American Wake

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New from a poet whose astonishing images, emotional honesty, and storytelling power holds a singular clarity of vision. An "American wake" is what the Irish call a farewell to those emigrating to the United States. A New England writer equally at home in Ireland, Kerrin McCadden explores family, death and grief, apologies, and all manner of departures in second full-length volume of poetry. In the collection's title poem, McCadden writes: When we are out to sea, we look back to see faces ringing the shore like a fence, those we love in up to their hips in waves, waving goodbye like mad. Included in American Wake are the compelling titles, "My Broken Family," "Weeks After My Brother Overdoses," "One Way to Apologize to a Daughter for Careless Words," "Portrait of the Family as a Definition," and "My Mother Talks to Her Son about Her Heart." This collection by a writer of extraordinary gifts will appeal to readers who believe in the potential of carefully hewn words to unveil our world and our deepest feelings to ourselves. As the acclaimed memoirist Nick Flynn (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City) puts it: "Kerrin McCadden transforms tragedy into myth."