Some Churches

by Tasha Cotter

"Churches are fixed structures that enable intangible beliefs. In Some Churches, Tasha Cotter gives words similar power to transform. Each poem in this collection is like a penance, a salve when "we are strangled by the walls," when we feel like only "shell and shadow." Here's a book that fills the spaces between "what we say / aloud" with tight lines and fresh thoughts; a worthy poetic companion as we "drink the galaxy and try to locate an edge."

-- Nick Ripatrazone, author of This is Not About Birds and Oblations

“When will the past be done with us?” asks Tasha Cotter’s poem “Stranger,” one of many instances in Some Churches where the reader is confronted with truths few poems dare to approach. Like Szymborska, Cotter manages to crystallize moments of transcendent simplicity, and to make memory palpable. Illuminated with images both familiar and surreal, the poems of Some Churches give us a new reverence for the everyday.

--Mary Biddinger, author of O Holy Insurgency and Saint Monica

The line "Is this the end?" appears in this book's final poem, but all the others seem to ask that same question. They languor in every moment, and simultaneously manage to be timeless. The smaller the poem, the more expansive the idea: that's the poet's best move, and Cotter pulls it off beautifully—even when she writes about Bananagrams or the Ultratech Computer parking lot. She knows something that I don't, and I feel like it's an act of generosity to share so much so well in these pages.

--Adam Robinson, Founding Editor of Publishing Genius

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2013

About the author

Tasha Cotter's third collection of poetry Astonishments was released in 2020 with FutureCycle Press. Her collaboratively written novel Us, in Pieces (with Christopher Green) was released in July 2019. She lives in Coupeville, Washington.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deeply felt, beautifully rendered poems of loss, solitude, and memory. I was struck by the power of the images. Page after page of fantastically crafted poetry.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the first two poems, “Some Churches” and “Blood Orange,” but felt a number of the rest were lacking in artistry. Almost all are written in complete sentences, some in paragraph blocks, and the use of alliteration isn’t always enough to differentiate them from prose. Frequent themes are thorny romances, looking for the right career, and coping with regrets.

Favorite lines, from “Blood Orange”: “no one understands what a blood orange is when they see it. / People think that either the red or the orange should go, because to blend the two / alienates some readers. / … I, too, am having an identity crisis, / just like the blood orange. Now that we’ve peeled back / the artifice, you’re inviting me in anyway”.

[Racquel · Rating 5 out of 5]

An inspiring collection of poems. I was most captivated by the poems, "Unrequited Love" and "The First-Time Novelist." I'm a sucker for a poem with a somber tone. Well done.