Review by Jami Macarty
Irene Cooper’s even my dreams are over the constant state of anxiety draws inspiration from Leonora Carrington, adopting the attitude of a surrealist and revolutionary to explore realms of the psyche and tensions between form and content, humor and critique, identity and the socio-political landscape.
The collection consists of six sections, each framed by a psychological term that guides the exploration of its subjects. The first section, “shadows, or structured observation,” presents twelve concrete poems that bolster or subvert the relationship between form and content. Cooper is “deliberate” in her “contraindications.” With “sardonicism as a / brand of humor,” Cooper also critiques institutional structures that perpetuate “senators who abandon,” “abuse of power,” and “misogyny.”
As the collection transitions into exploring “personal unconscious” and the Jewish diaspora, Cooper shares portraits of “great aunt helen,” “aunt chickee’s / ellis / island / ankles,” and a “soldier | medic.” The soldier’s “story” takes form in a “sonnet tiara,” Cooper’s feminist response to a “sonnet crown.”
The third section, focusing on the “collective unconscious,” follows this turn toward shared identity, observing diverse characters — a female driver in an accident, an “irish citizen,” a “toothy love man” on the street, airplane passenger “leo,” and a bartender — “jambed tight against” the poet’s consciousness.
After exploring the collective, the section on “attachment theory” shifts to themes of poetry and sexuality, utilizing the cinquain form and text boxes to probe creative forces. The fifth section, “the strange situation test,” features poems that consider the risks associated with speech and resistance “tendered against the winded heart.” Lastly, “death, or the visual cliff” invites contemplation of “eco-logic” and “uncrushed / species,” challenging readers to consider what “posterity measures.”
Writing her way “in the darkness / if not through it,” Irene Cooper explores the familial, psychological, and structural forces that shape our lives and the interconnectedness of our stories in a world where anxiety lingers like a shadow.
even my dreams are over the constant state of anxiety by Irene Cooper. Airlie Press, September 2024.
Reviewer bio: Jami Macarty is the author of The Long Now Conditions Permit, winner of the 2023 Test Site Poetry Series Prize (forthcoming University of Nevada Press), and The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award – Poetry Arizona. Jami’s four chapbooks include The Whole Catastrophe (Vallum Chapbook Series, 2024) and Mind of Spring (Vallum Chapbook Series, 2017), winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. To learn more about Jami’s writing, editing, and teaching practices, visit her author website.
