Juliet Cook : part five

What are you working on?

I'm always working on a variety of different poetic projects, ranging from writing to revising to reading to submitting to publishing, but one ongoing project that I've been working on in fits and starts for over a year now that I think might be finally approaching fruition is a longish poem, with various sections, that I'm going to turn into a chapbook. It's tentative title is PURPLE SUBSECTIONS (or INTERSTICES or INTERVALS).  I'm also still submitting another poetry chapbook that has existed for several years now, entitled red circles into nothing. I'm also still promoting my most recently published poetry chapbook, From One Ruined Human to Another (published by Cringe-Worthy Poets Collective in the middle of 2018) and my second individual full-length poetry book, Malformed Confetti (published by Crisis Chronicles Press, near the end of 2018). In addition to my own individual poetry, I'm regularly working on collaborative poems with j/j hastain.

Juliet Cook : part four

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

Knowing when to end a poem.

Juliet Cook : part three

How do you know when a poem is finished?

Sometimes it's hard to know and even when I know, it's hard to describe how I know. I suppose this knowing tends to be intuitive, subjective, and feeling based.

Juliet Cook : part two

Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?

Yes, because my tastes have changed over time and with experience and my personal poetic style has changed over time and with experience. In my teenage years and early twenties, I tended towards writing over the top story poems based on characters who weren't really me (and who seemed more interesting than me) and fairy tale like horror poems and melodrama that wasn't based on my own real life experience, so much as me wanting to express my strong dramatic feelings in a strong dramatic way. As I became a more experienced writer, with more of my own life experience in addition to developing my own genuine feeling artistic style, I became increasingly able to express myself on a more uniquely personal poetic level. Also, my poetry reading style and tastes have changed over time, although I've always liked a variety of different styles.

Juliet Cook : part one

Juliet Cook's poetry has appeared in a small multitude of magazines. She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, recently including a collaboration with j/j hastain called Dive Back Down (Dancing Girl Press, 2015), and an individual collection called From One Ruined Human to Another (Cringe-Worthy Poets Collective, 2018).

Cook's first full-length individual poetry book, Horrific Confection, was published by BlazeVOX more than ten years ago. Her more recent full-length poetry book, A Red Witch, Every Which Way, is a collaboration with j/j hastain published by Hysterical Books in 2016. Her most recent full-length individual poetry book, Malformed Confetti was published by Crisis Chronicles Press in late 2018.

Cook also sometimes creates semi-abstract painting collage art hybrid creatures.

Find out more at www.JulietCook.weebly.com.

How did you first engage with poetry?

To an extent, via Mother Goose and other nursery rhymes. To another extent, via high school English class. To a more personal and more contemporary extent, through tons of poetry books and chapbooks I discovered for myself or was introduced to in small bookstores, college classes, libraries, and at poetry readings.