Poems and Fragments

by Elise Cowen, Tony Trigilio (Editor)

Poetry. Women's Studies. LGBT Studies. Edited and with an introduction and supplementary material by Tony Trigilio. Designed for both general readers and scholars, this book brings together for the first time all of the poems and fragments in Elise Cowen's surviving notebook, recovering the work of a postwar female poet whose reputation had been submerged for more than a half-century. Remembered dismissively as the woman who dated Allen Ginsberg for a brief time in the early 1950s, she wrote hundreds of poems, many in a lyric mode that recalls Sappho and many in a visionary mode that resembles Emily Dickinson. After her suicide in 1962, nearly all of her work was destroyed. One notebook survived, rescued by a close friend, and this notebook is the basis for ELISE COWEN: POEMS AND FRAGMENTS. "Elise Cowen, an artist long obscured by legend, myth, archival uncertainty and copyright dispute, relegated to rumor and sensation, has been recuperated by Tony Trigilio's groundbreaking collection of her poetry. Trigilio collects the primary material from the poet's recovered notebook and provides, in his indispensable Notes to the Poems, an impressive critical literary historical analysis. A modern Eumenide and proto-second-wave feminist of uncompromising voice, Cowen's searing verse poignantly claims female subjectivity. Thanks to Trigilio's inspired, erudite and meticulous recovery work, this collection will make a profound difference in the way Beat movement writing is reckoned and experienced."--Ronna C. Johnson

Genres: Poetry, Feminism

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2014

About the author

Elise Cowen was an American poet. She was part of the Beat generation, and was close to Allen Ginsberg, one of the movement's leading figures. Most of her work was destroyed after her death.

Reviews

[grandmother longlegs · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's something strange about reading poems and writings that shouldn't exist. For when Cowen died her parents had all her work, her thoughts her art destroyed, and with it, they assumed, their gifted daughters legacy. Yet individuals with such works of conviction are rarely silenced, and we can be thankful that Elise Cowen's work finally has found that voice, decades after her tragic end.

Words are difficult to put to Cowen's work, haunting, delirious, frustrated and lost come to mind, but they don't even touch the surface of her work. This is the most essential book of poetry I've read in a long time, and I couldn't recommend it more. Find this book, and get lost within one of the finest minds of the Beat Generation, sadly one of the casualties, but nonless bright.

[steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sad. Tragic. Like glimpsing a peek into the mind of a very sad person. This book of recovered poems is all that we have left of Elsie, her family having burned the rest of her poetry. Such a great loss to the literary world. To the world in general.

[Dearwassily · Rating 5 out of 5]

My muse and inspiration.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's refreshing to come across a beat poet who is no a male. Elise Cowen, former lover of Allen Ginsberg, was in many ways ahead of her time. Unfortunately for us, most of her work was destroyed after he suicide by her family and their friends because they did not approve of her lifestyle and of what was contained in much of her work (some of it homoerotic when LGBT was not even a concept).

These poems and fragments give us a good idea of her writing and her work ethic. One wishes that more of her work had survived but we should count ourselves lucky that we at least have what remained.

A book well-worth reading.

[Fluffy Singler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am reviewing this book for Rain Taxi right now, so I don't want to give too much away! But this is basically the only surviving collection of Elise Cowen's work. Tony Trigilio has taken great care in editing it and has made his choices obvious. There are extensive notes on each of the poems, a timeline of Cowen's brief life, and a very good introduction. He also has the blessings of many of contemporary scholars of women of the Beats.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

We are so fortunate to have this complete publication of the only surviving work of Elise Cowen. The editing was well done, and I appreciated reading the extensive notes on the poems, as well as the background on Cowen's brief life. Really interesting to see the creative process of writing revealed.

