Campbell McGrath Libros

A major new collection from one of our best loved, most celebrated, and most original poets Deeply personal but also expansive in its imaginative scope, Nouns & Verbs brings together thirty-five years of writing from Campbell McGrath, one of America's most highly lauded poets. Offering a hint of where he's headed while charting the territory already explored, McGrath gives us startlingly inventive new poems while surveying his previous work--lyric poems, prose poems, and a searing episodic personal epic, "An Odyssey of Appetite," exploring America's limitless material and spiritual hungers. Nothing is too large or small to remain untouched by McGrath's voracious intellect and deep empathy--everything from Japanese eggplant to a can of Schaefer beer to the smokestacks of Chicago comes in for a close and perceptive look even as McGrath crosses borders and boundaries, investigating the enduring human experiences of love and loss. A book that stands on its own solid foundation, Nouns & Verbs captures the voice and vision of a truly singular poet.

A collection of profound and piercing poems from a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize about navigating the modern world in search of beauty that will endure Fever of Unknown Origin opens at a remote crossroads, where the speaker considers the intersection of history, beauty, and destruction: “the past / is paper / and the present, a match . . .” What follows is an urgent tour of landscapes—environmental, political, and personal—that reframes our perception of modern America and leads the reader into “An empire of rags and photons” where we must look to the past to clarify our futures. With sublime wit and a Whitmanian eye, McGrath delivers a stunning collection of warnings, love letters, and praise songs for all that manages to weather the perennial pressures of time: frog ponds, stadium rubble, and the endless cycle of seasons, which usher us deeper into an era we cannot yet know.

From the MacArthur genius grant and Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award winner Campbell McGrath, an electric new collection of poetry that asks us to love what lasts amid the detritus of American culture After nearly a decade, In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys marks a return for Campbell McGrath to the poetic forms that brought him national acclaim—lyrical meditations on American art and society by turns satirical, tender, and haunted by the merciless work of time. In poems such as "Dick Cheney Speaks to Me in a Dream" and "Shopping for Pomegranates at Wal-Mart on New Year's Day," McGrath explores the intersection of the personal and the public realms of American culture like no other poet at work today. Whether he's documenting the decay and transformation of American cities, eulogizing Allen Ginsberg and Frank O'Hara, or rhapsodizing on the extramortal lifespan of books, McGrath writes poems of dazzling energy, intelligence, humor, and engagement. In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys is a collection of dreams, visions, jibes, essays, arguments, and love songs, each of them transformed into poetry by one of our most honored and entertaining poets.