The poet, Philip Lee Williams, grew up in Morgan County, just south of Athens, Georgia, and now lives in the woods in Oconee County near Wildcat Creek, just east of Athens. He explained the title of his twenty-first book to the Athens Banner-Herald: “The idea of Eden – is the idea of the garden of wonder and beauty. The Last Horizon is our last chance. The poems recognize the beauty, but also recognize the horrible things we have done. My whole feeling while writing it is this is our last chance and we better get it right. And if we don’t our descendants will pay for it in terrible ways. It’s more reacting with sorrow and regret to what we’ve done to the planet and to praise and glorify the wonderful things we still have with the idea that we can work to make things better.” None of the 70 poems in this collection have titles, but they are all numbered. Williams has often chosen mountain settings for his fiction, poetry and non-fiction writing.
Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2022. 153 pages. Trade paperback.