In her 20th book, Veer, poet Cole Swensen explores the art of the unexpected, those moments when language slips its leash and takes a sharp, exhilarating turn. The title itself signals that shift.
“I chose Veer as the title because these pieces often take dramatic turns, suddenly twisting into the illogical or diving into the absurd,” Swensen says. “I wanted to explore credulity—and the fun of believing in the ridiculous, even if just for a moment.”
That sensibility runs throughout her latest collection of poems, which arrives May 12, as the inaugural release in Alice James Books’ Jean Valentine Series, honoring mid-career poets reshaping contemporary verse. Swensen’s work, long associated with ecopoetics, digs into how we relate to the natural world—not as distant observers, but as participants embedded within it.
“Nature poetry has such a long and wonderful tradition,” she notes. “The shift enacted by ecopoetics is the shift from the traditional stance of looking at the world … to moving, thinking and engaging with the world—of which we are an inseparable part.”
That fluidity finds a formal counterpart in Veer’s prose-poem structures. Swensen describes the form as a hybrid space: “In a couple of other books over the past 10 years, I’ve played with a fusion of poem and essay, and this, in a sense, is a micro-version of that form… I love the contrast, even the car-crash, of those two tones—soundplay and simple fact.”
The poems themselves often begin with fragments. “I think they begin with a line, a sequence of words, almost as if overheard,” she says. “It’s the momentum and rhythm of the sequence that propels the piece, that drives it and creates it.” That sense of following language into its own logic gives Veer its distinctive energy.
If Veer feels attuned to motion and transformation, it may also reflect Swensen’s own life between continents, and her work as a translator of French poetry, bringing the work of writers like poet Pierre Alferi into English. Because Swensen divides her time between California and France, she must constantly recalibrate. “Living in two places means that you are constantly re-adjusting—everything from language to daily habits—I love that,” she notes. “More than the dual perspective, it’s the constant shift that is extremely stimulating, that jolts the creative juices into action.”
That idea of perpetual adjustment—of veering—manifests both in the book and her broader career. Swensen traces her foundation back to early days in Marin County’s poetry community. “Those early conversations gave me the resources to expand into other questions, particularly in relation to other arts and to the environment,” she says.
Now, with Veer, she finds herself part of another lineage, one tied to the late poet Jean Valentine. “It means the world to me. It is such an honor,” Swensen states. “Jean Valentine was a guiding poet for me as a young writer … on my sense of what poetry is—and on what poetry can be.”
That sense of possibility—of poetry as a space where the logical can give way to the luminous—defines Veer. It’s a collection that doesn’t just describe the world but illuminates our embeddedness, and invites readers to follow along as it swerves into new terrain, where the unexpected is welcome, and essential.
Cole Swensen presents her new book, ‘Veer,’ at 7pm, Monday, May 18, at City Lights Booksellers and Publishers, 261 Columbus Ave., San Francisco. The event will be streamed via Zoom as well (registration required). citylights.com/events/cole-swenson.
