The Last Song of the World

by Joseph Fasano

Joseph Fasano’s The Last Song of the World delves into the chaos of the modern world, and searches for resilience in the face of environmental and societal devastation. Dripping with images of ancient ruins and mythological figures, these poems serve as vignettes of fatherhood, love, and desire against the backdrop of apocalyptic events.

Through the documentation of ongoing violence and natural phenomena, Fasano depicts the ever-present anxieties of parenting with concision and compassion. The Last Song of the World is a love letter to the world that could be, a world as tender as it is bold, as loving as it is brutal, as beautiful as it is horrendous. 

Genres: Poetry

178 pages, Paperback

Published November 5, 2024

About the author

Joseph Fasano is the author of the novels The Swallows of Lunetto (Maudlin House, 2022) and The Dark Heart of Every Wild Thing (Platypus Press, 2020), which was named one of the "20 Best Small Press Books of 2020." His books of poetry include The Last Song of the World (BOA Editions, 2024), The Crossing (2018), Vincent (2015), Inheritance (2014), and Fugue for Other Hands (2013). His honors include the Cider Press Review Book Award, the Rattle Poetry Prize, and a nomination for the Poets' Prize, "awarded annually for the best book of verse published by a living American poet two years prior to the award year."

Fasano is an educator focusing on innovative learning strategies. He is the author of The Magic Words (TarcherPerigee, 2024), a collection of poetry prompts and educational tools that help unlock the creativity in people of all ages.

Fasano's writing has appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, The Yale Review, The Southern Review, The Missouri Review, Boston Review, Measure, Tin House, The Adroit Journal, Verse Daily, PEN Poetry Series, American Literary Review, American Poetry Journal, and the Academy of American Poets' poem-a-day program, among other publications. He is a Lecturer at Manhattanville University, and he hosts the Daily Poetry Thread on Twitter/X at @Joseph_Fasano_.

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry
All we have is a few sweet days
and naming.
White pine, blackthorne,
briar;
the new moon like a lost one’s
empty bed.
Ghosts: we are riddled
with their singing.
We rise, despite
it all,
each morning–
the voices of the silenced ones inside us.
And isn’t this, isn’t this
living?
Isn’t this what it means to raise the dead?
Joseph Fasano

Joseph Fasano wants to heal the world through poetry. He understands the pain and terror of life. And its joys. He has struggled with demons since youth, and he has been blessed with a deeply loved son.

Fasano wants you to know you are not alone. He freely shares his poetry on social media–and on pages left for people to find. He wrote, “I leave little notes in public with words I’ve heard in the darkness. They’ve helped me, and if they help you, you can have them, keep them, pass them on.”

What if, after years of trial a love should come
and lay a hand upon you
and say
this late
your life is not a crime.
Joseph Fasano

I had already read many of the poems in this collection when he shared them on social media. In one poem in this book he explains why: “Because even if this didn’t save you,/ didn’t you read this believing/in the one hope it’s shown you/ you are holding:/ that with the right words /you could still be transformed?”

Inventory
This is what we have.
The hawk calling in the dark forest.
The hands of our lovers,
resting on our chests as we sleep.
And more.
The spring wind
waking us again
like all the bridles of childhood
dragged across our bodies,
still warm from the wild things that were broken in them.
The brokenness
is what we have.
That, too.
At the edge
of the road,
the doe curls in sawgrass
where the wreckage left her.
No one is alone on this wild earth.
Let sorrow come.
Let the rain fall
on the cold doe in the open
where she crumbles in the coming rush
of trouble.
Let the heart
do
what it must do, ruined
as the wintered lips of the broken doe,
but opening,
sniffing the pistol.

Joseph Fasano

There is no hiding from the brutality of life in these poems, but an acceptance that this, too, is a part of what it means to be on this earth.

And there is the wonder of human love, transitory as it is. In “Teaching My Son to Swim,” Fasono writes about “this child I will hold like this for a few brief/seasons in my arms/before I have to let go/of all of it.”

I discovered Fasano during the Covid-19 pandemic when he was reading a poem a day on Twitter. Impressed with his poetry, I purchased several of his earlier collections, and later read his two brilliant novels, The Dark Heart of Every Wild Thing and The Swallows of Lunetto. He also recently published The Magic Words: Simple Poetry Prompts That Unlock the Creativity in Everyone, a book of poetry prompts that has opened up creative expression to scores of people of all ages.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book through Edelweiss.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb!

[Autumn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is what we do: we live on.
We appear
like feral things in the fir trees, intricate and bewildered
by the script in us.

[Aberdeen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Favorites:

Sudden Hymn in Winter
English
For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper
The Moon
For the One Who Will Have My bed in the Psych Ward
Penelope and Odysseus
The Land of Goshen
Teaching My Son to Swim

I found Joseph on Instagram through his stop-in-your-tracks "For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper" and knew I wanted to read more. I'm glad I did—there are some real gems in here. I loved the interweaving of Greek mythology with reflections on parenting and becoming. This collection is built around a pervading sense of doom and despair at a careening world, a feeling that resonates, but I think it would have been strengthened if it had had a few more poems like the AI one that mention explicit issues or concerns. Normally I would say the opposite—too many pop poems I see on Instagram can feel like overwrought tumblr posts regurgitating the current fashionable social justice cause. But sometimes I felt like these poems got lost in abstraction when a couple more concrete examples would have rooted them. The AI poem works because it stems from a personal experience—Joseph isn't writing a manifesto against AI as much as he is writing to a particular student he knows. More poems like that would have elevated this.

