Apocalypse Now: Poems and Prose from the End of Days

by Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum (Editor), Alexander Lumans (Co-Editor), David J. Daniels (Contributor)

Every society and every generation has its version of the apocalypse: swine flu, genetic mutation, global warming, nuclear fallout, the second coming, peak oil, mass extinction, giant irradiated ants, zombies… Apocalypse Now: Poems and Prose from the End of Days is the first anthology of its kind to bring together the poetry and prose of some of America’s finest (though not always most well-known) literary voices with an eye for the literary and the popular, for story and lyric, for the past and the future, for the psychological and the physical, for the real and the fantastic.

Apocalypse Now examines our obsession with life and death, creation and destruction, and the physical realms we occupy and, eventually, no longer will, asking: How will the end come? What will we do when all the lights go out?

Genres: Poetry, Apocalyptic, Science Fiction

332 pages, Paperback

First published December 21, 2012

About the author

Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum is a poet, editor, and educator. His first collection of poetry, "Ghost Gear," is forthcoming with the University of Arkansas Press and his anthology, "Apocalypse Now: Poems and Prose from the End of Days," was released on December 21, 2012. He also writes reviews, interviews established and burgeoning writers, edits journals, and produces a podcast.

Andrew's work recently appears or is forthcoming in journals such as The Writer's Chronicle, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Ascent, Glimmer Train, American Literary Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Poet Lore, The Missouri Review, storySouth, Blackbird, InsideHigherEd.com, Eclipse, Copper Nickel, New Letters, Hayden's Ferry Review, and Potomac Review among others.

He is Acquisitions Editor for Upper Rubber Boot Books; is editor of an anthology; writes a web-column, poetry=am^k, as a Contributing Editor for The Southern Indiana Review; and is Founder and Editor of PoemoftheWeek.org and Managing Editor of AdHominem.weebly.com.

Andrew is also an experienced freelance Writing Coach, Copy-Editor, Tutor, and Ghostwriter. He holds a Masters of Fine Arts Degree from Southern Illinois University - Carbondale and is an Instructor of Creative Writing and English at the University of Colorado - Denver.

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought I would enjoy this book and I tried to but I didn’t and there’s just not enough time and there’s too many books so I quit.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great collection of apocalyptic writings. Obviously I've got a fascination with that sort of thing, having written Apocalypse All the Time. Reading this, I had the urge to write it all over again. Less out of exasperation though, more out of all of the possibilities from the different and cool visions inside. Nice stuff.

[Robert Jonte · Rating 4 out of 5]

As another reviewer said, it isn't going to be what you think. That's actually what I appreciated most about it. I didn't know how many zombie stories I could read before I got bored. But there aren't many what you might call zombies or even nuclear catastrophes in the book. I found that a lot of it was left to the reader to interpret. Or guess at. In many of the pieces we are presented only with the here and now, left recoiling from some calamity or bracing for it.

One big draw for me was that these are like pre-survivor stories. In both the poems and stories, the world is collapsing around the characters. In Joyce Carol Oates' story, for example, we've got almost nothing to go on: a grocery store falling apart as business continues as usual, and a father and daughter both on the verge of breakdown. Mom's too sick to go to the store and no, your uncle can't make it to dinner, remember? He died.

In Lumans' story, "All the Things the Moon is Not", astronauts harvest fungus on the moon. There is a disconnect from the earth and a wealth of questions. There is solid writing though the reader is just as marooned as the mold pirates.

While the poetry didn't appeal to me as much as the prose, there's much to enjoy. The poems are often fragmented and disjointed. The subject is chaotic as well as the form. But that isn't to say there aren't more straight-forward, stable pieces. In fact, Maggie Smith's poems are some of my favorites, a series of ruminations on classic sci-fi movies. Even these have their share of dread, but a good mix of humor as well.

