Consider the Rooster

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST POETRY COLLECTIONS OF 2024 BY LIT HUB AND ELECTRIC LITERATURE FINALIST FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD IN POETRY FINALIST FOR THE 2025 CLMP FIRECRACKER AWARD IN POETRY FINALIST FOR THE LAMBDA AWARD FOR TRANSGENDER POETRY Consider the Rooster serves as an ode to a rooster’s crow, a catalyst for awakening, both literally and figuratively. Amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic, the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder by police, and the resulting upsurge in reactionary right-wing militia violence, a neighbor in Kalamazoo, Michigan threatens to call the police after discovering the author’s pet rooster. The rooster sounds the alarm and our author wakes to revolutionary transformation. An ecological consciousness embedded in these verses invites readers to acknowledge their place in a web of relations. Oliver Baez Bendorf’s voice resounds through liminal spaces, at dusk and dawn, across personal meditations and wider cultural awakenings to form a collection overflowing with freedom, rebellion, mischief, and song.