#massreview

"I felt emotionally drawn to art of the early middle ages, portraits of emperors on columns and on coins. I remember how cold the coins felt, even in just reading about them."  

David Foster Wallace, on the occasion of his birthday.  File under: Dept of Missed Opportunities.

Transcription:

1155 N. Pleasant #1 Amherst 01002 MA

14 September 1987

Professor Fred Robinson Massachusetts Review Memorial Hall University of Massachusetts Amherst 01003 MA

Dear Fred:

Thanks to you and the whole MR crew for such a good time at Chequers the other night. 

Woe betide those editors who send kind notes and invite the submission of more work for it comes to pass. The enclosed is a good deal shorter than "Solomon Silverfish," but a bit denser. It takes some time to get on the outside of it; and I'll thank you in advance for that time, and say no particular rush about getting back, on this one.

Pre-pub-wise these days, I've got a novella, "Little Expressionless Animals," coming out in the Paris Review; and a collection of stories and novellas, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way, due out from Viking Penguin next fall.

Am enjoying, right through that blinding sense of deja vu, my semester on the administrative side of the Amherst desk. If you or any of your staff happen to play tennis, at all, my number is 549-0789; I'm partnerless and on the prowl.

All Best,

David Foster Wallace

Mel,

Your mother is sick & all I can think of is how sick’s also a word for cool, like ill, though maybe ill

is becoming outdated, & sick too, & actually it’s a lie I can only think of that...

*

I've got a poem in the winter issue of one of my favorite journals—the Massachusetts Review! Many thanks to poetry editors Ellen Doré Watson and Deb Gorlin. And thanks to managing editor Emily Wojcik for being so swift in email exchanges and so patient with me when going over the smallest edits.

This issue is full of stunning, urgent work, in particular translation work, which we need so much more of. Just one amazing feature in this issue: letters from Chilean poet and Nobel Laureate Gabriela Mistral, translated by Velma García-Gorena! I just started reading these letters and have already learned a lot about this poet I first discovered through Ursula K. Le Guin's fabulous translations.

Particularly given the shameful chorus on current display, where our nation's governors have responded to suffering with cowardice and incomprehension, today we feel it even more imperative to respond in the way we know best, through literature.

Layaali Arabic Music Ensemble performing live at UMass Bezanson Recital Hall, at the “Syria, In Words and Music” event, sponsored by The Common  (@thecommonmag) and the Massachusetts Review.

Layaali is a Massachusetts-based group of talented musicians whose love and dedication to Arabic music have earned them wide acclaim from both ethnomusicologists and audiences at sold-out performances throughout the U.S. and internationally. The ensemble is committed to performing the traditional music of the Arab world and to preserving the rich legacy of Arabic culture through soulful vocals, hypnotic instrumental improvisations, electrifying percussion, and faithful renditions and recordings of master works.

Rabéa Ballin Kiko Ball prismacolor 2014