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Grotesque Tenderness |
eBook Available
Resonant poems that find beauty in intimate failures and regrets.
Afraid to be alone / we met by lamplight, trading stories: // Sin of Man was one, // Age of Science, another. More // prayers than answers.
Daniel Cowper's debut poetry collection, Grotesque Tenderness, speaks for an unrooted age, for unrooted people. In these poems, city-dwellers long to ally themselves with some sympathetic culture or the evolutionary logic of nature, but those alliances remain conditional, ambiguous, or dangerous. A tsunami smashes a harbour city into “tide-rows of burning debris”; children chase snakes in summer meadows. The primordial past spins off “rogue by-products and flawed replicas,” while lonely office workers get high on back porches and drink themselves to sleep.
The musical and kinetic energy of Grotesque Tenderness is driven by our urge to understand pain and our hunger to reach an imperfect reconciliation with the problems of guilt and suffering. But in the tradition of William Blake, these poems affirm again and again that “the lit / world goes on living” and life justifies itself through its own workings.
From elegant lyrics of alienation and heartbreak to long-form mythopoeia and lament, these poems approach beauty, ugliness, even criminality in a spirit of wonder and vulnerability.
Daniel Cowper's debut poetry collection, Grotesque Tenderness, speaks for an unrooted age, for unrooted people. In these poems, city-dwellers long to ally themselves with some sympathetic culture or the evolutionary logic of nature, but those alliances remain conditional, ambiguous, or dangerous. A tsunami smashes a harbour city into “tide-rows of burning debris”; children chase snakes in summer meadows. The primordial past spins off “rogue by-products and flawed replicas,” while lonely office workers get high on back porches and drink themselves to sleep.
The musical and kinetic energy of Grotesque Tenderness is driven by our urge to understand pain and our hunger to reach an imperfect reconciliation with the problems of guilt and suffering. But in the tradition of William Blake, these poems affirm again and again that “the lit / world goes on living” and life justifies itself through its own workings.
From elegant lyrics of alienation and heartbreak to long-form mythopoeia and lament, these poems approach beauty, ugliness, even criminality in a spirit of wonder and vulnerability.
Details
Part of the Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series (number 48 in series)
144 Pages, 5 x 7.5
ISBN 9780773556270
May 2019
Formats: Paperback, eBook
"Cowper's gift is to imbue the aphoristic with meaning that is both disturbing and exceedingly human." Montreal Review of Books
"Cowper's work in Grotesque Tenderness is accomplished, sensitive to nuance in nature, unafraid of darkness and corruption in both natural and human realms, sonically thrilling, and full of heart." HA&L Magazine
"Cowper's work in Grotesque Tenderness is accomplished, sensitive to nuance in nature, unafraid of darkness and corruption in both natural and human realms, sonically thrilling, and full of heart." HA&L Magazine
Daniel Cowper's poems have appeared in various Canadian and international publications, and he is the author of the chapbook The God of Doors. He lives on Bowen Island.
Part I The Life & Crimes of Sextus Tarquinius
Transubstantiation | 3
Phoresy | 5
Too Small to Eat| 8
Child’s Play | 10
The Camera | 12
Fugitives Will Bring the News | 14
News | 16
Elect | 19
MacBeth | 21
Notes for the Sentencing | 23
Psychiatric Evaluation | 25
Failure to Appear | 27
The Fugitives | 29
Part II Regrets
The Lotus-Eaters | 33
Counterpoised | 35
Departures | 36
Ballgame | 38
Rat Patrol | 39
Red-Eye | 41
Spandrel for Pan Twardowski | 42
A Long Country | 44
Underground | 45
Wanting to Look | 46
Snake in the Mind | 47
Time Delay | 48
Walking | 49
Secret Water | 50
Vagrants | 52
Civil War | 54
Crowsnest Pass | 56
Home before Dark | 57
Part III A Little History
Age of Innocence | 61
Age of Experience | 63
Age of Exploration | 66
Age of Anxiety | 68
Age of Plagues | 70
A Land Flowing with Silk and Money | 72
Age of Prophecy | 74
Age of Empire | 76
Age of Science | 78
Part IV Windfishing
1400 Cromie Rd | 83
Euclid Refuted | 84
Labour Day | 85
Goodnight, September | 86
Weeknight | 87
Searle’s Chinese Room Problem | 88
Vancouver Cherries | 89
Winter Construction | 90
Finisterre | 91
It Wouldn’t Be Spring | 92
Together Still | 93
Two Bodies Once | 94
Instead of a Christening | 96
Winter Oaks | 98
Part V The Salt Worlds
Cinematheque | 101
Abiogenesis | 103
Zugzwang | 106
Mercy | 109
Fire Worship | 110
Oncology of Ice | 113
Thirst | 115
Hunger | 117
Easter Sunday | 119
Principles of Conduct | 121
Earth on the Ocean’s Back | 123
Note to Reader Regarding Sextus Tarquinius | 129
Acknowledgments | 131
Transubstantiation | 3
Phoresy | 5
Too Small to Eat| 8
Child’s Play | 10
The Camera | 12
Fugitives Will Bring the News | 14
News | 16
Elect | 19
MacBeth | 21
Notes for the Sentencing | 23
Psychiatric Evaluation | 25
Failure to Appear | 27
The Fugitives | 29
Part II Regrets
The Lotus-Eaters | 33
Counterpoised | 35
Departures | 36
Ballgame | 38
Rat Patrol | 39
Red-Eye | 41
Spandrel for Pan Twardowski | 42
A Long Country | 44
Underground | 45
Wanting to Look | 46
Snake in the Mind | 47
Time Delay | 48
Walking | 49
Secret Water | 50
Vagrants | 52
Civil War | 54
Crowsnest Pass | 56
Home before Dark | 57
Part III A Little History
Age of Innocence | 61
Age of Experience | 63
Age of Exploration | 66
Age of Anxiety | 68
Age of Plagues | 70
A Land Flowing with Silk and Money | 72
Age of Prophecy | 74
Age of Empire | 76
Age of Science | 78
Part IV Windfishing
1400 Cromie Rd | 83
Euclid Refuted | 84
Labour Day | 85
Goodnight, September | 86
Weeknight | 87
Searle’s Chinese Room Problem | 88
Vancouver Cherries | 89
Winter Construction | 90
Finisterre | 91
It Wouldn’t Be Spring | 92
Together Still | 93
Two Bodies Once | 94
Instead of a Christening | 96
Winter Oaks | 98
Part V The Salt Worlds
Cinematheque | 101
Abiogenesis | 103
Zugzwang | 106
Mercy | 109
Fire Worship | 110
Oncology of Ice | 113
Thirst | 115
Hunger | 117
Easter Sunday | 119
Principles of Conduct | 121
Earth on the Ocean’s Back | 123
Note to Reader Regarding Sextus Tarquinius | 129
Acknowledgments | 131
