May 2016 – Page 2 – Michigan Quarterly Review

May 2016

MQR 55:2 | Spring 2016

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Our Spring 2016 issue features a special section on the Flint water crisis. Flint native Kelsey Ronan explores the effect of the crisis on her family, and Tarfia Faizullah dedicates her poem “I Told the Water” to Flint; Matthew Baker and Jack Driscoll use fiction to look at life in Michigan today.

Also in this issue: Zhanna Slor remembers her family’s last years in the USSR and Kathy Leonard Czepiel remembers Columbine—again and again.

Fiction from Matthew Baker, Chelsie Bryant, Jack Driscoll, Daniel Herwitz, Janis Hubschman, and Laura Maylene Walter.

Poetry from Anna Lena Phillips Bell, Patricia Clark, Tarfia Faizullah, Jennifer Givhan, Alison Powell, and Alison Stone.

MQR 55:2 | Spring 2016 Read More »

Our Spring 2016 issue features a special section on the Flint water crisis. Flint native Kelsey Ronan explores the effect of the crisis on her family, and Tarfia Faizullah dedicates her poem “I Told the Water” to Flint; Matthew Baker and Jack Driscoll use fiction to look at life in Michigan today.

Also in this issue: Zhanna Slor remembers her family’s last years in the USSR and Kathy Leonard Czepiel remembers Columbine—again and again.

Fiction from Matthew Baker, Chelsie Bryant, Jack Driscoll, Daniel Herwitz, Janis Hubschman, and Laura Maylene Walter.

Poetry from Anna Lena Phillips Bell, Patricia Clark, Tarfia Faizullah, Jennifer Givhan, Alison Powell, and Alison Stone.

“The Material,” by Robert Pinsky

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The moon-stirred volume of ocean sighed
Coconut tanning-oil and frozen custard.

Birch horses and dragons rode the merry-go-round.

A splinter of the herringbone cedar boardwalk
Might be teased from your finger with a steel
Needle purged of germs by a match’s flame.

“The Material,” by Robert Pinsky Read More »

The moon-stirred volume of ocean sighed
Coconut tanning-oil and frozen custard.

Birch horses and dragons rode the merry-go-round.

A splinter of the herringbone cedar boardwalk
Might be teased from your finger with a steel
Needle purged of germs by a match’s flame.

Literary Hate Mail, Sex with Shakespeare, and more

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Excerpts and curios from around the web:

The enduring art of literary hate mail, Shakespeare as a springboard for spanking, some thoughts on why giving up writing might not be wrong, and Lydia Davis on why we should read translated works. Plus: Vinson Cunningham on what qualities make an essay uniquely American: “As much as one might wish to lay claim to the sensibility of, say, Montaigne—the ruminative philosopher’s ideal, the notion of the essay as neutral attempt—most of us Americans are Emersons: artful sermonizers, pathological point-makers, turntablists spinning the hits with future mischief in mind.”

Literary Hate Mail, Sex with Shakespeare, and more Read More »

Excerpts and curios from around the web:

The enduring art of literary hate mail, Shakespeare as a springboard for spanking, some thoughts on why giving up writing might not be wrong, and Lydia Davis on why we should read translated works. Plus: Vinson Cunningham on what qualities make an essay uniquely American: “As much as one might wish to lay claim to the sensibility of, say, Montaigne—the ruminative philosopher’s ideal, the notion of the essay as neutral attempt—most of us Americans are Emersons: artful sermonizers, pathological point-makers, turntablists spinning the hits with future mischief in mind.”

Lolo the Donkey and the Avant-Garde That Never Was: Part 3

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Monkeys don’t usually have access to cameras, but it’s an extreme case that reminds us of a larger point: animals create objects, images, gestures, songs, and architecture all the time. Whether we label these activities as art is both a semantic and theoretical choice. One thinker arguing that non-human creativity should be included in our definition of art is curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. She asserts that the field of contemporary art is historically determined and far from universal. People imagine that the way they live–and the broad systems that organize their society–are the best, despite the fact that these things are always changing. History never ends, but we’re constantly fooled into thinking that everything has led up to the current moment with some kind of purpose or finitude.

Lolo the Donkey and the Avant-Garde That Never Was: Part 3 Read More »

Monkeys don’t usually have access to cameras, but it’s an extreme case that reminds us of a larger point: animals create objects, images, gestures, songs, and architecture all the time. Whether we label these activities as art is both a semantic and theoretical choice. One thinker arguing that non-human creativity should be included in our definition of art is curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. She asserts that the field of contemporary art is historically determined and far from universal. People imagine that the way they live–and the broad systems that organize their society–are the best, despite the fact that these things are always changing. History never ends, but we’re constantly fooled into thinking that everything has led up to the current moment with some kind of purpose or finitude.

Jenny Diski is Getting On With It

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Diski’s essays on death hold these things together brilliantly, somehow even beautifully. Her writing, which weaves without warning between a methodical, detailed account of treatment and the daily life of the dying and more ethereal, abstract passages, suggests the experience of losing lucidity and finding it again that a drugged body undergoes. It is to the LRB’s credit that they let Diski, who has been writing regularly for the publication since 1992, do whatever she damn well pleased. And in this way, Diski transcends her clinical status as body-cum-puzzle-piece to be wedged in a machine; she is throughout an active observer and writing subject, who tells us on the other side of chemo that, “the entire process makes me think of clubbing baby seals.”

Jenny Diski is Getting On With It Read More »

Diski’s essays on death hold these things together brilliantly, somehow even beautifully. Her writing, which weaves without warning between a methodical, detailed account of treatment and the daily life of the dying and more ethereal, abstract passages, suggests the experience of losing lucidity and finding it again that a drugged body undergoes. It is to the LRB’s credit that they let Diski, who has been writing regularly for the publication since 1992, do whatever she damn well pleased. And in this way, Diski transcends her clinical status as body-cum-puzzle-piece to be wedged in a machine; she is throughout an active observer and writing subject, who tells us on the other side of chemo that, “the entire process makes me think of clubbing baby seals.”

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