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'To fall is to be human. We fall in love, fall asleep, and fall from grace. And in this epoch that we have called the Anthropocene, we are witnessing nothing less than the fall of nature.
'This extraordinary collection, the fifth by the prize-winning poet David McCooey, covers the full tragicomic spectrum of falling: from pratfalls to tragic demises, from accident-prone parents to ruinous celebrities.
'Within its unifying thematic focus, The Book of Falling is tonally and formally diverse, attending with great artistry to the calamities and absurdities of history and the contemporary world. The collection comprises of satires and elegies, inventive poetic autofictions and biofictions, and innovative photopoems, employing found photos and photographs by the author. This is a collection that welcomes its readers, even as it plunges them into new ways of understanding the beautiful, fallen worlds that we inhabit.' (Publication summary)
Notes
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Epigraph: when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I'm even pleased that I'm falling in just such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful. And so in that very shame I suddenly begin a hymn. -Fuodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
'Ha!' The chief laughed again. 'Only one story and what would that be? 'The fall from grace. - Megan Dunn, Tinderbox
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Photo Poems and Bathroom Abstractions : in The Book of Falling, David McCooey Offers a Series of Psychological Snapshots
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 3 May 2023;
— Review of The Book of Falling 2023 selected work poetry'On a recent award-judging panel, I found myself once again in a conversation about what makes a book of poems “cohesive” – that is, what makes it a book-length experience, as distinct from a single-poem dip, a chapbook dive or, indeed, the narrative journey of a novel.'(Introduction)
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'The Song of Null Land' : The Poetics of Disorientation
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 452 2023; (p. 50-51)
— Review of The Book of Falling 2023 selected work poetry ; A Foul Wind 2023 selected work poetry'In a world both foul and fallen, where delusion, death, and unassailable Dummheit seem to wait on every corner, what can poetry do that warrants our rapt attention more than every other kind of distraction? Justin Clemens voiced the common lament when he wrote, ‘No-one reads poetry anymore, there being not enough time and more exciting entertainments out there.’ The issue, he said, is ‘a materialist problem that has always proven fundamental for poets: how to compose something that, by its own mere affective powers alone, will continue to be read or recited’ (‘Being Caught dead’, Overland, 202, 2011). That clinches the dilemma rather well. And yet, entertainment or not – and effective or not in their affective power – poetry collections seem to endure as a place, of Lilliputian dimensions, to encounter other worlds and world views.' (Introduction)
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David McCooey The Book of Falling
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 25 February - 3 March 2023;
— Review of The Book of Falling 2023 selected work poetry
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David McCooey The Book of Falling
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 25 February - 3 March 2023;
— Review of The Book of Falling 2023 selected work poetry -
'The Song of Null Land' : The Poetics of Disorientation
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 452 2023; (p. 50-51)
— Review of The Book of Falling 2023 selected work poetry ; A Foul Wind 2023 selected work poetry'In a world both foul and fallen, where delusion, death, and unassailable Dummheit seem to wait on every corner, what can poetry do that warrants our rapt attention more than every other kind of distraction? Justin Clemens voiced the common lament when he wrote, ‘No-one reads poetry anymore, there being not enough time and more exciting entertainments out there.’ The issue, he said, is ‘a materialist problem that has always proven fundamental for poets: how to compose something that, by its own mere affective powers alone, will continue to be read or recited’ (‘Being Caught dead’, Overland, 202, 2011). That clinches the dilemma rather well. And yet, entertainment or not – and effective or not in their affective power – poetry collections seem to endure as a place, of Lilliputian dimensions, to encounter other worlds and world views.' (Introduction)
-
Photo Poems and Bathroom Abstractions : in The Book of Falling, David McCooey Offers a Series of Psychological Snapshots
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 3 May 2023;
— Review of The Book of Falling 2023 selected work poetry'On a recent award-judging panel, I found myself once again in a conversation about what makes a book of poems “cohesive” – that is, what makes it a book-length experience, as distinct from a single-poem dip, a chapbook dive or, indeed, the narrative journey of a novel.'(Introduction)
