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…
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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:
selected unpublished blog posts of a mexican panda express employee
When Boyle is insightful, this style allows the brilliance of the insight to shine through unfiltered and unaided by the mechanisms of literature and poetry, sometimes with powerful effect.