What to read after The Essential Eugene McNamara?

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.