Eye, a stone become blood, / late from the eye of God, / plummets bird-like on the riverbed. / Does it pierce the light or create it? What does it expect / in its falling–from its falling? Perhaps / it sees something, searches for something in sleep among the / flowers, / disturbed by its arrival, poor river-flowers, rust-colored umbels / under a dream-rain that foresees the future.
“December Dawn” by Piero Bigongiari Read More »
What’s happening, did you hear? / I want to get home to catch the news tonight / but can’t say no to someone who needs a ride / —there’s no metro again? / There’s always something. / We’re losing our minds in all this. / But you know I’m a Socialist, I’ve never / voted for anything right-wing, ever, but / what’s happened to him—he’s a good guy / you know. I’ve had him in this cab / when he was the minister of education, / he’s a good guy, I mean I like him / but something’s wrong, how did he get us / into this crazy situation?
“The Taxi Driver Laments,” by Adrianne Kalfopoulou Read More »
Why our continuing attraction to Greece? There is something in that small country out there on the edge of Europe that doesn’t feel like the rest of the continent. Part of the attraction is certainly to the very different modern history, and to a landscape shaped by human use yet still oddly wild.
Returning to Greece Read More »
Meet the poets, essayists, and fiction writers of MQR 55:4, featuring a special section of poetry on Greece.
Meet Our Contributors, MQR 55:4 Read More »
Our Fall 2016 issue features a special poetry section: Returning to Greece. Presenting work by Lauren K. Alleyne, Christopher Bakken, Natalie Bakopoulos, Nickole Brown, Jessica Jacobs, Adrianne Kalfopoulou, and Allison Wilkins.
Plus: John Haggerty encounters the passion of sheepdogs, David McDannald answers the knock on the door, Natania Rosenfeld remembers the land of Prapruninma, and Ilan Stavans considers dying in Hebrew.
Fiction from Vivienne Chen, John J. Clayton, Steven Gillis, Ofir Oz, Jennie Rathbun, Kayla Whaley, and Bess Winter.
Poetry from Marianne Boruch, Rasaq Malik, Sara McKinnon, Eric Rivera, and Laura Wetherington.
MQR 55:4 | Fall 2016 Read More »
“It was about showcasing a range of stories — from heartbreaking to absolutely hilarious. One of my favorite stories in Pen is of the woman who had ‘Pizza Party’ inked on her toes. I was like, ‘Hey, what’s your story?’ and she was like, ‘I just fucking love pizza.’ So, you’re trying to let the hilarity of something like that come through, too. We wanted there to be a bit of a narrative if you read it from front to end, but something you could also just pick up and flip around.”
The objects in the garden, though, / are of a different order. / Remember them. / The white bricks will sustain you / when everything else seems meaningless; / the gardening tools will take you further / than any ideology; / the flag will stand between you and despair.
“Winter Nihilism,” by Tom Luhrmann Read More »
Francesca Woodman was a photographer who is well known for her surreal, black and white photography of which she is often the subject. The daughter of a family of artists, Francesca studied photography at RISD and in Italy, ultimately settling in New York City, where she had a studio. She died in 1982 at age twenty-two by suicide, jumping out of the Barbizon building.
Delicate Things: Finding Francesca Woodman Read More »
We’re happy to announce our 2016 Pushcart Prize nominees: Jack Driscoll, Tarfia Faizullah, Meghan Forbes, Steven Gillis, John Haggerty, and Shivani Mehta.
Announcing Our 2016 Pushcart Prize Nominees! Read More »
Even if they don’t, even if our stories are met with apathy, with disdain, I believe our enduring anger and our passion require them. These stories sustain my activism because they make concrete the issues that, for me, have always had a certain looming intangibility to them. Scripts are not enough, and they were never meant to be enough. The best thing my scripts ever did was open up a channel to the people in my community. To force me to ask the questions that I had never thought to ask.
When Scripts Are Not Enough: Finding Your Voice Post-Election Read More »
