Over at the Poetry Foundation, Patricia Lockwood considers whether or not poetry is real work:
...moreIs it work, though? The question persists. Is a single muscle exerted during the process? Do you sweat at all, besides the weird thing that sometimes happens under your right arm because you haven’t lifted it up for 8 hours?
My Brother
My brother _is__ a savior
who can torpedo
through privilege with an artistic stun gun
he’s a tempest saturating the city
He makes a scar
in the earth_ draws out
an admixture of folklore
and animus_ plus
a pinch of_ worry from our
adolescent miseries
so he can build_ endless
self-perpetuation_ literally
with big red bricks
This he does with
our so-called inheritance
We once walked
on our father’s periphery
looking in like_ the matchstick
children
We walked the edge of our houses
to find ___a warm window
Was it there
It wasn’t
the self-preservation__ that hunger
and fear __made of me
a bewitching hybrid of
broken coat trees and orbital
chair and door_ king_ choir
maybe _____that _elemental
cultivation
of fading into____ the wallpaper
We’re still looking
plush with hunger
My brother speaks
the cloud’s patois
a clatter ___calm ___medium loosens
a grip wears
on the surface____ of his planet
I said anything
I walked far away
I left my brother behind
More tenderness
might have made us_____ better
failure without the sting
we might have found
magic and known
its transport
the instability was the brutal
______grief of one tornado
Wesley Rothman reviews Sean Hill’s Dangerous Goods today in Rumpus Poetry.
...moreThe Mother In This Poem Is Me or You or Your Mother
mother is
a falling
star a bead
of sweat of
blood of bread
our daily
bread on which
we fed the
thread of life
the trouble
and strife of
he you wed
with heart and
head you pledged
in daddy’s
bed there is
no rest for
wickedness
lest evil eye
pry babe from
breast again
I rest my
case on wave
and wind hey
knight hey knave
come save me
blame me for
sin of rage
its wage so
high I am
both monster
and slave shame
me slay me
this is the
Labyrinth
where you play
Theseus
and I play
Minotaur
it’s okay
it’s just a
metaphor
The electric body
changes like a sky bleeding peach,
gray feathers and smoke –
– a body circular as the earth,
water and air,
rivers surging through.
The poet does what poets do: reactivates words, makes odd associations, connects things that do not ordinarily belong together in order to create deeper meaning.
...more...moreWe know Bishop primarily as the eager traveler who wrote of distant, tropical locations and lived for many years as an expat in Brazil. She was that, of course, but she was also an aficionado of her native landscape and climate.
exercises in breathing
I.
knowing the rules is not enough. when it snows,
it doesn’t always mean it. when it snows, sometimes
it snows for the museums and sometimes it snows
for the papers and sometimes it snows for only
her majesty, the sea.
The Vindication of Judas
Forgive me at last, Brother,
for the death sentence: a kiss
that revealed me, an act of obedience
which began your martyrdom.
Who else but you—who loves
me still—could I ask to bear blame
for my murder for all time?
William Pratt reviews Marie Sleight’s The Antigone Poems.
...moreToday
Each year I know less about myself
but the insurance company knows
how much my life is worth.
This is for those who suffer & endure
& laugh about it later.
Someone asked, “where do you get
your news from if you don’t have a teevee?”
It is 7:36 a.m.
When NPR’s Code Switch went searching for “young poets who were livening up the literary landscape” in honor of National Poetry Month, they found themselves in the world of Rumpus contributor Kima Jones. Code Switch and Ms. Jones set out to crowdsource a poem, which they most certainly did.
...moreMy First Male-to-Male Kiss
______was on Mexican TV. In the 80s. Believe me.
Like my cousin Mari, I too wished I could be
Érika Buenfil, her blonde locks so close to
René of the dark pompadour that looked like a cliff
where so many broken hearts took their final leap.
Patrick James Dunagan reviews Merrill Gilfillan’s Red Mavis today in Rumpus Poetry.
...moreThe History of Asterisks
It is midnight under the sky’s dome ceiling.
The moon speaks, saying nothing of consequence.
John Wayne is from Iowa, so we hitchhiked West
and I realized I never really loved you.
Your skepticism of scientific indices of happiness
is probably gendered or otherwise distorted.
Christian Anton Gerard reviews (in epistolary form) Luisa Igloria’s The Saints of Streets today in Rumpus Poetry.
...moreThis week, the Paris Review has a really beautiful interview up with the poet Mary Szybist. She talks about religion, Wallace Stevens and her abiding love for the apostrophe:
...moreI have always been attracted to apostrophe, perhaps because of its resemblance to prayer.
In honor of National Poetry Month, we are taking time to consider how poetry makes us better readers of all different types of literature. George Quasha suggests that learning to read poetry is akin to learning to speak a new language:
...moreA reader has to learn a poet’s language.
Some days I come out wrinkled like a jacket / exhumed from a suitcase. Some days / I’m as constant as the last soggy corn flake / at the bottom of a bowl of milk, / that piece that keeps giving…
...more
For our first episode of The Rumpus Late Nite Poetry Show, Dave Roderick sits down with poet and playwright Nick Lantz to talk about his latest collection, How To Dance as the Roof Caves In, found poems, self-help manuals, and titles as points of departure.
...morePrussian poet Gottfried Benn landed on the wrong side of history, supporting Hitler’s government in the early 1930s when it promised solutions to the global economic collapse. But by 1934, his allegiance to the regime ended as it became clear the Nazi party were not “cultural pessimists” but rather “criminal politicians.” Over at The New Republic, Adam Thirlwell points to Benn as a “case study in disgrace.”
...moreHe gives disgrace its aesthetic form.
Kent Shaw reviews Karla Kelsey’s A Conjoined Book today in Rumpus Poetry.
...more
British-Guyanese poet, novelist, and playwright Fred D’Aguiar discusses the influence of Jonestown on his work, writing in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, and the need to pay attention when tragedy comes to your door.
...moreThe Early Minutes of Without
You thought you were spared
falling in love with another drunk
now that you were sober and could feel
the ordinary grain that ran through everything.
You were awake in the great city and moved
among the civilians you couldn’t move among
before; structure time and dress for the weather.
the dog born March 30th who I will find 6 months from now
to know what it’s like to hurl myself down the mountain
for the wind to blow right through me
...more
Eric Dean Wilson reviews Joe Wenderoth’s If I Don’t Breathe How Do I Sleep today in Rumpus Poetry.
...more
