Joe Cottonwood
By Editor Sharon Waller Knutson
Novelist and poet Joe Cottonwood’s special gift is seeing what’s beneath the surface and uncovering it.
In his book, Foggy Dog, Poems of the Pacific Coast (Clear Heart Books,) Joe uses his storytelling skill to create snapshots of life others miss.
Somehow when I read Joe Cottonwood’s poetry I feel at home, safe, like with a sibling and so when I got his book, Foggy Dog, Poems of the Pacific I felt like I was going home. I knew I was right the minute I opened the book and read in his own signature, “To My Sister from another life.”
Joe and I bond not just because we write about the simple no frills life but because we are both dog people, save spiders and marvel at the beauty of the ocean and nature. We hug trees and welcome strangers into our hearts. Joe was raised by two chemists and chose to travel the world in a VW bus and live in the forest and remodel houses to finance his real love which is writing. Joe has the uncanny ability to look at people, dogs, trees and know what they are thinking and feeling.
His book is more than just about dogs, but I chose to focus on the dog poems because they moved me the most. He knows dogs, he understands them and he lets them be what they are: loyal, loving creatures who like Joe and me just want to be ourselves.
I asked Joe when he started writing and his fascination with dogs.
This is his response:
“I never started writing. I always wrote. But I didn’t realize I was a writer until my girlfriend pointed it out. I’d thought I was a scientist. Then I got booted out of a high school science program for goofing off, and my girlfriend pointed out that I should do what I loved. Which was writing. She could see it before I could. It was a light bulb moment. 60 years later (and same girlfriend) I still love to write.
I was lucky to have novels published by big New York City publishers, and then my star faded. I’ve also done small publishers and I’ve self-published. I’ve always written poetry but only in the last ten years became a full-time poet. I have no schooling in poetry, have taken no classes, done no workshops. I’m sure it shows. There’s a category of art called Naive Art (which I love), meaning painters untrained by art academies. I’m a naive poet.
I didn’t have a dog while growing up. In college my girlfriend (the same) got a puppy. We’ve had dogs ever since. So naturally they appear in many poems. In fact I just wrote another one today. Canine behavior is a microcosm of human behavior with more honesty. Much of what I know about people I learned from dogs.”
Road Dog
We’re driving fast
through farmland
when a roadside man waves his arms:
Slow down! Slow down! A dog, mid-highway.
I stop, blocking the road, turn on flashers.
Rose leaps out. I join her. We’re dog people.
Rose can’t catch the dog.
The man is shouting “Grab her! Grab her!”
By size and shape the dog is a shepherd,
colored like a beagle, looking friendly as heck
but confused and frantic.
I suspect this shep-beagle just wants
somebody to tell her what to do,
so I crouch and call “Come!”
From the center of the highway she runs
straight to my outstretched hands.
I seize the collar and command “Sit!”
She sits.
The man waddles over and takes her by the collar.
He’s overweight, bald with a white beard, bad hips.
He says, “I know where she belongs.”
Now I check on the cars behind my flashers,
engines idling. Drivers waiting.
Are they annoyed?
Nope. Big smiles.
Dog people.
Quinn in dog-time
Quinn in dog-time
is seventy-four years
yet Earl the propane driver
won’t deliver unless I’m home
because Earl swears the dog would eat
through the door to get him.
If so, Quinn would just nuzzle his hand.
The wet nose can distinguish intent,
right from wrong. Once, nobody home,
Quinn chased a burglar out the window
down the street into the forest. A neighbor saw.
Quinn returned two days later, none the worse,
hungry. Nobody saw that burglar again.
Toddler pulls hair,
which Quinn discourages
with intense licking, aggressive kissing.
Older kids use him as pillow, horse, armchair.
Quinn tolerates until, too painful, he will
slink to me, lay his head in my lap
and wait for them
to grow up.
Buck and Red
Buck Jacobs is a big man,
gray hair, bad teeth.
He meets your eye and crushes your hand.
Awkward in talk. Fluid in walk. Wary.
He cuts firewood, brings it to your door
in tidy piles, half a cord.
Buck’s dog Red jumps down from the truck,
pads up to you with shaggy coat,
a rough beauty,
wags once or twice and then works his job
sniffing bushes, watching squirrels,
relaxed but you know he could summon
instant power if provoked.
A fine beast.
That Dog
She showed how to greet
strangers
met by chance:
On tiptoe.
Then dance.
She explained with harmony
canine laws:
One must howl
just because.
She taught how
to bear pain:
to limp, to grin,
to not complain.
Day’s end
she knew best:
circle thrice,
sigh,
then rest.
Elderly mutt
toddling, stiff-hipped
thoughtfully sniffs each stalk of weed
as if savoring
dog poetry.
Redwood Rosa
So supple, she stretches
outside my window.
Summer, she glories in sunlight,
dancing a languid hula.
Autumn, she sheds her robe,
tucks my yard in a blanket of duff.
Winter, she pumps water from soil,
grips hillside, holds house from slide.
Elbows nudge my bedroom wall.
Toes crack my foundation.
Prankster, she lifts my porch.
Sometimes in storms of anger
she drops spears through my roof.
She’s the goddess here.
I make sacrifices.
Read more about Joe:
https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2023/06/storyteller-of-week_16.html
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