Essay – Page 15 – Michigan Quarterly Review

Essay

oil painting of dense ocean water and a orange yellow sunset

Auguries of Heavy Weather

I. The gale seems to blow up out of nowhere just as the two of us are lumbering John’s dory into the river. Whipping past the headland, wind and rain sledge me in the chest. I’m shoved back, off-balance. Trying not to lose my grip on Selkie, I stretch out towards her from the landing, […]

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I. The gale seems to blow up out of nowhere just as the two of us are lumbering John’s dory into the river. Whipping past the headland, wind and rain sledge me in the chest. I’m shoved back, off-balance. Trying not to lose my grip on Selkie, I stretch out towards her from the landing,

Unknown artist portrait of Francis Williams

Race and the Idea of the Aesthetic

In both Europe and the Americas, art was important to African slaves because it offered them the possibility of what I will call a socially transcendental existence; it could be marshaled into everyday life as a condition of survival against the laws that mapped out the place of the black as being outside the framework of modernity…Just as the aesthetic could become a key index in the violence of modernity, it could also provide the subjects of this cruelty with the hallowed place where utopian dreams could be nurtured and secured.

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In both Europe and the Americas, art was important to African slaves because it offered them the possibility of what I will call a socially transcendental existence; it could be marshaled into everyday life as a condition of survival against the laws that mapped out the place of the black as being outside the framework of modernity…Just as the aesthetic could become a key index in the violence of modernity, it could also provide the subjects of this cruelty with the hallowed place where utopian dreams could be nurtured and secured.

group of people on a deflatable boat in the sea

The Sea Fools You

The sea fools you. The Turkish coast is across from where we stand on Chios island. It doesn’t look like it is that far away. Only a few kilometers separate us. When the weather is calm, is it worth 1,500 Euros per person to put wife and children on inflatable cheap dinghies to make it

The Sea Fools You Read More »

The sea fools you. The Turkish coast is across from where we stand on Chios island. It doesn’t look like it is that far away. Only a few kilometers separate us. When the weather is calm, is it worth 1,500 Euros per person to put wife and children on inflatable cheap dinghies to make it

View of a snowy coastline covered in pine trees

Big Water, Little Water

Until now, the lakes and life had been generous in their gifts, and abundant. Water buoyed us. People I loved lived. I handled the loss like someone who’d gone around believing the things she cherishes would be around forever.

Big Water, Little Water Read More »

Until now, the lakes and life had been generous in their gifts, and abundant. Water buoyed us. People I loved lived. I handled the loss like someone who’d gone around believing the things she cherishes would be around forever.

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