This collection really did not work for me. Something about the way the poems here are written works to keep the reader at a distance, and I found the entire experience awkward and disconnected. Though some poems sparked some emotion, most of the work was clunky and inaccessible. The style was also disjointed and hard to understand, almost pretentious, and I just couldn't see the point of any of it.

’Writing isn’t just telling stories….It’s telling everything all at once.’
MARGUERITE DURAS


I read this over a period of time, in between other reads. For me, poetry is not something you read poem after poem without thinking about, savoring, or highlighting it if it is one that moves you and you want to think about, and perhaps remember. This collection begins with several thought-provoking poems, but there are also some that are simple, simply lovely, while others take you to other places, and share the view.

This brought back so many memories for me, of sitting by my grandfather when I was a child as he typed out poems he wrote, sometimes asking for my ‘advice’ for the right word to use next, or even what ‘we’ should write a poem about. I still have a copy of all of his poems typed out on onion skin paper. My father also had his own copies and wanted to have them printed for a book for each member of our family. I wish he had, but my father was a pilot, and therefore most often flying around the world somewhere, and he likely forgot about it.

The poems in this book reminded me at times of those days, those memories, and how simple lines and brief passages can carry so much meaning in so few words.


Pub Date: 19 Mar 2024


Many thanks for the ARC provided by Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, Knopf

This was an interesting book of poetry that made me think about the lives that different people live.

I've read and enjoyed Michael Ondaatje's novels, but "A Year of Last Things" was my first exposure to his poetry, which was as precise and intellectual as I would have expected. I'm not a particularly good reader of poetry, but there was much to enjoy here; I particularly liked the poem "There are Three Sounds in the Wood This Morning." Predictably, perhaps, my favorite parts were the prose pieces, especially "Winchester House," an essay about how a previously unseen photo brought back memories of Ondaatje's difficult boarding school years, and more generally, about how memory can be triggered by photos, or smells, or poems, "as you gather distinct fragments you come upon from a remembrance, some of which could belong to another, during the hunt for your own story." Beautiful writing throughout.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Alfred A. Knopf for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review.

3.5/5

I first read Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient when I was a senior in high school, and over many years and through multiple re-reads, it has remained one of my favorite books of all time. Ondaatje is a true master of prose and writing evocative imagery.

While I found this was still true in A Year of Last Things, I had a much more challenging time connecting with many of these poems. For me, I believe it was because so much of the writing felt (intentionally) deeply personal to the author, almost as if he were sprinkling little inside jokes throughout the collection. Additionally, there were many, many references to other authors, artists, works of writing, etc. and being unfamiliar with many of these references, I often felt stuck on the outside of the poems, unable to truly access and enjoy them.

Nevertheless, there were several lines and stanzas that I savored and saved to come back to again.
Two of my favorite stanzas (from two different poems):
"All that history until we met / in furious chaos when I loved first / your face, then loved how you / had become what you were"
"This is how deep I was lost, / my darling, in a love so narcotic / I possessed unimpaired splendour / having no other want or wish"

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced digital copy.

This collection consists of free verse and prose poems, largely of an autobiographical nature (or presented as such.) A number of these autobiographical poems are at once travel poems, tales from the author's visits to various countries.

While Ondaatje is more well-known for his critically acclaimed novels (e.g. "The English Patient" and "Anil's Ghost,") he's not new to the poetic artform. The poems in this volume are clever, readable, nicely paced, and interesting. I enjoyed reading this book and would highly recommend it for poetry readers.

Michael Ondaatje’s fiction is luminous and atmospheric, which is what good poetry should be, and this poetry is not - this collection just falls a little flat. The poems feel disjointed, and slightly pretentious - there is a lot of name-dropping that adds nothing to the poems. I kept waiting for the kind of imagery and language that Ondaatje provides in his fiction, but I could not connect in any real way with these poems.

