Song of the Day: “Lord, Help the Poor and Needy”
Maybe growing up with a father who was a Jehovah’s Witness caused Charlyn Marie “Chan” Marshall to develop a sensitivity to the plight of the unlucky and underprivileged. Then again,…
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Max Gray
260 posts
Read more of Max Gray at Big City Sasquatch or follow him on Twitter @City_Sasquatch. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Encounters, Mount Hope, Conte, tNY.press, and English Kills Review. He co-hosts the etymology podcast Words For Dinner and is a graduate of the Rutgers-Newark MFA program.
Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, in Rumpus Saturday Fiction, Sherman Alexie’s shares three short stories—”Fixed Income,” “Honor Society,” and “Valediction”—that all offer his trademark whimsy and insight into the human condition. Three different teenagers…
Song of the Day: “Secret Life”
The passing of songwriter Leonard Cohen last Thursday added another mournful chapter to an already difficult week. The prolific and underrated artist—most famous, perhaps, for his aching ballad “Hallelujah,” popularized by John Cale, Rufus…
Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, Brandon Hicks complicates stereotypes of the lower classes in a comic spoof of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his famous wife, Zelda. Then, in the Saturday Essay, Melissa Kingbird recounts…
Song of the Day: “Hurt”
“I hurt myself today,” Johnny Cash sings in one of the last recordings he made, his poignant cover of the Nine Inch Nails song, “Hurt.” The song couldn’t be more appropriate…
Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, in Saturday Rumpus Poetry, Connie Voisine shares three new poems. Body shaming is the subject of “Shameful,” in which the speaker considers modeling herself after someone else, “like a person…
Song of the Day: “Helpless”
Neil Young’s name has become synonymous with a special brand of rock music that came of age in the 60s, matured in the 70s, and burned on well past its…
Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, Brandon Hicks shares a special Halloween essay he’s illustrated for us. Meanwhile, in the Saturday Essay, Evan Lavender-Smith reveals takes a frank and humorous look at self-image. “Character Evan” is attractive,…
Song of the Day: “8 (circle)”
It takes courage and artistic vision to take risks with music that has already won you commercial success, but lasting artists persist in doing just that. Bon Iver’s third album,…
Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, b: william bearheart shares a heart-wrenching and lyrical Saturday Essay on suicide, the struggle against depression and anxiety, and the role of poetry as an effective medicine. Hope and…
Song of the Day: “I Want You”
Allegedly covered and sampled by musicians as diverse as Madonna and Diana Ross to Mary J. Blige and Robert Palmer, the innovative single “I Want You,” off Marvin Gaye’s 1976 album of the…
Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, in the Saturday Interview, Michaelsun Stonesweat Knapp and Tommy Pico discuss Pico’s book-length poem, IRL, and its themes of temporality, Indiginous identity, and lyrical humor. IRL (which stands for ‘in real…