After Cocteau

by Carolyn Miller

Poetry. In the title poem of this collection, based on a scene from Jean Cocteau's 1946 film La Belle et la Bete, Beauty's father falls asleep in the castle of the Beast, although the room he dozes in is alive with magic. The poems in AFTER COCTEAU are testaments to the miracles that surround us, from the natural world to the world of art. The book's narrative arc moves from California to the Missouri Ozarks and back to the coast again. Along the way, we meet other travelers on the "dark path" Amelia Earhart, an aging cat, Salvador Dali. The book ends with a meditation on the water-lily paintings of Monet, and the way in which art and nature reconcile us to the mingled joy and grief of our existence.