Juliet Cook's Blog, page 54

DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS next to a light purple baby skull

"Will she ever understand
that my doll brain works differently
than her doll brain and I want to escape
being handled by somebody else?I don't want to have a string attached to my back
connected to someone else's hand,
so that someone else can choose what I do or do not
say by pulling that string."inside Juliet Cook's poetry chapbook, "DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS (inside my Black Doll Head Irises)", published by Blood Pudding Press for Dusie Kollektiv 9, newly available in print in the Blood Pudding Press shop HERE - https://www.etsy.com/listing/689260672/new-dark-purple-intersections-inside-my?ref=shop_home_feat_1 Soon to be published as a free PDF by Dusie.

NEW in Maudlin House - "Wow Bob Wow" by me and j/j hastain!

"Imagine all of the apples meant
to be bobbed,
being eaten by a random circus performer
named Bob
and then being spat
into confessional booths,
core after core split into pieces.
Every fake priest is a little girl’s dad,showing and telling herwhat she should or shouldn’t dowhile he peels her skin off."
In me and j/j's collaborative poem,"Wow Bob Wow", which appears in Maudlin House - https://maudlinhouse.net/wow-bob-wow/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SocialWarfare&fbclid=IwAR1HD9V_6AnidgOq3kQ9bU615wow82KP8_NYXYVI5wTlXsDdyYOgTgNmiWQ

My Malformed Confetti has found another new home - in a library!

Very cool to see that my Malformed Confetti poetry book has recently been added to THE PUBLIC LIBRARY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY. Thank you to Crisis Chronicles Press editor John Burroughs.

https://www.cincinnatilibrary.org/spotlight/newarrivals.asp?id=poetry

So now you can borrow my book from the library.

NEW! DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS (inside my Black Doll Head Irises) by Juliet Cook (Blood Pudding Press for Dusie Kollektiv 9)

"After I get up and apply
my Dragon's Blood Wrinkle Repair Eye Creme,
I'm filled with hours spent crying.I ruin my own repair."***DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS with some worm stickers on top of some insectile sock legs.***DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS (inside my Black Doll Head Irises) is a new 2019 poetry chapbook by Juliet Cook, published by Blood Pudding Press for the Dusie Kollektiv 9, as of May 2019.It has recently been added to the Blood Pudding Press shop and you can find out more about it here -https://www.etsy.com/listing/689260672/new-dark-purple-intersections-inside-my?fbclid=IwAR06P1OeAPAqAsrbGgiloxQx-3Q3w_ay3JJt0H61DZU-xZtC56W5-PkcCe0

NEW in MANTICORE - Hybrid Writing From Hybrid Identities - collaborative poetry and art by Juliet Cook and j/j hastain and many more!

"...A yelp
comes out of the corner,then turns into a coroner's report,
a facile net to be used for exoneration
of the truth.""MANTICORE - Hybrid Writing From Hybrid Identities" is a new Anthology (published by Sundress Publications), filled with tons of hybrid writing and art, including a collaborative poem by j/j hastain and me, followed by one of our collage art pieces right after our poem, plus another of our college art pieces at the end of the collection, before everyone's bios!Each of our collage art pieces are titled using lines from our poem (SHE SAYS TO HERSELF "I AM" and YELP COMES OUT).Our poem is titled THE DARKNESS TURNS BRIGHT.MANTICORE - http://www.sundresspublications.com/manticore.pdf

fun imperfections

I'm not sure exactly why I took this close up photo of my face the other day, but I think it might be because even though I was just by myself, working on poetry stuff, with messy hair, and no makeup on, I thought my face looked good, crooked nose, baggy wrinkles under my eyes and all. And even if it's messy, I like my recent hair cut. Sometimes I spend a lot of time negatively picking on my nose and my skin and my body, so if I have a day where I feel like I look randomly good and positive despite my quirks, then I might as well zoom in on my fun imperfections (well at least some of them). I guess it's a good thing I took this photo when I did though, because a day or two later, I got this random middle aged zit above my nose, in between my two eyes.

What is popularity (in poetry land)?

