80 pages
English language
Published April 8, 2020 by Bloodaxe Books.
In the Lateness of the World is a dark book of crossings, of migrations across oceans and borders but also between the present and the past, life and death. The poems call to the reader from the end of the world where they are sifting through the aftermath of history. Carolyn Forché imagines a place where ‘you could see everything at once... every moment you have lived or place you have been’. The world here seems to be steadily vanishing, but in the moments before the uncertain end, an illumination arrives and ‘there is nothing that cannot be seen’. In the Lateness of the World is a revelation from one of the finest poets writing today. Her meditative poetry has a majestic sweep, with themes ranging from life on earth and human existence to history, war, genocide and the Holocaust.
Powerful poems, but only letting some light fall on the murky complexity of struggling war-torn lives - I have loved hearing her lyrically relate the stories of several of these in interviews and talks, while the poems themselves are spare and careful.
