Posts by author
Brian Spears
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Today in the Supreme Court
Unless you’ve been away from a news source all day, you’ve probably heard that the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, as constitutional by a vote of 5-4. Probably the biggest surprise was that Chief…
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Today in the Supreme Court…
My favorite Supreme Court watcher, Dahlia Lithwick, is hosting her yearly round table on SCOTUS decisions over at Slate. Joining her this year are Judge Richard Posner and Professor Walter Dellinger. The Supreme Court handed down a number of decisions…
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Rumpus Book Club(s) Announcements
The Rumpus Book Club has been having a great time with this month’s selection, Elizabeth Crane’s We Only Know So Much, and the Poetry Book Club has been taking Allan Peterson’s Fragile Acts with them everywhere. But we’re nearly halfway…
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The Rumpus Book Club Interviews Emily St. John Mandel
The Rumpus Book Club talks with Emily St. John Mandel about The Lola Quartet, panthers in Florida, her writing process, and more.
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Where Are You Reading?
The answer for me, in this case, is among a group of statues on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, IA. I’m reading from our June Poetry Book Club selection, Allan Peterson’s Fragile Acts. I’ve posted video of this…
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Poetry Book Club News
Our April poet, Carmen Giménez Smith, was featured on NPR’s NewsPoet series. (NewsPoet has featured Rumpus Poetry Book Club poet and recent Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith as well.) Check it out. And if you’d like to become a…
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Same-Sex Marriage Roundup
To almost no one’s surprise, last night North Carolina became the 31st state to ban same-sex marriage. This is the second time North Carolina has done this–the first time was just a state law; this one was a Constitutional amendment.…
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This Is Ridiculous
Harriet, the Poetry Foundation blog, reports that poet Joshua Clover and 11 students at UC Davis are potentially facing a $1 million fine and up to 11 years each in prison. Their crime? Peaceful protest. A petition is circulating which…
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May Day Update
I grew up in the Deep South in the 70’s and 80’s, where unions were limited in number and power by Orwellian-named “right-to-work” laws, so I thought May Day involved kids with streamers dancing around a pole. Not that I…
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Book Club Notes
This month, the Rumpus Book Club has been reading the latest novel from Emily St. John Mandel, The Lola Quartet. Here’s some of what other people have been saying about the book. Library Journal says of it “Evocative, intriguing, and…
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National Poetry Month Day 20: “The Story Gets Away From Him” by Lewis Mundt
Welcome to The Rumpus’s National Poetry Month project. We’ll be running a new poem from a different poet each day for the month of April. The Story Gets Away From Him Billy Collins is dining with friends.
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Congratulations!
W. S. DiPiero has been awarded the 2012 Ruth Lilly Prize by the Poetry Foundation. From the Poetry Foundation website: “Presented annually to a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is one…