Elisabeth Cook
Age: 33
Location: Wisconsin
Education: Largely informal, studied with poets Bei Dao and Glen Brown
The Writer
How long have you been writing?
16 years, off and on.
Do you have a specific writing style?
Post-ironic modicumism. It involves avoiding straightforward answers.
Do you see writing as a career?
If I’m having a good day, I’ll entertain the possibility.
Do you write full-time?
No, but I would like to at some point just to see what happens to me.
The Work
Tell us about your work in Crack the Spine.
“Unexpected Religions” is a poem I wrote several years ago that I still like.
What inspired this work?
Some damned girl or other.
How long did it take you to complete this piece?
Probably a day or two, but I age my work in earthenware vessels for six months at a time to achieve maximum tanginess and probiotic benefits.
The Methods
Where do you write?
Anywhere.
What are your thoughts on self-publishing vs. traditional publishing?
Any publishing is good, and I’m optimistic about its future, because I feel that with new technologies and so forth there’s an opportunity for things to shift in a different direction. Many different directions, even.
How many drafts do you generally go through before you consider a piece to be complete?
Usually a lot.
How do you react to editorial rejections of your work?
Passive-aggressively.
What is your best piece of advice on how to stay sane as a writer?
Eat breakfast and don’t take any advice too seriously. This includes lists circulating throughout social media with titles like “11 Things You’re Doing Wrong with Your Life” or “8 Signs You’re on the Wrong Path.”
The Madness
Who is your favorite author?
Mikhail Zoshchenko.
If you could have dinner with one fictional character, who would it be and why?
Jay Gatsby, because I assume he’d pick up the tab.
What is the greatest occupational hazard for a writer?
Bored cats.
Who would play you in the film of your life?
Sylvie Testud. The film would be a French musical drained of all realism.
What’s in that cup on your desk? BEES
Additional Reading on Elisabeth
Personal website/blog
Twitter profile: @CooksChicken
Nice. Good wit.
I was quite happy when Elisabeth told me this poem was about one of my colleagues and not me. Elisabeth wrote this poem when she was in high school:
Case Against my Shyness by Elisabeth Cook
You come on like a red lipstick smirk against sickly skin
or a smack of electrical tape over my mouth.
You’re in the form of a teacher
who drags his podium up to the front of my desk
because he can’t hear me.
You’ve made my tongue forget enough words
so that I am unable to speak. I nod, instead,
in the corner; you nod back, grinning.
You have all the influence of God,
but you’ve mixed the rainbow muddy brown.
No promises kept here, reads the sign on your desk.
You lean back in your swivel chair and eye me
like fair game, lips pressed primly together
in greedy satisfaction.
Miracles are outlawed in your city.
Even when filaments of sun spill white as milk
over the dark platter of monstrous clouds.
The people sitting in the coffee shop don’t look up
from their newspapers.
I dance and fly while their backs are turned.
I go on with the reading of my novel,
but the last 50 pages have been torn out.
I can only guess you’ve been snooping around my room.
I reread the first part over and over again.
With you, there’s no end.
I want to kill the characters, to grab the plot
by the neck and twist it.
I want to murder you,
because you’re waiting for me now,
just outside the door.