Author Archives: Richard Jeffrey Newman

What I’m Reading – Male Lust: Pleasure, Power, and Transformation

This book, Male Lust: Pleasure, Power, and Transformation, has been on my shelf since the early 2000s. Back then, it was at the top of my to-read list, but circumstances intervened and so I am only picking it up now. I’ve … Continue reading

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Lines That Didn’t Make The Cut: Ruth’s Story

Trigger warning: These lines describe the sexual exploitation of a young woman. Ruth’s Story It wasn’t like I showed him anything he hadn’t seen before. Besides, he took the ones with clothes, the good ones, only if I did a … Continue reading

Posted in Rape, intimate violence, & related issues, Writing | Comments Off  

Repost: Reading The Veil and The Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam, by Fatima Mernissi

About two-and-a-half years ago, I posted about Mernissi’s book because reading it was an instructive journey into my own ignorance about Islam, particularly about an aspect of that religion that, to put it mildly, sticks in the craw of many, … Continue reading

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Repost: Domestic Violence Has Always Been a Current Running Through My Life

Going through some old emails, I recently came across the name of the woman I talk about in the beginning of this post, in whose escape from her abusive husband I played a small role. I remembered this post, which I wrote … Continue reading

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Craft Talk 1: Quincy Troupe’s Rhythm

I’ve been reading The Architecture of Language, by Quincy Troupe, and I have been fascinated by how rhythm and syntax interact in the way he builds his lines. Structurally, the poems remind me of nothing so much as jazz improvisation, … Continue reading

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Lines That Didn’t Make The Cut: Remembering Claudia

The revision process leaves every writer with bits and pieces of work that no longer belong to the poem or story or whatever where they first appeared. Sometimes these scraps and fragments grow to become full fledged works on their … Continue reading

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A Poem of Mine About Jackson Heights was Broadcast on WNYC!

In honor of National Poetry Month, WNYC challenged listeners to write tweet-length, original poems about the five boroughs. It makes me happy that my poem was among those chosen to appear on the air: Jackson Heights, where/⁰no one thinks it odd/⁰for Southern Baptists⁰/to … Continue reading

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The Ethics of Bearing Witness in Poetry to Violence and Trauma

The issues raised when one chooses to make literary art out of trauma are complex and, as have issues surrounding trauma in general, they have been getting more and more attention. Over at the Ploughshares blog, for example, Tracy Strauss has … Continue reading

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The Pleasure and Pain of Starting Over

One of the things I decided to do when I signed with Guernica Editions to publish my second full-length book of poetry was totally revamp my website, not just its look, but its organization and content as well. I’ve been … Continue reading

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I Just Learned About the Equal Justice Initiative – If You Don’t Know About It, You Should

In “The Lines That Antisemitism and Racism Draw,” a series of letters I composed during the summer of 2016 that were published in December of that year, I wrote about the stolpersteine, an art project started by the German artist Gunter … Continue reading

Posted in anti-racism, Anti-Semitism, antiracism, Race, racism and related issues, Racism | Comments Off