Fighting the Erasure of Poet Liu Xia
Liu Xia is a Chinese poet. Her husband, Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Laureate and dissident, died recently in prison. Liu Xia, who has been under strict house arrest for ten…
Poetry
2340 posts
A Reluctant Chronicling: Natalie Shapero’s Hard Child
“I typically hate discussing the past,” the speaker admits in the title poem, “Hard Child,” then a few poems later, a little more defensively—“I swear to God I hardly think of the past."
Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by Frank X Walker
But I am not trading in fear. / I am only afraid / that they have been in captivity / so long they won't recognize my scent.
More Than Vicarious: Conflation and ALOHA / irish trees
In this intimate, auditory format, you can hear the poets’ pages crinkling as they turn them—such a reassuring sound—turning pages instead of scrolling screens!
Both Beauty and Horror: Water & Salt by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
Tuffaha harnesses the legerdemain of lyric to link love and grief, anger and hope.
A Poethead’s Guide to the Galaxy: Talking with David Hernandez
David Hernandez discusses his most recent poetry collection, Dear, Sincerely, working across multiple genres, and why the act of making anything is a kind of optimism.
Rumpus Original Poetry: “PatRIOT” by Xavier Cavazos
When all gods are dead & Allah means the same as Christ on the Cross / & Christ on the Cross means the same as detonation—
Why I Chose Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s Rocket Fantastic for the Rumpus Poetry Book Club
Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s third collection, Rocket Fantastic, is a beautiful book which asks the reader to live in a world where gender and language are both fluid and linked together in a dance…
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Erika L. Sánchez
Erika L. Sánchez discusses her new collection Lessons on Expulsion, pushing back against sexism and misogyny, being a troublemaker, and donkeys.
At the Intersection of Personal and Political: Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems Now edited by Amit Majmudar
American writers have a long, distinguished history of calling out injustice.
Beauty Undercut by the Possibility of Terror: Afterland by Mai Der Vang
Precariousness is an essential condition of life for the people who populate Vang’s poems, especially the Hmong refugees on whom the poet’s eye most lovingly lingers.
#SuicideGirls: Why I Teach Sylvia Plath
But let’s not forget: feminism is, at least in part, about choice, and portions of life are play, not politics. Play and relationships and creativity and whatever we want.