At the center of James Mc Auley s new collection the work of over a decade since his previous book, Coming & Going, New & Selected is the sequence, God s Pattern, meditations on the Stations of the Cross, an old devotional form of pilgrimage or pattern still practiced in rural parishes of the poet s native country, Ireland. Theme and treatment vary throughout the collection, from somber reflection on the fate of a drunk in a cheap hotel room, Cantata for the Feast of St. Anonymous, to the scathing Celtic-style satire, The Gingriad. Mc Auley is well regarded for his experiments with traditional forms and rhythms: examples included are blank-verse narratives and elegies, a Haiku sequence, sonnets, a variation on the topographical poetry of the seventeenth century, even a carmen figurata.Meditations, With Distractions has the qualities that all good poetry should possess: depth, erudition, accessibility, a joy in the practice of language. Combine these qualities with Mc Auley s humanity and humor, and the result is a collection that readers will come to enjoy and appreciate more and more with each successive reading.
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