A Sacrificial Zinc: Poems

A Sacrificial Zinc is concerned with one’s sense of place and being- the search for one’s many comfort zones and how they intertwine to create a unified identity. Employing a nautical object as an extended metaphor, these poems navigate the waters to find the now vanished western panorama of Cooperman’s youth, a series of past influences, natural objects and lovers. Throughout the book our narrator seeks to comprehend the nature of displacements: where we are, and equally, where we have been. Incessantly asking, Where is it that you’re from? the poems’ answer is simultaneously many places, many times, many voices, and resolutely, here in the natural world. California desert and mountain spaces and the flora and fauna of the Pacific Rim are central to the metaphors and themes in this collection about one’s personal landscape.