ANN ARBOR—The fall issue of the University of Michigan’s Michigan Quarterly Review (MQR) is now available for purchase.

Playwright and fiction writer Sandra Seaton’s libretto for William Bolcom‘s new compositions are highlighted in MQR, and will be performed in the University Musical Society‘s (UMS) series in February.

Seaton reconstructs a diary of Sally Hemings with her words, which Bolcom, U-M professor of music, sets to music. Bolcom’s new compositions, song cycles on Sally Hemings, are titled “From the Diary of Sally Hemings.” The fragmentary pieces of Sally Hemings’ diary included in MQR give a glimpse into the February UMS performance of Bolcom’s composition.

The issue also includes the poetry of Anne Stevenson, a U-M alumna and perhaps the best poet in England today, according to MQR editor Lawrence Goldstein. Two other contributors for this issue of MQR, Donald Yates and Gustavo Perez Firmat, are also U-M graduates.

Stevenson is a regular contributor to MQR and has authored several poetry books, including “The Collected Poems 1955-1995.” She has also published a study of Elizabeth Bishop, a biography of Sylvia Plath, and a book of essays, “Between the Iceberg and the Ship,” published by the University of Michigan Press.

Yates translates two Argentine stories. He is a professor emeritus of Spanish-American literature at Michigan State University. His early work includes being the co-editor and translator of “Labyrinths: Selected Writings of Jorge Luis Borges,” a translation that stakes the claim of being the first compilation of Borges’s work to appear in English.

This issue of MQR also includes the poetry of, and a conversation with, Gustavo Perez-Firmat, who has received his Ph.D. from U-M. He is currently the David Feinson Professor of Humanities at Columbia University. Firmat’s published work includes “Life on the Hyphen,” “Next Year in Cuba,” “Bilingual Blues: Poems 1981-1994,” and a fictional piece titled “Anything But Love.”

MQR is published quarterly; yearly subscriptions can be purchased for $18, and single copies are available for $5. Contact MQR at 3032 Rackham Building, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-1070, for more details.