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  • Published: 15 September 2017
  • ISBN: 9780451494801
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 104
  • RRP: $55.00

Love in the Last Days

After Tristan and Iseult




A contemporary requiem--an earthy yet elegant reconsideration of the Tristan and Iseult story, from the former poet laureate of Brooklyn.

A contemporary requiem--an earthy yet elegant reconsideration of the Tristan and Iseult story, from the former poet laureate of Brooklyn.

In D. Nurkse's wood of Morois, the Forest of Love, there's a fine line between the real and the imaginary, the archaic and the actual, poetry and news. The poems feature the voices of the lovers and all parties around them, including the servant Brangien; Tristan's horse, Beau Joueur; even the living spring that flows through the tale ("in my breathing shadow / the lovers hear their voices / confused with mine / promising a slate roof, / a gate, a child . . . "). Nurkse brings us an Iseult who has more power than she wants over Tristan's imagination, and a Tristan who understands his fate early on: "That charm was so strong, no luck could free us." For these lovers, time closes like a book, but it remains open for us as we hear both new tones and familiar voices, eerily like our own, in this age-old story made new again.

  • Published: 15 September 2017
  • ISBN: 9780451494801
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 104
  • RRP: $55.00

About the author

Dennis Nurkse

D. Nurkse is the author of eight previous books of poetry. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writers’ Award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, two grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Tanne Foundation award, and two awards from Poetry magazine. He has also written widely on human rights. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Brooklyn.

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