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Fr. 23.90
Kerrin McCadden
American Wake
English · Paperback / Softback
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Description
"New from a poet whose astonishing images, emotional honesty, and storytelling power holds a singular clarity of vision. An "American wake" is what the Irish call a farewell party for those emigrating to the United States. A New England writer equally at home in Ireland, Kerrin McCadden explores family, death, grief, apologies, and all manner of departures in second full-length volume of poetry"--
About the author
Kerrin McCadden teaches at Montpelier High School, serves as the Associate Director of the Conference on Poetry and Teaching at The Frost Place, and is associate poetry editor at Persea Books. She lives with her family in Vermont.
Summary
“The poems, plainspoken distillations of origins and loss, explore histories, teasing at what we know without knowing, and know without remembering we know. A book of quiet, watchful radiance.”—The Boston Globe
“Must-read poetry.”—The Millions
New from a poet whose astonishing images, emotional honesty, and storytelling power hold a singular clarity of vision. “American Wake navigates loss with such unparalleled sensitivity and inventiveness that language becomes its own jubilant force of survival.”—Major Jackson
An “American wake” is what the Irish call a farewell to those emigrating to the United States. A New England poet equally at home in Ireland, Kerrin McCadden explores family, death and grief, apologies, and all manner of departures. In the poem “In the Harbor,” McCadden writes:
When we are out to sea, we look back to see faces
ringing the shore like a fence, those we love in up
to their hips in waves, waving goodbye like mad.
Included in American Wake are the poems, “My Broken Family,” “Weeks After My Brother Overdoses,” “One Way to Apologize to a Daughter for Careless Words,” “Portrait of the Family as a Definition,” and “My Mother Talks to Her Son about Her Heart.”
This collection by a writer of extraordinary gifts will appeal to readers who believe in the potential of carefully hewn words to unveil our world and our deepest feelings to ourselves. As the acclaimed memoirist Nick Flynn (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City) puts it: “Kerrin McCadden transforms tragedy into myth.”
Foreword
American Wake
- New collection by a winner of the Vermont Book Award (2015)
- Publication timed for National Poetry Month in April 2021 (COOP available).
- Other new Godine / Black Sparrow titles for poetry promotions in April 2021 are Bone Rosary by Thomas Lynch, Wicked Enchantment (paperback) by Wanda Coleman, and Old Poets by Donald Hall.