Last Poems

The first major and only available collection from John Farris, a seminal Black voice in downtown New York City poetry, featuring his final poems transcribed and in manuscript form, along with the self-portraits and drawings he made at the same time, encouraged to do so by his friend David Hammons. John Farris (1940-2016) was the ultimate gadfly of the New York poetry scene, a universally known and revered genius. Author of the small press novel The Ass' Tale and poetry collection It's Not About Time, these Last Poems will be his first widely available work. A collection of drawings along with facsimile and transcribed poems from the end of his life, it's a profound monument to a poet who resolutely lived on the margins, and whose voice is all the more important because of it.