Poetry. Finalist for the Julie Suk Award. "LAST WINDOW AT THE PUNK HOTEL is the most recent collection from one of Americas most daring poets. It can be unnerving to read the reality Rob Cook brings to his language, especially when it gets so close to your face. If you don't flinch, or run off, however, his work brings a lot more to you than you might think of bringing to it. Reading these poems closely, looking into their eyes, you can't help but know that no matter which side of the mirror Cook appears to be on, his reflection is pretty much your own. And if it just so happens to be one you've never faced before—which is most likely—then, it's obvious you should have been paying closer attention." —Paul Roth "Exceptional artistry originates from diverse experiences, many of them disconcerting and even degrading. One's flesh follows its own genetic and environmental script in spite of our better, often antiseptic, angels. Wherever Cook may be on mortality's time span, his poetic work inexorably advances before him with its surgical candor and its strange, unblinking imagery. If you harbor even a modicum of belief in the curative power of words, read this marvelous poet." —Dennis Daly