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Cowboy
The poems in Cowboy are knowing, millennial, internet-sick, funny, with deep of embodied and disembodied spiritualities; of the knowledge of animals; of familial mythologies; of grief and longing; of autism and navigating diagnoses; of early and enduring disappointment; of the wildness underneath the smooth glass-and-chrome surfaces of contemporary life.
The echo of a question permeates the collection - where does a person grow up? - moving restlessly between rural Wales, London and the American South; between the esoteric spaces of the internet; between the artlessness of childhood and adolescence transfigured inexplicably into a disquieting adulthood, with its attendant weirdness of rent-paying, cohabiting, the churn of mindless work and alienation.
The generous abundance of Cowboy's references - memes, early noughties television shows, pop songs, cities and their suburbs, video games - bring anxiety and pressure, joy and glory to this singularly impressive debut.
The echo of a question permeates the collection - where does a person grow up? - moving restlessly between rural Wales, London and the American South; between the esoteric spaces of the internet; between the artlessness of childhood and adolescence transfigured inexplicably into a disquieting adulthood, with its attendant weirdness of rent-paying, cohabiting, the churn of mindless work and alienation.
The generous abundance of Cowboy's references - memes, early noughties television shows, pop songs, cities and their suburbs, video games - bring anxiety and pressure, joy and glory to this singularly impressive debut.
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
Published September 7, 2023
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58 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 13, 2026
THE PEOPLES POET LAUREATE
March 3, 2026
What love means to the people who love me, I don’t know.
November 10, 2023
Dare you to ask the moon if she knows she’s just a reflection.
toen ik deze dichtbundel zag in de boekenwinkel sprak het me meteen aan. Kandace Siobhan Walker gebruikt precies de juiste vage woorden en zinnen op de meest prachtige manier zodat ik er uren over kan nadenken en analyseren wat het betekent. Ik heb het nu allemaal in 1x gelezen en er zijn zo veel mooie dingen in de bundel die ik beter wil uitzoeken en meer tijd aan wil besteden. Ik weet ook al meteen wat nu mn favorieten zijn en welke gedichten ik nog totaal niet snap.
Ik ben blij met de mooie woorden en ga hier wss nog veel over nadenken, ik update wel als ik meer weet. :)
toen ik deze dichtbundel zag in de boekenwinkel sprak het me meteen aan. Kandace Siobhan Walker gebruikt precies de juiste vage woorden en zinnen op de meest prachtige manier zodat ik er uren over kan nadenken en analyseren wat het betekent. Ik heb het nu allemaal in 1x gelezen en er zijn zo veel mooie dingen in de bundel die ik beter wil uitzoeken en meer tijd aan wil besteden. Ik weet ook al meteen wat nu mn favorieten zijn en welke gedichten ik nog totaal niet snap.
Ik ben blij met de mooie woorden en ga hier wss nog veel over nadenken, ik update wel als ik meer weet. :)
February 23, 2024
i wanted to really love this book and i didn’t. there were some nice bits and pieces, much like kingdomland that i also read this week. it was nice in parts and at parts lost me - perhaps too ‘current’ at some bits e.g talking abt anime girls/ main character energy just isn’t my vibe. massive respect for kandace as a writer tho she seems so cool slay xxx
May 13, 2024
It took me a few poems to get into (as can often happen when I read poets for the first time), but I thought this was genuinely superb. So looking forward to reading future collections.
Call out poems: (I need to do this bit later!)
Call out poems: (I need to do this bit later!)
January 15, 2025
In the words of Moe Syzlak “it’s y’know, whatcha call it…post modern…weird for the sake of being weird.”
There’s some gems in here but it’s like someone challenged the author to come up with as many abstract metaphors as possible in each poem.
There’s some gems in here but it’s like someone challenged the author to come up with as many abstract metaphors as possible in each poem.
July 9, 2024
Absolutely loved this - a collection I’ll reread more than once.
August 27, 2024
Loved the first half and somehow the second was even more stunning.
March 25, 2026
We pretended we shared the same escape routes, but
lonelieness was easier for her to bear than punishment."
Cowboy is a first published collection by Kandace Siobhan Walker and it is rather good. Even though its plethora of references to and discussions of a culture that I am too old, too straight, and too white to be part of. Except on the periphery thinking that it wasn't like this in my day. Which I think is a shame.
Kandace Siobhan Walker's collection is as much about growing up as anything else. How do we know who we are when we are pulled all over the place by the different strands of our existence. Walker talks about rural Wales, America, and London. The poems touch upon many subjects including family, grief, love, longing, spirituality, disappointment with the colour blue dotted throughout and not just in skies. This might be a coincidence and I am, as the Eighth Doctor says, seeing patterns where there are none.
This is the penultimate poetry collection in the Felix Dennis First Collection awards shortlist (which is part of the Forward Poetry Prize.) A shortlist that has been - with one exception - a joy. And even that exception might be more my lack of brain than the poet's lack of poetry.
Walker's poetry is occasionally lacking obviousness, but there's no harm in that. We have time to think and understand. Time to come back and re-read. Until we don't.
25/03/2025
Two and a half years later on re-read I enjoyed this even more than I did the first time around. Whether that's because I've three years more poetry reading under my belt, I don't know.
The energy of a young 21st century person writing comes through more to me now. This was her first collection and I'm not sure if she's published anything since. There's an power to her experimentation with and joy in words.
lonelieness was easier for her to bear than punishment."
Cowboy is a first published collection by Kandace Siobhan Walker and it is rather good. Even though its plethora of references to and discussions of a culture that I am too old, too straight, and too white to be part of. Except on the periphery thinking that it wasn't like this in my day. Which I think is a shame.
Kandace Siobhan Walker's collection is as much about growing up as anything else. How do we know who we are when we are pulled all over the place by the different strands of our existence. Walker talks about rural Wales, America, and London. The poems touch upon many subjects including family, grief, love, longing, spirituality, disappointment with the colour blue dotted throughout and not just in skies. This might be a coincidence and I am, as the Eighth Doctor says, seeing patterns where there are none.
This is the penultimate poetry collection in the Felix Dennis First Collection awards shortlist (which is part of the Forward Poetry Prize.) A shortlist that has been - with one exception - a joy. And even that exception might be more my lack of brain than the poet's lack of poetry.
Walker's poetry is occasionally lacking obviousness, but there's no harm in that. We have time to think and understand. Time to come back and re-read. Until we don't.
25/03/2025
Two and a half years later on re-read I enjoyed this even more than I did the first time around. Whether that's because I've three years more poetry reading under my belt, I don't know.
The energy of a young 21st century person writing comes through more to me now. This was her first collection and I'm not sure if she's published anything since. There's an power to her experimentation with and joy in words.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews