80 pages / 6.00 x 9.00 inches / no illustrations
Poetry / American-General | Poetry / Death, Grief, Loss | Poetry / Family
Titled after one of the side effects of antidepressants, Unusually Grand Ideas is a poignant account of clinical depression and the complications it introduces to marriage and fatherhood. James Davis May’s poems describe mental illness with nuance, giving a full account of the darkness but also the flashes of hope, love, and even humor that lead toward healing. In pieces ranging from spare lyrical depictions of pain to discursive meditations that argue for hope, May searches for meaning by asking the difficult but important questions that both trouble and sustain us.
James Davis May is the author of the poetry collection Unquiet Things and a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in creative writing. He lives in Macon, Georgia, where he directs the creative writing program at Mercer University.
“James Davis May’s second book begins quietly, chronicling a series of losses, then escalates into a harrowingly exact, artfully rendered portrait of depression: ‘I needed a darkness I’d probably survive / to escape the one I knew I wouldn’t.’ May nails the paralyzing character of his illness and somehow manages, through art and ardor, to negotiate with despair, climbing toward a position that acknowledges darkness but does not deny hope. ‘Forgive me, Love, my difficulties with joy,’ he writes to his young daughter, and to himself and his grateful readers, ‘sometimes the world doesn’t disappoint.’ Unusually Grand Ideas is wrenching, genuine, and superb.”—Mark Doty
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