Old Stranger: Poems

by Joan Larkin

In this sixth collection from a beloved American poet, the reader is asked to reflect on the stranger within others—and ourselves.

The speaker in Old Stranger begs to be seen and known, even when faced with her aging and her own mortality. Even as we age, there's a looming space for the mysterious stranger we embody without realizing it. Do we ever truly know who we are?

In the book, familiarity takes so many forms, as does the sometimes the stranger is a loved one, sometimes it is the speaker to themselves, and other times it's one who might seem like a stranger in the poem but turns out to be recognizable in one or more ways. We are looking back, but at the same time we are so much in the present, there's an in-betweenness of the temporal that is so dreamlike and delicious. The poems are suspended and feel weightless even as their subjects are weighty and, at times, dark.

Genres: Poetry

100 pages, Paperback

Published August 13, 2024

Reviews

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who is the "old stranger" referenced in the title? Is it Donald Moffitt, the late sci-fi writer who was Larkin's brother? Or the poet's father, who also pops up a few times? Or perhaps the "carbon steel knife" which miraculously rematerializes itself in a kitchen drawer for the title poem? Or the beggar woman encountered on a Chelsea street corner ("At 24th & 10th")? I suppose the obvious answer is Larkin herself, an elder of LGBT poetry who memorably confronts her own aged image in "Fanny," only to tell herself later when met by Death in "White Pine" to "keep walking." But I don't think the answer is so simple (or that Larkin would intend it to be). Instead, I'll break the title down somewhat further, down to "old" and "stranger" -- for age and aging are definitely common themes; and one gets the feeling that the familiar is inherently odd or off or sadly puzzling like the "Three-Inch Day-of-the-Dead Musician" statuette that fiddles the air while standing on Larkin's desk. Not that this collection is bleak. A warmth informs Larkin's verses, reminding the reader too, of the idiomatic greeting "Hey, stranger..." used when encountering a friend too long unseen.