Impossibility of Nothingness

In what Ian McDonald has described as an " unlikely flowering", the poet in his late eighties and early nineties has produced a striking late body of work, including Not Quite Without a Moon, Chasing the Marbleu, and The Impossibility of Nothingness. While unmistakably the work of McDonald, these poems also feel newly open and unexpected in tone. His characteristic strengths remain: compassion, a nuanced exploration of love, a deep engagement with the natural world, and vivid character sketches that form a poignant record of a changing Guyana. These late poems, however, place greater emphasis on memory, ageing, and mortality, alongside intimate reflections on grandchildren, gardens, and the simple wonder of being alive at great age. What distinguishes the collection is a new freedom in the language-- more immediate, elemental, and unrestrained. The poems feel written out of necessity rather than design, carrying a quiet, unforced truthfulness. As McDonald writes in the final line of the title poem: " I record this just in case it's true."