Lecturer IV; Director, Undergraduate Program in Creative Writing; Director, Bear River Writers' Conference
He/Him/His
About
“Poor Devil”
My poetry manuscript’s working title, Poor Devil, comes from a passage in Charles Baudelaire’s “On the Essence of Laughter”: “The poor devil has disfigured himself, at the very least; he may even have broken an essential member.” Brokenness is one of the manuscript’s central concerns; I’m interested in how people, along with the communities they form, collapse and (sometimes) reassemble themselves. These collapses may be tragic (caused by, say, cruel government policies)—or they may resemble pratfalls. (Baudelaire’s “poor devil” has merely stumbled on a cobblestone.)
In terms of subjects, my poems focus on politics, on parenthood, on End Days, both large and local. A concluding suite of poems addresses my mother’s experience with dementia.
Cody Walker is a Lecturer IV in English Language and Literature.
