Cold Is Cold Is Cold, by Brian Baumgart

Poetry, chapbook, 20 pages, from Bottlecap Features. The poems in Brian Baumgart’s Cold Is Cold Is Cold take aim at the fraught relationship between the desire for connection and the insecurity that comes with a world on edge, often bridging the interior with the weight of the sociopolitical. At once anxious and hopeful, these poems ask questions of themselves as much as they provide answers. While the poems are disparate in structure and approach, taking a look from many angles, they come together to create a conversation, one in which no voice is given more volume than the others. As with any good conversation, Cold Is Cold Is Cold arrives at its conclusion by exposing secrets and letting the ghosts that inhabit the poems haunt beyond the page. Brian Baumgart is the author of the poetry collection Rules for Loving Right (Sweet, 2017), and his writing has appeared in a number of journals, including South Dakota Review, Spillway, Whale Road Review, and has been nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net awards. Brian is an English professor and previously served as the Director of Creative Writing at North Hennepin Community College. He is the father of two teenagers, both of whom are absolutely ridiculous and terrifying.