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Breach: Poems
In Breach, New Orleans native Nicole Cooley recalls Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in gritty, poignant detail, bearing witness to the destruction of a region and to its recovery. Ranging from the urgent to the reflective, these poems speak not only to the horrors of the immediate disaster, but also to family dynamics in a time of crisis and to the social, political, and cultural realities that contextualized the storm and its wake. In the title poem, Cooley invokes the multiple meanings of the word "breach" -- breach of the levees, breach of trust -- which resonate with survivors in the Crescent City, and in "Evacuation," she recounts her efforts to encourage her parents to leave the city and her harrowing three-day wait to hear from them after they refused. A number of poems, including "Write a Love Letter to Camellia Grill," "The A Suite," and "Biloxi Bay Bridge Still Out," offer a broad range of voices and experiences to expand the perspective beyond Cooley's own family. With language and images both powerful and precise, this compelling collection dares us to "watch the surface of the city tear like loose skin."
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published April 26, 2010
2 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
About the author
Nicole Cooley
30 books37 followersNicole Cooley is a poet and non-fiction writer and the author of eight books: five books of poems, a chapbook, a novel and an artists book in collaboration with visual artists Maureen Cummins. Her collection of poems Breach from 2010 focuses on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, Her newest collection Girl after Girl after Girl is forthcoming from LSU Press in 2017. Essay Press published her digital chapbook Frozen Charlottes, A Sequence last year. Her work has been supported by a Creative and Performing Artists Fellowship at The American Antiquarian Society as well as a grant from the NEA. Her poetry and non-fiction has appeared most recently in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, Narrative, and Drunken Boat. She is currently completing a non-fiction project, My Dollhouse, Myself: Miniature Histories. She is a professor of English and the director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College—City University of New York.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 10, 2017
Wow. This is a stunning book, a lament, an elegy, and a praise song. Nicole Cooley grew up in New Orleans, and her parents still lived there in 2005. Most of the poems are medium length, and Cooley utilizes many diverse styles, from couplets to forms such as pantoums. She captures the devastation, anger, and resilience of the Gulf Coast. The title poem, “Breach,” is in essence a found poem with the many definitions of the word. Cooley emphasizes these different meanings throughout.
I don’t usually care for multi-page poems, but one of my stand-out favorites in this book is “Evacuation,” which is probably one of the most-quoted poems. “Evacuation” is a 7 page narrative poem in 28 numbered sections. Many of the sentences are one or two lines. It is a personal poem, using the global theme of the evacuation of New Orleans, and telescoping that down to the fact that “My mother says: We are not leaving. This is our home.” After Katrina passes, of course, “All the phones in New Orleans are down. All morning, I call my parents over and over.” Then, “on the third day, my parents finally call and we find out they survived the storm.” However, the elation quickly fades as Cooley is told “The city is locked down, my parents tell me, and no one can come in to the city and no/ one can leave-“
Cooley uses repetition skillfully, adding rhythm and urgency to the poem. One of the phrases she uses is “the morning of the hurricane,” and in the first several sections she starts every second or third stanza with this phrase. This is a technique Cooley masters, using it in other poems. She repeats a phrase just enough to make a point, but not so much that the reader sighs and skips ahead. I realize things like this are a personal preference (or dislike), but I found it very powerful. I’ve been studying how Cooley employs repetition to try and enhance my own writing.
The cover photo is breath-taking. It was taken by Chris Jordan, and “Four Studies of the Afterlife” describes this and three other photos.
girls’
pants in ice cream colors:
mint, cool orange, teal. Pink flecked
with mold could almost shimmer.
(Pants Rack in Women’s Clothing Store, St. Bernard Parish)
Although the majority of the poems focus on New Orleans, Cooley also pays homage to the rest of the Gulf Coast devastated by Katrina. In the final section, there are poems about Alabama, Pascagoula, Biloxi, and Gulfport.
