Cain Named the Animal by Shane McCrae; Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong; Garden Physic by Sylvia Legris; Panic Response by John McCullough; Tractatus Philosophico-Poeticus by Signe Gjessing
Cain Named the Animal by Shane McCrae
Curious about life in and after “the tribe of Eden”, American Shane McCrae’s eighth collection investigates the origin of time when “God first thought time itself / Was flawed but time was God’s first mirror”. McCrae’s poems possess a self-reflective quality without being burdened by history. As in Beckett and Whitman, repetition generates a self-searching, hypnotic music. His poetry moves freely within the restricted syllabic lines, constructing a wild, vivid dreamworld of a lush green garden, where an angry robot bird leads us down an Edenic rabbit hole.