The Last Show on Earth: Poems from the Anthropocene

by Yvonne Blomer

In this unflinching and whimsical collection, Victoria’s former poet laureate Yvonne Blomer explores death, disability, and the fate of our imperilled world.

In The Last Show on Earth , Yvonne Blomer gathers the diverse characters and distinct moments from everyday life, its tragedies, and triumphs, and begins to imagine them in a circus as side shows and exhibitions of the unusual. In her latest collection, Blomer borrows from museum dioramas, the paintings of Robert Bateman, and the animal portraits in National Geographic to question and explore the human element in the lives and survival of other species. In poems that are at times unflinchingly dark yet playful, Blomer balances on a tightrope of grief and hope as she traces the lines from motherhood and caring for aging parents to caring for our planet and its endangered creatures—the whale, the elephant, the wolf, the polar bear—as they face ongoing environmental destruction. In The Last Show on Earth , we are all performers under the bright striped tent or packed on the circus train heading toward an unknown destination.

Genres: Poetry

148 pages, Paperback

Published June 10, 2022

Reviews

[Tina]

Full review soon!

Thank you to Caitlin Press for my gifted review copy!

[Christina Barber]

The depths of frustration overlapping with a profound love that goes beyond the normal experience of a relationship between mother and child. The sometimes ethereal experiences of spending a prolonged period in a country far from home, full of its own ghosts and deep memories. The connection to land and to water, the feeling of it circulating in your veins and inhabiting your very bones. These are the foundations of Yvonne Blomer’s latest book of poetry, “The Last Show on Earth.” A varied and meaningful collection of poetry that spans her own very personal experiences of raising a child with significant developmental challenges, includes a gathering of memories of Lithuania, and settles in the earth and water of Vancouver Island. Blomer’s writing is versatile, her wordplay evocative. I highly recommend “The Last Show on Earth”