The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #104: sam sax
I could write a bullet list of sam’s sax’s recent accomplishments, but the wiser thing would be to advise you to pick up his newly released book MADNESS.
Poetry
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Rumpus Original Poetry: Four Poems by Hala Alyan
Nothing’s Freudian anymore. A cigar’s a cigar. I want to love something. / I want to love something without having to apologize for it. Please don’t tell.
The Last Poem I Loved: “The Cinnamon Peeler” by Michael Ondaatje
How different the world of the poem was from Saudi culture, which draped me in black and insisted, it often seemed, on One Truth.
Both Companion and Guide: Jeannine Hall Gailey’s Field Guide to the End of the World
I recommend you pull over now. Better yet, I recommend you call in sick and turn your car around. You’re going to want to read this book in one solitary burst...
Imagination Is Like Grace: Meghan O’Rourke’s Sun in Days
A poem doesn’t bring the dead back to life, but a memory has a touch of immortality: it’s a sort of recompense—forever isn’t exactly a lie, even if it’s not completely true.
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Gabrielle Calvocoressi
Gabrielle Calvocoressi discusses her new collection Rocket Fantastic, the fluid nature of gender, and the reader as collaborator with the text.
Let Us Be Singing Fools: Norman Finkelstein’s The Ratio of Reason to Magic: New & Selected Poems
If poetry is to remain a bulwark against the flagrant coarseness and cruelty at work in this moment of history, Norman Finkelstein’s work belongs right here with us.
Visitations: Gwendolyn Brooks at One Hundred
A visitation is how I describe the past weeks walking with Gwendolyn Books. It is like she is just around every corner.
A Tour de Force of Grief: Sun & Urn by Christopher Salerno
The winner of the 2016 inaugural Georgia Poetry Prize, Sun & Urn is gloomy and luminous, nostalgic and hopeful, moribund yet brimming with life.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Four Poems by Elizabeth Schmuhl
I am the storm in my front porch and I am moving, / a threat to this home and everything in it.
Coursing Byways and Biographical Thoroughfares: Karin Roffman’s The Songs We Know Best: John Ashbery’s Early Life
I’ve long found that when reading Ashbery’s poetry it’s easy to lose track of just who the poet is.
Radiant with Terror: Lowell and the Uncertain Country of Love
I found comfort in the way that Lowell’s poems frequently explore the landscape of mental illness and blur the lines between the self and the world.