So Far So Good - Hardcover
Synopsis
"Ursula K. Le Guin, loved by millions for her fantasy and science-fiction novels, ponders life, death and the vast beyond in So Far So Good, an astute, charming collection finished weeks before her death in January, 2018. Fans will recognize some of the motifs here―cats, wind, strong women ― as well as her exploration of the intersection between soul and body, the knowable and the unknown. The writing is clear, artful and reverent as Le Guin looks back at key memories and concerns and looks forward to what is next: 'Spirit, rehearse the journey of the body/ that are to come, the motions/ of the matter that held you.'"―Washington Post
"Le Guin’s farewell poetry collection, contains all that created her reputation for fiction―sharp insight, restless imagination, humor that is both mordant and humane, and, above all else, that connection to all creation, that 'immense what is'."―New York Journal of Books
“It’s hard to think of another living author who has written so well for so long in so many styles as Ursula K. Le Guin.” ―Salon
“She never loses touch with her reverence for the immense what is.” ―Margaret Atwood
“There is no writer with an imagination as forceful and delicate as Le Guin’s.” ―Grace Paley
Legendary author Ursula K. Le Guin was lauded by millions for her ground- breaking science fiction novels, but she began as a poet, and wrote across genres for her entire career. In this clarifying and sublime collection―completed shortly before her death in 2018―Le Guin is unflinching in the face of mor- tality, and full of wonder for the mysteries beyond. Redolent of the lush natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, with rich sounds playfully echoing myth and nursery rhyme, Le Guin bookends a long, daring, and prolific career.
From “How it Seems to Me”:
In the vast abyss before time, self is not, and soul commingles
with mist, and rock, and light. In time, soul brings the misty self to be.
Then slow time hardens self to stone while ever lightening the soul,
till soul can loose its hold of self . . .
Ursula K. Le Guin is the author of over sixty novels, short fiction works, translations, and volumes of poetry, including the acclaimed novels The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Her books continue to sell millions of copies worldwide. Le Guin died in 2018 in her home in Portland, Oregon.
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About the Author
Ursula K. Le Guin is the author of over 60 novels, short fiction works, translations, and volumes of poetry. She is known mostly for her works of science fiction and fantasy, including the acclaimed novels The Left Hand of Darkness, and The Dispossessed. Le Guin is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, and her books continue to sell millions of copies worldwide. An author of singular imagination and resolve, Le Guin died in 2018 in her home in Portland, Oregon.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Words for the Dead Mouse my cat killed grey scrap in a dustpan carried to the trash To your soul I say: With none to hide from run now, dance within the walls of the great house And to your body: Inside the body of the great earth in unbounded being be still McCoy Creek: Cattle Long after sunset the afterlight glows warm along the rimrock. A wind down off the mountain blows soft, a little chill. I’ve come to love the quiet sound cattle make cropping short grass. Day and night are much the same to them in the pastures of summer, cows and calves, they crop and pull with that steady, comfortable sound as the light in the rimrock and the sky dims away slowly. Now no wind. I don’t know if cattle see the stars, but all night long they graze and walk and stand in the calm light that has no shadows. McCoy Creek: Wind The wind beats on the drums of my ears and overturns the chairs, blowing out of all the years we’ve come here, been here. The bird that says tzeep says tzeep. Dry pods on the old honeylocust rattle. Barbed wire draws straggling lines between us and distant cattle. Rocking like little white sailboats two hens cross the footbridge. Behind me and before me the basalt ridges are silent as the air is silent when the wind for a moment ceases. SIX QUATRAINS Autumn gold of amber red of ember brown of umber all September McCoy Creek Over the bright shallows now no flights of swallows. Leaves of the sheltering willow dangle thin and yellow. October At four in the morning the west wind moved in the leaves of the beech tree with a long rush and patter of water, first wave of the dark tide coming in. Solstice On the longest night of all the year in the forests up the hill, the little owl spoke soft and clear to bid the night be longer still. The Winds of May are soft and restless in their leafy garments that rustle and sway making every moment movement Hail The dogwood cowered under the thunder and the lilacs burned like light itself against the storm-black sky until the hail whitened the grass with petals. Come to Dust Spirit, rehearse the journeys of the body that are to come, the motions of the matter that held you. Rise up in the smoke of palo santo. Fall to the earth in the falling rain. Sink in, sink down to the farthest roots. Mount slowly in the rising sap to the branches, the crown, the leaf-tips. Come down to earth as leaves in autumn to lie in the patient rot of winter. Rise again in spring’s green fountains. Drift in sunlight with the sacred pollen to fall in blessing. All earth’s dust has been life, held soul, is holy. Lullaby where’s my little fleeting cat a year a year an hour a day where’s my little girl at fleeting away sleeping away found the way clear away nowhere far nowhere near a day a day an hour a year To the Rain Mother rain, manifold, measureless, falling on fallow, on field and forest, on house-roof, low hovel, high tower, downwelling waters all-washing, wider than cities, softer than sisterhood, vaster than countrysides, calming, recalling: return to us, teaching our troubled souls in your ceaseless descent to fall, to be fellow, to feel to the root, to sink in, to heal, to sweeten the sea. The Fine Arts Judging beauty, which is keenest, Eye or heart or mind or penis? Lust is blindest, feeling kindest, Sight is strongest, thought goes wrongest. An Autumn Reading for Andrea The poet read in the Scholar’s Room in the Chinese garden, her words half heard in rush and crash of rain on formal ponds and pavements, like verses cut in an old stone blurred by moss and lichen. Under the downpour purple chrysanthemums nodded in silence. A Cento of Scientists (Alternating quotations from Charles Darwin, Galileo Galilei, and Giordano Bruno) There is grandeur The sun with all the circling planets it sustains God is glorified and the greatness of his kingdom made manifest in this view of life the sun with all the circling planets yet glorified not in one but in countless suns from so simple a beginning endless forms the sun with all the planets it sustains yet can ripen a bunch of grapes not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand thousand endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful the sun can ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do not in a single world but in a thousand thousand, an infinity of worlds endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved as if it had nothing else in the universe to do All things are in the universe, and the universe is in all things, we in it and it in us There is grandeur in this view of life How it Seems to Me In the vast abyss before time, self is not, and soul commingles with mist, and rock, and light. In time, soul brings the misty self to be. Then slow time hardens self to stone while ever lightening the soul, till soul can loose its hold of self and both are free and can return to vastness and dissolve in light, the long light after time.
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So Far So Good Final Poems: 2014-2018
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