Spool by Matthew Cooperman
Parlor Press, 2016
110 pages – Parlor / Amazon
In his latest collection, Matthew Cooperman shows himself again to be an aficionado and craftsman of organic shape. Spool reveals its messages in a way that refreshingly defies convention, favoring continuity of thought over sequential numbering—for these poems have numbers for their names, inviting us to glean meaning from the text itself rather than from preconceived notions that titles so often wield. This collection builds its poems precisely upon one another like a chambered nautilus, at a strict three words per line, where subjects and themes flow readily into each other. The narrow threads of these poems explore sounds and music, joy and grief, in their most organic forms: what birds create to define their lives, prompting humans to follow suit using poetry. Cooperman’s aim “to write a / year in threes / these little wiles / and pauses” shows his careful intention to work with these organic elements, creating a meticulous rhythm in the process.
If Spool is a year in threes, its springtime—where all chronological threads begin—is a deep exploration of self and desires wrapped in heartily detailed metaphor. In “Spool 4,” a relationship defines itself through “the sound / of plashing water,” with almost desperate assertion:
he says he
does he loves
her she’s his
girl a tender
of blue ships
in surly harbor
safe when he’s
with her
Though this safety might be an illusory “calm of seas,” that idea of protection reasserts itself throughout the poem—and indeed through much of this collection—by virtue of Cooperman’s careful line structure. “Spool 4” uses a three-word volta, “he’s her lover,” to ground itself, showing the certainty of its characters even amidst turmoil. As Abigail Kerstetter writes of Cooperman’s earlier collaborative collection Imago for the Fallen World, “a hesitant optimism persists” throughout this new volume, defying stagnant doubt and racing to beat long odds.
Spool takes a more introspective turn when exploring the emotional similarity—perhaps emotional unity—we often experience with our fellow species. Humans are not the only ones, Cooperman seems to assert, who sometimes struggle to find the right words. In contrast to “Spool 4,” where the poem’s protagonist knows just what to say, “Spool 11” reveals hesitancy not unlike the underpinnings of our daily existence:
a waterdrop darkly
leaf or tongue
brachial bird throat
resides in each
gasp of seizure
wings toward a
harmony flox field
This idea of universal uncertainty—vis-à-vis the hesitant, waiting waterdrop—extends further into this collection, where a solution to that reticence reveals itself. “Spool 18” demonstrates an organic (and maybe inevitable) momentum, linking us to our fellow creatures not just in our doubts but also in how we might face them. Perhaps we deal with uncertainly in similar ways because eventually we all become one and the same:
Avalon is what
they say about
it once you
accept the idea
of reincarnation any
thing is possible
Perhaps the most organic of spirals, here life itself becomes a spool from which a measured progress toward unity unwinds.
Cooperman’s narrator later asserts that these similarities between organic beings (plants and animals) are so great that even Spool’s careful three-word line construction might hinder proper description—a sly form of meta-analysis. “Spool 13” discusses this proposed structural issue, again making connections through a spectrum of emotions:
biographical threes betray
the bird which
had so much
verve in its
throat
Even given this idea of muting emotions, the poem succinctly and powerfully renders the strong emotions of this collection. Its description of family is poignant in its simplicity: “a family is / a thing a / made thing almost / a true wall.”
When these emotions wind themselves into darker places, Cooperman shows an aptitude for precise, needle-sharp pragmatic thought, accepting low points as they come—knowing that they will right themselves eventually. “Spool 37” is an elegant framing of loss and its illumination of moments too often taken for granted:
Alphabet begins a
hymn for grieving . . .
the bird goes
down she goes
down at sea
no halcyon weaver
no kingfisher cry
an empty nest
Here, the word becomes synonymous with the grief process, literalized by a bird’s dive—but whether that bird dives for sustenance or from injury is not shown. Similarly, Spool paints grief as eminently salvageable, and its poems serve to “lubricate losses / or quell complaints” that we might face.
In the end, Matthew Cooperman’s Spool renders these vibrant emotions best through the collection’s most prominent symbols, which feather their sweeping way through these poems. “Spool 21” captures these totems with lyrical efficiency, declaring them to be
. . . the small
creatures awake at
the heart of
the heart poem . . .
d the birds
This stellar volume whistles and soars like the avian creatures it holds aloft, and reinvigorates with every turn of the page. Spool is a remarkable collection, best read with the “naked foundry wakefulness” of the sky proudly overhead.
Tyler Sheldon earned his MA in English from Emporia State University, where he taught Composition and received the 2016 Charles E. Walton Graduate Essay Award. His poems and reviews have appeared in Coal City Review, The Dos Passos Review, Flint Hills Review, Quiddity International Literary Journal, and other journals. His debut chapbook, First Breaths of Arrival, was published this May by Oil Hill Press.
