Late Life

"Late Life is Stephen Ackerman's breathtaking debut poetry collection. Ackerman is the rare poet who can write the 21st century love poem for grown-ups--love is present, exacting, unguaranteed, funky, numinous. Throughout this collection, the touch is so light, so sure, so kinetic, you can miss how visceral the stakes are. These tense lines know exactly how numbered every breath we take is, yet they can still 'plant the mint and watch it thrive.' "Ackerman is an alchemist of the real, a believer in the transforming power of language who knows that our lives are inscribed in a vastness beyond words. A poem that visits the underworld doesn't hope for reunion but just 'The fingerprint, the whorl of who you never were / But sought to be.' If there's irony, it's the irony of reality: this world is gorgeous, and we die. Ackerman is an indelible writer, a poet of extraordinary eloquence." — D. Nurkse