World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On - The Library of the Uncommons

144 pages

English language

Published March 27, 2022 by HarperCollins Publishers, Ecco.

ISBN:: 978-0-06-324008-7

(1 review)

Many have called our time dystopian. But The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On reminds us that apocalypse has already come in myriad ways for marginalized peoples and calls us to imagine what will persist in the aftermaths.

With lyric and tonal dexterity, these poems spin backwards and forwards in time. They look into the collective psyche of our years in the pandemic and in the throes of anti-racist uprisings, while imagining other vectors, directions, and futures. Stories of survival collide across space and time--from Korean comfort women during World War II to children wandering a museum in the future. These poems explore narrative distances and queer linearity, investigating on microscopic scales before soaring towards the universal. Throughout, Choi grapples with where the individual fits within the strange landscapes of this apocalyptic world, with its violent and many-layered histories. In the process, she imagines what togetherness--between Black and …

Many have called our time dystopian. But The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On reminds us that apocalypse has already come in myriad ways for marginalized peoples and calls us to imagine what will persist in the aftermaths.

With lyric and tonal dexterity, these poems spin backwards and forwards in time. They look into the collective psyche of our years in the pandemic and in the throes of anti-racist uprisings, while imagining other vectors, directions, and futures. Stories of survival collide across space and time--from Korean comfort women during World War II to children wandering a museum in the future. These poems explore narrative distances and queer linearity, investigating on microscopic scales before soaring towards the universal. Throughout, Choi grapples with where the individual fits within the strange landscapes of this apocalyptic world, with its violent and many-layered histories. In the process, she imagines what togetherness--between Black and Asian and other marginalized communities, between living organisms, between children of calamity and conquest--could look like. Bringing together Choi's signature speculative imagination with even greater musicality than her previous work, The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On ultimately charts new paths toward hope.

4 editions

4thace reviewed World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On by Franny Choi

Review of 'World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I have admired this author's work for years now after having read for the SFPA's Elgin awards, where her collection [b:Soft Science|41745412|Soft Science|Franny Choi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1536484665l/41745412.SX50.jpg|65148118] won the Elgin award in 2020 in the full length category, and her chapbook [b:Death by Sex Machine|36131815|Death by Sex Machine|Franny Choi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1503825716l/36131815.SY75.jpg|57729869] was nominated for the 2019 award. That award is given for speculative poetry books but this collection is more on the mainstream side. This new book is a product of the time of pandemic but it also mines through history going back decades.

The things I like in her work are the way her words slash almost recklessly, the willingness to take big chances, and the balance between form and content that permeates all her works. She works with high stakes subjects, not the safe and restrained. I enjoyed this feeling of being able to perceive through her senses in …

I have admired this author's work for years now after having read for the SFPA's Elgin awards, where her collection [b:Soft Science|41745412|Soft Science|Franny Choi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1536484665l/41745412.SX50.jpg|65148118] won the Elgin award in 2020 in the full length category, and her chapbook [b:Death by Sex Machine|36131815|Death by Sex Machine|Franny Choi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1503825716l/36131815.SY75.jpg|57729869] was nominated for the 2019 award. That award is given for speculative poetry books but this collection is more on the mainstream side. This new book is a product of the time of pandemic but it also mines through history going back decades.

The things I like in her work are the way her words slash almost recklessly, the willingness to take big chances, and the balance between form and content that permeates all her works. She works with high stakes subjects, not the safe and restrained. I enjoyed this feeling of being able to perceive through her senses in her work. The diction may be casual but the ideas are not slack. The author comes from a time where poetry slams were a relevant phenomenon and is tuned to the spoken word. Her poems frequently feature questions of identity and of history both personal and communal. There are howls of pain and deep soul-shaking anger whether caused by outrages the speaker of the poem recalls, by historical crimes or sorrows.

In the Notes section at the end of this book she calls out many influences that have inspired a poem or contributed to it. These are not only other poems but also fictional works, visual works, other works of art, and personal contacts.

I received this advance reading copy through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.