needing to feel my baby’s body. My first baby. I

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Submissions are Open!

We are now open for general submissions and submissions for our special issue reflecting on the 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Submissions for the Print Journal: Regular submissions for the print journal are accepted from January 15 to April 15, and from August 1 to November 30. Average turnaround time is

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Palestine in Queer Time: A Review of George Abraham’s The Specimen’s Apology

George Abraham’s new chapbook The Specimen’s Apology (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019) accomplishes the painfully vital and often deeply violent work of imagining. In claiming two identities made systematically invisible (Palestinian, and queer), Abraham weaves us into worlds from which we are desperate to escape. Much like Elizabeth in the referenced video game Bioshock: Infinite, the Palestinian/queer

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Tuta, Tuta

“Tuta, Tuta,” by Onyinye Ihezukwu, appears in the Winter 2019 Issue of MQR. Fanta, who is looking to buy a house, remembers something when she walks into this strange kitchen with yellow walls, low ceilings, double louver windows, and a sink deep enough to soak two days’ worth of used dishes. It’s a small memory of

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