Red as in: Dawn Lundy Martin’s Instructions for the Lovers
Perhaps like a phoenix, Martin maintains such a commanding presence throughout the book because she has endured the sacrificial fire of being a poet, the necessary self-immolation.
Poetry
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Rumpus Original Poetry: Four Poems by Michael Chang
as catwoman took off in a cemetery in queens / overturning headstones we hear great news
The Astonishing Power of African Poetry: A Review of New-Generation African Poets (Kumi)
Featuring gifted emerging poets from Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa . . . Kumi is a final tribute to a visionary and valuable investment in African poetry.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Mia S. Willis
the pink mink that matched cam’ron’s flip phone is / paparazzi primed and haunting my father’s closet
Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Chris Crowder
I am trying to be less miserable, digging / for everything I have to write into my flesh.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Four Poems by Marisa Tirado
More poems that make me uncomfortable / with the slant of the world! Follow it to the fold!
Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Cindy Juyoung Ok
Others have more lateral complaints after reading / books on plant cultivation and memorizing ideal / temperatures, water sources, and angles of sunlight.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Four Poems by Zachariah Claypole White
sisyphus never bothered to name breathless desire / suffering a language like canker sores you collect
Like A Mother: Joyelle McSweeney’s Death Styles
For the reader, it is the dedication before McSweeney’s first poem, “for my daughters,” that signals it is time to read.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Four Poems by Nazifa Islam
but I haven’t the discipline to really live / for poetry, for dreams
The Poetics of Holes
Unawareness can be exhaustion, but the very act of poetry is recognition—witnessing. To tell her truth, Nguyen must tell what is, to her, a mystery itself.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by Dabin Jeong
What time is it there / It is like another world / Have you eaten yet