My biggest critique is that this collection should have been shorter or that the poems should have had more variety in images. By the end, every poem felt like this:

the madness of the burnings / of your ghosts that give you your own life / amid the ruin/ of your heart / of darkness in the forest with the doe / under that one, that one / moon that is your only song

I understand that of course collections have repeated central metaphors but oh gosh, I got sick of the moon by the end, which was too bad. Joseph can clearly write some stunners, so eliminating some of the filler poems would have helped them stand out more.

...this same soft voice
that wakens me:

Don't be afraid, Joseph.
The singing has to end
to be a song.

"For the End, Whenever It May Come"

[Sam Ging · Rating 5 out of 5]

If this just contained "the last love poem" id give It 5 starts because that is a poem I cannot read without bursting into tears.
But not one till rest on his laurels, this collection is jam packed with, heartbreaking, healing poetry.

[Papercuts1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This poetry collection picked up the pieces of my broken soul, gently turned them over in its hands, looked at them (REALLY looked, not minding all that blood) and sat with them, whispering softly “I’ll be here while you mend”.

[Ellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of this poetry collection was too sad for me, but there were some really beautiful ones. I don't think I'll be getting over Urgent Message to a Friend in Pain anytime soon.

[Brian B · Rating 4 out of 5]

remember you must live

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fasano is my favorite contemporary poet, and in my opinion this volume has many of his best poems, such as "Words Whispered to a Child Under Siege" and "Sudden Hymn in Winter." Truly astonishing and necessary work. —BW

[Mya Matteo · Rating 4 out of 5]

“all my life my life was trying to make you”

[EM Harding · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this collection and will undoubtedly come back to it again and again. My particular favourites were those that played with language such as 'English', as well as the Orpheus poems, which were both incredibly vivid in their images.

I enjoyed some of the central themes, the call to live life loudly and honesty, and the warmth and assurance explored around pain and death. I also liked, to a certain extent, decoding some of the metaphors used.

I only really have two criticisms about this book. Firstly, at certain points, I did get a little overwhelmed by the repetitive use of certain images: the dark garden, the moon, deer, singing your song, etc., although the last one was often played with and stretched further ("the singing has to end to be a song" was 😘👌).

Secondlt, there were also specific stories told in some of the poems that I did question why this poet? why this story? Section IV for instance is predominantly made up of poems from the POV of various women who lived through traumatic events. It probably wouldnt have struck me if they werent all back to back, but so much of this collection feels autobiographical, that it did feel like a strange change of tack. The poems are good, but something titled Genie Wiley, that begins with a quote about her, and then appears to talk for her ... there's something that doesnt sit right with me about speaking for a real person like that. Particularly, one that I believe is still alive.

Besides those two qualms, however, I have big love for this collection. It's one of the better written poetry books I've read in a long time, and I strongly enjoyed exploring the rich world Fasano had to offer.

[Toni · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Find someone in this world of furious burning who hears your life’s great chaos as a song.” — Written on the Wall of the Psych Ward

This quote is my favorite from this poetry collection. I was on a walk, listening to the audiobook, when that line hit me right smack in the chest. I had to pause and write it down.

“There is no one you’re betraying in your changes when you become the whole wild song of what you are.” — After Love

This book reads so quietly. It’s unassuming, almost chill… and then out of nowhere, truth bombs in Fasano’s beautiful, meaningful prose catch me by surprise. Whether he’s writing about mortality, heartbreak, love, loss, or grief, there’s so much honesty in his poems that makes me feel deeply seen.

“Love someone like the last song of the world.”

It helps that I experienced these poems narrated by the poet himself. It felt intimate — like he was reading secrets straight from his journal.

“No one is alone on this wild earth. Let sorrow come. Let the rain fall on the cold doe in the open where she crumbles in the coming rush of trouble.” — Inventory

It’s a quick read (or listen), but one that lingers. The kind where you jot lines into your Notes app — like I did — or feel something so intensely (like that first quote) that it just settles in your chest and stays.

[Daniel Silliman · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a few really moving and lovely poems here, including "For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper," "For the Person Who Asked Me Why I Post My Poems on Social Media," and "Penelope and Odysseus." And maybe that's all anyone can ask of a book of poetry. But a lot of the poems didn't work for me. They tended toward the ponderous, relied too much on ancient literature, and paid too little attention to form and sound and language. YMMV but I wanted more ambiguity and more texture.

[Miriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 Dreamy and romantic and sentimental. I enjoyed this but I have to admit that somewhere in the first half I started to really get distracted by his overuse of phrases like "burning" and listening "to the wind", "lying down" and going "through the dark" for example. These same phrases in almost every poem! They began to feel more and more cliche and were less and less effective. Still there were a few poems that really resonated and it was for sure worth reading.

[Samantha Terrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joe Fasano's evocative poetry, beautifully compiled in The Last Song of the World, will not disappoint. I love the simplicity of poems such as "The Valley" (with lines like, "Something in you made it through the night.") and the subtle complexity of poems like "Poppies." Lots of favorites in this rich collection.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Last Song of the World is an astonishing achievement—being both a prayer and a battle cry.
With persistent grace, Fasano gives voice to the heartbreak and beauty of parenthood in a world
full of shattered hopes and dreams.These poems don’t just speak; they stay with you.

[Cass · Rating 4 out of 5]

Impactful :)