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Python with a Dog Inside It
100 pages, Paperback
Published April 8, 2025
3 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 30, 2025
This entire read absolutely floored me. As a fellow poet, I found myself stopping constantly to admire his technical precision, the way he toggles between lyric and narrative modes, his impeccable ear for rhythm, the structural brilliance of those recurring “Incunabula” poems threading through the collection. His clarity is what gets me most: these poems about trauma and queer survival in working-class New Jersey never lose you in abstraction. Every image earns its place, every line break serves the larger architecture.
What strikes me most is how he handles such weighty subject matter without ever tipping into exploitation or melodrama. His diction has this beautiful precision. It is striking without being showy, accessible without sacrificing complexity. The marshland setting becomes both literal landscape and emotional terrain, and McDonough navigates both with stunning dexterity. This collection does what the best poetry does: transforms personal reckoning into universal recognition, building toward hope without ever feeling forced. A poet to watch.
What strikes me most is how he handles such weighty subject matter without ever tipping into exploitation or melodrama. His diction has this beautiful precision. It is striking without being showy, accessible without sacrificing complexity. The marshland setting becomes both literal landscape and emotional terrain, and McDonough navigates both with stunning dexterity. This collection does what the best poetry does: transforms personal reckoning into universal recognition, building toward hope without ever feeling forced. A poet to watch.
Displaying 1 of 1 review