Karaoke at the End of the World

Genevieve Deguzman

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Book cover for Karaoke at the End of the World
Image for variant 9781956907247
Book cover for Karaoke at the End of the World
Image for variant 9781956907247

Karaoke at the End of the World

Karaoke at the End of the World

Genevieve Deguzman

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Description

Karaoke at the End of the World by Genevieve DeGuzman is a mesmerizing poetry collection that takes readers on an intergalactic journey through the multiverse. DeGuzman's poems are rich with vivid imagery, exploring themes of extinction, survival, and the human condition. From polar bears to mayflies to the figure of the Xenomorph, her work is populated by a diverse array of creatures and characters. The collection delves into the complexities of grief, loss, and transformation, with poems that range from punk riot songs to computer programs. DeGuzman's talent and versatility shine through in every verse, making this a must-read for poetry enthusiasts and anyone looking to be transported to another world. Let DeGuzman sing you back to what it means to be human here on earth.

Critical Reviews

Genevieve DeGuzman invites her readers to meet at a bar in the multiverse and sing the Anthropocene's extinction pop song. These poems move through the human tangle of urges and anxieties, and also the extraterrestrial wreckage and treasure of a body. Each generation and species constructs its covenant with desires and finds a way for joy to continue through "all the gardens of paradise we've ever survived." Full of pixels and polymers, bass lines and ballads, each generation proves that love is full of chances. From close encounters with maternal Xenomorphs to quick lives of terrestrial insects, this book sets alight the burning heart at the center of every life.

-Traci Brimhall, author of Love Prodigal

In the nimble hands of Genevieve DeGuzman, life is like wet paper, a "crane / gently folded, curving its wings. Undoing those days..." In poem after poem in Karaoke at the End of the World, she reveals "little pockets of life / where there should be no life" because she is a poet who is not bound by time or space. I would follow her poems anywhere.

-Tomás Q. Morín, author of Let Me Count the Ways

As its title suggests, this book is full of rebellious music. Here are poems that delight in rhyme and wordplay; others are laments, dirges for a loss so central it inflects everything in the multiverse. Image-rich, populated by creatures of all sorts (from polar bears to mayflies to the figure of the Xenomorph), and wary of outer space as a frontier for human life, these poems sing of extinction and survival through forms as varied as punk riot songs and computer programs. Karaoke announces a poet of talent, versatility, and heart...let DeGuzman sing you back to what it means to be human here on earth.

-Margaret Ray, author of Good Grief, the Ground

Genevieve DeGuzman's debut is a vibrating intergalactic vision in a state of emergency that "lean[s] into the voltage," ricocheting from shedding skins to dancing it out. She sings of transformative grief through the breaks where we find the gleams ("my shine is bioluminescent... Radiance that needs / dark"). Her lines float through shifting spaces with spiky charm and tenacious heart. She writes: "But you can be ruined, too, at every re-birth." The speaker honors her late mother by rebooting and remixing the past into a multiverse of cosmic existence and chosen futures, with mesmerizing tenderness.

-Shelley Wong, author of As She Appears

Publishing Information

Publisher: Jackleg Press
Pub date: 2026-03-16
Length: 130 pages

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