The Sorrow Apartments by Andrea Cohen

I love Andrea Cohen’s poetry, and teach it in my class. Her new book The Sorrow Apartments is as good as I was hoping it would be. Cohen is a master of sparse, expectant poems with twists in perspective that leave you feeling you’ve been mistaken your entire life. She uses line breaks expertly to teach the reader to wait for the poet, not get ahead, not assume. The poems present truth, but a different truth than you thought you were hearing. Cohen is willing to change the world in her work and look at what that varied existence would look like. Her short, startling poems are interspersed with longer pieces that explore reality. The book is just gorgeous. Buy here.

Rain, 1966

Dark, out

and in.

Tomorrow—

cake, but

today, someone

is watering

the lake.

Cause and Effect

I lost my

way—why

did I ever

think it mine?

Life & Death

They go

hand in hand—

like that little

kid last

seen being

led by

that bigger

kid down

to the river.