Brief description: Peter Cooley is emeritus professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Tulane University and former Poet Laureate of Louisiana. His books include The One Certain Thing, also published by Carnegie Mellon. He is poetry editor of Christianity and Literature.
Review Quotes: Peter Cooley's The One Certain Thing is a book of tender elegies, and therefore, they are love poems that celebrate what was and what could be if loss were not at the foundation of the human condition. More than that, they are romantic love poems that declare everlasting love for the lost lover: "This morning when I woke up, you were here, / an indentation in the sheets." And just as that love remains in spite of absence, these well-crafted little wonders further document Cooley's 45 years of books dedicated to the poetic line and its power: "I take that darkness-light, / I hold it with both hands. It's everything, / everything of you I get to keep.--Jericho Brown