Wesley McNair's New England is not a nostalgic never-never land, but a place
right on the ground, where signs advertise "Cosmetics and Landfill," poor people
drive old Cadillacs, and farmers live on the edge. It includes retarded children
playing baseball; old dancers gliding, eyes closed, on love-handles; and a desperate
brother who runs until his heart explodes, on the very day NASA's Challenger
rocket blows up. Broader than a regionalist poet, he seeks the universal meaning
of his materials, linking his New England to American culture in general, and
to the largest human concerns.
"Full of poems that are simple and direct in technique, yet profound and riveting
in impact. This is one of the year's best collections of poetry."
— Booklist, starred review, on The Town of No
"Wesley McNair has created one of the most memorable mythical places of the decade."
—New Letters Review of Books, on The Town of No
"Not a word out of place, and the lines move down the page with the stark clarity
and the patient nearness of a winter landscape developing outside a window...whatever
regional cast the poems have is much less noticeable than the powerful moments
of realization and description that make these poems live."
—Henry Taylor, Washington Times, on My Brother Running
"...the book's title poem is a masterpiece of both pacing and intensity."
—Philip Booth, Maine Sunday Telegram, on My Brother Running
"A formal tour de force, "My Brother Running" is McNair's most emotionally
powerful poem, and a masterpiece of the long poem and the elegy."
— Thomas R. Smith, Minneapolis Star Tribune