FORGIVENESS FORGIVENESS by Shane McCrae is #3 on COLDFRONT's Top 40 Poetry Books of 2014!
Shane McCrae’s latest, Forgiveness Forgiveness, is a stunning follow-up to his 2013 collection Blood. This book draws on a similar inherited trauma as Blood, but it also dilates the issue to zoom in on moments of personal violence. McCrae probes memory, both collective and individual, and uncovers violence associated with racism as well as physical and sexual abuse. The struggle, however, is not to achieve vengeance, but to forgive. McCrae’s speaker seeks to better understand and to move beyond rage or even apathy. - Melinda Wilson