Subjects Archives: Literature

  • Postcard form Palestine [Carte postale de Palestine]

    A Ramallah l’enfant éventré par une bombe à fragmentation me regarde les yeux mi-clos comme pour me dire « Pourquoi ? » In Ramallah the child blown apart by a fragmentation bomb looks at me with his half-closed eyes as if to say “Why?” This poem was posted to assawra by Djamal Benmerad, an Algerian […]

  • The Internationale

      Visit Alistair Hulett at www.alistairhulett.com. Alistair Hulett‘s “The Internationale” is included in his Dance of the Underclass, available from AKPress. | | Print

  • What’s Next? Interview with Ron Jacobs

      Ron Jacobs is the author of the first comprehensive history of the Weather Underground: The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground.  His articles, essays and reviews have appeared in CounterPunch, Monthly Review,  MRZine, Alternative Press Review, Jungle World, Works in Progress, State of Nature, and a multitude of other places.  Ron […]

  • Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran: An Interview with Fatemeh Keshavarz

    JASMINE AND STARS: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran by Fatemeh KeshavarzBUY THIS BOOK Fatemeh Keshavarz, author of Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran, on how literature can be used to create or destroy stereotypes. Q: How did Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran come to be? A: You […]

  • All Roads Lead to Checkpoints

    All roads may have once led to Rome, but, for the Palestinian people, all roads lead to checkpoints.  The latest checkpoint to block the Palestinians is not manned by Israel but the ostensible mediator of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the Quartet (which is composed of the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United […]

  • The Imperfect Sex: Why Is Sor Juana Not a Saint? [El sexo imperfecto. ¿Por qué Sor Juana no es Santa?]

    Cada poder hegemónico en cada tiempo establece los límites de lo normal y, en consecuencia, de lo natural.  Así, el poder que ordenaba la sociedad patriarcal se reservaba (se reserva) el derecho incuestionable de definir qué era un hombre y qué era una mujer.  Cada vez que algún exaltado recurre al mediocre argumento de que […]

  • Operation Ajax

    OPERATION AJAX (a game of skill and chance) FEBRUARY 14 THROUGH MARCH 10 Wednesdays through Saturdays 8:15 PMWHERE EAGLES DARE 347 WEST 36TH STREET (between 8th and 9th avenues) 1, 2, 3, A, C, E to 34th Street 13TH FLOOR BLACKBIRD THEATER $18 RESERVATIONS: (917) 916-1307 JAY SMITH as CIA Senior Officer KERMIT “Kim” Roosevelt […]

  • Of the People: A Conversation with Howard Zinn

      G.M.S.: Here in Tucson, Arizona, 70 miles from the border, we are feeling the effects of President Bush’s deployment of National Guard troops at the U.S. border.  The first hundreds arrived last summer, and 2,500 are expected to be in our “Tucson Sector” by August.  Moreover, the Border Patrol is to grow from 12,400 […]

  • Kuwasi at 60

    Annual Fundraising Appeal Friends of MRZine and Monthly Review! The continuing existence of MRZine and Monthly Review depends on the support of our readers.  Unlike many other publications, we make all new Monthly Review articles, as well as MRZine articles, available online, free of charge.  We do so without drawing any advertising money at all […]

  • The Bebop of Baraka: A Review of Tales of the Out & the Gone

    Annual Fundraising Appeal Friends of MRZine and Monthly Review! The continuing existence of MRZine and Monthly Review depends on the support of our readers.  Unlike many other publications, we make all new Monthly Review articles, as well as MRZine articles, available online, free of charge.  We do so without drawing any advertising money at all […]

  • Poetic Justice

    Annual Fundraising Appeal Friends of MRZine and Monthly Review! The continuing existence of MRZine and Monthly Review depends on the support of our readers.  Unlike many other publications, we make all new Monthly Review articles, as well as MRZine articles, available online, free of charge.  We do so without drawing any advertising money at all […]

  • This World

      This world — a banquet of flowers just above hell. Kobayashi Issa was born on 15 June 1763 in Kashiwabara, Shinano Province (Shinanomachi, Nagano Prefecture today).  Denied his inheritance by his stepmother and stepbrother, he made a living as an impoverished traveling teacher of poetry.  The language of his poems is as simple and […]

  • The Elect Shun Mourning & Celebrate

    The man in the cardboard box wakes up in America on the morning after the election after a night of clattering in the fuzz of high frequency bands the static on the screen attracts the dust of Emperors and Czars and postmen. He tastes the residue on his tongue babies cry, the smoke of the […]

  • A New World of Work

      Cornell Global Labor Institute Honors Oscar Olivera On October 5, 2006, the Cornell Global Labor Institute held a reception to celebrate its second anniversary.  The guest of honor was Oscar Olivera, the Executive Secretary of the Federation of Factory Workers from Cochabamba , Bolivia.  The Federation was key in the formation of the Coordinator […]

  • A Marxist Poet: The Legacy of Gillo Pontecorvo

    Pauline Kael, the American film critic, once said that Gillo Pontecorvo was the most dangerous kind of Marxist: a Marxist poet.  When the Italian film director died last week at the age of 86, he had not made a full-length feature in over twenty-five years.  Yet the potency of Pontecorvo’s firebrand poetry can still be […]

  • Muhammad

    Oiseau terrorisé par l’enfer tombant du ciel, Muhammad se niche dans l’étreinte de son père : Protège-moi De l’envol, père, mon aile est encore Petite pour le vent . . . et la lumière est noire Muhammad Voudrait rentrer à la maison, Sans vélo . . . ou chemise neuve. Il voudrait retrouver le banc […]

  • Sophie Maslow and Woody Guthrie

      “Sophie’s body looked so healthy and so active it looked like it would do almost anything she told it to do.  All she had to do was notify it.” — Woody Guthrie My mother, Marjorie Mazia, and Sophie Maslow were both dancers with the Martha Graham Dance Company in the 1930s – 50s.  It […]

  • In One Sigh

      In one sigh, Death in a third world, A hand lies withered and curled, Peals of death rain down on a child, Artists of life are ruined and defiled, My ovaries sag with hate, I am death to procreate, In one sigh. Ros Csikc-Cyr is an activist.  Her poetry offers a perspective on issues […]

  • Put Down the Government Rag: (tune borrowed from Allen Ginsberg)

    All candidates look the same that is part of their game and what they do to you will always be the same CHORUS: Don’t vote, don’t vote, don’t vote. . . it’s a capitalist hoax. . . Businessmen in suits white shirts and boring ties even the women look like one of the guys The […]

  • Hairdresser at the Rehab

    On a broken woman’s scalp a froth of white gloves the fingers scrubbing pillow-matted hair combed, parted, cut, frosted tissue-wrapped ends rolled gently pink and blue. Surrounded by potions clear, cream rinses and highlighters, protein replenishers, a bouquet of silver scissor wands a judge whose voice can’t shape her name sits rapt anticipating, a waitress […]