Still Life

Longlist, National Book Awards 2022 for Poetry

book cover for Jay Hopler, Still Life
ISBN 9781952119378
McSweeney's Publishing
Jay Hopler author photo, credit Ryan Johnson Photography
Jay Hopler

Jay Hopler (1970-2022) was the author of Green Squall and The Abridged History of Rainfall, a National Book Award Finalist; and the editor, with Kimberly Johnson, of Before the Door of God: An Anthology of Devotional Poetry. More about this author >

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From the publisher:

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.

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