Voices On Addiction: Speaking Ill of the Dead
I have always felt stuck in the quicksand of Wanting-Things-To-Be-Different.
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Posts Tagged: Mother
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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What Did You Expect, Though?
The immune system, meant to protect a body from foreign invaders, works too assiduously, sees danger where there is none, turns on itself. Such conditions lend themselves to metaphor.
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Mothers of My Diaspora
It paralyzes me to think about the sacrifices my family made before I was in my mother’s womb. When they came here they knew they would lose a part of their language, their memories, their sanctity of self.
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Sunday Rumpus Poetry: Five Poems by Jan-Henry Gray
Dry-mouthed, standing shoulder to shoulder, / They watch the carousel spit out black bags / And mumble “not mine” over and over.
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The Alienation of an Irish Abortion
Was it a dream? A nightmare? I felt like I’d been sold a lie. There was no husband or caring partner, no safe home or solid income. Just me, pregnant and alone, in an abortion clinic with my rapist.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: The Leaving Deficit
Feathers are a gift and flexible protein. Mom put down tobacco and ran her fingers over its exposed parts. She told me the salmon run is coming and this bird would have wanted for nothing.
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This Is Not a Story About a Ghost
This is a story about memory. About neurons misfiring, about the strange space between dream and awake, that feeling, when I’m falling asleep, of falling backwards, swinging my arms up to catch myself.
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Motel Ecstasy
Alia Volz’s artist, expat mom needed to leave Mexico and go back to the United States for a heavy-duty chemo treatment, which meant it was time for a mother-daugther road trip.
...moreThis Week in Short Fiction
If you’re not yet aware of the online magazine Storychord, take this chance to get acquainted. Each issue features a short story, a piece of visual art, and a musical composition, which combine to make a sort of multimedia storytelling triptych and a unique reading experience. In this week’s selection, Laura Bernard’s illustration of a […]
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Michael Derrick Hudson, Before You Steal My Chinese Name
Know that you are trying to steal from a naming ritual and culture that goes back five thousand years.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: I wanted to be sure to reach you
I have no answers, but I can feel my feet.
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: The Story of My Fear Over Time
A boy dies at exactly my age, one month past ten years old. We share a birthday, same day, same year.
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Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, take a walk down memory lane with David Hajdu’s visual memoir of his favorite bar, Bradley’s, boasting art by John Carey. And in the Sunday Essay, Jordan Rosenfeld takes a frank look at the many ways a mother’s boldness can influence her daughter’s relationship with her own sexuality. Having a free spirit for a […]
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OG Dad #21: The Head Bang, the Hole In The Wall, and the Happy Fart
My daughter likes to bang her head off the floor. It makes a point—an especially guilt-tinged one, given that we had to get rid of our carpets due to a mold infestation, so now there’s no cushion between baby cranium and wood.
...moreAlone in the woods: A New Memoir
Rumpus contributor Micah Perks has a new eBook out on Shebooks called, Alone In The Woods: Cheryl Strayed, my daughter and me. Micah Perks’ candid short memoir takes an insightful look at women and the wild, the wildness she experienced as a child on a commune in the Adirondack wilderness, the ways women and wildness […]
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Nick Cave Monday #13: “Babe, I’m On Fire”
Clocking in at 14 minutes, 43 seconds is “Babe, I’m On Fire.” The video is so much fun. I would have worked for free as a PA on that shoot just to watch the mayhem in person. For most of the song is Nick calling out characters who say, “Babe, I’m on fire.” Like mom […]
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