The Yale Review
@yalereview.bsky.social
“A great contrast to the usual magazine.”
—Virginia Woolf
Quarterly in print, weekly online.
Join a conversation 200 years in the making.
Read the latest: https://yalereview.org/
Subscribe: https://shop.yalereview.org/
—Virginia Woolf
Quarterly in print, weekly online.
Join a conversation 200 years in the making.
Read the latest: https://yalereview.org/
Subscribe: https://shop.yalereview.org/
Reposted by The Yale Review
"A few years ago, I started to feel embarrassed to call myself a poet without truly knowing Heaney’s poetry. I resolved to read him, and to read him comprehensively." —Elisa Gonzalez for @yalereview.bsky.social
Elisa Gonzalez: “Searching for Seamus Heaney"
What I found when I resolved to read the poet's work.
yalereview.org
January 2, 2026 at 5:35 PM
"A few years ago, I started to feel embarrassed to call myself a poet without truly knowing Heaney’s poetry. I resolved to read him, and to read him comprehensively." —Elisa Gonzalez for @yalereview.bsky.social
"She had never had trouble socializing, not even in new situations. She would have said she was good at it—adept at small talk, able as anyone to mingle and schmooze. But starting about a year ago, she had become a different person." —Sigrid Nunez, "New Year's Story"
Sigrid Nunez: “New Year's Story“
A short story by Sigrid Nunez: “On the morning of the first day of the year, Nell is looking over her bookshelves while listening to a podcast.”
yalereview.org
December 31, 2025 at 4:13 PM
"She had never had trouble socializing, not even in new situations. She would have said she was good at it—adept at small talk, able as anyone to mingle and schmooze. But starting about a year ago, she had become a different person." —Sigrid Nunez, "New Year's Story"
"I know it is rash to speak about happiness
with the Fates so near that I can hear them
but this morning even the old regrets
seem to have lost their rancor"
—W. S. Merwin, "December Morning," TYR Winter 2016
with the Fates so near that I can hear them
but this morning even the old regrets
seem to have lost their rancor"
—W. S. Merwin, "December Morning," TYR Winter 2016
W.S. Merwin: "December Morning"
A poem from the TYR archives by W.S. Merwin: "How did I come to this late happiness / as I wake into my remaining days..."
yalereview.org
December 27, 2025 at 1:43 PM
"I know it is rash to speak about happiness
with the Fates so near that I can hear them
but this morning even the old regrets
seem to have lost their rancor"
—W. S. Merwin, "December Morning," TYR Winter 2016
with the Fates so near that I can hear them
but this morning even the old regrets
seem to have lost their rancor"
—W. S. Merwin, "December Morning," TYR Winter 2016
"What will it be like when I'm not here to see?
Will the ice be more ice, the night more night,
the city farther, our life more misshapen and quiet?"
From 1991: A. F. Moritz's "Christmas Decorations."
Will the ice be more ice, the night more night,
the city farther, our life more misshapen and quiet?"
From 1991: A. F. Moritz's "Christmas Decorations."
A. F. Moritz: "Christmas Decorations"
A poem by A. F. Moritz from the TYR archives: "The frozen city burns mildly / and the fires barely touch the soft gray cold..."
yalereview.org
December 24, 2025 at 2:21 PM
"What will it be like when I'm not here to see?
Will the ice be more ice, the night more night,
the city farther, our life more misshapen and quiet?"
From 1991: A. F. Moritz's "Christmas Decorations."
Will the ice be more ice, the night more night,
the city farther, our life more misshapen and quiet?"
From 1991: A. F. Moritz's "Christmas Decorations."
Sigmund Freud said that poets, not analysts, first “discovered the unconscious.” In a folio in our winter issue, nine poets write from the shared terrain of the lyric and analysis. yalereview.org/analytic-lyr...
The Analytic Lyric: A Poetry Folio
Nine poets in conversation with psychoanalysis
yalereview.org
December 23, 2025 at 1:16 AM
Sigmund Freud said that poets, not analysts, first “discovered the unconscious.” In a folio in our winter issue, nine poets write from the shared terrain of the lyric and analysis. yalereview.org/analytic-lyr...
“What kind of world is this to be born into?”
A new story from Nathan Englander traces one man’s unraveling on the edge of parenthood. yalereview.org/article/nath...
A new story from Nathan Englander traces one man’s unraveling on the edge of parenthood. yalereview.org/article/nath...