In real life, I think I'm rather unpopular, which is fine, because I don't really care all that much about popularity or big circles of casual friendship. I'd rather have one or two or three close personal friends.
But in poetry land, this sometimes feels weird and semi-contradictory. I have plenty of people whose poetry I love. I have plenty of semi-casual semi-friends who I occasionally interact with, in terms of poetry and semi-personal exchanges. However, I personally find it hard to spend a lot of time semi-casually socializing and focusing on poetry at the same time. I usually tend to focus more on my personal alone time involving poetry. Sometimes this causes me to lose more friends, because I'm not casually sociably communicative enough.
My poetry tends to extract the negativity out of my system, temporarily - and then it comes back and then I need to extract it again. I love genuinely positive people, but I am not one of them. I spend a lot of time and energy and effort expressing/extracting myself through my poetry, because I feel like I have to.
One semi-side-effect I've noticed in recent years is that since I've accumulated a small but ongoing multitude of poetry publications and published chapbooks on an ongoing basis, for years, I feel as if less people are interested in my creative work, because they're more interested in the ongoing public-focused social butterflies and/or the NEW.
Maybe I seem like an old writer who is just spewing out publication after publication, even though that is not really the case. Maybe the old writer part is semi-true, because I've been working on my poetry for over 25 years and still sticking with it, with a genuine adherence and passion. But usually when I accumulate a small collection, I've been working on its content for several years.
But sometimes I feel as if my ongoing publication credits and chapbooks cause me to look like a more prolific writer than I actually am and cause my work to get less attention, since it looks like small press publication after publication, and just another chapbook by me. Sometimes it seems like people with fewer publications get more attention and/or accolades, because their work seems fresh and new and exciting, instead of just ANOTHER poem or chapbook by the same old person.
But it's not like I spew out my poetry or dash off my manuscripts. The writing itself usually takes a lot of time and then I assemble it into a manuscript, which also takes a lot of time. So however it might look to others, my assembling a new poetry manuscript is a lengthy process that I repeatedly choose to undertake.
I'm thinking about this kind of stuff now, because for about the last two years, I've been working on some individual poetry, some collaborative poetry, plus the individual poetry within the new poetry chapbook manuscript I finally accumulated and published, and now that that's done, even though it's completion was extremely recent, I already feel weird that I don't have any new poems left.
So should I focus on promoting the new chapbook I just published? Or should I step aside from the new chapbook I just published and focus on new poetry? I used to work hard on self-promotion (and still do to some extent), but I don't really feel like explaining my poetry to other people. I feel like, read it if you want to and interpret it however you interpret it. But on the other hand, if I don't promote it to an extent, then how will anyone else even become aware of its existence? I mean, it's not like I have 100 close poetry friends promoting my poetry and it's not like I'm popular.

And it's not like I'm new or young or fresh or a social butterfly. 
I'm more like a middle-aged woman with a divergent wing span that keeps on slowly but surely creating poetry that sinks down, rises up, sinks down.

Of course there are all different kinds of colorful beautiful butterflies.

Me, early May 2019

"My bedroom was filled with...DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS"

"My bedroom was filled with narcoleptic insects.
My bedroom was filled with poison barbs.
My bedroom was filled with broken parts
of ripped out doll head art.I couldn't remember whether I broke them on purpose
or accidentally knocked them down.Broken heart after broken heart after broken heart,
sometimes shoved under the bed,
sometimes exploding in my head.I couldn't decide
whether someone else broke me
or have I always been this way? "A sample of part of a poem within "DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS (inside my Black Doll Head Irises)" my new poetry chapbook,published by Blood Pudding Press for Dusie Kollketiv 9/ Newly available HERE - https://www.etsy.com/listing/689260672/new-dark-purple-intersections-inside-my?ref=shop_home_feat_1

DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS (inside my Black Doll Head Irises) by Juliet Cook is a NEW 2019 poetry chapbook, published by Blood Pudding Press for the Dusie Kollektiv 9.

DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS (inside my Black Doll Head Irises) is HERE! -  https://www.etsy.com/listing/689260672/new-dark-purple-intersections-inside-my?ref=shop_home_feat_1

















This new poetry chapbook contains 30+ pages of interconnected/intersected poems, with content based on wanting to escape control and the ongoing dying of love.  It could possibly be perceived as a negative confessional with glimmers of cracked, broken doll parts designed into new doll parts so they can keep living their own way, even if their way changes.
The chapbook cover is hand-designed and hand-bound, with various different colors available, with or without insect or worm stickers.  The colors and variations are too many to name, but if you have a particular preference for your chapbook's cover, please let me know in the Notes section. The color cover variations are mostly light tan variations, light purple variations, and light grey variations. They can have worm stickers added, insect stickers added, both, or no stickers at all. Any specific preferences or questions, let me know in the Notes.

Furthermore,if you'd like to acquire this chapbook from a source other than etsy (like via paypal for example), let me know that too.
***
Cook was involved with the Dusie Kollektiv 3,4, and 5 and is delighted to be involved again. The Dusie Kollektiv 9 is a Tribute to Marthe Reed.
Sometime in May 2019, the Dusie Kollektiv will be publishing free online PDF files of the various members chapbooks, but Cook also created this print version of her chapbook and will be mailing copies to other Dusie members in May.
For those who are not involved with Dusie and would like a hand-designed print copy of this chapbook, here it is - https://www.etsy.com/listing/689260672/new-dark-purple-intersections-inside-my?ref=shop_home_feat_1
As a small sample, here is the beginning of the first poem within the collection:

"Maybe you didn't want to bloom where you were planted.
Maybe you wanted to escape from where you were planted,create your own individual space that doesn't leave youstuck in the same position,nailed into the same cross-shaped ground.
And so from the ground up and down, you elongateinto different circle shapes.  You expand and growyour own fairy tale pie filled with maggotsthat will choke to death or drown in betweenthe red filling unless they learn to fly." 
***
If you are interested in acquiring one or two of Cook's earlier Dusie Kollektiv chapbooks:
You can get Dusie Kollektiv 4's "Soft Foam" - https://www.etsy.com/listing/59222402/soft-foam-by-juliet-cook?ref=shop_home_active_6
You can get Dusie Kollektiv 5's "POST-STROKE" - https://www.etsy.com/listing/69547229/post-stroke-by-juliet-cook?ref=shop_home_active_3
You can get both of the above together - https://www.etsy.com/listing/278408054/two-blood-pudding-pressdusie-kollektiv?ref=shop_home_active_