Brooklyn Copeland

I've been reading more prose than poetry lately, but like everyone I have poets about whose writing I remain curious, poets I'll Google ever and anon. Do people still say that, ever and anon?

Brooklyn Copeland is one of those poets for me, and I was taken by the recent turns her poetry has taken. I'm using the anti-idiomatic plural deliberately there, since I'm referring to the poet's move into a poetry of swerving imagistic enjambment, a move towards field poetics in general.

I was pleased to see her jamming on Sobin in one poem (an underrated poet and favorite here too).

What I saw in Copeland's earlier poetry is still there: a sensuousness where the poet is not afraid to allow the words to spread over the perceptions like a dew-starred moss. Of course, I mean that as a compliment. Wet moss has its antennae. It seems still at first, until we notice the constant percolation of moisture and realize the thing is living many secret lives. What am I trying to say here? Think H.D.'s sensuousness. (Or perhaps it puts me more in mind of Niedecker's intellectual sensuousness.)

I rarely allow myself the indulgence of purchasing new poetry books, but I see she has one coming out in the near future and that book will be one of the few exceptions.

Here is an engaging trio of poems at the Poetry Foundation.

The one poem reminds me of James Wright a bit. The one that clearly makes you wonder whether the "barns" in the poem are really churches--and then opens up a spiritual reading in that direction which is rather plangent.