Awards

• Commended for Northeastern Minnesota Book Award (Poetry) 2010

Overview

"This collection is made up of poems written over a span of twenty years, including selections from each of the author's four previously published chapbooks and from the anthology ""The Moon Rolls Out of Our Mouths,"" along with thirty newer pieces. The author describes the crafting of poetry as a contemplative practice, an act that opens us to insights and connections that might otherwise go unnoticed, an attempt to articulate what is essentially beyond words. These poems are reflections on relationships...with oneself, with the living and the dead, with the natural and the spiritual world."

Full Product Details

9780979488382

Table of Contents

Reviews

These are poems that make a person remember, remember things they have never even experienced. Cooper is a master of the small and perfect detail, of the nuance that puts the reader right into a felt experience, the detail that tells the whole story and brings it to life-to our life. She takes us through a full spectrum of living, from a love letter made of flower petals through the times when .. .there is so little / left blooming... Through the darkest season / dreams of the river carry us. In this collection we are carried skillfully through suffering and grace and redemption and humor. Cooper says we are just passing through these bones and I, for one, am grateful to pass through with this collection of poems in hand, with Cooper helping me remember what it is to be human in this world. - Ellie Schoenfeld, poet, The Dark Honey: New & Used Poems I have always been under the influence of Deborah Cooper's amazing lyric poetry. Nature frames, sustains, and weaves together her poems-nature as both life giver and healer. She writes in Instructions, Cast out your gaze like a net / and take everything in / every intricate detail / each small astonishment. Deborah also celebrates the human family as we travel through love and loss, sorrow and joy. Her elegant writing, wisdom, and grace help us step across the boundaries between these states-and between each other-into the light. - Jill Brenckenridge, poet, The Gravity of Flesh To read Deborah Gordon Cooper's Under the Influence of Lilacs is to realize that a poet really can revisit such old topics as nature and family and such old themes as love and loss-and make them new. Because there is so little / left blooming, / each delinquent petal / seems to shine, she writes. With a generous vision and gentle spirit combined with clear and penetrating language, she has given us many shining petals. - Jim Heynen, author, The Boys' House: New and Selected Stories

These are poems that make a person remember, remember things they have never even experienced. Cooper is a master of the small and perfect detail, of the nuance that puts the reader right into a felt experience, the detail that tells the whole story and brings it to life-to our life. She takes us through a full spectrum of living, from a love letter made of flower petals through the times when ...there is so little / left blooming... Through the darkest season / dreams of the river carry us. In this collection we are carried skillfully through suffering and grace and redemption and humor. Cooper says we are just passing through these bones and I, for one, am grateful to pass through with this collection of poems in hand, with Cooper helping me remember what it is to be human in this world. - Ellie Schoenfeld, poet, The Dark Honey: New & Used Poems I have always been under the influence of Deborah Cooper's amazing lyric poetry. Nature frames, sustains, and weaves together her poems-nature as both life giver and healer. She writes in Instructions, Cast out your gaze like a net / and take everything in / every intricate detail / each small astonishment. Deborah also celebrates the human family as we travel through love and loss, sorrow and joy. Her elegant writing, wisdom, and grace help us step across the boundaries between these states-and between each other-into the light. - Jill Brenckenridge, poet, The Gravity of Flesh To read Deborah Gordon Cooper's Under the Influence of Lilacs is to realize that a poet really can revisit such old topics as nature and family and such old themes as love and loss-and make them new. Because there is so little / left blooming, / each delinquent petal / seems to shine, she writes. With a generous vision and gentle spirit combined with clear and penetrating language, she has given us many shining petals. - Jim Heynen, author, The Boys' House: New and Selected Stories

Author Information

"Deborah Gordon Cooper has been writing poetry for over thirty years. Her work has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including ""ArtWord Quarterly,"" ""The Roaring Muse,"" ""Kalliope,"" ""Wolf Head Quarterly,"" ""North Coast Review,"" ""Minnesota Monthly,"" ""Nimrod,"" ""Rosebud,"" and ""Dust and Fire."" She and her husband, Joel, who is a printmaker, have exhibited their collaborative images throughout the Midwest. Deborah has used poetry extensively in her work as a Hospice Chaplain. She teaches poetry writing classes at the St. Louis County Jail and conducts writing circles for the homeless. She also conducts workshops on the interfacing of poetry and spirituality. She was honored to be chosen as the 2012 to 2014 Poet Laureate of Duluth, Minnesota. ""Under the Influence of Lilacs"" (2010) is the most comprehensive collection of her work and won honorable mention in the Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards. She co-edited three anthologies with Holy Cow! Press: ""Beloved on the Earth: 150 Poems of Grief and Gratitude"" (2009), ""The Heart of All That Is"" (2013), and ""Amethyst and Agate"" (2015)."

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