octets by irene cooper

Winner of the inaugural SRPR Spoonfuls Poetry Chapbook Contest

octets by irene cooper comprises short poems which follow an eight-line, 40-syllable constraint, much influenced by the incisive and plaintive cinquains of Adelaide Crapsey, and compelled by an impulse to artfully contain ecological and social instabilities that feel otherwise unrestrained. Paired on the page these poems give the impression of a pulled-apart sonnet whose pieces vibrate in proximity to one another, creating a taut music that defamiliarizes the violence and crises of our moment to bring them into a different, ultimately loving, and actionable kind of focus. These pensive poems present an attempt to supplant fear of the unknown with curiosity—to make a playful space for serious re-visioning about what can be, how we can be.