Showing posts with label Sarah Cook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sarah Cook. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Scott Bryson reviews Sarah Cook's SOMEWHERE THE / SHAKING (2017) in Broken Pencil

Scott Bryson was good enough to provide the first review of Sarah Cook's SOMEWHERE THE / SHAKING (2017) in Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here. As Bryson writes:
Somewhere The / Shaking
Chapbook, Sarah Cook, 26 pgs, above/ground press,abovegroundpress.blogspot.com, $5

Poetry that marks the end of a relationship is rarely refreshing; a considerable amount of detachment is required to prevent a slide from introspection into lamentation.

Sarah Cook ably manages that vital objectivity while inside her head, or inside her house (or a house she built with her words). She coins a term early in Somewhere The / Shaking that describes her starting point: “the ingrained estate of being.”

Locations and items in the house act as emissaries for her moods, memories and failures. Each poem is titled with one: “Door,” “Front Porch,” “Bed Frame.” The desk is an especially ominous presence — a constant reminder of a failure to accomplish. Cook’s lack of motivation is evident and she acknowledges it: “i pretend to not have questions, to be a fan of waiting… Googled the definition of the word, ‘eager.’”

This is a claustrophobic collection; there’s a pervading feeling of emptiness in Cook’s house. She’s the only one present — though she often refers to an unnamed other — and we spend as much time in her thoughts as we do in the physical space. Much of this is cryptic, but some of Cook’s enigmatic questions come across as profound (and ultimately rhetorical): “what is a moment when it’s more than the word? … why do I confuse bodies with answers?”

Thursday, June 15, 2017

new from above/ground press: SOMEWHERE THE / SHAKING, by Sarah Cook

SOMEWHERE THE / SHAKING
Sarah Cook
$5



Shelf



where’s the person inside the thing? & when the thing starts over?

this house is full of people.

this head is full of things trying to be people.

(i place my small hand upwards in the palm of your hand, the gesture of holding without commitment)

take any individual street in the winter, small town, no commitments to décor or watering: just house after house after house of trying to be.

(i place my small fist)

this street is full of people or at least the houses suggest.
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
June 2017
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy


Sarah Cook’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, The Feminist Wire, Gaga Stigmata, and elsewhere. She writes at freelancefeminist.com and works with homeless and runaway youth in Oregon.

See her 2016 Touch the Donkey interview here.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com