Nathan Englander: “What Are We Doing, What Have We Done”
A short story by Nathan Englander: “There was a list of things Alex swore he’d tend to before the baby arrived.”
yalereview.org
December 22, 2025 at 11:32 PM
“What kind of world is this to be born into?”
A new story from Nathan Englander traces one man’s unraveling on the edge of parenthood. yalereview.org/article/nath...
A new story from Nathan Englander traces one man’s unraveling on the edge of parenthood. yalereview.org/article/nath...
“the point of stopping
living is, in this context,
that someone might insist
that you start. usually the father
dies, i recall, or a child goes
to the graveyard.”
—Hannah Zeavin, “A Peer Among Friends”
living is, in this context,
that someone might insist
that you start. usually the father
dies, i recall, or a child goes
to the graveyard.”
—Hannah Zeavin, “A Peer Among Friends”
Hannah Zeavin: “A Peer Among Friends”
A poem by Hannah Zeavin: “And after a few years, he / began talking at the windshield.”
yalereview.org
December 22, 2025 at 5:04 PM
“the point of stopping
living is, in this context,
that someone might insist
that you start. usually the father
dies, i recall, or a child goes
to the graveyard.”
—Hannah Zeavin, “A Peer Among Friends”
living is, in this context,
that someone might insist
that you start. usually the father
dies, i recall, or a child goes
to the graveyard.”
—Hannah Zeavin, “A Peer Among Friends”
The large, multi-panel paintings of Joan Mitchell are riots of abstraction. But their titles–like “Edrita Fried,” named for Mitchell’s analyst–are a window into her tumultuous relationships and her obsession with time.
Rachel Cohen: “My Encounters with Joan Mitchell's Panels”
Rachel Cohen takes a layered look at how time and memory are built into Joan Mitchell’s multi-panel paintings.
yalereview.org
December 22, 2025 at 4:13 PM
The large, multi-panel paintings of Joan Mitchell are riots of abstraction. But their titles–like “Edrita Fried,” named for Mitchell’s analyst–are a window into her tumultuous relationships and her obsession with time.
“Divorce is a death with no ceremony to mark it," Anahid Nersessian writes. "It is a beginning as well as an ending—just one with a mysterious and indeterminate conclusion.”
Anahid Nersessian: “When Does a Divorce Begin?”
Most people think of it as failure. For me it was an achievement.
yalereview.org
December 22, 2025 at 3:04 PM
“Divorce is a death with no ceremony to mark it," Anahid Nersessian writes. "It is a beginning as well as an ending—just one with a mysterious and indeterminate conclusion.”
"I’ve never understood what 'write what you know' means, because I don’t feel like I know anything. If I wrote what I knew, I’d never write."
An interview with Anahid Nersessian, available on Back Matter, our Substack.
An interview with Anahid Nersessian, available on Back Matter, our Substack.
Behind the Essay: Anahid Nersessian
On divorce and writing ambivalence
backmatter.yalereview.org
December 22, 2025 at 1:16 AM
"I’ve never understood what 'write what you know' means, because I don’t feel like I know anything. If I wrote what I knew, I’d never write."
An interview with Anahid Nersessian, available on Back Matter, our Substack.
An interview with Anahid Nersessian, available on Back Matter, our Substack.
“Insight, if it comes, is not a golden trinket.
It is a maneuver, a step in the dance
that opens another room beyond
the one where one has been living.”
From Eli Payne Mandel's “–K,” a poem in our winter issue.
yalereview.org/article/eli-...
It is a maneuver, a step in the dance
that opens another room beyond
the one where one has been living.”
From Eli Payne Mandel's “–K,” a poem in our winter issue.
yalereview.org/article/eli-...
Eli Payne Mandel: “from –K”
A poem by Eli Payne Mandel: “In 1962, the British psychoanalyst W. R. Bion began / to describe in detail what passes between mother and child / in their…
yalereview.org
December 20, 2025 at 11:14 PM
“Insight, if it comes, is not a golden trinket.
It is a maneuver, a step in the dance
that opens another room beyond
the one where one has been living.”
From Eli Payne Mandel's “–K,” a poem in our winter issue.
yalereview.org/article/eli-...
It is a maneuver, a step in the dance
that opens another room beyond
the one where one has been living.”
From Eli Payne Mandel's “–K,” a poem in our winter issue.
yalereview.org/article/eli-...
