New England Review

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New Books from NER Authors

April 2022

April 23, 2022

Happy National Poetry Month! We’re celebrating with five new poetry collections by NER authors (and maybe some captivating prose, too!)

By tapping into the metaphysical, the ekphrastic, the sensual, and the ordinary moments of life, Erika Meitner’s newest collection Useful Junk (BOA Editions) provides a stunning exploration of memory, passion, desire, and intimacy. These poems assert that pleasure is a vital form of knowledge, reminding us that deeply-rooted desires are what keep us alive and moving forward in a damaged world. Meitner’s poem “In the Waiting Room of America” appeared in NER 38.4.

In his highly anticipated second poetry collection, Time is a Mother (Penguin Random House), Ocean Vuong reckons with grief, the meaning of family, and “the cost of being the product of an American war in America.” Deeply intimate and tender, Time is a Mother embraces the nuances of healing and illuminates a means of survival: “How else do we return to ourselves but to fold / The page so it points to the good part.” Vuong’s poem “To My Father / To My Unborn Son” appeared in NER 36.1.

Written between 2016 and 2020, Dana Levin’s fifth collection, Now Do You Know Where You Are (Copper Canyon Press) carries a reader through the disorientations of personal and collective transformation. Formally varied with prosaic breadth, Now Do You Know Where You Are investigates how great change calls the soul out “to be a messenger—to record whatever wanted to stream through.” Levin’s poetry has appeared in multiple issues of NER, most recently in issue 42.2.

Largely composed in Japanese syllabic forms called “wakas,” Victoria Chang explores loss and redemption in her newest poetry collection, The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon Press). Chang contrasts these traditional forms with contemporary language, reconciling the loss of her mother, the ache of wanting, and “our human urge to hide the minute beneath the light.” Chang’s poetry has appeared in several issues of NER, most recently in issue 41.3.

Rachel Mannheimer explores the intersection of art and love in her book-length narrative poem, Earth Room (Changes). Selected by Nobel Laureate Louise Glück as the winner of the inaugural Bergman Prize, Earth Room transports the reader across decades and different landscapes, considering art through “observations shaped by gender and environment, history, and portents of apocalypse.” Mannheimer’s poems “Horses” and “Berlin” appeared in NER 42.4.

A young woman in Kamalpur high society must confront the alcoholism of her mother and change her own hard-partying ways in Naheed Phiroze Patel’s Mirror Made of Rain (Unnamed). Patel’s story explores class and traditions in contemporary India in this exhilarating commentary on family, gender, and addiction. Mirror Made of Rain challenges its reader to contend with how society alters the way we view ourselves. Patel’s short story “Call of the Greater Coucal” appeared in NER 39.3.

Britain’s leading military historian, Richard Overy, reassesses World War II in Blood and Ruins (Viking). Overy argues for a more global perspective on WWII that broadens its focus to consider a century-long lead-up of global imperial expansion, the bitter cost for soldiers, and the heightened level of crime and atrocity that marked the war and its aftermath. Overy’s investigation “The Summer Ends, The War Begins” appeared in NER 31.2.

Joseph Pearson’s My Grandfather’s Knife (HarperCollins Canada) catalogues forgotten stories from World War II through the lens of personal artifacts. These everyday objects—a knife, a diary, a recipe book, a stringed instrument, and a cotton pouch—reveal the histories of their young owners, and illuminate the often dark history of the 20th century. Pearson’s nonfiction piece “This is Also Tangier” appeared in NER 39.1.


Visit our page on Bookshop.org for cumulative seasonal lists of NER author releases.

Filed Under: Featured, NER Authors' Books, News & Notes Tagged With: Dana Levin, Erika Meitner, Joseph Pearson, Naheed Phiroze Patel, Ocean Vuong, Rachel Mannheimer, Richard Overy, Victoria Chang

NER Poetry Celebration

Video now available

October 20, 2021

If you missed our poetry celebration live on Zoom, you can now catch it here on Vimeo!

During this reading from the current issue of New England Review—Rick Barot’s last issue as poetry editor—we celebrated Rick’s seven years at the helm and welcomed new poetry editor Jennifer Chang, who read a poem from the forthcoming issue.

Featured in this reading are Philipe AbiYouness, Kaveh Akbar, Jennifer Grotz, Jenny Johnson, Dana Levin, Cate Marvin, Wayne Miller, Matthew Olzmann, Carl Phillips, Kevin Prufer, and Paul Tran. With thanks to Joe DeFelice from Middlebury’s media services.

Filed Under: Events, Featured, News & Notes, Poetry Tagged With: Carl Phillips, Carolyn Kuebler, Cate Marvin, Dana Levin, Jennifer Chang, Jennifer Grotz, Jenny Johnson, Kaveh Akbar, Kevin Prufer, Matthew Olzmann, Paul Tran, Philipe AbiYouness, Rick Barot, Wayne Miller

Meet the Readers

Marisa P. Clark

September 29, 2021


“The stories I forward tend to feature characters who live on in my mind long after the story reaches its conclusion; if I keep wondering how they’re doing, that’s a good sign.”


Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from and what do you do when you’re not reading for NER? 
I was born and grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, spent my young adulthood in Atlanta, and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, after I completed my PhD in fiction writing at Georgia State University. I teach at UNM, and I write—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, whatever shows up for me on a given day! Favorite pastimes and preoccupations include spending time with my parrots and dogs, walking (especially at night, in conjunction with stargazing), music, yoga, dreams, Jungian psychology, coffee, and birdwatching from my back and front porches. I look forward to more travel, concerts, and trips to the gym when the pandemic and my related anxiety abate.

