The Last Mastodon

by Christina Olson

In summer of 2017, Christina Olson was invited to serve as poet-in-residence for a paleontology conference and exhibition (“The Valley of the Mastodons”) at the Western Science Center in Hemet, California. These poems, exploring the nature of history, assembly, and ownership, were inspired by that time spent among the paleontologists as well as Olson’s observations of the museum’s collections of fossils, particularly Max the Mastodon.

Genres: Poetry, Science

35 pages, Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 2019

About the author

Christina Olson's poetry and nonfiction has appeared in Arts & Letters, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, Brevity, River Styx, Gulf Coast, Passages North, The Normal School, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and The Best Creative Nonfiction, Volume 3. She teaches creative writing at Georgia Southern University.

Reviews

[Jenna]

Here, mastodons are used as an opening to talk about not only extinction and the environment, but also father-daughter relationships, death, grief, and self-examination/-excoriation, as well as history and collective guilt (especially as pertains to Thomas Jefferson and the institution of slavery). Olson makes extensive use of what currently seems to be a rather zeitgeist-y form of prose poem, one that I first saw used by Fanny Howe in her wonderful poem "Doubt", where stanzas alternate among multiple disparate subjects or settings, letting the juxtaposition do much of the work of bringing out what resonances might exist among them. It was an awakening to see this form pushed to its limits, especially in a tightly knit chapbook such as this, where there is such dense thematic overlap among all the pieces. Although the historical themes seemed to take center stage more, I found myself more tantalized by Olson's elliptical explorations of the knotty complexity of father-daughter bonds.

[ash · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not really a poetry person - though ironically I've had more poetry published than fiction - but I have inexplicably resolved to stop making fun of it in 2020, so I got started with this collection because I love mastodons - though am partial to mammoths because of a trip to the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota in 2015 that I recommend to absolutely everyone because it's spectacular and emotional and life-changing if you care about long dead things - and because Hemet, California is absolutely one of the worst places I've ever been in my life and thus inexplicably magnetic to me. I'm rambling because I don't know how to talk about poetry, honestly. This felt alive and not like a waste of time and I'm glad I threw the cash at rattle to get my hands on it. My favorites were "Among the Bones" and "Catalogue of Damages" and "How to Care for Yesterday's Camel" and the line "One day, even humans will be reassembled / wrong. If we are lucky, they will make us taller, kinder than we ever were." will stay with me for a long time.

[Alarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I expect a good read when I pick up a Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner, but Olson’s book exceeded expectations. It may well be the quirkiest, most original chapbook I’ve read. How many paleontology conferences/exhibitions invite a poet-in-residence to join them? I imagine Olson cornered the market. Yet, after seeing this collection, other scientists may begin looking for poets.

There’s nothing dry or esoteric about this book, even though you’ll learn a lot about mastodons and other prehistoric animals. Olson makes it fun. (Museums could take a hint.) You’ll probably laugh a few times, especially at “Reconstruction Errors, Part 1 and 2.” At first you may think Olson is dipping into free association when other topics like Thomas Jefferson, slavery, her dad, and dangerous mouths pop into paleontology poems. Not so, they’re intentional and resurface again and again like motifs in a fugue.

To keep things even more interesting, Olson varies the forms of her work, from prose poems to a sonnet. I’m always impressed by a good sonnet, but Olson takes that to the next level. Her enjambment is so skilled I’d have missed that “Broken Sonnet on Teeth” was rhymed if she hadn’t put sonnet in the title. I plan to track down some of her other books.

[Sayantani Dasgupta · Rating 5 out of 5]

The mastodon is just an excuse to talk about history, culture, human behavior, family, so on and so forth. I laud the poet’s keen observation and sharp lines.

[Aquila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another beautiful intermingling of history and science. Mastodon, smilidon, slavery, tar.

"as it turns out, paleontology & poetry
are not allowed that different"

[Keely · Rating 5 out of 5]

The frequently funny and always original poems in The Last Mastodon came out of Christina Olson’s time as poet-in-residence at a paleontology conference and exhibit in 2017. Throughout the collection, Olson offers up poems that could only have come from such a unique mashup of disciplines and sensibilities. The poems play with themes of permanence, ephemerality, culturally influenced errors in reconstructing mammoth and mastodon skeletons over the years, and most interestingly, Thomas Jefferson, who, of course, is revered and studied like a priceless fossil while his slave and mistress Sally Hemmings remains more of a footnote. Apparently, Jefferson also believed wholeheartedly that living mastodons would be found in the American west. In addition to making that compelling Jefferson connection, Olson also plays with language and structure in fresh and surprising ways.

I’m so glad my poet friend Alarie loaned this little chapbook to me, because it was a delight. I’ll definitely be looking for more by Christina Olson.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This last December, I taped a broadside of Olson’s poem, “Catalogue of Damages,” to my desk at work. Every day, I read it, its last line a reminder of things I had said, of things I had not said: “Oh god, the mouth is such a weapon.”

That poem opens this collection, which is yet another outstanding Rattle chapbook. The most startling poems in the collection weave facts about mastodons and mammoths with facts about Thomas Jefferson (who, in sending Lewis and Clark west, believed they’d find and kill mastodons).

From “Who Gets to Be a Fossil”: “Carol writes, Thomas Jefferson belongs to his United States of America for time eternal. // Sally Hemings belonged to Thomas Jefferson for time eternal, or until he died. // Max the mastodon belongs to the Western Science Center in Hemet, California & people pay to look at him because he is a very impressive mastodon fossil, the biggest found west of the Mississippi River. // Thomas Jefferson is buried at Monticello, behind a wrought iron fence that prevents unwanted visitors. // Sally Hemings was buried in a site in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, which is now covered by the parking lot of the Hampton Inn on West Main Street.”

