27 | Alexei Perry Cox | Finding Places to Make Places

Finding Places to Make Places
Vallum Chapbook Series No. 27
Winner of the 2019 Vallum Chapbook Award
Alexei Perry Cox

Alexei Perry Cox utilizes incredible rational and philosophical stances in her work which point to her being a notable thinker. The main energies in the text involve time, the passage of time, the inability to come to terms with a constantly shifting time and also a shifting geography. In other words, Perry Cox’s work embraces the concept of universal flux.

“Because the scalpel of intellect isn’t able to adequately discern between
operation and autopsy, the object of its incision is abstract at first and only
during the act itself does it emerge from the fog of unconsciousness into the
sphere of understanding to gradually acquire the face of a conscious reality.”

With Arabic and other contemporary intertextuality, Perry Cox underscores that “some of the things we try to understand are simply incomprehensible, and this is precisely because of their essence;” and asks questions like: “Why do we so stubbornly look for locks to every door—even the ones that are already open?” Perry Cox also engages in the book with notions of hyper-masculinity and the female condition, with the concluding pages being more focused on mothers and motherhood.

Author’s Bio

Alexei Perry Cox is the author of the poetry collection Under Her and short fiction collection To Utter a Life’s Sentence. Her work has appeared in various iterations in The Puritan, carte-blanche, CV2, Hart House Review, Vallum, Makhzin / مخزن, Matrix, Cosmonauts Avenue, Rusted Radishes, Journal Safar (جورنال سفر) The Beijinger, Lemonhound and elsewhere. She has two wondrous young ones named Isla and Ilham.