Review of Douglas Cole's "The Cabin at the End of the World"

Douglas Cole, The Cabin at the End of the World (Unsolicited Press, 2024) 98 pages, poetry, $16.95 US. Order here.

This reads like a pandemic book. It is full of frenetic energy as if we are inside the head of a shut-in with cabin fever. It starts out as a collection of prose poems rooted in locations. We bounce around the U.S. with a series of snapshot-like moments and roll-call listings of street names. And lines like these:

"I wash my face. I make food. I look out a window. Time is very slow. Winter extends itself. I lift weights, think or read. Spring is under glass. And if you read much further, you become part of the fable." - "Distances"

As the book evolves, however, the energy calms, the poems change form, and you are introduced to the title cabin and the (increasingly more content) human who inhabits it. Therefore, this book represents a journey. At first, it seems quite external perhaps. But it becomes clear that the journey is an internal one of someone learning to enjoy a measure of solitude in a "cabin at the end of the world".

Lines that stood out:

"he has to say stone and stone again" - "Drive Through"

"Darkness swallows the city down to its diamond feet and snakeskin streets" - "Infinite Gaze"

"a drone-dead sky blasted open with no parachute to cling to" - "Notes for The Grey Man"

"Like an abandoned theatre, as I wander through the empty rooms because there's no one else here. Time is happening without me." - "Caught in a Dream"

"water can tell how it took down mountains to liberate you" - "West Cove"

Disclosure: I did receive a free review ebook copy to read in order to write this review, as is industry standard.