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In her first poetry collection in more than a decade, celebrated novelist and poet Lynn Crosbie creates a sustained and confessional record of her father¿s illness.The Corpses of the Future is a sustained, confessional new collection of poems by Lynn Crosbie. It tells the story of her father¿s battle with frontotemporal dementia and blindness following a stroke. The poems chronologically recount the poet¿s conversations and time with her father and capture his still-astonishing means of communicating. The book¿s title is his sardonic remark. Crosbie considers dementia to be a symbolic language, and as such similar to poetry. The author¿s attempts to understand her father¿s distress, pain, fear, and brave love are assisted by her understanding of the ¿negative capability¿ required of readers of poetry.
This is a harrowing book, with moments of joy and even levity. It is a collection of poetry about love, and love¿s persistence, even under the most unspeakable circumstances.
About the author
Lynn Crosbie is a cultural critic, author, and poet. She teaches at the Ontario College of Art and Design and the University of Toronto.
Summary
In her first poetry collection in more than a decade, celebrated novelist and poet Lynn Crosbie creates a sustained and confessional record of her father’s illness.
The Corpses of the Future is a sustained, confessional new collection of poems by Lynn Crosbie. It tells the story of her father’s battle with frontotemporal dementia and blindness following a stroke. The poems chronologically recount the poet’s conversations and time with her father and capture his still-astonishing means of communicating. The book’s title is his sardonic remark. Crosbie considers dementia to be a symbolic language, and as such similar to poetry. The author’s attempts to understand her father’s distress, pain, fear, and brave love are assisted by her understanding of the “negative capability” required of readers of poetry.
This is a harrowing book, with moments of joy and even levity. It is a collection of poetry about love, and love’s persistence, even under the most unspeakable circumstances.
Additional text
Praise for Lynn Crosbie and Where Did You Sleep Last Night:
“Lynn Crosbie is what a great writer should be: pissed off, bereft, misunderstood, impolite, funny, and in love with the madness of the world.” Miriam Toews, author of All My Puny Sorrows and A Complicated Kindness
“Where Did You Sleep Last Night is terrifying and beautiful. It is a thrift store jam packed with once loved, tattered, and gorgeous images. Crosbie is as mad as Rimbaud, as sweet as Keats, and as debauched as Courtney Love. Kurt Cobain would have adored her.” Heather O’Neill, author of The Girl Who Was Saturday Night and Lullabies for Little Criminals
“Lynn Crosbie’s Where Did You Sleep Last Night is a brilliant portrait of romance, rages, passionate reunions, the emptiness of fame, and the devastating losses that afflict two doomed rock stars locked in a heart-shaped box. Every sentence is poetry. I predict this book will, like Kurt Cobain, develop its own cult following.” Jowita Bydlowska, author of Drunk Mom
Praise for Lynn Crosbie and Life Is About Losing Everything:
“It’s almost terrifying how deep this book goes, and how quickly it gets there. I’ve sometimes wondered if I’ve lost my ability to feel the world in a certain way, and this book reminded me that I haven’t.” Douglas Coupland
Praise for Lynn Crosbie and Liar:
“Not since Margaret Atwood’s Power Politics has the love poem been this honest, this intelligent, this gripping. Imagine yourself in the middle of an autopsy, only to find the heart still beating.” Michael Turner
