Famous Last Words (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Catherine Pierce has written an exhilarating book, one that rewards its lucky reader with intelligence and lyric grace and dance-hall, crushed corsage swing. A pure delight." - Lynne McMahon"

Review

"Catherine Pierce has written an exhilarating book, one that rewards its lucky reader with intelligence and lyric grace and dance-hall, crushed corsage swing. A pure delight." (Lynne McMahon )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Saturnalia (January 31, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0975499076
• ISBN-13: 978-0975499078
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,291,620 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Famous Last Words, February 1, 2009

By	Melissa D. Mcewen "Missy" (Bloomfield, Connecticut) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The last words in Catherine Pierce's Famous Last Words are "You understand/the need for the right words. How else/can we live forever? How else can we write ourselves in?" And Pierce is writing herself in. From her writing style in the first two sections of the book (Famous Last Words is split into three sections), I get the sense that Pierce writes not only because she can write, but to be the next "famous" poet, the next big thing on the poetry scene. Lines such as "make me famous," and "we know we will be famous" pop up in her poems and these can be the words of starving artists or Bonnie and Clyde. Everyone wants to be remembered, "written in." It is why George Appel said "Well, gentleman, you are about to see a baked Appel" before being electrocuted in the electric chair. It is why Catherine Pierce, perhaps, became a poet. And she is an excellent one, finding new ways to say things, even though "It's difficult/these days to say anything/new." But she manages and with poem titles like "Love Poem to the Phrase Let's Get Coffee," and "Love Poem to the word Lonesome," and poem titles like "In Which I Imagine Myself Into A Film Noir," and "In Which I Imagine Myself Into A Slasher Flick," you know you won't experience déjà vu while reading Famous Last Words. She "inspire[s] intrigue" with lines like these:

"You make
my blood lift its skirt above its knees" -- from "Love Poem to Doo-Wop"

"Some days I could burn
bookshelves, carve weapons
from the wreckage...
I could destroy
the sheriff's good name." -- from "Domesticity"

"At sixteen, I was illegal and brilliant,...
Always young
Paul Newman's best girl." -- from "This is not an Elegy"

"You dream yourself
into every fairytale, the grisly
versions where the prince's eyes
run blood and the girl disappears
into the wolf's dark throat." -- from "Adolescence"

But she inspires brilliance with the poems in section three of the book. Section three is the "famous last words" part of the book. In this section, Pierce writes poems about the famous last words of George Appel, Marie Antoinette, and Isadora Duncan, to name a few. This is where she shines. In "'Well, Gentleman, You Are About See A Baked Appel.' -- last words of gangster George Appel, before being put to death by electric chair," Pierce writes from the perspective of Appel's girlfriend who comes to visit him in jail and he uses her as an audience for his ideas on what his last words should be:

"Each time his girl visited, lips pressed
like stained tulips, cheeks pinched
into heat for the man behind the glass,
she left shaking her head...

Why did she believe this time
might be different? That this morning
he might remember her breasts beneath
the winter coat...? All he watched for now

was the expression of her mouth.
What about this, he'd say. What's cooking?
Or How about you fry up something good?
Then he'd grin and say I'm on fire!
Electric, even!..."

It would have been even more impressive if the whole book were made up of poems in this vein. The poem "Epithalamium," from section two, could have easily fit into section three. Epithalamium is a lyric ode in honor of a bride and bridegroom. This poem could be the famous last words of a girl before she becomes a wife:

"Know that at no point
do you have to own a) tapered jeans, b) a good blender,
c) spare light bulbs. These are your decisions to make.
Remember small parts of many days: the Amish
restaurant outside the city. The purchase of the red vase.
The bird whose cries woke you your first morning
in one bed. How you rose together then."

All in all, Catherine Pierce's Famous Last Words is a fascinating collection of poems. She is at her best when she "dreams herself" into infamous and famous people's lives and creates a poem out of it. She leaves "the whole [world] vibrating/with the aftershock of [her] wit."

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent! deserving of the prize, August 26, 2008

By	Joan Mazza "Author, speaker, poet" (Mineral, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

FAMOUS LAST WORDS is a collection of poetry with surprises and delights on every page. Pierce takes our expectations for romantic poetry and writes something fresh and startling every time. When you feel like everything has already been said in poems, read Pierce and enjoy. She certainly deserved the award at Saturnalia for this manuscript.