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| | | [To] The Last [Be] Human by Jorie Graham review – where angels fear to write | | by Kate Kellaway Sep 27, 2022 | | The American poet faces the future anguished but unblinking in this magnificent collection of her four most recent books Four of Jorie Graham’s most recent collections have been brought together here and their importance goes beyond the literary. She is a distinguished figure on the American poetry scene, a Pulitzer prize winner and Harvard poetry professor (a much-quoted piece in the New York Times, in 2005, implied she was too successful to be trusted). But there is nothing safe about her unparalleled work. The first collection here, Sea Change, was published in 2008 when the climate crisis was less inescapably in our minds but already Graham’s consciousness of the planet’s precariousness was driving her. She is best read aloud – no more than two or three poems at a time. Too much can swiftly become too much. The bracketed title, [To] the Last [Be] Human, can be read as imperative and/or as aftermath – present and future co-existing. A number of her poems start like entries from a log book: “Summer heat, the first early morning” (Later in Life). Or “End of autumn. Deep Fog” (End) or “Evening. Not Quite. High Winds again”. (No Long Way Round). She begins with an anchoring in the present moment before projecting away. There is often a movement, as in the book’s title, between control and loss of control, a swerve between her personal sense of self and the endangered universal. She is weather vane, sentinel, about-to-be lost soul. What makes her work required reading is her readiness to go where angels fear to write, to do the terrifying work of visualising the future. The form of several poems adheres to a right-hand margin, which contributes counter-intuitive discomfort, a reminder of the limits of freedom – no hard shoulder upon which to pull up. Continue reading... | | | | | Love Around the World review – the happy-clappy global family of coupling up | | by Leslie Felperin Sep 27, 2022 | | Andela and Davor Rostuhar spent the first year of their marriage looking into relationships around the world for this sweet-natured documentary Directors Andela and Davor Rostuhar are a married couple from Croatia who, after he proposed during a visit to Antarctica, decided to spend the first year of their marriage travelling around the world interviewing other couples about love. They must have packed some serious kit in their luggage, including a high-definition drone or two, because the resulting documentary is very polished for what was presumably a mostly two-person operation, beautifully shot by Davor and seamlessly edited together. Apart from the pinprick-sharp drone shots, the film smoothly intercuts between interviews with all kinds of couples, the occasional single person, and a few three-person relationships, representing diversity on every possible axis. Effectively it’s a series of cinematic portraits, seemingly conducted in the interviewees’ homes: sometimes in a regular living room, sometimes a central Asian floor heaped with piles of blankets, and sometimes in the middle of a rainforest where an Indigenous pair discuss their domestic routines. There are two lesbian couples, one American and one in Iran; the latter adds a contemporary resonance given the current protests over women’s rights in that country. Some have kids, some don’t, and some have had to nurse children through long illnesses and watch them die, as is the case with a very lovable pair of older Americans. One woman recounts running away at the age of 12 so she wouldn’t have to enter into an arranged marriage with an older man with Aids; every angle is covered. Continue reading... | | | | | |
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