Such a deft hand. Sometimes i marvel at how a poet uses the same words we use every day - simple, ordinary words - and turns them into something marvelous. This collection seems soft and nostalgic, almost a commonplace book thematically reflecting upon the things he loves, remembers with clarity or half-remembers with feeling, and it almost feels as if he writes these moments unaware that we are watching. I enjoyed being pulled along for the ride and thoroughly loved this tender revelry.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, Knopf Poetry for an advanced copy of this collection of poems by the best-selling author of the The English Patient, discussing life, art, love and looking back at things one cannot change.

To paraphrase Pink Floyd, this laddie has never reckons on himself being a poet. I always feel awkward discussing poetry in that no matter how many times I have tried to educate myself on the functions and the forms of the medium, I know I am missing a lot. As I have become older I have decided to be more forgiving, a gift that takes many of us a lot of years to allow ourselves. I have come upon a simple rule for poetry. Did I enjoy it? Even if I don't grok everything the poet is going for, did I enjoy it? If yes, than share it with others. And with this collection I didn't just enjoy it, I took a lot more from it than I expected. A Year of Last Things: Poems by Michael Ondaatje author of The English Patient and Anil's Ghost, a favorite of mine is a collection of works about life, film, music, plays, old friends, lost loves, falling out of love, and remembering the past.

The poems seem a mix of autobiography, the lives of others, art, a little science, and a bit of nostalgia. Some poems seem to be working out things, a relationship gone wrong, or a trip across a continent with someone that one wants more from. Or is accepting less from the poet. There are many great lines. The poem definition has "[T]he census taker of birds who continues the medieval art of whistling, a line that I wrote down as a keeper, and also "[D]riven mad by a swan. I don't know why I enjoyed that but I am keeping that in my book of quotes. The poems range in familiar style to almost poem/essays. On Into the Past discusses the film La Jetée. Another discusses the movie If about an uprising in a English boarding school, and the horrors the writer and his classmates suffered under one teacher.

This is the third collection of poems Michael Ondaatje I have read, and I think this is my favorite. Looking at his books I am also surprised at how many I have read, and how many I really enjoyed. Ondaatje has a real gift for getting to things, showing what is real and what is not. Also Ondaatje is not afraid to admit to mistakes, in life, relationships and friendships, as shown here. There is a bit of melancholy, nostalgia about the adventures done, and how impossible they would be to do today. And there is a lot of humor, about these same experiences. Into the Past was probably my favorite, as I wrote earlier. I have loved the movie the poem discusses, Ondaatje encapsulates the story perfectly, and is able to inject a different view that I did not expect. And I liked the style the poem as essay, that he uses a few times. A collection that I know I will return to.

Recommended for fans of the author, one will enjoy the voice that comes across so clear in this collection. Also poetry fans will enjoy the writing and imagery, along with the experiments in style.

I am a fan of Ondaatje's poetry and this collection didn't disappoint. It felt like a late collection, a writer looking back over a life of loss, love's lost and gained. I liked the use of form here. Sometimes no punctuation, sometimes prose/essay forms. The forms of memory here reminded me of living in Bruno Schulz's thirteenth month.

I want to reread it. I find it incredibly difficult to connect thoughts on a first read of a volume of poetry. But I hope acknowledging the urge to reread says more than my meager lines here.

Poetry is so hard to rate. Therefore it’s only a personal opinion. There were poems here that were incredible, thoughtful and provoking. Moments where I underlined, reread, annotated and reflected. Then there were those I had a harder time connecting with. “Winchester House” which starts as a poem and then moves to prose I struggled to finish, but then “Estuaries” which is similar in format engaged me and may be one of my favorites in the collection.
The poetry itself is very referential to other works of art and moments in history and at times I felt like I was missing part of the story when reading. Reading the acknowledgments first may help with some of this if you like knowing the works that are being quoted/referenced.
Overall a pleasant reading experience that I took slow to appreciate fully.

