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Extinction
Luis Neer’s debut collection, Extinction, serves doubly as a study on wilderness and an examination of the cycle and distinct stages of heartbreak. Blurring the line between confessional poetry and autobiographical panic-myth, and set against backdrops of the decayed Appalachian towns that have shaped the poet’s adolescence, Extinction comprises Neer’s first major contribution to contemporary poetry.
Praise for Extinction:
“Luis Neer’s Extinction is a book wrought from the urgency, charm, and ennui of American adolescence--yet executed with a seasoned and hard-earned intuition for what could be gained when a poem is pushed beyond its facile containers, and into the wild parataxis of an inner life rich with fluidity and contradictions. For a debut named after the end of a species, here are poems that insist, despite ourselves, that we remain--that there are more still to be discovered, and that in searching, Neer has found “a way out of the world where you are.” I love this book. Reading it, I feel like I’m floating somewhere very close to myself.”
- Ocean Vuong, author of Night Sky with Exit Wounds
“Luis Neer’s Extinction is as much about beginnings as it is apocalyptic endings, as if he knows (he does) that the two are inextricable. Kill your ego, he writes in one poem, and Neer’s poems transcend ego, weaving an intimacy rife with loneliness, loss, and love, making this collection original and familiar. Seamlessly bridging the worlds between mythic Pan and Conor Oberst, Neer resists categorization as any one type of poet writing in any one place and time, and in doing so invites readers to undergo the same gentle yet unapologetic remembering of the expansive Self: there is a blinding light that lines the interior / and you will wait at the end to receive yourself. But this light is only blinding because of the darkness it breaks through, and Extinction gives us both of these things. These poems and their author are a perfectly timed gift for humanity, and I hope they are received as such.”
- Sarah Certa, author of Nothing To Do with Me and Civil Coping Mechanisms
Praise for Extinction:
“Luis Neer’s Extinction is a book wrought from the urgency, charm, and ennui of American adolescence--yet executed with a seasoned and hard-earned intuition for what could be gained when a poem is pushed beyond its facile containers, and into the wild parataxis of an inner life rich with fluidity and contradictions. For a debut named after the end of a species, here are poems that insist, despite ourselves, that we remain--that there are more still to be discovered, and that in searching, Neer has found “a way out of the world where you are.” I love this book. Reading it, I feel like I’m floating somewhere very close to myself.”
- Ocean Vuong, author of Night Sky with Exit Wounds
“Luis Neer’s Extinction is as much about beginnings as it is apocalyptic endings, as if he knows (he does) that the two are inextricable. Kill your ego, he writes in one poem, and Neer’s poems transcend ego, weaving an intimacy rife with loneliness, loss, and love, making this collection original and familiar. Seamlessly bridging the worlds between mythic Pan and Conor Oberst, Neer resists categorization as any one type of poet writing in any one place and time, and in doing so invites readers to undergo the same gentle yet unapologetic remembering of the expansive Self: there is a blinding light that lines the interior / and you will wait at the end to receive yourself. But this light is only blinding because of the darkness it breaks through, and Extinction gives us both of these things. These poems and their author are a perfectly timed gift for humanity, and I hope they are received as such.”
- Sarah Certa, author of Nothing To Do with Me and Civil Coping Mechanisms
76 pages, Paperback
Published December 12, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 20, 2019
A beautiful collection of poems that exposes how growing out of adolescence is much like the extinction of a species. Fitting title, the regard for gods and the wish to kill the ego packaged in familiarity. A relatable work that I can definitely see myself thumbing through in the future.
July 2, 2019
Beautiful
February 1, 2017
Picked this up at the bookshop today to flip through. Apparently the author is from WV. Great language and intriguing form.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews