Late Work

To speak into silence is something very dramatic” is something Jorie Graham is given to say, and it is a statement that seems true when she in particular says it. Silence “is the sound of the earth.” Silence “does not need you to interrupt it.” Interrupting the silence is something one must justify, ideally by becoming the person who can write the book worthy of breaking it. In February 2022, it had been four months since her diagnosis, 15 since her husband was helicoptered to a hospital, two years since she watched her mother die. She lived on an island formed 20,000 years ago by a moving wall of ice.