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I Knocked On the Walls, In a Circle
The Chameleon Couch proves itself an expertly crafted book from a poet peaking in his awareness and execution of all the tangled dialectics that manifest in his art.Poet Yusef Komunyakaa wants you to...
View ArticleDavid Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Poetry and the Newtown Massacre
Last week I had intended to take a quick Christmastime breather from writing Poetry Wire until the beginning of next year. Then on Friday came the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. (Then, too, on...
View ArticleRobert Haas Wins the Wallace Stevens Award
Joining the ranks of John Ashbery, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Adrienne Rich, Field Guide author Robert Haas was honored with the highly lucrative Wallace Stevens Award by the Academy of American Poets last...
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The Rumpus Interview with Colin D. Halloran
In recent years, there has been a tremendous literary response to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from such celebrated luminaries as Phil Klay, Ben Fountain, Brian Turner, Siobhan Fallon, and many...
View ArticleComing to the Rumpus Book Clubs in June
The Rumpus Book Clubs have been around for over six years now and they remain unique in a couple of important ways. First, we only feature pre-release books—that is, books that haven’t gone on sale...
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Color at the Mercy of the Light
“Shades cannot be fixed; color is, eternally, at the mercy of the light” –James Baldwin What if I said: to be white in America is to be former Defense Secretary Robert Gates or Congressmen Ed Royce and...
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Notable Chicago: 1/27–2/2
Friday 1/27: Visit Women & Children First to celebrate the launch of Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing by Marie Hicks. 7:30 p.m.,...
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The Rumpus Interview with Erik Kennedy
Erik Kennedy and I have an interesting history. We both studied at Rutgers University, we were both writers in New Brunswick, and we both edited rival literary magazines. I edited Objet d’Art, an...
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Notable NYC: 3/18–3/24
Saturday 3/18: Lisa Robertson and Uljana Wolf join the Segue Series. Zinc Bar, 4:30 p.m., $5. Sunday 3/19: Michelle Hogmire, Edward Barkin, Claudia Summers, and Matt Basillere celebrate contributions...
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Notable NYC: 11/4–11/10
While I was writing this week’s column, billionaire and Trump supporter Joe Ricketts shuttered local news websites Gothamist and DNAInfo, a week after the writers unionized. This is an attack on...
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Reinforcing the Resistance, Aiding the Anxious: Three Poetry Anthologies
Evil Looks like what drives me crazy Don’t have no effect on you- But I’m gonna keep on at it Till it drives you crazy, too. This Langston Hughes poem is in How Lovely the Ruins: Inspirational Poems...
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #131: Lisa Wells
When I arrived in Iowa to start at the Writers’ Workshop, wide-eyed and all of twenty-five, Lisa Wells, a poet and nonfiction writer originally from Portland, had already graduated but still lingered;...
View ArticleAn Important Book: Inheriting the War edited by Laren McClung
I have been thinking a lot about the meaning of the word “important.” I have been thinking about how when others think about it, it affects reading habits of engaged consumers of the written word....
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Subtext Rising to the Surface: A Conversation with Matthew Olzmann
In January 2019, I attended the Beloved Poems Panel at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival where I heard Matthew Olzmann speak, in his wise and gentle way, about Lucille Clifton’s poem, “note passed to...
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Notable Online: 5/2–5/9
Sunday 5/2: Ae Hee Lee, Francisco Aragón, Tina Cane, Kerrin McCadden, Dan Chiasson, and Kazim Ali, with guest host Wayne Miller, join the Mercy Street Readings. Zoom, 7 p.m. EDT, $6 suggested donation....
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To Gleam at the Periphery: Talking with Kendra DeColo
I first heard Kendra DeColo read her poetry in 2019 at AWP in Portland, Oregon and found myself, along with a wildly thrilled audience, clapping away when she read her poem, “I Hope Hillary Is Having...
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