Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    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

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    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
    Chaos is the New Calm

    Related to Chaos is the New Calm

    Related ebooks

    Social Science For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2020

      The American linden sways nonplussed by the storm,a bounce here, a shimmy there, just shaking like musicleft over from the night’s end wafting into the avenues before sleep.I remember once walking down Clinton Street, and singingthat line returning,

      4 min read

    • Article

      Diaspora Sonnets

      Sep 1, 2022

      The old men drink their spritzers and gossipunder awnings. Red hued and blustery, like two roosters on the side of a road.Skyward they crane their necks and laugh, sometimes they wonder about kings and future kingsand how the muscles peer from their

      2 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jul 1, 2023

      Jester-necked pile of ideasfattening by the cutting board.I have known the summer wall,it says slowly. The hillside facessouth into the valley.Dew on the tomato plants.Anything that grows, swarms,bunches itself against a stayand cannot stay. The vine

      4 min read

    • Article

      Fifteen Poets on Revision

      Feb 27, 2018

      After 17 drafts over two weeks, Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “One Art” was completed on November 4, 1975. The poem began as notes, and evolved into a villanelle. She changed the title. She deleted words. She reached for possible rhymes. Brett Candlish Mil

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Barber of Language

      Dec 2, 2019

      The Barber of Language
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Rails

      Dec 1, 2021

      The Rails
      1 min read

    • Article

      from BLACK PASTORAL

      Nov 1, 2023

      somewheres, some lifetimes ago I have run so far, so long.There is nowhere I haven’t beenBut here, in this field, a bodyLength from the ragged brinkThat gives way to forest.I collapsed here, the thin, hard slipOf me whittled at both ends.I want badly

      4 min read

    • Article

      Devil Asks Why You Would Mouth The Word Pity

      Jul 1, 2022

      even in this abundance of dark? Even in this abundance of dark you have totake the stars on faith. Look: Under today’s dim sky there is a basket.In that basket there is a fish. Come night, you are the animal that will eat the best parts of it. And ye

      1 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Jennifer Barber

      Jun 8, 2021

      At first puzzlement, then joy. My baby in the making—surely my last—would, like a ferry heading for a wharf,know what to do along the way. The multiplying cells, the chemistryof contentment spreading through my blood: I was as ready for her birthas I

      1 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jan 1, 2023

      And god created the waves and we the graves beneath, bodies madeparticulate by the force of water against water, water against rock, againsttime. I descend into the deep in a kind of prayer, listen to its centuries.Make me pay, will you, make me hurt

      3 min read

    • Article

      Silvia Guerra

      Jun 9, 2020

      The dry, black branches of winter seen in flight run singing. Come here to drink translucent drops on fresh leaves. Come over here, and try to light that wick. If you descend from the summit, humming, perhaps I can see you, perhaps at the river’s cur

      1 min read

    • Article

      Poem Of The Week: Air By Victoria Adukwei Bulley

      Jun 6, 2022

      Air Friend, I saw you sittingat the window of yourself high up in the loftwatching it all go on without you. I was ice & you were almost shadow.I waved like a child on a passing boat. Unsure of whether or not this countsI want us to remember the unr

      3 min read

    • Article

      “None Of It! None Of It Will Last!”

      Jan 1, 2023

      A screamer. A gasper. A startler. A dog’s cock.1 “An index finger raised in warning.”2 A bang. A pling. A slammer. A shriek. “A squiggle manufactured in Renaissance Italy in order to revive the ideals of classical oration.”3 “A squirt of lighter flui

      23 min read

    • Article

      Poetry Rx: This Is the Year

      Jan 3, 2019

      Poetry Rx: This Is the Year
      7 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      Early such darkness, these oncoming nights& sure, I’m dull & even slow to concedehow mornings make equal, swerving measuresthere between those foremost shadowsalong the fence, amid the chickens & nerve,sheep & their indifference to any pair of foolsh

      3 min read

    • Article

      Writing Prompts and Exercises

      Feb 14, 2018

      Suggested Reading: A Primer for Poets & Readers of Poetry (W. W. Norton, February 2018) by Gregory Orr The author of a dozen books of poetry as well as three books about poetry, including Poetry as Survival (University of Georgia Press, 2002), Orr de

      2 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jul 1, 2020

      She was a security guard and even though her uniform was black I could seeIt was covered in blood, the marble floor was covered in blood, it wasSlowly pooling out from the space where HER HAND used to beOh my god, I said, then I started to say, YOUR

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Element of Silence: The Millions Interviews N. Scott Momaday

      Jul 20, 2022

      "Too many people just write down things in haste that look like poetry, but they’re not." The post The Element of Silence: The Millions Interviews N. Scott Momaday appeared first on The Millions.

      9 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Joanna Klink

      Jul 8, 2020

      Two Poems by Joanna Klink
      2 min read

    • Article

      A Rare and Beautiful Creature: On the Life and Work of Frank Stanford

      Sep 22, 2017

      It seems fair to suggest that the anxiety of influence—a creative necessity for so many poets—may have failed to penetrate the mobile-homed hamlets where Stanford roamed, rambled, mused, and wrote with prolific intensity. The post A Rare and Beautifu

      5 min read

    • Article

      Game Changers

      Dec 14, 2022

      A FEW years ago while I was teaching at a writers conference I met a young woman who wrote poetry but was otherwise unfamiliar with the world of writing and publishing. She tracked me down one afternoon to ask the question shared by so many aspiring

      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Chaos is the New Calm

    4/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      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

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1