Cover Art
Phillip Toledano, Tiana. From “A New Kind of Beauty.”

I’m interested in what we define as beauty, when we choose to create it ourselves.

Beauty has always been a currency, and now that we finally have the technological means to mint our own, what choices do we make?

Is beauty informed by contemporary culture? By history? Or is it defined by the surgeon’s hand? Can we identify physical trends that vary from decade to decade, or is beauty timeless?

When we re-make ourselves, are we revealing our true character, or are we stripping away our very identity?

Perhaps we are creating a new kind of beauty. An amalgam of surgery, art, and popular culture? And if so, are the results the vanguard of human induced evolution?

For more information and photos, visit www.mrtoledano.com

Issue #49
Fall / Winter 2011-12

Poetry
Tory Adkisson • Emily August • Jasmine V. Bailey • Joe Betz • Malachi Black • Christopher Burawa • Caroline Cahill • Norman Dubie • David Ebenbach • Phil Estes • Beckian Fritz Goldberg • Natalie Giarratano • Heather June Gibbons • Anna Claire Hodge • Saeed Jones • Lisa Kang • Marianne Kunkel • Christopher Lirette • Patricia Lockwood • Taylor Mali • Clay Matthews • John A. Nieves • Darlene Pagan • John Repp • Corinna Rosendahl • Maggie Smith • Nick Sturm • Lesley Wheeler • Johnathon Williams

Fiction
Sean Adams • Maggie Ruth Anderson • Susann Cokal • H.E. Francis • Mindy Friddle • Lauren Foss Goodman • Hiba Krisht • Zana Previti

Essay
Sandra Allen

International
Amal al-Jubouri (translated by Rebecca Gayle Howell and Husam Qaisi) • Jacek Gutorow (translated by Piotr Florczyk) • Vladimir Kozlov (translated by Andrea Gregovich) • Lan Lan (translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain) • Paulius Norvila (translated by Rimis Uzgiris) • C.F. Ramuz (translated by Michelle-Bailat-Jones) • Olga Tokarczuk (translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) • Eugenia Toledo (translated by Carolyne Wright) • Jan Wagner (translated by Chenxin Jiang)

Interview
Michael Martone (interviewed by Matthew Baker) • G.C. Waldrep (interviewed by Sean Patrick Hill)

Art
Robin Schwartz • Sage Sohier • Phillip Toledano

Errata: Our apologies for two errors which appear in the print issue. Both errors have been corrected here on the website.

"Plow" is listed as fiction instead of nonfiction
The Arabic poems for "Death Before the Occupation" and "Death After the Occupation" were printed incorrectly.