To be “in the middle of the thing” tending the present in the embodiment of a “last human”/ “last humus” is the paradox and tension in which Aditi Machado’s long poem Now dwells. The poem’s addressee, an ‘you’, sinks into a direction and poise that is both ancient and newly created. Lit by lamps and computer screens, and alert to “the green vein of life,” this poem feels elegiac, but it also unravels as a voyage. When will this last ‘now’ cease? In its course, will this human know what instructions to heed? The ‘you’ is both caregiver and inflictor of harm – gardener and polluter. Yet, the exuberant fertility of the world does not halt. All surroundings speak and send feedback. The human remains in the ‘now’ moving toward an unmarked timelessness – a temporal uncertainty. And yet, the logic of nowness will not capture the end, Machado suggests. It is found in movement and arrives by way of prow.

Aditi Machado is a poet and translator whose books include two poetry collections from Nightboat--Emporium (2020; James Laughlin Award) and Some Beheadings (2017; The Believer Poetry Award)--and a translation of Farid Tali’s novella Prosopopoeia (Action, 2016). She is also the author of several poetry chapbooks and an essay pamphlet titled The End (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2020). She teaches at the University of Cincinnati.