Panic Author:Laura McCullough "Lovely and vigilant poems lay bare those seen and unseen forces that expose us again and again to our own mortality, to our daily yearning for beauty and grace. Embracing the narrative range of a novelist, Laura McCullough writes with the razored scrutiny of the fine poet she is, making Panic a timely and important book you simply must read."—A... more »ndre Dubus IIIThrough portraits painted in a muted palette, Panic embraces the ratcheting music of grief. Laura McCullough strives to uncover secrets beneath the platitudinal. Her narrative lyrics juxtapose private and public despair, portraying isolated stoicism against the backdrop of rippling disorder.From "Collection Pockets":The trees' leaves all turned over like a storm was about to blow through.
The music inside him ratcheted up as he pressed the white chest
with his crossed palms closing down against the mother's cries,
and the children splashing in the water just inches away,
coming within arm's reach,
desperate to see everything they could.Laura McCullough has published three previous collections of poetry, including Speech Acts (Black Lawrence Press), What Men Want (XOXOX Press), The Dancing Bear (Open Book Press), and a chapbook of prose poems, Elephant Anger (online from Mudlark). Her poetry, fiction, reviews, and essays have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Writer's Chronicle, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, Hotel Amerika, and other journals and magazines. A doctoral candidate at Bangor University in Wales, her scholarship focuses on the work of Stephen Dunn.« less