Tenderness of the Wolves

by Dennis Cooper

Introduction by Edmund White. Poetry. 1st paperback edition.

Genres: Poetry, Gay, Queer, Fiction

70 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Dennis Cooper was born on January 10, 1953. He grew up in the Southern California cities of Covina and Arcadia.

He wrote stories and poems from early age but got serious about writing at 15 after reading Arthur Rimbaud and The Marquis de Sade. He attended LA county public schools until the 8th grade when he transferred to a private school, Flintridge Preparatory School for Boys in La Canada, California, from which he was expelled in the 11th grade.

While at Flintridge, he met his friend George Miles, who would become his muse and the subject of much of his future writing. He attended Pasadena City College for two years, attending poetry writing workshops taught by the poets Ronald Koertge and Jerene Hewitt. He then attended one year of university at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, where he studied with the poet Bert Meyers.

In 1976, he founded Little Caesar Magazine and Press, which he ran until 1982. From 1980 to 1983 he was Director of Programming for the Beyond Baroque Literary/Art Center in Venice, California. From 1983 to 1985, he lived in New York City.

In 1985, he moved to Amsterdam for two and a half years, where he began his ten year long project, The George Miles Cycle, an interconnected sequence of five novels that includes Closer, Frisk, Try, Guide, and Period.

His post-George Miles Cycle novels include My Loose Thread, The Sluts and God, Jr.
Other works include the short-story collections Wrong and Ugly Man, poetry collections The Dream Police and The Weaklings, as well as the recent Smothered in Hugs: Essays, Interviews, Feedback, and Obituaries.

Dennis Cooper currently spends his time between Los Angeles and Paris.

Reviews

[Roof Beam Reader (Adam) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Tenderness of the Wolves is Dennis Cooper's second collection. It is made up of two parts: the first is a collection of very short stories and poetry; the second is a short story titled "A Herd." Many of the pieces in Part I are found in other Cooper collections, but I had not encountered "A Herd" elsewhere and it is this piece which is the crowning acheivement of the collection. Cooper's early inclination toward the sexually deviant and grotesque are certainly found in the shorter pieces - fiction and poetry - but "A Herd" seems to be the true starting point for what will later become Cooper's signature "George Miles Cycle." The horrible fasciniation with "the underworld" in plain view - drugs, burnouts, the wish to die and to kill in ways so as to make life, or at least the human form, have some kind of meaning. Slicing up a worthless identity in search of something sub-surface, and acting out sexual fantasies in the process. As always, disturbing and terrible, yet in such a blase fashion - as if these lives are only worth something in their destruction. These bodies are to be worshiped to death. These boys are meant to be sacrifices. And God witnesses and laughs.

[Trapper King · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1982, interestingly includes a piece dedicated to Michael Silverblatt, “No God.”

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish someone had given me this book when I was a young punkrocker in 1982.

[Geo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish that I had come across this kind of poetry when I was much younger, it would have prevented me from seeing poetry as cringe and I would have fallen in love with it much faster. I love Dennis Cooper, and while I do feel like his fiction work is better than his poetry, I still liked this. I love how he constantly explores a specific brand of queer male darkness and transgression, and isn’t concerned with catering to the heteronormative lens or readership. I love how raw and honest this was. The standout poem to me was “Drugs” as it resonated with my feelings about my friend Josh who died from a drug overdose a few years back. I’ll always miss you, Josh.

“A friend dies one night,
swallows too many pills
on his way to a party
and grows pale as dust
in a shaft of moonlight.
You long to reach him
again, all your life.
A priest says you'll
find him in the future
under cover of death;
you will stand and sing
near his glowing side.
We tell you to join us,
get loaded, forget him.
One day you shoot so
much stuff you fall over.
You hope to see him but
only grow clammy, more
stupid, like someone on
quaaludes. Now you and
he walk the same clouds
only when we’ve been
stoned and think back
on our lives, full of
dead bodies, and bright
now as heaven behind us.”

[Samuel Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very tender. I love the jfk junior poem.

[Isaak]

very well crafted and truly disturbing - will not re-read this ever.
CN rape, gore

[Rod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me t'aime Dennis Cooper

[Ruth]

still reading it... !

[Steph Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books of all time.