Description
Book SynopsisNoelle Kocot’s ninth collection, Ascent of the Mothers, is a sagacious testament to the ways in which poetry can shape personhood.
“I am nothing” they write, “Or else I have made myself / Too big for words.” The scope of this book is marked by Kocot’s psychic journey punctuated by a near-fatal car crash, which elicited a new understanding of their spirituality and gender nonconforming identity. Generous, self-aware, and resilient, Ascent of the Mothers is a treasure to behold and be shared.
Trade Review
These poems catalyze the reader to take pause and contemplate the sorrow and wonder of being human.
—Publishers Weekly
If this was Woodstock, Kocot was Hendrix. I have been to countless readings since but can think of only a few as unexpected, memorable, and moving.—Justin Taylor, Poetry Foundation
Noelle Kocot’s poems are like sunlight coming through a window. —Stephanie Sy-Quia, The White Review
There seem to be a few noteworthy poets in every generation, those who channel the zeitgeist from a clarifying distance, an artful remove. Noelle Kocot may well belong to this tradition... —Amy Newlove Schroeder, Boston Review
Kocot’s gift as a poet is being able to explain such complexity with such uncompromised frankness. —David Peak, The Rumpus
Kocot’s creativity engenders an excitement comparable to being twelve years old, exposed to good poetry or music or art for the first time, and knowing that, for better or worse, things have been bent. —Nick Sturm, Coldfront Magazine
Table of ContentsContents
Labyrinthitis
18
Flowers
The Physical World
Divination
The Animals
George Bailey
I pray to be strong
Before a Shower
Drunk
At the Home
Instructions for the Wind
Song of Covid-19
Migraine
Crystal Gayle
A Fish
Delran
Poem for My Goddaughter Hannah
Ascetic, and the endless
Gravely Listening
Salvation
Ascent of the Mothers
Say It
When will I stop punishing
Letter to Eli
What is it that I am
Far wind chimes a tree
Out of Hiding
The trees humming
There is Darkness Over the Land
Disasters
