Poetry
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Clearing the Bar with Care and Complexity: Ada Limón’s The Hurting Kind
The Hurting Kind’s epigraph, a quote from Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik [implores] us to “Sing as if nothing were wrong. / Nothing is wrong.” When we read Limón, we can almost believe that.
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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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Holding On and Letting Go: Rebecca Aronson’s Anchor
Gravity 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.
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Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by Janan Alexandra
2. 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…
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Another Oracle: Lynn Xu’s Those Ashen Heaps That Cantilevered Vase of Light
Almost 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,…
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Rumpus Original Poetry: 3 Poems by Katie Farris
Why bother closing a door / when everyone demands it open?
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RUMPUS POETRY BOOK CLUB EXCERPT: UPWARD MOBILITY by José Olivarez
An excerpt from The Rumpus Poetry Book Club’s February selection, PROMISES OF GOLD by José Olivarez
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The Sense of Words: Reverse Engineer by Kate Colby
. . . 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…
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A World Where We Are Known and Loved: Shelley Wong’s As She Appears
to be seen is not the same thing as being known
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RUMPUS POETRY BOOK CLUB EXCERPT: GARDEN by Gabrielle Bates
An excerpt from The Rumpus Poetry Book Club’s January selection, JUDAS GOAT by Gabrielle Bates forthcoming from Tin House Books on January 24, 2023
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The Last Book
The poet goes to the supermarket for peanut butter. The poet cleans the toilet. The poet responds to emails.
