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Self-Portrait in The Caribbean

July 9, 2026 Poetry, Translation

By PAOLA ASSAD BARBARINO
Translated by MAGDALENA ARIAS VÁSQUEZ

Poems appear below in English and the original Spanish.

Translator’s Note:
Paola’s poetry, which I have been translating for a while now, is fundamentally Venezuelan and has to be understood in that context. The challenge for me is to render this context as best as I can from my position as an outsider. “Autorretrato en el caribe” or “Self-Portrait in the Caribbean” was a particularly challenging poem to translate keeping this in mind. It’s also one of my favorites of hers. It relies heavily on Venezuelan history and an understanding of their political context. The most prevalent example of this is the quotation, “¡Entonces yo tampoco quiero mando!” which is a historical allusion to Capitán Emparán, who, in the face of the Spanish crown’s decaying power in Venezuela, famously used the words to renounce his position in government, granting Venezuela independence from Spain. It directly translates to “Then I too do not want to be led” or “Then I too do not want to lead.” The double sense of the phrase in Spanish is particularly interesting in the context of the poem. I chose to keep it in Spanish to keep this double meaning, and also to assert the phrase’s origin as Venezuelan, whose context may not be readily available to an Anglophone reader. The final stanza of the poem is one of my favorite lines that Paola has ever written. Speaking from the position of someone living through exile, Paola’s poetry is politically and personally charged and speaks to the complicated space she inhabits.

Review of Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World

July 3, 2026 Reviews

Film by SASHA WATERS
Review by HANNAH GERSEN

Mary Oliver is a poet whose work is so well-known, so ubiquitous, that even if you think you’ve never read her, you’ve probably heard snippets of her poetry or seen lines of it on Instagram or tumblr. The phrase “your one wild and precious life” from her poem “The Summer Day” and “the soft animal of your body” from “Wild Geese” have become memes. She has a seemingly universal appeal that transcends age, gender, and politics: everyone seems to think she is speaking directly to the concerns of their soul.

Electricity Comes in the Morning

July 1, 2026 Dispatches

By MARVIN GARBEH DAVIS, SR.

Monrovia, Liberia

At night, Monrovia hums differently. The city does not sleep; it simply waits for current, for rain, for something brighter than the day’s promises. The fans stand still, as if they are guards unable to protect anyone. Refrigerators sigh into silence. Somewhere in the distance, a generator coughs to life, and the sound ripples through the neighborhoods like a tired prayer being repeated by many.

June 2026 Poetry Feature: New Poems From Our Contributors

June 25, 2026 Poetry

This month, we’re pleased to bring you poems by contributors NATALIE BAVAR, PETER COOLEY, GARY J. WHITEHEAD, ANNA LENA PHILLIPS BELL, and JEFFREY HARRISON.

Pink Days

June 23, 2026 Fiction

By GABRIELLE KORN

Excerpted from Long Island Girls

Susan wanders aimlessly down the alt rock aisle of Tower Records, one parking lot over from the Walt Whitman Mall, next to the TGI Fridays. She runs her fingers along the top edges of the CDs while a Fall Out Boy song plays through the store’s speakers, nails on a chalkboard with its high-pitched harmonies. She’s wearing her large headphones like a necklace, plugged into a Walkman in her black pleather messenger bag.

The Vampire Before NAFTA: A Review of The Voice of Blood

June 22, 2026 Reviews

By GABRIELA RÁBAGO PALAFOX

Review by ASHLEY HONEYSETT

The Voice of Blood cover

The short story collection The Voice of Blood is the first book by Mexican writer Gabriela Rábago Palafox to be translated into English, 35 years after its original publication. Rábago Palafox achieved some recognition in Mexico, winning a number of awards including the prestigious Puebla prize, but was not widely recognized in her lifetime. Interviews and biographical information are limited. The blurbs on the book refer to her as “the secret ‘cool aunt’ of a few Mexican writers,” and say that her work was almost impossible to find. She wanted an international readership, which her translators say was an unorthodox ambition in Mexico, which had insular, nationalistic literary and publication traditions. They speculate that, had she lived, her star would have continued to rise. But Rábago Palafox died in 1995, at age 47.

What We’re Reading: June 2026

June 19, 2026 Reviews

Curated by KEI LIM

As summer opens up before us, as we shake off our winter blankets and spring raincoats, writers and readers alike are flocking outside to drink in the long-awaited sunlight. Summer is the season of remembering how it feels to be a member of the world — this strange world of pollen and sneezes, of hot adirondack chairs and sweat, of cool waterfronts and sand between your toes. In these recommendations from RUSSELL BRAKEFIELD, TERESE SVOBODA, and STEFAN BINDLEY-TAYLOR, characters similarly discover where they fit and falter in their surroundings, and how they transform the worlds they inhabit. From cityscape to household, these stories traverse landscapes large and small, and one might just land in your summer-reading stack.

Martyrs

June 16, 2026 Fiction

By CHELSEA BOLAN

When I got home from school that day, my mother was clearly excited about something. She must have been watching for me from the window, because she met me at the door, and behind her I could see something denim folded up on the table beside the teapot. “I have a special treat for you,” she said. My heart ballooned in my chest. Levi’s. All at once I wanted to hug her and rush past her to put them on, I wanted to dance around the apartment like I never did, and I wanted more things, too—for my father to emerge from where he had been hiding all my life, the closet, or the jungles of Africa or Mexico, stepping from the shadows, framed by the doorway.

She took my hand and walked with me over to the table. My heart began to deflate the closer we got, for it was clear that what was folded up there wasn’t a pair of Levi’s, but a length of raw fabric that had been created to rival Western denim. My mother was so happy that she seemed to slip outside her own body, snapping out the fabric like a flag, running her hand down it, wrapping it around my waist, nearly singing her words, because she thought she had given me what I wanted, that this would then be enough for me: this apartment, this city, this country, and my mother.