NEW! A Review of my latest poetry chapbook, "Blue Stingers Instead of Wings", thanks to Rachel Kendall of Sein und Werden!

"The dry spell here might suggest writer’s block, an obstruction of language. Or it might speak of the libido, or of the menopausal body. Elsewhere in the book birds’ eggs, branches, and nests are rife, but this is not the imagery of a spring renewal. The eggs are cracked, the nests broken, the branches rotten."

A small sample within a new and much appreciated Review of my latest poetry chapbook, "Blue Stingers Instead of Wings" (Pure Sleeze Press)!

Thank you very much to Rachel Kendall, writer and editor of Sein und Werden, for writing this review!

Read more of the review here - https://seinundwerden.wordpress.com/2025/07/06/blue-stingers-instead-of-wings-by-juliet-cook/

***

"Blue Stingers Instead of Wings" can be acquired through Pure Sleeze Press here - https://puresleezepress.bigcartel.com/product/blue-stingers-instead-of-wings

Or from my own Blood Pudding Press shop here - https://www.etsy.com/listing/4314653197/new-blue-stingers-instead-of-wings-by

NEW! Happy to have my poem "Disabled Cook Resigns" making an appearance in the Autumn/Winter 2024 Issue of Sein und Werden!

"A nervous breakdown stuck inside
an Easy-Bake Oven
with pre-designated frosting mix
doesn't easily keep me all together."

in my poem "Disabled Cook Resigns", which is now appearing within the NEW Autumn/Winter 2024 Issue of Sein und Werden, with its Locard's Exchange Principle theme.

I'm delighted to be included and excited to read more of the issue!

Here is a link to my poem - http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/autumn-winter24/page41.html
And here is a link to the whole issue - http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/autumn-winter24/

NEW! I am excited and delighted to have two poems appearing in the 20th anniversary issue of Sein und Werden!

I am excited and delighted to have two haiku poems appearing in the Spring/Summer 2024 issue of Sein und Werden!

The theme of this issue is To Settle a Score and it's the 20th anniversary issue of this magazine!

Here is one of my two poems, called "VIOLENT DREAD" and if you visit the link to the magazine (below the poem), it appears next to an art piece called "SELF-PORTRAIT (UNDEFINED HORROR)" by Julie Blankenship. I love the poem and art piece next to each other.

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VIOLENT DREAD

Every bit of depth

shot down into dread. Psycho

babbling brooks with hooks.

If internal angst

internally combusts, eyes

will explode. My head

a human-sized blood

bath of burnt dumplings. Sauced out.

Splattering your plate.

http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/spring-summer24/page31.html

***

It's hard to believe that this is the 20th anniversary issue of Sein und Werden and that I've had creative work appearing in this literary magazine (on and off) ever since Sein und Werden began. Sein's creator, primary editor, and writer Rachel Kendall and I first got to know each other on xanga (a blog platform that hasn't existed for years). It's hard to keep a literary magazine alive for this long, so cheers to Rachel. This issue also includes some Interviews with Rachel, such as an Interview about The Storied History of Sein und Werden.

I shall stop my babbling for now, but again, I'm delighted to be included in this 20th anniversary issue and will place a link to the whole issue below...

http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/spring-summer24/index.html

NEW! I have two poems with centipedes inside them making an appearance in the new issue of Sein und Werden!

"Broken wings and cracked mirrors
would transport magpies. Magpies would bounce
out of the glass, slither down bedroom walls,
carry the new centipedes into their new nests"

in my poem "It's Raining Centipedes"

Very excited to have one individual poem and one collaborative poem by j/j hastain and me appearing in the new Autumn/Winter 2023 Issue of Sein und Werden!

And both poems have centipedes inside them.

Check out the contents HERE - http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/autumn-winter23/contents.html

My "It's Raining Centipedes" poem HERE - http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/autumn-winter23/page35.html

Me and j/j hastain's "Centipede Cider" poem HERE - http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/autumn-winter23/page38.html

New! Another one of my FLESH WORLD poems in Sein und Werden

"You keep your mask on
as you drip with red ink inside.
Dizzy and submerged in another blood bath."

the beginning of my "Flesh World" poem, which I am excited to have appearing within the Crime Scene of the new Spring 2021 Locus Delicti issue of Sein und Werden

read more HERE - http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/spring21/page8.html

A NEW publication of an OLD poem of mine in Sein und Werden's Of Human Bondage Issue

I've been having more trouble than usual lately with concentrating and focusing my energy the way I usually try to do, so am sharing this a little late, but am finally still sharing it.

