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Rumpus Original Poems
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National Poetry Month Day 11: “Billy Divine” by Adam McGovern
Billy Divine The American Primeval is not the green garden we think we’ve lost it’s stark white cloudless sky above a cinder-gray shack
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National Poetry Month Day 10: “Seven Confessions: A Chapbook” by Julie Sheehan
Seven Confessions: A Chapbook
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National Poetry Month Day 9: “Stone Cold Jane” by Cornelius Eady
“Stone Cold Jane” is one of the tracks from Cornelius Eady’s new chapbook from Kattywompus Press, Book of Hooks. I say tracks because these are as much songs as poems. “Stone Cold Jane” appears with the kind permission of Kattywompus…
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National Poetry Month Day 8: “The American Dream Visits While I Clean” by Julie Brooks Barbour
The American Dream Visits While I Clean It wasn’t part of me, only something I listened to, like radio music or dialogue on the evening news. I was cleaning the bathroom. I thought of nothing, really, while I watched my…
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National Poetry Month Day 7: “Cafe Space” by James Hoch
Café Space Here comes backwash from apocalypse gamey as last night’s monastery potluck. Did you have the goat bleating from the roof of a floating house, its song as old as warning?
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National Poetry Month Day 6: “Swim Lesson No. 3” by Wendy Willis
Swim Lesson No. 3 Syracuse, New York June 2012 I can’t find my bearings in this landlocked country, riverless and briny. Not waterless exactly but curveless and motionless, a chlorophyll kingdom. A viney
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National Poetry Month Day 5: “Tar Baby” by Amaud Jamaul Johnson
Tar Baby Given that Tartarus stands undisputed As the very bottom of Hell, where even The bones of the damned are scattered By Hector’s dogs and the Gorgons weep Blood into its veined marble floor, Then maybe our mascot is…
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National Poetry Month Day 4: “Sawed-Through Link” by Marilyn Nelson
Marilyn Nelson, today’s featured poet, wrote a series of ghazals to accompany some images by illustrator Philippe Lardy, who gave us permission to include a copy of the painting which inspired Nelson’s poem. Sawed-Through Link
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National Poetry Month Day 3: “To Biespiel From United Flight 1037” by David Biespiel
To Biespiel From United Flight 1037 — Greensboro to Atlanta Dear Brother — I used to think of death all the time, And then for a time I didn’t, or didn’t try to, And now I do not expect to…
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National Poetry Month Day 2: “To Mercury, In Retrograde” by Randall Mann
To Mercury, In Retrograde This ointment isn’t helping. This clinic isn’t free. The nurse’s favorite movie is Penitentiary III.
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National Poetry Month Day 1: “To Find Stars In Another Language” by Elizabeth Bradfield
Elizabeth Bradfield wrote the first poem we published here on The Rumpus, so I’m pleased to have her kick off this year’s National Poetry Month project. Elizabeth’s poem is more than just a written piece, however: it’s a collaboration between…