Juliet Cook
This is how I think of Juliet Cook: She's that girl you know, the one who, in line at the grocery store, will announce to any old stranger she pleases just how green and pointy the asparagus in his basket is, and she'll do it in a way that leaves him wondering whether it's a flirt or a critique. She's the girl who, at the school dance, compliments her delicate lace frock with a most garish and wonderful headdress of ostrich feathers, blue spangles, and the fur from the underbelly of some exotic and probably poisonous insect. The girl who, when leaning into kiss you, might just bite you on the face instead. And that's how she writes: with a twinkle in her eye and a growl in her throat. She's a delightful mash-up of contradictions and contraindications, a contra-dance of contrariness. Watch out, Nellie Oleson! Juliet Cook'll push you in the dirty mud! (Nellie has it coming.)
Thanks, Juliet.
***
Nellie Oleson: The Dark Side
(alt. title-The Voluptuous Horror of Nellie Oleson)
Nellie Oleson as a tween Miss Havisham.
Crusty makeup. Out of the corner
of her eye, a gooey black rat.
Nellie Oleson as a fuck toy for rats
that burrow in rancid cake frosting.
Nellie Oleson giving birth to a rat
crowned with a sticky sugar rose.
Nellie Oleson as a funhouse tunnel.
Funnel into what was a fluffy cloud
of honey. Now a dark deluge. Haphazard
rat's nest. Filthy hairball hacked up
by sharp-clawed rat huntress. Nellie Oleson
as a crazy cat lady who loosed all the pussies
to piss willy nilly in the corners and gorge
on whatever they wanted until they died.
Nellie Oleson crouching over a litter box.
Nellie Oleson with her soiled bloomers.
Nellie Oleson thinks she smells a rat;
it stinks like something died in here.
Crusty tuna on its breath. Self-made
Orphan Nellie. Spinster Nellie. Old Maid
who gave up on housework and beautification.
Nellie doused in a dirty bath tub, soused
on bath tub gin. Nellie as a splayed languish
crowned with black mold. Nellie plastered
in a full-body cast, being stung by worker bees
on the bottoms of her feet. Nellie as helpless
rag doll. Nellie as life-sized voodoo doll,
impaled with sucked-sharp candy sticks.
***
Designer Vagina
They swabbed the snap-apart pearls; she's not allowed
to play with them anymore. As she fades out, thinking
isn't a pearl necklace some kind of a joke? She vaguely
remembers how everyone snickered when someone
served it as a wedding cocktail, then they went out back
and played corn hole. Was that the same party?
The surgeon asks her if she wants to see a joke. She vaguely
hears him talking about mad cow disease at its finest, eyes
rolling with insane docility. As she fades out, she vaguely
remembers how much she used to like those little pearls,
like tiny pink nesting doll beads. No broken strings,
no wet candy rings with all the facets licked blurry…
***
Shrink Wrap
My hands are staple removers with metal fangs.
I've blown up promotional balloons into bloody crullers,
misplaced phalli, bulbous sausages ready to burst
out their conjoined links. That soap dispenser was
a disconnected appendage, then it was an entire cow,
placidly chewing its cud, now it is a bright red tooth,
leaking. Dark push pins through my brain.
***
About the Poet:
Juliet Cook's poetry has recently been published in Action Yes, Columbia Poetry Review, Diagram, Diode, Oranges & Sardines and many more online and print sources. She is the editor/publisher of Blood Pudding Press (print) and Thirteen Myna Birds (online). She is author of numerous chapbooks, most recently including Soft Foam (Blood Pudding Press for Dusie Kollektiv 4), FONDANT PIG ANGST (Slash Pine Press) and Tongue Like a Stinger (Wheelhouse). Her first full-length poetry collection, Horrific Confection was published by BlazeVOX in 2008. Her next Blood Pudding Press chapbook will be Angel Face Trailer, featuring her own creepy yummy poems along with darkly delicious translations by Letizia Merello; coming soon! Please feel free to visit her website at www.JulietCook.weebly.com.
On the identity of The Nepotist:
I do not know who The Nepotist editor is, but I felt very honored and yummily delighted to receive a recent invitation from her/him asking me to send along some of my poetry to be published. This was especially wondrous timing because I semi-recently suffered from a serious health issue--a carotid artery stroke that resulted in aphasia, so now my reading and writing is considerably slower than it used to be; it's even harder for me to think/remember hundreds of both little and big words. I am pleased that my brain is still creative, though, and I still adore poetry. Perhaps the editor of The Nepotist is not a he/she so much as a Trapeeze Artist Dripping Caramel.
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