Ryan Mayer
Exploring Uncertainties and The One Certain Thing with Peter Cooley
Peter Cooley served as Poet Laureate of Louisiana from 2015-2017
and is currently the Poetry Editor of Christianity and Literature, as well as Professor Emeritus at Tulane University, where he was the Director of Creative Writing from 1975-2018. He has authored eleven books, the most recent of these being The One Certain Thing—a collection of elegies dedicated to his late wife and first reader, Jacqueline Cooley. Ryan Mayer received his BA in English from Loyola University New Orleans and is pursuing his MFA at The University of New Orleans. He is an emerging poet and writer. On February 2nd, Peter Cooley kindly agreed to discuss The One Certain Thing with me; our conversation took place April 26th via email. RM: The title poem of your previous book, World Without Finishing, reads, “That we live again is certain.” In what ways does The One Certain Thing uphold, or push against, this notion? PC: A great question! The One Certain Thing upholds the notion “that we live again is certain.” Both my wife and I believe in the immortality of the soul, in some kind of afterlife, and I hope the whole book makes Jacki “live again” in art for the reader. RM: “There really is no word for it.” This is the first line in the opening poem, “Widower.” You have previously spoken about poetry as a means of naming. How does naming inform “Widower” and other 9
