Us from Nothing

Bouvier’s (Glass Harmonica) latest book takes readers on a rapid prose poem tour through the history of human habitation on Earth. His work begins by noting humankind’s preexistence as remnants of “the shattered bodies of the stars” and ending with the impending precipice of technological posthumanism. It’s the history of “a harrowing back and forth between advancement and awfulness” during which “our collective spirit has been lost.” Over time, “the fewer and fewer steer the many,” as progress becomes determined by the thoughts, discoveries and inventions of individuals—Confucius through Einstein and beyond—and the modern realization that “we live in a cosmos without cause.” In Bouvier’s telling, things began to go irrevocably wrong with the advent of technology (which “outpaces our genes”) and its eventual employment toward the acquisition of power and wealth by those who “jump-started modernity on the backs of enslaved African people.”