Cemeteries and Galaxies: Poems

by John Koethe

John Koethe unravels timeless questions of death, math, meaning, and much more in this mesmerizing new collection.

John Koethe, one of our most philosophically sophisticated poets, has written a book of pithy, contentious, witty poems about our perennial, never-satisfied search for meaning.

The silent mysteries of the stars and the mute beauty of human graves have deep similarities that Koethe probes in these poems with a wondering, wandering gimlet eye that will delight the reader when they don’t terrify them.

Cemeteries and Galaxies is an extraordinarily provocative and, perhaps surprisingly, consoling book.

Genres: Poetry, American

69 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 1, 2025

About the author

John Koethe is an American poet, essayist and professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Koethe is originally from San Diego, California. He was educated at Princeton University and Harvard University.Koethe's published work includes Blue Vents (Audit/Poetry, 1969), Domes (Columbia University Press, 1973), The Late Wisconsin Spring (Princeton University Press, 1984), The Continuity of Wittgenstein's Thought (Cornell University Press, 1996), Falling Water (HarperPerennial, 1997), The Constructor, (HarperFlamingo, 1999), Poetry at One Remove (University of Michigan Press, 2000) and North Point North: New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins, 2002). His most recent books include Scepticism, Knowledge, and Forms of Reasoning (Cornell University Press, 2005), Sally's Hair (HarperCollins, 2006), Ninety-fifth Street (Harper Parennial, 2009) and ROTC Kills (Harper Perennial, 2012).

Koethe has also contributed poetry and essays to publications including Poetry, Paris Review, Quarterly Review of Literature, Parnassus, and Art News.His work has been included in anthologies of poetry, including The Best American Poetry (2003).Additionally, he was selected to contribute his views on contemporary poetry for the book Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms, which billed him as one of "85 leading contemporary poets."

Reviews

[Marc Nash]

Video review to follow

[Bella Bankes]

This collection feels different, in a Being John Malkovich sort of way, that is — the collection gives a real sense of how Koethe works through his ideations. As the reader you can visualize even his fleeting thoughts, as if they are (or were once) your own. You may ask yourself: could it be that has he been inside of *my* imaginings, rummaging around?

The way Koethe searches for the perfect words, only to question himself at the conclusion of his ruminations resonates so much. The fact that he adds this detail into the verse repeatedly is what marks the style of this collection for me.

The poems are a bit more undone in parts, yet we still get to experience his beautiful depictions even of mathematics, in the way that only Koethe can accomplish.

I am smitten.

[Zineb]

I’ll start by saying this isn’t quite my kind of poetry collection. I tend to gravitate toward poems that stand on their own, each with a distinct voice or shape. In Cemeteries and Galaxies, many of the poems felt quite similar in tone and structure, often beginning with quotations from other sources—which just isn’t my personal preference.

That said, this is for someone!

Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for sending me an ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own!

[Radwa]

of course, the author is a philosophy professor, I felt it.

sometimes the poems had me in their clutches and I was there nodding along every line, and then it lost me. maybe because of the tangent style of the prose? I don't know. I liked the ideas, but not all of the poetry execution.

[Michael P.]

I confess to a low opinion of philosophers. Most of them use language to show that the obvious may not be real and that nonsense may be real, and they do this sincerely.

This makes Koethe's poems wonderfully bracing. He understands the arguments philosophers use because he is a philosopher but finds that no matter what problems his colleagues find with the realities we all live, we usually know what is real and what is not. We could not function if we do not. This embrace of a real epistemology is wonderful and compelling.

Koethe also applies the same clear thinking to some of the more outré ideas found in quantum physics. It is wonderful to see a philosopher embrace the obvious as expressed in such great poetry.

[Sarah]

"As cemeteries are to individual lives, so galaxies are to individual stars,
reminders
Of their insignificance, and not just because there's so many of them or
because
They're so far away, but because it's so difficult to make sense of anything
Beyond this moment-sitting at your desk and trying to write another
Poem about it, wondering whether anyone can really understand their life
Or a universe beyond the eternal present, which is where you are."

Big brain shit that appeals to me.

[Lorren]

This collection was an interesting and contemplative read. The poetry was meandering and philosophical and reminded me Louis MacNeice with a touch of Walt Whitman. Poetry can be so subjective, and I think I generally prefer something a bit more immediate and imagery-based, but Cemeteries and Galaxies interesting to dive into.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley.

[Stew]

This was a decent collection of poetry. It was perhaps a bit monotonous and the poems went on a bit too long but overall it was a fair collection. I prefer my poetry a bit more lyrical but that's just a personal preference, not a reflection of the quality of the work.

[Stephanie Kesler]

Salvoy 1927 was stellar!

[Chris Brook]

Short collection of poetry I almost forgot I started back in September. Figured I should finish it before the year wraps.

[Anna]

Like a long conversation with a old friend about the finite vs the infinite.

[Jane MacManus]

Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC!

[Johnny Byutorie]

Thank you to NetGalley and FSG for access to this digital ARC.

This is a curious review since I do find the subject matter--the intersection of science, philosophy, and spirituality--compelling. However, as other reviewers have mentioned, the sort of rambling almost stream of consciousness feel and occasional "lost in the weeds"-ness that struck often in the more historically concerned pieces pulled me out of my reverie.

I also wished, for all the lovely blank verse, to have an occasional stanza to break things up a bit more (they are there, albeit infrequently). There was a very consistent structure that I do wish could have been changed up a bit more here and there as every poem used the same layout, but perhaps that is a complaint more for me as a fellow poet who likes to experiment with style and structure.

If Goodreads offered a way to give half stars, I would probably give this collection a 3.5. It's good at what it does best (existential musings about the universe and our relation to the ways we interact with it), but it may be too heady for some readers.