The NEW issue of Sein und Werden includes an OLD poem of mine called "FOOTAGE".

My poetry style has changed to certain extents over the years.

I think I used to be more language-based and now I'm more emotions/thoughts/feelings based. Plus of course some of my emotions/thoughts/feelings have changed over the years too. I think most if not all of my styles can be mental, visual, and horrific in one way or another.

http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/winter20/page39.html?fbclid=IwAR06ZdF47Yy-pxRd_8WjoNgDNSvGrYWOhl3I1sd6WNnBuGT-h8yPpkz0I4U

NEW! July is upon us and Sein und Werden has re-emerged and includes one of my poems!

The newborns born into this
might have to be contained
in one space for the rest of their little lives.

July is upon us and Sein und Werden has re-emerged! I'm delighted to have one of my Museum of Impending Death poems appearing in this new Summer 2020 Issue, Le Retour!

I love the art next to my poem - Entombed By Their Hate by Walter Savage!

Thank you very much to Rachel Kendall for including my poem!

🖤🖤🖤

http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/summer20/page7.html

NEW in the Giallo Issue of Sein und Werden (four new old poems by me)!

"Mother rubs my fingers, curling
towards uneasy sleep. Then she starts spinning
her cautionary yarn. Madder-blue and sticky, she warns me
not to talk as the strands batten purplish and hot.
Saturated gauze. Viscous clots. Thorns on the bedspread
flicking open like knivey licks. Prickly hives.
I can't hide. She kneads my wrist;
shifts my pulse into transfixed rhythm."

from my poem, "She Warns Me", within the new GIALLO issue of Sein und Werden

(This issue feels like it's backtracking into a Halloween past, as it includes four older poems by me, along with lots of other darkness too.)

partake of The Viscera HERE - http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/autumn16/contents.html

NEW Two of My Poems in the CORPUS Issue of Sein und Werden!

Some people might not like being called
unmistakably unstable, but I don't mind.
Because that's the way I roll

cracked eyeballs out of broken doll head holes and hell


From "My Dolls Aren't For Hunting", one of two of my poems appearing within the new CORPUS Issue of Sein und Werden!
Happy Spring and...

"* WARNING: go no further if you are of a squeamish nature.
This issue includes images of anatomical wax models which may cause fainting/hysteria/rage!" 

Read more HERE:

http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/spring16/contents.html

From "My Dolls Aren't For Hunting", one of two of my poems appearing within the new CORPUS Issue of Sein und Werden! Happy Spring and... "* WARNING: go no further if you are of a squeamish nature. This issue includes images of anatomical wax models which may cause fainting/hysteria/rage!" Read more HERE - http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/spring16/contents.html

NEW Review of MUTANT NEURON CODEX SWARM (a collaborative poetry chapbook by me and Robert Cole, published earlier this year by Hyacinth Girl Press)

By the time we reach Swarm One, addiction has consumed both speaker and reader:  “Lucid unrelenting pain proponent, we were somehow winged/with gigantic stingers all over our skin.  Nobody can touch us anymore.”  The emotions of the speaker echo what the reader is feeling.  The scene is too painful to endure, and yet too alive to pull away from.  We are completely consumed.

From that peak moment of unity, immediately we are plummeted into dregs of emotional despair.  Swarm Two blasts us with a scathing dose of realization:  “Nobody can save us . . . Ashes ashes we/used to think we were interesting.  Now we are nothing/but rotten fritters that would eat until nothing remains.”  With that slap to our consciousness we are faced with a mirror of entrails that are both otherworldy and our own, and we think this must be the end, this must be where reality strikes and someone is saved.  But no, Copy and Pasty My Eyes shows us that there is no happy ending to be found in this tale.  Clarity is not to be found.  “Here, at the entrance/exist, blinding dust is everywhere.

from a NEW Review of MUTANT NEURON CODEX SWARM , a collaborative poetry chapbook by Juliet Cook and Robert Cole.

