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Posts by author

Josh Cook

11 posts
Josh Cook is a bookseller at Porter Square Books, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who grew up in Lewiston, Maine. His fiction, criticism, and poetry have appeared in numerous magazines and journals. He blogs for Porter Square Books, and at In Order of Importance, and lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. An Exaggerated Murder his first novel.
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  • Rumpus Original

Where I Write #29: Ten Werecantos

  • Josh Cook
  • March 5, 2015
We think of our brains as a place. We surround thoughts with metaphors of environment.
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  • Last Book I Loved
  • Rumpus Original

THE LAST BOOK I LOVED: The Last Good Kiss BY JAMES CRUMLEY

  • Josh Cook
  • April 19, 2014
Doesn't it always start with poetry? Or at least a poet. Or at least a writer.
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  • Features & Reviews
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Nostalgia for the Criminal Past by Kathleen Winter

  • Josh Cook
  • November 2, 2013
Josh Cook reviews Kathleen Winters's Nostalgia for the Criminal Past today in Rumpus Poetry.
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  • Last Book I Loved

The Last Book I Loved: My Struggle by Karl Ove Knaussgard

  • Josh Cook
  • September 20, 2013
It was strange. Volume One of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s six-volume memoir/novel was, with one traumatic exception near the end, the story of a typical young man. He had a typical…
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  • Features & Reviews
  • Poetry
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Balloon Pop Outlaw Black by Patricia Lockwood

  • Josh Cook
  • April 24, 2013
Josh Cook reviews Patricia Lockwood's Balloon Pop Outlaw Black today in Rumpus Poetry.
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  • Features & Reviews
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The Word on the Street by Paul Muldoon

  • Josh Cook
  • February 23, 2013
The Word on the Street is not Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Muldoon’s first work of writing for music. He wrote librettos for four Daren Hagen operas; Shining Bow, Vera of…
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  • Features & Reviews
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Notturno by Gabriele D’Annunzio

  • Josh Cook
  • February 6, 2013
Gabriele D’Annunzio wrote Notturno on strips of paper big enough for just one line a piece, while his eyes were bandaged into near blindness, as he convalesced for over two…
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Uselysses by Noel Black

  • Josh Cook
  • August 29, 2012
Uselysses by Noel Black is a collection of five, distinct, short books of poetry. The first three books collect introspective and self-conscious poems common in contemporary poetry, distinguishing themselves with…
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  • Rumpus Original

Vanishing-Line, by Jeffrey Yang

  • Josh Cook
  • May 25, 2012
In Vanishing-Line, Jeffrey Yang writes, “But the birches of Yennecott/ recall his word-spirits.” Rather than using lines or stanzas as the basic unit of expression in this collection, Yang writes…
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  • Features & Reviews
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  • Rumpus Original

selected unpublished blog posts of a mexican panda express employee

  • Josh Cook
  • March 10, 2012
When Boyle is insightful, this style allows the brilliance of the insight to shine through unfiltered and unaided by the mechanisms of literature and poetry, sometimes with powerful effect.
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  • Rumpus Original

The Flame an Upright Leaf

  • Josh Cook
  • November 30, 2011
Grappling with the problems of an adolescent entering adulthood in a society skewed by violence and oppression, Adam Foulds’ narrative poem is an intellectual, visual, and sensual triumph.
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