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“Shea’s compressed narration moves in logical jerks that result in the delightful accretion of visual surprises. The speaker’s relationship to nature evokes a kind of eco-consciousness, which resists slipping into clunky agitprop critique. Instead the speaker of ‘Turning and Running’ insists on a reappraisal of [his] conditional relationship to nature and concludes, ‘There were at least four things / I should have said. Do not step on the rug / with the live birds sewn into it.’”—Douglas Piccinnini, Verse Magazine
“With a simplicity of phrasing, directness of address, and nimble first-mindedness, the poems in Star in the Eye convey great depth, zest, and mystery. Their brevity is anathema to fragmentation; instead playfully and mordantly, they honor “what will suffice,” as Stevens says, with a calligraphic precision and flair. If anyone could cut a diamond with a paintbrush, it would be James Shea—his work is so marvelous; utterly lucent and revivifyingly strange.” —Dean Young
Endorsements:
“The speaker of Star in the Eye is wide-awake in a dreamscape, navigating an illustrated netherworld where the ‘Plane’s Controls Come Off in My Hands’ and a love affair can be distilled into the titles of unwritten haikus- all in the same poem. Again and again James Shea brings us to the edge of the unknown and points into the darkness, until our eyes adjust and we see that he is pointing at himself, already there. These poems make me wish I had the same dreams Shea has, and after reading this book it seems possible-anything does.”—Nick Flynn
From the Book:
Turning and Running
The sun was backing away from me,
slowly, like one I have betrayed.
So I ran to the river to burn in it.
And they blocked the road with ambulances.
They gave me surgery on my mouth.
My eyes were packed with feathers,
and my whole face was painted flat.
An expert told me I was probably a joke.
There were at least four things
I should have said. Do not step on the rug
with the live birds sewn into it.
Awards/Recognition:
Fence Modern Poets Series 2008
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A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, JAMES SHEA is currently a poet-in-residence in the Chicago public schools and teaches at Columbia College Chicago and DePaul University. Star in the Eye is his first book.
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