Postcards from the Interior

by Wyn Cooper

Postcards from the Interior is a collection of postcard poems written from different geographical locations and varied states of heart and mind. The first section, “Postcards from Vermont,” is composed of poems about Vermont towns and historical landmarks. The second section, “Postcards from the Interior,” stretches to include poems from far-flung places, real and imagined. Adroit at juxtaposing the exterior weather of landscapes and the interior weather of the human condition, Cooper writes poetry with the heft of a Romantic meditation and the breezy ease of contemporary song lyrics. Wyn Cooper has published three previous poetry collections. A poem from his first book was turned into lyrics for Sheryl Crow’s Grammy-winning song “All I Wanna Do.” He lives in Battleboro, Vermont.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2005

About the author

Wyn Cooper has published four books of poems: The Country of Here Below (Ahsahta Press, 1987), The Way Back (White Pine Press, 2000), Postcards from the Interior, (BOA Editions, 2005), and Chaos is the New Calm (BOA Editions, 2010), as well as a chapbook, Secret Address (Chapiteau Press, 2002). His poems, stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Crazyhorse, Agni, Slate, The Southern Review, and more than 60 other magazines. His poems are included in 25 anthologies of contemporary poetry, including The Mercury Reader, Outsiders, and Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms.

In 1993, “Fun,” a poem from his first book, was turned into Sheryl Crow’s Grammy-winning song “All I Wanna Do.” He has also cowritten songs with David Broza, David Baerwald, and Bill Bottrell. In 2003, Gaff Music released Forty Words for Fear, a CD of songs based on poems and lyrics by Cooper, set to music and sung by the novelist Madison Smartt Bell. It has been featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition and World Café, and has been written about in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Observer, and elsewhere. Songs from the CD have been featured on 5 tv shows.

The new CD by Bell and Cooper, Postcards Out of the Blue, is available for sale at www.cdbaby.com and at Amazon. Downloads are available at itunes and www.digstation.com. For more information, music, and photos, go to http://www.myspace.com/bellandcooper.

Wyn has taught at the University of Utah, Bennington College, Marlboro College, and at The Frost Place, where he now serves on the advisory board. He is a former editor of Quarterly West, and the recipient of a fellowship from the Ucross Foundation. He lives in Halifax, Vermont, and helps run the Brattleboro Literary Festival. He recently worked for the world's first poetry think tank, The Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute, run by the Poetry Foundation of Chicago.

Reviews

[Dorothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is like taking a vacation... or learning how.

[Rich Farrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this collection, and while they all weren’t necessarily “postcard” poems, Cooper is a master at capturing a time and space and illuminating aspects of each that make the sometimes simple things compelling.

[Jimmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the idea of postcard poems, but I thought the poems were quite dull. The longer poems made it difficult to avoid thinking, "How can this fit on a postcard?"

[hh · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Heather Moore · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible poetry. Cooper should try looking at and feeling the things he attempts to write about. His lines were clumsy, poor breaks, and dull.