Blogs
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Ghosts Are Real, At Least In Publishing
“Ghostwriter” is a problematic word. It gives people the idea that we have some kind of other worldly power; that we’re able to hover over clients somewhere in the ether and read their minds, then write their books using only…
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A Place Where We Are Everything
Oftentimes when having difficult conversations about complex topics, certain kinds of people (the small-minded, feeble-minded, profoundly ignorant, etc.) will try to derail the conversation.
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat With D. A. Powell
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with D.A. Powell about his poetry collection Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys.
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“Winter Lottery,” a Rumpus Original Poem by Michael McGriff
Winter Lottery In the gray, frozen months, the pack rats moved into the garage and ruined everything.
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Drinking a Glass of Light
The emotional theme of the volume, the nostalgia and death that is announced in the book’s title and reaffirmed in almost every poem to some extent, is what I know I will carry with me for a long time.
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On Sending, and Receiving, Letters
Letter writing is one of those things said to fall under the rubric of “lost art.” Like tango dancing or throwing a knuckleball, whatever semi-vanished pastime we’re getting sentimental about this week (a google search reveals reference to a “Lost…
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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 of image and text, of history and the present, of…
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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 we think pretty much qualifies us to legislate what all…
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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.
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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 every book from those boxes plus anything else I could…
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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, without knowing it, fathered a child.
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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 the range of work he produced.