Joan Mitchell thought of painting as something both continuous and still—a paradox that shaped her life’s work. yalereview.org/article/rach...
Rachel Cohen: “My Encounters with Joan Mitchell's Panels”
Rachel Cohen takes a layered look at how time and memory are built into Joan Mitchell’s multi-panel paintings.
yalereview.org
December 20, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Joan Mitchell thought of painting as something both continuous and still—a paradox that shaped her life’s work. yalereview.org/article/rach...
"What distinguishes Malick’s work," Bilge Ebiri writes, "emerges from the harmony between a film’s images and its sensibility." yalereview.org/article/bilg...
Bilge Ebiri: “Why Terrence Malick Is the Most Influential Director”
Bilge Ebiri explores filmmaker Terrence Malick’s vision of grace and his far-ranging influence on American cinema.
yalereview.org
December 20, 2025 at 4:44 PM
"What distinguishes Malick’s work," Bilge Ebiri writes, "emerges from the harmony between a film’s images and its sensibility." yalereview.org/article/bilg...
"Heaney’s great achievement," Elisa Gonzalez writes, "is to have been a poet who could speak to a huge swath of people while holding fast to the dictates of his conscience, language, uncertainties, soundings." yalereview.org/article/elis...
Elisa Gonzalez: “Searching for Seamus Heaney"
What I found when I resolved to read the poet's work.
yalereview.org
December 20, 2025 at 3:30 PM
"Heaney’s great achievement," Elisa Gonzalez writes, "is to have been a poet who could speak to a huge swath of people while holding fast to the dictates of his conscience, language, uncertainties, soundings." yalereview.org/article/elis...
Reposted by The Yale Review
Amazing to see Sara Gilmore's The Green Lives among the editors of The Yale Review's favorite cultural artifacts of 2025—a list of not just poetry books, but movies, TV shows, the whole gamut. The Green Lives is an event! Thank you, @yalereview.bsky.social
yalereview.org/article/favo...
yalereview.org/article/favo...
Our Favorite Cultural Artifacts of 2025
TYR ’s editors share their most meaningful cultural encounters of the year.
yalereview.org
December 18, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Amazing to see Sara Gilmore's The Green Lives among the editors of The Yale Review's favorite cultural artifacts of 2025—a list of not just poetry books, but movies, TV shows, the whole gamut. The Green Lives is an event! Thank you, @yalereview.bsky.social
yalereview.org/article/favo...
yalereview.org/article/favo...
We spoke with Anahid Nersessian about her essay in our winter issue—the process of writing it, the Janet Malcolm essay that served as its model, and the problem of writing about divorce.
open.substack.com/pub/yalerevi...
open.substack.com/pub/yalerevi...
Behind the Essay: Anahid Nersessian
On divorce and writing ambivalence
open.substack.com
December 18, 2025 at 10:14 PM
We spoke with Anahid Nersessian about her essay in our winter issue—the process of writing it, the Janet Malcolm essay that served as its model, and the problem of writing about divorce.
open.substack.com/pub/yalerevi...
open.substack.com/pub/yalerevi...
Reposted by The Yale Review
For the latest issue of The Yale Review, I wrote about Terrence Malick's massive influence on modern American filmmaking. yalereview.org/article/bilg...
Bilge Ebiri: “Why Terrence Malick Is the Most Influential Director”
Bilge Ebiri explores filmmaker Terrence Malick’s vision of grace and his far-ranging influence on American cinema.
yalereview.org
December 17, 2025 at 8:40 PM
For the latest issue of The Yale Review, I wrote about Terrence Malick's massive influence on modern American filmmaking. yalereview.org/article/bilg...
"Everything could be measured. The time it took for Dad to promise he’d soon send his new address (four and a half seconds)." New fiction by Jonas Hassen Khemiri.
Jonas Hassen Khemiri: “One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three…
A short story by Jonas Hassen Khemiri: “There he stands now, and it’s either him or his brother. It’s him. It has to be him.”
yalereview.org
December 18, 2025 at 3:06 PM
"Everything could be measured. The time it took for Dad to promise he’d soon send his new address (four and a half seconds)." New fiction by Jonas Hassen Khemiri.
“If Cézanne’s apples show you multiple sides of an apple at the same time, Mitchell’s multi-panels show you different sides of a feeling, a memory, a color experience." Rachel Cohen on the painter Joan Mitchell, in our winter issue.
