The Daily Rumpus
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From Stephen Elliott
I know I don’t truly understand what blood money really means, or what it is to offer up the vein, to be willing to give anything just to get by, but I have learned this: just because a story has utility doesn’t mean it’s false.
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I’m at NYU Dental waiting to get a cavity filled. I’m at NYU Dental because I’m poor, although if I were really poor — I am thinking — I wouldn’t be at a dentist at all. I happen to be reading Michelle Tea’s Without a Net, the first time I have ever read literature about the experience of growing up poor.
...moreAt Open Democracy, Adam Klein writes about income disparity, faith, and ethics.
“The things we fear are the things for which gods and governments show no promise of resolving. Every religion and every society espouses fairness and order. But the souls of the poor have swum through the net.
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Girlchild, Tupelo Hassman’s stunning debut novel, follows Rory Dawn Hendrix through a rough childhood in the Calle.
“Just north of Reno and just south of nowhere is a town full of trailers
...moreBarbara Ehrenreich looks back at Michael Harrington’s The Other America, and how the concept of a ‘culture of poverty,’ which became entwined with conservative ideology, has failed to address the actual (economic) problem at hand.
“…If we look closely enough, we’ll have to conclude that poverty is not, after all, a cultural aberration or a character flaw.
...moreBlog is a fun word to say, even if I’m tired of hearing other people say it.
Michaelangelo’s poem “When the Author Was Painting the Vault of the Sistene Chapel.” (via)
“Hey Oscar Wilde! It’s Clobbering Time!” Jacket Copy has fun with illustrators’ pictures of their favorite literary figures and characters.
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Kurt Caswell’s memoir describes his year teaching in a place of violence, despair, doubt… and hope.
Saïd Sayrafiezadeh’s new memoir about life in the Socialist Workers Party shows the effects of political idealism on a child’s upbringing