Juliet Cook's Blog

"...Then I realize
if I really had no eyes, I wouldn’t be
able to see. Which means I’m still stuck
in a dream. What if I can’t wake myself
up this time?"
within my poem "Empty Holes for Eyes", appearing in The Literary Underground, In Conversation today

read more here - https://theliteraryunderground.org/blog/2025/11/20/empty-holes-for-eyes-by-juliet-cook/

A photo of Juliet Cook at the Blood Pudding Press table at Get Sharp! Ohio Poetry Publishing Conference sponsored by the Ohio Poetry Association, at the Cuyahoga County Public Library's South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch, on Saturday November 15, 2025.

And a slightly more close up photo of the table. 

You can find out a bit more about all these chapbooks (and more chapbooks that don't show up in these photos) in the Blood Pudding Press shop HERE - https://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress

"Partof me blames it on wildlife.
Part of me blames it on ageism.
Part of me blames it on myself
for being a dullard or at least duller
than I used to be. Lacking in visible vibrancy."

in my poem, "No Longer Part of the Latest Scene", which is newly appearing in MasticadoresUSA 
read more HERE - https://masticadoresusa.wordpress.com/2025/11/14/no-longer-part-of-the-latest-scene-by-juliet-cook/

This coming Saturday, November 15 from 10 AM - 4:30 PM, Juliet Cook and her Blood Pudding Press will have a table at this Ohio Poetry Publishing Conference at the Cuyahoga County Public Library South Euclid-Lyndhurst Branch.

The event is FREE and open to all poets, but please do try to Register in advance.

In addition to several Ohio-based presses having tables, there will also be several free Presentations and Workshops by several different poets.

Find out more details and sign up here - https://attend.cuyahogalibrary.org/event/13881294

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If you can't make it to this event, you can still check out the Blood Pudding Press shop here - 
https://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress

Me reading some of my poetry on November 8, 2025, as part of The Underground Lit Fest 2025, at Culture Clash Records, in Toledo OH.

(Photo taken by Darryl Shupe)

 

One thing about pretty much all photos or posts when I check out my facebook Memories lately is that many of them do not feel anywhere near as old as they tell me that they are. Like in terms of the passage of time and how my brain works. Sometimes photos from 5 Years Ago feel they were more like 2 Years Ago (or a little more or a little less, because numbers and time are ongoing confusion)...

Then I'll see some Memory from 1 or 2 Years Ago that feels like it was just a few months ago or less than half a year.Is it like this for everyone? The older you get, the more time feels like it's speed racing by, faster and faster and faster? For me, time already felt like it was moving fast when I was in my late teens. Then I didn't want my 4 year college experience to end as quickly as it felt like it did. Then suddenly I was about to turn 30 (which seemed way too old to me at that time). Then I was about to turn 40, but still felt like I was in good shape physically. Then shortly after turning 43, I started to semi-randomly gain weight and have various other unenjoyable perimenopausal symptoms that lasted for years, but I don't want to get into that, other than that happened too past too.Now I'll be turning 53 in just a few short days (well actually tomorrow).And now I'm this (more than?) middle-aged woman who doesn't feel as old as I actually am mentally (whatever that means) and who doesn't feel as old as I look and who doesn't want to keep getting older so fast, but you either keep getting older or you die and I hate death (and the older you get, the more people you know die).And back to how fast time goes. It's been moving fast for me for a long time, but in more recent years, it seems increasingly ridiculously faster. On a side note, I've not been a fan of traditional holiday seasons for years, but anymore time seems to move so darn fast, that it's hard to tell the difference between one holiday season and the next, which in a way makes it feel even worse (or more meaningless?). Like let's just jumpstart from this Thanksgiving and Christmas to the next in the click of a finger.Also since I'm one of those women who doesn't regularly buy new clothes (and who doesn't quickly and easily throw old things away), I might have variations of the same clothing on in multiple photos for an entire decade that feels like less than a year. Okay that last part might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I shall leave it at that for now...

A photo of me exorcising, I mean reading, some of my poetry, as one of the Featured Readers at Uncloistered Poetry Live, October 11, 2025, at the Attic on Adams.

First Featured Reading in well over a year. Last Featured Reading at the age I am now.

Reading a poem from my most recently published poetry chapbook, "Blue Stingers Instead of Wings", which is still available and which shall be linked to below. 



















My most recent poetry chapbook that I'm reading a poem from here, Blue Stingers Instead of Wings, is indeed still available from its publisher Pure Sleeze Press HERE - https://puresleezepress.bigcartel.com/
Or from my own Blood Pudding Press shop HERE - https://www.etsy.com/listing/4314653197/new-blue-stingers-instead-of-wings-by

AND in additional exciting poetry news, the poem I read from this chapbook Saturday evening, "Severed Into Unspeakable Compliance" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize the same evening I was reading it, unbeknownst to me until I saw the nomination hours later!

Heck, maybe I received the nomination while in the time frame of reading that poem!

Thank you very much to Pure Sleeze Press!

And congratulations to the other nominees!

"You feel like you don’t fit in anywhere
and sometimes that’s hard to handle
even though you don’t particularly care

about fitting in. You care about being yourself,
but what if yourself mostly only exists inside
your own mind’s mirror?"
the beginning of my poem “Residual Fitting Room Inside Which Nothing Fits”, which is newly appearing in MasticadoresUsa 
read more here - https://masticadoresusa.wordpress.com/2025/10/13/residual-fitting-room-inside-which-nothing-fits-by-juliet-cook/