Rachel Cole

Rachel Cole, bending the boundaries of the acceptable, plays with the idea of vulgarity to comment on the basic essence of things. She created a new movement in metaphoric logic, coining the phrase “Scheißeweg.” Cole has described this form of allegory as “creating a vital central image and then burying it in disgusting undesirables. This forces the reader to get down on their hands and knees to rummage through the poem. This automatically places the reader in an uncomfortable position, but one which is necessary to expand the preset perception of reality” (Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader, 4th Edition). Cole attributes most of her inspiration to a six-month period she spent touring Southern Kentucky as a Sanitary Engineer. Her first accredited work was an ode in sixteen sections to a urinal patty.

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