Update
The Weaklings
Dennis Cooper reads from his new book of poetry The Weaklings
an edition of 300 numbered, signed, hard bound
with art by Jarrod Anderson (on display at the event)*
from Fanzine Press
Thursday, March 13th.
Doors at 6 pm. Reading at 7 pm. Over by 9.
*Also music by Luke Rathborne
@ John Connelly Presents
625 West 27th street
New York NY 10001
w: 212-337-9563
f: 212-337-9613
It's been 12 years since Dennis Cooper’s last major collection of poetry, The Dream Police (1996), and fans of his singular voice have been antsy for more. A writer prolific in many forms, Cooper is probably best known as a novelist, having penned the acclaimed George Miles cycle (Closer, Frisk, Try, Guide, Period - all on Grove Press), as well as the novels My Loose Thread, God Jr. and The Sluts. Fanzine Press, a new imprint of the online culture journal thefanzine.com, is proud to have published a limited edition of a Cooper original, The Weaklings, an 80 page, 300 copy, signed and numbered hard bound collection of poetry accompanied by the Cooper inspired drawings of Jarrod Anderson. Cooper has been living in Paris, France the last couple of years, working on theater productions with Gisele Vienne, so it’s a pleasure to catch him read stateside when possible, and even more special to hear him read from this fresh, tightly crafted, haunting and often humorous collection, one that has been over a decade in the making.
Reviews of The Weaklings:
“I’m so stupid, evil and lonely you/ don’t understand.” The poem breaks at “you” to throw off suspicion, like a prisoner slipping across a creek to evade the hounds. Cooper’s celebrated novels have overshadowed his skill as a poet; pity that, though I wouldn’t argue the beautiful poems of The Weaklings are any more or less distilled than his prose fiction. Yet the offhand confessions and the hidden motives of this poetry combine in a language both new and old, for he is not only Merlin but Tristan; he is creator, magician, prince regent of suffering, love, and regret.
––Kevin Killian
Dennis Cooper's poems are the heart––the core––of his divine oeuvre. Pure genius, they are tender and deadened, breathing and stupefied. A secret formalist, he fastidiously packages and trammels consciousness, which gives his cameos an aura of total authenticity. He never fakes it. As a consequence, I idolize and internalize every word he writes.
––Wayne Koestenbaum
*There is also a current group show running simultaneously:
"a new high in getting low (nyc)"
