Order a Signed Copy
$16.00
Please note if you'd like it signed to anyone specific.
Interviews from the Last Days
By Christina Loraine
Published in 2019 by Atmosphere Press
INTERVIEWS FROM THE LAST DAYS is a story told across 20 poems, with different characters revealing pieces of the mysterious world through interviews about their jobs. One poem, "The Tree Builder" was nominated for a 2018 Pushcart Prize by Eye to the Telescope. "The Tree Builder" is also published in THE 2018 RHYSLING ANTHOLOGY.
From the back cover of the book:
FORGET WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT POETRY...
WE'RE COUNTING DOWN TO AN APOCALYPSE.
On a planet that suffers from two suns above and an overly pragmatic culture below, people have evolved to live underground, eat minerals, and suppress creativity. Their society is focused on supporting a war with an alien race that their soldiers strangely fail to remember. Meanwhile, unexplained phenomena play out in the sky, and a religion is growing around a paleontological find and a group of mystics uncovering more than what's been buried underground.
Having figured out that the end is near, a Journalist is faced with the angst of too much information and not enough power. Collecting and preserving the stories of the planet's people becomes the Journalist's focus. Each poem is a different character sharing the details of their job, describing not only the intricacies of their profession but also revealing bits of the larger story as well as their own humanity.
Together these twenty voices weave a tale of a civilization concealing smoldering secrets and a hidden intergalactic political agenda, all while using clever scientific, military, artistic and literary references to tie them to our own world in unexpected ways.
You already know what becomes of the planet, but what happens to the people? Will they heed the warnings, revolt, and hop on the next flight-ship before it's too late? Or will these interviews be all that remain?