Project MUSE®: New England Review - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in New England Review.daily12026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 32 (2011) through current issueLatest Articles: New England ReviewTWOProject MUSE®New England Review2161-91311053-1297Latest articles in New England Review. Feed provided by Project MUSE®The Sunshine Protection Act
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985505
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In Minneapolis, it is a quarter to one in the morning. The first Sunday in November: cold sky, black branches. The dry stalks of goldenrod conspire in the dark. On the ground, the ghosts of hostas lower their limp white leaves. I am studying our front yard as it appears in a photograph snapped yesterday by our neighbor.In Cairo, it is a quarter to eight in the morning. The first Sunday in November: dusty, dry, the color of gold and emeralds. Sunlight sweeps across a sandy balcony. Somewhere in the palms below, feral cats yowl and stray dogs nose through heaps of trash. Across the way, a woman drapes damp shirts over her clothesline. One call to prayer has already unfurled across the blue-glass sky. Another is soon
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallThe Sunshine Protection Act2026-03-20text/htmlen-USThe Sunshine Protection Act2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®374122026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20Herr Friedrich Drinks Tea
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985507
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Every day at half past three Herr Friedrich walks past the Seagull Pharmacy. It's the ideal hour. Which took him quite a while to figure out. The morning routine isn't appealing—customers in line to pick up medicines, taking it as a chance to share the history of their sufferings far too thoroughly. Always the same people with the same stories. Intolerances, eczema, an upcoming operation. Mornings, and again in the evening. Too many customers, too much eczema. Three thirty is the best time of day.From one part of the sidewalk, he has a clear line of sight to the shelves of soap and shampoo, and from the other he can see the pharmacy counters. In winter, a pop-up stand in the display window advertises a bath oil
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallHerr Friedrich Drinks Tea2026-03-20text/htmlen-USHerr Friedrich Drinks Tea2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®220122026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20Fruits of the Forest
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985509
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I asked him to stop talking several times before I got rude. His current attitude was resistant to conventional manners. His eyes were fixed on the distance past my head—he was speaking to posterity, or onlookers, or aliens homing in on our coordinates.Shut the fuck up, I said. Just, for real. Shut up. He paused briefly, like a swatted fly, then resumed his buzzing around.Please shut up, I said, then got up and walked outside. I didn't have anything special to do, but I could see out the tiny little window that breezes were happening, that there was a rustle in the branches. Dougie was still talking when the door closed behind me.Dougie and I had been living together a long time. Six years. By choice, you could
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallFruits of the Forest2026-03-20text/htmlen-USFruits of the Forest2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®302152026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20Shelter
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985511
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The dogs sang with the doorbell. Jeanne Luther angled over the piled newspapers on the couch to see through the window: a family of five on her step. An attractive mother with an infant in arms. Two pretty little daughters in raincoats that looked expensive. It was the father who bothered her. He hung back, hands plunged in pockets, indifferent, checked out; another dad being coerced by his wife and girls."Just a minute," she called as she took Nacho out through the back door. She didn't let people inside anymore. Nacho was an Aussie fluffball, her most popular bachelor at the moment, his cuddle factor irresistible. Most people wanted blank slates like this. Nothing old, nothing remotely pit bull.When the little
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallShelter2026-03-20text/htmlen-USShelter2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®453592026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20Dumpster Diving
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985513
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The Twins pulled a couple of scooters out of the dumpster, so they have scooters now. They share the one with both its wheels, taking turns going back and forth in front of the condo. I wanted to know what they were doing in the dumpster, and they did that twin thing, the speaking in unison thing:Figuring something out.Sometimes it's cute but I don't know how they got in there, or when, and I didn't know they wanted scooters in the first place. They've never mentioned it, but they've been out there now for hours. I hear the rattle of those plastic wheels kick one direction, stop—they haven't got the hang of turning yet, so they pick up the scooter to turn around—then kick the other direction. So loud. The paving
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallDumpster Diving2026-03-20text/htmlen-USDumpster Diving2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®466642026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20The algorithm thinks I'm pregnant, and: While my father was dying, I kept having dreams about my exes, and: Talking about attachment theory with young people in a lamplit room
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985514
