Where I’m Reading
Editor’s Note: Back in June, I made a video for the Rumpus Poetry Book Club. I read a poem from our June selection, Allan Peterson’s Fragile Acts among the people…
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Lit-Link Round-up
The inimitably incisive Steve Almond rips Romney’s “truth problem” a new one. And here, the freaky Almond interviews the freakier Jennifer Spiegel, author of The Freak Chronicles, on The Nervous…
Black Square by Tadeusz Dąbrowski
To say the least, the speaker in the collection works hard to figure himself out in relation to philosophical, religious, and spiritual matters, and while some American readers may find such a project quaint, naïve, or retro, it holds power because the speaker, no matter his tone or particular mood, remains piercingly perceptive and unabashedly honest.
Paradise, Indiana by Bruce Snider
It’s gratifying that Bruce Snider dwells in the past without so much as a hint of nostalgia, that he offers up both the beauty and devastation of small-town Indiana.
Announcing Letters for Kids!
This Just In: Announcing Letters For Kids! Letters For Kids is just like Letters In The Mail, except intended for subscribers six and older. We’re helping people appreciate the post office…
Lit-Link Round-up
Is it ever the season for galleys. Five in particular, in ARC right now, that are either slaying me or, I hope, soon to slay me . . . The…
I Am Your Slave Now Do What I Say by Anthony Madrid
If this collection didn’t have one again questioning the origin and provenance of poetry (other than the intellect or empirical self), the poems would be getting short shrift.
Madness, Rack, and Honey by Mary Ruefle
Madness, Rack, and Honey is a gift from a rigorous intellect, unflinching critic, and a big old sloppy heart. Ruefle has created a work of poetry from the daunting task of writing about it.
Michael Jauchen: The Last Book I Loved, Miss Lonelyhearts
I read a lot in the bathtub. This isn’t because I’m particularly drawn to cleanliness, but because I’m drawn to the readerly space that a hot tub of water can…
The Rumpus Interview with Valerie Trueblood
"The short story is a dark form, don't you think? There are sunny ones but they're in the minority. I don't want complete darkness, though. I like a dappled story."
Citizen by Aaron Shurin
Aaron Shurin writes piercingly lovely poetry that ‘s multidimensional and insists on being read aloud, though its eloquence is equally powerful on the page without sound...
SELF-MADE MAN #12: Holy, Holy
I saw myself, sitting away from the deck and the bottomless beers, listening to crickets and considering the loss of a body in metaphorical terms, drinking out of my own, grown-up Solo cup, me and my many-gendered grief.