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Interactionality

Usually poetic conversations between authors and texts.

The Best Metaphors

9/12/2016

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From Kelly: I liked this book. Stumbled across it after sitting next to the poetry section to hang out with friend in the Porter Square Bookstore. They went to get snacks and tea as I watched their stuff (after they'd done the same for me). While waiting, I looked at the books beside me.

Response to Work & Days by Tess Taylor 
Kelly J. Cooper


Gardeners have the best metaphors
where else will you find
seeds, tender sprouts, seasonal changes,
life and death, plus the heartbreak
of fungal infections?

Green, growing, turning sunlight into sugar,
changing colors, nestled in mud,
life cycles are traps,
then guides, then traps again
but the structure helps.

Facing tragedy is easier
when you have something to root for
cheer on the good plants
rip out the bad plants
​eat the results
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A Theory Of Dementia Involving Helmets

8/24/2016

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Kelly Cooper's second interaction is with Leigh Stein's Dispatch From The Future examines identity and trauma.

Interaction with Leigh Stein's Dispatch From The Future
Kelly Cooper

I am a cave
a closet, the space
underneath a coffee table
I am a mirror and a window
a panic attack
hidden between logorhythmia and logorrhea
a theory of dementia involving helmets
a knife threatening the ending
of the story for the crime of completion
I am allorhythmia and pain
cushioned by displacement
or a layer of blood 
it’s unclear, opaque even
there are too many birds
and invasive medical procedures
but not enough time.


​
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Teasing Out Fragments

8/5/2016

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Kelly Cooper responds to phrases and images from James Gendron's Sexual Boats (Sex Boats)​.

A Response To Sexual Boats (Sex Boats) by James Gendron
Kelly Cooper


I am not knowledgeable or in-tune
or out-of-tune enough to understand.

I came to poetry through metaphor
simile, word play, and white men
stayed for the women and the
revelation of blank verse and
the rawness of the other voice
the not-heard voice

not heard in my suburban town
suspended between the polo club
and poverty’s friends: the Red Cross,
the Salvation Army, the food stamps.

I grasp and turn and read, reread
Rereading I tease out fragments

          You can forgive the one
          who makes your life amazing

Pulling out words that glitter
Pulling the wire
Laughing at the unknowable

          The smell of the jagged mint leaf and the smell
          of one trillion farts pervade the atmosphere

I shake my head I
skipped a line or three
lost my place.

          On my side of the bed, I made a sweat angel

Truth or what passes
for memory flickers

          In fat I see myself distilled
          more honestly than in my face.

My childhood was all ragged knees
and pockets full

          All I ever had in my pockets is still there:
          hundreds of pounds of it.

My eyes burn with
anger exhaustion tears

          You can improve a star
          simply by turning it. The other side is fresher.
          It hasn’t been looked at as much.

My thoughts can’t track
the random elements
lacking throughline
I get lost.

          Ideas and I are at cross-purposes, like the wings of Christ.

Shake my head again
dislodging what-all
resetting my eyes

          I don’t know what an entity is, so I don’t trust entities. Entities are assholes.

And look again.

          Can the judge fulfill her duty
          and arrest the wicked sun, serial murderer?
          Or is she more of a pragmatist?

Have I chosen only
what I recognize?

          The Louvre is too big. Everyone knows & denies it.
          Like a hurricane: so big, it competes with the soul.

Only what speaks to me.

          I’m just a haunted question mark.

Only what I’m able to hear.
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    Interactionality

    An ongoing conversation between writers and the text that they're reading.

    Adam Stone is reading multiple collections of poetry each week, and producing a piece of writing or a series of prompts inspired by the text. It might be a poem in the voice of the author. It might be a memory involving the person who suggested the book to him. He might steal the title of a poem and use it to create a collage about his oh-so-inspiring childhood.

    To help keep him accountable, he's asked other writers that he both likes and likes working with to join him in writing their own interaction or two. With their permission, some of their interactions will also be posted here, clearly tagged with their names.

    There might even be interaction between Adam's interactions and an interaction written by someone else. The only rules of this project is to read more poetry and create more art.

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All work on the Crooked Treehouse is ©Adam Stone, except where indicated, and may not be reproduced without his permission. If you enjoy it, please consider giving to my Patreon account.
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