Sunset Cue - (Lauria/Frasca Poetry Prize) by Angie Macri (Paperback)

About the Book

"The poems collected in "Sunset Cue" have a rare, mystical quality. Through her observant eye, love of science and nature, and poetic alchemy, Angie Macri transmutes her subjects-red-winged blackbirds, a garden at the end of fall, children at play-from the physical into the metaphysical"--

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2021 Lauria/Frasca Poetry Prize. The poems collected in "Sunset Cue" have a rare, mystical quality. Through her observant eye, love of science and nature, and poetic alchemy, Angie Macri transmutes her subjects-red-winged blackbirds, a garden at the end of fall, children at play-from the physical into the metaphysical.

Review Quotes

The stunning poems of Sunset Cue have a rare, mystical quality. Through her observant eye, love of science and nature, and poetic alchemy, Angie Macri transmutes her subjects-red-winged blackbirds, a garden at the end of fall, children at play-from the physical into the metaphysical. Girls competing on a stage for scholarships "change to doves, then stars," mermaids, angels and ghosts make appearances, and her father "wishes so hard that he could fly..." Attentive even "in the hollows of dawn," she hears her young son's questions from "the labyrinth of the smallest bone." Rooted in the earth and its elements, these poems also soar into space, lit from within by a searching intelligence and the fire of Macri's language.

-Maria Terrone

What is a song but trembling grass held in the mouth? This question, startling and original, brought me to a delighted dead stop, and it is just one of the countless observant and ominous riches contained in Angie Macri's remarkable Sunset Cue. These poems insist that we see-not just a bird, or a child, or a mother-but what has been endured. A raincrow, for instance, has a stomach full of spines. Told in halves, Sunset Cue is one of most beautiful balancing acts I've ever had the pleasure to watch unfold. The melancholic Sparta of the second half of the book is a mining town in Illinois, but from there you can see the galaxy, like a brooch in the air. . . . These deeply rewarding poems are lavish and expansive in vision, emotion, and depth.

-Carolyn Guinzio

In Sunset Cue, Angie Macri asks, "Where is the mother, heavy / with all she remembers?" The answer: everywhere in these poems. In a voice that blends myth and mysticism and weaves spells and prayers into song, the speaker of these poems plumbs the depths of familial memory. In doing so, Macri shines as a place-based poet, drawing out the elements of forests, oceans, meadows, and all winged things to share the wisdom of generations.

-Sandy Longhorn