Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Poetry Canadian

Questions in Bed

by (author) Stewart Cole

Publisher
Goose Lane Editions
Initial publish date
Sep 2012
Category
Canadian, Love
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780864926845
    Publish Date
    Sep 2012
    List Price
    $19.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780864927675
    Publish Date
    Sep 2012
    List Price
    $18.95

Add it to your shelf

Where to buy it

Description

Incisive and intensely felt, Stewart Cole's striking debut collection reminds us that we too live in an age of anxiety, disoriented by doubt, up late and compelled to confront the unanswerable. Sirens draw us to the inevitable fact of human suffering, black-winged redbirds perch aloof above our daily commutes, sex denies and drives our hunger for fidelity, and the comet speaks before it strikes. In an unabashed celebration of intellect and a visceral engagement with our shadowy impulses, Cole's voice veers between the playful and the grave, pillow-talk and eulogy. And despite the odds, love — private, public, and free of false sentiment — emerges cloaked in a wit and intelligence at once elusive and warm. From the urbane and civil to the lustful and dark, the poems of Questions in Bed, in an impressive synthesis of content and contour, depict the heat-seeking of our driven days and insomniac nights.

About the author

Editorial Reviews

"Negotiating "the fragilities that make us go" and "the doubts that shame our dailiness," Stewart Cole coaxes his dissatisfaction into abundance, as if he were holding reality by the ankles and shaking the change from its pockets. This heap of detail, gathered by an attentive mind, is then generously scrutinized and shared. Curious and sensual, Questions in Bed is a book rich with memorable phrases and new ways of seeing."

David O'Meara

"Shines in its intelligence and beauty."

Lampert Prize jury citation

"Questions in Bed is a quick study, yet it is with multiple readings that the nuance of the verse is revealed."

<i>Scene</i>

"[W]orks that are polished, varied, and often as anxious as the last moments in bed one might spend before embarking on a day of the unknown. ... Cole draws our attention to the distance we insist on maintaining between the natural and biological realities from which we spring and the hectic created world in which we wander. ... There is little peace in these poems, but much sharp-edged, knowing loveliness. Read it in bed; see what your dreams will dare to do with it."

<i>Arc Poetry Magazine</i>

"Questions in Bed considers its questions with verve, in a clear voice that crackles with surprising word collocations and staccato consonance. The poems that spring from this music are much more a singing in their chains than a pointing to the chains themselves." —

David O'Meara

"Questions in Bed considers its questions with verve, in a clear voice that crackles with surprising word collocations and staccato consonance. The poems that spring from this music are much more a singing in their chains than a pointing to the chains themselves." —

A.F. Moritz

Other titles by