Fast: Poems

The first new collection of poetry in five years from Pulitzer Prize winner Jorie Graham

“Graham’s great body of work has more of life and of the world than that of almost any other poet now writing. . . . She is to post-1980 poetry what Bob Dylan is to post-1960 rock: she changed her art form, moved it forward, made it able to absorb and express more than it could before. It permanently bears her mark.” —New York Times

In her first new collection in five years—her most exhilarating, personal, and formally inventive to date—Graham explores the limits of the human and the uneasy seductions of the post-human. Conjuring an array of voices and perspectives—from bots, to the holy shroud, to the ocean floor, to a medium transmitting from beyond the grave—these poems give urgent form to the ever-increasing pace of transformation of our planet and ourselves. As it navigates cyber life, 3D-printed “life,” life after death, biologically, chemically, and electronically modified life, Fast lights up the border of our new condition as individuals and as a species on the brink.

A new collection of poetry from pulitzer prize winner Jorie Graham

In her first new collection in five years—her most exhilarating, personal, and formally inventive to date—Jorie Graham explores the limits of the human and the uneasy seductions of the post-human. Conjuring an array of voices and perspectives—from bots to the holy shroud, to the ocean floor, to a medium transmitting from beyond the grave—these poems give urgent form to the ever-increasing pace of transformation of our planet and ourselves. As it navigates cyber life; 3D printed “life”; life after death; and biologically, chemically, and electronically modified life, Fast lights up the border of our new condition as individuals and as a species on the brink.

“In poems both complicated and inventive, [Graham] constructs and deconstructs her core ideas through multilayered words and phrasings, compelling readers to feel what it’s like to be human in a posthuman world...stunning.” - Library Journal (starred review)

“A fascinating mosaic that explores what it means to live and die at a time when technology is redefining our existence......moving...[an] important book.” - Washington Post

“Graham’s lush, pulsing lyrics sweep across unusually wide pages in her signature style of reach and embrace, her language surging with passion yet shaped with precision. Each of Graham’s poems is a daring voyage...leaving readers exhilarated and transformed.” - Booklist (starred review)

“Fast is a great book about the nature of social life in the 21st century, a book in which past and future unfold in “every cell’’ across the vast space of a few words.” - The New York Times Book Review