This was sincerely exciting for me and I am now no longer a book-review virgin.
Read the full review by Devin McGuire, Assistant Editor of the Aurorean.
Highlights:
“Why Photographers Commit Suicide” is a book of poetry for our times…McCray takes a humanistic approach and deftly plays upon themes of fear, loneliness, and loss, things the early American settlers faced in large proportion as well…
I think what is so special about this book is that not only does it entertain the imagination with futuristic vision but also for every time it takes us and leads us to the existential abyss, prickling our fears and anxieties, it also takes that idea, mirrors, and thrusts it against all the celestial objects of the universe. Here we have stars and planets personified, acting out the baser human emotions and acts of sex-lust, lost loves, and betrayals, dealing with their own fears and anxieties about loss and the ultimate end, a sort of cosmic soap opera that mimics the natural flux and flow of the universe.The effect is strange and familiar at the same time. We relate to all of this cosmic collision. McCray just offers us a different kind of telescope to view these things. Her language is rich and daringly playful, and her sense of poetic rhythm is excellent. A good poem shows its weight in worth when read aloud. These poems sound great aloud. If a poet can strike upon the heart, the mind, and the ear all at the same time, something which Mary McCray has done here, then the poet is getting the job done."
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