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In Joseph Cooper's The Thief of Mars, the mundane collides with the surreal in prose poems, transforming everyday life into dreamlike fables of longing and absurdity. A dunk tank clown plunges into an alternate dimension, a man falls in love with a blouse he finds in the park, neighborhoods are invaded by circus performers, and drama unfolds across the canvas of lawns. Cooper's collection navigates the strange territories between reality and fantasy, where seemingly ordinary rituals of suburban life crack open to reveal something darker, funnier, and more profound within. These prose poems carve out distinctly contemporary terrain. Across countless subjects, Cooper finds unexpected tenderness in the grotesque and genuine heartbreak in the ridiculous. The Thief of Mars is a collection for readers who appreciate dark humor, imaginative leaps, and the recognition that beneath our carefully maintained surfaces, we're all just one step away from becoming something else entirely. Grab some popcorn, your favorite drink, settle in, and indulge in Joseph Cooper's scenic joy-read of whimsical imaginings. The Thief of Mars is a funhouse made of our everyday living - dynamically orchestrated scenarios of stretched and morphing mirrors. The domesticities, desires, and banalities of our work-a-day lives are reflected back in hilariously evocative distortions; transfigurations where we experience deeper human truths. Cooper's wildly inventive characters are discomfited, disturbed, oblivious, and passionate; their hijinks act upon the reader in allegorical fashion, offering a perceptive psychological commentary on our contemporary capitalist fever dream. This book is a riot - where joys and disquietudes of the imagination wrest back sanity from the wreckage. -Jared Hayes, author of Unconscious Shipwreck The Thief of Mars is an unnerving, dreamlike, and totally enjoyable collection of miniatures that explores the weird psychic underside of modern prosaic life. Joseph Cooper crafts uncluttered, forward-moving prose into door-shaped narratives that keep opening and opening into scenes packed with humor and pathos, moments where our fragile sense of control gets rolled up under the stealer's wheel of chaos. -Andrew K. Peterson, author of Young Stars of the Bubble
