What to Read When Celebrating Black History
Rumpus editors share a list of books to celebrate Black History Month!
Rumpus Originals
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ENOUGH: Witch That She Is
A Rumpus series of work by women, trans, and nonbinary writers that engages with rape culture, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Erika Luckert
you write that “what we worship / makes us what we are,” and if this is true / then based on the poems of yours I’ve read so far / you are both a daughter and a god, / if this is true, I am a vine, invasive, here / to climb a wall. “As tendrils cling and twine / about the tree,” you write, and I try / to unwind your words into a history.
Hope is the Best Strategy: A Conversation with Sharman Apt Russell
As we start seeing the effects of climate change, of people struggling with drought and struggling with erratic weather patterns and flooding, we have to accept our responsibility.
A Gentle Touch: Annie Hartnett’s Unlikely Animals
What’s special about Hartnett’s chorus of the dead, though, is that they stress the tension between overlapping realities.
Revelation is Absurd: A Conversation with Adrian Nathan West
...we live in a culture that’s at once euphemistic and profoundly hyperbolic, where people try as hard as possible to not actually be saying anything so that they can never be accused of holding any position. Whereas it’s important to me, to talk about what people really do, what they really feel.
FROM THE ARCHIVE: FUNNY WOMEN: Feminist Valentine’s Day Gifts
Stretch. Listen in hundreds of different positions. Listen a little to the left; now a little to the right.
Play for Camera
I want to tell her that Hunter is Hunter and Daisy is Daisy and both should be allowed to breathe. I want to tell her I know the instinct to split yourself in half, too, that I know the violence required to hold your true self in shadow, that I have another name I only dare whisper.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by Sarah Fathima Mohammed
Moons empty in the whisper / of space between us. / Mother’s ankles roll into / my calf, brimming with silver, / with sleep. The night is made / of photographs. We sleep over / the prayer rug, woven from / all the daughters that have / pressed their lips to it / and swallowed.
The Woman in My Head: A Conversation with Emily Maloney
There’s a lot of rules or feelings about how writing a book should be, but very little of that actually corresponds with reality.