Poet Geoff Bouvier covers billions of years in ‘Us From Nothing'

By Sian Wilkerson

With his third book, poet Geoff Bouvier tackles the tough questions: Who are we? Where did we come from? And how did we get here?

In "Us From Nothing," Bouvier, Ph.D., a faculty member in the Department of English in Virginia Commonwealth University's College of Humanities and Sciences, looks back on humanity's history with a poetic epic that spans billions of years - from the Big Bang and the emergence of Homo sapiens to the first recorded use of writing around 3200 B.C.E. and the moon landing in 1969.

The book, the U.S. version of which was released this month, was inspired by the poetic historical work of Uruguayan novelist Eduardo Galeano, who called himself "a writer obsessed with remembering." The book's launch will be marked with an event at Shelf Life Books on Sept. 6 from 7-8 p.m.

Bouvier spoke with VCU News about what he called his most "ambitious and wide-reaching" project yet - a work that took seven years to complete.

It's fair to say that "Us from Nothing" covers a lot of ground.

Fifteen billion years ago, there was nothing, not even light. Now, we live in a universe that plays host to trillions of galaxies with uncountable stars, worlds and maybe even other life. "Us From Nothing" recounts this epic tale in prose poems that are carefully grounded in historical fact, resulting in a poetic retelling of history that challenges us to think deeply not only about where we've come from but also about where we're going.

It was seven years from the time when I started curating a table of contents of the most significant touchstones throughout history to the moment when I turned in the manuscript to my publisher. Seven long years of researching, writing and revising. It was truly a labor of love.

What inspired you to take on such a challenging project?

I was driven to research and write my own history of everything by a feeling that we need more stories to help us see ourselves as interdependent and interconnected. In other words, having a purpose and a place. I believe we need more stories that show us how there is no "them," there is only "us"- even though some of us have tried very hard indeed to subdivide humankind.

In the foreword to his first book, Galeano asks, "To awaken consciousness, to reveal identity- can literature claim a better function in these times?" I wanted to write a tale that would take up Galeano's torch and hymn, and tell us who we are, how we got here and where we're likely going.

What are you hoping readers will take away from the experience?

Early readers of my book have told me that it is "an epic for the globe" and "the one book humanity should put inside a time-capsule satellite." I hope my book can bring history to life and help readers learn about their world and themselves.

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