The Bigger World

"Characterized by an utter irreducibility, Noelle Kocot''s poetry displays an elemental movement of thinking and suggests a poetics of vision. . .one of loss and the impossible yet necessary compensations for loss—an awfully complex yet perfectly human vision."—Jean-Paul Pecqueur, Rain Taxi

From "True Story":

Ammonia was Millie''s favorite scent.
She''d sniff it for hours on end
Until she was so high that
She passed out. When she awoke,
She''d ride her dog, a giant poodle,
Horticulturally shaved, in circles
Around the kitchen. One day,
She looked down at the linoleum
And saw small animals drawn
in the crevices. "That Booty is
Despicable!" she shouted at her
Dog, who gazed off into the distance.
Booty was her ex-husband who
Ran off with a barmaid. . .

In her fifth book of poetry, critically acclaimed Noelle Kocot turns her deft poetic eye to the private lives of others, exploring the quirks, foibles, and lifelong relationships of an array of characters—real and mythological. Funny, unpredictable, and deliciously dark, these poems celebrate the manifold possibilities of love and human experience.

Noelle Kocot is the author of four previous collections of poetry, including Sunny Wednesday and Poem for the End of Time and Other Poems. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, the Fund for Poetry, and the American Poetry Review. She currently lives in New Jersey.