Tessa Rumsey
Encyclopedia
Life
She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and of the Visual Criticism department at California College of the ArtsCalifornia College of the Arts
California College of the Arts , founded in 1907, is known for its broad, interdisciplinary programs in art, design, architecture, and writing. It has two campuses, one in Oakland and one in San Francisco, California, USA...
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Her poems have appeared in Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, The New Republic. She lives in San Francisco.
Awards
- 1998 Contemporary Poetry Series Competition, for Assembling the Shepherd
- 2004 Barnard Women Poets PrizeBarnard Women Poets PrizeThe Barnard Women Poets Prize is a major American literary award for a book of poetry in the English language.From 1986-1999 the prize was called the Barnard New Women Poets Prize...
Works
- "Everlasting Gobstopper", Slope 10
- "June Inside You", Electronic Poetry Review, Spring 2001
- "April Fools", Electronic Poetry Review, Spring 2001
Ploughshares
Review
In The Return Message, Tessa Rumsey composes herself in the aftermath of “a love affair that ended badly.” Behind every lyric is a debris field of emotional wreckage--betrayal, miscarriage, broken engagement. Even the “cherry blossoms” are “caught. / Inside the static loop of loss.” If “all forms of landscape are autobiographical,” as Charles WrightCharles WrightCharles Wright may refer to:*Charles Wright , American botanist*Charles Frederick Wright , U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania*Charles Wright , Nottinghamshire and England cricketer*C. S...
once suggested, then what we have here in the “mountain streams of No-Where” is the poet at an impasse. But bleak as that seems, The Return Message is not mired in the morbidly confessional; whatever her personal losses, Rumsey investigates the idea of love from a philosophical perspective. Rather than croon about heartache, she seeks ontological answers: if romance is only a biological impulse, then why, after intercourse, do I still long for my partner? “Does the soul--exist?”