Posts Tagged: America
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 1): “The Idea of Ancestry”
I know / their dark eyes, they know mine.
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Letters to Laura from a McDonald’s in Brooklyn
Tonight my loneliness is infinite and I could eat dinner or dance with my limbs wild because there is no gravity keeping me grounded.
...moreDriving While Black in America
At The Toast, Katrina Otuonye discusses the inner pain and conflict of being unjustly stopped by the police as a black woman: My rule-abiding politeness, my inner drive to keep the peace, my outwardly even temper, none of these things will necessarily save me. I won’t get to hide behind my Master’s degree in a […]
...moreWho’s the Leader of the Club?
Nearing his 90th year, Mickey has not only outlived his adversaries, he has conquered them. Emerson famously advised his readers that if they built a better mousetrap, people would beat a path to their doors. Walt Disney wisely ignored his advice. Instead of a better trap, he built a better mouse, and the world paved […]
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Guildtalk #4: The Rumpus Interview with Saeed Jones
Saeed Jones talks about his forthcoming memoir How Men Fight For Their Lives, his new fellowship program at BuzzFeed, and making peace with the phantom.
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The Saturday Rumpus Review: Carol
Carol is a powerful woman with enviable self-knowledge, effortlessly creating an erotic, sensual ideal of herself as a covert spectacle for queer midcentury women.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Valuation Methods
In some of my fantasies, I make a pitch for art or for truth, defend them like commodities.
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The Saturday Rumpus Review: 99 Homes
99 Homes continues Bahrani’s tendency to take on big topics, to cut them into chewable pieces for its audience
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Joe Meno
Joe Meno and Margaret Wappler dive deep into his new book, Marvel and a Wonder, talking about race, masculinity, and rural America.
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The Rumpus Interview with Deborah Reed
Author Deborah Reed discusses her latest novel, Olivay, the necessity of fire, Los Angeles anxiety, and how she found fulfillment at the edge of the American West.
...moreAfrican/American
Although all-things “African” had been exalted in my house, this was not the case for project kids at P.S. 40, nor the “best of the brightest” at P.S/I.S. 308. It was at those places where I learned that there was a world’s difference between how we’re raised, and how we grow up. Yahdon Israel writes […]
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Bill Cosby’s Faux Legacy
Bill Cosby was never the man, the icon, the protector and illustrator of black culture, the guide, the genius we have created in our minds.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Song in the Subjunctive
Perhaps the city looked more poignantly lovely because I was conscious of its tragic history.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Reading Don Quijote with My Mother
“That’s the anthem I would have sung at my original graduation if the university had stayed open,” my mother said.
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The Rumpus Interview with Greg Baxter
Novelist Greg Baxter talks about living abroad as an American, writing his new book, Munich Airport, and why he doesn’t buy the defeatist clichés that people use to define our world and time.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: The Cultural Constellations of Agee and Smith
But who said a chronology had to be straightforward?
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The Rumpus Interview with Laura van den Berg
Author Laura van den Berg talks to the Rumpus about why she thinks America is obsessed with dystopias, the intersection of surrealism and realism in her work, and choosing an ambiguous ending for her new novel, Find Me.
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The Rumpus Interview with Boris Fishman
Boris Fishman discusses his debut novel, A Replacement Life, Russia, the “immigrant novel,” Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, and Vladimir Putin.
...moreRoad Tripping for Inspiration
“We’re doing this because we’re buds and we’re starting new books. We’ve always talked our ideas through with each other; it’s always helped. Through these conversations, we’ve grown as writers together.” Josh Weil and Mike Harvkey have been longtime friends. Now, both with new novels on the way, they have embarked on a five day […]
...moreLooking at America from Far Away
Since I arrived, two years ago, I’ve grown more interested in works about American expats, especially those in which the characters are not quite comfortable in their settings. I wanted to see what this literature said about the ways in which expat life in Europe evolved over the course of American history. I also wanted […]
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Beyond Americana
These are memories, packaged, dusted, shrink-wrapped, and worn. How strange are they for the man to whom they belonged?
...moreThe Little Tolls and Pitfalls of Modern American Racism
Abigail Fisher, a 22-year old white girl, a graduate of LSU, just pleaded to the Supreme court that the University of Texas rejected her four years ago because of affirmative action. UT says they’d have rejected her no matter her race; regardless, her suit might lead the Supreme Court to forbid the practice. She’s asking […]
...moreSongs of Our Lives: Simon & Garfunkel’s “America”
It’s Christmas morning, 2001 and I’m fifteen. I unwrap a record player, but am more immediately captivated by the record collection that comes with it.
...moreCities and You
The Atlantic recently ran an article entitled “Why Americans Love Chain Stores: A Psychological Perspective,” and not only does it break down our metropolitan American tendencies, but it explains them in terms of our psychological issues. Our ideals about American independence give way to our obsession with chain stores. We are restless and like to […]
...moreFinal Dispatch from the Great Mistakes Tour
The third leg of comic Kyle Kinane’s Great Mistakes Tour has been officially documented. This part of Isaac and Kyle’s foray into the expansive American landscape includes Sioux Falls and Omaha, more Taco Bell and one sentimental, applause-filled coda to the tour. And while desolate roads and small towns may not fuel the hours of […]
...moreGay Marriage for America
Love and the pursuit of happiness were the impetus for Andrew Sullivan’s move from the UK to America. He wrote a beautiful essay for Newsweek on the benefits of gay marriage for straight America. With our “inalienable human rights” being deeply intertwined with what it means to be part of this country, it should follow […]
...morePercival Everett on Franzen, Sexism and The Great American Novel
“I do not believe that apparent authoritative literary voices of validation would ever make such a grand claim about a novel written by a woman. I say this because I believe there are many novels by women that are about the same sort of world as presented in Freedom. Sadly, the culture usually calls these […]
...morePostcards from the Edge
“Big American Trip addresses our insecurities as artists, lovers, and citizens who lack the ability to understand one another, regardless of which language we speak.”
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