VQR Online

Three nudes crudely drawn. One crouching, 

back turned, right hand feeding the turtle 

of the painting’s title; another sitting, as if in a chair,

head bowed, eyes downcast; and a central 

If there was a shack by the side of the river, what would it look like? How big would it be? If we opened the door to the shack by the river, what would we find there? There’s no light in the shack except light that eats through the gaps...

a woman who doesn’t read                 many poems asks                            is poetry meant to be 

Where sunlight dims, lies a vast and largely unexplored region known as the ocean twilight zone. It’s also almost entirely unregulated.

Koreatown, Los Angeles

Gwendolyn Brooks stood stark naked.
I stared into her bespectacled eyes.

Ms. Brooks showed me how 
to tend to myself by scrubbing dead skin

Heard ravens this morning.

When the COVID-19 lockdown order comes in, my first thought is: I am ready.

after Romare Bearden’s Patchwork Quilt (1969)

My back is turned from him again, 
but this time I’m not hunched 
over the quilt—his rough thumbs 
gripping my waist—I’m standing 

The premise was simple: a daily visual diary of the news—specifically, the first story she heard when she turned on the radio each morning.

According to Jasper Johns, his iconic 1955 painting Flag came to him in a dream (a rather literal one) in which he saw himself painting an American flag. The next morning, he went out and bought the materials to do it. Like many great works...