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Late Unpleasantness
In Late Unpleasantness, David Bettencourt writes from the charged ground between public catastrophe and private reckoning. These poems move through 9/11, gun violence, authoritarian dread, inherited Southern history, religious memory, protest, marriage, grief, and grace, asking what can still be said when the old consolations have failed. The voice is unsparing, but not cold. Anger appears here as a form of grief. Judgment turns, again and again, toward self-implication.
And through the book's severest passages runs an unexpected tenderness, a desire not merely to accuse the world, but to survive it without surrendering love. Published alongside its companion volume, Commedia Erudita, this collection completes a two-part meditation on brokenness, forgiveness, and the difficult work of learning to disarm.
| Genre | Poetry |
|---|---|
| ISBN | 979-8-234-08225-1 |
| Pages | 105 |
| Format | US Trade paperback, 6 × 9 in (152 × 229 mm), perfect bound, matte cover, black & white on 60# white uncoated |
| List price | $15.00 USD |
| Publication date | July 17, 2026 |
| Companion volume | Commedia Erudita |
From the collection
EMERGENCY
How long can our mouths stay dry How long must we listen Around the permanent bell How long can the snare Purr and rattle How long can the footnote for Every word in print Read lies, lies, lies How long can we Fill our walk-in closets With rifles and food How long can we stand In the wet copse With our ears cocked With no moon to show if The gait of the shadow Rolling to us is a man's Or, luckier still, a friend's I have stopped understanding Even these questions When we are dead In a hundred years The permanent bell Will not have stilled Even the baby showers will feel Like drills for the end of the world
September 8, 2021
About the author
David Bettencourt is a poet and songwriter living in the Washington, D.C., area with his family. His writing draws on his upbringing in the Deep South, his time as a teenage seminarian, and his past work as a civil rights lawyer.