a cappella: new and selected poems

These poems employ the short lyric as it derives from the haiku tradition. Through progressions of image clusters, mckay captures states of experience that elude the conscious mind: “but young/ was there/ …and heat/ hung with scarlet hurry / and gates forgotten/ under sly and hunting moons/ of summer hurting.” A high point of the collection is the sequence celebrating the life and paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe.

“Music and magic…her haiku and longer poems blending, an almost organic unity, probably the most lyrical being written today.”
— LeRoy Gorman, Poetry Canada Review