Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
Dennis Cooley, one of Canada’s most prominent poets, says writing becomes political when you play with certain kinds of voices. His poetry has been influenced and inspired by the prairies and other Canadian poets, but he insists on disturbing the formal poetic inheritance he esteems. His engagement with a variety of speaking voices asks that readers question authority and challenge institutional privilege. In By Word of Mouth, a collection from across his career, readers will discover how Cooley returns to the prairie vernacular and speaks to Canadian identity. Poetry, says Cooley, is about our time and our place.
Nicole Markotić’s introductory essay discusses how Dennis Cooley plays with poetic reference, inspires with syntactical surprises, parodies contemporary writing, and indulges in wild, celebratory puns. This book roams around Dennis Cooley’s poetical world and invites the reader to play along.
Dennis Cooley grew up in Estevan, Saskatchewan, and attended the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Rochester. He is an active member of the writing community in Winnipeg and teaches at St. John’s College, University of Manitoba. His latest book of poetry is the bentleys (2006).
|Nicole Markotic is a poet and critic who teaches at the University of Windsor and edits the chapbook publication Wrinkle Press. She has published two poetry books, Connect the Dots and Minotaurs & Other Alphabets, as well as a fictional biography of Alexander Graham Bell, Yellow Pages. She is currently completing a novel.
Table of Contents for By Word of Mouth: The Poetry of Dennis Cooley, selected with an introduction by Nicole Markotić
Foreword | Neil Besner
Biographical Note
Introduction: By Word of Mouth: An Introduction to Dennis Cooley’s Poetry | Nicole Markotić
A Poem for You, Leaving Winnipeg
anaeurysm
“& we are skinbags of heated water dreaming”
in his tangerine skin
the love song of j l krafchenko or the trans canada in (trance crypt
Sonya Orlowsky
Paul sd
Exorcism
I think “ego”; ergo I am
labiarinth
anatomy of love
prairie romance
behind the door
moon musings
holy cow
inner ear
my eye
melodious rhyme
he replies to his critics
breathless
“In Germany cooley is a migrant labourer”
“Wished we had the camera for David”
winnipeg in winter
a series of shocking pre-positions
“mother tongue”
“this on remembrance weekend”
“bodies are”
jack’s dictionary of cunning linguists
blood brothers
red men ace
echolalia
the red /emption of blood
“& not that he’s wrong”
“& a crate of apples could i suppose”
“& listening to night sticky with sweat”
after words | Dennis Cooley
Selected Cooley Poems: Sources