Where I’m Reading
Editor’s Note: Back in June, I made a video for the Rumpus Poetry Book Club. I read a poem from our June selection, Allan Peterson’s Fragile Acts among the people…
Poetry
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Black Square by Tadeusz Dąbrowski
To say the least, the speaker in the collection works hard to figure himself out in relation to philosophical, religious, and spiritual matters, and while some American readers may find such a project quaint, naïve, or retro, it holds power because the speaker, no matter his tone or particular mood, remains piercingly perceptive and unabashedly honest.
Paradise, Indiana by Bruce Snider
It’s gratifying that Bruce Snider dwells in the past without so much as a hint of nostalgia, that he offers up both the beauty and devastation of small-town Indiana.
I Am Your Slave Now Do What I Say by Anthony Madrid
If this collection didn’t have one again questioning the origin and provenance of poetry (other than the intellect or empirical self), the poems would be getting short shrift.
Madness, Rack, and Honey by Mary Ruefle
Madness, Rack, and Honey is a gift from a rigorous intellect, unflinching critic, and a big old sloppy heart. Ruefle has created a work of poetry from the daunting task of writing about it.
Citizen by Aaron Shurin
Aaron Shurin writes piercingly lovely poetry that ‘s multidimensional and insists on being read aloud, though its eloquence is equally powerful on the page without sound...
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Rowan Ricardo Phillips
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with Rowan Ricardo Phillips about his poetry collection The Ground.
Across the Land and the Water by W. G. Sebald
In Sebald’s Across the Land and Water, the theme is clear. In these collections, we have named men and women (names) traveling, staying in hotels, unanchored, exiled and lost, seemingly forever, from their home.
Long Division by Alan Michael Parker
Parker’s voice is so singular and strong that I don’t question it, even when it relies on wit, and in return, Parker rewards me for following him when I least expect it.
The Poems That Let You In: A Special Rumpus Invitation
In honor of summer and poetic adventures The Rumpus Poetry Book Club is doing something special this evening. We’re opening tonight’s online Rumpus Poetry Book Club chat with Allan Peterson to everyone who’d like to come.
An Individual History by Michael Collier
Collier’s poems refuse to submit to a culture that has come to hold the individual suspect or in contempt. Many offer poignant but unsentimental family portraits made with vivid detail, with images that are remembered, hence recovered and immortalized.
Percussion Grenade by Joyelle McSweeney
McSweeney asks us to inhabit the conflicting edges of that reality, mouthing the power and joy that come with degeneracy.