I don’t usually care for multi-page poems, but one of my stand-out favorites in this book is “Evacuation,” which is probably one of the most-quoted poems. “Evacuation” is a 7 page narrative poem in 28 numbered sections. Many of the sentences are one or two lines. It is a personal poem, using the global theme of the evacuation of New Orleans, and telescoping that down to the fact that “My mother says: We are not leaving. This is our home.” After Katrina passes, of course, “All the phones in New Orleans are down. All morning, I call my parents over and over.” Then, “on the third day, my parents finally call and we find out they survived the storm.” However, the elation quickly fades as Cooley is told “The city is locked down, my parents tell me, and no one can come in to the city and no/ one can leave-“
Cooley uses repetition skillfully, adding rhythm and urgency to the poem. One of the phrases she uses is “the morning of the hurricane,” and in the first several sections she starts every second or third stanza with this phrase. This is a technique Cooley masters, using it in other poems. She repeats a phrase just enough to make a point, but not so much that the reader sighs and skips ahead. I realize things like this are a personal preference (or dislike), but I found it very powerful. I’ve been studying how Cooley employs repetition to try and enhance my own writing.
The cover photo is breath-taking. It was taken by Chris Jordan, and “Four Studies of the Afterlife” describes this and three other photos.
girls’
pants in ice cream colors:
mint, cool orange, teal. Pink flecked
with mold could almost shimmer.
(Pants Rack in Women’s Clothing Store, St. Bernard Parish)
Although the majority of the poems focus on New Orleans, Cooley also pays homage to the rest of the Gulf Coast devastated by Katrina. In the final section, there are poems about Alabama, Pascagoula, Biloxi, and Gulfport.
October 15, 2022
Here, for days, there was no
salvage or searching for the dead or the living,
and when finally the parish was sealed off,
the survivors first housed in the jail, then waiting
on Chalmette Slip, then crowded on a ferry for
Algiers, all that was left were water moccasins
twining through dead, salted grass, and still
no one came.
from ”Arabi”
Nicole Cooley, daughter of New Orleans poet Peter Cooley, lives in New York City. She was in New York City for the events of 9/11 as well as for Hurricane Katrina. She warned her parents to vacate New Orleans prior to the storm’s impact, but they stayed. She made a point of visiting the devastated areas after the flooding subsided to see the transformation of the city of her youth. Evidently, with time on her hands, she takes in a tour of the damage to the Mississippi and Alabama coasts as well. She then writes poetry about it all. She’s watched a lot of CNN and read a lot of articles—her poems are sprinkled with authentic quotes by people who were down in the city when the shit got real. And, in every poem, she associates the mundanities of living with the reality of dead, drowned bodies and devastated shotgun homes and how the river flooded everything. For example:
My daughter draws
my hair, my arms, my face and there’s no river
in this scene, just a mother and a girl,
and chalk that crumbles on the dry clean
grass like ash, like mold blackening the bodies
of the houses on my childhood street. A body
floats and sinks and no one claims it as rain
breaks open another house, buckles clean
wood, tears a door apart.
from ”Self-Portrait: Concrete, Chalk, Floodwater
Cooley’s verse is not that impressive, though occasionally her imagery shines. A majority of her poetry consists of unmemorable, uninteresting lines of third-party information. This collection is another instance of Hurricane Katrina-inspired verse that, twenty-five years later, is outdated. Her poem “Disaster, A Poetics” is dedicated to Jana Napoli’s art-installation piece Floodwall, which consisted of a wall created with bureau and office drawers Napoli collected from trash heaps following Katrina. After installing her piece in a few cities between 2006-2010, Napoli had the drawers burned in 2011 (there is a documentary of her work if you’re interested and missed an opportunity to see a bunch of drawers arranged as a wall). Napoli realized her Katrina-inspired art was limited and, in my opinion, made the right call to just burn the whole thing five years after the event. Cooley’s collection Breach should have provided the kindling.
After my reading, the student raised his hand and asked: What can your
poetry do for New Orleans? What do you hope will happen if you write
about the hurricane?
The drawers make a wall but keep out nothing.
from ”Disaster, A Poetics
Louisiana Poetry Reviews
Bleeding Heart and Rue <<<<<>>>>> Catechism
salvage or searching for the dead or the living,
and when finally the parish was sealed off,
the survivors first housed in the jail, then waiting
on Chalmette Slip, then crowded on a ferry for
Algiers, all that was left were water moccasins
twining through dead, salted grass, and still
no one came.
