Famous Last Words

by Catherine Pierce

Winner of the 2007 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize, Selected by John Yau Catherine Pierce’s debut, Famous Last Words, is a love letter to life, poetry, and all things American. Beginning with a series of literal love poems (to the word “lonesome”, to blank space, to doo-wop, to fear, etc.), Pierce whisks the reader on a cross-country road trip (both literally and figuratively) that takes a tangential spree into a series of genre films and ends with gallows humor in the re-imagining of the events surrounding the famous last words of icons like Billy the Kid, Marie Antoinette, Isadora Duncan, and Pancho Villa. From start to finish, Pierce’s book is a delight to the senses, a playful, nostalgic dance that ends with the reader wanting more.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 2008

About the author

Catherine Pierce served as the Poet Laureate of Mississippi from 2021-2025 and is the author of four books of poems: Danger Days (2020), The Tornado Is the World (2016), The Girls of Peculiar (2012), and Famous Last Words (2008), all from Saturnalia Books. Each of her most recent three books won the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Prize; Famous Last Words won the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. Two new books are forthcoming in 2026: a memoir, Foxes for Everybody, from Northwestern University Press, and a poetry collection, Dear Beast, from Saturnalia.

Pierce’s poems have been published in many journals and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Nation, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, New England Review, FIELD, Pleiades, Gettysburg Review, and the 2019 and 2021 Pushcart Prize anthologies. Her essays appear in The New York Times, Ecotone, The Rumpus, The Millions, Cincinnati Review, and River Teeth. In 2019, she was named a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, and in 2022 she was selected as an Academy of American Poets’ Laureate Fellow.

From 2007-2024, Pierce was professor of English and co-director of the creative writing program at Mississippi State. She recently moved with her family back to her home state of Delaware, where she runs Studio & Craft, a poetry community, and continues to write, teach, and spend as much time outside as possible.

Reviews

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was just a random checkout from the library and wow, I loved it. This is a poet who I share many poetic sensibilities with. It is so exciting to read poets I feel that kinship with.

[Victoria Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfectly beautiful and witty.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pierce's first book shows promise--some poems appeared in an earlier chapbook (Animals of Habit), including a section of love poems to odd things (sinister moments, the word lonesome, the phrase 'let's get coffee, etc.), which is somewhat charming. She also has a small series entitled "In Which I Imagine Myself into a ..." [Western/Slasher Flick/Film Noir, etc.] The final section is another series of poems whose titles are the "famous last words" of people such as Isadora Duncan and Pancho Villa--sometimes those poems seem merely playful, but a few have the gravitas of a memento mori for the rest of us. I look forward to reading what Pierce does next--perhaps she'll move away from the series concept.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book beat mine in Saturnalia's poetry contest, so I'm glad that I think it's good. I've never heard of or read Pierce before her book came to my house, and after this one, I think I'll be on the lookout. I'm not a fan of the title, but I see where it's coming from--Famous Last Words follows an arc of personal --> less personal poems, the final series inspired by "famous last words" of folks like Billy the Kid.

Lots of different voices in this book--multifaceted and multi-tonal.

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pierce begins with the admission that love is not a single experience, but more singular. It is an observation I appreciate more and more as the book proceeds to tell the story of a love that started one way, looked at with nostalgia and criticism, to end. For me, the big turn in the book comes in "Graceland," with grandparents leading their children through the museum. Somehow the contrast in perspective, between the adult and the child, when looking at the life of Elvis, speaks most to the arc in this book.

[Coffy Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit disappointing. I got the book because I heard one of the poems on a Poetry Magazine podcast. I still think that particular poem, "In Which I Imagine Myself Into a David Lynch Movie", is a very good poem. In my opinion, the rest of the book did not measure up. Too often, the poetry felt self-conscious, as if the narrator kept imagining her younger self as the star of some melodramatic chick flick. The book won the 2007 Saturnalia Book Prize, so I guess somebody out there liked it more than I did.

[Drunken_orangetree · Rating 4 out of 5]

On a recommendation by Terry Everett. Very good, very clever poetry. She seems to have a machine that cranks out awesome last lines.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kick ass poetry by a kick ass poet.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can find my review at Gently Read Literature: http://gentlyread.wordpress.com/.

[K. Iver · Rating 5 out of 5]

WHAT A POET!

[Katherine Riegel · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my blog post on a poem from this wonderful, witty book of poetry. http://applewordkiss.blogspot.com/201...