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My wound wants to get all over you like a melted tube of lip gloss // Waning of the light as it pertains to social systems we debate the origin of // I am too old to be an anarchist eating from a camp stove by an occupied river // My hips won't allow it // At the prison abolition conference in Oakland they housed me in the basement of a Berkeley co-op // I slept in my sleeping bag on a plywood board // Above me, a dozen naked people painted each other and stomped the floor // I paid $5 for a massage in the care work tent // Bless the people who can live in a mammalian pile near a kitchen stocked with mismatched forks and tubs of lentils // I recognize the solipsistic mirror of a crush on someone's crush on me // My
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallThe algorithm thinks I'm pregnant, and: While my father was dying, I kept having dreams about my exes, and: Talking about attachment theory with young people in a lamplit room2026-03-20text/htmlen-USThe algorithm thinks I'm pregnant, and: While my father was dying, I kept having dreams about my exes, and: Talking about attachment theory with young people in a lamplit room2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®66782026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20AYCE
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985515
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In his version, I tell Sam he won't ever have sex with another woman, so he sleeps with the first willing candidate to prove otherwise. He and Madeleine pursue the act with languorous movements to savor their consummation—I can imagine the rhythm of it, low and slow, the same way he insists when we go out to Korean barbeque."Low and slow," he murmurs, turning the dial on the range just so, inhaling the seasoned smoke while watching the thinly sliced brisket pieces curl in on themselves, juices glistening on their browning bellies. When I work the grill, I jack the heat way up, searing the meat with a flavorful char. It's done in seconds, but Sam complains that I'm burning it and confiscates my tongs.He hates how I
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallAYCE2026-03-20text/htmlen-USAYCE2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®406172026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20Flight, and: The Mainland
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985516
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my grandfather, Richard
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallFlight, and: The Mainland2026-03-20text/htmlen-USFlight, and: The Mainland2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®44122026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20Castaway
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985517
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During a lunch break, I visit a sex shop on route US 11/15. There are at least five sex shops and strip clubs on this thirty-mile stretch of rural road in Pennsylvania. Their existence confounds locals and intrigues me, because the area is, at least on the surface, very conservative and deeply religious. Much of the surrounding farmland is owned by the Amish and dotted with evangelical churches. It doesn't help that these sex shops don't have windows and, thus, generate speculation about what goes on inside, whether they might be sites for cruising or fronts for sex trafficking.This sex shop is raised on cinderblocks, and a set of cinderblock stairs leads to the only entryway. No windows. No name. The small sign
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallCastaway2026-03-20text/htmlen-USCastaway2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®348922026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20Lost and Found in Iceland
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985519
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If you placed all the lost gloves in Iceland end to end, I believe they would at least cover the distance between the north and south ends of the country, though probably not the circumference of the globe. On previous visits to Iceland, I don't remember finding so many lost gloves, but this time I'm here for three months, and maybe the long duration of my stay enables me to look down rather than ahead all the time, to slow my pace and notice what a tourist would overlook. I spot the gloves everywhere, in supermarkets along the shelves as though on sale, a Manager's Special; in entryways; on paths; in restaurants; in museums and classrooms; near every tourist spot imaginable. But is there anything more useless than
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallLost and Found in Iceland2026-03-20text/htmlen-USLost and Found in Iceland2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®253612026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20Scotch Pine
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985520
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Janie and I were driving through Beacon on one of those insane roller-coaster roads when we hit and killed a cat, a little black-and-orange-and-white calico."Oh, God," I said, as I was the cat lover.I was sad and sickened and could not look at the body. Janie, who was—and is—an ER nurse, had no such difficulty. She checked its vitals. Then she checked its collar."2929 Cartwright," she said.I looked at the houses but was too agitated to clearly make sense of something like a number. I just saw shapes—mostly rectangles—and colors, pale blues and yellows and reds."This is Cartwright," said Janie, pointing at a street sign. "And that's 2517," she said, pointing at a house. Looking at the cat again, she said
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallScotch Pine2026-03-20text/htmlen-USScotch Pine2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®145352026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20The Art of Failure
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985522
