The Father of the Predicaments Book

Is McHugh's poetry too densely clever at points? Perhaps. But for me that wordplay is perfectly balanced with the book's heart, which tackles life and death issues (being with someone in their final moments, for example) with a genuine, accessible, artful sensitivity. I'm a fan.

Quite often I'd stop paying attention to the wordplay because I was too busy enjoying the musicality, the way the words sound when read aloud, how they would build on one another, bleed into each another, the cadence of every phrase. The fluidity of the sounds sometimes led to a fluidity of definition -- especially when a word had double-meaning or the syntax of a line led to a sudden change in direction -- but that seems wholly appropriate when you consider the mystery contained in some of the subject matter.

I'm really looking forward to reading her book on poetics next. Then, yeah-ah, she has plenty more chapbooks on my will-soon-read list.