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The Weaklings
"Cooper has given voice to an emptiness we can barely stand to think about. . . . He dallies with the workings of narration and, in doing so, with the meaning of self. His work belongs to that of Poe, the Marquis de Sade, Charles Baudelaire, and Georges Bataille, other writers who argued with mortality."— San Francisco Chronicle A new collection of poetry from "the most dangerous writer in America," whose poems Wayne Koestenbaum says "are the heart—the core—of his oeuvre. Pure genius, they are tender and deadened, breathing and stupefied." From "Elliott Smith at 14": I've drugged myself to your place
because my life is all fucked up. You mistake my life for yours or
take the life you had imagined. I'm so stoned yours seems real
but you were too fucked up to live. I wish I was dead and you aren't
because there's no place on earth. Dennis Cooper is the author of the George Myles Cycle—five interconnected novels—as well as The Sluts , which won France's Prix Sade and the Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Men's Novel.
because my life is all fucked up. You mistake my life for yours or
take the life you had imagined. I'm so stoned yours seems real
but you were too fucked up to live. I wish I was dead and you aren't
because there's no place on earth. Dennis Cooper is the author of the George Myles Cycle—five interconnected novels—as well as The Sluts , which won France's Prix Sade and the Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Men's Novel.
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
19 people are currently reading
206 people want to read
About the author
Dennis Cooper
109 books1,790 followersDennis Cooper was born on January 10, 1953. He grew up in the Southern California cities of Covina and Arcadia.
He wrote stories and poems from early age but got serious about writing at 15 after reading Arthur Rimbaud and The Marquis de Sade. He attended LA county public schools until the 8th grade when he transferred to a private school, Flintridge Preparatory School for Boys in La Canada, California, from which he was expelled in the 11th grade.
While at Flintridge, he met his friend George Miles, who would become his muse and the subject of much of his future writing. He attended Pasadena City College for two years, attending poetry writing workshops taught by the poets Ronald Koertge and Jerene Hewitt. He then attended one year of university at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, where he studied with the poet Bert Meyers.
In 1976, he founded Little Caesar Magazine and Press, which he ran until 1982. From 1980 to 1983 he was Director of Programming for the Beyond Baroque Literary/Art Center in Venice, California. From 1983 to 1985, he lived in New York City.
In 1985, he moved to Amsterdam for two and a half years, where he began his ten year long project, The George Miles Cycle, an interconnected sequence of five novels that includes Closer, Frisk, Try, Guide, and Period.
His post-George Miles Cycle novels include My Loose Thread, The Sluts and God, Jr.
Other works include the short-story collections Wrong and Ugly Man, poetry collections The Dream Police and The Weaklings, as well as the recent Smothered in Hugs: Essays, Interviews, Feedback, and Obituaries.
Dennis Cooper currently spends his time between Los Angeles and Paris.
He wrote stories and poems from early age but got serious about writing at 15 after reading Arthur Rimbaud and The Marquis de Sade. He attended LA county public schools until the 8th grade when he transferred to a private school, Flintridge Preparatory School for Boys in La Canada, California, from which he was expelled in the 11th grade.
While at Flintridge, he met his friend George Miles, who would become his muse and the subject of much of his future writing. He attended Pasadena City College for two years, attending poetry writing workshops taught by the poets Ronald Koertge and Jerene Hewitt. He then attended one year of university at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, where he studied with the poet Bert Meyers.
In 1976, he founded Little Caesar Magazine and Press, which he ran until 1982. From 1980 to 1983 he was Director of Programming for the Beyond Baroque Literary/Art Center in Venice, California. From 1983 to 1985, he lived in New York City.
In 1985, he moved to Amsterdam for two and a half years, where he began his ten year long project, The George Miles Cycle, an interconnected sequence of five novels that includes Closer, Frisk, Try, Guide, and Period.
His post-George Miles Cycle novels include My Loose Thread, The Sluts and God, Jr.
Other works include the short-story collections Wrong and Ugly Man, poetry collections The Dream Police and The Weaklings, as well as the recent Smothered in Hugs: Essays, Interviews, Feedback, and Obituaries.
Dennis Cooper currently spends his time between Los Angeles and Paris.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 28, 2014
This slim but potent poetry book taps into the power of confusion. It's more distilled, emotional, and complex than the earlier poems collected in The Dream Police. Some of the short pieces are reminiscent of material in The Sluts and Ugly Man, but The Weaklings has its own logic and flow - images, phrases, and themes echoing off one another as the book builds to a crescendo. For Cooper fans, a must-read.
March 10, 2022
Hehe no one will ever love me hahahaha
August 5, 2023
Fuck sick. Sparse drug loop in the mind of one of my favorite people. There’s no masquerading around here, just earnest heart splitters. It’s like the poems are numb, trying to get a sense of what/who they are without feeling around; they’re self-effacing, but asking for your permission to be so. Also, the interlude of broken sadism chat logs in the middle put a strange feeling in my body that made me want to hug everyone I’ve ever known and never shower again.
January 6, 2015
i, too, read the (XL) edition released by sententia books in 2013. obviously, i'm a huge fan of DC's writing, but i think his poetry might be my favorite of his stuff. all the narrative tricks and stuff that are so much fun in his fiction are stripped away so you get more... the heart? it's more emotionally bare, i suppose. much like 'perood,' which is perhaps his most poetic novel, it's a quick read (i finished it in less than an hour the first time through), but so rich that repeat visits are always rewarding. highly recommended, especially as an entry point to his work for the uninitiated.
June 1, 2015
Dennis Cooper is heartbreaking and infuriating and even in the normally ambiguous realm of poetry, he leaves you with no room for meh emotions. Even in the most wicked moments of subject and situation in these pieces, I couldn't look away. Cooper made me consider the exploitation of youth and heights of violence (particularly sexual violence) through a whole new lens with this collection. As disturbed as I felt reading this, like following a trusted friend down a dark path, Cooper keeps the reader moving through the pieces instead of leaving them to turn back alone.
May 29, 2014
Not nearly as graphically explicit as his fiction writing, Cooper's poetry remains equally dark and unsettling in tone, punctuated only very infrequently by side-splitting humor (F+ is certainly laugh-out-loud material). A great, if mildly disturbing, quick read.
August 6, 2014
intense as hell dam coop
August 5, 2015
Dennis Cooper's prose is a horrible nasty read and I say that in a good way; however, his poetry reads like an edgy goth teen imitating Bukowski and I am not about it. "A Mirror" was the worst!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews