Found a new collection of poems by Donna Stonecipher—an excellent name for a poet. Standing in front of the book shelf, I wondered if the name was an elaborate ruse. Should I buy this book? Is it a trick?
Why would one worry about being deceived by a book?
Stonecipher's The Cosmopolitan is a collection of prose poems arranged around the names of authors and architects, from Elaine Scarry to Franz Kafka to Zaha Hadid and not to forget Elfriede Jelinek by way of Lenin. A cluster of names Germanists read regularly.
Suspicion ebbs and inside you find wonderful ruminations of space. The Cosmopolitan is very thoughtful about the material arrangements of city life. The analogies we draw between the closets that pile up over our heads and the way in which we organize our day
"She sat down to build her day like a townhouse: room stacked atop room filled with pretexts for activity to save herself from falling headlong into undifferentiated time."
Her pieces are inlayed with quotations that reinforce the special order of her thoughts: "Voltaire said: 'a practically infallible way of preserving yourself against self-destruction is always to have something to do."
The lesson of the Enlightenment: reification can serve as a means of staying sane with style and wit. It does not have to be only a negative term. To design yourself as a house, a formal garden or a city is one means of becoming cosmopolitan—Voltaire should know after all.
There is so much more to read. These poems mix nuggets of academic prose with the casual theory gossip we all used in grad school. That way, she can flirt with the reader as she recounts how the "girl with the DDR bag met the boy with the CCCP t-shirt." Hipster chatter accumulates in her prose pieces so that before you know it you are deep in contemplation. It is surprising how Stonecipher turns light talk turn into clever introspection.
http://www.coffeehousepress.org/thecosmopolitan.asp
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