Meditations, with Distractions

At the center of James McAuleys new collectionthe work of over a decade since his previous book, Coming & Going, New & Selectedis the sequence, Gods Pattern, meditations on the Stations of the Cross, an old devotional form of pilgrimage or pattern still practiced in rural parishes of the poets 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 McAuleys humanity and humor, and the result is a collection that readers will come to enjoy and appreciate more and more with each successive reading.