Soft Power

Watch out for those who have, seek, and hold onto power.So drinkAs the fanged stoat from the rabbit's napeAs though from a flagon of river waterShaken with ancestral ashAs if it isn't knowledge you seekBut some osmotic soul-foodTo be filled up with blursThat might later resolve themselvesInto memoriesTo return to where you really liveWith changes in your bloodLyrical yet shot through with experimental and political veins, the poems in Soft Power are engaged with both the here-and-now of a world on the brink and the hope of something better, a planet where "generations hence / Inactivists will bathe under a sun made safe / By the collapse of oil-can economics."Traversing badlands, sandhills, prairies, suburbia, Miami, London, Dublin, Paris, and beyond, Cole's voice revels in questions of travel while resonating with the unheimlich "Canadalienation" of his expatriate existence. Whether bog surfing, gallery hopping, bug hunting, or meditating on the "strange genre" of national anthems, the poems in Cole's long-awaited follow-up collection to his critically acclaimed Questions in Bed exist in a searching exchange with the world, both entering and being entered by it.