The Final Voicemails

Starred review from August 20, 2018
“Poets who die at twenty-five do not commonly leave bodies of work so urgent, so daring, so supple, so desperately alive,” writes Pulitzer Prize–winner Louise Glück in her editor’s note to this stunning and heartbreaking second posthumous collection from Ritvo (1990–2016). Glück has sifted through the work Ritvo left behind—finished and unfinished alike—to arrange a collection that displays the breathtaking talent and effortlessly surprising shifts that marked his first collection, Four Reincarnations, while also giving readers a glimpse into his creative process. Ritvo writes that “there is no pill to treat time,” and readers can palpably grasp that sensation in many of these poems, which were written up until his death from cancer. And it is perhaps because these poems have not been through the usual revision cycles that they feel so pressing and otherworldly. An abbreviated version of “Mammals,” Ritvo’s marvelous undergraduate thesis, is also included. Here, he writes, “Overhead, the green angels mutter,/ oppressed by the thin cliffs of our souls,/ mostly oppressing themselves.// I fix everything by dying, and you not dying.” These poems are raw and immediate, unflinching musings on the nature of the body, spirit, illness, and death: “When my heart stops, it will be the end of certain things,/ but not the end of things itself.”

Starred review from September 15, 2018

Diagnosed with cancer in his teens, Ritvo died in 2016 at age 25, near the release date of his remarkable debut collection, Four Reincarnations. This second collection, edited by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Glück, again offers his distinctive voice--partly insouciant, partly penetratingly smart--imparting an immediate sense of what it's like to die as he effectively reminds us what it's like to live. "Nobody ever tells you how busy loneliness is," he observes, adding, "I'm just exasperated. Everywhere life-sounds/ swarm this, our shared pond." But if Ritvo makes us acutely aware of what we skim through daily, he refuses to play guru: "My baldness is not wisdom," he insists, and quickly reminds us that each day he's learning, too: "I thought I would at least know myself." Ritvo is generous to take us along on his final journey, and along the way, as he shows us a bare tree, a blue-eyed crow, the joy of moving, how stars sometimes don't join in constellations on a dark, wet night, he's making us see, really see. VERDICT Highly recommended.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2018
Following poet Ritvo's death from Ewing's sarcoma at age 25, former poet-laureate Gl�ck, one of his Yale professors, meticulously selected work from what she described as Ritvo's extraordinary undergraduate thesis, Mammals; his award-winning chapbook, Aeons (2014); his critically acclaimed first poetry collection, Four Reincarnations (2016); and previously unpublished poems. The result reflects Ritvo's astonishing linguistic agility, singular vision, and thought processes as well as his frankness, quirkiness, and sly humor. It also reveals the potent way he embraced life, despite recurrent cancer and numerous surgeries, clinical trials, and debilitating treatments. Feeling an urgency to make art, Ritvo was prolific; he was also wise and gifted, and he seemed emotionally mature beyond his years, which is probably why he formed such affectionate friendships and mutual mentorships with fellow writers and teachers, including playwright Sarah Ruhl, whose simultaneously published ?Letters from Max (2018) showcases their poignant friendship. The Final Voicemails may conclude Ritvo's literary legacy, but it will stand as a testament to the salvation that is poetry, how it lives beyond the page and the poet.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 15, 2018

Diagnosed with cancer in his teens, Ritvo died in 2016 at age 25, near the release date of his remarkable debut collection, Four Reincarnations. This second collection, edited by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gl�ck, again offers his distinctive voice--partly insouciant, partly penetratingly smart--imparting an immediate sense of what it's like to die as he effectively reminds us what it's like to live. "Nobody ever tells you how busy loneliness is," he observes, adding, "I'm just exasperated. Everywhere life-sounds/ swarm this, our shared pond." But if Ritvo makes us acutely aware of what we skim through daily, he refuses to play guru: "My baldness is not wisdom," he insists, and quickly reminds us that each day he's learning, too: "I thought I would at least know myself." Ritvo is generous to take us along on his final journey, and along the way, as he shows us a bare tree, a blue-eyed crow, the joy of moving, how stars sometimes don't join in constellations on a dark, wet night, he's making us see, really see. VERDICT Highly recommended.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.