Blogs
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David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Make John Koethe’s Day
Publisher’s Weekly gives the red star treatment to John Koethe’s ninth book of poems, ambiguously titled ROTC Kills. PW’s reviewer says Koethe is “an amiable hybrid of late Wallace Stevens, late John Ashbery, and William Bronk.” It’s a sweet comparison…
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Chris Gethard
Distraught, a fan took to comedian Chris Gethard’s Tumblr, asking if Gethard had ever had suicidal thoughts. Despite asking anonymously, the fan made it more than clear that they are dealing with depression. In response, Gethard posted an extremely sensitive…
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SELF-MADE MAN #16: Trapped in the Right Body
Binaries are luxuries I can only study clinically; they lost their soothing qualities when I prioritized my reality over yours.
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Lit-Link Round-up
The highlight of your literary week? This “Six Question Sex Interview” with Junot Diaz, conducted by Six Question Sex Interview pioneer, Jessica Anya Blau. (P.S. Rumor has it I’m next in the queue for this series. Seriously, Jessica? You’re putting…
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Keeping Moviegoers In Line
Gawker reports on a London movie theater’s new tactic to keep moviegoers well behaved. The Prince Charles theater offers free movies to those who agree to don a black leotard, covering their entire body, and maintain order throughout the screening. If audience…
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From Grief to Gift
Big Other interviews Rumpus contributor Alex Gallo-Brown about his poetry collection, The Language of Grief, and how it led to a community gift giving project. Using Kickstarter, Gallo-Brown offered readers the options of donating money or exchanging gifts with one another in exchange for his book:…
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David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: The Roaring Editors
The Academy of American Poets is featuring Terese Svoboda’s generous tribute to a relatively unknown 1920’s proletariat poet, Lola Ridge. Svoboda isn’t just knocked out by Ridge. She compares her in a single breath to H. D., Emily Dickinson, and…
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The Branches, The Axe, The Missing by Charlotte Pence
Charlotte Pence, author of Weaves a Clear Night has created in The Branches, the Axe, the Missing a work of significant mythic force that explores intimate circumstances of a woman fraught with sorrow borne out of problematic relationships with an…
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The Daily Beast Loves The Rumpus Book Club
And we love you back. While I’m at it, a little update news. Our current book is Kathleen Alcott’s The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets—Bookslut covered it here and said “It’s never simple, but if complicated is what produces a novel…
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Swinging Modern Sounds #38: Dinner at Martha’s House
If you did not come of age as a listener to the popular song between 1975 and 1979, you cannot entirely understand the revolution that took place among women.
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I Live in a Hut by S. E. Smith
J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield famously said that the mark of a great author is whether, after reading their work, you want to call them up to talk, want to gab with them about nothing much and everything in between. You…
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FUNNY WOMEN #84: An Open Letter to Thomas the Tank Engine
Let me be blunt: you’re a train with human attributes. Who are your parents? From what monstrous act were you conceived?