Synopses & Reviews
Acclaimed poet David Cope's fifth collection, Turn the Wheel, opens with a lean dawn, farewell to old loves and challenges to new, past sorrows and tenderness filling the older poet's dreams, tender petals for calm crossing. Here too is ground zero struggle for compassion, lost worlds in the valley of the sun, finale a broken note, herons under the jetliner's blast path near the shaking train stuffed with its cargo of dead dreams.
Review
Praise for Turn the Wheel: The news that stays news is the modus operandi of Turn the Wheel: bracing, smart, tight, perfectly greased works, luminous and poignant by turn. I enjoy Cope's stretch from familial to sublime and his consummate poet's generous heart. The songs keep churning and turning after the pages do their turn. "I send you this wish where tender petals turn, open in both darkness and light." -Anne Waldman "David Cope's poetry reaches into true silence and from that place within himself derives its indelible sanity of gothic dreams, direct musicality, sustained multiple resonance, objectivist heart, vernacular ear. His work is a paradox of detached lyricism confronting the abysses of his soul. Like old Shakyamuni Buddha living anonymous civilian life to its fullest in debacle America, turning the wheel of U.S. Dharma, Cope visualizes the path of emptiness and great resting in awakened nature." -Jim Cohn
Review
Praise for Turn the Wheel:
The news that stays news is the modus operandi of Turn the Wheel: bracing, smart, tight, perfectly greased works, luminous and poignant by turn. I enjoy Cope's stretch from familial to sublime and his consummate poet's generous heart. The songs keep churning and turning after the pages do their turn. "I send you this wish where tender petals turn, open in both darkness and light." -Anne Waldman
"David Cope's poetry reaches into true silence and from that place within himself derives its indelible sanity of gothic dreams, direct musicality, sustained multiple resonance, objectivist heart, vernacular ear. His work is a paradox of detached lyricism confronting the abysses of his soul. Like old Shakyamuni Buddha living anonymous civilian life to its fullest in debacle America, turning the wheel of U.S. Dharma, Cope visualizes the path of emptiness and great resting in awakened nature." -Jim Cohn
Table of Contents
Owashtanong Sunrise
millennial blues
Lost Loves
the white-bristled sallow face in the photo
Owashtanong Sunrise
to you who dream
Fran
the reception
Empire of Sorrows
Solihull to Marylebone
The Fourth
Turn the Wheel
planting salvia & marigolds in rain,
Ghazal of the High Plateau
Frankie's Blues
dried leaves flashing before full moon
Yeah, an' here he was,
"La Goulue" Considers His Lines
the passing shapes
when they were younger
Tender Petals for Calm Crossing
Lear by lanternlight
The Abyss
Reading the Signs
My Bike
Waking Ophelia
The Gift
Her memory comes
that she can
After the snowstorm
Shattered
The dharma at last
Cross-eyed farewell
The Disappearing Sages
The People Themselves
as the dryers rolled
The Michigan Dead at Sharpsburg
Traffic Backup, Chesapeake Bay Bridge Road
The People Themselves
After Du Bellay
Clearing the Gazebo Roof
Out thru the eye beyond the stars
the years in a wink
on the moonlit road
the distorted mirror
Gone (as you are)
ground zero
Blue Notes for New York
In Silence
L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle
Anthrax'd
Bomb Fragments, Body Parts,
ER Saturday Night
Whaddya get
Blinding snow freeway rush hour
Gone (as you are)
The Broken Note
In a Sentimental Mood
Madadeyo in dreams
Ancient of Days
Dreaming: Valley of the Sun
Canyon Rim to Hopi Point by Moonlight
Passover Blood Market
After Ronsard
Emile at the Crossroad
The Broken Note