Tinamarie Cox’s A Collection of Morning Hours (Bottlecap Press, 2024) is a love letter to morning and the birds accompanying those first hours of the day. In this chapbook, Cox considers her role as a lover of nature and user of technology, and the contradictions that come with each side of that coin. Hailing from Arizona, Cox’s poetry alludes to beautiful western sunsets and the painfully dry heat of the day specific to her home. A Collection of Morning Hours details her appreciation of her tidy mornings, comparing them with the messiness of the afternoon.
The collection opens with “Morning Cocktail,” in which Cox warns the reader about the connection to the demands of daily life, foreshadowing what is to come throughout the rest of her day. Cox juxtaposes her relationship to nature with her less-joyful relationship to technology. She discusses her appreciation of the mornings––when it is just her and the birds and sun––free from the demands of the human world. The morning hours draw Cox back down to her earthly roots, allow her to bask in the sun and silence of the morning, and feel as if everything is renewed. She begins the chapbook with:
here and there are clouds and sun
and in the early hours of a summer morning
when it’s just the birds
and the distant dull scraping of tires on the highway
I think:
this is me (Cox 1)
The appreciation of Cox as a figure between society and nature, however, changes into a larger distaste further in the poems. The initial moments in the chapbook lay the groundwork for the emotional journey of Cox’s day.
Cox follows the opening poem with several love letters to birds and the joyful “cacophony” they bring to each morning throughout this collection (Cox 3). In “A Cup of Coffee,” her coffee even “tastes better with the birdsong” (Cox 7). Cox’s charming reflections on the joys of her birds is fun to read and evokes memories for the reader of their own morning birds, mine being the seagulls that wake me up as the sun rises along the western edge of the North Sea. No matter how early she, or I, wakes, the birds are always there.
Later in A Collection of Morning Hours, Cox delves into her complaints of the afternoon, explaining a reluctance to leave the morning. In “The App Who Shall Not Be Named,” she compares the tweets outside her window to the tweets on her phone. The outdoor tweets are more peaceful and selfless than the tweets “cry[ing] for [her] attention” on her phone (Cox 8). Cox considers the demands of technology and the competition for attention that the media age brings. Though the app is not named, each reader can relate their own black-hole-app (I tend to volley between TikTok and LinkedIn) to the poem.
In a similar vein, Cox’s poem “Hotter = Warmer” further lodges her complaints of the Arizona afternoon. As heat mounts, Cox moves inside and away from her source of morning bliss. She feels uncomfortable with the heat and the stress the afternoon brings. She continues this feeling of discomfort with the next poem “To-Do Lists.” Cox appreciates the practice of making a to-do list in the morning, because it feels hopeful. As her day progresses into the afternoon, she descends into external demands not listed on the to-do list, and suddenly her day is less new, less inspired.
Most of the rest of the collection looks forward to the next morning. Cox anticipates the next sunrise, the next pocket of serenity and inspiration before the day truly begins and the rest of the house wakes up. Cox’s collection questions how many mornings she has left to herself; she worries about not being able to experience them all. It is full of regret of missed morning sunrises and relief that she has this life in which she is able to appreciate the sunrise every morning. In “Counting Sunrises,” Cox worries she has “spent too much of this lifetime/ existing/ not living,” (Cox 18). The collection even moves beyond just the sunrise and into the pocket of inspiration or relief that an afternoon renewal post rain or storm or some other dark event can provide.
And then, ingeniously, Cox wakes up again. Her final poem, “Today, I am Different,” is the perfect ending to this morning collection. The short piece is nothing more than a note of excitement. “But this is no longer the same story./Today, I start my sequel,” Cox says, “Today, I am different,” (Cox 23). She is renewed, full of hope and optimism and inspiration; ready to take on her brand-new day.
A Collection of Morning Hours inspires the reader to appreciate their own mornings. The charming way in which Cox writes about the realities of her day and her fondness of the morning is relatable on so many fronts that it only makes sense for the reader to begin to look forward to the newness of the morning, as well.
A Collection of Morning Hours is available from Bottlecap Press
Annabel Phoel is a junior studying English and Government/International Relations between William & Mary and the University of St Andrews, where she currently resides. She is a staff writer on St Andrews’ Not Applicable Magazine and helps on their editorial board. When not writing or studying, Annabel is rowing on various lochs in Scotland.
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