The Daily Rumpus
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From Stephen Elliott
The American Dream Visits While I Clean
It wasn’t part of me, only something I listened to,
like radio music or dialogue on the evening news.
I was cleaning the bathroom. I thought of nothing,
really, while I watched my hands move.
Café Space
Here comes backwash from apocalypse
gamey as last night’s monastery potluck.
Did you have the goat bleating from the roof
of a floating house, its song as old as warning?
Swim Lesson No. 3
Syracuse, New York
June 2012
I can’t find my bearings in this landlocked country,
riverless and briny. Not waterless exactly but curveless
and motionless, a chlorophyll kingdom. A viney
Virginia Konchan reviews Phil Metres’ abu ghraib arias today in Rumpus Poetry.
...moreTar Baby
Given that Tartarus stands undisputed
As the very bottom of Hell, where even
The bones of the damned are scattered
By Hector’s dogs and the Gorgons weep
Blood into its veined marble floor,
Then maybe our mascot is fitting.
Barbara Berman reviews Bright Wings An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds edited by Billy Collins today in Rumpus Poetry.
...moreMarilyn Nelson, today’s featured poet, wrote a series of ghazals to accompany some images by illustrator Philippe Lardy, who gave us permission to include a copy of the painting which inspired Nelson’s poem.
Sawed-Through Link
...moreTo Biespiel From United Flight 1037
— Greensboro to Atlanta
Dear Brother —
I used to think of death all the time,
And then for a time I didn’t, or didn’t try to,
And now I do not expect to die on this flight
Above the skies from the Carolinas to Georgia,
Where, if I were to die, I would not have chosen Atlanta
What with its bad moods and old alchemies.
Julie Marie Wade reviews Bruce Beasley’s Theophobia today in Rumpus Poetry.
...moreTo Mercury, In Retrograde
This ointment isn’t helping.
This clinic isn’t free.
The nurse’s favorite movie
is Penitentiary III.
Elizabeth Bradfield wrote the first poem we published here on The Rumpus, so I’m pleased to have her kick off this year’s National Poetry Month project. Elizabeth’s poem is more than just a written piece, however: it’s a collaboration between her and video artist Demet Taspinar.
...moreThis is the 5th(!) year that The Rumpus has done a National Poetry Month project, wherein we run a new, previously unpublished poem each day of the month (and sometimes we edge a little bit into May–we refuse to be tyrannized by calendars).
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“The subcommittee’s bill breaks the promise that this country has made to poets”
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Marisa Siegel reviews Peter Covino’s The Right Place to Jump today in Rumpus Poetry.
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Kristina Marie Darling reviews Nick Ripatrazone’s This is Not About Birds today in Rumpus Poetry.
...moreYesterday was the 56th anniversary of the day that U.S. customs agents seized some 500 copies of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl on the grounds of obscenity. Yesterday and today, the Supreme Court of the United States heard two cases regarding marriage. The first one yesterday, regarding California Proposition 8, addressed the right to marry the person you love.
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Tory Adkisson reviews Zubair Ahmed’s City of Rivers today in Rumpus Poetry.
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Julie Marie Wade reviews Richard Blanco’s Looking For the Gulf Motel today in Rumpus Poetry.
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Jeff Alessandrelli reviews Dobby Gibson’s It Becomes You today in Rumpus Poetry.
...moreT. R. Hummer has a comely piece up on Slate, “The Intimacy of Walt Whitman’s ‘America,’” about the influence and pleasures of Walt Whitman, plus an alleged recording of Whitman reading lines from “America,” made by Thomas Edison:
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Julie Brooks Barbour reviews Cynthia Cruz’s
Trista Edwards reviews Paisley Rekdal’s Animal Eye today in Rumpus Poetry.
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Brachah Goykadosh reviews Matthew Dickman’s Mayakovsky’s Revolver today in Rumpus Poetry.
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This is an edited transcript of the Poetry Book Club discussion with Camille Guthrie.
...moreRevision, as classically understood, generally relates to the poet’s understanding while composing a poem, via kneading language, via discovering insight. More and more though I find that sort of revision is only part of the problem, if it is a problem.
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Gina Myers reviews Maged Zaher’s Thank You For the Window Office today in Rumpus Books.
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I’ve never much gone in for shoot ‘em up movies. I’ve never seen Terminator, other than the most famous clip (“I’ll be back”). I can’t stomach Quentin Tarantino movies or, his precursor, Sam Peckinpah. I went to see No Country for Old Men because my 17-year-old son kept taunting me that I couldn’t consider myself an educated person if I didn’t, and I was worried he might be right.
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At their best, love and translation share some contradictions, including selfishness and generosity. Translation is impossible, or at least not very good, without a passionate desire to own the material and leave one’s mark on it. At the same time, few translators want to “hide the light” of their translations “under a bushel.” The translations they undertake and complete belong to them, are marked by them, and yet they are without much value unless shared.
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The Moon & Other Inventions: Poems After Joseph Cornell is a fully enchanting if somewhat mysterious collection of poems, written entirely as footnotes, by the prolific Kristina Marie Darling. Although the book’s subtitle suggests Cornell as its primary subject matter, these poems are inspired by Cornell’s use of assemblage rather than derived from or driven by it.
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