Also, this moment of distinguishing paleontologist from poet, both of whom reconstruct, in “The Last Mastodon”: “The scientists knows what I do not: their work will never be finished. // I am not a scientist, and so I keep thinking something will click into place, something will indicate completion.”

[David Anthony Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

In "The Last Mastodon," Christina Olson attempts to weave her personal dealing with death, the mastodon and its discovery and paleontology, Thomas Jefferson's eagerness to explore and find if mastodons still lived along with his keeping of slaves and power over Sally Hemings. At the same time, Olson tries to weave prose poems, disjointed thoughts and bits from her readings, with more carefully crafted free verse. Finally, she tries to weave humor (dark and light) with deeper emotion.

I think, overall, this weaving works more than it fails. There is deep feeling here along with thought. The small chapbook is certainly worth reading at least once. The central poem, "Among the Bones," itself alone is worthy enough.

[Camille McCarthy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this chapbook, but I didn't like the execution. It seemed to me like she got too stuck on Thomas Jefferson and I felt she could have incorporated other ideas into her poems. It was clear why she connected Jefferson to mastodons in some of the poems, but in others it seemed totally random because she didn't mention how Jefferson thought there were still mastodons roaming the west during his time - though it also would have been repetitive to mention this in every poem, I was very confused at first as the connection was unclear in some of the beginning poems. I thought she had some good lines but the poems didn't move me.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some seriously powerful poems in this little chapbook. A standout for me is "Who Gets to Be a Fossil." In this poem, Olson reckons with where we as a society place our value, and what is revealed about us in how we remember and honors others after they are gone. Like any good poem, it is a questioning which inspires further contemplation in the reader. I was introduced to Christina Olsen's work through a class with a professor who is particularly the fond of The Rattle and the chapbooks they publish. I actually got the opportunity to listen to Christina read some of her poems from this collection and discuss them with her (which was AMAZING!!).

[Kasandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inventive, well-structured, original, curious, illuminating, with a great balance between language and image. I can hear and see these poems; they come alive, ironically, in a book about death, decay, the passage of time, grief, and evolution of worlds, both external and internal. "Among the Bones" brought me to tears. "Reconstruction Errors, Part 1 & 2", immediately following, led me to re-read three times because I enjoyed it so much. A fantastic bit of work that belies its length.

[Ashly Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love all the different connections these poems make within themselves and with each other. Some of felt like too much for me, maybe especially in relation to some of the others. I resonated with the parts of these pieces that talk about ancestry. Overall this collection didn’t blow me away, but there were individual bits I liked a lot!

[Cassandra Ulrich · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am intrigued by Christiana's comparison between The Last Mastodon's and Jefferson's journey on this planet. Each poem delves into a place deeper than observing paleontologists studying remains, it touches upon the human condition and the legacy we leave behind when we too will become fossil remains.

[Megan Alyse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding. I’m so impressed with this poet and her unique approach to language. Beyond her bold narrative voice, this collection acts as a vehicle for contemplation of both personal and global loss. Lovely.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Olson's friendship with extinction and what it means to live in this moment connected to an awareness of the past is another treat and challenge for the reader. It is all I have come to expect from Rattle publishers in their selection of chapbooks and authors.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hovering between 2 and 3 stars. I wasn't strongly engaged with many of these poems but there were enough interesting and clever pieces and poems to keep me reading.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chapbook mastery. Of fossils and fossilized ideas. Of digging and unearthing. Of assembling and reassembling.

[Andrea Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner, Christina Olson sheds light on more than dinosaur bones. The breadth and depth of this collection brings a thoughtful clarity to the imagination.

[Be Storie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"... The advantage to dead things
is that you cannot hurt them
anymore. Instead, they hurt you,"

[Deric Plummer]

Some of my Favorites:
Wake Up Little Stevie
How to Care for your American Mastodon
How to Care for your Yesterday's Camel
Among the Bones
Broken Sonnet on Teeth

[M Delea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this for The Sealey Challenge. Loved it!

[Timons Esaias · Rating 4 out of 5]

This chapbook came into my hands because I submitted to one of the Rattle magazine contests, and I'm glad it did. The author "was invited to serve as poet-in-residence for a paleontology conference and exhibition ("The Valley of the Mastodons") at the Western Science Center in Hemet, California" and these poems derived from that experience; and also, it would seem, from a visit to the La Brea Tar Pits Museum.

Apparently the Lewis and Clark Expedition figures in the WSC museum, or did, and that brings in Thomas Jefferson, and that brings in Sally Hemings. I liked this collection of loosely related subjects, but some of the tangential material got to be too much. Ms Hemings is a bit of a stretch from mastodons in California, and she comes into too many of these poems. Repetition is a problem in this short collection, but that's the risk of any focused chapbook.

I really liked "How to Care for Yesterday's Camel" and plan to read it at our next Passage Party. It's the kind of poem I often strive for, with what seems like a whimsical premise or approach, and a sting in the tail.

I also particularly liked a personal grief poem, "Among the Bones", which only touches on the Hemet experience, but which definitely belongs in this collection.

So, yeah, there's some unevenness here, but I intend to reread this soon, and to nominate at least one of the poems for something. And I'll look for future work by this poet. Which makes it a four-star outing, verging on five.

[Allison Renner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never thought science and poetry would mix so well! I loved Olson’s Terminal Human Velocity and wasn’t sure how poems framed by paleontology would work, but her style shines through and makes these poems hit hard.