Rachel Cohen: “My Encounters with Joan Mitchell's Panels”
Rachel Cohen takes a layered look at how time and memory are built into Joan Mitchell’s multi-panel paintings.
yalereview.org
December 18, 2025 at 1:43 PM
“If Cézanne’s apples show you multiple sides of an apple at the same time, Mitchell’s multi-panels show you different sides of a feeling, a memory, a color experience." Rachel Cohen on the painter Joan Mitchell, in our winter issue.
"Immediately I saw
It all: white manes and horses
Switching their sight from eye
To eye as they high-stepped
Across the horizon."
—Patricia Lockwood, "Feel It"
It all: white manes and horses
Switching their sight from eye
To eye as they high-stepped
Across the horizon."
—Patricia Lockwood, "Feel It"
Patricia Lockwood: “Feel It”
A poem by Patricia Lockwood: "My husband instructed me, / As I brought him his third Uncrustable.”
yalereview.org
December 17, 2025 at 9:06 PM
"Immediately I saw
It all: white manes and horses
Switching their sight from eye
To eye as they high-stepped
Across the horizon."
—Patricia Lockwood, "Feel It"
It all: white manes and horses
Switching their sight from eye
To eye as they high-stepped
Across the horizon."
—Patricia Lockwood, "Feel It"
“I took a class at the Freud Museum.
Later, at dinner, I felt abjection.
Believing the pork was human flesh,
I spat in my napkin, actually retched.”
—Kathryn Maris, “The Plumber”
Later, at dinner, I felt abjection.
Believing the pork was human flesh,
I spat in my napkin, actually retched.”
—Kathryn Maris, “The Plumber”
Kathryn Maris: “The Plumber”
A poem by Kathryn Maris: “I took a class at the Freud Museum. / Later, at dinner, I felt abjection.”
yalereview.org
December 17, 2025 at 5:07 PM
“I took a class at the Freud Museum.
Later, at dinner, I felt abjection.
Believing the pork was human flesh,
I spat in my napkin, actually retched.”
—Kathryn Maris, “The Plumber”
Later, at dinner, I felt abjection.
Believing the pork was human flesh,
I spat in my napkin, actually retched.”
—Kathryn Maris, “The Plumber”
Our editors and staff reflect on the books, films, performances, and encounters that stayed with them this year.
Our Favorite Cultural Artifacts of 2025
TYR ’s editors share their most meaningful cultural encounters of the year.
yalereview.org
December 17, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Our editors and staff reflect on the books, films, performances, and encounters that stayed with them this year.
Watching films by RaMell Ross or Chloé Zhao, it’s hard not to think of Terrence Malick. In our winter issue, Bilge Ebiri traces how Malick’s influence runs deeper than style—toward a belief in the grace of ordinary lives.
Bilge Ebiri: “Why Terrence Malick Is the Most Influential Director”
Bilge Ebiri explores filmmaker Terrence Malick’s vision of grace and his far-ranging influence on American cinema.
yalereview.org
December 17, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Watching films by RaMell Ross or Chloé Zhao, it’s hard not to think of Terrence Malick. In our winter issue, Bilge Ebiri traces how Malick’s influence runs deeper than style—toward a belief in the grace of ordinary lives.
"It is impossible to leave
A mistake—though that’s
What poetry is in the first place,
A land where the senses
Can bend."
From "Feel It" by Patricia Lockwood, TYR's Poem of the Week:
A mistake—though that’s
What poetry is in the first place,
A land where the senses
Can bend."
From "Feel It" by Patricia Lockwood, TYR's Poem of the Week:
yalereview.org
December 17, 2025 at 1:43 PM
"It is impossible to leave
A mistake—though that’s
What poetry is in the first place,
A land where the senses
Can bend."
From "Feel It" by Patricia Lockwood, TYR's Poem of the Week:
A mistake—though that’s
What poetry is in the first place,
A land where the senses
Can bend."
From "Feel It" by Patricia Lockwood, TYR's Poem of the Week:
Become a Sustaining Subscriber and help us stay in print and pay our writes. Four issues per year—plus our Virginia Woolf-inspired candle and new mini tote. shop.yalereview.org/products/sus...
December 16, 2025 at 7:56 PM
Become a Sustaining Subscriber and help us stay in print and pay our writes. Four issues per year—plus our Virginia Woolf-inspired candle and new mini tote. shop.yalereview.org/products/sus...