Description
The body may be feared. It may be a site of philosophic and theological weakness, a place of fear and contamination. The body may be weak. It is ephemeral and impure compared to what is supposed in an abstracted world of pure intellect. The body may be an obsession, a material concern taken up to the detriment of all else. The body may be a challenge to overcome, an enemy to silence.
In this book, dennis cooley sympathizes with the body. These poems celebrate the yearning, laughing, hurting, tender body. Here, the body is neither a site of conflict nor a place of spiritual weakness, but instead a vessel of experience that works in harmony with the intellect. Bodies burble, rejoice, yearn, and suffer. Bodies grow old, they are injured, they hold strength and grow weak in unexpected ways.
Rejecting the simplicity of transcendence for a nuanced examination of mortality, time, illness, of the things the body promises and the promises the body keeps, cooley is unafraid to challenge the eternal and the certain. These poems are humorous, intelligent, and poignant. body works is essential reading for anyone who lives inside a body that lives within the world.
Author: Dennis Cooley
Publisher: University of Calgary Press
Published: 04/15/2023
Pages: 160
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 8.66h x 5.59w x 0.39d
ISBN13: 9781773854496
ISBN10: 1773854496
BISAC Categories:
- Poetry | Canadian
- Poetry | Subjects & Themes | Death, Grief, Loss
- Political Science | General
About the Author
dennis cooley is a founding member and three times president of the Manitoba Writer's Guild, founding editor with Turnstone Press and professor at St. John's College at the University of Manitoba. He has lived his creative life on the prairies, where he has been a poet, publisher, teacher, critic, theorist, anthologist, reviewer, organizer, mentor.