{"product_id":"a-year-of-last-things-poems","title":"A Year of Last Things","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrom one of the most influential writers of his generation, a gorgeously surprising poetry collection about memory, history, and the act of looking back\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFollowing several of his internationally acclaimed novels, \u003ci\u003eA Year of Last Things\u003c\/i\u003e is Michael Ondaatje's long-awaited return to poetry\u003ci\u003e.\u003c\/i\u003e In pieces that are sometimes witty, sometimes moving, and always wise, we journey back through time by way of alchemical leaps, unearthing writings by revered masters, moments of shared tenderness, and the abandoned landscapes we hold on to to rediscover the influence of every border crossed. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMoving from a Sri Lankan boarding school to Molière's chair during his last stage performance, to Bulgarian churches and their icons, to the California coast and his beloved Canadian rivers, Michael Ondaatje casts a brilliant eye that merges memory with the present, in the way memory as the distant shores of art and lost friends continue to influence everything that surrounds him. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFrom his poem \"His chair, a narrow bed, a motel room, the fox\" \u003cbr\u003e At the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles Sam Cooke was shot dead.\u003cbr\u003e 'See that shadow on the wall . . .' All those motels and hotels\u003cbr\u003e in literature and song, where X wrote this, \u003cbr\u003e where Y got drunk, where Z overdosed.\u003cbr\u003e The one Hank Williams was driven past, dead already in his car.\u003cbr\u003e The Slavianski Bazaar Hotel in \"The Lady with a Dog,\"\u003cbr\u003e where Dmitri imagines their dark but hopeful future.\u003cbr\u003e The Hôtel de ville de Courtrai, \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003ewhere Verlaine shot Rimbaud.\u003cbr\u003e The Casa Verdi in Milan, where retired opera singers were welcomed\u003cbr\u003e along with various heteronyms of Fernando Pessoa in their afterlife.","brand":"Knopf Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51661105070370,"sku":"9780593801567","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/8637\/3154\/files\/imageloader_8e2c326a-2a54-4d5b-b339-976e570455e3.jpg?v=1779449964","url":"https:\/\/godmothers.com\/products\/a-year-of-last-things-poems","provider":"Godmothers","version":"1.0","type":"link"}