To 2040, Jorie Graham

This is a deeply unsettling book. It reminded me a bit of Eleanor Davis’ work because of how it imagines what apocalypse will feel like in these terrifyingly concrete ways that also have a sort of manic playful quality (though Graham is mostly grim). Both authors explore the contours of a dire future with an especial interest in the relationships we have to objects and space; how we inhabit language; what data feels like; the blurry boundaries between humans, animals, and machines. The really amazing thing about To 2040, though, is this astonishing toggling between glimpses of a hazy future and something like the more familiar (yet also mysterious) present of the lyrical poet: look at this bird! Do birds still exist? Its vertiginous. What’s fascinating, though, is that the poems don’t seem confusing at all — opaque, disorienting, sure, but also somehow tangible, grounded. It’s a mesmerizing work.