(cover: Bret Andrew Cohen)
Negative Aspects follows Cohen’s powerful voice down a winding path of vibrant anecdotes and intriguing questions. Her observations are astute, the exploration of the roots of family and how a child might survive in a seemingly predictable society asking all the wrong questions. This book is a force of seeking important answers about creativity, idle minds, brilliance, upbringing, social dynamics, and the best modes and spaces for which to learn. Cohen’s meditations on society and education spark with immediacy, the words compelling, the sentiments necessary.
--- Jonathan Starke, author of You’ve Got Something Coming, Founding Editor of Palooka Magazine
Marion Deutsche Cohen is the author of 32 collections of poetry or memoir; her newest poetry collection is “Stress Positions” (Alien Buddha Press), and her latest prose collection is “Not Erma Bombeck: Diary of a Feminist 70s Mother” (Alien Buddha Press). Rhythm and Bones Press also published her book, “The Discontinuity at the Waistline: My #MeToo Poems”. She is also the author of two controversial memoirs about spousal chronic illness, a trilogy diary of late-pregnancy loss, and “Crossing the Equal Sign”, about the experience of mathematics. She teaches a course she developed, Mathematics in Literature, at Drexel University’s Honors College. Other interests are classical piano, singing, Scrabble, thrift-shopping, four grown children, two grown step-children, and six grands. Her website is marioncohen.net .
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Two Magic Shows
The first was at my mother’s school. I was excited about meeting her students and co-workers and being treated like my mother’s kid. And I was anxious to be called on by the magician. Furiously I raised and waved my hand but I wasn’t called on until close to the end and then it was only to tap the handkerchief three times. The other called-on kids had been given speaking parts, opportunities to make the audience laugh. I wasn’t one of the main ones and I wasn’t one of the first ones. I was, in fact, one of the last ones. It was a little like picking teams in gym.
The second was at my daughter’s school. She was six years old. Everything was fine until after the show. My daughter went up to the magician and said “I liked your play.” The magician answered, “Thank you very much, dear” and then turned to a little boy also about six years old who had also said “I liked your play.” “Oh, thank you!” and he bent closely down. “And how old are YOU?”
My daughter said “And DURING the show he seemed so nice.”