Junk Drawer by Corey D. Cook

In Junk Drawer, Corey D. Cook brings the poet’s eye and sensibilities to artifacts and occasions both common and uncommon, such as a fishing trip, a mother’s grief, the Donald Hall estate sale, a splitting wedge and the drawer filled with the detritus of accumulated living: “His and hers phone chargers / in an inexplicable knot, / bound together / like a solemn vow.” Through the perceptive lens of Cook’s poetry, his gift for metaphor, we are able to say with new and deeper understanding: I know where we are, I have been here before.

–Robert Demaree, author of Other Ladders and After Labor Day (Beech River Books)

Corey D. Cook‘s poetry is accessible, and that is not a bad thing. Indeed, we have privileged access to his economy of words–that like a quick cut from a stiletto, makes us stop short and catch our collective breath. His poems incorporate it all, from a dead cow, manure on Donald Hall’s estate in New Hampshire, to an image of a gone-to-seed snowman as an omen of depression. The banal is profound in Cook’s work–he is a high holy poet of the extraordinary in the ordinary.

–Doug Holder, founder of Ibbetson Street Press and Creative Writing faculty at Endicott College

As I read Corey D. Cook‘s commanding new poetry collection, Junk Drawer, I am reminded of that particular pain when accidentally stepping on one of my children’s Legos in the middle of the night; the hopping, followed by the cussing.  Junk Drawer, similarly, delves into the unrelenting push and pull of family life, counseling sessions and those things left unsaid, of pots boiling over, and small children sneaking into their parents’ bed like in the poem, “Splitting Wedge” – He woke early and slipped out / of bed for Sesame Street / and the letter of the day / leaving behind the “V” our bodies made / our heels barely touching. And in the poem, “Junk Drawer IV,” we discover – O’s report card / from swim lessons / the one skill unchecked: / survival float. I strongly recommend Cook’s Junk Drawer, a glorious read.

–Carolynn Kingyens, author of Before the Big Bang Makes a Sound (Kelsay Books)