Arts and Culture – Michigan Quarterly Review

Arts and Culture

On Robert Hayden’s “Middle Passage”

I Jesús, Estrella, Esperanza, Mercy: Sails flashing to the wind like weapons, sharks following the moans the fever and the dying; horror the corposant and compass rose. Middle Passage: voyage through death to life upon these shores. “10 April 1800— Blacks rebellious. Crew uneasy. Our linguist says their moaning is a prayer for death, ours […]

On Robert Hayden’s “Middle Passage” Read More »

I Jesús, Estrella, Esperanza, Mercy: Sails flashing to the wind like weapons, sharks following the moans the fever and the dying; horror the corposant and compass rose. Middle Passage: voyage through death to life upon these shores. “10 April 1800— Blacks rebellious. Crew uneasy. Our linguist says their moaning is a prayer for death, ours

When The Dragon Flies Out, The Real Doors Are Opened

As I am writing these words, Zakaria is being tortured. In one picture from his arrest, his face is swollen. The Israeli Prison Service announced his transfer from jail to a hospital in Haifa for medical care, then reversed the decision. His lawyer reports that he suffered two fractures in the ribs and one in

When The Dragon Flies Out, The Real Doors Are Opened Read More »

As I am writing these words, Zakaria is being tortured. In one picture from his arrest, his face is swollen. The Israeli Prison Service announced his transfer from jail to a hospital in Haifa for medical care, then reversed the decision. His lawyer reports that he suffered two fractures in the ribs and one in

On Philip Levine’s “To Cipriano, in the Wind”

Where did your words go, Cipriano spoken to me 38 years ago in the back of Peerless Cleaners, where raised on a little wooden platform you bowed to the hissing press and under the glaring bulb the scars across your shoulders—“a gift of my country”—gleamed like old wood. “Dignidad,” you said into my boy’s wide

On Philip Levine’s “To Cipriano, in the Wind” Read More »

Where did your words go, Cipriano spoken to me 38 years ago in the back of Peerless Cleaners, where raised on a little wooden platform you bowed to the hissing press and under the glaring bulb the scars across your shoulders—“a gift of my country”—gleamed like old wood. “Dignidad,” you said into my boy’s wide

empty Chair Bench in a park during Fall

Dispatches: The One Missing

Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, later, due to the virus, designated the state as one of emergency. I immediately thought of where that person would go, if they’d remain on that bench in tumultuous rest, sleep. Where would the most vulnerable of us go? Would they persist in this pandemic, among this virus set to infect silently, to kill?

Dispatches: The One Missing Read More »

Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, later, due to the virus, designated the state as one of emergency. I immediately thought of where that person would go, if they’d remain on that bench in tumultuous rest, sleep. Where would the most vulnerable of us go? Would they persist in this pandemic, among this virus set to infect silently, to kill?

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