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    Chaos is the New Calm
    Chaos is the New Calm
    Chaos is the New Calm
    Ebook78 pages22 minutes

    Chaos is the New Calm

    By Wyn Cooper

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    About this ebook

    Chaos is the New Calm expands the parameters of the sonnet form, putting rhymes in unusual places, inventing new stanza structures, and addressing a variety of subject matter ranging from travelogue to inner monologue, from social commentary to solitary musing. These poems are alive with sound, rhythm, and lyric insights into the world.

    Wyn Cooper’s poem “Fun” was adapted by Sheryl Crow for her hit song “All I Wanna Do.” He collaborates on music and spoken word with novelist Madison Smartt Bell. Cooper is co-organizer of the Brattleboro Literary Festival. He consults for the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBOA Editions Ltd.
    Release dateMay 1, 2010
    ISBN9781934414576
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      Book preview

      Chaos is the New Calm - Wyn Cooper

      001

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      Dedication

      Chaos Is the New Calm

      Colorific

      Connect

      Daily Threads

      Devices

      A Diamond Is Not a Stone

      Discreetly Functional

      Dissolve

      Drawer

      Eden Sway

      Elevens

      Euronymous

      European

      Fin

      Five Skies

      Forecast

      The Forest Has Entered the House

      The Half King

      Island

      Ladder

      Like Atlas

      Like My Friend

      Little Dorrit

      Little Houses

      Many Things

      Matter

      Mockingbird

      My Future

      My Path

      No Horse

      No One Knows What Tomorrow Is Called

      Pinch Me

      Posh

      Prescription

      Pronunciation Key (A to I)

      Pronunciation Key (J to P)

      Pronunciation Key (Sh to ə)

      Reading Parker

      A Red Rose

      Road Trip

      Sharpness of Knives

      Sling

      T. Rex

      This Thing

      Three Wrongs

      Too Rare

      Tracks

      Violation

      Visiting Archie Shepp

      Weave

      Notes

      Acknowledgements

      Dedications

      About the Author

      BOA Editions, Ltd. American Poets Continuum Series

      Colophon

      Copyright Page

      001

      In memory of Liam Rector (1949-2007)

      Chaos Is the New Calm

      Chaos is the new calm

      violence the new balm

      to be spread on lips

      unused to a kiss.

      Left is the new right

      as I brace for a fight

      with a man who stands

      on his remaining hand.

      Fetid harbor harbor me

      until someone is free

      to drive me away

      from what happened today.

      Don’t strand me standing here.

      If you leave, leave beer.

      Colorific

      Colorguard march across an ash

      frame into a colorfield painting.

      They add a dimension to that

      which was flat and which I couldn’t

      stop staring at there in the Tate

      that force-fed colorized day.

      When I left the building I walked

      into a color scheme more white

      than Mark Rothko’s hair at the end

      of his life, whose wife chats me

      up from the grave. When she’s

      done I list the faults of modern painters.

      She doesn’t give a damn what I think

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