What made you decide to be a reader for NER, and how long have you been on staff?
I responded to a call for fiction readers that came out in spring 2017, and I’ve been reading for NER ever since. I leaped at the chance because of how much I’ve enjoyed my past work with other literary magazines, Five Points and Blue Mesa Review among them.

Have you ever read a submission that later got selected for publication? 
Just one, “The Length in Six Strokes,” by Sharbari Zohra Ahmed, in NER 40.3. And I still think about the one that got away—we were in the final stages of accepting the story when it got picked up by another magazine.

What is your reading process like? What do you look for in a submission? 
Stories aren’t one-size-fits-all, so I’m reluctant to open a submission and “look for” something specific in it. I try to read every story with curiosity, openness, and hope. What journey will this story take me on, whom will I get to meet, where will I get to go, and what will happen along the way? What will surprise me? What will move me? Who will usher me through the events? When I read an especially promising story, I save it to reread later so that I can gauge what sticks with me, what haunts or disturbs or otherwise strikes me. The stories I forward tend to feature characters who live on in my mind long after the story reaches its conclusion; if I keep wondering how they’re doing, that’s a good sign.

Of the pieces you’ve read at NER—whether in the magazine or among the submissions—which was your favorite or most memorable to you personally? 
I’m continually impressed with the quality and range of creative work in the magazine, but admittedly, the published pieces that remain in my memory tend to be by writers I know, like Blas Falconer, Jenn Givhan, Dana Levin, and (watch out, world!) Benjamin Garcia. I also linger over the poetry and prose by the folks whose books have a home on my bookshelves. For personal reasons, one especially memorable essay was Traci Brimhall’s “Archival Voyeur: Searching for Secrets in Amelia Earhart’s Lost Poems” (40.4); I’ve been working on a series of poems about a character named after the aviatrix, and this essay inspired happiness and deeper research.

How has reading for NER influenced your own writing/creative pursuits? 
If anything, it encourages me to keep sending out my own work. Reading for NER strengthens my understanding of what goes on behind the scenes of top-tier literary journals. I’ve read a number of strong stories that we aren’t able to publish but that I’m sure will find a good home as long as the author keeps looking. So I keep looking too.

What do you read for pleasure? Is there something you’re reading at the moment that you would recommend? 
You’re risking an essay-length response! It’s summer, so I’m reading only for pleasure, everything for pleasure.

In the past couple of months, I’ve finished Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s Crow Planet; Meg Day’s Last Psalm at Sea Level; Jenn Shapland’s My Autobiography of Carson McCullers; an Amelia Earhart biography called East to the Dawn, by Susan Butler; One Art (Elizabeth Bishop’s collected letters) and her complete poems (both rereads); The Thing about Jellyfish, by Ali Benjamin (loaned to me by my 11-year-old friend Charisma); W.S. Merwin’s Garden Time; and Lee Ann Roripaugh’s Year of the Snake. Right now I’m reading Louise Erdrich’s The Night Watchman, and up next are Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk, Lauren Hough’s Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing, and Louise Glück’s Meadowlands. I’m also finding a lot to enjoy in NER 42.2.

Some recent books that have had an especially powerful and lingering impact on me are Jericho Brown’s poetry collection The Tradition; Alexander Chee’s memoir How to Write an Autobiographical Novel; the novels Jubilee by Jenn Givhan and Under the Rainbow by Celia Laskey; and the middle-grade graphic novel Snapdragon by Kat Leyh.

I recommend them all!


Our staff readers, all volunteers, play an essential role in our editorial process and in our mission to discover new voices in contemporary literature. A full list of staff read

Filed Under: News & Notes, Staff Reader Profile Tagged With: Benjamin Garcia, Blas Falconer, Dana Levin, Jenn Givhan, Marisa P. Clark, Sharbari Zohra Ahmed, Traci Brimhall

NER Poetry Celebration

Join us September 9

August 31, 2021

Thursday, September 9
8 pm EST, 7 pm CST, 6p MST, 5 pm PST
ONLINE

Join us for a reading from the current issue of New England Review—Rick Barot’s last issue as poetry editor. We’ll be celebrating Rick’s seven years at the helm, and welcoming new poetry editor Jennifer Chang.

FEATURING

Philipe AbiYouness • Kaveh Akbar • Jennifer Grotz • Jenny Johnson • Dana Levin • Cate Marvin • Wayne Miller • Matthew Olzmann • Carl Phillips • Kevin Prufer • Paul Tran

Registration link: https://middlebury.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qLYotKipQEKHj1mx1EyPJg

Filed Under: Events, News & Notes Tagged With: Carl Phillips, Cate Marvin, Dana Levin, Jennifer Chang, Jennifer Grotz, Jenny Johnson, Kaveh Akbar, Kevin Prufer, Matthew Olzmann, Paul Tran, Philipe AbiYouness, Rick Barot, Wayne Miller

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Jacek Dehnel

Literature & Democracy

Jacek Dehnel

“On the other hand, Polish society—under cultural pressure from the ‘rotten West’ (as Putin puts it)—is rapidly becoming increasingly tolerant. In short: the Church is losing the battle to Netflix.”

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