Sampson Starkweather, imagining things
Sampson Starkweather (whom you might remember from Stark Week over at HTMLGiant), was very nice and wrote a blurb for Matt Cook’s new book, Proving Nothing to Anyone. He said:
“Matt Cook is a walking Imagination, and naturally, the imagination has perfect comic timing and speaks with an amazing Midwestern accent. Matt Cook makes me want to move to Milwaukee. Now that is powerful poetry.”
Which, of course, made me beam with pride. When he’s talking about Imagination, Sampson knows what he’s talking about. I mean, look at that picture of him imagining things like a real pro.
So anyway, last week Sampson emailed me a bunch of outtakes from his blurb. They make for a great way to read about Matt’s book. He said I could post them here, and so here is Sampson Starkweather on Matt Cook:
Matt Cook is an anti-poet’s poet.
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Matt Cook would kick the shit out of Dane Cook. Just saying.
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Matt Cook thinks about all of the stuff the rest of us never stop to think about, or that we could never imagine thinking of in the first place, in fact Matt Cook is a walking imagination, and naturally, the imagination has perfect comic timing and speaks with an amazing Midwestern accent.
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If Louis C.K. wrote poetry it would probably sound something like Matt Cook.
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Do yourself a favor, read everything ever written by Matt Cook. Then hit Repeat.
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Matt Cook makes me want to move to Milwaukee. Now that is powerful poetry.
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Reading Matt Cook is like hanging out in his brain, and hanging out in Matt Cook’s brain is like…reading Matt Cook. Essentially, it’s an Ouroboros of awesome.
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The biggest problem with being a poet is you have to read poetry all the time. Well, thank god for Matt Cook—his poetry is like a release valve from Poetry. As his epigraph states, it’s not a wise to fall in love with poetry, but rather let it be a distraction from the cares and bothers of life. The problem is, after reading Matt Cook, it’s hard not to fall in love with it.
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I read Matt Cook’s books over and over, like a secret joy I don’t dare share with anyone else. And when I’m finished, sometimes I have the urge to track him down Chuck Norris style, just because I want to beg him to write another book, or fuck it, just talk to me, tell me anything from that strange brain and amazing voice of his. Someone should bottle that brain and voice up, and give it to the aliens who come to destroy us, so they let us go, and in a million years all the kids in school will learn how Matt Cook’s poetry saved the universe.
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If, as the saying goes, poetry should sound the way you talk, well then Matt Cook just talks cooler than anyone else writing poetry.
