National Poetry Month Day 9: “Stone Cold Jane” by Cornelius Eady
“Stone Cold Jane” is one of the tracks from Cornelius Eady’s new chapbook from Kattywompus Press, Book of Hooks. I say tracks because these are as much songs as poems.…
Poems
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National Poetry Month Day 8: “The American Dream Visits While I Clean” by Julie Brooks Barbour
The American Dream Visits While I Clean It wasn’t part of me, only something I listened to, like radio music or dialogue on the evening news. I was cleaning the…
National Poetry Month Day 7: “Cafe Space” by James Hoch
Café Space Here comes backwash from apocalypse gamey as last night’s monastery potluck. Did you have the goat bleating from the roof of a floating house, its song as old…
National Poetry Month Day 6: “Swim Lesson No. 3” by Wendy Willis
Swim Lesson No. 3 Syracuse, New York June 2012 I can’t find my bearings in this landlocked country, riverless and briny. Not waterless exactly but curveless and motionless, a chlorophyll…
National Poetry Month Day 5: “Tar Baby” by Amaud Jamaul Johnson
Tar Baby Given that Tartarus stands undisputed As the very bottom of Hell, where even The bones of the damned are scattered By Hector’s dogs and the Gorgons weep Blood…
National Poetry Month Day 4: “Sawed-Through Link” by Marilyn Nelson
Marilyn Nelson, today’s featured poet, wrote a series of ghazals to accompany some images by illustrator Philippe Lardy, who gave us permission to include a copy of the painting which…
National Poetry Month Day 3: “To Biespiel From United Flight 1037” by David Biespiel
To Biespiel From United Flight 1037 — Greensboro to Atlanta Dear Brother — I used to think of death all the time, And then for a time I didn’t, or…
National Poetry Month Day 2: “To Mercury, In Retrograde” by Randall Mann
To Mercury, In Retrograde This ointment isn’t helping. This clinic isn’t free. The nurse’s favorite movie is Penitentiary III.
National Poetry Month Day 1: “To Find Stars In Another Language” by Elizabeth Bradfield
Elizabeth Bradfield wrote the first poem we published here on The Rumpus, so I’m pleased to have her kick off this year’s National Poetry Month project. Elizabeth’s poem is more…
“I Growed No Potatoes To Write About, Sir”: a Rumpus Original Poem by Erin Belieu
I Growed No Potatoes To Write About, Sir nor bogs, nor fathers, nor special water that was my place alone to make me hard and wise— I did not sow…
“Feather”: A Rumpus Original Poem by Deborah Ager
Feather Somehow, I thought you’d want to eat alone, A state you’d grown to master—brandy glass, A man behind your chair to fill your plate, A girl to bring you…
“The Tornado Collects the Animals”: a Rumpus Original Poem by Catherine Pierce
The Tornado Collects the Animals The tornado likes animals because they pay attention. The tornado sees the dogs howling up from rippling yards, the cows huddled mutely against one another,…