A Rumpus Meditation on Editors, Ambition, and Angry Dependence (in 33 loosely jointed parts):

1. On July 30, the managing editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, Kevin Morrissey, took his life. His note stated that he “just couldn’t bear it anymore.” …more

(Writing wretched verse so you don’t have to since 1995)

Graduation Party

It looks, from a distance, like a track and field tourney:
so much avid motion in shorts and T-shirts
the college field house rented for the occasion …more

I know I should be grateful to the NYTBR for trashing my new book. I’m not.

…more

(Writing wretched verse so you don’t have to since 1995)

The Math of Betrayal

The math of betrayal my friends will never line up …more

(Writing wretched verse so you don’t have to since 1995)

Cry Timber

I am long tired
of the tyranny
of trees …more

A special Rumpus lamentation with possible added pep talk.

***

So last week the New Yorker published their once-a-decade Fiction Issue, in which they printed eight stories, along with their list of 20 Writers Under 40. …more

Let me introduce my former student Tracey Wigfield, who is now a writer for the television program 30 Rock. I am so happy for Tracey that I am now weeping inconsolably. …more

(Writing wretched verse so you don’t have to since 1995)

To the Men At Work Outside My Window

See here, fellows: It is me, your skinny-stemmed little daisy faggot boy
Yoo-hoo! Yes, me – the fellow you keep glaring at.
I have a few things to say, if I might. …more

Have you ever had bad hair?

Let me rephrase that question: When was the last time you had bad hair?

Because it is one of the basic laws of Having Lived Through the 1970s, 80s, or 90s that you had bad hair at some point. Probably at many points. And that this bad hair was captured on film, and that the relevant pix still exist, out there somewhere, ready to undermine whatever modicum of cool you believe yourself to have achieved.

This is what I’m talking about: …more

How Dave Grohl Taught Me to Stop Whining and (Against Every Known Impulse in My Body) Embrace Happiness …more

“Chuck Prophet Writes the Songs That Make, Well, Not the Whole World, But a Small, Statistically Insignificant Portion of it Sing” …more

1. Award George Saunders the Nobel Prize in Decency

Have you ever met a single reader or writer who does not worship George Saunders? You have not. You have not because George Saunders represents everything writers should be. …more

You’ve all seen this movie before.

You’re humping along in writerly misery, working the adjunct professor racket – because it’s always been your dream to work for an institution of higher education that demonstrates its respect for the pedagogic mission by paying an hourly wage nearly equal to McDonald’s – when you encounter a class that appears entirely devoid of talent. This is always especially disheartening when the class in question is an advanced fiction workshop. …more

(Writing wretched verse so you don’t have to since 1995)

Sinatra Time

It’s got nothing to do with nothing, pal,
if you wanna know the truth. …more

Barry Hannah passed away Monday, March 1, 2010. He was 67 and died of natural causes. The precarious state of his health — he’d battled cancer for some years — was a matter of ongoing concern amongst his wide circle of friends and admirers. Hannah was also one of those writers about whom other writers like to tell tales. …more

(Writing wretched verse so you don’t have to since 1995)

Juice

Today the jury voted to “acquit”
though the way the word leapt forth
was the way a Southern gentleman cedes
a game in frustration …more

Rumpus contributor Steve Almond recently self-published a collection of hate mail that was sent to him (along with his responses) entitled Letters From People Who Hate Me. You can read Almond’s argument for self-publishing here. The following is an excerpt from his book:

Dear Asshole,

You are a fucking idiot!! And your daughter in the picture on your website looks like a maggot! …more

To say that I’ve had a checkered history in publishing would be like saying Elizabeth Taylor had a checkered history in marriage. …more

Many years ago (perhaps as many as eight) Jason Mulgrew took my advanced fiction workshop at Boston College. In fact, Jason was one of only two students ever to take my class pass/fail. If you are now thinking that Jason must have been a lazy, drunken, irresponsible dickweed, you are right. …more

(Writing wretched verse so you don’t have to since 1995)

In Hiroshima

In Hiroshima, after the bomb
the sick lay close as lovers,
the strong put tags on those
who stood no chance
later to be flayed by fire …more

Okay, so lots of confusion and grief and gnashing of teeth out there over why my adopted state, Massachusetts, just elected a Republican nudie model to fill the seat once held by Ted Kennedy.

I’m gonna try to explain, but I warn you upfront that my explanation isn’t going to make you feel any better, and likely somewhat worse, and maybe even nauseous. Sorry.

Here’s what it comes down to: …more

(Writing wretched verse so you don’t have to since 1995)

Riptide

Because we are men of a certain age
without visible boundaries or excuses
we ignore the yellow flap of caution flags
and the lifeguard propped against wet wind …more

So some of you may have seen Katie Roiphe’s long and sometimes-sharp-and-other-times-kind-of-annoying piece in the New York Times Book Review about literary S-E-X. …more

(Writing wretched verse so you don’t have to since 1995)

Michael Jordan Chews Gum

Substantially harder than you or me
a clamping motion that knots the muscles
of his already severely toned presagital ridge
and speaks to some higher form of scorekeeping, …more

(Writing wretched verse so you don’t have to since 1995)

Hobo Chant, LaFayette, Louisiana, 1937

dem coals inside your chest
dem coals is hot and white
you gotta change your mackacheese
if you wanna be ma wife …more

(Writing wretched verse so you don’t have to since 1995)

How We See the Aged

A woman pulls at the pilled pleat
of her seersucker skirt with one hand, …more

(Writing wretched verse so you don’t have to since 1995)

Owed to Water

It is said the ocean forgets everything
forgets the lash of lightning and the stones
it grinds to sand and the planks it swallows
without joy or renunciation …more

(Writing wretched verse so you don’t have to since 1995)

Sartre, You’re Such an Asshole

You thought your derriere off, no beef there.
But your heart: was it missing a valve or something?
Why do all your plays end in suicide? …more

The year I met Steve Almond was also the year I picked up (Not That You Asked) and the year I read his gorgeous homage to Kurt Vonnegut, “Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt.” …more