Letter to 'Oumuamua

In this wry and witty collection—addressed to the first interstellar object ever to be detected in our solar system—James Norcliffe applies a cool, clear eye to human life on Earth. Our foibles and absurdities are laid bare, but so too is the human capacity for love, desire, sorrow, and regret. Norcliffe’s succinct observations traverse the personal and the political. Grounded in the local but encompassing the global, they range through subjects such as commuting, insomnia, and faltering health to the contemplation of current events and issues such as gun violence and climate change. The landscapes and settings of these poems are vividly evoked, often in terms of human impact. Birds, ‘knowing what we are,’ take flight at the approach of a person; a coal range is the acknowledged centre of a West Coast family’s survival. Often very funny, and always deeply felt, Norcliffe’s Letter to 'Oumuamua describes a world where every day is both everyday—gritty, material, bread-and-butter—and also luminous and precious: a ‘day like no other.’