# The Final Voicemails: Poems - Hardcover

by **Max Ritvo** (Author), **Louise Glück** (Editor)

**"Even present tense has some of the grace of past tense, / what with all the present tense left to go." From Max Ritvo--selected and edited by Louise Glück--comes a final collection of poems fully inscribed with the daring of his acrobatic mind and the force of his unrelenting spirit.**

Diagnosed with terminal cancer at sixteen, Ritvo spent the next decade of his life pursuing poetry with frenetic energy, culminating in the publication of _Four Reincarnations_. As with his debut, _The Final Voicemails_ brushes up against the pain, fear, and isolation that accompany a long illness, but with all the creative force of an artist in full command of his craft and the teeming affection of a human utterly in love with the world.

The representation of the end of life resists simplicity here. It is physical decay, but it is also tedium. It is alchemy, "the breaking apart, / the replacement of who, when, how, and where, / with what." It is an antagonist--and it is a part of the self. Ritvo's poems ring with considered reflection about the enduring final question, while suggesting--in their vibrancy and their humor--that death is not merely an end.

_The Final Voicemails_ is an ecstatic, hopeful, painful--and completely breathtaking--second collection.

### Author Biography

**Max Ritvo** (1990-2016) was the author of _Four Reincarnations_ and the chapbook _Aeons_, chosen by Jean Valentine to receive the Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship in 2014. Ritvo's poetry has appeared in the _New Yorker_, _Poetry_, and the _Boston Review_, and as a Poem-a-Day for Poets.org. His prose and interviews have appeared in publications such as Lit Hub, _Huffington Post_, and the _Los Angeles Review of Books_.

**Number of Pages:** 88

**Dimensions:** 0.6 x 8.6 x 5.9 IN

**Publication Date:** September 18, 2018

## Details

- **Price:** 22.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 22.00 USD | In stock |

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- The Final Voicemails: Poems - Hardcover
- The Final Voicemails: Poems - Hardcover

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