from ”Arabi”
Nicole Cooley, daughter of New Orleans poet Peter Cooley, lives in New York City. She was in New York City for the events of 9/11 as well as for Hurricane Katrina. She warned her parents to vacate New Orleans prior to the storm’s impact, but they stayed. She made a point of visiting the devastated areas after the flooding subsided to see the transformation of the city of her youth. Evidently, with time on her hands, she takes in a tour of the damage to the Mississippi and Alabama coasts as well. She then writes poetry about it all. She’s watched a lot of CNN and read a lot of articles—her poems are sprinkled with authentic quotes by people who were down in the city when the shit got real. And, in every poem, she associates the mundanities of living with the reality of dead, drowned bodies and devastated shotgun homes and how the river flooded everything. For example:
My daughter draws
my hair, my arms, my face and there’s no river
in this scene, just a mother and a girl,
and chalk that crumbles on the dry clean
grass like ash, like mold blackening the bodies
of the houses on my childhood street. A body
floats and sinks and no one claims it as rain
breaks open another house, buckles clean
wood, tears a door apart.
from ”Self-Portrait: Concrete, Chalk, Floodwater
Cooley’s verse is not that impressive, though occasionally her imagery shines. A majority of her poetry consists of unmemorable, uninteresting lines of third-party information. This collection is another instance of Hurricane Katrina-inspired verse that, twenty-five years later, is outdated. Her poem “Disaster, A Poetics” is dedicated to Jana Napoli’s art-installation piece Floodwall, which consisted of a wall created with bureau and office drawers Napoli collected from trash heaps following Katrina. After installing her piece in a few cities between 2006-2010, Napoli had the drawers burned in 2011 (there is a documentary of her work if you’re interested and missed an opportunity to see a bunch of drawers arranged as a wall). Napoli realized her Katrina-inspired art was limited and, in my opinion, made the right call to just burn the whole thing five years after the event. Cooley’s collection Breach should have provided the kindling.
After my reading, the student raised his hand and asked: What can your
poetry do for New Orleans? What do you hope will happen if you write
about the hurricane?
The drawers make a wall but keep out nothing.
from ”Disaster, A Poetics
Louisiana Poetry Reviews
Bleeding Heart and Rue <<<<<>>>>> Catechism
March 15, 2013
This is a rare poetry collection where I'm as interested in the subject of the poems as the poems. As someone newly living in New Orleans, some of these insights to the Katrina era feel journalistically or historically crucial. Some brilliant poems and moments. But also so much repetition and turns to sentimentalism/cliche that it made me wonder about an editor. Could've been an impressively tight chapbook instead of a shortish book.
March 24, 2024
Elegiac and angry
An eulogy for pre-Katrina New Orleans with the lyrics anger appropriate to the trauma. Deep and often texture rage flows through the collection.
An eulogy for pre-Katrina New Orleans with the lyrics anger appropriate to the trauma. Deep and often texture rage flows through the collection.
March 2, 2012
this is a harrowing collection of disaster poems revolving around hurricane katrina and the destruction of new orleans. poems about the onset and fearing for her parents' safety. poems about the aftermath, the ruins and the mess. poems about wanting to explain to her daughters about what has been lost, and about the losing.
unfortunately the collection is a little too complete - images recur enough to feel repetitive, anecdotes and details lose their poignancy. there are many fine poems in this volume but they suffer somewhat by the proximity of so many others that are so similar.
unfortunately the collection is a little too complete - images recur enough to feel repetitive, anecdotes and details lose their poignancy. there are many fine poems in this volume but they suffer somewhat by the proximity of so many others that are so similar.
May 27, 2010
While I always hesitate to say that a poetry collection is based on autobiographical material, a quick look at Nicole Cooley's bio confirmed that yes indeed she is from New Orleans. This makes this collection of poetry from New Orleans' post-Hurricane Katrina world even more heartfelt and interesting. In general, another great collection to add to my other works about America's Hurricane Katrina catastrophe.
January 4, 2011
My particular candidate for best post-Katrina poetry book. Period.
March 19, 2011
I liked this more than 3 stars suggests, but not 4 stars worth. Some of these poems are really beautiful and the book, on the whole, is really well crafted, but by the time I get to the end of it, I don't feel like I've gone anywhere--which, perhaps, is the purpose of books about disasters in the way this one is. There is no greater purpose or understanding at which to arrive by the book's end because you can't make sense of a disaster like Katrina?
Anyway, the poems felt, at times, a little too scrapbooky/piecemeal, a little too journalistic for me to feel entirely at home with them. Still, I feel moved by the book, and I feel I've learned a lot.
Anyway, the poems felt, at times, a little too scrapbooky/piecemeal, a little too journalistic for me to feel entirely at home with them. Still, I feel moved by the book, and I feel I've learned a lot.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews