Heaven Is All Goodbyes

Author: Tongo Eisen-Martin  Publisher: City Lights (2017) This is truly revolutionary poetry. A vortex of images, observations, inspired leaps and free associations spills forth from a choir living in oppression and transience. Moments of political and spiritual convergence, surrealism and blunt materiality, gangsterism and its husk, revolution and perseverance, are captured in the music of metaphor and pure intention. "Eisen-Martin's impeccable collection is a crucial document of this time." –Publishers Weekly "The tesseraic language of Tongo Eisen Martin's Heaven Is All Goodbyes brings a new, shared articulation to the intricacies and interconnections of grief and life, speech and site, state and inhabitant, violence and landscape. Here, polyvocal assemblages gather and revolt against our 'porcelain epoch / succeeding for the most part / dying for the most part / married for the most part to its death.' This is resistance as sound." –Claudia Rankine "I don't know that there is a livi