Columns
-
Buddhist in a Corvette: On Richard Siken’s Third Transformation
Richard Siken’s virtuoso third collection, I Do Know Some Things, Copper Canyon Press 2025, arrives as a righteous heir of Edson’s vision. The book, bloated with human truth and stripped of pretense, offers black comedy, lyrical excavation, and a persistent,…
-
Getting Readers on Your Side through Humor: A Conversation with Erin Somers
“I love writing humor; it’s what gets me to my desk. The humor comes pretty naturally, which is part practice and part good luck. It’s baked into my worldview. Whenever I’m starting something new, I’ll have this moment of terror…
-
An Exodus and a Beginning: A Conversation with Joanna Choi Kalbus
My memoir chronicles our adversities as well as our achievements. She wanted me to attend a university and become a teacher. She cried at every one of my graduations and achievements. I know now life is fragile and fleeting, and…
-
Rumpus Original Fiction: The Eeling
Most people had stopped working. No point in making money now. Those who continued either genuinely loved what they did, or had ended up at the bottom of the waitlist and had to find ways to get by until their…
-
Good And Evil and Other Stories: A Conversation with Samanta Schweblin
“I’m fascinated by poetry that reaches complex, new ideas through the most ordinary words. It reminds us that fire, that hypnotic, powerful force, is nothing more than a spark born from two simple pieces of wood. I suppose I long…
-
Unearthing the Portrait of an Artist: A review of Brent Ameneyro’s “A Face Out of Clay”
The poet is not a singularity and is overwhelmingly in the world, among others, even when they are in a room with the windows shut to keep out the noise. Ameneyro’s most profound moments emerge when he shifts from singular…
-
Rumpus Original Poetry: Hana Widerman
Born to a Japanese mother and an American father, Hana Widerman is a poet originally from California. She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in English and Creative Writing and is currently a lecturer at Cornell University, where she…
-
The Other Side of Paradise: An Interview with Cleyvis Natera
“Countries with a history born of colonialism understand intimately that the perversion of the power dynamics in the relationships we see in today’s tourist economy isn’t anything new. It’s just a remix of the same old dynamic. As someone who…
-
Rumpus Original Fiction: Mother Tongue
You used to look in the mirror and your face would disassemble entirely: your eyes turning to twin river stones, your nose a stub of driftwood, the rounds of your cheeks the shells of beetles. Now there’s something more whole…
-
It’s Hard to be a Person: A Conversation with Jeannie Vanasco
“All of us are searching for answers for something in our lives. I like when someone is coming at the subject from a place of not knowing and I am there with them. I can’t think of anything more intimate…
-
Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by Cooper Dart
for samson, his sky the way I’d show up and leave into night and he’d still be out with that orange bikethe carburetor pried open a can of cleaner in the gravel. I told him it was goingto work this time— summer was working,…
