Late Wonders
New & Selected Poems
Not all poets are storytellers, not even close, but all of them wish they were, wish they had a better understanding of how words and images bind spells. Wesley McNair is the author of nine collections of stories in the shape of poems. The Maine poet laureate from 2011 to 2016, he won the Robert Frost Prize, the Theodore Roethke Prize, and numerous other prestigious awards over many decades.
THE NAME
At the end of her life,
when the fire
lifted her house away,
and her left side
vanished in a stroke,
and she woke
in that white room
without apron or shoes,
she searched each face
until she found her twice-
divorced daughter, the one
she always said wasn’t
over Fool’s Hill yet,
and, taking her hand
as if they’d all along
been close, began
to call the name
the frightened daughter
never heard before,
not father or brother.
Reviewed by
Matt Sutherland
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