To See the Queen by Allison Seay
Sally Rosen Kindred reviews Allison Seay’s To See the Queen today in Rumpus Poetry.
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The Last City I Loved: Omaha, Nebraska
Every coffee slinger or fry cook is a drummer or bass player in a band covered by Pitchfork. One can live and work in an unfettered way, or at least a way less fettered than is possible in any major metropolis.
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Ted Wilson Reviews the World #187
PERSONALIZED PENS
★★★★★ (4 out of 5)
Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing personalized pens.
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Nick Cave Monday #40: “City of Refuge”
If you commit manslaughter, you better run to the City of Refuge. It’s what the Old Testament tells us to do because under biblical law the family of the victim can kill you even if it was an accident.
We learned about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth in Nick Cave Monday #4. So, in bible times if you kill someone on purpose, then you’re dead.
...moreLit-Link Round-up
Congrats to Sunday Rumpus alum, Tara Ison, on the selection of her novel Rockaway as a “don’t miss” summer read by O, Oprah’s magazine.
It’s Father’s Day. Have an open letter. Kinda schmaltzy, but at the end of the day there’s truth here.
...moreNotable Los Angeles: 6/15-6/21
Saturday 6/15: Life Sentences, an afternoon of the epigrammatic, featuring Guy Bennett, Charles Bernstein, Aaron Kunin, Andrew Maxwell, Maggie Nelson, Vanessa Place, Maged Zaher. 1 p.m. at The Poetic Research Bureau.
Sunday 6/16: Go to Hitched and see poets Cathy Irwin with Nicky Schildkraut, and Kenji Liu with Minh Pham.
...moreLinks I Like
I’m listening to Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich’s curatorial hour as I write this curatorial column. Ben Loory shared a June Mix, which inspired me to eat a chocolate donut for lunch. The next day, I went on a gluten-free diet and then binged on The Bins.
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Poems Retrieved by Frank O’Hara
Barbara Berman reviews Fraonk O’Hara’s Poems retrieved today in Rumpus Poetry.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #45: The Distribution Problem, Part One
Rick Moody talks with Frank Zappa’s widow, Gail, about her new idea to license distribution rights of an unreleased project to Zappa fans.
...moreNext Letter for Kids: Leslie Margolis
Woohoo! The next Letter for Kids, going out Friday, June 14, is from Leslie Margolis!
Leslie writes books for teens and tweens, including the Annabelle Unleashed series and the brand-new Maggie Brooklyn Mysteries series. The Young Adult Library Services Association put her novel Fix on the “Popular Paperback” reading list and her novel Boys Are Dogs on the “Amazing Audiobook” reading list.
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Super Hot Prof-on-Student Word Sex #10: Peter Stenson
Just like that, I knew I’d been bamboozled. Stenson could write. The rest of the story sailed past and I found hardly a single occasion to complain, which is, for Super Hot Profs, a legitimate cause for despair.
...more“The Sickest, Most Controversial Book of Summer 2013…”
…according to Cosmopolitan won’t officially be out until July 2, but as it’s our pick for The Rumpus Book Club this month, members are already reading it. The book is Alissa Nutting’s Tampa, and Cosmo editor Jessica Knoll interviewed the author about, among other things, what pushed her to write a book about “beautiful, married, 26-year-old middle school teacher Celeste Price [who] unapologetically chronicles her seduction of one of her 14-year-old students.”
Sound like a book you’d like to read?
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Hurrah’s Nest by Arisa White
Gina Vaynshteyn reviews Arisa White’s Hurrah’s Nest today in Rumpus Poetry.
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The Big Idea #4: Eve Ensler
Writer, journalist, activist, and lifelong feminist Eve Ensler talks with Suzanne Koven and explores the body’s relationship to the desecration of the earth, the importance of listening to the “real” in ourselves, and how it feels to be known as “the woman who wrote The Vagina Monologues.”
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FUNNY WOMEN #102: How to Read a Poem
One misconception people have about poetry is that it is written in “code,” one they aren’t smart enough to understand. In fact, if you do not comprehend a poem, you may return it.
...moreThe Rumpus Book Clubs Present: Summer Reading!
Looking for some awesome new books to read this summer? The Rumpus Book Clubs have some great new fiction, non-fiction and poetry selections lined up for members over the next three months. No matter the weather, beachy warmth to, well, whatever you call the middle of the year in San Francisco, and everything in between, here’s what you’ll have a chance to read if you’re a member of the Rumpus Book Club or the Rumpus Poetry Book Club.
...moreNext Letter in the Mail: Maud Newton!
Exciting news! The next Letter in the Mail, going out Friday, June 14, is from lit-scene superstar Maud Newton!
Not yet subscribed but want her letter? Please sign up before 12pm PT on Tuesday, June 11. (That’s today!)
Maud is an essayist, critic, blogger, and fiction writer whose work has appeared, well, pretty much everywhere, from the New York Times Book Review to Granta to The Awl.
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Ted Wilson Reviews the World #186
MY NEW COLOGNE
★★★★★ (1 out of 5)
Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing my new cologne.
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Nick Cave Monday #39: “Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow”
In a dreary, isolated town stands a building. Throughout the bland hallways are rooms that have been deserted for years. Old computer equipment, basically just a bunch of shit around.
That doesn’t stop Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds from cleaning it up, bringing in some gear and throwing a moderately attended party.
...moreLit-Link Round-up
Should women writers only have one child, if they want to produce more than offspring? You know, I think this piece means well…I really do. The writers cited within are all ones I admire and have, myself, often looked to as models for various ways to work and live.
...moreLinks I Like
Q: Zoë, who did you fall in love with this week?
A: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Listen to the ALOUD podcast, watch her TED talk about The Danger of a Single Story and read her NY Times interview.
I saw Adichie read and speak at an ALOUD event and after the reading, I turned to my friend and said, I feel heightened.
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THE RUMPUS MINI-INTERVIEW PROJECT #49: PAUL OF CAPTAIN PETE’S BAIT & TACKLE
Wendy C. Ortiz conducts a mini-interview with one of her favorite Facebook friends, who happens to be in a notorious motorcycle gang.
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Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine by Jesse Graves
Heather Dobbins reviews Jesse Graves’s Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine today in Rumpus Poetry.
...moreNotable Los Angeles 6/8-6/14
Saturday 6/8: PEN center USA presents the Literary Stage at the Jubilee Muisc Fest. Saturday’s schedule: 6 p.m. READINGS, created by Saturday Rumpus Editor Zoë Ruiz, hosted by Rumpus Contributor Sara Finnerty and features Rumpus Managing Editor Lisa Dusenbery, among others! 7 p.m.
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Samsara by Erica Anzalone
Karissa Morton reviews Erica Anzalone’s Samsara today in Rumpus Poetry.
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Ted Wilson Reviews the World #185
STROLLERS
★★★★★ (2 out of 5)
Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing strollers.
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Nick Cave Monday #38: “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!”
Rest in peace. RIP. That’s what we say when someone dies. So this Jesus dude in the Bible resurrects some people according to the gospels. One of the privileged to come back from the dead was Lazarus.
Lazarus was in his tomb and all of his family wept.
...moreLit-Link Round-up
Matt Bell’s debut novel is out from Soho. See Matt in the new “Story and Song” issue of Shelf Unbound. Also includes a great conversation between Tod Goldberg and Rob Roberge.
Hannah Arendt and the New Yorker.
Dzanc’s rEprint series is really hitting it out of the park, if I do say so myself.
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