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Love in the Last Days: After Tristan and Iseult
A contemporary requiem--an earthy yet elegant reconsideration of the Tristan and Iseult story, from the former poet laureate of Brooklyn.
In D. Nurkse's wood of Morois, the Forest of Love, there's a fine line between the real and the imaginary, the archaic and the actual, poetry and news. The poems feature the voices of the lovers and all parties around them, including the servant Brangien; Tristan's horse, Beau Joueur; even the living spring that flows through the tale ("in my breathing shadow / the lovers hear their voices / confused with mine / promising a slate roof, / a gate, a child . . . "). Nurkse brings us an Iseult who has more power than she wants over Tristan's imagination, and a Tristan who understands his fate early "That charm was so strong, no luck could free us." For these lovers, time closes like a book, but it remains open for us as we hear both new tones and familiar voices, eerily like our own, in this age-old story made new again.
In D. Nurkse's wood of Morois, the Forest of Love, there's a fine line between the real and the imaginary, the archaic and the actual, poetry and news. The poems feature the voices of the lovers and all parties around them, including the servant Brangien; Tristan's horse, Beau Joueur; even the living spring that flows through the tale ("in my breathing shadow / the lovers hear their voices / confused with mine / promising a slate roof, / a gate, a child . . . "). Nurkse brings us an Iseult who has more power than she wants over Tristan's imagination, and a Tristan who understands his fate early "That charm was so strong, no luck could free us." For these lovers, time closes like a book, but it remains open for us as we hear both new tones and familiar voices, eerily like our own, in this age-old story made new again.
- GenresPoetry
104 pages, Hardcover
Published September 12, 2017
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About the author
D. Nurkse
30 books11 followersD. (Dennis) Nurkse is the author of eight books of poetry. He has received the Whiting Writers’ Award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, two grants from the New York State Foundation for the Arts, and other awards. He has also written widely on human rights.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
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April 25, 2018"Nurkse dusts off the medieval tale of Tristan and Iseult and reshapes it into a postmodern myth. The story is told through a variety of narrative techniques (renga, dramatic monologue, ballad), a trilogy of spaces (evoked locations, mythic woods, and sea settings), as well as playful typographical effects close to concrete poetry, the most dramatic of which is the poem “The Grail,” in which the blank shape of a chalice in the center of the page is “protected” by the repeated word “Morois.” - Alice-Catherine Carls
This book was reviewed in the Mar/Apr 2018 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website:
https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/...
This book was reviewed in the Mar/Apr 2018 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website:
https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/...
October 15, 2023
Potent, brilliant, fresh, unique, singular in originality and thematic consideration.
October 26, 2017
I studied under Dennis Nurkse, and he really is a talented poet. This collection is basically a retelling of Tristan and Iseult, from various perspectives and taken from various sources. As both a medievalist and a poet, I looove this idea.
Why did I only give it three stars, then? 1) The poems that worked really really worked and I loved them. But a lot of the poems didn't feel finished? I think that a lot of people who don't write poetry believe that it's a one-and-done process. Heck, I used to think that. Really, writing a good poem is going over it (over and over), checking the cadence, checking syntax, weighing each word. A lot of these poems felt like they had another round of checking left. And 2) For a collection with the conceit of being the story of Tristan and Iseult from various perspectives, there was an awful lot of Tristan and very little else. And that's fine. Retelling the story from the point of view of one character would have totally worked. But that wasn't what it said on the tin.
TL;DR fun collection, interesting conceit, a bit flawed in execution.
Why did I only give it three stars, then? 1) The poems that worked really really worked and I loved them. But a lot of the poems didn't feel finished? I think that a lot of people who don't write poetry believe that it's a one-and-done process. Heck, I used to think that. Really, writing a good poem is going over it (over and over), checking the cadence, checking syntax, weighing each word. A lot of these poems felt like they had another round of checking left. And 2) For a collection with the conceit of being the story of Tristan and Iseult from various perspectives, there was an awful lot of Tristan and very little else. And that's fine. Retelling the story from the point of view of one character would have totally worked. But that wasn't what it said on the tin.
TL;DR fun collection, interesting conceit, a bit flawed in execution.
February 8, 2018
Nurske offers a series of poems narrator by different characters in the Tristan and Isuelt saga. The poems narrator the arc of the saga from their intercourse on the ship where Tristan is taken Iseult to marry the King to Tristian's and Isuelt journey to Avalon, the medieval heaven.
The narrative poems allow enable the character's to relay their impression without getting involved in the technical of prose narration. In some way this like As I lay Dying, however, Love in the Last Days requires a foreknowledge of the Tristian and Isuelt tale.
Of course there are French, English and Irish variation of this saga and the two lovers have been the subject of many other works. So there is no definitive story.
Love in the Last Days doesn't seek to be that definitive story. It provides reflections along the way with several elegant lines of love and hardship, but I'm not sure how complete and polished these poems are. They are halfway between the rough narration of As I Lay Dying and polished Poems that could stand on their, that would be published in literary magazines.
The narrative poems allow enable the character's to relay their impression without getting involved in the technical of prose narration. In some way this like As I lay Dying, however, Love in the Last Days requires a foreknowledge of the Tristian and Isuelt tale.
Of course there are French, English and Irish variation of this saga and the two lovers have been the subject of many other works. So there is no definitive story.
Love in the Last Days doesn't seek to be that definitive story. It provides reflections along the way with several elegant lines of love and hardship, but I'm not sure how complete and polished these poems are. They are halfway between the rough narration of As I Lay Dying and polished Poems that could stand on their, that would be published in literary magazines.
February 14, 2022
I read this collection on Valentines Day. And I have conflicting thoughts about D. Nurkse's approach to the tale of Tristan and Iseult. Though the freeverse poems were too contemporary for my liking, it did bring out a fresh perspective to the centuries-old legend.
March 11, 2020
Masterful.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews