Dead Can't Dance, The

With a mother’s touch, a lover’s touch, and the sure hand of an undertaker, MacLean compels the reader to take a dangerous look behind every faßade, even though we will long to look away. Her women are fierce with their men, protective of their children and abrupt with the world. She observes the minutia of life with an eye of appreciation, and looks at the grandeur with suspicion. MacLean’s love poems are blunt instruments, ready to strike: “So far I’ve loved men / whose names are short / for nothing. / Kent. / Luke. / Kirk. / Quick blunt pokes / of sound.” Throughout all these poems, MacLean offers up a solid understanding of what death leaves behind. Death of dreams, death of desire, death of a beloved. Always we are “Left holding nothing, / surprised by the weight of it.” MacLeanÄôs poems are unforgettable landscapes of grief and tenderness with just enough wicked wit to plunge the reader into new insights on what it means to live.