The chapbook was published earlier this year by Hyacinth Girl Press.

The review was written by AJ Huffman and published earlier today by Sein und Werden.

You can read the review in its entirety here -http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/mutant.html

***

You can acquire yourself a copy of MUTANT NEURON CODEX SWARM here - http://hyacinthgirlpress.com/yearfour/mutantneuroncodexswarm.html

New Review of House on Fire by Susan Yount (Blood Pudding Press, 2014)

An amazing new review of "House on Fire", Susan Yount's 2014 contest winning Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook, thank you to AJ Huffman and Sein und Werden!

In the poem, "Sissy," we see a portrait of futility:  a little girl holding a dead goat; a sister pretending to get help--"to call the vet"; the little girl refusing to give up as she "Breathes into him/as hard as she can."  This poem eloquently defines the perpetual cycle of abuse that, more finitely, rears its head in later poems.  The cycle of devastation, of pretending, of wishing maybe it isn't true, of hoping that if we believe and if we pretend and if we continue it will suddenly be something else, come back to life, when all the time we know such devastation is final, is death.

READ THE WHOLE REVIEW by A J Huffman here:

http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/yount.html

Then buy the book here: 

https://www.etsy.com/listing/177826146/new-house-on-fire-by-susan-yount-2014?ref=shop_home_feat_3

New Sein und Werden - Theatrum Diabolorum includes two collaborative poems involving me!

The new Sein und Werden - Theatrum Diabolorum includes two collaborative poems involving me! 

This issue seems too darkly deliciously good to be true! It offers work by quite a few writers I adore.

Jennifer MacBain-Stephens!, Alessandra Bava!, Suzanne Grażyna!, a collaborative poem by me and Robert Cole, a collaborative poem by me and Joseph Goosey, and some individual pieces by another writer I adore (and collaborate with), j/j hastain! 

Lots more goodies to partake of too.

Talk about an awesomely unexpected surprise I can hardly wait to dive into (and maybe you should too)...

http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/autumn14/index.html

GLAMOURAMA (New Sein und Werden)

"Dark black church bells hot in the blankets (she's melting).
Fountains that churn liquid cement, not water (he's hardening).

He wants to erode her scapula. Pluck out her neurons."

from the poem Nether Chord, by Juliet Cook & Robert Cole

Which appears within the innards (along with lots of of other work) of the latest Sein und Werden's GLAMOURAMA issue here - http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/autumn13/index.html

According to the editor - "Here she is folks, wobbling on super high heels, the blood from a still warm animal dripping down her neck, a diamond choker slicing into the withered throat, centipede eyebrows dying, that permanent rictus grin... Let's hear it for Miss Glamourama 2013..."

lots of pending poetry/art portals

"I don't think poetry can be "found" by picking up a rock or a dead bird off the ground and simply calling it poetry and that's IT - but I do think poetry/art can be unexpectedly yet significantly inspired by such findings. For me, something about the visual imagery of bird fetuses and the thoughts then provoked in my mind can stimulate poetry/art. Same with other sorts of small things that many people would overlook and/or would find unworthy of much consideration and/or would find grossly unappealing. The tendency to ignore things like that makes me wonder WHY. Is it because of being easily grossed out? Is it because small odd things are inconsequential to the mainstream? Is it because of fear of death, fear of demise, fear of being crushed by something larger, fear of non-existence?"

A snippet from an interview with me (about dead birds, art, poetry, publishing and more), which appears within the new issue of Sein und Werden, here - 

http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/summer13/index.html

The interview also brings up my recent collaborative work with Robert Cole – and a collaborative poem by the two of us, “Churning Codex Portal”, appears in this issue of Sein as well.

“Churning Codex Portal” is a poem from our collaborative chapbook, “Mutant Neuron Codex Swarm”, chosen to be published by Hyacinth Girl Press in 2014.

A few more poems from that chapbook are soon to appear online within “Black Heart Magazine” and “Menacing Hedge” (via which you will be able to hear us read some of the poems too).

Also  a new individual poem by me is coming soon from POETSARTISTS (The Social Portrait).