The Way Back

by Wyn Cooper

A new collection by this Grammy-winning poet.

Genres: Poetry

84 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2000

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

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the poems was called "Fun." Turns out, it was made into Sheryl Crow's Grammy winning song "All I Wanna Do" in 1993. Mr. Cooper made money off the deal and was able to quit work and focus on writing. Good for him. I'm amazed that anyone thought of taking such an unusual poem and making it a song. They only added the refrain about Santa Monica Boulevard to set the scene in California.

[Rich Farrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve become a big fan of Cooper’s poetry. His work embodies this sort of western aesthetic. His poems often walk a fine line between being blunt (assessable) and artful (poetic). There is a sense of discovery in each tightly packed poem.

The closest I can get to comparison is sort of like Cormac McCarthy in the best way.

Some poems that especially stuck out to me are “Kids,” “Fun,” “Brief History,” “Firenze,” “Holiday,” “Bad Manners,” and “Twilight.”