Dearest Reader,
This is my first spring with an actual garden—sort of. The past two years, I'd just recently moved, and I was lucky enough to have outdoor space but hadn't arrived early enough to actually plant much of anything.
Two days ago, I took a photo from my back porch of a cherry tree in full bloom and covered in snow. Today, it's a high of 70°. I spent many days outside last year, tending to a garden that I'd inherited from the previous tenant, who'd been a Master Gardener (apparently that's an actual thing). The yard has a fig tree, blueberry bushes, hydrangeas, lilacs, azaleas, and a hosta that was literally the size of an industrial trash can that I quartered and distributed throughout the lot. When I lived in Florida, women in their 50s would come in to the yoga studio and talk about how they'd injured this or that while gardening, and in the hubris of my city-living-20s, I'd always thought, secretly, How terrible it must be to be so frail! But it turns out that gardening is actually a f*ckton of work.
Crouched in a knee-high patch of weeds I could have sworn I'd ripped out only a few days earlier or desperately trying undo the damage from watering peonies or feeding nitrogen—but not too much—around dahlias like they are fussy toddlers, I learned that it's not so simple as "put it in the ground and add water." I have a newfound appreciation for all those metaphors about gods and gardens or writing and gardens or living and gardens.
It's about that time of year when the outdoor labor starts again, and I'm looking forward to the work. A few newsletters back, I mentioned the garlic tops I was shouting at (thank you to the reader—you know who you are!—who informed me that they'll be just fine despite the frost), and this week I'm eagerly watching the tulips and daffodils come up. I planted the bulbs last fall (and 100% picked them based on their name + my obsession with Alex Chee's Queen of the Night), and if I found a gardening genie, one of my wishes would be that they're in bloom when my parents and in-laws come to visit, waving dramatically in dark purple and white from the walkway, a semaphore signaling, This person has their shit together.
With love and allergies,
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You've got less than two weeks left to snag a shirt or sweatshirt that proclaims your love for poetry and directly support Rumpus poets during National Poetry Month.
This is a fundraiser, folks! We've sold 41 so far and we're 149 away from our goal! Help us continue our work toward paying contributors better rates. It's easy to say how much we love poetry; it takes action to create an environment where poets can flourish and dedicate time to their work.
Cat-friendly options are, of course, also available. |
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Our editors and readers are busy at work, and we're currently open for submissions in two categories:
We Are More, our series for SWANA writers, is open for submissions now through April 14. Please see the post on our site or the Submittable project for details.
There are also two weeks left to submit to our themed call for essays for Mental Health Awareness Month. We're looking for true stories about what keeps you going through the rough patches. Again, please see the post on our site or the Submittable project for details. |
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| | | | BOOK CLUB (poetry)
Fixed Stars by Marisa Siegel
An investigation of the in-between: windows, porches, drawers, bedrooms, and basements are portals to examine how language shapes and is shaped, and to what ends. With original artwork by Trisha Previte
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Next week, we'll be sharing an official-ish roundup of events featuring Rumpus staff and contributors, as well as things we're just generally excited to attend. If you're coming through the Exhibitor Fair this year, we'll be at Booth #555. For now, we'll remind you of the reading we're co-hosting at The Yards Brewery on Thursday evening. Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya and Megan Fernandes will be reading, along with other amazing writers repping Coffee House and Feminist Press, our co-hosts.
AND (because we can't get enough poetry) a Saturday night event with our very own Marisa Siegel and emceed by yours truly we've just signed on for with co-hose Burrow Press.
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A special thank you to author Maria Brito for sponsoring this week's newsletter. As a BONUS, she's giving away free access to her comprehensive creativity course and other resources if you purchase How Creativity Rules the World by tonight at midnight. See details here.
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Going Hard on St. Patrick's Day
Thursday, March 17 @6:30pm PST: If you were bummed that you couldn't make it to The Strand, never fear. Tanaïs will be talking about In Sensorium with Kiese Laymon at Skylight Books via Crowdcast
7pm EST: Yanyi presents Dream of the Divided Field with Sandra Lim at Greenlight Books via Zoom7pm EST: A reading an conversation with the Barrelhouse Editors at White Whale Bookstore via Zoom
Spend the weekend lying on the floor panting, in preparation for AWP. |
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| Your support keeps The Rumpus going! |
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257 Haywood Rd Unit 201
Asheville
28806
United States of America |
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