When Tar Roads Came In Barefoot Age
Les Murray seems to want to make his experiences into some kind of shared history. In fact, this blurred line between personal memory and shared history is the spine to…
Posts by tag
Books
1061 posts
I Remember a Black Fog
Cedar Sigo avoids the usual pitfalls when exploring queer identity, minority identity and a political perspective thinking progressives can work with. He isn’t trite. He is never overwrought, and he…
The Air in the Cages is Dust
One of the great strengths of this book is Flynn’s refusal to luxuriate in self-importance. Instead, he displays a consistent awareness that the poetry of war is not war itself,…
Like an Amputee’s Phantom Itch
Whether you’re an admirer or a stranger to her work, Rachel McKibbens awakens and haunts with selfless honesty.
The Whole World Clanked Like an Iron Shovel
The horror of watching the self separate from the self—the schism of self-awareness—it’s almost vertigo-inducing. Kocot’s gift as a poet is being able to explain such complexity with such uncompromised…
Of Course They’re Staring
The poems in The Book of Frank capture moments, and they don’t explain themselves. But, cumulatively, they invoke a sense of what it is like to be almost supernaturally sensitive,…
A Conversation So Imperfectly Understood
Rosanna Warren’s tautly elegant poetry in her collection Ghost in a Red Hat captivates me. Warren does not aim for obscure language and obstructed meaning; she carefully and clearly reveals…
The Rumpus Sunday Book Blog Roundup
Today should be pretty alright, I think. “Where do libraries and e-books meet?” Yes, this article is really called “Jay-Z is Not a Proudhon of Hip-Hop,” and if you read…
The Rumpus Books Sunday Supplement
It was one of those awesome weeks at The Rumpus where when I went to write this roundup, it took me two hours to finish because I couldn’t stop with…
Glass Is Really a Liquid
The hard thing about these poems is that they make sense, fundamentally, but they’ve got a strange, skittering-away sense to them, a resistance to being pinned down.
The Foreign Skin of the Familiar
What’s most delightful is how Rader balances the heaviness of that observation against the lightness of the characters of Frog and Toad. Absurdity and lyricism, humor and serious contemplation, bump…
Dear Ruins of Our Future Selves
Wetzsteon’s formal style mixed with her populist vernacular is unmistakable and unforgettable.