RUMPUS POETRY BOOK CLUB EXCERPT: HAPPY WARRIOR by Michael Chang
An excerpt from The Rumpus Poetry Book Club’s March selection, SYNTHETIC JUNGLE by Michael Chang
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Join NOW!An excerpt from The Rumpus Poetry Book Club’s March selection, SYNTHETIC JUNGLE by Michael Chang
...moreGravity is what tethers us to the earth and to those we love, but it is also what we are constantly trying to escape. Anchor is about both these states—the holding on and the letting go—and the tension between them.
...more2. In literary Arabic, kaph is used as a prefix to mean like or as or as though / 3. If kaph is a hand that means like or as or as though, then kaph is a simile / 4. Simile is a hand touching two places at once, a hand bringing together / two far away things, making a transfer (metaphor)
...moreAlmost ten years have passed since Lynn Xu’s debut, the luminous Debts & Lessons, introduced us to her oracle. “Let it not be for what you write, the world / I mean,” opens one of the collection’s signature center-justified poems, redeemed from any elitist snark about the form’s limitations. That collection’s first poem, “Say You […]
...moreWhy bother closing a door / when everyone demands it open?
...moreAn excerpt from The Rumpus Poetry Book Club’s February selection, PROMISES OF GOLD by José Olivarez
...more. . . language is duplicitous. To be broken is perhaps to be part of a process (or a metaphor for life), where to bend (and survive) also leads to being broken. In this context, the word “broken” in “Reverse Engineer” might well point to a hard-won success.
...moreto be seen is not the same thing as being known
...morePoetry for everyone
...moreAn excerpt from The Rumpus Poetry Book Club’s January selection, JUDAS GOAT by Gabrielle Bates forthcoming from Tin House Books on January 24, 2023
...moreThe poet goes to the supermarket for peanut butter. The poet cleans the toilet. The poet responds to emails.
...moreEach day from January 7 to January 20, Rumpus Original Poems will feature poetry written in response to the coming presidential inauguration. Today’s poems are from Eve L. Ewing.
...moreAn excerpt from The Rumpus Poetry Book Club’s December selection, CONCENTRATE by Courtney Faye Taylor from Graywolf Press
...moreMy love, I signed / what papers they put before me. / The next morning a breeze / swept in across the bar. I watched it lean / the white sails toward starboard / and lift your heavy ashes / into the air.
...moresun bears are the smallest bear species / the 2nd smallest bear species is / not the moon bear although they are / relatively small when compared / to other bears such as polar bears
...moreAn excerpt from The Rumpus Poetry Book Club’s November selection, The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On by Franny Choi
...moreSo everything should be very clear.
...moreAn excerpt from The Rumpus Poetry Book Club‘s October selection, American Treasure by Jill McDonough forthcoming from Alice James Books on November 8, 2022 Subscribe by September 15 to the Poetry Book Club to receive this title and an invitation to an exclusive conversation with the author via Crowdcast Jealous of Children Not jealous of […]
...moreI hear the gossip of flowers / insatiable in their lust / Consider the cages that are our bodies
...moreI am only as lonely / as anybody else, I say / at lunch downtown, examining / my worth.
...morehow many men have / passed through this room, through my lips?
...moreAn excerpt from The Rumpus Poetry Book Club‘s September selection, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced An Emergency by Chen Chen forthcoming from BOA Editions on September 13, 2022 Subscribe by August 15 to the Book Club to receive this title and an invitation to an exclusive conversation with the author via Crowdcast A Favorite […]
...moresuddenly / we & our dream / of humanity are / all the rage / a star or what / passes / for one
...morebirthmother miss
...moreWhat do we do? We birth the new citizens / & answer their bodies with our bodies. // We rock the new citizens to sleep. / We clothe them with skin & stamp // their passports with milk.
...moreWhat did you hope to build in the / New country?
...moreIrritation Odes
...more. . . there’s some vital aspect to a person even the approach of oblivion can’t erase.
...more“I was glad at least to have heard it.”
...moreAn excerpt from The Rumpus Poetry Book Club’s August selection
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