Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
-

For the love of God, we are not Generation Y
A little while ago, I got sick of hearing that my generation—which for some God awful reason is called Generation Y—was spoiled, lazy and stupid, all while we were fighting wars (one of which, I seem to remember, we were…
-

This Book Will Self Destruct in 5-4-3…
“Books ought to be so cheap that we can throw them away if we do not like them, or give them away if we do. Moreover, it is absurd to print every book as if it were fated to last…
-

Hope for the Future Imminent
According to Cory Doctorow over at Boing Boing, there’s a high school kid running a library of banned books out of her locker. Her school has quite an extensive list of forbidden books, and she’s taken great care to make…
-

The Piano’s Been Drinking Decaf
I’ve heard lots of wild rumors about the musician Tom Waits over the years. The best one was that his career was an abysmal failure until he was stabbed in the throat in a bar fight, changing his voice —…
-

The Rumpus Book Blog Roundup
The book blogs are in a tizzy! One second, it doesn’t look good for literature. The cancer has spread. The postmortem is imminent. But then all of the sudden they are saying everything is fine and pointing us in the…
-

The Rumpus Sunday Book Review Supplement
Greetings! I am Seth, the new Sunday Rumpus Editor. My first act ever in this position will be to recap this week’s book reviews, so that you can start your hangover by reading the reviews you missed and re-reading the…
-

Poetic Lives Online: Links by Brian Spears
A movie about poets? I’m amazed that it got made in the first place. We linked to it earlier this week, but I think it bears relinking–Martin Earl’s observation on how women seem to be the real groundbreakers in contemporary…
-

This Will End Badly
I’m a union member and a union supporter, but this is not good at all. The Los Angeles Police Union has a $30 million investment in the group that just bought the San Diego Union-Tribune. (We can discuss the wisdom…
-

Lucy Corin: A Poem I Love
Frank O’Hara’s “Morning” I can read, as I just did, stuffing my face with a disgusting greasy croissant, and I am still totally immersed in the world of this poem which resists weeping so desperately the whole thing feels like…
-

The Camera Never Lies
In Steve Amick’s new novel, desire is most effectively stoked by what you can’t see.
-

How 1984 Killed George Orwell
George Orwell, who died at the age of 46, was one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, and arguably, given the way the Bush administration adopted many of Big Brother’s tactics, the twenty-first as well. A google…