My Funeral Gondola by Fiona Sze-Lorrain
Stephanie Papa reviews Fiona Sze-Lorrain’s My Funeral Gondola today in Rumpus Poetry.
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books
The Rumpus Interview with Jason Polan
An illustrated look at the life and times of Jason Polan, the artist behind Michelle Tea’s newest book, Mermaid in Chelsea Creek.
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A Peek Inside Mermaid in Chelsea Creek
We wade into Michelle Tea’s new novel, Mermaid in Chelsea Creek, with a collection of enticing excerpted illustrations by Jason Polan.
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X by Dan Chelotti
Kent Shaw reviews Dan Chelotti’s X today in Rumpus Poetry.
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“Ghana Must Go,” by Taiye Selasi
Setting much of the plot in Ghana Must Go—Taiye Selasi’s engaging first novel about two African immigrants and their children—in Boston was an clever choice: A hilly colony established by English immigrants fleeing religious restrictions, now teeming with people from all over the world who go to the universities, drive cabs, open restaurants (or serve in them), build grassroots organizations, and work, clean or are treated at the hospitals; buy the homes, pay the taxes and gripe about the T; and, in quiet moments, agonize about their fears and desires.
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Johns, Marks, Tricks and Chickenhawks: The Rumpus Interview with Sam Benjamin
Porn was always stronger than me, and it still is.
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The Rumpus Interview with Susan Wright
Susan Wright, activist, writer, and founder of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, sits down to discuss the recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders updates, and what they mean for the kink community.
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Skin Shift by Matthew Hittinger
Tory Adkisson reviews Matthew Hittinger’s Skin Shift today in Rumpus Poetry.
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“Speedboat” and “Pitch Dark”, by Renata Adler
I have, I admit, no idea what Renata Adler’s Speedboat is about. Really, not the foggiest. But this is a very special sort of mystification, an unqualified – maybe even a purer – kind of no idea than my usual ‘what-the-fuck-is-going-on?’ kind of no idea.
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“Is That You, John Wayne?” by Scott Garson
Following in the steps of such modern day masters of this intricate form, including Lydia Davis and Kim Chinquee, Scott Garson has embraced it, bringing his own brand of American disharmony often seen in those forbears. The majority of stories in his second collection Is That You, John Wayne? run from a page long to three and they are the crux of this collection bent on exploring the sadness of life, the missed or missing opportunities, and the stasis our collective cultures seemed to have emotionally entered while we fly and speed about with technology that probably has not made us treat each other any better.
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Susan Steinberg
The author of the stunning collection Spectacle explores connections between visual art and the written word, experimental writing, Virginia Woolf, cowardice, and more.
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Rise in the Fall by Ana Božičević
Patrick James Dunagan reviews Ana Božičević’s Rise in the Fall today in Rumpus Poetry.
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The Rumpus Interview with Jon Mooallem
Jon Mooallem, author of Wild Ones, sits down to discuss human attitudes towards animals, copulation hats, chasing Martha Stewart across the tundra, and the historical relationship between Thomas Jefferson and mammoths.
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Desolation: Souvenir by Paul Hoover
Robin Morrissey reviews Paul Hoover’s Desolation: Souvenir today in Rumpus Poetry.
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Admit You’ve Paid For It: The Savage Honesty of David Henry Sterry
Writer, performer, educator, and activist David Henry Sterry talks about the deep cultural roots of shame associated with the American sex industry, and how freeing it can be to bleed out the truth about our lives as buyers and sellers of sex.
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ALBUM #5, AUDIO PORTRAITS OF ARTISTS AND WRITERS AT WORK: Ariel Schrag
Ariel Schrag first achieved recognition in her teens, when she began writing the autobiographical comic books Awkward, Definition, Potential, and Likewise
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Forty-One Jane Doe’s by Carrie Olivia Adams
Marisa Siegel reviews Carrie Olivia Adams’s Forty-One Jane Doe’s today in Rumpus Poetry.
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“Body Geographic,” by Barrie Jean Borich
In Body Geographic, Barrie Jean Borich charts the route by which she came to be located in middle age, in the Midwest, and in long-term love with Linnea, a spouse who occupies the middle space of gender. Through jazz, photography, travel, sex, and lineage—including several generations of coffee pots—Borich tells of her individual journey towards full, adult consciousness, towards certitude of self and place.
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“A Questionable Shape,” by Bennett Sims
“What we know about the undead so far is this: they return to the familiar.” Thus begins Bennett Sims’ debut novel A Questionable Shape. The subject matter of this brilliantly sensitive, whip-smart new novel is at first glance almost overbearingly familiar.
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Emily Rapp
A day of celebration for many, Mother’s Day is a more complex holiday for people who have lost their mothers–or their children.
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Easy Math by Lauren Shapiro
Weston Cutter reviews Lauren Shapiro’s Easy Math today in Rumpus Poetry.
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The Rumpus Interview with Maria Konnikova
Writer Maria Konnikova explores the mechanisms behind how a sharp mind works, through an investigation of one of literature’s premier duos—Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick, Watson.
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Collected Poems by Joseph Ceravolo
Barbara Berman reviews Joseph Ceravolo’s Collected Poems today in Rumpus Poetry.
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The Rumpus Interview with Denise Duhamel
Poet Denise Duhamel talks about form, inspiration sparked by pole-dancing dolls and movies, and the art of constructing prose poems to fit on Venetian blinds.
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“Possibility: Essays Against Despair,” by Patricia Vigderman
I like Patricia Vigderman because she likes jickjacking. She describes in “A Writer’s Harvest”, an earlier piece in Possibility: Essays Against Despair, how the sight of that slangy word, in two distinct (but linked) stories—one by Mary Karr, the other by David Foster Wallace—motivate her toward personal tangents and pleasures.
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Kings of the F**king Sea by Dan Boehl
Jason Storms reviews Dan Boehl’s Kings of the F**king Sea today in Rumpus Poetry.
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Attention, Attention
Within the crowd is a bald-headed, bearded man. He carries a sketchpad that, if he were sitting cross-legged, would be big enough to cover his knees. He is not a reporter. “The funeral is over, but the corpse is still grooving,” he writes. The man is Shel Silverstein.
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“An Elegy for Mathematics,” by Anne Valente
An Elegy for Mathematics, Anne Valente’s first full-length release, is a wonderful little book. Checking in at fewer than fifty pages, it’s a quick but deeply layered and poignant collection of material, most of which was previously published online. (She has a forthcoming story collection coming out from Dzanc Books.)
The collection is comprised of thirteen stories, mostly only a few pages in length.
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The Rumpus Interview with Luis Negrón
Puerto Rican writer, journalist, editor, and queer activist Luis Negrón talks about his first collection to appear in English, working with translator Suzanne Jill Levine, and writing about people who live on the margins of the margins.
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