That's probably what I liked most about the collection, the variety in the writing and its surprises. I wouldn't call any of these pieces typical dystopian literature (whatever that may be), nothing is what you expect it to be. The apocalypse is different in each piece: divorce, Vietnam, a light that scorches the earth. We're living it at the moment, the apocalypse is here. Prepare yourself.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished "Apocalypse Now: Poems and Prose from the End of Days" this weekend. Upper Rubber Boot sent me a review copy, however that didn't change my opinion of it, it just bumped it up the queue a bit.

This was a really enjoyable collection. The short stories were almost all well written, there were a few I didn't care for, but I was happy to see such a diverse group of writers. Margaret Atwood, and Joyce Carol Oates had featured works, as did a few writers who I was not well acquainted with at all.

If you're expecting zombies a plenty, I think you'll be either disappointed or pleasantly surprised. This was a much more abstract than just the traditional sense of what the apocalypse brings.

My only criticism is that I am not a poetry reader. It's just not an area that I've spent time studying or reading on my own. I feel that the poems were sometimes lost on me as a reader, especially when I was on the train and wasn't reading them out loud.

Overall I give this a B.

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.
I'm not into poems very often, but this book changed my mind. It combines one of my favorite types of things-dystopian fiction- with poems and it makes me just love the whole book! It was odd for me to like a book of poems.
Some of my favorite poems include Fire Blight, Thanksgiving, and The Quiet Earth. I thank the authors for writing great poems. I also thank the editors of this book for selecting these poems and putting them into this masterpiece of a book. I would like to thank Goodreads for selecting me to win this book. (I'm giving thanks, because my favorite poem in this book is Thanksgiving.)
I hope you enjoy my short but sweet review of Apocalypse Now: Poems and Prose from the End of Days by Andrew McFayden-Ketchum and Alexander Lumans, the editors of this book.

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of mostly poetry and some short stories, of mixed quality. There were two authors I was already very familiar with who contributed stories. JCO's was very strong and Atwood's was passable but not very apocalyptic. The only short story that really captured the haunting feel that I was expecting from this book was "The Beginnings of Sorrow" by Pinckney Benedict, although "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchists Bees" as well as "Blue Sky White" and "The Siege" are also satisfyingly grim. Some other stories are unreadable. Several superb poems that capture the desperation of apocalypse and inevitability of death. Most poems I was just "huh?" though that may just be my impatience with the form.

[Grace Harwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an eclectic mix of stories and poems taking as their theme the end of days. It's a mix, as I say, so not everything was to my taste, but there are definitely some corkers in there - Atwood's "The Silver Astroturfer" is the usual Atwoodian standard of brilliance and I also loved Joyce Carol Oates's "Thanksgiving". It's interesting how obsessed we are (and always have been - there are references to the end of days in eighteenth century texts, as well as contemporary ones) with the fear (or in some cases anticipation) of the apocalypse. Personally, if I survive, I'm going to enjoy the peace and quiet. This would be a good book to enjoy it with.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

A medley of poetry and novellas loosely tied together as relating to apocalyptic themes, to varying degrees. Some gems in this collection stand apart:
"The Adjuticator" by Brian Evenson, truly apocalyptic with a Gene Wolfe bent
"Thanksgiving" by Joyce Carol Oates
"The Silver Astroturfer" by Margaret Atwood
"The Lawgiver" by Josh Woods
"The Beginnings of Sorrow" by Pinckney Benedict
various poems by David McCombs

[Martine · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be honest, I struggled a bit to get through this one. There were a few pieces which definitely stood out -- Margaret Atwood (I found out about this project through her Facebook page), Paolo Bacigalupi, and Pinckney Benedict all had pieces that captivated me. But a much larger portion of the collection was, not bad writing; just not what I was expecting.

[Ken Northington · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not completely finished with this work, but as a subscriber to The Paris Review, the New Yorker, and other reputable periodicals, I can tell you that Apocalypse Now is high-quality prose and poetry. If you are an avid reader, this book is a must...