An Arduous Reality: Testify by Simone John
Simone John’s first full-length collection of poems, Testify, is a remarkable exercise in documentary poetics.
Poetry
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Moving Toward Answers: A Conversation with Stephen Mills
Poet Stephen Mills discusses his first two collections, He Do the Gay Man in Different Voices and A History of the Unmarried, teaching writing, and what's next.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Analicia Sotelo
And sometimes the poems were like that. / When we wrote knife, bubbly, naked, / we were really getting down, / dancing hard on the injury.
Map-Making: Alex Dimitrov’s Together and By Ourselves
At one point, I write in my margin: There is no X marks the spot for treasure here. The map is the treasure. Which is another way of saying: this book is the bounty; these poems are the gold.
The Violence of Lost Time: Planetary Noise: Selected Poetry of Erin Mouré
Translating, in its widest meaning, is an attempt to accomplish what having a passport gives us permission to undertake.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by Jory Mickelson
Hello, said the sea // though it would not recognize itself.
The Way That Poetry Works: Holdfast by Christian Anton Gerard
In his searing, soulful second collection, Gerard uses the language that is poetry to invite the reader in to the experience of his darkest and brightest moments.
Writing into the Void: Talking with Mary Jo Salter
Mary Jo Salter discusses her latest collection, The Surveyors, writing about the domestic as a feminist act, and how her title poem came from someone else’s dream.
The Causality Runs Both Ways: A Conversation with Joshua Clover
Joshua Clover discusses his book Riot.Strike.Riot, mediating between individual agency and structural determination, and finding hope in student action.
Both Presence and Absence: Safia Elhillo’s The January Children
The book, in the end, is shot through with a faith in human communion despite immense communal and individual loss.
A Curious Swarm or Energy: Talking with Rachel B. Glaser
Rachel B. Glaser discusses her newest poetry collection, HAIRDO, her writing process, and the books and writers that have influenced her.
On Joy: Three Poetry Anthologies
With impermanence and “praise for the devil” all around, it’s a gift to rediscover joy, no matter how fleeting.