Cool Women Collect Themselves

Cool Women is a critique group of eight women who have been performing their poems together for seven years. At estrogen-drenched poetry readings in venues from New Jersey and Pennsylvania to Oregon and in three volumes of poems, they have explored the arc of women s lives with depth and humor. Cool Women Collect Themselves presents four rounds of poems with each poet in reply and dialogue with the readers before her. Although each poet has a strong individual voice, Cool Women think of themselves a group in which the communal enriches the personal. The Cool Women lead intense and involved lives. Besides teaching and writing more than 200 years, they have worked as caterers, telemarketers, food stylists, artists models, and a night bell girl; they have raised families and toiled in advertising, medicine, recruiting and insurance. They have received nine New Jersey State Council on the Arts grants, two Allen Ginsberg awards and one William Carlos Williams Prize. They have been nominated for six Pushcart Prizes and for the National Book Critics award. They have pubished 26 books, not including the three Cool Women volumes. They have been married 13 times and have 16 children and 16 grandchildren. Above all, they are artists of the written and spoken word. Cool Women Collect Themselves 1. Where the Songs Come From written by Penelope Schott and performed by Eloise Bruce, Juditha Dowd, Carolyn Edelmann, Lois Harrod, Betty Lies, Joyce Lott, Judy Michaels, Penelope Schott Hot Poems by Cool Women 2. Cento of the Lovers Betty Lies 3. The Generosity of Pears Penelope Schott 4. But Is It a Valentine? Judy Michaels 5. Firsts Carolyn Edelmann 6. Our Geisha Doll Joyce Lott 7. Ours Juditha Dowd 8. That Was the Afternoon Lois Harrod 9. Waiting For You Eloise Bruce Cool Women Collect Themselves 10. Living in a House Without Men Joyce Lott 11. Conversing With an Orange Juditha Dowd 12. Duenna Penelope