{"product_id":"scared-violent-like-horses-poems-9781571315076","title":"Scared Violent Like Horses: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSelected by Victoria Chang as winner of the Jake Adam York Prize, John McCarthy's \u003cem\u003eScared Violent Like Horses\u003c\/em\u003e is a deeply personal examination of violent masculinity, driven by a yearning for more compassionate ways of being.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMcCarthy's flyover country is populated by a family strangled by silence: a father drunk and mute in the passenger seat, a mother sinking into bed like a dish at the bottom of a sink, and a boy whose friends play punch-for-punch for fun. He shows us a boy struggling to understand pain carried down through generations and how quickly abandonment becomes a silent kind of violence; \"how we deny each other, daily, so many chances to care,\" and how \"we didn't know how to talk about loss, \/ so we made each other lose.\" Constant throughout is the brutality of the Midwestern landscape that, like the people who inhabit it, turns out to be beautiful in its vulnerability: sedgegrass littered with plastic bags floating like ghosts, dilapidated houses with abandoned Fisher Price toys in the yard, and silos of dirt and rust under a sky that struggles to remember the ground below.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith arresting lyricism and humility, \u003cem\u003eScared Violent Like Horses\u003c\/em\u003e attends to the insecurities that hide at the heart of what's been turned harsh, offering a smoldering but redemptive and tender view of the lost, looked over, and forgotten.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn McCarthy is the author of one previous collection, \u003ci\u003eGhost Country\u003c\/i\u003e, which was named a Best Poetry Book of 2016 by the \u003ci\u003eChicago Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e. McCarthy is the 2016 winner of \u003ci\u003eThe Pinch\u003c\/i\u003e Literary Award in Poetry, and his work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eBest New Poets 2015\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHayden's Ferry Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePassages North\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSycamore Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eZone 3\u003c\/i\u003e, and in anthologies such as \u003ci\u003eNew Poetry from the Midwest 2017\u003c\/i\u003e. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and serves as an editor of \u003ci\u003eRHINO\u003c\/i\u003e magazine and the \u003ci\u003eQuiddity\u003c\/i\u003e international literary journal and public radio program.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Milkweed Editions","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50544749052178,"sku":"9781571315076","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_e2042d22-0cdc-45bc-b744-2b366ac9f9e6.jpg?v=1731535158","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/scared-violent-like-horses-poems-9781571315076","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}