I'm thrilled to announce the publication of my debut poetry collection, The Fire Lit & Nearing (Indolent Books) available for purchase in select stores and online:
Praise for The Fire Lit & Nearing:
[J.G.] McClure’s first book, The Fire Lit & Nearing, is a wild cosmically inclusive, sometimes surreal, sometimes hilarious but always compelling thought experiment about contingency as both a source of freedom and inescapable pain. These poems embody an irrepressible charm, a formal poise and wit that I find welcoming, even life affirming, even in the midst of sorrow. A truly beautiful book. — Alan Shapiro
Wit and nihilism, deadpan intelligence, and candid examinations of human hungers abound in J.G. McClure’s The Fire Lit & Nearing. McClure’s smoldering poems take on the grind of time, obsessive love, manliness and its illusions, alternative fates, being and nothingness, and much more. His is a winning voice, dark and self-critical, a bit reminiscent of John Berryman’s, a brave and true voice one might dub melancholic/comic/heroic. —Amy Gerstler
The recurrent mode of J.G. McClure’s The Fire Lit & Nearing is a version of lament and complaint (both with long distinguished poetic traditions), but this tone is relieved and complicated and enriched by McClure’s distinctive zaniness and invention, which gives the reader great enjoyment in this kind of “gaiety transfiguring all that dread” à la Yeats. This inventiveness also makes use of McClure’s intelligence in a fundamentally writerly way and communicates the mind-of-the writer at work in an exhilarating act of making that extracts beauty even from human pain and despair. —Michael Ryan
The Fire Lit & Nearing is a debut whose voice is consistent and unique, filled with animated poetry. --Daniel Casey reviewing for Heavy Feather Review
Contact me for information on review copies, readings/signings, etc. Or get updates via newsletter.
For retailers, the book may be ordered through Ingram.
Praise for The Fire Lit & Nearing:
[J.G.] McClure’s first book, The Fire Lit & Nearing, is a wild cosmically inclusive, sometimes surreal, sometimes hilarious but always compelling thought experiment about contingency as both a source of freedom and inescapable pain. These poems embody an irrepressible charm, a formal poise and wit that I find welcoming, even life affirming, even in the midst of sorrow. A truly beautiful book. — Alan Shapiro
Wit and nihilism, deadpan intelligence, and candid examinations of human hungers abound in J.G. McClure’s The Fire Lit & Nearing. McClure’s smoldering poems take on the grind of time, obsessive love, manliness and its illusions, alternative fates, being and nothingness, and much more. His is a winning voice, dark and self-critical, a bit reminiscent of John Berryman’s, a brave and true voice one might dub melancholic/comic/heroic. —Amy Gerstler
The recurrent mode of J.G. McClure’s The Fire Lit & Nearing is a version of lament and complaint (both with long distinguished poetic traditions), but this tone is relieved and complicated and enriched by McClure’s distinctive zaniness and invention, which gives the reader great enjoyment in this kind of “gaiety transfiguring all that dread” à la Yeats. This inventiveness also makes use of McClure’s intelligence in a fundamentally writerly way and communicates the mind-of-the writer at work in an exhilarating act of making that extracts beauty even from human pain and despair. —Michael Ryan
The Fire Lit & Nearing is a debut whose voice is consistent and unique, filled with animated poetry. --Daniel Casey reviewing for Heavy Feather Review
Contact me for information on review copies, readings/signings, etc. Or get updates via newsletter.
For retailers, the book may be ordered through Ingram.
