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The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On
The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On | Franny Choi
8 posts | 6 read | 5 to read
From acclaimed and beloved poet Franny Choi comes a poetry collection for the ends of worlds--past, present, and future. Choi's third book features poems about historical and impending apocalypses, alongside musings on our responsibilities to each other and visions for our collective survival. Many have called the last years dystopic. But The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On reminds us that apocalypse has already come in myriad ways for marginalized peoples, and calls forth the importance of imagining what will persist in the aftermaths. With lyric and tonal dexterity, these poems spin backwards and forwards in time. They look into the collective psyche of our years in the pandemic and in the throes of anti-racist uprisings, while imagining other vectors, directions, and futures. Stories of survival collide across space and time--from comfort women during the Korean War to children wandering a museum in the future. These poems explore narrative distances and queer linearity, investigating on microscopic scales before soaring towards the universal. Throughout, Choi grapples with where the individual can fit within the strange landscapes of this apocalyptic world, with its violent and many-layered histories. In the process, she imagines what togetherness--between Black and Asian and other marginalized communities, between living organisms, between children of calamity and conquest--could look like. In The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On, old and new stories are put through a collider; what emerges is pure sonic energy, grounded by the complex entanglements that connect us all. The combination of the speculative imagination, playfulness, and wisdom in these poems ultimately chart new paths toward hope.
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CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian
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Pickpick

A great poetry collection, very much on brand with the conflicted title. Wonderful word play throughout. How are humans amazing and resilient but also responsible for atrocities like nuclear bombings and the practice of Korean "comfort women" ie forced prostitution by the Japanese army?

"deserve / deserve / what a sad little word"

"Every day of my life has been something / other than my last"

"If not even my memories love me enough to stay"

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CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian
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"deserve deserve / what a sad little word"

"Every day of my life has been something othe than my last"

"If not even my memories love me enough to stay"

This poetry collection is so good! #QueerBooks

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Taylor
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Pickpick

A nice collection about all sorts of existential and global crises. You have to not worry about if you accept the worldview to enjoy it, because it‘s ideological.

It‘s cool in terms of the forms used…inspirational really. I could feel Choi pushing herself to come up with new ways of writing.

It also has a great balance between experimental and more accessible. Way to go!

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Taylor

not gibberish, I mean, but language so sacred
it‘s not my place to try to decipher it,
phonemes holy as stones on a string, mysterious
as the names we give to animals, or words
we know only in prayer

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sakeriver
Pickpick

The title suggests both a callous world, unheeding of the catastrophes borne by others, and a persistent world, one that survives. The poems hold both of these worlds, and, through them, so does the reader. We walk with Choi through the grief of past endings and the terror of those unfolding now. Yet we also find comfort in the ones who provide aid now, and those who come after us. I think I needed this book.

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sakeriver
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psalva
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Pickpick

This was an outstanding collection! Explorations of dystopia in our contemporary world, powerful lines about grief, and even some speculative poems. My favorites were “Upon Learning That Some Korean War Refugees Used Partially Detonated Napalm Canisters as Cooking Fuel,” “It Is What It Is,” “Science Fiction Poetry,” and “How to Let Go of the World.”
#poetry #speculativepoetry

bnp So glad to hear someone else liked this one! 2y
psalva @bnp It was great- I feel like I‘m still learning how to read/review poetry, but this was a great reading experience :) 2y
17 likes2 comments
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underground_bks
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Every day of my life has been something other than my last.
Every day, an extinction misfires, and I put it to work.

Franny Choi‘s speculative poetry is so incisive, imaginative, and moving. Here, she counters the notion that apocalypse is something we anticipate, showing again and again that apocalypse is historical and ongoing, especially for marginalized communities—all while envisioning more hopeful alternate and future post-apocalypses too.

underground_bks Favorite poems: “Danez Says They Want to Lose Themselves in Bops They Can‘t Sing Along To;” “Comfort Poem;” “Upon Learning That Some Korean War Refugees Used Partially Detonated Napalm Canisters as Cooking Fuel;” “Aaron Says the World Is Upside Down;” “Field Trip to the Museum of Human History;” “Toward Grace;” “Wildlife.” 2y
SamAnne Stacked. 2y
underground_bks @SamAnne yay! Can‘t wait to hear what you think! 2y
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