Written in beautiful vernacular language, accessible and gorgeous and transcendent. The poems are inviting, stripped of pretension but not of their mystery. Entire worlds—cities, ecosystems—are captured in a form reminiscent of Milton's world-building.

WEDNESDAYS WITH DENISE: May 17, 2023

Campbell McGrath’s Fever of Unknown Origin was published on May 9 by Penguin Random House. The title poem takes place as the speaker fights a long illness and is in a hospital right before Christmas. Here is an excerpt:

The bad news is that I am periodically blind
in one of those otherwise excellent eyes, which flickers
between darkness and light, like poorly connected cable TV.
It’s terrifying, that darkness. Enveloping. Confounding.
Immediately, all thought flows toward the remaining eye—
may it never falter, dear lord, may it guide me
through the corridors of your mansion forever and ever,
amen….

That love of vision—and that urgency it could be lost— infuses McGrath’s chockablock poems as he records the present, aware of the perilous future. The eye is a metaphor, a rush against the unknown—in terms of the political landscape and environmental devastation. McGrath documents the lush world with ecstasy and grace—the animals, the humans, and manmade structures all getting their due. He even turns the eye inward in the startlingly beautiful “Bukhara,” a dream poem in which he unites with his friend Tony Hoagland. “Nostalgia is time’s/ double agent,” McGrath claims, and though many of his poems drift to the past (to understand the present and the future) we are never mired in sentimentality. Fever of Unknown Origin is a mature, intimate, and wise collection.

For a sneak peek, you can hear McGrath read part of his poem “At the Ruins of Yankee Stadium” here. You’ll see what I mean with all that intense imagery:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/714295/fever-of-unknown-origin-by-campbell-mcgrath/#:~:text=Fever%20of%20Unknown%20Origin%20opens,reframes%20our%20perception%20of%20modern

Congratulations, Campbell!

Some beautiful writing unfortunately marred by troubling inclusion of colonialist themes. While others could look past the weird metaphors about colonization, I, unfortunately, could not.

A beautiful work of poetry. I am pretty new to the poetry genre, and to be honest I would not say this is the most accesiable collection of poems for beginners. Regardless, the ones that I understood I really enjoyed. Some were better than others, and some did not resinate with me. Overall really enjoyed it!