Gadfly: A Lifetime of Writings by Sherry Cothren. Cool Dog Sound, May 1, 2025.
Nowhere on the cover does Sherry Cothren’s Gadfly identify it as poetry. Where the designation “Poems” or “Poetry” would appear under the title it reads “A Lifetime of Writings.” There are some hints on the back blurbs. RB Morris writes that her words “can musically wind out into rhyme or tempo or phonetic wizardry.” Pat Cochran refers to them as “poetic prose.” But this collection of a lifetime in writings is, indeed, literally and undisputedly poetry. Free verse, yes. But her imagery, metaphors, rhetorical techniques, and more–her poetic energy–reveal that these fine writings of a lifetime were rendered by a poet.
This should not be a surprise to those who know Sherry as a writer of song lyrics and perennial rocker in the Jackson, Mississippi music–literary–arts scene. The bio beside her author photo says that she “began writing original songs and confessional prose at the age of 12.”
Eschewing the designation “Poems” on the front cover is both humble and a defiant statement against classification. Humility and defiance is an oddly charming combination and exceedingly rare. But then again Ms Cothern is the rare writer who keenly expresses those seemingly irreconcilable and unresolvable combinations effortlessly. One reviewer calls it “raw…and yet refined.”
Fresh and on point language adds further to Gadfly’s uniqueness. From “Shade” for example: “when the clock moves slow, is the universe side-eyeing you.” And this simile: “It’s like a brick wall that has a crack or two/catching a glimpse of what could be you” from “Fat Lip City.”
Fat Lip City, “not a grander place to see old demons and buy them a shot of whiskey.”
Ms Cothren uses minimal punctuation and little capitalization which adds mightily to the stream of consciousness feel of these stanzas.
About that consciousness–it’s not like yours and mine. It’s not like anyone else’s. Most of us are afraid of our demons or rage at them. Ms Cothren sometimes addresses those demons directly, other times they seem to be somewhere in the background lurking over the narrative of the poem. She never fears her demons or pleads with them. They seem to be old friends, old friends like those who have done you harm and are socially clumsy but whose appearance in your life is inevitable and what can you do?
Call it demons or psychiatric disorders or fate or being human in a world with other humans both intimate and unknowable (again the oddly matched and seemingly inconsistent juxtaposition). Ms. Cothren sees them for what they are and talks to them with wit and a certain resignation that somehow make them seem smaller, less scary, even figures of fun. Not that all these poems are demon tête-à-têtes however. “What Awaits You” is as hopeful a poem as I’ve read and as good an answer to existential angst as ever I’ve seen.
Check list: Feels things exquisitely–check. Dark sense of humour but the joke’s on the darkness–check. Awareness of the irony that is life with a knowing grin–check. Getting through life or even just the day in spite of it all–check.
Her musical career comes up now and then as in “Siva House Blues”: “I heard the news today, oh girl.” And from “An Afternoon at Pere Lachaise, 1994”: “Here lies Piaf/and there Moliere/but rock and roll never dies/or even grows up.”
She has a talent for stating the non-obvious in such a way that it should have been obvious all along. In “A Prescribed Order” she writes “getting closer doesn’t always require getting older.” Damn right. Let’s get it on. The final lines are often punchy (like gut punchy, a trait I find engaging), throwing you for a pleasant flip but always landing you gently on your feet.
Classifying a literary work is not the business of writers but of critics. I think most critics will agree with me that Ms Cothren’s poems here are reminiscent of the beat poets in their fresh rebelliousness. If I had to compare her to someone though it would be Sylvia Plath, equal in profundity and often more evocative in imagery.
Each entry in what she calls a lifetime of writings rather than poems is dated by date of authorship but not presented in chronological order. I’ll revisit them to trace how she has developed as a writer on a second reading but my first reading tells me that her earlier poems are as good and sometimes better than some of her latest ones. While my interest is literary, you will want to give them a second reading, too, for pleasure.
These words tend to pull up a chair inside your head and sit there knowing you’ll come back, both tantalizing and taunting you. If you read them carefully you will find some words that act as a salve for the chafe absurdities of life. From the title poem “Gadfly”: “laughter is not the best medicine/unless you are laughing at the absurdity/of any knowledge you may think you carry.”
The next time I’m up during a dark night of the soul, now I have a plan. I’m going to buy my demons a shot of whiskey and read them Sherry Cothren’s Gadfly.
Gadfly is set to publish on May 1, 2025. See Sherry Cothren at these appearances:
May 2, 2025 at 5:00–Signing, Violet Valley Bookstore, Water Valley, MS.
May 2, 2025 at 7:00–Reading and Performance, this is noteworthy, Water Valley, MS.
May 17, 2025 at 12:00 noon–Signing, Lemuria Bookstore, Jackson, MS.
May 17, 2025 at 6:00–Reading and Performance, Urban Foxes, Jackson, MS.
Life and Literature 