God I Feel Modern Tonight: Poems from a Gal about Town

by Catherine Cohen

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Sometimes, even in poetry, we need to take a step back and laugh at life. Do you know how, with semantic satiation, a word becomes meaningless the more you say it? The repetition makes the word sound absurd. Cohen's poems help give clarity to our absurd world. Every day we "wash, rinse, repeat." This book puts the cycle on hold, and we feel refreshed because of it.

Poems of heartbreak and sex, self-care and self-critique, urban adventures and love on the road from the millennial queen and comedy sensation.

In these short, captivating lyrics, Catherine Cohen, the one-woman stand-up chanteuse who electrified the downtown NYC comedy scene in her white go-go boots, and who has been posting poignant, unfiltered poems on social media since before Instagram was a thing, details her life on the prowl with her beaded bag; she ponders guys who call you "dude" after sex, true love during the pandemic, and English-major dreams. "I wish I were smart instead of on my phone," Cat Cohen confides; "heartbreak, / when it comes, and it will come / is always new." A Dorothy Parker for our time, a Starbucks philosophe with no primary-care doctor, she’s a welcome new breed of everywoman—a larger-than-life best friend, who will say all the outrageous things we think but never say out loud ourselves.

in L.A. we got naked and swam in the ocean we ate cured meats and carrots
& sat in the back of a red pickup truck like we were in a film where two old friends fight
& wrestle their way into a hug heave-sobbing as the dust settles
I want to be famous for being the first person who never feels bad again

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593318331
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/02/2021
Pages:	80
Sales rank:	281,841
Product dimensions:	4.50(w) x 6.70(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Catherine Cohen, a native of Houston, Texas, is a comedy sensation who has a residency at Joe's Pub and hosts a weekly show at Club Cumming in NYC; she also cohosts the popular podcast about dating, boys, and sex, Seek Treatment. She has been featured in The New York Times, Vogue, and The Village Voice, and was named Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2019. Her many film and TV credits include a role in Michael Showalter's The Lovebirds and Season 3 of High Maintenance on HBO. Follow her while you're young @catccohen on Instagram.

Read an Excerpt

poem I wrote after I told you I was empathetic

I go to the CVS on 14th & 8th and you’ve asked me not to contact you anymore one time you were having a smoothie like it was 1998
and there was nothing I could do about it your jawline is so perfect that I cannot stop telling you to kill me even though you said please stop asking me to kill you a leaf just fell outside my window remember when I tripped on the dance floor and that guy who always talked about Ibiza called me a fat whore?

I should have said I’m a leaf
I’m a leaf like I was in a play like I was in something bigger than my body
I can’t tell if my therapist is cool or just has short bangs
 
 
poem I wrote after I tried to write a tweet about sparkling water

I’ve got a disease where I haven’t watched an entire feature film since the aughts do you like how I said “aughts”?
you don’t see that every day!
I’ve never been to a sex party but one time I made fun of this girl for bringing deviled eggs to an event and then I ate six of them.
humiliation, satisfaction,
a long walk home in spring.
I love sex and I love before it—
the double vodka soda leg touch
Is it possible to miss everything at once?
 
 
poem I wrote after I had the strangest urge to
confide in dear friends beneath starlight

I just took a pregnancy test to feel alive and all I got was piss on my hands
I don’t think I’d take my daughter to get her nails done if I were a mother she can do that with her friends if she wants
I’d like to have kids at 35
so I can start wearing graceful linen sacks and calling everyone “darling”
I’d like to wear lipstick and lean on a built-in bookcase and tell you I like Helen Frankenthalther and did you know that’s her painting on the Renata Adler novel I told you to read the one I never finished because I needed to have sex with someone who lived on the Upper West Side can you grab some ice?
I like ice in my wine

Editorial Reviews

An unflinching collection that explores sex, ego, art, bodies, millennial ennui, and longing.” —Arianna Rebolini, Buzzfeed

“Cat’s poetry is the perfect manifestation of her singular persona. It’s outrageously funny, bold, unafraid, absurd, unadorned and somehow consistently profound. I belly-laughed involuntarily throughout, was repeatedly moved, and mostly marveled at her deliciously unique voice.” —Ben Platt
 
“This book is a party & at the party you meet somebody who is hilarious & charming (but also hot & smart!) & the reason you’re together is because you’re both a little sad in a modern way plus the outlet is there & your phones are both at 12 percent. After reading this I wrote seven million things I’ve always been meaning to but hadn’t yet because I felt I didn’t have permission & that is what these poems gave me: permission to be the freaky little bitch I’ve always been, searching endlessly for something more.” —Melissa Lozada-Oliva, author of Peluda
 
“Does anyone chronicle and lampoon millennial ennui as hilariously, as vulnerably and as bitingly as Cat Cohen? NFW TBH. I’m a stan!” —Alan Cumming, author of Not My Father’s Son

From the Publisher