Bad Fame by Martin McGovern

Martin McGovern s Bad Fame muses on the perplexities and certainties of the human condition, often in soaring eulogies and searing elegies: as in The Circle of Late Afternoon which asks, Isn’t there an art to giving myself away slowly like wheat opening to the sun?; or, Processionalia, where a bee/ abandons the tea roses/ and circle that black blossom of/ the widow s veiled face as if her tears were/ pollen and the bee could feather/ its legs with grief. Be it lore set in Colorado, or farther out, the personal and regional tributes unravel the universally familiar and pertinent. McGovern’s debut collection is the work of a seasoned master in command of craft and themes.