Pulley Releases The Kingdom Where No One Dies by Jeff McRae
Today, October 14th, marks the release of The Kingdom Where No One Dies by Jeff McRae.
The Kingdom Where No One Dies is a collection that interweaves voices from past and present to form a choral meditation on intimacy, failure, and persistence within rural, working-class life. With a style that moves between elegy and humor, confession and observation, McRae’s poems construct personal and physical landscapes that shift with each new word and thought. It is a collection that honors the beauty and gravity of ordinary life.
Mark Wunderlich, author of The God of Nothingness, says “The poems in Jeff McRae’s remarkable collection look back at a rural past with an astute ambivalence – neither fully celebrating, nor excoriating the world they describe. McRae employs rhyme and sophisticated formal moves, a subtle and wry humor, and a wild intelligence that sees, describes, and enthralls.
Poet Mary Jo Bang, author of many collections including A Film in Which I Play Everyone, writes of the book, “these poems argue, with inspired lyric clarity, that consolation resides not in our fractured childhoods – ‘madness of lock, stock, barrel’ – but in the wholeness of adulthood and in the knowledge we gained by watching our innocence dissolve into thin air.”
Jeff McRae says, “this debut collection means a lot to me. It's the end of a process that's lasted almost 25 years. I'm definitely proud of my sticktoitiveness. Like quitting smoking. You got to stick with it knowing it's going to take a long time and there's going to be significant pain along the way.
“But I like the music poems and the poems about the family farm,” he continues. “They are… nice to have written. That sounds weird and underwhelming. But I'm glad the people and places in the poems won't fade in obscurity. I mean they still will, right, but at least they get to live a little longer in a poem or two.”
Links to purchase The Kingdom Where No One Dies online can be found here, or find it at your favorite local bookstore.
About the poet:
Jeff McRae lives in Vermont with his wife and three children. He earned a Masters in Writing from the University of New Hampshire and a Masters in Fine Arts in poetry from Washington University, St. Louis where he was the recipient of the Academy of American Poets prize. Since returning to Vermont, he’s worked as a fly rod builder, a digital marketing copywriter, a youth employment specialist, and for fifteen years as a creative writing and literature instructor. Along the way he’s served as poetry reader for Boulevard Magazine and The Adroit Journal. His poetry has appeared in Massachusetts Review, Antioch Review, Rattle, Salamander, and many other publications. He has been a finalist for several first book awards including the New Issues Poetry Prize, the Gerald Cable Book Award, and the Cider Press Review Book Award. An active musician, he also performs in theaters, clubs, and concert halls throughout New England.
