"Confronted with a terminal cancer diagnosis, Jay Hopler--author of the National Book Award-finalist The Abridged History of Rainfall--got to work. The result of that labor is Still Life, a collection of poems that are heartbreaking, terrifying, and...
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"Confronted with a terminal cancer diagnosis, Jay Hopler--author of the National Book Award-finalist The Abridged History of Rainfall--got to work. The result of that labor is Still Life, a collection of poems that are heartbreaking, terrifying, and deeply, darkly hilarious. In an attempt to find meaning in a life ending right before his eyes, Hopler squares off against monsters real and imagined, personal and historical, and tries not to flinch. This work is no elegy; it's a testament to courage, love, compassion, and the fierceness of the human heart. It's a violently funny but playfully serious fulfillment of what Arseny Tarkovsky called the fundamental purpose of art: a way to prepare for death, be it far in the future or very near at hand."--Publisher's website
Upon learning that I am the 51st most-famous person from Puerto Rico -- Chapter one : Radiation vault -- Meditation on my cancer -- Self-portrait not looking -- Story problem -- Still life w/ hands -- After the diagnosis: meditation on the origins of "death's thin melody too (variations on an escalator)" by paul rudy -- Some lights go out -- Parade -- The canonization -- Reason for not moving -- War comes to the island -- The seawall -- Still life w/ wet gems -- Another afternoon -- Imaginary photograph sunset mother's day davis island florida 2020 -- The sky is like the sky in a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder -- The murder -- The trauma sutra -- Honky-tonk sonnet -- Chapter two : To my wife on our anniversary -- Swarm -- The church gardens: a walk -- Love & the memory of it -- Loom -- Poem after a poem by césar vallejo w/ a nod to donald justice -- Erasure -- The vacation over -- Chapter three : Discarded memoir titles -- Duck & groundcover -- Student evaluation of instruction: obituary edition -- Appendix -- Memento mori -- Requiem w/ eye roll -- Benediction -- Benediction 2 -- Meditation on the Italian cinema -- Still life w/ feet -- Monster -- Meditation on folklore: a coda -- Family astrology -- Markers -- Obituary.
