Lacquer is a Thrilling Word by Barrie Cole
5 STARS
ABOUT THE BOOK:
The poems in Lacquer is a Thrilling Word explore unconventional forms—fortune cookie
fortunes, drive-thru orders and to-do lists wrestling pleasure from the mundane
and ridiculous while reveling in permission, attention and the sublimity of language. There
are run-on sentence poems including one about assembling new varieties of mushrooms.
There is a poem about angel watching (as opposed to birds) and another about collecting
a bouquet of icicles. Poet Alison Luterman says, “To enter the pages of Lacquer is a Thrilling
Word is to walk inside the wild and wonderful, kaleidoscopically shape-shifting mind of
Barrie Cole, appreciating an odd truth bomb here, a moment of delight or humor there,
and now and again a totally unexpected light ray of divine wisdom shooting through
a dusty stained-glass window that was somehow exported from an ancient Gothic
cathedral to a grocery store in downtown Chicago. There are too many delightful lines
to quote in a blurb, but let’s just say that she had me at “I am still a good person if I
have had an unfortunate haircut, the kind where there are bangs of insanity, the kind
wherein cutting more could not even begin to improve it, a haircut that makes purchasing
a wig a genuine consideration and I am still a good person if I paid the bill late and I
was too anxious to attend the party and too anxious to say hello to the neighbor and so
pretended not to see her at all and this was no surprise, because I do this more often than
I do not, but I am still good. Probably. “ I’ll leave you to discover the rest on your own.:
fortunes, drive-thru orders and to-do lists wrestling pleasure from the mundane
and ridiculous while reveling in permission, attention and the sublimity of language. There
are run-on sentence poems including one about assembling new varieties of mushrooms.
There is a poem about angel watching (as opposed to birds) and another about collecting
a bouquet of icicles. Poet Alison Luterman says, “To enter the pages of Lacquer is a Thrilling
Word is to walk inside the wild and wonderful, kaleidoscopically shape-shifting mind of
Barrie Cole, appreciating an odd truth bomb here, a moment of delight or humor there,
and now and again a totally unexpected light ray of divine wisdom shooting through
a dusty stained-glass window that was somehow exported from an ancient Gothic
cathedral to a grocery store in downtown Chicago. There are too many delightful lines
to quote in a blurb, but let’s just say that she had me at “I am still a good person if I
have had an unfortunate haircut, the kind where there are bangs of insanity, the kind
wherein cutting more could not even begin to improve it, a haircut that makes purchasing
a wig a genuine consideration and I am still a good person if I paid the bill late and I
was too anxious to attend the party and too anxious to say hello to the neighbor and so
pretended not to see her at all and this was no surprise, because I do this more often than
I do not, but I am still good. Probably. “ I’ll leave you to discover the rest on your own.:
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
BARRIE COLE is a critically acclaimed Chicago-based writer
who has written more than 15 plays including Reality is an Activity, Capacity,
Meaning is Tricky, Reverse Gossip, Elevator Tours and Fruit Tree Backpack along
with numerous poems, essays, monologues and hybrid works. Lacquer is a
Thrilling Word is her first book.
MY THOUGHTS:
Oh my gosh I loved this poetry!
It was fun and quirky and made me think and made me giggle all at the same time.
I sat there reading it out loud... to no one... just myself in an empty room. But I loved hearing the poems out loud.
I think I could relate to them because this is exactly the way I think!
I was laughing so hard at some of these I had to put the book down.
And other poems were just deep and thoughtful and made me smile.
When I finished this book I put it down for a day. But then the next day I picked it right back up again and reread some of the poems.
I think it’s going to be that kind of book.
Here is a couple of lines of one of my favorites…
“On Wednesdays, in September, you will experience moments of bonafide joy, mostly because all the words you love for no good reason will be spoken to you throughout the day, haphazard, antelope, comma, lacquer, perambulate, stanza. It will be as if some kind of word fairy has your whole back - a true friend.”
I love this idea! I am a word gatherer and I would love it if people spoke some of my favorite words to me throughout the day.
Bravo on a beautiful book!
I voluntarily posted this review after receiving a copy of this book from Poetic Book Tours. Thank you.
I love how much joy this collection brought to you! Wonderful. Word collecting is always fun.
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