Every now and then I read a book of poetry, but I really don’t know anything about poetry; I just know what moves me. I read A Year of Last Things: Poems because I’ve read, and admired, several of Michael Ondaatje’s novels, but this feels like an apples and oranges situation. Several of the poems in this collection did move me (at any rate, many stanzas did), but overall, I couldn’t say what even qualifies some of these entries as poetry (several look and read like prose: without line breaks, rhythm, or rhyme), so I’m satisfied to attribute any failure to click to my own shortcomings. I do admire the effort and am happy to have now sampled more of Ondaatje’s writing.

A stunning collection. Vivid, masterful poems. I really enjoyed this collection. Each poem felt like its own world: richly developed, with precise imagery, and a wandering through ideas. Really enjoyed this collection. I plan to preorder a hardcopy and reread slowly. Highly recommended.

I an ARC of this book via NetGalley. This collection of poems didn't work for me at all. By the end I felt like it was a bunch of word vomit. Everything felt clunky, it didn't feel cohesive at all. Not just as a collection, but even within some of the longer form poems, it felt like I was trying to follow a disjointed train of thought. Some poems also came across as almost name droppy or pretentious with the sheer number of references. I haven't read anything from this author before, and if this is their style then I think it's just really not for me.

Untrue and thoughtful verse from the author of The English Patient. I have enjoyed Michael Ondaatje’s prose and poetry in prior titles, and continue to enjoy his exploration of the human condition.

I was a big fan of The English Patient when I read it years ago as a teen, and I had no ideal that Ondaatje wrote poetry. I was delighted to find this out and to realize that I really enjoyed reading it. It was my first of his poetry books I've read but it won't be his last!

I can appreciate that poetry lands differently for folks, which is why I gave this collection of poems 3 stars.

Although Ondaatje is a well-known author, this is my first time reading his work. About 90% of his poems fell flat to me, but it might be because this collection contained more long-form poetry than I thought it would. There were lots of references that I didn’t fully understand so I ended up googling more often than not aka it was a painfully long process to get through this collection for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

3 stars

I adore Ondaatje's novels, but this poetry collection just didn't work as well for me as I had hoped. Overall, the entries felt like an unusual combination of inaccessible and just more basic (colloquially) than I was expecting from a writer who has knocked my socks off repeatedly.

At the same time, the poem "November" is one I'll keep with me and put to good use for a long time. That one speaks to an experience that I expect many readers will connect with; I know I did.

I remain an avid fan of Ondaatje's novels, and despite my less than enthusiastic reaction to this collection, I will definitely give his poetry another shot.

I did not connect with this collection. I was interested and engaged with the first couple poems of the collection and I really enjoyed what I was reading. However, as the collection progressed I felt out of my depth. There were a lot of references to different writers/artists that I did not connect with or recognize and it hindered my ability to enjoy the poems. I think this particular book definitely has an audience out there, I just don’t believe I’m the right fit for it.

Michael Ondaatje has written several of my favorite novels….he is a master craftsman — his writing is gorgeous - poetic in nature - and literally one of our world’s most brilliant authors.

These poems ….filled with history, travel, memory, intimacy, love, death, longings, gatherings, nature, celebrations, farewells, confessions, wanderings, girlfriends, the “unavoidable times; the sixties”, tragedies, betrayals, dancing, music, scholars, poets, writers, writing, films, art, youth, overall nostalgia…..etc. . . are many things all at once …..tender & sweet, sad & truthful, spontaneous & intentional.

Each time I re-read one of the poems - I take away a new experience…..

Just beautiful!!!

Sharing a couple of highlights that spoke mountains to me:

“When you travel you step back from your own days, from the fragmented imperfect linearity of your time, writes Lucia Berlin. As when reading a novel. And it is also true as you gather distinct fragments you come upon from a remembrance, some of which could belong to another, during the hunt of your own story. As with photographs, the world is deliriously, random, inarticulate. You smell sawdust or hay, and it reminds you of a summer when you were twelve, or five . . .”

“everything described felt damaged” …..

“Memoirs of our youth, are nothing without some real clue or glance towards the truth”.