Ross Gay Waters the Seed of Joy: A Rumpus Interview
Rightness and goodness and fixedness is not the objective. The objective is to just be curious and wonder about the thing . . .
Interviews
883 posts
Scaling The National through Poetics: A dialogue between Rodrigo Toscano and Paisley Rekdal
Transient feelings about feelings of deliverance from (I’d say, national) anxiety. People are micro-dosing on sentimental poetry.
Taking to Heart Unbearable Reality: The Rumpus Interview with Jorie Graham
As I say to myself, living under the reality of this new, second cancer, I am rich in minutes. Maybe not in years, or, who knows, even months. But minutes, yes. So, I try not to squander them.
What does it mean to believe in something: A Conversation with Nancy Marie Brown
But this sense of being able to open yourself up to wonder is something you can do at any age. You just have to open yourself to it. Frankly, for me, it's a whole lot easier to do that when you're out in the middle of nowhere, you're cold and you're hungry.
Sharpening the Pencils: Kristín Ómarsdóttir Challenges the Structure of the World
I need secrets. I need unregistered playgrounds. I want to hide my steps. It should be my right to hide my wanderings, don’t you think?
I Have to be Gentle with Myself: A Conversation with Sari Botton
I imagine the full picture of me in scrubs and Danskos, being an MRI technician and then coming home and writing. Somewhere in an alternate universe, MRI technician Sari exists. I already have the Danskos.
The Correlation Between Love and Essay-Writing: An Interview with Jill Christman
Practicing deep curiosity and close observation is fundamental to writing essays. We need only to look at our small children to teach us these lessons.
Embodied Voices: A Conversation with Sonya Huber
So many of the metaphors we use that come from the body and bodily experience are ableist and predicated upon a notion of “normal.” In educational systems, that idea of “normal” has led to serious accessibility issues, to separate and unequal classrooms.
Can we be too alive together? A conversation with Chris Martin on poetry, autism, and our neurodivergent future
The way we arrange the conditions of our togetherness can allow all the writing to happen that beckons to happen.
Accommodations are not accessibility: An interview with Katie Rose Guest Pryal
Being disabled in higher education takes a psychic toll, whether you are faculty or a student. Yet most institutions do the bare minimum to remain “compliant” with the law rather than doing the work to make their spaces accessible and inclusive.
Finding Enchantment in the Ordinary: A Conversation with Meng Jin
The reason why so many of these stories have metafictional elements is that I was trying to write in an ethical way while feeling like a professional liar.