I few nights ago, I checked out my Goodreads page and encountered this new-ish review by Casey Kiser of an old-ish poetry chapbook of mine. I love Casey's review(s) and will share part of it below.
The old chapbook is called Tongue Like a Stinger and was published by Wheelhouse Press back in 2009. You can still read it all for free online (I'll link to it at the bottom of this post). My writing style has changed quite a bit over time and when I just re-read a few of my poems from this chapbook, I barely even remembered them at first, because they're stylistically different than how I'm writing now and because I'm almost always working on new poems, so some of the older ones end up disappearing from my head. But it's interesting reading older poems of mine, because it can cause part of my brain to backtrack in time. And it's great to unexpectedly find out that some other people are still reading older stuff of mine and that what seems old to me seems new to them.
I've had some crappy stuff going on these last few weeks, but it's been a really good few weeks poetry-wise. Rejection always exists in poetry-land, but I've recently had two individual poems published by Writing In a Woman's Voice (with a third poem forthcoming from them next month, when I'm a year older than I am right now), another individual poem coming soon from another magazine, and seven different collaborative poems by me and Darryl coming soon from two different magazines. Plus Darryl and I finished writing two new poems on Thursday and then Friday we talked about turning our series of poems into a chapbook semi-soon.
In addition to the new, here's part of Casey Kiser's review of my old chapbook. She's reviewed other chapbooks of mine before and her reviews always cause me to feel unexpectedly fabulous and like my poetry moves a few people. That's very meaningful to me, because sometimes I feel borderline invisible and as if I'm mostly only writing for myself. Don't get me wrong, even if I was only writing for myself, I would certainly still be writing. But it's still exciting to unexpectedly find out that someone else is wowed by what I do.
"Juliet's writing shatters any ideas of what poetry should be or has ever been. It's utterly surreal. Her take on trauma is unique and complicated, and must be experienced. She dares to tease and tickle our nerve-endings. Every sentence is on the brink of sanity. Every poem forces the reader to stretch farther out than their warm-up yoga pose and their daily tunnel vision to a panoramic panic. Their matchbox world slides open as they start to wonder if someone slipped something in their drink. The hills have eyes and these poems have exploded doll parts everywhere. And this sickness is just the cure to boredom when bad poetry takes us down cliche avenue, we know we can reach for a Ms. Cook book. All hail the Tragedy Queens who suffer the most for their art. Who inspire us with absolutely no fear and no limits."
Here's the whole review -
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4160374547?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1Here is Tongue Like a Stinger -
https://dwuaw.tripod.com/chapbook/cook.pdf
