National Poetry Month Day 12: “Dear Empire” by Oliver de la Paz
Dear Empire, These are your murders. I’m not one to speak of atonement, given my sins are expressly for you. Given night’s easy wound and your own scar. Given the…
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National Poetry Month
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National Poetry Month Day 11: “Sonnet to Ash Wednesday” by Noelle Kocot
Noelle Kocot’s The Bigger World was the Rumpus Poetry Book Club’s selection for the month of February. You can read Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s essay on why she chose the book here…
National Poetry Month Day 10: “Universal Translator” by Amy Letter
Universal Translator Universal Translator from Amy Letter on Vimeo. Science fiction stories set in an alien-rich future like to show the universe’s different species communicating seamlessly by means of (what…
National Poetry Month Day 9: “Letter to the Winding-Sheet” by Camille Rankine
Letter to the Winding-Sheet After the snowfall, snowfall jewels my hair, my church shoes muddy the bedspread. Crazy, you called me, not much of a lady.
National Poetry Month Day 8: “I Am Six” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s Lucky Fish was the Rumpus Poetry Book Club selection for December 2010. You can read Camille Dungy’s essay on why she chose Lucky Fish here, and you can…
National Poetry Month Day 7: “Jack Gilbert” by P. Scott Cunningham
Jack Gilbert Love is everything though of course, love dies leaving you in agony and then you die and worms crawl in and out of your skull.
National Poetry Month Day 6: “Certain Slant” by T. R. Hummer
Certain Slant Concertina music breaks its foam on the haberdashery window, a murder ballad so old even the monkey knows the words
National Poetry Month Day 5: “The Great Wave” by Barbara Jane Reyes
The Great Wave After Hokusai First, the sea took the shore. She surged and sucked up the sand and gravel, all the soil and clay. She plucked twisted trees from…
British Prisoners Take Poetry Seriously
I don’t know what I love most about this story from Britain. British prisoners are outraged because a fellow prisoner won second prize in a poetry contest by entering a…
National Poetry Month Day 4: “For the City that Nearly Broke Me” by Reginald Dwayne Betts
For the City that Nearly Broke Me Listen for echoes. Now bury what you lost in the wind’s silence.
National Poetry Month, Day 3: “Why I Did Not Make Love to Your Dead Body” by Kirsten Kaschock
Kirsten Kaschock’s A Beautiful Name For a Girl was the Rumpus Poetry Book Club’s January selection. You can read the book club’s interview of her here, and you can find…
National Poetry Month, Day 2: “The Starving Saint” by Sandy Longhorn
The Starving Saint Encased in silver, the feet of the saint crack and splinter in the first hard frost.