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for Jakob HolderThe wall of windows was to my back, the metal frames showing their age, glass slipping in its casing, and when I sat down, the cool light of a New York City afternoon filtered across the boardroom table, large enough, say, to seat eight or ten. Not an expensive table, this wasn't a major corporation office with shimmering oak to impress the well-heeled clients. It was the office of a medium-sized theater company and, though I didn't know it yet, I was being invited to join their cohort of playwrights.The young woman and middle-aged man who sat down opposite me, their faces bathed in reflected light, had greeted me with such broad smiles and such warmth that I felt immediately distrustful. I'd lived
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallThe Art of Failure2026-03-20text/htmlen-USThe Art of Failure2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®634672026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20Night Blindness
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985524
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The first thing that struck Marcos was the smell—meat and honey. But when he saw the torso his mind turned it into a mannequin. There was no blood, head, or limbs, and it was pale like the white mannequins Doña Elena used to model her clothes at the Sunday market. It wasn't until his brain registered movement, and then a few more seconds until it assimilated thousands of wriggling maggots, that he realized what he was seeing.He was down the street from his house. His ball had rolled into the abandoned lot strewn with scrap metal, chunks of cinder block, and constellations of glass. Before his body wretched, he thought, this is it. A few weeks before, he'd seen his mother scratch the thin gray bar off of a prepaid
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallNight Blindness2026-03-20text/htmlen-USNight Blindness2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®400792026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20Lumumba's Tooth
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985525
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The gold-crowned tooth of Democratic Republic of Congo independence hero Patrice Lumumba has been buried more than 60 years after he was
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallLumumba's Tooth2026-03-20text/htmlen-USLumumba's Tooth2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®48202026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20Another Poem to My Mother, and: In the Café, and: Honduras, Alba, Silvia
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985526
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Translator's Note: Alba and Silvia are Suárez's
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallAnother Poem to My Mother, and: In the Café, and: Honduras, Alba, Silvia2026-03-20text/htmlen-USAnother Poem to My Mother, and: In the Café, and: Honduras, Alba, Silvia2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®82762026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20Feral on Mount Rogers
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985527
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On a sunbaked, rocky saddle of ridge a hundred feet below the second-highest summit in Virginia, a wild mare and colt have come down to two back-country hikers on a trail. A pinto sister to the mare, belly big with foal, grazes a little way off in the scrub. I've just come up the mountain. The women, bandanaed, fanny packs slung beneath their backpacks, loiter raw-shinned and relaxed among the oddly unconcerned wild ponies. Separately we've climbed high enough that visitors from the state park below—pleasant, retired folk in tennis shoes, who asked where I was from and how long I'd been out—have shrugged back down the Wilburn Ridge, banners of chatter fluttering behind. Ahead, the knob above Rhododendron Gap seems
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallFeral on Mount Rogers2026-03-20text/htmlen-USFeral on Mount Rogers2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®518762026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20From Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985529
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It is an undertaking of some degree of delicacy to examine into the cause of public disorders. If a man happens not to succeed in such an inquiry, he will be thought weak and visionary; if he touches the true grievance, there is a danger that he may come near to persons of weight and consequence, who will rather be exasperated at the discovery of their errors than thankful for the occasion of correcting them. If he should be obliged to blame the favourites of the people, he will be considered as the tool of power; if he censures those in power, he will be looked on as an instrument of faction. But in all exertions of duty something is to be hazarded. In cases of tumult and disorder, our law has invested every man
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallFrom Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents2026-03-20text/htmlen-USFrom Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®152642026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20Contributors' Notes
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985530
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Abdulkareem Abdulkareem is a Nigerian writer and linguist. He is the author of Loss Is a Door, selected by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani for the New-Generation African Poets, a Chapbook Box Set (Akashic Books, 2025). His works appear or are forthcoming in The Nation, National Museum of Language, Poetry, Harvard's Transition Magazine, Waxwing, Southern Humanities Review, Poetry Wales, and elsewhere. He lives in Tuscaloosa where he is studying for an MFA in creative writing at the University of Alabama. He is the 2025 poetry editor for Black Warrior Review.Lauren Acampora is the author of The Wonder Garden (Grove, 2015), The Paper Wasp (Grove, 2019), The Hundred Waters (Grove, 2022), and the forthcoming collection The
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/541/image/coversmallContributors' Notes2026-03-20text/htmlen-USContributors' Notes2026-03-202026TWOProject MUSE®158292026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-03-20