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Four Reincarnations
Four Reincarnations: Poems | Max Ritvo
3 posts | 5 read | 5 to read
Reverent and profane, entertaining and bruising, Four Reincarnations is a debut collection of poems that introduces an exciting new voice in American letters. When Max Ritvo was diagnosed with cancer at age sixteen, he became the chief war correspondent for his body. The poems of Four Reincarnations are dispatches from chemotherapy beds and hospitals and the loneliest spaces in the home. They are relentlessly embodied, communicating pain, violence, and loss. And yet they are also erotically, electrically attuned to possibility and desire, to everything living / that won t come with me / into this sunny afternoon. Ritvo explores the prospect of death with singular sensitivity, but he is also a poet of life and of lovea cool-eyed assessor of mortality and a fervent champion for his body and its pleasures. Ritvo writes to his wife, ex-lovers, therapists, fathers, and one mother. He finds something to love and something to lose in everything: Listerine PocketPak breath strips, Indian mythology, wool hats. But in these poemsfrom the humans that animate him to the inanimate hospital machines that remind him of deathit s Ritvo s vulnerable, aching pitch of intimacy that establishes him as one of our finest young poets. "
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Bundoolin
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A powerful #poetry collection about birth, death, and all the stuff in between. Enjoyed this one very much.

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Redwritinghood
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While I didn't like every poem in this collection, many of them were great. I am amazed that a young man dying of cancer could write without a lot of anger or cynicism and craft some beautiful poetry. The poems have a good sense of urgency, which you would expect in this case. He also seems to be able to recognize the beauty along with the ugliness in his life and has great acceptance of his impending death. I'm glad I picked this one up.

Cinfhen Sounds like a difficult read, emotionally. 8y
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Redwritinghood
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This book of poems is killing me. This was a random grab at the library. I started reading this one poem about how his cells live on in the lab mice (he calls them his litter) and it seemed so sad. I then checked out the author information at the back and found that he died last year of cancer at only 25 years old. That certainly puts a new perspective on these poems.

mrsa_d Love that cover. It's haunting. 8y
mcipher Oh, that is so sad! 8y
SharonGoforth 😥😥 8y
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