Wind and Rain Make No Difference
Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom could fit neatly into any number of contemporary-sounding categories: hybrid text, art book, lyric essay, etc. It is a book that relies on interdependence…
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FUNNY WOMEN #77: Penal Codes
Following the trend of female lawmakers submitting bills to regulate men’s health, we decided to do the same. We are three straight, gay, single, married, white, Cuban, non-practicing Jewish women, which…
The Alienable Rights of Women
We are having a national debate about abortion, birth control, and reproductive freedom, and men are directing that debate.
The Last Book I Loved: White Noise
In the mid-1980s, I fled Ronald Reagan’s America for the jungles of Costa Rica. Before leaving–forever, I thought–I shipped two boxes of paperbacks to the tropics. I would soon read…
LONELY VOICE #18: Kafka the Dad (Part Three of Five Stray Thoughts on Kafka)
In an essay called “The I Without a Self,” W.H. Auden tells us about a rumor “which if true might have occurred in a Kafka story.” That is that Kafka,…
A Square Grows Gloomy
Especially for a reader coming to Trakl for the first time, Firmage’s accessible introduction and organization of the poems provide an excellent overview of Trakl’s development as a poet and…
What You Lost Is What Everyone Lost
Often, in contemporary literature, grief becomes clichéd; O’Rourke, however, avoids sappiness or melodrama. Instead, her poetry probes at the actualization of grief, revealing a startling emotional depth.
“That Old Desire,” a Rumpus Original Poem by Meghan O’Rourke
That Old Desire Was a fire licking and hot, a red fur with blue trim, like an Elizabethan ruff, if a ruff could be made
Thorns In Our Hair, But Never a Shroud
Used well, the collective perspective affords the poet a wider voice, a surer sense. The reader feels present in these moments of ruin, trusting even the more fantastical occurrences.
SELF-MADE MAN #4: On Violence
I’m on the phone with my brother for the first time in months and my voice is deeper than he expected.
FUNNY WOMEN #76: A Person with Severe Social Anxiety Imagines What Will Happen If Seen Tripping on a Sidewalk
You! Rebecca Victoria O’Neal! I’ve just seen you trip on the sidewalk, confirming a long-held suspicion that you are a Bad Person with Whom I’d Never Hang Out.
The Best Rumpus Book Club Baby
Rumpus Book Club member Kristy Elam shares an adorable ad for TRBC: