Xanax Cowboy: Poems

by Hannah Green

2023 Governor General's Literary Award Winner

The Xanax Cowboy has a reputation like a rattlesnake. She might as well be a strike-anywhere match in a gasoline town. Her whiskey is mixed with vengeance like her mind is mixed with pills. The last doctor who told her she ain't nothin' is still spitting blood through a split lip.

Genres: Poetry, Canada, Adult, Nonfiction

126 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 4, 2023

Reviews

[Alan (on December semi-hiatus) Teder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lonesome on the Xanax Trail
Review of the House of Anansi paperback edition (2023)

Don’t want to be lonely? Just pretend you are a cowboy, they are meant to be alone.

Winner of the Canadian Governor General's 2023 Literary Award for Poetry (English language).

The 2023 English language Governor General's Literary Award winners. Image sourced from Twitter.

I don't usually rush out to pick up poetry books, even if they are award winners. But Hannah Green's Twitter response to her GG Award win of $25,000 Cdn. which said "I'm gonna buy so many Mama Burgers" just struck me as so hilarious (although an even more Canadian 🍁 reply would have been name-checking Tim Hortons 🍩☕perhaps) that I went straight down to publisher House of Anansi's own store and grabbed her Xanax Cowboy book.

Although Xanax Cowboy's long form ode to surviving addiction through persistence and humour (and doubtless the support of friends and family) is quite grim and depressing in parts, its overall arc is still uplifting. The cinematic visuals (some parts told as if in a screenplay) and evocation of the Wild West cowboy experience was an engrossing read. I was glad to discover it via its acknowledgement through the GG Awards.

Trivia and Link
Read an interview about Xanax Cowboy with author Hannah Green at OpenBook.ca.

[Mariana Jimenez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theatrical and timeless, yet so clever in its use of the spacelessness of the web and its mechanized, specialized language. Such a fun and thought-provoking read!

[Louis · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars because, if I have trouble judging individual poems, a collection of poems is impossible. In any case, I can say that there were many memorable/insightful/touching poems in there, and many, many more terrific verses, like little language bullets.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t even have a joke, read this book.

[iceuh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I definitely judged this book by its cover and loved it. Saw the title, and had to take it out of the library. Xanax Cowboy stands strong in its depiction of anxiety, loneliness, and chemical dependencies. Cocaine Cowgirl & Xanax Cowboy were both foils and beautiful sides of the same coin—a theatrical, relatable, and beautifully contemporary poetry debut. I was touched. Yee haw.

[Steph Percival · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thematically brilliant, full of language sharp as the bite of a rattlesnake. Simultaneously vulnerable yet hardass like the back side of a cowboy. When it comes to buying this poetry collection, pull the trigger and let its words unfurl like a bullet.

[Harry Palacio · Rating 4 out of 5]

This hybrid approach to storytelling and confessionary poetry gives the author weight her writing is humorous and tact… drugs booze and medication a tour de force in writing

[Brenna Hogg • Really Into Reading · Rating 3 out of 5]

Xanax Cowboy was quite the ride; a collection of poetry that focuses on mental health and addiction, the prose were visceral and packed quite the punch. The content was heavy and will absolutely not be for everyone, so much so that I found myself thankful for the length of the works so that I had a break between poems, so be sure to check the trigger warnings.

If the aim of poetry is to invoke feeling, then Green undoubtedly achieved greatness with this collection.

Another reader in my @tandemcollectiveglobal readalong said they wished that the author would write a memoir, and I couldn’t agree more. I would be so curious to hear her story through a more linear and traditional format.

[Micheline · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this cinematic debut poetry collection, Hannah Green features the Xanax Cowboy as the main character of this metadrama of anxiety and its effects. In Green’s impressive character study of existential complexity and societal commentary, XC teems with honesty and wit. Irony pervades this stark confessional from the opening; “I don’t want to look the truth in its ugly doe eyes.” Yet, the truth is exactly what is investigated at its raw core.
The reader sees the main actor, “I like the pronoun it,” enter stage left, in full costume revealing the crux of the drama. “It’s not me that needs the company, it’s the misery . . . Cowboys don’t need to learn to love themselves. To come home to themselves.” XC goes onto enact the ways the medical system objectifies, experiments with, and places the heavier burdens on women with a quoted Michael Ondaatje line, “In Boot Hill there are only two graves that belong to women / and they are the only known suicides in that Graveyard” and a subtle reworking of Plath’s “I Am I Am I Am.” This broad-sweep allegory focuses on the effects of living with anxiety, then attends precisely and microscopically to the experience of the main actor, “I can hear myself blinking.” In cinema, control of the camera is paramount and Green displays exceptional skill with scene building through macro and micro focus on the dissociated narrator who is both the actor and the acted upon through experimentation at both the level of self, and through the medical system which regards women as objects. “I am writing a book / called XANAX COWBOY while I slip into the leather chaps / of character.”
Throughout, XC is vulnerable and clear. Questions of authenticity and existentialism rise so subtly and effectively throughout the narrative of anxiety that “It is impossible to separate the person from these actual narratives.” At one point, XC even refers to the drama as “Schrödinger’s Western.” It isn’t until “The Motion Picture” that narration shifts to Hannah from XC. Lies and truth are called into question in various ways through the lens of this unreliable and yet hyper-reliable narrator who claims in yet another inebriated state, “it is easy to convince my mother / I am fine. There is so much weather to talk about.”
When William Wordsworth claims that poetry is emotion reflected in tranquility, the wisdom and hope of the Xanax Cowboy coalesce, not through the eyes of the cowboy, but rather through the eyes of the mother, who has been squarely placed just off scene, as the audience and witness to the dramatis persona. Here, we are relieved by the closing lines and promises made.
Green’s debut is timely and witty. It leaves nothing off stage, hides nothing. It is a revelation of living in our anxious times. It is wisely engaging.

[Mic Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hannah Green could have written Kill Bill but Quentin Tarantino could never write Xanax Cowboy.

[Moogle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted this to be good, but it feels so insincere. Given the subject matter, it is very depressing that it comes across this way. As a woman who struggles with the themes within this text myself, it just feels like a slap in the face to read.

There are some good points sprinkled throughout, some excellent lines, some brief moments of sincerity. But it is really bogged down by itself and overall is a very unpleasant read. By the time I'd finished reading it I was extremely depressed but also relieved it was finally over. If it wasn't for school I'd have dropped it in the first 10 pages because you just KNOW what kind of book it wants to be at the very beginning and it never deviates from that impression. It wants to be something deep and profound but it ends up being about as deep as a Pinterest board and that wouldn't be annoying honestly but it IS very annoying when the narrator is acting like It Just Is SO Epic/Romantic.. I don't know how to express it but I am sure those who are chronically online in some form or another understand precisely what I mean. Maybe this sort of personality feels very exotic to readers who never roamed the lands millennials have grown up in, and that is what has contributed to its fanfare. There really isn't anything new or particularly inspired here. I feel sort of guilty for even admitting it was annoying, but really, who else is going to say it? I feel there is a much better way to approach these kinds of feelings and genre of poems. This is a subject of a much wider discussion but the overall normalization of this sort of self-deprecation, the fact that these poems have garnered some form of mass appeal should be troublesome. But that isn't the fault of Hannah Green or her writing, just something for you to consider as you reinforce the importance of this sort of self mutilative performance, reinforcing the only way that the narrator gets attention is by 'dying for it'.

But back to the book: the final poem nestled beside the special thanks at the end of the book will give you whiplash. I feel this firmly illustrates all of my frustration with this collection. Did any of this mean anything? Was any of this real? The narrator begs for our attention and trust but it just feels insulting. I guess poetry is supposed to make you feel something but I felt it in the worst way.

Perhaps I would feel differently if I wasn't having to read this for class and being made to endure long, humiliating discussions on it and writing papers on this as though it is somehow authoritative on female experiences of loneliness.

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hannah Green is such a poser. Or Xanax Cowboy is. Or the “Hannah Green” who’s made this character to explain her life as a young adult. Whatever term you think fits when a poet invents a persona, who’s a lot her, and is a lot what she can’t believe she was, and is a lot of exaggeration to make clear what it felt like being that cowboy living in Montreal. No, “poser” isn’t a direct quote from her book. But said “Xanax Cowboy” is so much about trying hard. To make due with a hard life. How hard she was on herself. Especially the little pills the poet was taking. They’re designed to be hard, so the poet can look at their hard life objectively. Like when she fingers the edges of that pill. And she imagines the pill is her life.

What I’m explaining here is “Xanax Cowboy,” the character in a movie. And every scene happens on the motel grounds. Or, no, the poet is the actor in one of those pharmaceutical commercials. But rather than performing how the drug might make you feel to be around other people, this cowboy is performing all the side effects. The shit storms. The stylized cobwebs for the brain. She puts a hard look on her face, and it’s her impersonating the “it” pronoun. She’s in a piece of performance art. The genre? Commercial breaks on your favorite streaming platform.

The thing is I’m fascinated by books that are poet-as-persona conscious of how annoying it is everyone wants them to be the persona. Like Nature Poem by Tommy Pico. Or Tender Data by Monica McClure. Books that are as much an extended monologue of mistaken identity as they are a WTF is this identity I’m being mistaken for. And, yes, there is outrage compelling the poems forward. But there is satire about the character they’re constructing. And then there’s the poet recognizing this satirical character has some truth to it. And maybe the poems will brush past that truth. Will casually inveigh on the truth that helps fluff up the most outrageous statements this character can make. Like when Emily Dickinson says she’s a Nobody, and everyone around her was like, “But you’re Emily Dickinson.” And then Dickinson insisted. For Hannah Green’s book, change “Nobody” to “Cowboy.” Or don’t worry about doing it yourself, because she does it plenty, highlighting how many different cowboys view themselves as the American version of a nobody.

[TrishTalksBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A creative work of poetry that allows the reader insight into the poet’s struggle with mental health and addiction.

What a character poet Hannah Green has given us in Xanax Cowboy: a dark, sometimes darkly humorous, Wild West cowboy who stands as an alter ego (perhaps?) for the poet-self that is struggling with mental illness and addiction.

I read an interview with Green, and I understand that she writes semi-autobiographically, using some of her own medical records for poems near the end. XC can be seen as a persona to escape from immediate pain into a Wild West where things feel more solid, less equivocal. She talks about women being criticised for attention seeking behaviour and I was struck by these lines:

"We believe cowboys. They don’t need to explain themselves
over and over again. A cowboy goes to the doctor with a bullet hole,
not a list of symptoms with no exit wound!"

The collection is like one long poem, or even theatrical production, as the writing takes the form of traditional poetry, screenplay and dialogue. I liked that Green tells a story, and that the XC character, while primary, is sometimes subverted by the Cocaine Cowgirl…or by the real poet herself. Near the end, there is an affecting section where manufactured character and real poet meet during a hospital visit: the reelist and the realist.

“A handcuffed girl is stunned in the back/of a police car/almost as if she was daydreaming/or had momentarily forgotten where/who she really was.

Or is./Almost/as if/this is a movie in her mind/as if

She was the reelist the entire time.

Switching between a story she tells herself and reality.
This is her real life, she is the realist.”

The final pages don’t indicate an ending so much as an ongoing story, a genuine way to finish the book. There’s heaviness on the page, with suicidal ideation, despair…but also some humour and coping. It’s a rewarding read, and won the 2023 GG’s award for poetry. I was glad to read it.

Thanks to House of Anansi Press and Tandem Collective Global for a gifted copy.

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

A meditation on addiction and the poet’s ability to distance, Green creates XC and places her in plays and movie scenes describing the need for the drug and the experience of a dislocated life. A lot of groaning wordplay fills the first half, dad jokes and eye rollers that work in their knowing winks of pulling away but still are so heavy-handed they begin to hurt in their repetition.

And there is a lot of repetition, as Green ruminates on her situation, the lure of other drugs in Cocaine Cowgirl, and her descent. We are less in a narrative than a day-to-day bleakness, swirling around the same. Effective but a bit thudding. It is at the end where the spiralling really finally imparts a momentum and I found myself drawn from ambivalence midway through the work to that satisfying sinking into a compelling narrative.

The poetry itself doesn’t transport in the way of some. It feels more workmanlike, more clean. But it is a work with a strong voice that improves as it goes, and one I can find myself revisiting.

[Serhiy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Xanax Cowboy is an adventure. It is poetry, it is a script, it's a character study, and a memoir. Most of all it is fresh and unhinged. I find its style most similar to Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. And if that is not a good reason to give it a read, then here are some excerpts that I've mashed into a quasi poem.

How scenic this poem is
how poetic this movie is
Beware the Xanax noose,
as the cowboy discovered,
it doesn't get loose.
Cocaine Cowgirl
makes an appearance too,
to help fill the vacant motel.
[ ] Check this box if you want to be recucitated after the rodeo.
#lookatme This is a cry for help. [winkface]
WIKIHOW IS NOT A THERAPIST
I need a Lobotamy; Pills; Batteries.
Lights, Camera, Action!

[Skylar Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

only halfway through this collection and I think it's already a solid 5 star read. The last 40-some pages could just be telling me to eat rocks and I'd still enjoy this book. It has such range and depth, in part due to its raw honesty and in part due to its incredible artistry, as themes, motifs, and images appear and reappear at the most unexpected yet pleasant times--the broken necks, the quarters, the lasso. Damn good book, and it has made my morning better

[Justine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book to say the least. I was lucky to be chosen to get to do a read along with all Tandem Collective.
Now I haven’t read a poetry book since middle school and it was by Shel Silverstein so I really am a poetry newbie. I feel like a lot of it was over my head, I was reading too literally. My fave part was the last few chapters because it read more like a book. It didn’t have all the hidden innuendoes that had me trying to decipher. I honestly would love to read Hannah’s story. It sounds like she has been through a lot.
I would recommend this to poetry lovers.

[Eileen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the best poetry I’ve read and there’s nothing else quite like it.

From the very first gut-punch poem to the very last “trust me,” this book manages to be so devastatingly “real” while also deeply criticizing the push for authenticity in poetry.

[Sabrina A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really cool concept to carry throughout the whole book to frame the conversation about mental health. I really liked the addition of Cocaine Cowgirl to contrast the speaker of the poems, it was really raw and heartfelt. Would recommend to others 👍🏻

[Kat Kester · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Cowboys don't need to learn to love themselves. To come home to themselves. Cowboys spit on self help books and curse me like the day they were born. I will kiss anybody who tells me they like my cowboy boots."
The manic wild- western energy I crave in my soul resides within these pages.

[Manda Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another @tandemcollectiveglobal readalong has come to an end 🥺

This book of poetry, y’all! It explores #mentalhealth and #substanceabuse in such a unique way. I was honored to be apart of this readalong experience for #xanaxcowboy.

[Penn Kemp · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Poetry like a palm. The way my life line breaks.”
"Don’t want to be lonely? Just pretend you are a cowboy, they are meant to be alone."

Hannah Green's Xanax Cowboy: Poems can be paired with Andrew Faulkner's Heady Bloom: Advil vs. Headache.

[emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly obsessed with this collection I picked based off a bookseller’s review in a random bookstore bar in Toronto. I can’t always stick with a poetry book, but XC was witty, raw, somber, funny, and perfectly theatrical. Tarantino wishes he could do western this well

[Sophie Crocker · Rating 5 out of 5]

definitely one of my favourite reads of the year. what a tour de force. this absolutely feels like watching a cutting-edge Western.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Reads, I AM A XANAX COWBOY WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FROM ME

[Daniel Fedak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy shit this book rips. I’ve been going through it for past two hours and can’t put it down.

[Charlie]

Still not sure how I feel about this book, but some of the imagery will stick with me for a while.

[Marie]

DNF @37%

unfortunately, this just isn’t for me

[df parizeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read of 2024 and what a way to start the year. More intelligent and insightful things will be written about this book. I can simply say that this book is a triumph.

[Safia · Rating 2 out of 5]

yeah poems just aren't for me yet.