*ARC
Review
A DEEP AND
GORGEOUS THIRST
Hosho
McCreesh. Artistically Declined Press, $16 paperback (368p) ISBN: 9781467579131
In
his full-length work of narrative poems about drinking and all that surrounds
it, McCreesh sets out to pull hard on the reader’s empathy and nostalgia, and,
by and large, he succeeds. Presented through a decidedly male gaze, these poems
are easily relatable to anyone who has ever had a drinking buddy, or anyone who
has ever drowned the pain of a broken heart with a case of PBR, or anyone who
has ever experimented with alcohol, fought with others or themselves while
drunk, or told stories, mourned lost friends, or fell in love—or out of it—with
a drink in their hand. Throughout, the narrators are naturalistic and
kind-voiced, and the book is ordered chronologically, albeit loosely, beginning
with first time drinkers dipping, unwittingly, into their mother’s homemade
vinegar until they pass out. Months later, they learn of their blunder through
an older brother: “‘Dear god man,’ you say,/’why the hell/ didn’t you/ stop us?’//And
your brother says, ‘You looked like you/knew what you were/doing.’”And soon the
boys grow up and their interests shift to girls who soon dump them and so they
buddy up, booze up, and escape to places like the desert where “there/are no
girls/to be found/out here,” and where they can get a moment’s reprieve from “the
dull and/incessant/ doom” of their existences. McCreesh returns often to these drinking
buddy bromances where jaded boys fall into bottles and then each other,
commiserating, laughing, and sometimes raising hell: “And when the other
bouncers/finally found the fray, when they/maced the lot of you, and/pulled out
knives of their own,/you swear you could hear/angels singing, and you once
again/knew you’d live.” Despite its overt love of all things alcohol, what the
book truly celebrates is human bonds and shared experiences where “your eyes
start/watering as you/drown on a/laugh.” And perhaps this is McCreesh’s
greatest accomplishment with this work, that instead of taking the low road and merely
sensationalizing the act of drinking, he deftly draws the focus to the
idea that we’re here and it’s now and we’re all in this together. Along with a
sense of responsibility, it also gives the book a great and surprising heart. (Late
summer, 2013)
Purchase HERE.
Reviewer bio: Mel Bosworth is the author of the novel FREIGHT. Visit his website at melbosworth.com
