The Throwaways
I grew up poor. Not too poor. My relatives in the Philippines would certainly not consider my youth as poor. But poor like I thought vacuum cleaners were luxury items.…
Rumpus Original
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You Simply Die of Want
The poems are themselves stealthy, hiding but then eventually revealing themselves to the writers. Or the stealth writers, both Seaton and Ace autonomous and authentic somewhere in that collaborative voice.
A Memorandum of Ghosts
Outside my window in Chicago it is snowing. I am overlooking a back yard that looks like a New England forest. Pine trees and garden bridges, amber soil and dirty…
FUNNY WOMEN #74: My Debilitating Anxiety Decodes My Unread Work Emails
When you send me an email, don’t think I don’t know what you’re really saying.
Imported Comedy
Playwright Alan Bennett set his sights on fiction in his new comedic collection, Smut.
The Rumpus Interview with Momus
Since the early 1980’s, the 51 year old Scottish musician/writer/provocateur Nicholas Currie, better known as Momus, has been releasing music (his latest album, Hypnoprism, was his 18th) to varying levels…
Ted Wilson Reviews the World #120
TERMITES ★★★★★ (1 out of 5) Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing termites.
Speech Fever
Ben Marcus’ fourth novel, The Flame Alphabet, uses well-worn myths as a way to expose and explore the pressing questions that we often forget thrum at the heart of our…
Messing with Memoir
When my memoir went out of print, it was as if someone had thrown a stray puppy onto my doorstep. Dazed, mangy, with a tendency to pee on the rug,…
Sunday Rumpus Fiction: Ten Reasons Not to Sleep with a Poet
1. If he is Catholic he will feel guilty. If he is Protestant he will feel guilty for not feeling guilty. If he is Jewish he will call his mother…
Transformation and Transcendence: The Power of Female Friendship
Here’s the truth: friendships between women are often the deepest and most profound love stories.
Denied the Work of Natural Generation
Haunted by the paradoxes associated with Shakerism that both glorified and doomed it, Kirchwey uses the place of Mount Lebanon to explore a layering of spaces and themes that accesses…