Not on the Last Day, But on the Very Last
Winner of the National Poetry Series: "Filled with unusual juxtapositions and quick cuts that make the poems seem movielike, even trancelike." —Library Journal
Mothers masquerading as witches and sepulchral bellhops who reveal themselves to be fathers: In Justin Boening's debut collection of poems, selected for the National Poetry Series by Wayne Miller, nothing is as it seems.
Peopled by figures both uncanny and tragic—lionesses who dance and cry, surgeons who carry with them the trauma of past lives, an opera singer whose notes go awry—Not on the Last Day, but on the Very Last uses the language of dreams and of fairy tales to deliver a keenly felt exploration of family, grief, regret, and belonging. Here everything stands for something else. But though the Freudian mother and father lurk behind every sequined costume, continue to strip away the masks, Boening suggests, and you'll find an even more primal absence at the center—Nobody, No One, mortality, death. Beyond that, we find, lies only the truth of our relationships with each other.
Shot through with mournfulness, gorgeously spangled in its language—"a squall of chrysanthemums / and the weird"—Not on the Last Day, but on the Very Last is an unforgettable collection about our human failings and the grace we each seek.
"A stunning achievement." —John Ashbery
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Not on the Last Day, But on the Very Last
Winner of the National Poetry Series: "Filled with unusual juxtapositions and quick cuts that make the poems seem movielike, even trancelike." —Library Journal
Mothers masquerading as witches and sepulchral bellhops who reveal themselves to be fathers: In Justin Boening's debut collection of poems, selected for the National Poetry Series by Wayne Miller, nothing is as it seems.
Peopled by figures both uncanny and tragic—lionesses who dance and cry, surgeons who carry with them the trauma of past lives, an opera singer whose notes go awry—Not on the Last Day, but on the Very Last uses the language of dreams and of fairy tales to deliver a keenly felt exploration of family, grief, regret, and belonging. Here everything stands for something else. But though the Freudian mother and father lurk behind every sequined costume, continue to strip away the masks, Boening suggests, and you'll find an even more primal absence at the center—Nobody, No One, mortality, death. Beyond that, we find, lies only the truth of our relationships with each other.
Shot through with mournfulness, gorgeously spangled in its language—"a squall of chrysanthemums / and the weird"—Not on the Last Day, but on the Very Last is an unforgettable collection about our human failings and the grace we each seek.
"A stunning achievement." —John Ashbery
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Not on the Last Day, But on the Very Last

Not on the Last Day, But on the Very Last

by Justin Boening
Not on the Last Day, But on the Very Last

Not on the Last Day, But on the Very Last

by Justin Boening

eBook

$9.99 

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Overview

Winner of the National Poetry Series: "Filled with unusual juxtapositions and quick cuts that make the poems seem movielike, even trancelike." —Library Journal
Mothers masquerading as witches and sepulchral bellhops who reveal themselves to be fathers: In Justin Boening's debut collection of poems, selected for the National Poetry Series by Wayne Miller, nothing is as it seems.
Peopled by figures both uncanny and tragic—lionesses who dance and cry, surgeons who carry with them the trauma of past lives, an opera singer whose notes go awry—Not on the Last Day, but on the Very Last uses the language of dreams and of fairy tales to deliver a keenly felt exploration of family, grief, regret, and belonging. Here everything stands for something else. But though the Freudian mother and father lurk behind every sequined costume, continue to strip away the masks, Boening suggests, and you'll find an even more primal absence at the center—Nobody, No One, mortality, death. Beyond that, we find, lies only the truth of our relationships with each other.
Shot through with mournfulness, gorgeously spangled in its language—"a squall of chrysanthemums / and the weird"—Not on the Last Day, but on the Very Last is an unforgettable collection about our human failings and the grace we each seek.
"A stunning achievement." —John Ashbery

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781571319517
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Publication date: 10/05/2021
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 82
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Justin Boening is the author of Not on the Last Day, but on the Very Last, selected by Wayne Miller as a winner of the National Poetry Series, and Self-Portrait as Missing Person, which was awarded a Poetry Society of America National Chapbook Fellowship. He is a recipient of the "Discovery"/Boston Review Poetry Prize, a work-study scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, a Stadler Fellowship from Bucknell University, and a Henry David Thoreau Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. His poetry and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in publications such as Denver Quarterly, Kenyon Review Online, Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly Journal, Narrative, and TYPO, among others. Boening is currently a senior editor at Poetry Northwest, and is cofounding editor at Horsethief Books.
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