The End of Something

by Kate Greenstreet

Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. Art. Greenstreet's four books are interconnected, though not necessarily sequential. THE END OF SOMETHING is the last book in the series. Each engages with two basic questions: "What is the inner life? And how can it be shown?" To that end, events are alluded to but the main focus is the inner life: dreams, memories, premonitions, and conversations real and imagined.

Genres: Poetry

176 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2017

About the author

Kate Greenstreet's books are The End of Something, Young Tambling, The Last 4 Things, and case sensitive, all with Ahsahta Press.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hope to review this fabulous book, somehow.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

15. Introvert

Deep in my own green element,
I met a friend.
My double, my dearest.

Others
pulled me out of the sea,
placed me

in this pan of water,
added salt
and taught me to eat bread.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

What will we do when the cosmos runs out of Kate Greenstreet poems?

[Abigail Zimmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The End of Something is a record of dreams, memories, and conversations—overheard and sometimes imagined, sometimes with herself as both interviewer and interviewee. Her poems keep the reader in a very particular present, even while taking us back in time to something that happened the other day or years ago. After all, memories are experienced in the present, and her fragments capture the way in which they emerge suddenly, one comment conjuring the memory of another, tracing thoughts that don't adhere to chronology or even necessarily logic.

Once at a reading, Kate talked about her process of writing as note-taking: jotting down fragments, snippets of conversation, questions, and observations that are later rearranged to make a manuscript, pairing the unexpected and unrelated together, creating new connections. The links are sometimes abstract and curious, needing to be read with a loose mind. Other connections are more playful, even funny. Reading her work always feels like an adventure, the words and structure the protagonists as much as meaning. "It's all just another story / about how life could be.”

Her cow poems in here are my favorite.