Brian Cordell

In Their Final Performance Brian Cordell

IN THEIR FINAL PERFORMANCE is a collection of poems that mourns the loss of several notable musicians while celebrating their music and what it means to be a fan. Structured as a concert, the opening section sets a tone for the collection in much the way an opening act would set the tone for a headliner in a concert. The poems in the opening act reference the music of Townz Van Zandt, David Bowie, John Lennon and Bill Withers.

Following the Opening Act, the Headliner section of the book is a sequence a poems written both as elegy and tribute to singer/songwriter Jason Molina and his band, Magnolia Electric Co. The poems in this section represent a live performance of one of the band's albums, where each poem represents a track on the album. They are cover songs of sorts that examine the Molina's life, his struggles with alcoholism, and his early death. These poems, like songs themselves, weave together a variety of formal repetitive structures, from the villanelle, to the sestina to the pantoum as they explore music, addiction and loss.

The book closes with an encore of sorts that pays tribute to Kurt Cobain and Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip, giving the book a sense of closure, both as an end to a concert and an end to grief.