Edition #8 is out now! Read it for free on our website!

This zine features an interview with @makenna-made-this, creator of BAWKtober! The interview is really awesome and we also get a first look at the BAWKtober prompts for this year. Thank you Makenna!

You may also recognize work from @todaysbird and @qcocycles. Thank you for your beautiful art submissions!

We hope everyone enjoys this edition. We here at COOP had a blast putting it together!!

Leave the dishes.

Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator

and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.

Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.

Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.

Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.

Don't even sew on a button.

Let the wind have its way, then the earth

that invades as dust and then the dead

foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.

Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.

Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles

or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry

who uses whose toothbrush or if anything

matches, at all.

Except one word to another. Or a thought.

Pursue the authentic-decide first

what is authentic,

then go after it with all your heart.

Your heart, that place

you don't even think of cleaning out.

That closet stuffed with savage mementos.

Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth

or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner

again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,

or weep over anything at all that breaks.

Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons

in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life

and talk to the dead

who drift in though the screened windows, who collect

patiently on the tops of food jars and books.

Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything

except what destroys

the insulation between yourself and your experience

or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters

this ruse you call necessity.

medieval scribe who wrote this poem about his cat, i love you

Ode to Spot, by Data Soong

Who’s ready for more BOOK SPINE POETRY?

Find poetry resources and programs on NYPL’s website!

An Ode To Spot

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,

An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature;

Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses

Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,

A singular development of cat communications

That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection

For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;

You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.

And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,

It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

O Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display

Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.

And though you are not sentient,

Spot, and do not comprehend,

I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend. 

From Star Trek: The Next Generation S6E5 “Schisms”

If I was on the Enterprise I would not be bored by Data’s poetry in the slightest.

Art by Tasman Abbot 

* * * *

"The god of dirt came up to me many times and said so many wise and delectable things, I lay on the grass listening to his dog voice, crow voice, frog voice; now, he said, and now, and never once mentioned forever..."

~ Mary Oliver

[Natalie Sudman]

"Who Remembers the Armenians?" by Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish / "Who Remembers the Palestinians?" by Armenian writer Sophia Armen

MAN BITES DOG-DAYS by Ogden Nash

In celebration of Ogden Nash’s birthday, here’s a poem appropriate to the season that my mother used to read to me when I was a kid (usually when I was slathered in calamine lotion):

MAN BITES DOG-DAYS Ogden Nash

In this fairly temperate clime Summertime is itchy time. O’er rocks and stumps and ruined walls Shiny poison ivy crawls. Every walk in woods and fields It’s aftermath of itching yeilds. Hand me down my rusty hatchet; Someone murmured, Do not scratch it.

Reason permeates my rhyme Summertime is itchy time. Beneath the orange August moon Overfed mosquitoes croon. After sun-up, flied and midges Raise on people bumps and ridges. Hand me down my rusty hatchet Someone murmured, Do not scratch it.

Lo, the year is in its prime; Summer time is itchy time. People loll upon the beaches Ripening like gaudy peaches. Friends, the beach is not the orchard, Nor is the peach by sunburn tortured. Hand me down my rusty hatchet Someone murmured, Do not scratch it.

Now the menu is sublime; Summertime is itchy time. Berries, clams, and lobsters tease Our individual allergies. Rash in rosy splendor thrives, Running neck-and-neck with hives. Hand me down my rusty hatchet Someone murmured, Do not scratch it.

The bluebells and the cowbells chime; Summertime is itchy time. Despite the cold soup, and ice, and thermoses, Garments cling to epidermises. That fiery-footed centipede, Prickly heat prowls forth to feed. Hand me down my rusty hatchet Someone murmured, Do not scratch it.

Hatchet-killings ain’t a crime: Summertime is itchy time