{"id":341,"date":"2021-12-08T22:05:26","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T03:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/?page_id=341"},"modified":"2025-07-21T13:57:57","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T17:57:57","slug":"virgils-cow","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/poetry\/virgils-cow\/","title":{"rendered":"Virgil\u2019s Cow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-8f761849 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-normal-font-size\">FREDERICK FARRYL GOODWIN<br><br>2009. 978-1-4243-3113-0 \/ 1-4243-3113-7<br>$18.00 <a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/books\/virgil-s-cow\/9781424331130\">Bookshop<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Virgils-Cow-Frederick-Farryl-Goodwin\/dp\/1424331137\">Amazon<\/a> | Pathway<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>Twenty years in the making,&nbsp;<em>Virgil\u2019s Cow<\/em>&nbsp;is the debut collection by apocalyptic American poet and former hardcore vocalist Frederick Farryl Goodwin, whose poetry has been described as a \u201cstrange mix of Grand Guignol and lyricism\u2026a potent brew of fractured pastoral and seedy cityscapes, fragile confessionalism and Shakespearean film noir\u2026 The workings of some Spicerian angel\u2026 teetering on the brink of some ghastly void\u201d (<em>Signal to Noise<\/em>&nbsp;Magazine). Improbably fusing the best of what tradition has to offer this \u201cOxbridge\u201d educated poet with attention to recombinatory energies,&nbsp;<em>Virgil\u2019s Cow<\/em>&nbsp;presents a luminous voice for today\u2019s brave new linguistic world of \u201chybridized\u201d possibility.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-normal-font-size\">Reviews &amp; Such<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Geoffrey Cruickshank-Hagenbuckle&#8217;s interview with Frederick Farryl Goodwin posted to the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.montevidayo.com\/tales-from-the-crypt-cruickshank-hagenbuckle-interviews-frederick-farryl-goodwin\/\">Montevidayo<\/a>&nbsp;blog on March 27, 2014.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Samuel Amadon reviewed&nbsp;<em>Virgil&#8217;s Cow<\/em>&nbsp;for the&nbsp;<em><a href=\"http:\/\/bostonreview.net\/amadon-virgils-cow\">Boston Review<\/a><\/em>&nbsp;on September 6, 2010.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sentinelandenterprise.com\/ci_14024895\">The Sentinel and Enterprise<\/a><\/em>, hometown newspaper of Frederick Farryl Goodwin, spoke with the author about participating in the Struga Poetry Festival.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>John Latta reviewed&nbsp;<em>Virgil\u2019s Cow<\/em>&nbsp;on July 29, 2009 for his blog, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/isola-di-rifiuti.blogspot.com\/2009\/07\/frederick-farryl-goodwins-virgils-cow.html\" target=\"_blank\">Isola di Rifuti<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>There is a genuine trance-vibe in Frederick Farryl Goodwin\u2019s voice. As if he\u2019s standing upon a suburban rooftop with a blue ribbon tied to his pinkie holding it in the air, eyes closed, divining the sounds and characters of mytho-loves past and future. His lines are alive, they must be, his breath so desires it. They delight in simple flux with fonts not afraid of sex. Frederick is a beautiful poet, authentic and undone, loving the page only to whisper in your year while clutching noise cassettes to his heart.<br>\u2014<strong>Thurston Moore<\/strong>, co-founder, Sonic Youth<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In \u201cThe Nature of the Gothic,\u201d John Ruskin postulates that the contents of \u201cthe Gothic heart\u201d include, in part, \u201ca magnificent enthusiasm, which feels as if it never could do enough to reach the fullness of its ideal; an unselfishness of sacrifice, which would rather cast fruitless labor before the altar than stand idle in the market; and, finally, a profound sympathy with the fullness and wealth of the material universe.\u201d Taking Ruskin at his word, the heart behind the poems in&nbsp;<em>Virgil\u2019s Cow<\/em>, Frederick Farryl Goodwin\u2019s unforgettable debut, is, then, perfectly, passionately, and unabashedly gothic. As adventurous in its lexicon as it is irrepressible with its typography, at times as decorous as \u201cthe seven gazelles of the senses,\u201d yet always fully capable of \u201cdevastating feral fury,\u201d Goodwin\u2019s work skitters from tantrum to tender meditation; it seeks and finds an ecstasy \u201cfueled by ferocious gasoline.\u201d The book intoxicates with its sonic exuberance. It aspires, storms, confesses, repents; it grows savage, devotional, bawdy, uproarious. It offers an abundance\u2014both of the spirit and of the letter\u2014too rare in poetry today. The cow in Goodwin\u2019s title poem may be \u201cuttering songs of undigestible beauty\u201d and \u201clistening to the muzak \/ of his own kazoo,\u201d but a truer totem animal for this collection might be the ceremonial bull in Virgil\u2019s fourth georgic, its innards magically erupting a scherzo of honeybees, a swarm of stung song.<br><strong>\u2014Timothy Donnell<\/strong>y, author of&nbsp;<em>Twenty-seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebenszeit<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>These are strikingly fresh, accomplished and colorful poems, and consistently powerful.<br><strong>\u2014John Newton<\/strong>, editor of&nbsp;<em>The Selected Poems of Charlotte Mew<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-normal-font-size\"><br>About the Author<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Frederick Farryl Goodwin was born in 1953 in Framingham, Massachusetts, and matriculated at Brown University at age 27, after an adolescence of blunt trauma. (He became mute at the age of 16, following the suicide of his mother, and spent three years hospitalized at McLean Hospital in Belmont.) Following a string of odd jobs, he became the vocalist for the hardcore band Black Hole, and then moved to the U.K., graduating with an M.A. from Clare College, Cambridge. He has worked in the U.S. and abroad as a theatre director, furniture salesman, debt collector, performance poet, farm hand, house painter, and lumber truck driver. He is the author of two collections of poetry published by Miami University Press:&nbsp;<em>Virgil&#8217;s Cow&nbsp;<\/em>(2009) and&nbsp;<em>Galactic Milk: the Five Questions of Mortality<\/em>&nbsp;(2013).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized is-style-default\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"809\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/files\/2021\/12\/goodwin_virgilscow-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-342\" style=\"width:450px;height:607px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/files\/2021\/12\/goodwin_virgilscow-2.jpg 600w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/files\/2021\/12\/goodwin_virgilscow-2-222x300.jpg 222w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized is-style-default\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"724\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/files\/2021\/12\/Goodwin.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-339\" style=\"width:450px;height:543px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/files\/2021\/12\/Goodwin.jpg 600w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/files\/2021\/12\/Goodwin-249x300.jpg 249w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FREDERICK FARRYL GOODWIN 2009. 978-1-4243-3113-0 \/ 1-4243-3113-7$18.00 Bookshop | Amazon | Pathway Twenty years in the making,&nbsp;Virgil\u2019s Cow&nbsp;is the debut collection by apocalyptic American poet and former hardcore vocalist Frederick Farryl Goodwin, whose poetry has been described as a \u201cstrange mix of Grand Guignol and lyricism\u2026a potent brew of fractured pastoral and seedy cityscapes, fragile [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":995,"featured_media":0,"parent":25,"menu_order":9,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-341","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/995"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/341\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}