[Michael Ewins · Rating 4 out of 5]

The body is a humble thing
Made of death & water
The fashion is to dress it plain
And use the mind for border (p.25)
_____________________

"Your fate awaits outside the door" (p.120)
__________________________

When the Thomas H. Johnson-edited Poems of Emily Dickinson was published in 1955, the "shy white witch of Amherst" (re-)emerged directly into the Beat scene. The first major, 'uncorrected' edition of Dickinson's verse revealed a cryptic, tempestuous, costume-changing, sexually-charged poet whose voice joined the chorus of mid-century San Fran/New York revolutionaries post-Howl (1956). Elise Cowen, to whom the top quotations belong, took Dickinson's work deeply to heart, and even wrote love poems to the long-dead "Myth" of Massachusetts ('Hand in hand / We'll run outside / Look straight at / the sun / A second time / And get tan'). Cowen committed suicide in 1962, aged 28 - the same age as Dickinson when she underwent her crisis, penned the first 'Master' letter, and began her slow withdrawal into the bedroom of her father's house, where she would stay until her death in 1886. It seems fitting, if equally unjust, that Cowen's poetry has gone unheralded and unpublished in the 52 years since her death - almost as long as Dickinson waited to finally receive the acclaim she deserved.

My primary interest in this volume was to discover the (psychic) relationship between Mses Cowen & Dickinson, to measure their meters side-by-side, and to understand how it was that such kindred spirits could be working in such similar modes at almost precisely parenthesised pockets of time in neighbouring centuries. On that level this book was perfect, but I also loved learning more about Cowen's own tragic life (she committed suicide by jumping from a closed seventh storey window), and to explore her poetry on its own terms. Tony Trigilio, who edited this volume, provides a sparse but detailed introduction to the poet's work, and explains his methodology in arranging it, but mostly he gets out of Cowen's way and gives the book over to cleanly-typed, full-page copies of her poems (with occasional facsimiles so we can get a feel for Cowen's handwriting). Highly recommended for fans of the Beats, of Emily Dickinson, and anyone dedicated to feminist literary studies.

[Molly Flood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely beautiful resurrected collection of poetry about life, death, mental illness, and cooch.

“The is a regal word”

[chasingholden · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I'll catch the cat that has my tongue and spit it out"

I was so excited when I discovered this book existed. If you know anything about the beat generation you know the representation of the women was nearly non-existent so stumbling on a new woman poet from my favorite literary movement was a major win in my book.

This book makes me wish so much that either she had published more when she was alive, or at least that more of her writing survived in tact rather than having been destroyed by her parents and neighbors. There is some brilliance hidden in these, so much potential in many of the fragments.

I'm grateful I found the book and highly recommend it to anyone who likes the genre to explore whats left of Elise Cowen (RIP).

[Joe Milazzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

By turns haunting, exhilarating and blistering.

[syd · Rating 4 out of 5]

i adore elise cowen’s work and i see too much of myself in her, i became interested in her because of A Lady is a Humble thing, an article in like. 2011??? about her life and was basically something like her biography i cried so much reading it and i feel even worse reading her works🙁

its a blessing leo skir was able to save some of her poems after her parents and neighbours had tried to burn it It feels so strange and haunting reading her poems knowing we could’ve never gotten a glimpse of these or knew about her

she was a victim of many yet i admire her more than i pity her, of course i feel awful i empathize with her so much but she is still someone i look up to, her words always seemed to carry something heavy and makes an impact on those who read it. her works were beautiful and i wish she lived under different circumstances maybe then she could have been happy and didnt have to endure so much. what a bright woman she was, i hope more people would find her

-
my favorite stanzas from her poems

I robbed the eyes of corpses
So I could face the sun
But all the days had cloudy skies
And I had lost my own

I took the thoughts of corpses
to buy my daily needs
But all the goods in all the stores
Were neatly labeled Me.

I borrowed heads of corpses
To do my reading by
I found my name on every page
And every word a lie.

A machine from bones of corpses Would play upon my human love

•

The aroma of Mr. Rochesters cigars
among the flowers
 Bursting through
 I am trying to choke you
Delicate thought
Posed
Frankenstein of delicate grace
posed by my fear
 And you
Graciously
 Take me by the throat
The body hungers before the soul
 And after thrusts for its own memory

•

Did I go mad in my mother's womb
Waiting to get out
As I gidget along the edges of
the perfect point of the hollow
munched tooth of a second
Waiting To death

•

Everything I love, I need to be
hides in you

•

Let me climb the ladder
Even though I slide
It must be like my spinal cord
Wherein the synapses skip

[Keight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this is somewhere between reading a poetry collection and a diary, as the pieces vary from edited and perhaps “complete” poems to true fragments, tantalizing in their unexplored potential. Read more on my booklog

[Matthew Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some very good, haunting lines I this collection.

[Rosie Ruiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

unholy mother of cockroaches hiding and seeking in plain sight