Meditations, With Distractions

About

At the center of James McAuley’s new collection—the work of over a decade since his previous book, Coming & Going, New & Selected—is the sequence, “God’s Pattern,” meditations on the Stations of the Cross, an old devotional form of pilgrimage or “pattern” still practiced in rural parishes of the poet’s native country, Ireland. Theme and treatment vary throughout the collection, from somber reflection on the fate of a drunk in a cheap hotel room, “Cantata for the Feast of St. Anonymous,” to the scathing Celtic-style satire, “The Gingriad.” McAuley is well regarded for his experiments with traditional forms and rhythms: examples included are blank-verse narratives and elegies, a Haiku sequence, sonnets, a variation on the topographical poetry of the seventeenth century, even a carmen figurata.

Meditations, With Distractions has the qualities that all good poetry should possess: depth, erudition, accessibility, a joy in the practice of language. Combine these qualities with McAuley’s humanity and humor, and the result is a collection that readers will come to enjoy and appreciate more and more with each successive reading.

Author

James J. McAuley has graced the printed page for more than forty years. Born in Ireland in 1936, he received his B.A. from University College, Dublin and his MFA from the University of Arkansas. This long-awaited volume is his seventh full length collection. McAuley now lives (and writes) with his wife and son in Ireland.

Praise

“These are songs of experience certainly. But with all the innocence and accomplishment of a real poetic vision. ”
—Eavan Boland, author, The Lostlands: Poems

“Beautiful and charged with energy . . .”
—Diana O’Hehir, author, Spells For Not Dying Again