Rumpus Original Poetry: Four Poems by P.E. Garcia
call me to the house / of the unheard // take the kudzu of whispers / from the windows & say each name
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Posts by: P.E. Garcia
Podcatcher #6: The History Channeler
Scott Pinkmountain, host of The History Channeler, on how he created the podcast, music, comedy, and his love of Tom Cavanagh.
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Podcatcher #5: #GoodMuslimBadMuslim
Podcatcher talks with Taz Ahmed and Zahra Noorbakhsh of #GoodMuslimBadMuslim about the podcast format, finding humor in absurdity, and diversity within the Muslim identity.
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Podcatcher #4: Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness
Jonathan Van Ness discusses his podcast, Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness, fierceness, curiosity, and hairstyles.
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Podcatcher #3: Poetry Jawns
Emma Sanders and Alina Pleskova charm us with their affection for each other, DIY ethos, and belief on Poetry Jawns, what matters is the work.
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Podcatcher #2: Rose Buddies
Rachel and Griffin McElroy, hosts of The Bachelor fancast Rose Buddies, talk about about the problematic aspects of the show, how they stay hydrated, and what’s up with all those McElroy podcasts.
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Podcatcher #1: Oh No, Ross and Carrie!
In the first installment of our new column all about podcasts, we talk with Ross Blocher and Carrie Poppy of Oh No, Ross and Carrie!.
...moreA Love Born of Mystery
“I was looking at books… Gary and I had seen each other. We didn’t know one another. And he walked over to me in this particular bookstore and handed me a book by Teran and said, ‘You’ve gotta read this book, it’s really good.’” NPR shares the love story of Gary Shulze and Pat Frovarp, retiring owners […]
...moreTransvestite Vampire Biker Nuns vs. Birdwatchers
Finally, the 2016 Oddest Book Title of the Year nominees have been announced, and they include captivating titles like Transvestite Vampire Biker Nuns from Outer Space: A Consideration of Cult Film and Behind the Binoculars: Interviews with Acclaimed Birdwatchers. The Independent has already placed its bets: Jonathan Allan’s Reading From Behind: A Cultural History of the Anus is surely the […]
...moreThe British and American Henry James
The memorial in Chelsea Old Church tactfully describes him as “a resident of this parish who renounced a cherished citizenship to give his allegiance to England in the first year of the Great War”—the “cherished” insisting from the grave that James had been a good American. The Paris Review marks the hundredth anniversary of Henry James’s […]
...morePoetry and Plants
A tour through Rumphius’ work is a masterclass in the poetry of the concrete noun. His shells bear names like Little Dream Horn, the Prince’s Funeral, Peasant Music and the Double Venus Harp. Atlas Obscura tells the story of Georg Everhard Rumphius (no relation), the blind botanist who applied poetry to science.
...moreTrump, New Yorker Style
Andrew Boynton applies the New Yorker‘s stringent copyediting rules to a statement from Donald Trump “in the interest of clarity.”
...moreFingerprints, Racism, and Sherlock Holmes
Fears of mistaken identity and unconscious slips were crystallized in the literature of detection but emerged from a broad range of hermeneutic practices across the era, at a time in which those in power considered the borders of empire and boundaries of racial identity to be insecure. The Public Domain Review looks at the early […]
...moreFood Fit for a Pope
He loves Argentinian empanadas and dulce de leche. In 2015, he said that if he had only one wish, it would be to travel unrecognized to a pizzeria and have a slice—or two or three. In other words, he may be protected by the world’s smallest army and be responsible for the spiritual governance of […]
...moreFinding Kafka
Was Franz Kafka really a tortured neurotic writer? A new biography shows a different side of the surreal German writer: He loved beer and slapstick. He undertook a fitness regime popularized by a Danish exercise guru. He tried to cheat on his high-school exams. He used his desk as a metaphor for self-parody and waxed lyrical […]
...moreKids Books All Grown-Up
…like Franzen’s novels, the Berenstain Bear books might meander, reveling in details alternately informative and irrelevant, but ultimately they’re straightforward tales about family. (Also, as a friend pointed out to me recently, JFran sort of looks like a Berenstain Bear. This can’t be coincidental.) At The Millions, Edan Lepucki compares children’s books to their grown-up counterparts.
