Long Division

by Andrea Cohen

Andrea Cohen's poems and stories have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Threepenny Review, Glimmertrain, The Iowa Review, Memorious and elsewhere. Her first poetry collection, The Cartographer's Vacation, received the Owl Creek Poetry Prize; other honors include a PEN Discovery Award and Glimmertrain's Short Fiction Award. She directs the Blacksmith House Reading Series and writes about marine research at MIT. "...an ideal and recommended introduction for those new to her poetic style, and a welcome update for those previously familiar with her work..."--Midwest Book Review. "For a poet with Cohen's gift, it must require immense control to stop once she starts. When Cohen turns to a topic like 'Current Events,' she swerves away from the expected meditation on today's headlines and begins to catalog a simpler kind of current event instead."-Rain Taxi Review Summer 2010

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2009

About the author

Andrea Cohen writes and swims in Watertown, MA. Her heroes have swum Venetian canals, the Chattahoochee, and The English Channel. Her poems and stories have appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The Threepenny Review, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Glimmer Train, The Hudson Review, etc. Her fourth poetry collection, Furs Not Mine, will be published by Four Way Books. Other collections include Kentucky Derby (Salmon Poetry 2011), Long Division (Salmon Poetry 2009), and The Cartographer's Vacation (Owl Creek Press 1999).

She has received a PEN Discovery Award, Glimmer Train's Short Fiction Award, the Owl Creek Poetry Prize and several fellowships at The MacDowell Colony. She directs the Writers House at Merrimack College and the Blacksmith House Poetry Series in Cambridge, MA.

Reviews

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long Division is witty and ballsy, a dynamic duo of characteristics that often breeds the best kind of poetry. Cohen artfully mixes cleverness with heartbreak, sometimes in the same piece, and the result is a solid collection of poems. She is at her best in her more minimal pieces (on the extreme end is a short poem called "Heart": My glass house / thrown at stones.), especially ones like "Social Studies" and "In a Haystack", which center tightly on their subjects coming full circle via their own witty conceptions.

I was compelled to purchase this book after reading a short poem of Cohen's in a literary magazine, and it really satisfied my expectations. Overall, a strong collection.

[Jessica Furtado · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, laconic language at its best. This collection possesses a perfect balance of wit and nerve that will resonate long after the pages have been turned.

[Aimee Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good poems in here. For me, collection not consistent.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lot of short gut punches mixed with lengthy/comical narratives. A witty and wild autobiographical collection.