Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by Carey Salerno
how exactly to ignite, to speak in sign, what the flashing draws down, damp, out, and what it / means to be a newborn body made of burnt-back embers, drifting over the sidewalk
Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
October Spotlight: Letters in the Mail
Our next Letters in the Mail come from Ling Ma and Kelly Sather.
Negotiating Grief, Shame, Loneliness, and Love: A Conversation with Vauhini Vara
When Vauhini Vara’s This is Salvaged (W.W. Norton, 2023) arrived at my doorstep, I couldn’t wait to tear through the slim collection. Vara is a master storyteller, but more than…
Voices on Addiction: Whole Pools of It
This time, Mandy calls me. Her words are much quicker. There is the force of meaning behind them, but the slur is still perceivable at the edges.
The Novelist as Playwright: Albert Camus’s Caligula and Three Other Plays
Bloom’s translations of these plays remind us that Camus was not a philosopher who used theater to illustrate arguments like Sartre, but a tragic thinker for whom drama was a fundamental and necessary means of literalizing political and ethical metaphors.
Rumpus Original Fiction: The Dollmaker
Sakshi can lay me over her workbench, unstitch my skin, stuff me with fur, and then sew me. She can weave her magic into me. Make me not be myself anymore.
They’re Both and They’re Neither: A Conversation with Robert Lunday
My stepfather would always tell me, “Don’t think, act. Follow orders.” For me, I want to stop to consider the different angles.
What to Read When Your Spirit Needs a Refresh
A reading list from India Adams, author of FOX WOMAN GET OUT!
Sketch Book Reviews: Piping Hot Bees and Boisterous Buzz-runners
Seeley uses historical studies, new findings, charts/graphs, and his absolute love of bees to teach readers.
To Mother, To Remember, To Survive: A Review of Sun Yung Shin’s The Wet Hex
To be a mother is to have strength, resilience, and ferocity in the face of oppression. It is also to contain the magic and power of creating a new life, of bringing up children, of making a home and a legacy.
Main Character as Witness: A Conversation with Rodrigo Restrepo Montoya
To some extent, I think I was also exploring how witnessing, absorbing, and listening are related to writing, and questioning whether this is a valuable way of approaching a life. I think it can be.