The Final Voicemails. Max Ritvo

      EDITOR’S NOTE

      Max Ritvo was a prodigiously gifted poet; toward the end of his life, he was also volcanically productive. Nothing he wrote was without flashes of brilliance, but many of these late poems would surely have been revised or jettisoned; it was slow work to sift out the very best. This he asked me to do—it seemed to me an essential labor lest the weaker poems dilute the stronger. What follows, obviously, reflects my judgment. Nothing has been revised; Elizabeth Metzger, Max’s designated literary executor, suggested one minute cut.

      I have chosen to include with these late poems a slightly abbreviated version of Mammals, Max’s extraordinary undergraduate thesis. Some of these poems were imported to enlarge Aeons and Four Reincarnations; they are included here in their original forms, partly because they shape Mammals and partly because the small adjustments seem to me interesting. These poems also serve as a general reminder to readers, and to poets, that the work of twenty-year-olds is not necessarily practice work.

      Cancer was Max’s tragedy; it was also, as he was canny enough to see, his opportunity. Poets who die at twenty-five do not commonly leave bodies of work so urgent, so daring, so supple, so desperately alive.

      This book has no dedication. Had he lived, I feel certain Max would have wished to honor his wife, Victoria, who gave his last years rare intensity and joy. He would have wished to thank his closest peer, Elizabeth Metzger. And always and ultimately his remarkable mother, Riva Ariella Ritvo, whose resourcefulness and passion bought him more time than he might otherwise have had. His teachers he thanked repeatedly in his magical work.

      LOUISE GLÜCK

      Clear, the doctor says to your heart

      before bolting it.

      She’s saying this to clear away

      everything else in the room.

      Clear! I say, Your heart is clear! Clear as a fishbowl!