The Last Book I Loved: Brown Girl, Brownstones
My dreams, for so long unrestrained by land, air, or even death—and frequently including scenes of me tumbling through the air on glossy black feathered wings or jumping into an…
Rumpus Originals
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Brother, This is Your Memory Cloak
I was stronger. By far I was the stronger of us both. A ballerina’s punch could’ve broken your nose, but I held back. We danced around the room like two tiny sparrows pecking at a fresh worm.
It Doesn’t Mean Very Much At All
I was tired of endlessly explaining that sex work could be empowering and could be exploitative, but that most things in life could be either of these things as well.
OG DAD #17: These Things Happen
Even now, transcribing the chunk of New Dad convo from my notebook to my computer, I feel like drilling a hole in my skull and pumping Purell inside.
THE LONELY VOICE #23: It Doesn’t Fit, It Will Never Fit, It Fits
Of Jean-Claude Van Damme, Haiti, and V.S. Pritchett...
The Rumpus Interview with Joy Harjo
Joy Harjo is a craftswoman of poetry. Her poems are constructed with such precision and graceful narration that I don’t consider them to be mere poems, but sermons.
HEAVY-HANDED: Strange Hallucination
"Not that any of this is real or consequential in any way..."
Deep Throat #1: On Being and Unbeing a Singer
When I shut my mouth I lost a part of myself so ingrained, so accustomed, so integral I had not even known it was possible to lose it.
FUNNY WOMEN #94: An Actual Missed Connection
This is a missed connection, and as such I am very sorry that our connection was missed, or maybe I’m not, I don’t know, because I’ve never met you.
The Rumpus Interview with Ayize Jama-Everett
Oakland-based novelist Ayize Jama-Everett sits down to talk notions of family, growing up as a sci-fi and comics lover in Harlem, and Tupac Shakur.
Nick Cave Monday #23: “Hard On For Love”
It was 1994. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds were performing The Fillmore in San Francisco. I was crushed against the stage and Blixa Bargeld strummed his guitar in front…
The Rumpus Interview with Lars Iyer
If Laurel and Hardy stumbled into Mike Leigh’s Naked, the result might resemble writer and philosophy lecturer Lars Iyer’s novels.