In The Essential Eugene McNamara, poetry pushes the barriers of language and grammar, daring to convey raw emotion with disarming empathy.
Eugene McNamara’s poetry ponders the textures and contradictions of his adopted city: Windsor, Ontario. Most comfortable in small, non-eloquent, delinquent, unpopular and wayward places, McNamara’s poems display abiding empathy with the inhabitants of these locales, conveying raw emotion through deceptively simple lines in which ‘voices cry wait / we didn’t want this / and the wind slams the words / around the corners of the empty / buildings down the empty / streets.’ The result is a selection offering poems of humility and grace that empathize rather than intellectualize.
The Essential Poets Series presents the works of Canada’s most celebrated poets in a package that is beautiful, accessible and affordable. The Essential Eugene McNamara is the twenty-fourth volume in this increasingly popular series.