The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Achy Obejas
Achy Obejas discusses her new collection, The Tower of the Antilles, what she's learned from translating works of others, and why we should all read poetry every day. ...more
Posts Tagged: Ocean Vuong
Beauty Undercut by the Possibility of Terror: Afterland by Mai Der Vang
Precariousness is an essential condition of life for the people who populate Vang’s poems, especially the Hmong refugees on whom the poet’s eye most lovingly lingers. ...more
Notable NYC: 4/8–4/14
Saturday 4/8: Chris Hayes presents A Colony in a Nation in conversation with Wesley Lowery. St. Joseph’s College, 6 p.m, $30.
Claudia Rankine and Garnette Cadogan give the keynote address at the Focus Festival running on Saturday and Sunday. Bard Graduate Center Gallery, 7 p.m., $20.
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Abeer Hoque
Abeer Hoque talks about coming of age in the predominantly white suburbs of Pittsburgh, rewriting her memoir manuscript ten times, and looking for poetry in prose. ...more
Poem of the Day: “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong” by Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong’s first poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, took the literary community by storm, and not without good reason: Vuong’s voice is brave and deeply felt; he wears his heart on his sleeve and turns pain into beauty.
...moreNotable NYC: 11/26–12/2
Saturday 11/26: Sarah Kay, Maeve Higgins, Phil Kaye, and Mark Doss read for refugees, as part of the Festival to Improve the World. The Wild Project, 4 p.m., $10.
Monday 11/28: Jason Diamond launches Searching for John Hughes with a conversation with Danielle Henderson.
...moreNotable NYC: 9/17–9/23
Sunday 9/18: Join the Rumpus at the Brooklyn Book Festival. The Rumpus is table 238 in front of the courthouse steps. Multiple stages and venues host the best writers and book lovers in the borough. Brooklyn Borough Hall, 10 a.m., free.
...moreWhat Poets and Writers Want
The staff at Poets & Writers put out a call to writers—“some of our most thoughtful and articulate citizens”—to share their perspectives on important issues for the next US president. Fifty writers weigh in, including Javier Zamora, Mira Ptacin, and Ocean Vuong.
...moreOf Ocean and Earth
Over at the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani reviews Ocean Vuong’s new collection of heartbreakingly gorgeous poems, Night Sky With Exit Wounds. Kakutani writes:
...moreThere is a powerful emotional undertow to these poems that springs from Mr. Vuong’s sincerity and candor, and from his ability to capture specific moments in time with both photographic clarity and a sense of the evanescence of all earthly things.
The Rumpus Interview with Cole Swensen
Cole Swensen, author of fifteen collections of poetry, discusses her work, walking, and her recent travels. ...more
Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, we close out National Poetry Month with Sophie Klahr breaking down literary conventions in “Slant,” and Sandra Simonds offering two powerful poems about sexuality and shame.
Meanwhile, Brandon Hicks illustrates what he has learned from famous author’s photos.
Then, in the Saturday Interview with Carol Edelman Warrior, poet and playwright Storme Webber says that “we’re all traveling on this Earth.
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Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
Jeff Nguyen reviews Ocean Vuong's Night Sky With Exit Wounds today in Rumpus Poetry. ...more
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Tess Taylor
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with Tess Taylor about her new collection Work & Days, manual labor, and the lyric possibilities in small fields. ...more
A Poet’s Arrival
The New Yorker profiles Ocean Vuong, who muses on the English language, growing up around women, Frank O’Hara, and the vestigial nature of clichés. And with his first book of poetry published just last week, he addresses the feelings of strangeness that accompany the act of making poetry and writing into a career:
...moreWhen the poet-novelist Ben Lerner joined the faculty, he introduced Vuong to the notion that a life of writing might be possible.
The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop Edited by Kevin Coval, Quraysh Ali Lansana, and Nate Marshall
Ellen Brown reviews The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop today in Rumpus Poetry. ...more
This Week in Short Fiction: A Guide to AWP
It’s that time of year again, where writers young and old, from all corners of the country, come to congregate in one gigantic, frenetic, neurotic, alcohol-infused crowd, in a couple of fancy hotels no one can really afford, to stay in and talk shop (or not, depending on how your writing’s been this year).
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The Weight of Our Living: On Hope, Fire Escapes, and Visible Desperation
I want to leave the party through the window and find my uncle standing on a piece of iron shaped into visible desperation, which must also be (how can it not?) the beginning of visible hope. ...more