Mortality Probability
The first thing I realized while reading these tables: To be born is risky business.
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Posts Tagged: dying
Open Letter to Our Body
The only thing I can count on to be there tomorrow is my body. And yours.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Orientation
The human animal was at war with itself. It was a cosmic joke with no teller.
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Writing When Your Life Depends on It
Do I want to live, or do I want to write? Sometimes I think it’s that simple.
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R.I.P.: Labor In, Labor Out
Being reminded of your mortality on a constant basis makes your life so much better.
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Looking for Ghosts: A Conversation with John Freeman
John Freeman discusses his debut collection of poetry, Maps, displacement, empathy, and trying to find a way forward in the nation and the world.
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The Gate of Permission: A Conversation with Victoria Redel
Victoria Redel discusses her newest novel, Before Everything, living through and beyond grief, and why she loves secrets.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Grace
After the anger came a deep, resigned sadness, as if her cruise were canceled at the last minute. She’s stuck on the shore of her life, watching everyone she loves sail into the distance.
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Sound Takes: You Want it Darker
There are hard lessons about aging and dying and living on You Want It Darker that we’re not going to ever be done with until we either cure death or forget Leonard Cohen.
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The Rumpus Interview with George Saunders
George Saunders discusses his new (and first) novel Lincoln in the Bardo, Donald Trump, and a comprehensive theory of literature.
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The Rumpus Interview with Jennifer Martelli
Jennifer Martelli discusses her debut collection of poetry, The Uncanny Valley, growing up saturated with images of the Madonna, and her experience of motherhood first as a daughter and now as a mother.
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The Rumpus Interview with Jacqueline Woodson
Jacqueline Woodson discusses her latest novel Another Brooklyn, the little deaths of lost friendships, and her work with children across the country as the Poetry Foundation’s Young People’s Poet Laureate.
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Woman of the Earth
I left my family’s home in the US afterward because I didn’t know how to stay in the same place where everything had changed.
...moreRolling in Carrion
Colin Dickey writes about death and its metaphors. Our dog has an insatiable curiosity and a love of these dead things. The time he dove into the wreck of a carcass that I could not even identify was the most horrifying of all. I remind myself that I am projecting my revulsion, but because it […]
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Litany for My Mother’s Body
My mother’s body horrified me. Nine years old, I watched her dress. Her belly was rippled and sagged and scarred—a used-up bag of nothing.
...moreOn Dying, from the Heart
Over at The Weeklings, find an excerpt from Sean Murphy’s book Please Talk about Me When I’m Gone: A Memoir of My Mother. You learn not to talk to the stars, or you eventually realize it’s senseless to hope they can hear you. Yet enough people need to have their actions explained that we made […]
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What Happened to Sheila
“Don’t worry, I’m not dying,” said my wife Sheila. But she was.
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