McCreary, Chris: awry

White Stag Publishing,

Publication Date: December 1, 2024

Art by: Caitlin McCormack

Publisher Marketing: 

Emerging from a post-pandemic netherworld, the poems in awry flit like half-remembered dreams streaming through our liminal devices. Listing between rupture & reconfiguration, these verses spin the threads of a web stitching diverse registers & reference points. Tarot cards & twenty-sided dice chart a course for a disoriented, Orphean talk show host. Staggering forth from Orpheus' darkened soundstage, he searches for the perfect alchemical polymer of pop songs & corporate jargon to imbue midlife’s perilous journey with a synthesis of mythic significance.

Without a doubt, Chris McCreary is a master of language. In awry, the part--whether it be an impeccably placed phoneme or the copper wiring of a palace--is just as absolutely integral as the whole. Like a lyric pop-up book, these poems peel back to reveal stunning images of lamentation and wonder for the reader to uncover upon every new read. There are rituals made from calamity and protection spells made from danger. I was enthralled from beginning to end, finding myself returning again and again for more. Now enlightened, “[what] broke open won’t / close.”

-Kailey Tedesco, author of MOTHERDEVIL