What do you think?
Rate this book
Chaos is the New Calm
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.
From Verse Wisconsin Online:
“These poems move along at an energetic pace often progressing by plays on words and a kind of free association logic or, to put it another way, a sort of “six-degrees-of-separation” type of logic between both people and things.”
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.
From Verse Wisconsin Online:
“These poems move along at an energetic pace often progressing by plays on words and a kind of free association logic or, to put it another way, a sort of “six-degrees-of-separation” type of logic between both people and things.”
- GenresPoetry
88 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
8 people want to read
About the author
Wyn Cooper
13 books8 followersWyn Cooper has published four books of poems: The Country of Here Below (Ahsahta Press, 1987), The Way Back (White Pine Press, 2000), Postcards from the Interior, (BOA Editions, 2005), and Chaos is the New Calm (BOA Editions, 2010), as well as a chapbook, Secret Address (Chapiteau Press, 2002). His poems, stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Crazyhorse, Agni, Slate, The Southern Review, and more than 60 other magazines. His poems are included in 25 anthologies of contemporary poetry, including The Mercury Reader, Outsiders, and Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms.
In 1993, “Fun,” a poem from his first book, was turned into Sheryl Crow’s Grammy-winning song “All I Wanna Do.” He has also cowritten songs with David Broza, David Baerwald, and Bill Bottrell. In 2003, Gaff Music released Forty Words for Fear, a CD of songs based on poems and lyrics by Cooper, set to music and sung by the novelist Madison Smartt Bell. It has been featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition and World Café, and has been written about in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Observer, and elsewhere. Songs from the CD have been featured on 5 tv shows.
The new CD by Bell and Cooper, Postcards Out of the Blue, is available for sale at www.cdbaby.com and at Amazon. Downloads are available at itunes and www.digstation.com. For more information, music, and photos, go to http://www.myspace.com/bellandcooper.
Wyn has taught at the University of Utah, Bennington College, Marlboro College, and at The Frost Place, where he now serves on the advisory board. He is a former editor of Quarterly West, and the recipient of a fellowship from the Ucross Foundation. He lives in Halifax, Vermont, and helps run the Brattleboro Literary Festival. He recently worked for the world's first poetry think tank, The Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute, run by the Poetry Foundation of Chicago.
In 1993, “Fun,” a poem from his first book, was turned into Sheryl Crow’s Grammy-winning song “All I Wanna Do.” He has also cowritten songs with David Broza, David Baerwald, and Bill Bottrell. In 2003, Gaff Music released Forty Words for Fear, a CD of songs based on poems and lyrics by Cooper, set to music and sung by the novelist Madison Smartt Bell. It has been featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition and World Café, and has been written about in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Observer, and elsewhere. Songs from the CD have been featured on 5 tv shows.
The new CD by Bell and Cooper, Postcards Out of the Blue, is available for sale at www.cdbaby.com and at Amazon. Downloads are available at itunes and www.digstation.com. For more information, music, and photos, go to http://www.myspace.com/bellandcooper.
Wyn has taught at the University of Utah, Bennington College, Marlboro College, and at The Frost Place, where he now serves on the advisory board. He is a former editor of Quarterly West, and the recipient of a fellowship from the Ucross Foundation. He lives in Halifax, Vermont, and helps run the Brattleboro Literary Festival. He recently worked for the world's first poetry think tank, The Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute, run by the Poetry Foundation of Chicago.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 16, 2019
Unfortunately, I felt as if the creative process behind most of these poems was guided by rhyming words instead of a cohesive thought or story. The only poem I truly enjoyed and could relate to was 'Many Things'. In general, I do not recommend this poem collection.
April 10, 2012
The poems found within the collection Chaos Is the New Calm are an exact reflection of the writer himself, Wyn Cooper. The poems found within are entertaining, fun, and clever. As a rule I don’t read poetry because poems come across to me as a contrived jumble of words to which someone assigns meaning. However, this collection of poems left me feeling refreshed—as if I had read something that was worth my time, which of course it was.
The title of the book is taken from the poem Chaos Is the New Calm. The book embodies the stanzas of this poem: 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.
Cooper incorporates into every poem a new way to bring a little bit of chaos, irony, and wit. One example is the numerous ways in which he writes his sonnets. Despite the book consisting entirely of sonnets, what one would deem as “ordered” and “inside the box,” Cooper is able to construct his stanzas in new appealing ways so that each poem and pithy line stands out on their own.
In a large way this book is a symbol of its poet, and the title is a summation of the books poems. Wyn Cooper, a man who delights in humor and entertainment found a way to incorporate all of this into a book of poetry, which, I might add, is not a contrived jumble of words to which he has assigned meaning.
The title of the book is taken from the poem Chaos Is the New Calm. The book embodies the stanzas of this poem: 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.
Cooper incorporates into every poem a new way to bring a little bit of chaos, irony, and wit. One example is the numerous ways in which he writes his sonnets. Despite the book consisting entirely of sonnets, what one would deem as “ordered” and “inside the box,” Cooper is able to construct his stanzas in new appealing ways so that each poem and pithy line stands out on their own.
In a large way this book is a symbol of its poet, and the title is a summation of the books poems. Wyn Cooper, a man who delights in humor and entertainment found a way to incorporate all of this into a book of poetry, which, I might add, is not a contrived jumble of words to which he has assigned meaning.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews