MQR Sound – Michigan Quarterly Review

MQR Sound


Some things are better seen and heard. Listen to author-recorded performances of poems from recent MQR issues.

Spring 2025 | Anni Liu Reads "Foreshadow Work" MQR Sound

A note about the work "Foreshadow Work" from Anni Liu for the Michigan Quarterly Review's Spring 2025 issue: I was finally able to access effective therapy last year, and that has meant engaging in “shadow work,” or integrating the parts of the self that have been hidden or rejected. I realized poetry has always been a site of shadow work for me, foreshadowing the work I would do in therapy, especially around the alienation of having been an alien. Some of the language in the poem is borrowed from therapy, and some of it is punny and playful, which is maybe an homage to Harryette Mullen and especially her incredible book Sleeping with the Dictionary. I was also happily surprised to arrive at the aspirational ending that remixes the famous line attributed to Terence.
  1. Spring 2025 | Anni Liu Reads "Foreshadow Work"
  2. Spring 2025 | Sanjana Bijlani Reads "It's safe to say"
  3. Winter 2025 | Laurie Blauner Reads "The Florist"
  4. Winter 2025 | Amy Benson Reads "Ditch and Drain, Fill and Build"
  5. Winter 2025 | Hema Padhu Reads "The Ant and the Grasshopper"
  6. Winter 2025 | Diya Abbas Reads "on hunger"
  7. Winter 2025 | Sanjana Thakur Reads "My Left Hand, Unholy"
  8. Winter 2025 | Leyla Loued-Khenissi Reads "Blue Skies, Birdsong"
  9. Winter 2025 | Martín Espada Reads "Insult"
  10. Fall 2024 | Marissa Davis Reads "Excerpts from Skyside"
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