Description

McSweeney’s, hardcover

Publication Date: June 7, 2022

Publisher Marketing: Confronted with a terminal cancer diagnosis,Jay Hopler–author of the National Book Award-finalistThe Abridged History of Rainfall–got to work. The result of that labor isStill 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.