Gain Country Club Formulated By Andy McGuire Represented In E-Text

rare that I give up on a poetry collection, especially one so short, but there was nothing here for me, I made it almost halfway without really connecting with a single poem, The singsong style works at times, but never in a way that supports the substance of the poetry, The poems are okay. They aren't bad, but they aren't fantastic, either, In the leadup to the sitelinkInternational Festival of Authors events in Thunder Bay, I decided to take it upon myself to read something by each of the participating authors.
While I have enjoyed past events, I figured this would give me a bit more background so that I can get more out of them, And, you know, having already read sitelinkWere All in This Together by Amy Jones, I only had three books to get through, No biggie. The readings and talks have come and gone, so now I might as well post some reviews,

The first postAmy Jones book I sampled was McGuires Country Club, one of two books of poetry showcased at this years IFOA in Thunder Bay.
I honestly struggled a bit with this one, While McGuire, like me, appears to enjoy nontraditional rhyme schemes, I tend to appreciate such a thing more when

it flows well, mimicking natural speech, If this cant be achieved, it works to the detriment of the poetry, or at least the detriment of my feelings toward it, That said, where some poetry worsens when read aloudsitelinkDouglas Livingston comes to mind here, where I love his written word but have great difficulties following the poems when spokenMcGuires work improves quite a bit when he reads it.
Perhaps it had to do somewhat with the intonation and flow of the reading or the context the author gave for the poems before jumping in to them, but I think a lot of it had to do with the energy and laughter of the audience.
This could be felt both when a clever line was deliveredread in a deadpan tone in each instanceor the outright absurdity of a poem like “Independence Day,” where he basically reads a list of various preserves.


Im also quite impressed with McGuires imagery throughout the collection, Along with specific techniques employedsuch as writing in the accent of the “man from Bombay” in the poem “Pool”he comes so close to effectively painting a picture and taking us there, but I kept getting pulled out of the moment by rhymes that felt forced.
The further from this McGuire moved, the more natural his verse became, the more enjoyable things became, to an extent with “Butchers Holler,” but extensively with my favourite poem in his book, “Toronto.
” I believe that a great deal of my love for the latter poem has a lot to do with how honest and open it feels, Perhaps this is due to the change in style, or perhaps its more because I can see myself in the poem, If so, thats at least a little depressing, No matter the reason, it worked,

When it all came together, I could see the good in Country Club, but I dont think it was written with someone like me in mind, as I came to prefer the exception rather than the rule.
However, even if Im not painting McGuires collection with the most appealing brush, I wholeheartedly recommend listening to him read if you ever get the chance Id go so far to say that youll find it hard to find another poetry reading thats quite as fun.
A lyrical wilderness of power, wealth, leisure and desire, the poems of Country Club freewheel across state lines with panache and flagrant feeling, In this bold debut from Andy McGuire, all passions even unpleasant ones stare down the barrel of a world in which freedom is the fiftyfirst state, and love is the eleventh province.




The manatee wades out of the water and roars at the sightseers
That one of them owes him a drink,
From the beach below the boardwalk, cockadoodledo!
What about a Christmas bowlcut over by the mangrove manatees!
Because in Florida there are Floridians
And they are born Floridians at large.

Every motion
Cant stop its own ocean,
The oceans motions make mistakes,
Some of the dying are unspeakable
In their thinness, poorly disguised meat mannequins,
The mosquitoes are so big
They bleed you like a pig,
Being eaten alive is an acquired taste,



Andy McGuire's poems have appeared in Arc, CV, Vallum, Riddle Fence and Hazlitt.
He lives in Toronto, Ontario,


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