Our Lady of Absence

Selected Poems of

Steve Mc Euen

5.5 x 8.5, 96 pg, soft cover

ISBN 978-0-9814912-0-2

Price $16.95

The idea running through the poems in this volume is that, due to the curious nature of desire itself, we can truly praise or worship only a Deity that is absent – a Deity’s template, so to speak. After-all, if that Deity were to be present, our worship would amount to an idolatry of sorts. This volume of poetry comprises a landscape, or template, of desire; each poem is, at once, both a point of contact and a point of confrontation with that absence. And within the context of each poem’s experience, the poem becomes its own unique form of praise – praise not of a Deity, but of the divine absence of that Deity.

Steve Mc Euen’s poetry has been published in various periodicals and art journals, such as Apostrophe: University of South Carolina Journal of the Arts; Pegasus; and Sandcutters. He has won the Blair B. Morton Prize in poetry, and numerous of his poems have been anthologized. The body of his work, from which the poems of this volume have been selected, has been reviewed by Tony Ivins (Calliope, Late Autumn 2005), who states “From an innovative point of view, Mc Euen challenges the reader on a personal level. His is not just a subjective world, however. The works simply have the power to justify themselves. They are in Emerson’s words, ‘their own excuse for being’”.

 

 

The book is available directly from the author.

For more information, or to order copies of the book, please contact the author at mceuen46@netscape.com