In celebration of Canadian poetry, and to mark Brick Books’ 40th anniversary, they are featuring articles each week about different Canadian poets. This week my article about poet Dennis Cooley is up on the site!
I am a big fan of Cooley and, as I say in my intro, readers of Dennis Cooley know how difficult it is to talk about Dennis Cooley.
Quote: First off, one tends to talk of Cooley in Cooley’s voice. His sing-song cadence worms its way into your head and you can’t read his poems any other way, or at least I can’t. Second, one attempts to be more clever than one ought to be. Being clever is Cooley’s job.
His recent collection abecedarium is a perfect example of his musicality, linguistic wit and technical dexterity. Cooley’s take on language is joyful. He manipulates the sound of the words, and the words themselves, the way a master musician plays an instrument. Each poem is a play on words, or even a play upon a play upon words. How meta, as the kids say today. Back in the day when I was studying with Cooley, we would have said, how po-mo.
(Maybe I was the only nerd who said po-mo instead of postmodern.)
Please have a look at the great collection of praise and celebration of Canadian poetry that Brick Books is compiling. I love it. And, even if you’re not a poetry buff, check out Dennis Cooley’s abecedarium.
abecedarium by Dennis Cooley
Order from the publisher: http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/titles/178-9780888646453-abecedarium
Or Amazon.ca
Or find it at a fabulous independent bookseller like Winnipeg’s McNally Robinson who has an amazing section on Prairie authors.