Rumpus Original
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The Rumpus Interview with Rafael Casal
Rafael Casal is known in the Bay Area hip hop community from his three appearances on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and his music video Bay Area Slang, where he rattles off 100 slang terms invented in the Bay Area.
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In Defense of the Cheap Seats
It works like this. You tell the kid at the ticket counter you want to see J. Edgar at 7:30. He asks if you’d like regular or VIP seating.
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A Flower Too Often Smelt Will Wilt
This is a hybrid book that chronicles the real journey and imagines the surreal journey of Lewis and Clark, from watching a baseball game with President Jefferson and Ozzie Smith, to the narrator having a tree sprout from his penis,…
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Aase Berg, Johannes Göransson and Garth Graeper
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with Aase Berg and translator Johannes Göransson about the poetry collection Transfer Fat. We are also joined this month by Garth Graeper of Ugly Duckling Presse, who published Transfer Fat.
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The Rumpus Interview with Carl Adamshick
[Adamshick’s] disinterest in self-promotion is plain, and the interview should be read with his tone in mind: wary, self-depreciating, somewhat amused.
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“The Mathematician,” a Rumpus Original Poem by Carl Adamshick
The Mathematician She’s taken to sleeping late. Only recently have I come to stare on her as phenomenon.
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The Faster I Walk
With a poignant sadness, a young Norwegian writer, Kjersti A. Skomsvold, tells the story of a lonely dying woman in her debut The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am.
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The Rumpus Interview with Cassie Jaye
Documentary filmmaker Cassie Jaye landed the Best Documentary Award at Cannes Film Festival for her film, Daddy I Do in 2010 — about the controversial religious ceremony Purity Balls, where girls from six to sixteen pledge their virginity to their…
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Out of the Vinyl Deeps
A new collection of music criticism from renowned critic, Ellen Willis, Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music, is equal parts service journalism and cultural commentary.
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The Rumpus Review of Rampart
If we can take away one thing from history it’s that it often repeats itself. The Kent State massacre in 1970 was one of the first instances where the media shined a light on the corruption of police enforcement.
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“In the Pink,” a Rumpus Original Poem by Maureen Thorson
In the Pink I walk the beach by the Tickle Inn and I know that breakups suck.
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Thumbs In, Fingers Splayed
Throughout the collection, the speaker in these poems is constantly aware of this contradiction, the intersection between life and art, perhaps frighteningly so, seeking solace in “these few things left,” trying to reconcile, like any reasonable artist, the internal with…