Lacquer is a Thrilling Word

By Barrie Cole

Barrie Cole's Lacquer is a Thrilling Word, invites readers to immerse themselves in the sublimity of language through unconventional forms and inventive metaphors. In this full-length collection of poems and short prose, Cole's signature word play and strange takes can be found in to-do lists, fortune cookie fortunes, run-on sentences, and more. Each poem somersaults toward the places where the beauty and absurdity in living are revealed in equal parts.

Poet Alison Luterman says, "to enter the pages of Lacquer is a Thrilling Word is to walk inside the wild and wonderful, kaleidoscopically shape-shifting mind of Barrie Cole, appreciating an odd truth bomb here, a moment of delight or humor there, and now and again a totally unexpected light ray of divine wisdom shooting through a dusty stained-glass window that was somehow exported from an ancient Gothic cathedral to a grocery store in downtown Chicago..."

Lacquer is a Thrilling Word is the newest addition to longtime Chicago resident Barrie Cole's catalog which includes more than a dozen plays like Fruit Tree Backpack, Reality is an Activity, and Elevator Tours as well as multiple hybrid works, essays, short stories and monologues. Her work has received multiple Critic's Choice Selections and other critical praise. A regular in Chicago's Storefront theater scene, her plays have been produced by Theater Oobleck, Prop Theater, Curious Theater Branch, Labyrinth Arts Collective and others. She has appeared in many live reading shows as well including f Miss Spoken, Write Club, Story Sessions, Poetry at the Green, You're Being Ridiculous and many others. She lives in Chicago near Lake Michigan with her partner and her two grown children live nearby.,

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GZTKKJ4J
• ISBN13: 9798899904691
• Release Date: May 2026
• Publisher: Finishing Line Press
• Length: 102 Pages
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"