Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
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The Unkindness of Time: Elaine Sexton’s “Site Specific: New and Selected Poems”
One minute we are on a coastal road; the next we share quiet thoughts in a country house, while looking at an old screen door which conjures up temporal family memories. At another moment we are watching a jet trail
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Identity, America, and the Power of the Pen: A Conversation with Jason Mott
“I have learned over the years to control what I am willing to let go of. What I mean by that is, I think writers often underestimate how once you put something into print, it is no longer yours. It…
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The Shipwreck Left in the Wake of Nature Versus Civilization: A Conversation with Anbara Salam
“I always thought that Patricia Highsmith was such a genius at this in the Ripley books. Ripley is such an unlikeable person, but you so desperately want him to get the things that he wants, even though he’s this horrendous,…
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Rumpus Original Poetry: Varun U. Shetty
At the pet store, I look for a toy that doesn’t resemble an animal
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Going into the Wreckage and Unearthing James Baldwin’s Great Loves: A Conversation with Nicholas Boggs
“ I wrote it as a kind of narrative so that people feel that they are in the room with Baldwin. I want them to feel that they are down by the waterfront. I want them to feel that they…
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“One Consolidated Gasp:” A Conversation with Rickey Laurentiis
“I remember there was a moment, where I would write a poem, and I would put it immediately on Instagram. And it was just that gesture of extending a hand, and it wasn’t about the poem, it wasn’t for people…
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Center of Gravity
I’ve always been good at picking Ethan out of a crowd. When you love someone, you know where they are. I can taste the roar and purr of the ice under his blades. I imagine his parents watching him as…
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Getting the Clay of a First Draft on the Table to Pull It All Apart: A Conversation with Adam Roberts
“Writing that first draft gives me all the information that I need to make a really strong second draft. It’s a rehearsal, in a way. It was almost like doing improv in that world so that I could write the…
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In Praise of Confessional Poetry and Being Known: A Conversation with Sasha Debevec-McKenney
“You can go ahead and read what you want into whatever you want. That’s on you. Someone reads it and they think it’s about a particular thing, or they think it’s all true or all fake. I’m totally fine with…
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Fridays in the Year 2000
Things have been changing lately. First, a new century. Then your dad moved out.
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Distance from Trauma by Writing the Memoir Self as a Character in a Novel: A Conversation with Karen Palmer
“The thing about writing a memoir is, if you write yourself into a corner, you can only get out by telling the truth. Making something up to bridge a problem area is not available to you. With a novel, you…