...moreMichelangelo vs. Raphael
Having goaded the formerly pre-eminent Michelangelo by winning papal favour and sneaking into his as-yet unfinished Sistine Chapel, Raphael further insulted his Florentine rival in the Laocoön competition. The Public Domain Review tells the story of how the restoration of Laocoön and His Sons only further deepened the rivalry between Renaissance artists Michelangelo and Raphael.
...moreThe Work That Remains to Be Done
“I keep trying to imagine a universe in which too many public figures declaring themselves feminists would be a bad thing,” Roxane Gay, the novelist and the author of an essay collection entitled “Bad Feminist,” wrote, before concluding, “Of all the words that should be spoken more, ‘feminist’ should be at the top of the […]
...moreThe Best Longreads by Women in 2015
In an effort to combat the gender byline gap in media, Autostraddle compiled a list of the 215 best longreads from 2015, all written by women. Included on the list is “Out of the Swollen Sea” by Tammy Delatorre, selected by Cheryl Strayed as the winner of the first annual Payton James Freeman Prize. Read this year’s […]
...moreThe Id’s Id
If the id had an id, and it wrote poetry, the results might sound like “Widening Income Inequality,” Frederick Seidel’s sixteenth collection. The New Yorker examines the poetry (and unabashed privilege) of Frederick Seidel.
...moreBuilding a Black Literary Movement
The New York Times Magazine profiles editor Chris Jackson and how he’s building a literary movement for writers of color: ‘‘The great tradition of black art, generally,’’ he started again, ‘‘is the ability—unlike American art in general—to tell the truth. Because it was formed around the great American poison, the thing that poisoned American consciousness […]
...moreBetween Two Worlds
“‘We have to leave the country,’ I informed my wife as I went over the final proofs. ‘We won’t be able to stay here after this book is published.’” NPR looks at the satirical novel/memoir Native by Sayed Kashua and explores how Kashua transverses the two different worlds that make up Jerusalem.
...moreA Cookbook Feud Boils Over
The Amazon reviews, and the threads leading from them, are now the length of a book, and while the contest might seem overblown—more evidence of too much boring talk about food—Kennedy is far more than just a writer of cook books. The London Review of Books takes a closer look at a recent feud between […]
...moreTranslating Kafka into Japanese
The Berlin-based author Yoko Tawada recently remarked that one of the difficulties she faced when translating Kafka’s short story “Metamorphosis” into Japanese was that the associations Japanese people had with insects—even presumably giant beetles—were different to those of Europeans. In the Japan Times, Damian Flanagan traces the difficulties of translating “insect literature.”
...moreThe First Bohemian
The Public Domain Review examines the work of Elizabethan writer Robert Greene, the original Bohemian, and the first known reviewer of William Shakespeare: Greene’s chief target was “an upstart Crow,” who “supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you”…He has a “tiger’s heart, wrapped in a […]
...moreA Tale as Old as Time
Fairytales are some of the oldest stories we know, and as it turns out, they might be even older than we thought. The Guardian looks into the mysterious origins of stories like Rumplestiltskin and Beauty and the Beast.
...moreArt Should Make Things Worse
Art shouldn’t be mere normalizing sublimation or queer desublimation, which amounts to the same thing. Should actually make your problems worse. Only then can the fantasy of endless role-playing and analysis be traversed. Art is, in this way, less delusional than psychoanalysis. The Believer Logger interviews poet, performer, and critic Felix Bernstein about art and pathos.
...moreRare Photos from the 19th Century
It was also a costly endeavor, especially if a photographer wished to create multiple copies of a book. According to Kathrin Schönegg, a GRI fellow working on the project, most books had between just 20 to a few hundred editions — making some copies incredibly rare. At Hyperallergic, Claire Voon takes a look at the brief […]
...moreThe Perfect Crime Novel
On a technical level, it is possible to write a perfect crime novel. You might say Black Wings Has My Angel is beyond perfection. At Vulture, Christian Lorentzen explains why a 1953 heist novel is a classic of 20th-century noir.
...moreWas Oscar Wilde Unoriginal?
“Oscar,” Whistler’s barbs continued, “has the courage of the opinions… of others!” The Public Domain Review looks at the accusations of plagiarism that dogged Oscar Wilde’s oft-quoted career, and his highly-publicized feud with the American artist James McNeill Whistler.
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