Raised
in Darien, CT, Susan Cossette-Eng, tonight’s featured Open Mic poet, writes frequently
in rebellious defense of genuine relationships, love and the sanctity of just plain individual humanity (especially relating to women)
against the Plasticville artifice and faux freedom of the American suburban ideal that keeps
us from effective engagement with the larger world.
unhinged
Racing
toward nothing,
an unnamed station
in an imaginary nation
A
graduate with an M.A. in English from UConn-Storrs, Susan is a two-time recipient of the university’s Wallace Stevens Prize for Poetry and has also done post-graduate work at the City University of New York Graduate Center.
Find out more about Susan at AuthorsDen.
_____
Of related interest:
Here
is a sample from last October:
A scene from Bryan Forbes’ The Stepford Wives
(1975), shot in Darien’s Goodwives’ Shopping Center
|
unhinged
Unhinged,
unglued,
unspeakable
unspeakable
this is nothing new–
These
doors wide open,
window screens torn
white picket fence, now kindling–
window screens torn
white picket fence, now kindling–
My new normal is born.
Unusual,
Unreal,
Unstoppable
Unreal,
Unstoppable
The train on its tracks–
tilt-shifted photo of an actual tract housing develop- ment betrays the toy-like unreality of suburban life |
an unnamed station
in an imaginary nation
There’s no turning back.
Such
sparse eloquence is currently being collected in Life: Version 2.1, a
forthcoming chapbook and can also be enjoyed at “MusePalace”, Susan’s blog of
her latest poetry, ruminations and links to the writing of others addressing
consonant themes, like Denise Duhamel’s “Kinky” (a
piece that translates the stylized imagery of the iconic Barbie and Ken dolls
into the realm of flesh-and-blood eroticism) and the
ouvre of James Scully, the acclaimed poet with whom she studied (along with
Marilyn Nelson Wamiek).
book accessory for 1965 Slumber Party Barbie
|
Find out more about Susan at AuthorsDen.
Hosted by Frank Chambers and PoemAlley's Nick Miele, the Barnes &
Noble's Open Mic Poetry program meets the second Monday of each month in the
cookbook section on the main floor of the bookstore (located in the Stamford
Down Center), beginning at 7:15 p.m.
For more information, contact:
Barnes & Noble
100 Greyrock Place Suite H009
Stamford, CT 06901
203-323-1248
Though dated, the following music video to Rush’s “Subdivisions” expresses the suffocating alienation still peculiar to growing up in today’s built-up “apocalypse”:
_____
Of related interest:
Books
The Way We Never Were: American Families And The Nostalgia Trap, Stephanie Coontz (Basic Books, 2000)
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck (North Point Press, 2010)
Class:a Guide Through the American Status System, Paul Fussell (Touchstone, 1994)
The Fifties: a Women’s Oral History, Brett Harvey (HarperCollins, 1993)
Too Much Magic: WishfulThinking, Technology and the Fate of the Nation, James Howard Kunstler
(Atlantic Monthly Press, 2012)
Online
“Is Barbie Based On a German Sex Doll?”, Adja’s Blog,
June 2011
"'Don't eat!': Controversial 1965 Slumber PartyBarbie came with scales permanently set to just 110lbs and 1a diet book tellingher not to eat", Martha De Lacey, Daily Mail, November 2012