Surviving the Moment of Impact

by Rachel, T. Cole

• ISBN13: 9781887128865
• ISBN10: 1887128867
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-06-11
• Publisher: Soft Skull

Summary

T. Cole Rachel, a self-described “weird midwestern kid who dreamed all his life of running away to the big city,” writes poems about the act of survival. His locales are specific (the Midwest, rural America) and his voice (the adolescent outsider) recognizable, but, as Bret Easton Ellis writes, he “makes the mundane feel urgent, fresh, vital. This is powerful writing.” “The energy and precision and respect [Rachel] brings to [his subjects] is heart-stoppingly affirmative.” — Edmund White

Author Biography

T. Cole Rachel is a writer, editor, and teacher who lives in Brooklyn. His books include Surviving the Moment of Impact and Bend Don't Shatter.

Table of Contents

Miles, Etc. an introduction
mcpoem	p. 3
july 4, 1996	p. 4
before leaving	p. 5
pulled	p. 6
winners never quit	p. 7
where he's been	p. 8
the wait	p. 9
the proof	p. 11
"yr so great"	p. 12
the things that wait	p. 14
things that are lost	p. 16
removing the dead	p. 17
the poem is	p. 21
surviving the moment of impact	p. 22
on collaging childhood photographs	p. 24
having never succeeded as a chain smoker	p. 25
the grandparents	p. 26
misplaced	p. 27
rlegy for a cousin who has fallen off the face of the planet	p. 28
what is left	p. 30
my father, one of those things I never write about	p. 32
my fears that I am a bad person are once again confirmed	p. 33
ties	p. 34
dear diary	p. 39
telling	p. 40
missed	p. 41
suspension of disbelief	p. 42
like a hole in the head	p. 43
the gift	p. 44
six degrees of the devil	p. 45
cadaver poem	p. 46
sometimes it happens	p. 47
this poem is haunted	p. 48
retained	p. 49
figuring out what sex means	p. 51
fear of flying	p. 53
saved from drowning	p. 56
this is where I know you from	p. 58
the project of the poem	p. 59
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