A Year of Last Things

Each new book of Michael Ondaatje’s is a literary event, but that is particularly true for his books of poetry. In A Year of Last Things he comes close to writing something like a timeless poem, “a memory poem” that reflects outside and inside time at the same moment, recording the mercurial, mysterious feeling of being alive. The poems become intimate, unresolved stories, loyal to feeling and presence, the lyricism of dreams applied to narratives of lives and landscapes. A Year of Last Things is a remarkable, incomparable new collection -- Terrance Hayes, author of So to Speak Michael Ondaatje’s love of the world and its wonders, the kindness he offers, the elegant lyricism of his sentences, the joy of storytelling... restore belief in the beauty and power of literature and, by extension, of humanity -- Aleksandar Hemon, author of The Lazarus Project Michael Ondaatje defies the normal distinction between poet and novelist. His writing is consistently tuned to a visionary pitch -- Graham Swift, author of Waterland My life always stops for a new book by Michael Ondaatje -- Jhumpa Lahiri, author of The Namesake