Anahid Nersessian in NYRB: ‘In 2022 four of [Jorie] Graham’s recent books were published together in the collection [To] The Last [Be] Human, a climate change quartet that gives itself the painful task of bearing witness to present-tense grief at the disappearance of normal weather and to the anticipatory terror of a ruined future.’

And: ‘Like Paul Celan, Graham wants to know what it sounds like when meaning gives way to the malignant jabber of history, or when it is so overcome by its own futility that it sinks into silence.’

As well: ‘But [Judith] Butler goes further: “Without grievability, there is no life, or, rather, there is something living that is other than life.’”

Grievability, a beautiful word. What deserves grievability, what doesn’t? Where does ‘normal weather’ end? And the malignant jabbering of history?

Wasn’t Celan trying to come to terms with what had been done to the German language?

(a sf 2217)