Overview

Barrie Cole's Lacquer is a Thrilling Word, invites readers to immerse themselves in the sublimity of language through unconventional forms and inventive metaphors. In this full-length collection of poems and short prose, Cole's signature word play and strange takes can be found in to-do lists, fortune cookie fortunes, run-on sentences, and more. Each poem somersaults toward the places where the beauty and absurdity in living are revealed in equal parts. Poet Alison Luterman says, ""to enter the pages of Lacquer is a Thrilling Word is to walk inside the wild and wonderful, kaleidoscopically shape-shifting mind of Barrie Cole, appreciating an odd truth bomb here, a moment of delight or humor there, and now and again a totally unexpected light ray of divine wisdom shooting through a dusty stained-glass window that was somehow exported from an ancient Gothic cathedral to a grocery store in downtown Chicago..."" Lacquer is a Thrilling Word is the newest addition to longtime Chicago resident Barrie Cole's catalog which includes more than a dozen plays like Fruit Tree Backpack, Reality is an Activity, and Elevator Tours as well as multiple hybrid works, essays, short stories and monologues. Her work has received multiple Critic's Choice Selections and other critical praise. A regular in Chicago's Storefront theater scene, her plays have been produced by Theater Oobleck, Prop Theater, Curious Theater Branch, Labyrinth Arts Collective and others. She has appeared in many live reading shows as well including f Miss Spoken, Write Club, Story Sessions, Poetry at the Green, You're Being Ridiculous and many others. She lives in Chicago near Lake Michigan with her partner and her two grown children live nearby.,

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Reviews

The poems in Lacquer is a Thrilling Word explore unconventional forms-fortune cookie fortunes, drive-thru orders and to-do lists wrestling pleasure from the mundane and ridiculous while reveling in permission, attention and the sublimity of language. There are run-on sentence poems including one about assembling new varieties of mushrooms. There is a poem about angel watching (as opposed to birds) and another about collecting a bouquet of icicles. Poet Alison Luterman says, ""To enter the pages of Lacquer is a Thrilling Word is to walk inside the wild and wonderful, kaleidoscopically shape-shifting mind of Barrie Cole, appreciating an odd truth bomb here, a moment of delight or humor there, and now and again a totally unexpected light ray of divine wisdom shooting through a dusty stained-glass window that was somehow exported from an ancient Gothic cathedral to a grocery store in downtown Chicago. There are too many delightful lines to quote in a blurb, but let's just say that she had me at ""I am still a good person if I have had an unfortunate haircut, the kind where there are bangs of insanity, the kind wherein cutting more could not even begin to improve it, a haircut that makes purchasing a wig a genuine consideration and I am still a good person if I paid the bill late and I was too anxious to attend the party and too anxious to say hello to the neighbor and so pretended not to see her at all and this was no surprise, because I do this more often than I do not, but I am still good. Probably. "" I'll leave you to discover the rest on your own. -Alison Luterman, Author of In the Time of Great Fires and Hard Listening Barrie Cole has long been placing imaginary jars atop imaginary hills. Her ambiguously concrete work layers childlike simplicity over seasoned melancholy to produce piercing, wondrous images of charming, discomfiting transformation. -Justin Hayford, Chicago Reader Chicago's short-order chef of language and empathy. -Kerry Reid, Ghost Light, Chicago Reader

Author Information

Barrie Cole is a critically acclaimed Chicago-based writer who has written more than 15 plays including Reality is an Activity, Capacity, Meaning is Tricky, Reverse Gossip, Elevator Tours and Fruit Tree Backpack along with numerous poems, essays, monologues and hybrid works. Lacquer is a Thrilling Word is her first book.

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