Steph's Reviews > The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

extremely dynamic, timely, clever, and evocative poetry.

gorging on the butterfly effect of ashes

。。。

i listened to the audiobook narrated by franny choi, and it was an experience. poetry in general can be difficult for me to fully grasp, and i'd never listened to the audio version of a serious volume of poetry, only of novels in verse (although this distinction does make me wonder why regular poetry collections feel so much more serious).

choi's narration is very good, and the audio format makes it easy to see the cleverness in her turns of phrase; she is certainly a skilled poet. but i think listening to the book also made it more challenging for me to absorb it fully, and to distinguish between some of the poems.

however, some particularly memorable poems are easy to distinguish:

"science fiction poetry" made me cry right off the bat, very early in the book. it's about the many small dystopias of our everyday lives, and captures our era's feeling of hopelessness.

"wildlife" is a dreamy fantasy about animals, plants, the earth teeming with life, bursting in beautiful ways. this one feels almost utopian, which is refreshing amidst choi's other subject matter, which is often rather dark.

"dispatches from a future great great granddaughter" hits all the right tearful spots. it reassures us that our helpless age will pass and shift into something else. something with its own challenges, but still, things won't remain this way forever. i love this poem for its quiet hopefulness, despite acknowledging the pain of being alive right now.