Your Patriotism Isn’t Love, It’s Blindness
Love of country, some argue. With their boots firmly planted in my chest as I struggle to protest. No, that is not love, but blindness.
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Posts Tagged: reclaiming patriotism 2017
Both Beauty and Horror: Water & Salt by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
Tuffaha harnesses the legerdemain of lyric to link love and grief, anger and hope.
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There Is Simply No Time for This: Whose Streets? and Civil Rights Cinema
It is unlikely I will see the US justice system evolve toward an egalitarian ideal in my lifetime. But Whose Streets? does offer a clearly visible North Star.
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Sound & Vision: Nicole Georges
Allyson McCabe talks with Nicole Georges, illustrator, zinester and educator, about her new book Fetch, how she got into the DIY punk scene, and family secrets.
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A Poethead’s Guide to the Galaxy: Talking with David Hernandez
David Hernandez discusses his most recent poetry collection, Dear, Sincerely, working across multiple genres, and why the act of making anything is a kind of optimism.
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Rumpus Original Poetry: “PatRIOT” by Xavier Cavazos
When all gods are dead & Allah means the same as Christ on the Cross / & Christ on the Cross means the same as detonation—
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Libraries Are the Real Punk Rock
Maybe I was only in the eighth grade, but I was ready to stand up to anyone who tried to threaten the ideal of intellectual freedom.
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I, Me, We, and the GOP
It’s not coincidental, I think, that most of the secular and sacred saints we venerate now went charging against the grain of the Municipal We.
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There Is No Answer: Draw Your Weapons by Sarah Sentilles
As Sentilles makes clear, she is against the wars the United States is currently involved in, and war in general, but she’s critical of what that means.
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Make/Work Episode 40: Kate Schatz
In Episode 40 of The Rumpus’s Make/Work podcast, host Scott Pinkmountain speaks with writer and activist Kate Schatz.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: The Barbecue
Up close, the beach was disgusting and tragic. A million tiny pieces of plastic were heaped on the shore like confetti from a hundred parades, or like the real sand on the beach threw up.
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Home Is Here
There is no singular Muslim story, no definitive identity for the entire religion. […] Here, four women discuss what it’s like to be a minority in America in 2017, post-9/11 and post-Trump.
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At the Intersection of Personal and Political: Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems Now edited by Amit Majmudar
American writers have a long, distinguished history of calling out injustice.
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The Election and the Ash Borer
Does it matter what words a sign says when a symbol says so much more? A white X. A carved swastika. Things get torn down from less.
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Finding Comfort in the Discomfort: Talking with Juan Martinez
Juan Martinez discusses his debut collection Best Worst American, his relationship to the English language, and why Nabokov ruined his writing for years.
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Beauty Undercut by the Possibility of Terror: Afterland by Mai Der Vang
Precariousness is an essential condition of life for the people who populate Vang’s poems, especially the Hmong refugees on whom the poet’s eye most lovingly lingers.
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A Specific Kind of Loneliness: In Conversation with Geeta Kothari
Geeta Kothari discusses her debut collection, American xenophobia, and the immigrant narrative.
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TORCH: My Father’s Mansion
I love the United States, too. Like a house I was raised in, though, I know it up close and can spot its many fissures.
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Rumpus Original Poetry: “Mewl” by Sarah Lyn Rogers
Still, something tells me God’s chosen // weren’t hate-mongering gropers (or worse). Just a hunch. A woman’s / intuition.
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Language Is All Convention: Talking with Elif Batuman
Elif Batuman discusses her new novel The Idiot, what it means to be a writer, and the artifice of language.
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David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 15): “Southern History”
We can’t hide from our history and we can’t pass it on to future generations.
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The Occupation of America: Moving Kings by Joshua Cohen
[Moving Kings] has brilliant things to say about America and Israel, war and peace, diaspora and home.
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Readers Report: The New Patriot
A collection of short pieces written by Rumpus readers pertaining to the subject of “The New Patriot.”
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On the Front Lines
When you pick up a pen instead of a rifle, you’re fighting an entirely different battle. This is my duty. This is my patriotism.
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Color Is a Language in Itself: Mahtem Shiferraw Discusses Fuchsia
Mahtem Shiferraw discusses her debut collection, Fuchsia, how she uses color to understand the world and to communicate, and why her work continually addresses displacement.
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Reclaiming Patriotism: Telling a New Story of America
America is a broken window pane—shards of glass, each reflecting a different light.
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