So Where Are We?: Poems

by Lawrence Joseph

“So where are we?” asks Lawrence Joseph in the title poem of his powerful and moving sixth book of poetry. Beginning where his acclaimed collection Into It left off, amid the worldwide violence unleashed by the World Trade Center terrorist attack, Joseph’s poems―global and historic in scope―boldly encounter the imaginative challenges of our issues of political economy, labor and capital, racism and war, and “the point at which / violence becomes ontology, / these endless ambitious experiments in destruction, / a species grief.” Against these realities, Joseph presents an intimate, sensuous language of beauty and love, “a separate / palette kept for each poem,” a constant shifting and fluid play of sound and tone.

With incisive intensity, intelligence, emotional force, and fierce, uncompromising vision, Joseph speaks from deep within the truths of poetry’s common language. So Where Are We? is extraordinary new work from one of our most distinctive poets.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Hardcover

Published August 22, 2017

About the author

Lawrence Joseph is a poet and a lawyer.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exploring physically, traveling through one vortex to another, be they ones of Love, Horror, or the Mundane(all three overlap easily), Joseph handles the themes of our time with deft touches of humility, honesty, and wonder. His immense skill is on display throughout. A real pleasure!

[H James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mr Joseph crafts raw and immediate poems, and in many cases they conjure a specific month from the past decade or two. Unfortunately, his mainlining-the-zeitgeist approach gives a certain sameness to the various pieces in this collection, and it's often hard to tease apart the unique attributes of one poem from those of another. "Is What It Is" stands out as my favorite for its brilliant slight-of-hand feat of linking a highly local event (a new subway station) to a global one (war in Syria).

[MendyBerk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! So good! It's like he lives so completely on this planet and on some wholly different one simultaneously. Not saying it's not scary, but the view from this other floating celestial body is downright Blakean in its magic.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deep, dark, thought provoking poetry. This is a great collection, but should be avoided if you're looking for peaceful light prose. This is a realistic poetic look at the current human political microcosm, portrayed in inter-connected poems. Illuminating albeit a bit depressing... Which describes the current earthly culture rather well.

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nuance, I know nuance - in her eyes; having
been, will ever be, love in the play of the eyes.

Flint is what it is.
Knowingly to force the poor to purchase and use toxic water
isn't a form of chemical warfare, isn't a form of genocide?

"But after all, I'm a lawyer. So I can never get away from evil." - Franz Kafka

[yankl krakovsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

These poems are haunted by the ravages of imperial warfare and the hyperviolence of global capital. The poetic feeling sometimes got lost for me amidst a great deal of technical language. There are however some remarkable pieces where Joseph better balances the quotidian and the emotional to striking effect.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a terrific new book by the poet Lawrence Joseph. It is wise and tender and so beautifully written! I have read all his poetry books as well as his novel "Lawyerland." He is one of my favorite writers.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the bowels of Manhattan's financial district to Eldon Axle, the parts factory on Detroit's east side, Joseph continues to document, explore, examine and explain the modern world.

[Mark Zadrozny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charged reading. The poems are unwavering in their voice and necessary to our times.