Elise Cowen: Poems and Fragments

More than 50 years after her death at age 28, and the subsequent destruction of most of her notebooks, Cowen’s surviving poems finally receive treatment as a single volume. A prolific poet and Beat Generation contemporary, Cowen’s remaining work was closely guarded by a friend, Leo Skir, and Trigilio provides an account of the piecemeal dissemination of the poems over time and the scholarship that has nonetheless grown around her work. Trigilio exercises the lightest possible editorial touch with the transcription of the individual poems, meticulously documenting the process in a generous notes section. He orders the book according to four untitled yet thematically-arranged sections, the rationale for which he discusses in his introduction. This global structuring decision lends what was an incomplete body of work the clear shape and intentionality that marks a well-honed manuscript, while also avoiding the pitfalls of over-determining the reader’s experience through criticism. Throughout, the encounter with Cowen’s voice feels immediate and genuine: “Someone I could kiss/ has left his, her/ tracks/ A memory/ Heavy as winter breathing/ In the snow/ And with weight & heat/ of human body.” (Apr.)