Breach

"In Breach, New Orleans native Nicole Cooley recalls Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in gritty, poignant detail, bearing witness to the destruction of a region and to its recovery. Ranging from the urgent to the reflective, these poems speak not only to the horrors of the immediate disaster, but also to family dynamics in a time of crisis and to the social, political, and cultural realities that contextualized the storm and its wake." In the title poem, Cooley invokes the multiple meanings of the word "breach" - breach of the levees, breach of trust - which resonate with survivors in the Crescent City, and in "Evacuation," she recounts her efforts to encourage her parents to leave the city and her harrowing three-day wait to hear from them after they refused. A number of poems, including "Write a Love Letter to Camellia Grill," "The Superdome: A Suite," and "Biloxi Bay Bridge Still Out," offer a broad range of voices and experiences to expand the perspective beyond Cooley's own family.

In Breach, New Orleans native Nicole Cooley recalls Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in gritty, poignant detail, bearing witness to the destruction of a region and to its recovery. Ranging from the urgent to the reflective, these poems speak not only to the horrors of the immediate disaster, but also to family dynamics in a time of crisis and to the social, political, and cultural realities that contextualized the storm and its wake. In the title poem, Cooley invokes the multiple meanings of the word ôbreachöùbreach of the levees, breach of trustùwhich resonate with survivors in the Crescent City, and in ôEvacuation,ö she recounts her efforts to encourage her parents to leave the city and her harrowing three-day wait to hear from them after they refused. A number of poems, including ôWrite a Love Letter to Camellia Grill,ö ôThe Superdome: A Suite,ö and ôBiloxi Bay Bridge Still Out,ö offer a broad range of voices and experiences to expand the perspective beyond CooleyAÆs own family. With language and images both powerful and precise, this compelling collection dares us to ôwatch the surface of the city tear like loose skin.ö

Publishers Weekly

Cooley's mother and father, who lived in New Orleans, proved unable or unwilling to evacuate when Hurricane Katrina hit. They and their house survived, but the trauma—to Cooley's family and to her region—inspired the poet to tour the devastation in 2006. Her third book is the memorable result: “I came home to see/ the city grieving,” she declares on the first page; “The city drained then hacked apart.” Highly wrought poems (pantouns, and even a sestina) end up outnumbered and overshadowed by pages that simply accumulate startling data: “a torn Blue Roof unspooled yellow caution tape/ sheetrock black rot.” Trying to “write the poem that reveals the city,/ that reveals// what's inside, a house to house search,” Cooley (Resurrection) does not always make compelling phrases, but the pictures she draws are hard to forget. The last segment and the least personal, reacting to what Cooley saw in Mississippi and Alabama, may be the strongest: she not only describes, concisely, her travels, but also gives perverse and angry voice at last to the human impulse toward destruction, toward self-frustration and self-defeat: “Listen, the bird-foot delta is an artifact/ of engineering, so let's break it, let's wash it inland.” (Apr.)