Poet Dennis Cooley launches two books

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Prairie poet Dennis Cooley is launching two new poetry collections on Oct. 22., including a rewriting of classic fairy tales and a modern version of the medieval bestiary format, with an emphasis on prairie creatures.

The former University of Manitoba professor and Fort Richmond resident has been spending his retirement working on books of poems.

Published by Turnstone Press, Cold Press Moon’s cover describes the book as Cooley at his most sinister and seductive, where “deep in the woods, way down the well, in the darkest, dampest parts of story, Cooley spins his web.”

“I’ve been rewriting my take on classic fairy tales such as Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Rumplestiltskin,” Cooley said. “Fairy tales are such a part of the culture, and they appeal to everyone. Fairy tales tend to be darker and originally were full of cruelty and violence.”

The poems in the book play on gender roles. He said he often picked a peripheral character to write about. “I wrote about the father in the Hansel and Gretel story, about how he is grieving the loss of his children.”

There are poems about the Frankenstein and Dracula stories, and other “unreal figures from the world of fantasy who inhabit our imagination,” he said. “Many of these poems have been lurking in my head. Some of them have been on the go for many years.”

Cooley said he composes poems by whatever topic interests him at the moment. He also spends time researching the origins of an idea, and then revising poems and repositioning them until he gathers enough for a book.

“I’ve been retired for eight years now, and have published seven books in that time,” he said.

His other newly published book, The Bestiary, is a modern take on medieval books which were catalogues of stories about animals, although not necessarily real animals.

According to the write-up on the cover, the book is, “Bursting with a remarkable and encompassing cast of spiders and fish, crows and bears, rats, chickens, and cows, the bestiary gives free rein to very human feelings and the way they grow, stunt, and stampede out on the prairie landscape. Amid hushed and howling moments, the natural bends uncanny while the extraordinary roots into the organic under Cooley’s careful eye.”

“Bestiaries go back in time, even beyond the Middle Ages, to Roman scholars like Pliny the Elder, who wrote about exotic creatures. The books were illustrated richly, often with mixed-up animals, like a lion with the head of a bird. In those days, the books were looking into what was terra incognito.”

Cooley drew upon his childhood on a farm, along with the creatures he sees in Winnipeg and at the cottage at Winnipeg Beach. “I started writing about bees, then had a lot of fun moving on to crows and chickens and the like,” he said.

Cooley previously published another book of poems, The Muse Sings, by Art Bay Press earlier this year. 

Along with information about Cooley’s two new poetry books, Turnstone’s website includes questions for book clubs to ask members after reading the poems.

For more, see www.turnstonepress.com