LOVE AT THE END

Stevenson’s slim poetry book explores the exquisite pain of love and loss.

The opening poem, “Je t’aime,” chronicles the peak, and subsequent downfall, of a relationship. Stevenson offers advice like “Stay away / From the amphitheater of fear” in “Being Is So Extensive.” “I Never Suspected” confronts aging and mortality. Nature and the absence of loved ones merge in “The Whiffling Wind.” The speaker’s mother, who died from lung disease, is the subject of “Once Upon a Time My Mother Mattered,” whose narrative takes a strange, incestuous turn. The drama continues in “Mama Cry, No Cry” as a father’s death upends the family dynamic. The author mulls over a missed connection at a train station in Switzerland in “What Was the Name.” A romantic reunion is the focus of “Is It Possible?” In “There’s No Point,” “The wanting of things of sex or power or women” is renounced in favor of the simple pleasure of breathing. When an unequal love becomes unbearable, the speaker “withdrew to the basic grammar of a solitude” in “I Write the Song.” “My Equestrian Event” is a shocking story of rape at a Kentucky racetrack. Stevenson’s descriptions of desire are visceral and unique, “from a beautiful thirst to a yearning mouth” to the way a whisper proclaiming love “slowly scars into a scream.” He weaves nature seamlessly into his poems, describing everything from a “forest of shadows” and “an echo of trees” to “darkness stabbed with stars.” Some of the metaphors miss the mark, however, such as, “The spilled emotional milk flecked with blood / The jar of sexual joy smashed to smithereens.” But other turns of phrase are so gorgeous one must pause to appreciate them: “accept the monstrous / Beauty of just being here.” Stevenson’s writing style is accessible and streamlined and will appeal to many readers regardless of their experience with poetry.

A contemplative collection of poetry that captures both the pain and pleasure of all kinds of love.