April 2014
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THE LAST BOOK I LOVED: WONDER BOYS BY MICHAEL CHABON
Michael Chabon’s career is often the work of a writer hell-bent on destroying the line between “literary” and “genre,” and his most famous work is an epic adventure novel about comic-book creators.
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The Language of Desire
The alchemy of desire is much harder to master, its falls more tragic. And yet our language for it is maddeningly woolly. The great poets have striven for clarity here but most of us are doomed
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Jane Austen Would Be Eating Top Ramen Too
With writers, it’s usually neither rags to riches nor riches to rags. Marx had Engels, Austen had her family. Read this and rest assured: some cool people lived with their parents. Austen didn’t start out rich and she never got…
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Why We Binge
The average Netflix subscriber streams 87 minutes of video a day—four episodes of a half-hour comedy. We don’t just binge because it’s something to do and we’ve got time to kill. There is something deeper going on.
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The Music Behind the Poems
Poetry and music share a word of process — composition — and are linked by negotiations of melody, harmony, rhythm, proportion, and discord. While some poets require silence to compose, many others find that listening to music and writing go…
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On Writing and Uncertainty
Is writing a fundamentally speculative act? This is one of the questions Jenny Offill was asked in an interview with the Paris Review. Offill discusses the uncertainty that comes with being a writer, working constantly at a craft that can never…
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Art Undying, Georgia O’Beef Stew
Open mics, poetry contests, theatre prospects—a small “Art Bar” in Santa Cruz, California is using art, beer, and uniquely named food to fund local arts education. On its busiest days, the Tannery is a warren of studios featuring painters, sculptors,…
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New Readers Report Theme: “Missed Connections”
We’re hungry for more writing from Rumpus readers, so we’re now accepting submissions for our next Readers Report! This time, we want you to tackle the theme “Missed Connections.” Please send your submissions, maximum 400 words, to Susan Clements, silentjoy2001 AT…
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National Poetry Month Day 4: “We Who Bite the Hand” by Jonterri Gadson
We Who Bite the Hand The asses that sit on grocery store eggs praying they will hatch belong to the hands that sever worms and snap beetle’s backs just so we can build a bug hospital with the same fingers that pick…
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UMass Amherst Celebrates 50 Years of MFA Writing!
Online literary magazine Route Nine released a special alumni issue to celebrate the UMass Amherst MFA for Poets & Writers’s 50th Anniversary. Route Nine is edited by Rumpus Tumblr editor Molly McArdle. In addition, the W. E. B. Du Bois Library inaugurated an MFA Special…
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Pepper Girl by Jonterri Gadson
Joelle Biele reviews Jonterri Gadson’s Pepper Girl today in Rumpus Poetry.
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What’s the Point of Speed Reading?
“The dream of speed-reading has been around since long before screens were ubiquitous,” as James Camp writes in the New Yorker. Now, the much-discussed startup Spritz is promising to make that dream a reality with a technology that streams text…