The Unreasonable Slug

“Not long ago one of Milwaukee poetry’s young turks, Cook is now simply one of the city’s major poets.”—Milwaukee Magazine

Perfect for people who “don’t like poetry,” Matt Cook’s distinctive writing is Midwestern yet worldly, rooted yet bohemian. His close observations result in poems that resemble a series of punk fortune cookies, a kind of psychedelic horse sense—discovering musicality and humor in cultural information, in family, in writing itself.

“The Modernist Bowling Alley”

The forgotten soul who first separated egg whites.
The homeless man wearing the Superman T-shirt.
Their intentions were clearly understood,
Except when they were unintentional and misunderstood.
The Madagascar moth is no longer destroying the prized sweaters
With anywhere near his previous curve of frequency.
Shoddy construction is now the more critical threat.
The modernist bowling alley will have the futuristic waiting area
Where you can go and wait patiently for the future.
You will see a clock on the wall that doesn’t really look like a clock.
You will distinctly remember having forgotten that before.

Matt Cook is the author of In the Small of My Backyard and Eavesdrop Soup. His work has been featured on NPR’s Fresh Air and The Writer’s Almanac.